Facing fear-provoking stimuli: The role of courage and influence of task-importance

ABSTRACT

Courage research is emerging, although there is little empirical literature on task-importance, and morality or nobility within courage. This experimental study assessed courage, persistence despite fear, in the relationship between anxiety, behavioral approach and task-importance. Twenty-eight participants with elevated spider fear were randomly assigned to high or low importance conditions. Participants undertook a behavioral approach test where they moved their hand alongside a ruler to as close as they felt comfortable to a non-living spider display. In partial support of the first hypothesis, courage scores predicted behavioral approach distance above-and-beyond spider fear when task-importance was not experimentally augmented. Supporting the second hypothesis, experimentally induced task-importance significantly moderated the relationship between courage and behavioral approach distance such that high importance participants moved closer to the spiders at all levels of courage. This study provides foundational evidence that 1) self-report measures can predict behavioral courage above-and-beyond fear 2) perceived task-importance influences behaviour.     

Combined effects of inversion and feature removal on N170 responses elicited by faces and car fronts

The face-sensitive N170 is typically enhanced for inverted compared to upright faces. Itier, Alain, Sedore, and McIntosh (2007) recently suggested that this N170 inversion effect is mainly driven by the eye region which becomes salient when the face configuration is disrupted. Here we tested whether similar effects could be observed with non-face objects that are structurally similar to faces in terms of possessing a homogeneous within-class first-order feature configuration. We presented upright and inverted pictures of intact car fronts, car fronts without lights, and isolated lights, in addition to analogous face conditions. Upright cars elicited substantial N170 responses of similar amplitude to those evoked by upright faces. In strong contrast to face conditions however, the car-elicited N170 was mainly driven by the global shape rather than the presence or absence of lights, and was dramatically reduced for isolated lights. Overall, our data confirm a differential influence of the eye region in upright and inverted faces. Results for car fronts do not suggest similar interactive encoding of eye-like features and configuration for non-face objects, even when these objects possess a similar feature configuration as faces.     

‘Make sure you keep our house safe!’ Thematic analysis of a children's psychotherapy group

This paper describes a systematic thematic analysis of one particular latency-aged children's group and includes a discussion about potentially helpful outcomes measures. The impetus for our small, practice-based qualitative research project came from the two papers by Reid (1999) and Canham (2002) about children's psychotherapy groups, particularly Canham's (2002) paper, ‘Group and gang states of mind’. Canham and Reid used Bion's theories of group functioning as the basis of their technique with children's groups. We felt that it would be an interesting follow-on from Reid and Canham's findings to explore in some detail the specific therapeutic factors involved in a shift from paranoid–schizoid to depressive functioning in group therapy. We hoped that this might give us some helpful clinical indications as to the circumstances in which group rather than individual psychotherapy and parallel parent work should be considered as the treatment of choice. The paper concentrates exclusively on group work with latency-aged children, therefore referring mainly to the limited number of papers published about psychoanalytic group therapy with this age group.     

Accessing the asymmetrical representations of causal relations and hierarchical relations in semantic memory

In a speeded aiming task, participants were trained to move a cursor with a mouse from a start position to target locations when the mouse–cursor relationships were either normal or reversed (vertically, horizontally, or both vertically and horizontally). Testing, which occurred after a 5-min delay, involved either the same or a different reversal condition. Response times improved across training, but no transfer occurred when reversal conditions were changed between training and testing. Specificity of training effects extended even to performance with the highly familiar normal mouse. Normal mouse use was slowed by a factor of two to three with training on a reversed mouse although the effect was transient in that case. To contend with a reversed mouse, participants apparently adopt a global inhibition strategy, suppressing all normal movements (and replacing them with sensorimotor remapped movements) but disinhibiting movements along any nonreversed dimension (selectively disengaging the sensorimotor remapping).     

过敏调控--对过敏性疾病诊治的理性思考

在分析我国过敏性疾病诊治现状的基础上,结合我国和国际上过敏性疾病发病率逐年增高的发展趋势,建议对过敏性疾病的诊治和防范,应规范诊疗常规、加强科普宣教、普及环境预报、综合传统疗法、完善自我预警,实现群体抗敏等对策.     

Does decision making transfer across similar and dissimilar sports?

ObjectivesThe ability to make decisions under time pressure is crucial to performance in sport. However, there remains a paucity of research that examines whether the skills underpinning decision-making transfer across similar or dissimilar sports. We examine whether decision making transfers from soccer to other sports that may be deemed to be either similar (basketball) or dissimilar (tennis) based on sports taxonomy.MethodsSkilled soccer players (N = 20) completed a video-based temporal occlusion test designed to measure decision-making involving offensive sequences of play from soccer, basketball, and tennis. Participants were required to decide on an appropriate action to execute for each situation presented.ResultsResponse accuracy was higher in the soccer decision-making task compared to the basketball and tennis tasks. Furthermore, accuracy scores were higher on the basketball compared to the tennis task.ConclusionsThere appears to be some positive transfer of decision-making between sports that share similar elements, supporting the importance both of specificity and generality in expert performance.     

关于工作倦怠测量研究的综述

工作倦怠的研究兴起于20世纪70年代,到目前为止,已经提出了许多概念模型,编制了一些测量工具。本文回顾了国外关于工作倦怠测量的相关研究,介绍了目前运用最为广泛的测量工具：MBI和BM,并对他们的信效度以及运用情况做了简要介绍,同时也阐述了我国关于工作倦怠量表的修编情况。希望通过对于工作倦怠测量的研究的回顾与展望,能够对工作倦怠进行更准确的测量,从而能更好地展开关于工作倦怠的研究。     

儿童学业情绪的领域特殊性研究

本研究综合运用多种问卷,选取六年级与八年级被试共516人,考察儿童学业情绪的领域特殊性。结果表明：1）儿童学业情绪存在普遍的显著性学科差异;2）各学科学业情绪都存在比较普遍的性别差异和年级差异,男女生在各自的优势学科中表现出比较积极的情绪,六年级学生学业情绪优于八年级学生;3）在各个学科中,家庭支持对学业情绪的影响表现出比较强的一致性,家庭支持与积极性情绪存在显著性正向关系,家庭支持对消极性情绪存在较为复杂的影响机制。