Beliefs about surgery: Development and validation of an instrument to assess cognitive representations about surgery,in the context of a chronic illness

Objectives: Within a trial of medical and surgical treatments for gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GORD), involving randomised arms and preference arms, we tested the applicability of the Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) and developed and tested the validity of a new Beliefs about Surgery Questionnaire (BSQ). Methods: Patients with GORD (N = 43) were interviewed to elicit their beliefs about medical and surgical treatments. These contributed to the development of BSQ items. The BMQ and BSQ were completed by trial participants at baseline (randomised trial: N = 325; preference trial: N = 414). Factor analysis and discriminant function analysis were used to assess validity. Results: Principal components analysis (PCA) largely replicated the four-factor BMQ structure. PCA of the combined BMQ/BSQ yielded six factors explaining 54.5% variance. BSQ items loaded onto distinct factors, demonstrating divergence from BMQ. As predicted, BMQ/BSQ scores enabled correct classification of 78.5% of participants to medication and surgery groups in the preference trial (χ²(6) = 205.9, p < 0.001) but only 54.5% (no better than chance) in the randomised trial (χ²(6) = 9.4, p = 0.154). Conclusions: The BSQ is a valid measure of perceptions about surgical treatments for GORD. With the BMQ, it provides information that may guide patients’ choices about treatment. This measure may be applicable to other conditions.     

Site preference of refractory elements in γ′-Ni3Al alloyed with Ru

The influence of ruthenium (Ru) on the partitioning behavior of W, Re and Cr in γ′-Ni₃Al has been studied using the Dmol3 method based on the density functional theory. The calculated results show that W, Re and Cr have a preference for the Ni site in γ′-Ni₃Al alloyed with Ru. When Ru substitutes the central Ni atom, the site preference for W, Re and Cr varies. Furthermore, an electronic structure analysis of the alloy in terms of the Mulliken population and partial density of states was performed to elucidate the alloying mechanism of Ru in γ′-Ni₃Al. The results show that the strengthening effect of Ru in the alloy arises from a reduction in the binding energy of Ru as well as p-orbital hybridization between Ru and the host atoms.     

An inkblot for sexual preference: A semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure

A newly developed Semantic Misattribution Procedure (SMP), a semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), was used in three studies as an indirect measure of sexual interest. Using a known-group approach, homosexual men (Studies 1 and 2), heterosexual men (Studies 1 to 3) and heterosexual women (Study 3) were asked to guess the meaning of briefly presented Chinese ideographs as “sexual” or “not sexual”. The ideographs were preceded by briefly presented primes depicting male and female individuals of varying sexual maturity. As hypothesised, the frequency of “sexual” responses increased after priming with pictures of individuals of the preferred sex and increasing sexual maturation. The SMP showed satisfactory reliability and convergent validity as indicated by correlations with direct and two indirect measures of sexual interest. In two further studies, the hypothesised pattern was replicated whereas a standard AMP with the identical prime stimuli did not produce this result. The potential usefulness of semantic variants of the AMP is discussed.     

Player–Spectator Discrepancies on Risk Preference during Decision Making

Risk preference during decision making depends not only on the potential risk and profits but also on the roles taken in the current task. Those who perform tasks are more risk-seeking than those who only watch. Given the prominent effect of experiencing the task, the player–spectator discrepancies are supposed to arise in the experiencing phase instead of the choosing phase. In the present study, the authors separated the experiencing role and the choosing role through a stylus maze task in which participants first performed in pairs—one as the player and the other as the spectator—and then chose from two rewarding options for themselves or their partners. The findings show that the experience as players induced a risk-seeking tendency in decision making, which suggests that it was the experiencing role, rather than the choosing role, that caused the difference of risk preference, at least for financially motivated groups and under similar task conditions.     

Age and Gender Differences in Morningness–Eveningness During Adolescence

Morningness–eveningness was assessed in a large sample of adolescents and young adults. Morningness decreased from 12 to 15 years, and then remained on a stable level until about 20 years, when a turn back to morningness occurred. Boys and men were on average more evening-oriented than were girls and women. In detail, significant differences existed at the ages of 16, 18, and 19 years. A quadratic function explained more variance than a linear regression. Composite Scale of Morningness scores are related to puberty scores in boys and girls, and when combining data (i.e., higher pubertal development was related to eveningness).     

Differentiating sexual preference in men: Using dual task rapid serial visual presentation task

Cognition research suggests that allocating attention resources to evolutionarily relevant stimuli is facilitated suggesting that sexual stimuli interfere with human information processing. In a group of gay (n = 13) and straight men (n = 13) recruited in Finland, Germany and Italy, we investigated if and how sexually relevant visual stimuli affect information processing of both a target one (T1) and a subsequent target two (T2) in a dual target rapid serial visual presentation procedure. We hypothesized that: (1) due to the attentional blink (AB) phenomenon, the accuracy of reporting of T2 would decrease when following accurately identified sexually preferred T1 compared to accurately identified non‐sexually preferred T1; 2) due to the pop out effect, the accuracy of reporting of T1 and T2 would be relatively increased when T1 and T2 were sexually preferred by the participants compared to when they were not. Our findings did not support hypothesis 1 but supported hypothesis 2. We further found that the pop out effect had a good capacity to differentiate sexual preference between the groups of gay and straight men. We conclude that dual target rapid serial visual presentation can be used as an attention‐based measurement to differentiate sexual preference in men. Limitations and the applicability in the field of measuring sexual preference were discussed.     

娃娃脸效应：对婴儿面孔的偏好及过度泛化

娃娃脸效应是指由婴儿面孔特征(或婴儿图式)所引发的普遍、进化的社会认知反应, 不仅包括对婴儿面孔的偏好性反应—— 如优先注意、关怀和照料的冲动, 还包括对于具备婴儿图式的成年人、动物甚至非生命物体的泛化性反应, 即认为这些对象具有与婴儿相似的特质并对其产生相应的态度和行为。娃娃脸效应的表现、影响因素及神经机制的相关研究证明了人类对于婴儿面孔特征的偏好性反应是一种本能释放机制, 并为进化心理学中的亲代投资及性别选择理论提供了佐证。娃娃脸效应的文化差异以及实践应用可能是这一领域未来研究的主要方向。