Successfully Contesting the Policy Sphere: Examining Through the Press a Case of Local Protests Changing New Ecological Laws

It is crucial to gain better insights into how psychosocial processes can limit the power of the political/legislative sphere for promoting social change through new laws. One form of accomplishing this is by illuminating the arguments and the content and value of social representations at play in cases in which the public sphere succeeds in contesting new laws. In this article, we explore a case of successful resistance to new ecological laws in a Portuguese Natura site. The laws, restricting recreational fishing, were made less stringent after meeting with local opposition. Content analysis of 122 articles published from 2006 to 2014 in regional and national newspapers reveals that protestors (fishermen, local authorities) received higher visibility and support and had more direct voice than the political sphere in both presses. Dialogical analysis of direct quotations of protestors shows how they seek legitimacy by establishing common ground with valued representations, vividly invoking people‐place bonds and tradition, and also how they attempt to undermine the law's legitimacy by linking local and national concerns, avoiding (potentially devalued) “Nimby” (“not in my backyard”) arguments. The discussion highlights what can be learned from using the press to investigate policy struggles that successfully organized their argumentation to contest new laws.     

The common sense of counseling psychology: introducing the Common-Sense Model of self-regulation

Abstract

The goal of therapy is typically to improve clients’ self-management of their problems, not only during the course of therapy but also after therapy ends. Although it seems obvious that therapists are interested in improving clients’ self-management, the psychotherapy literature has little to say on the topic. This article introduces Leventhal’s Common-Sense Model of Self-Regulation, a theoretical model of the self-management of health, and applies the model to the therapeutic process. The Common-Sense Model proposes that people develop illness representations of health threats and these illness representations guide self-management. The model has primarily been used to understand how people self-manage physical health problems, we suggest it may also be useful to understand self-management of mental health problems. The Common-Sense Model’s strengths-based perspective is a natural fit for the work of counseling psychologists. The model has important practical implications for addressing how clients understand mental health problems over the course of treatment and self-manage these problems during and after treatment.     

Talking about sunbed tanning in online discussion forums: Assertions and arguments

Objective: There is increasing evidence of both health and appearance risks associated with sunbed use. At the same time, the sunbed industry promotes the benefits of using sunbeds, and the image of a tanned skin as attractive and healthy arguably remains embedded within contemporary western culture. These tensions are played out in everyday conversations, and this paper reports a study which explored how sunbed users manage them within online discussion forums.

Design: A total of 556 posts from 13 sunbed-related threads, taken from six different UK-based online forums, were analysed thematically followed by techniques from discourse analysis.

Main outcome measures: Informed by social representations theory and discursive-rhetorical psychology, the way social representations of sunbed use are constructed, debated and disputed in online discussion forums were explored.

Results: Sunbed users drew upon numerous representations to distance and protect themselves from negativity they were confronted with in the forums, utilising a range of rhetorical, discursive strategies to help them.

Conclusion: Theoretical contributions and potential practical implications of the findings are discussed. Findings indicate, for example, that those working on campaigns and interventions in this area need to consider the wider negativity and argumentative orientation of sunbed users’ responses.     

Multiple Factors and Multiple Mechanisms Determine the Quality of Conscious Experiences: A Reply to Anzulewicz and Wierzchoń

In this Letter to the Editor, we seize the opportunity to respond to the recent comments by Anzulewicz and Wierzchoń, and further clarify and extend the scope of our original paper. We re‐emphasize that conscious experiences come in degrees, and that there are several factors that determine this degree. Endorsing the suggestions of Anzulewicz and Wierzchoń, we discuss that besides low‐level attentional mechanisms, high‐level attentional and non‐attentional mechanisms might also modulate the quality of conscious experiences.     

次要任务对词类判断任务中权力空间表征激活的影响

许多证据表明权力在大脑中是以垂直空间来进行表征的, 具体而言为言语和视觉空间编码。前人研究发现两种编码具有情境依赖性, 即当前任务决定了激活哪种编码。一般的词类判断任务主要依赖于言语编码。然而仍不确定的是, 当排除言语空间编码后, 词类判断任务能否激活视觉空间编码。本研究拟借助双任务范式探讨此问题。实验结果发现单任务条件下出现权力-空间交互, 并且双任务条件下, 这一交互只受到视觉空间次要任务的干扰。这说明, 词类判断任务也可依赖视觉空间编码, 并进一步支持了权力空间表征的情境依赖性。     

Perceptual-cognitive performance of youth soccer players in a 360°-environment – An investigation of the relationship with soccer-specific performance and the effects of systematic training

IntroductionSoccer is a complex game in which athletes perform in a dynamic 360°-environment. The results of numerous studies highlight the importance of perceptual-cognitive functions for soccer performance. Moreover, in recent years, the idea of improving sports performance through systematic perceptual-cognitive training has been increasingly investigated. Contradictory results and limitations in previous research call for further investigation. The current study aims to investigate both the relationship between perceptual-cognitive performance in a dynamic 360°-environment and soccer performance as well as the effects of perceptual-cognitive training in such an environment on soccer performance.Methods42 youth soccer players aged 11–13 years were tested at a first time of measurement (T1) on their perceptual-cognitive functions using a 360°-multiple object tracking task (360-MOT) and a visuospatial attention task. Soccer performance was assessed using an isolated, validated 360°-passing task and a small-sided game. Subsequently, participants were randomly divided into a perceptual-cognitive training group, an active control group, or a passive control group. Participants in the training group received 360-MOT training twice per week during a 5-week intervention phase, while participants in the active control group received a pseudo video training. Perceptual-cognitive and soccer-specific performance was assessed after the intervention phase at a second time of measurement (T2).ResultsAt T1, there was a significant positive relationship between 360-MOT performance and both the accuracy score in the 360°-passing task and the defensive performance score in the small-sided game. Regarding the perceptual-cognitive training intervention, the analysis at T2 revealed significant task-specific training effects but no transfer effects on perceptual-cognitive or soccer-specific performance.ConclusionsThe results highlight the relevance of perceptual-cognitive performance in a 360°-environment for soccer-specific performance but question the effects of short isolated perceptual-cognitive training interventions on soccer-specific performance.     

Bio-inspired computational object classification model for object recognition

Human beings can effortlessly perceive stimuli through their sensory systems to learn, understand, recognize and act on our environment or context. Over the years, efforts have been made to enable cybernetic entities to be close to performing human perception tasks; and in general, to bring artificial intelligence closer to human intelligence.Neuroscience and other cognitive sciences provide evidence and explanations of the functioning of certain aspects of visual perception in the human brain. Visual perception is a complex process, and its has been divided into several parts. Object classification is one of those parts; it is necessary for carrying out the declarative interpretation of the environment. This article deals with the object classification problem.In this article, we propose a computational model of visual classification of objects based on neuroscience, it consists of two modular systems: a visual processing system, in charge of the extraction of characteristics; and a perception sub-system, which performs the classification of objects based on the features extracted by the visual processing system.With the results obtained, a set of aspects are analyzed using similarity and dissimilarity matrices. Also based on the neuroscientific evidence and the results obtained from this research, some aspects are suggested for consideration to improve the work in the future and bring us closer to performing the task of visual classification as humans do.     

Narrative as a Root Metaphor for Political Psychology

The idea of narrative has become increasingly appropriated in empirical research in both psychology and politics, yet there is a notable absence of integrative frameworks that specify a conceptual and methodological approach to narrative research in political psychology. An integrative conceptual framework is proposed and anchored in four principles of a narrative approach: (1) the mutual constitution of language and thought, (2) the need for personal coherence through narrative identity development, (3) the need for collective solidarity through shared meaning, and (4) the mediational property of narrative in social activity and practice. Theory and empirical research related to these principles are reviewed. We argue that a narrative framework has the potential to enhance the relevance and amplify the voice of political psychology within and beyond the academy and to offer new knowledge on the complex and dynamic relationship between context and mind.     

The interaction between surface color and color knowledge: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to evaluate the contribution of surface color and color knowledge information in object identification. We constructed two color-object verification tasks - a surface and a knowledge verification task - using high color diagnostic objects; both typical and atypical color versions of the same object were presented. Continuous electroencephalogram was recorded from 26 subjects. A cluster randomization procedure was used to explore the differences between typical and atypical color objects in each task. In the color knowledge task, we found two significant clusters that were consistent with the N350 and late positive complex (LPC) effects. Atypical color objects elicited more negative ERPs compared to typical color objects. The color effect found in the N350 time window suggests that surface color is an important cue that facilitates the selection of a stored object representation from long-term memory. Moreover, the observed LPC effect suggests that surface color activates associated semantic knowledge about the object, including color knowledge representations. We did not find any significant differences between typical and atypical color objects in the surface color verification task, which indicates that there is little contribution of color knowledge to resolve the surface color verification. Our main results suggest that surface color is an important visual cue that triggers color knowledge, thereby facilitating object identification.