A purely power-space association without spatial and strategic biases

Previous studies have shown that powerful and powerless concepts are metaphorically associated with top and bottom spaces respectively. However, this association might be contaminated by spatial and strategic biases due to the involvement of spatialized stimuli or responses. It is unknown whether power by itself can automatically activate spatial representations. To eliminate spatial and strategic biases, Experiment 1 separately presented power and spatial stimuli at the center of the screen, and participants had to classify power words and HIGH/LOW labels (Experiment 1a) or indicate up/down arrows (Experiment 1b) using a single key and follow different response rules that were combined with a Go/no-go task. Experiment 2 replicated the non-spatialized design but used an implicit power judgment task. Based upon the non-spatialized method, the results provide the first evidence that a power-space association effect still exists when eliminating spatial and strategic biases, revealing the nonconscious spatial nature of power.     

Learning in the visual association of novice and expert designers

Designers are adept at determining similarities between previously seen objects and new creations using visual association. However, extant research on the visual association of designers and the differences between expert and novice designers when they engage in the visual association task are scant. Using electroencephalography (EEG), this study attempted to narrow this research gap. Sixteen healthy designers—eight experts and eight novices—were recruited, and asked to perform visual association while EEG signals were acquired, subsequently analysed using independent component analysis. The results indicated that strong connectivity was observed among the prefrontal, frontal, and cingulate cortices, and the default mode network. The experts used both hemispheres and executive functions to support their association tasks, whereas the novices mainly used their right hemisphere and memory retrieval functions. The visual association of experts appeared to be more goal-directed than that of the novices. Accordingly, designing and implementing authentic and goal-directed activities for improving the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex and default mode network are critical for design educators and creativity researchers.     

Testing attitudes,social desirability and behavioral regulations as moderators of implicit-explicit exercise discrepancies: A replication study in Iranian students

IntroductionThere is mixed evidence regarding moderators of the relationship between implicitly and explicitly measured constructs. This study examined this issue with evaluations of exercise relative to health or appearance in a sample of Iranian adolescents. Investigaing automatic associations and reflective constructs might provide important implications for developing interventions targeting exercise behavior in a population with different cultural, social, and economic barriers to exercise than European or North American adolescents.MethodsParticipants were 471 students enrolled in grades 9 to 12, of whom 269 (54.9%) were female. Behavioral regulations, explicit attitudes, and social desirability were investigated as possible moderators. All students completed questionnaire measures of physical activity behavior, attitudes, social desieality and behavioral regulation. They also completed two Go/No Go Association tasks to measure automatic associations of exercise with health and apperarance.ResultsAttitude was a significant moderator of discrepancies between automatic associations of exercise with health and health motives. Interjected regulation moderated implicit-explicit appearance discrepancies. Participants with low social desirability and negative automatic appearance associations had the highest appearance motivation.ConclusionsParticipants focused on the potential of achieving positive health outcomes of exercise rather than physical appearance outcomes, which differs from research from other countries. It is possible that, health was strongly linked with exercise by the pervasive societal pressures in Iran to have a healthy body.     

Corpus-based estimates of word association predict biases in judgment of word co-occurrence likelihood

This paper draws a connection between statistical word association measures used in linguistics and confirmation measures from epistemology. Having theoretically established the connection, we replicate, in the new context of the judgments of word co-occurrence, an intriguing finding from the psychology of reasoning, namely that confirmation values affect intuitions about likelihood. We show that the effect, despite being based in this case on very subtle statistical insights about thousands of words, is stable across three different experimental settings. Our theoretical and empirical results suggest that factors affecting traditional reasoning tasks are also at play when linguistic knowledge is probed, and they provide further evidence for the importance of confirmation in a new domain.     

Association between the arginine vasopressin receptor 1A (AVPR1A) gene and preschoolers’ executive functioning

Recent evidence implicates the arginine vasopressin (AVP) system in complex neuropsychological disorders which are characterized by deficits in executive functioning (EF). Despite the genetic contribution to EF, little is currently known about its molecular genetic basis. Drawing on research from social neuroscience and the role of related physiological systems in psychopathology, the current study hypothesized that variability in the AVP receptor 1a gene (AVPR1A) would be associated with EF in an epidemiological sample of 323 normally developing preschool-aged children. Using a family-based association design, the current study found that variability in the rs7298346 marker, located in the 5′-flanking region, was significantly related to a composite measure of EF in 4-year-old children after controlling for a variety of covariates and children’s theory of mind. The converse association between AVPR1A and theory of mind (after controlling for EF) was not significant, suggesting a level of specificity in this relationship. The results are discussed in terms of the difficulties faced by genetic association studies in teasing apart the behavioral phenotypes that characterize complex psychological diseases and the involvement of multiple physiological systems in human behavior.     

Random word generation reveals spatial encoding of syllabic word length

Existing random number generation studies demonstrate the presence of an embodied attentional bias in spontaneous number production corresponding to the horizontal Mental Number Line: Larger numbers are produced on right-hand turns and smaller numbers on left-hand turns (Loetscher et al.,2008, Curr. Biol., 18, R60). Furthermore, other concepts were also shown to rely on horizontal attentional displacement (Di Bono and Zorzi, 2013, Quart. J. Exp. Psychol., 66, 2348). In two experiments, we used a novel random word generation paradigm combined with two different ways to orient attention in horizontal space: Participants randomly generated words on left and right head turns (Experiment 1) or following left and right key presses (Experiment 2). In both studies, syllabically longer words were generated on right-hand head turns and following right key strokes. Importantly, variables related to semantic magnitude or cardinality (whether the generated words were plural-marked, referred to uncountable concepts, or were associated with largeness) were not affected by lateral manipulations. We discuss our data in terms of the ATOM (Walsh, 2015, The Oxford handbook of numerical cognition, 552) which suggests a general magnitude mechanism shared by different conceptual domains.     

The moderating role of interviewer's regulatory focus in the effectiveness of impression management tactics: Regulatory fit as a source of subjective value

Based on the recently explored regulatory fit effect in social contexts, the present research is the first to investigate the interaction between interviewer's regulatory focus and interviewee's impression management (IM) tactics. We hypothesized that assertive and defensive IM tactics would fit with interviewer's promotion and prevention focus, respectively, and that interviewer's experience of this regulatory fit would lead to enhanced interview evaluation. We conducted four studies in which the participants were asked to rate an interviewee after reading a list of the interviewee's IM-related behaviours or watching a videotaped interview. Additionally, the participant's regulatory focus was operationalized as both an induced situational state and a measured chronic trait. The results supported our hypotheses by showing a significant interaction of the interviewer's regulatory focus and the IM tactics on interview evaluation: the promotion-assertive and the prevention-defensive ratings were more positive than the prevention-assertive and the promotion-defensive ratings. Moreover, mediation analysis revealed that the interaction exerts its effects on interview evaluation by providing interviewers with an intrapersonal regulatory fit experience.     

Oedipus goes to the opera: Psychoanalytic inquiry in Enescu’s Œdipe and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex

Abstract

Psychoanalytic inquiry into operas based on the life of Oedipus may provide further knowledge on the Oedipus complex. Therefore, we chose to analyze Enescu’s ?dipe and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Two distinct methodologies were used in our study. The first explored the concept of free association through musical themes in the operas. The second involved the comparative study of the Oedipus myth in order to provide a deeper understanding of Oedipus’s character. We observed that Oedipus displayed symptoms of his complex through the traits of aggressiveness and arrogance. Moreover, we noticed that Oedipus was compelled by the necessity of finding out who his real parents were and by unconsciously accomplishing the prophecy. Oedipus assumed the responsibility to free the Thebans from plague. Yet, it was too late, for the feared part of the prophecy was already accomplished. He provided a wrong answer to the Sphinx and then received the most severe punishment, one that would have ostracism as its outcome. It was, however, not too late for Oedipus to finally discover who his real parents were. Nevertheless, afraid of losing his place as King of Thebes, he investigated the plague’s causes. This resulted in his aggression as he resisted discovering “where babies come from.”     

道德的轻与重：道德的重量具身效应及隐喻的调节作用

本研究采用行为反应时和事件相关电位(ERP)探讨道德的重量具身效应及“重量-道德”隐喻联结对该效应的调节作用。参考内隐联想测验的逻辑，采用联合分类反应任务，在默认的“重量-道德”隐喻表征情境（实验1）和道德垂直空间隐喻的启动情境（实验2）中，要求被试分别使用轻鼠标和重鼠标对道德/不道德词进行分类判断，考察鼠标重量对道德概念的加工所产生的影响。结果显示，在默认情境中，“重-道德，轻-不道德”的联合分类条件比“轻-道德，重-不道德”条件的分类反应时更短，并伴随有更大的脑电晚期正成分（LPC），而在启动道德垂直空间隐喻后，两种联合分类条件下的反应时和LPC结果出现反转。本研究结果表明道德概念的加工会受到重量经验的影响，“重量-道德”具身效应具有心理现实性，且重量概念与道德概念的隐喻联结引导并调节了这种具身效应。