Quantitative work demands,emotional demands,and cognitive stress symptoms in surgery nurses

In surgery, cognitive stress symptoms, including problems in concentrating, deciding, memorising, and reflecting are risks to patient safety. Recent evidence points to social stressors as antecedents of cognitive stress symptoms in surgery personnel. The current study tests whether cognitive stress symptoms are positively associated with emotional abuse, emotional- and task-related demands and resources in surgery work. Forty-eight surgery nurses from two hospitals filled out the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire in its German version. Task-related and emotional demands were positively related to cognitive stress symptoms. In a stepwise, multiple, linear regression of cognitive stress symptoms on task-related and emotional demands, emotional abuse and emotional demands were unique predictors (p < .05). Efforts to increase patient safety should address emotional abuse, emotional demands, and, therefore, communication and cooperation team climate in surgery personnel.     

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning throughout adulthood

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning has been widely explored. However, how aging modulates this association regarding both objective performance and subjective-perception is still neglected. Participants, aged between 18 and 81 years, performed a face memory test and completed subjective face recognition and socioemotional questionnaires. General and social anxiety, and neuroticism traits account for the individual variation in face recognition abilities during adulthood. Aging modulates these relationships because as they age, individuals that present a higher level of these traits also show low-level face recognition ability. Intriguingly, the association between depression and face recognition abilities is evident with increasing age. Overall, the present results emphasize the importance of embedding face metacognition measurement into the context of these studies and suggest that aging is an important factor to be considered, which seems to contribute to the relationship between socioemotional and face-cognitive functioning.     

Who am I? Differential effects of three contemplative mental trainings on emotional word use in self-descriptions

In a large-scale longitudinal mental training study, we examined whether learning different contemplative practices can change the emotional content of people’s self-concept as assessed through emotional word use in the Twenty Statement Test. During three 3-month training modules, participants learned distinct practices targeting attentional, socio-affective, or socio-cognitive capacities, or were re-tested. Emotional word use specifically increased after socio-cognitive training including perspective-taking on self and others, compared to attentional and socio-affective compassion-based trainings, and retest-controls. Overall, our findings demonstrate training-induced behavioral plasticity of the emotional self-concept content in healthy adults and could indicate greater emotional granularity. These findings can inform future interventions in mental health, given that alterations in self-referential processing are a common contributing factor in psychopathology.     

Inside Out and Counseling: Creative Interventions to Facilitate Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is an essential component of mental health and functioning. When traditional talk therapy is intimidating for young clients, creative approaches can supplement practice to foster a nonthreatening and supportive environment. The present article introduces innovative interventions inspired by the popular film Inside Out as helpful mechanisms to facilitate emotional intelligence in clients.     

Fuzzy system for intelligent word recognition using a regular grammar

We present a new approach for off-line intelligent word recognition based on a fuzzy classification model. First, we segment a word into its single characters, and label each pixel as vertical or as horizontal so that we can group all the pixels into vertical or horizontal strokes. Then, we use dynamic zoning to obtain the locations of the connections between the vertical strokes – which are the main strokes – and the horizontal ones. These features let us construct the representative string of a character using a regular grammar and, subsequently, use a Deterministic Finite Automaton to check them out. To accomplish the recognition, we use a Fuzzy Lattice Reasoning classifier. The combination of the representative strings and the fuzzy classifier provides promising performance rates.     

Post-encoding emotional arousal enhances consolidation of item memory,but not reality-monitoring source memory

The current study examined whether the effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on item memory extends to reality-monitoring source memory and, if so, whether the effect depends on emotionality of learning stimuli and testing format. In Experiment 1, participants encoded neutral words and imagined or viewed their corresponding object pictures. Then they watched a neutral, positive, or negative video. The 24-hour delayed test showed that emotional arousal had little effect on both item memory and reality-monitoring source memory. Experiment 2 was similar except that participants encoded neutral, positive, and negative words and imagined or viewed their corresponding object pictures. The results showed that positive and negative emotional arousal induced after encoding enhanced consolidation of item memory, but not reality-monitoring source memory, regardless of emotionality of learning stimuli. Experiment 3, identical to Experiment 2 except that participants were tested only on source memory for all the encoded items, still showed that post-encoding emotional arousal had little effect on consolidation of reality-monitoring source memory. Taken together, regardless of emotionality of learning stimuli and regardless of testing format of source memory (conjunction test vs. independent test), the facilitatory effect of post-encoding emotional arousal on item memory does not generalize to reality-monitoring source memory.     

Age of acquisition ratings score better on criterion validity than frequency trajectory or ratings “corrected” for frequency

From the very first studies on the effect of age of acquisition (AoA) on word processing, researchers have validated their AoA ratings by correlating them with other, more objective indices of the age at which children know words. Still, the ratings have been questioned, and alternative measures have been proposed. Two of these are differences in word frequency between language directed at young children and language directed at older children (frequency trajectory) and AoA ratings corrected for word frequency. Surprisingly, the criterion validity of these alternative measures has never been established, partly because one of the validation criteria (the age at which children are able to name pictures) has been questioned. In the present study, four databases are used that aimed to establish the order of English word acquisition, going from the very first words learned to words taught in secondary education. The criteria for word knowledge included word production, multiple-choice questions about the meaning of the words, and teacher judgments about when words should be taught in the school curriculum. For all databases, the frequency trajectory correlated substantially less with the criterion than AoA ratings. For all but one, the same was true for AoA ratings “corrected” for other variables. On the basis of these findings, researchers should be cautious interpreting null effects with the “improved” variables as evidence against a genuine AoA effect.     

On recognition and self: a discussion based on Nyāya,Mīmāṃsā and Buddhism

The phenomenon of recognition is a point of contention in the debate between the orthodox Hindus and Buddhists on whether the self (ātman) exists. The Hindus, including Naiyāyikas and Mīmā?sakas, argue that recognition evidences the existence of the self, while Buddhist philosopher ?āntarak?ita maintains that there is no self and recognition should be explained in another way. This article examined two disputes, focusing on the two subsidiary aspects of a recognition: memory and self-recognition. For Hindus, it is the existence of the self that makes memory and self-recognition possible. For Buddhists, it is due to the phenomena of memories and self-recognitions that people postulate the existence of the self. I argue that Buddhist explanation of memory is more acceptable, while their debates on self-recognition should be considered as a tie.     

Question order bias in retrospective evaluations of item and associative recognition

Previous research has demonstrated a retrospective memory bias in metacognitive judgments regarding performance on general knowledge questions: Test-takers rate their own performance more optimistically when tests begin with easy questions than when tests begin with hard questions. An anchoring heuristic has been proposed to explain this finding, in which experience with the early questions constrains global performance evaluations of the test. In the current study we report on two experiments using tasks of item recognition and associative recognition to investigate the generality of question order bias. As predicted by an anchoring explanation, participants’ estimates of performance were higher for item recognition tests beginning with easy items. However, the effect was reversed in the associative recognition task: Participants’ estimates of performance were higher for tests beginning with hard items. Specific recollections, if present, may have a greater impact on test performance perception than more general global impressions.