Skilled players’ and novices’ difficulty anticipating left- vs. right-handed opponents’ action intentions varies across different points in time

A left-handers’ performance advantage in interactive sports is assumed to result from their relative rarity compared to right-handers. Part of this advantage may be explained by athletes facing difficulties anticipating left-handers’ action intentions, particularly when anticipation is based on kinematic cues available at an early stage of an opponent’s movement. Here we tested whether the type of volleyball attack is predicted better against right- vs. left-handed opponents’ movements and whether such handedness effects are evident at earlier time points in skilled players than novices. In a video-based experiment volleyball players and novices predicted the type of shot (i.e., smash vs. lob) of left- and right-handed volleyball attacks occluded at six different time points. Overall, right-handed attacks were better anticipated than left-handed attacks, volleyball players outperformed novices, and performance improved in later occlusion conditions. Moreover, in skilled players the handedness effect was most pronounced when attacks were occluded 480 ms prior to hand-ball-contact, whereas in novices it was most evident 240 ms prior to hand-ball-contact. Our findings provide further evidence of the effect of an opponent’s handedness on action outcome anticipation and suggest that its occurrence in the course of an opponent’s unfolding action likely depends on an observers’ domain-specific skill.     

Training interventions are only effective on careful drivers,not careless drivers

Drivers aged 16–24 are overrepresented in fatal crashes compared to middle-aged, more experienced drivers. This age-related difference in crash rates partly arises from younger drivers’ poorer performance on three cognitive skills known to be related to crash involvement: hazard anticipation, hazard mitigation and attention maintenance. Training programs have been shown effective at improving these skills within a short period of time. However, young drivers are not homogenous and they have different driving styles. The driving styles can interact with driving skills by influencing both their acquisition and, once acquired, their execution. A study was undertaken on a driving simulator to determine whether the effectiveness of an already existing training program aimed at improving the three above mentioned skills is moderated by driving style. In particular, drivers were classified as either careful or careless drivers based both on their scores on measures designed to evaluate two general traits relevant to discriminating between careful and careless drivers (sensation seeking and aggressiveness) as well as on their scores designed to evaluate driving specific behaviors that discriminate between careful and careless drivers (aggressive driving behaviors and driving violations and errors). It was found that training improved the hazard anticipation and attention maintenance performance of only the careful drivers, not the careless drivers.     

节奏在言语加工中的时间进程：来自元分析的证据

利用元分析考察了言语节奏在言语加工中起作用的时间进程及影响因素。对36篇脑电文献（共43个独立效应量）进行分析,发现节奏影响言语加工主要表现在早期阶段的N100和P200成分、中后期阶段的P300、LAN、N400和晚期正成分上;个体对节奏违反非常敏感,言语节奏加工早于句法加工,在言语加工的中后期阶段,节奏与语义和句法发生交互;任务类型调节言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响,在外显任务中,言语节奏对言语加工过程的影响大于内隐任务和同时包含多项任务要求的混合任务。注意和预期是言语节奏加工的内在机制,研究结果支持交互论的观点。     

Creating the Future of Faith: Foresighted Pastors and Organic Theologians

Abstract :  The renewal of eschatological reflection over the past few decades may be a precursor to an organic theology that enlarges faith to cultivate its own forward view through foresight methodologies.     

Do you find exercise pleasant or unpleasant? The Affective Exercise Experiences (AFFEXX) questionnaire

Suggestions that affective experiences may influence exercise motivation have commonly appeared since the dawn of exercise psychology. However, a measure that captures the nature, the antecedents, and the motivational implications of such experiences has been lacking. We developed the Affective Exercise Experiences (AFFEXX) questionnaire to assess the constructs within a conceptual model, according to which core affective exercise experiences (pleasure-displeasure, energy-tiredness, calmness-tension) are influenced by six antecedent appraisals and, in turn, shape attraction or antipathy towards exercise. We report results from three studies (N = 1799) evaluating internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and factorial, convergent, discriminant, construct, and criterion validity. We show that attraction-antipathy correlates with vigorous (0.55) and moderate-to-vigorous (0.48) self-reported physical activity, and accounts for 11–12% and 6–7% of additional variance, respectively, beyond variance explained by self-efficacy and behavioral intention. Affective exercise experiences warrant further study as possible contributors to motivation. The AFFEXX is available from this link: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EF76R.     

Predicting the biological variability of environmental rhythms: Weak or strong anticipation for sensorimotor synchronization?

The internal processes involved in synchronizing our movements with environmental stimuli have traditionally been addressed using regular metronomic sequences. Regarding real-life environments, however, biological rhythms are known to have intrinsic variability, ubiquitously characterized as fractal long-range correlations. In our research we thus investigate to what extent the synchronization processes drawn from regular metronome paradigms can be generalized to other (biologically) variable rhythms. Participants performed synchronized finger tapping under five conditions of long-range and/or short-range correlated, randomly variable, and regular auditory sequences. Combining experimental data analysis and numerical simulation, we found that synchronizing with biologically variable rhythms involves the same internal processes as with other variable rhythms (whether totally random or comprising lawful regularities), but different from those involved with a regular metronome. This challenges both the generalizability of conclusions drawn from regular-metronome paradigms, and recent research assuming that biologically variable rhythms may trigger specific strong anticipatory processes to achieve synchronization.     

A BIOSEMIOTIC APPROACH TO THE QUESTION OF MEANING

A sign is something that refers to something else. Signs, whether of natural or cultural origin, act by provoking a receptive system, human or nonhuman, to form an interpretant (a movement or a brain activity) that somehow relates the system to this “something else.” Semiotics sees meaning as connected to the formation of interpretants. In a biosemiotic understanding living systems are basically engaged in semiotic interactions, that is, interpretative processes, and organic evolution exhibits an inherent tendency toward an increase in semiotic freedom. Mammals generally are equipped with more semiotic freedom than are their reptilian ancestor species, and fishes are more semiotically sophisticated than are invertebrates. The evolutionary trend toward the production of life forms with an increasing interpretative capacity or semiotic freedom implies that the production of meaning has become an essential survival parameter in later stages of evolution.     

‘Defrosting’ music chills with naltrexone: The role of endogenous opioids for the intensity of musical pleasure

The endogenous opioid system has been implicated during experiences of pleasure (i.e., from food or sex). Music can elicit intense emotional and bodily sensations of pleasure, called ‘Chills’. We investigated the effects of an opioid antagonist (50 mg naltrexone) or placebo (40 μg d3-vitamin) while listening to self-selected music or other ‘control’ music selected by another participant. We used a novel technique of continuous measurement of pleasantness with an eye tracker system, where participants shifted their eyes along a visual analogue scale, in the semblance of a thermometer so that, as the music unfolded, gaze positions indicated the self-reported hedonic experience. Simultaneously, we obtained pupil diameters. Self-reported pleasure remained unchanged by naltrexone, which – however – selectively decreased pupillary diameters during ‘Chills’. Hence, the endogenous μ-opioid signaling is not necessary for subjective enjoyment of music but an opioid blockade dampens pupil responses to peak pleasure, consistent with decreased arousal to the music.