Equivalent testimonies as a touchstone of coherence measures

Over the past years, a number of probabilistic measures of coherence have been proposed. As shown in the paper, however, many of them do not conform to the intuitition that equivalent testimonies are highly coherent, regardless of their prior probability.     

What would you have as a last supper? Thoughts about death influence evaluation and consumption of food products

Terror Management Theory posits that after thinking about their own deaths, people take sides with and defend their culture by either increasing their support for worldview-consistent examples, decreasing support for worldview-threatening examples, or both. We tested the hypothesis that mortality salience leads to an increased preference for products from one’s own culture as compared to products from a foreign culture in terms of evaluation and consumption. In a product test, participants sampled local and foreign soft drinks (Study 1) or local and foreign chocolates (Study 2). As expected, relative to a control condition, mortality salience led to more accentuated evaluative preferences for local as compared to foreign products. Furthermore, the preference for the local product in terms of actual consumption was greater under mortality salience. Independent from cultural worldview defense effects mortality salience led to more impulsive behavior as indicated by an increased correspondence between eating behavior and an implicit measure tapping into impulsive processes in Study 2.     

System JLZ – rational default reasoning by minimal ranking constructions

We present a powerful quasi-probabilistic default formalism for graded defaults based on a well-motivated canonical ranking construction procedure, System JLZ. It implements the minimal construction paradigm and verifies the major inference principles and inheritance desiderata, including rational monotony for propositions and structured cumulativity for default conditionals. With help from a structured ranking semantics for defaults, it also avoids some drawbacks of semi-qualitative entropy maximization and other competing accounts.     

Critical considerations about the use of poverty measures in the study of cognitive development

Developmental psychology and developmental cognitive neuroscience generated evidence at different levels of analysis about the influences of poverty on neurocognitive development (i.e., molecular, neural activation, cognition, behaviour). In addition, different individual and environmental factors were identified as mediators of such influences. Such a complexity is also illustrated through the many poverty conceptual and operational definitions generated by social, human and health sciences. However, to establish the causal relationships between the different factors of poverty and neurocognitive outcomes is still an issue under construction. Most studies of this area apply classic unidimensional poverty indicators such as income and maternal education. Nonetheless, this approach does not take into adequate consideration the variability of neurocognitive outcomes depending on the type of poverty measures, and the dynamic nature of changes during development. This creates a virtual underestimation of the complexity imposed by the involved mediating mechanisms. The scientific and policy implications of this underestimation include the risk of not adequately addressing children rights and developmental opportunities. This article proposes to explore such scenario, which is necessary for the reconsideration of the criteria used to analyse the influences of poverty on child development in general and neurocognitive development in particular.     

Do drives drive the train of thought?—Effects of hunger and sexual arousal on mind-wandering behavior

Physiological needs that are currently unfulfilled are known to affect human cognition and behavior. The present study investigates whether and how the temporary activation of two primary physiological needs, namely hunger and sexual arousal, influence both the frequency and the contents of mind-wandering episodes. To induce hunger, one group of participants fasted for a minimum of five hours whereas another group of participants was exposed to audio material with explicit sexual content to provoke sexual arousal. Both groups as well as an additional control group, which had not received hunger instructions and had not been exposed to arousing material of any kind beforehand, performed a reading task during which mind wandering was assessed using a standard experience-sampling method. Results showed that acute hunger but not elevated sexual arousal renders the occurrence of mind-wandering episodes more likely. Induction of both hunger and sexual arousal rendered the occurrence of need-related off-task thoughts more likely and changed time orientations of mind wandering. The present findings are well in line with the assumption that unfulfilled needs regularly achieve cognitive priority and extend the cognitive-priority idea to self-generated thoughts.     

Practice‐based supervision research: A network of researchers using a common toolkit

Aim: Given that various systematic reviews of supervision literature have revealed how little is known about supervision, that studies are not usually routed in practice, and that a multitude of diverse measures are used, the primary aim of this project was to support and encourage practitioner research related to supervision using a prescribed common set of instruments. Method: Funded by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), a Supervision Research Practice Network (SuPReNet) was established. A toolkit (a series of measures) that could be used routinely by practitioners was selected following the assembly of available measures of supervision and an assessment of them. Findings: The appraisal, conducted by the three authors, yielded five core measures, free for anyone to use, and accessible through the SuPReNet website. The measures are being piloted through a practice research network at a university counselling and psychotherapy research clinic where supervision data are being collected through a special module of CORE Net. Discussion: The potential yield from this initiative for practitioners, researchers, and the developing evidence‐base is discussed and a model proposed for the next generation of research on supervision.     

The association between valuing popularity and relational aggression: the moderating effects of actual popularity and physiological reactivity to exclusion

The association between having a reputation for valuing popularity and relational aggression was assessed in a sample of 126 female children and adolescents (mean age = 12.43 years) at a 54-day residential summer camp for girls. Having a reputation for valuing popularity was positively related to relational aggression. This association was moderated by both popularity and physiological reactivity to social exclusion (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity [RSAR] and heart rate reactivity [HRR]). Popular girls with a reputation for valuing popularity were at greater risk for engaging in relational aggression when they also exhibited blunted reactivity to social exclusion. Conversely, girls who had a reputation for valuing popularity but were not popular (i.e., the “wannabes”) were at risk for engaging in relational aggression when they exhibited heightened reactivity to exclusion.     

Development of the Cognitive Dysfunction Questionnaire (CDQ) in a population based sample

The study reports on the development of a questionnaire for assessment of adult cognitive dysfunction (CDQ). Participants in a population-based sample (65±15 years, N=370) responded to a 90-item pilot version covering multiple aspects of memory/cognition. Based on exploratory principal components analyses and correlations with criterion measures of cognitive functioning (MMSE, Block Design, semantic/episodic memory), 20 items loading on 6 components were selected for the final version of the questionnaire. Cronbach's α for the total score was 0.90. There was evidence of construct validity as judged by correlations between CDQ scores, objective cognitive measures, and a subjective memory measure (PRMQ). Discriminant validity was demonstrated by a low and non-significant correlation with depressive symptoms. Further evidence of construct validity was provided by correlations with age and educational attainment. In conclusion, the CDQ is promising as a self-rating screening tool for cognitive dysfunction, and will be the subject of further development and validation.