Dissociative tendencies and right-hemisphere processing load: effects on vigilance performance

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between self-reported dissociative experiences and performance in tasks eliciting right-hemisphere processing load. Thirty-four participants (10 men and 24 women) performed a vigilance task in two conditions: with task-irrelevant negative-arousing pictures and task-irrelevant neutral pictures. Dissociation was assessed with the Dissociative Experience Scale. Consistent with theories positing right-hemisphere deregulation in high non-clinical dissociators, dissociative experiences correlated with greater vigilance decrement only in the negative picture condition. As both the vigilance task and negative picture processing are right lateralized, this result provides support for a right-hemisphere dysfunction in high dissociators, at least in negative conditions.     

Teachers’ tears and the affective geography of the classroom

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the study of emotion within geography; the ways in which particular sites can evoke different feelings and how social relations are mediated by the affectivity of specific spatialities. Through an examination of what provoked a number of teachers to shed tears as they were being interviewed about their practice, this article contributes to this field of enquiry. Rather than viewing the tears as simply a sign of emotion, a reaction to the demands of the profession and the work teachers do – in this case teaching children in the early years of school – they are explored as an indication of the intensity of the teacher–student relation and the ethics of care these teachers embodied as a result of the interaffectivity of the spaces in which they taught. The article, therefore, makes a distinction between emotion and affect, exploring the corporeality of affective engagement in space as opposed to the more mindful experience of emotion. In doing this it also considers what a study of affect and space might offer current perspectives on pedagogic practice and the role of the teacher in contemporary classrooms.     

An examination of the structural, discriminant, nomological, and incremental predictive validity of the MSCEIT© V2.0

We examined the structural, discriminant, nomological, and incremental predictive validity of a behavioral measure of emotional intelligence, using data from two undergraduate student samples. Covariance structure modeling indicated that the eight subscales of the MSCEIT© V2.0 were best modeled with a solution consisting of three first-order factors, and supported the existence of one higher-order factor of overall emotional intelligence. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the higher-order factor had discriminant validity from personality and conformity. Contrary to prediction, the higher-order factor was more highly correlated to social desirability than to general mental ability or long term affect. Finally, hierarchical regression results indicated that overall emotional intelligence did not predict incremental variance in either GPA or life satisfaction.     

How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ vs high-IQ adults?

The present study was designed to examine how the correlations between cognitive abilities evolve during adulthood. Data from 1104 participants on the French version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition were analyzed. The entire sample was divided into four age groups (16–24 years; 25–44 years; 45–69 years and 70–89 years), which were themselves split into two IQ-levels using the mean standard score on Vocabulary and Block Design. For every age group, the mean correlation between subtest scores of low-IQ participants was higher than that of high-IQ participants. There was also no interaction between age and IQ for the strength of subtest relationships. Indeed, the effect sizes of correlation differences between low- and high-IQ participants appeared to be relatively constant across age. A general developmental schema of how the strength of correlations between cognitive abilities of low- and high-IQ individuals evolves during the entire life span is sketched in the discussion.     

Correlates of intellectual ability with morphology of the hippocampus and amygdala in healthy adults

Several prior imaging studies of healthy adults have correlated volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala with measures of general intelligence (IQ), with variable results. In this study, we assessed correlations between volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala and full-scale IQ scores (FSIQ) using a method of image analysis that permits detailed regional mapping of this correlation throughout the surface contour of these brain structures. We delineated the hippocampus and amygdala in high-resolution magnetic resonance images of the brain from 34 healthy individuals. We then correlated FSIQ with overall volumes and with the surface morphologies of each of these structures. Hippocampus volumes correlated significantly and inversely with FSIQ independently of gender, age, socioeconomic status, and whole brain volume. Left and right hippocampus volumes correlated respectively with verbal and performance IQ subscales. Higher IQs were significantly associated with large inward deformations of the surface of the anterior hippocampus bilaterally. These findings suggest that a smaller anterior hippocampus contributes to an increased efficiency of neural processing that subserves overall intelligence.     

Emotional competence in children with autism: Diagnostic criteria and empirical evidence

The diagnostic criteria of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) include emotional impairments. However, scientific evidence for these impairments is varied and subtle. In this contribution, recent empirical studies that examined the emotional competence in children and adolescents with ASD are reviewed. Four aspects of emotional competence that are important to children’s daily social functioning (expression, perception, responding, and understanding) are discussed, differentiating between mentally retarded and normally intelligent children and adolescents with and without ASD in natural and structured contexts. On various accounts, the emotional impairments of children with ASD that are found in scientific studies provide a more differentiated view on the impairments suggested by the diagnostic literature. Consistent empirical findings and gaps in the field are discussed. Theoretical and clinical recommendations for assessment procedures are suggested.     

Children’s Gender–Emotion Stereotypes in the Relationship of Anger to Sadness and Fear

Children’s perceptions of the emotional reactions of same- and different-sex characters in stories containing ambiguous and unambiguous emotional contexts were examined. According to the Parallel-Constraint-Satisfaction Theory (Kunda and Thagard. Psychological Review, 103, 284–308, 1996), stereotypes are more likely to be utilized in ambiguous contexts, defined here as those likely to elicit multiple emotional responses. Seventy suburban U.S. preschoolers were read vignettes describing boys or girls in ambiguous or unambiguous emotion-inducing events and reported how the vignette characters were feeling. Results suggest that the perceptions of participants were more likely to reflect gender–emotion stereotypes (e.g. perceiving males as angry and females as sad) in ambiguous contexts than in unambiguous contexts. Results are discussed in terms of children’s emerging understanding of gender–emotion stereotypes.     

Hating the One You Love

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person that they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, as how can one love and hate the same person at the same time? A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychologically compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.     

Individual differences in fast-and-frugal decision making: Neuroticism and the recognition heuristic

The fast-and-frugal recognition heuristic (RH) claims that people base inferences on recognition only, thus ignoring further knowledge they possess. This claim has been repeatedly challenged, while recent evidence suggests that there are substantial individual differences in adhering to the RH. However, no personality or ability factors driving (non-)use of the RH have, as yet, been identified. In the present study, neuroticism was hypothesized to be a determinant of using the RH: participants high in neuroticism were expected to avoid making use of their knowledge beyond recognition, thus avoiding a diagnostic test of their abilities. The results corroborate this hypothesis: neuroticism predicted participants’ adherence to the RH while the other Big 5 factors and intelligence yielded no additional explanatory power. Moreover, the effect of neuroticism was not mediated by the accessibility of knowledge thus lending preliminary support for the notion that this effect may, in fact, be genuinely motivational in nature.