Does Task Activation in Task Switching Influence Inhibition or Episodic Interference?

N-2 repetition costs in task switching refer to slower responses to ABA sequences compared to CBA sequences, reflecting the persisting inhibition of task A across the ABA sequence. The magnitude of inhibition is thought to be sensitive to activation levels of interfering tasks. This is supported by larger n-2 repetition costs when the response-cue interval (RCI) is reduced: At short RCIs, a just-performed task is highly active when a new task is required, triggering more inhibition.

Three-Quarter Views of Depth-Rotated Faces Induce Face-Specific Capacity Limits in Visual Search.

Participants made speeded categorization decisions regarding a famous person (politician or film star) accompanied by a peripheral distracter face (either the same or from the opposite category). The first experiment found that processing a peripheral distracter face is independent of load when the search set contains name strings. The search set in the second experiment consisted of faces.

Dispositional mindfulness mediates the relations between neuroticism and posttraumatic stress disorder and depression in Chinese adolescents after a tornado.

Previous studies have shown that neuroticism is associated with higher levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression in individuals who have experienced traumatic events. This study investigated dispositional mindfulness as one pathway in which neuroticism is related to PTSD and depression symptoms among Chinese adolescents who have experienced trauma by considering the role of dispositional mindfulness. Participants were 443 Chinese adolescents who had experienced a severe tornado a year prior to this study.

Gender-related differences in cue-elicited cravings in Internet gaming disorder: The effects of deprivation.

Background: Online gaming has become a popular leisure activity, in which males more frequently develop Internet gaming disorder (IGD) compared to females. However, gender-related neurocognitive differences have largely not been systematically investigated in IGD.

Methods: Cue-elicited-craving tasks were performed before game playing and immediately after deprivation operationalized as a forced break from gaming when the Internet was disconnected.

The effect of dose expectancies on caffeine withdrawal symptoms during tapered dose reduction.

Background: Negative expectancies can exacerbate withdrawal symptoms via the nocebo effect. As such, information provided about dose reductions during attempts to taper a drug could contribute to withdrawal symptoms and increase the likelihood of relapse. The current study tested whether blinding participants to dose reductions during a supervised caffeine dose taper reduced these nocebo-induced withdrawal symptoms.

Cuing both positive and negative episodic foresight reduces delay discounting but does not affect risk-taking.

Humans frequently create mental models of the future, allowing outcomes to be inferred in advance of their occurrence. Recent evidence suggests that imagining positive future events reduces delay discounting (the devaluation of reward with time until its receipt), while imagining negative future events may increase it. Here, using a sample of 297 participants, we experimentally assess the effects of cued episodic simulation of positive and negative future scenarios on decision-making in the context of both delay discounting (monetary choice questionnaire) and risk-taking (balloon-analogue risk task).

Developing a Research Agenda for Adult Palliative Care: A Modified Delphi Study.

Little is known about research priorities in adult palliative care. Identifying research priorities for adult palliative care will help in increasing research quality and translation. The aim was to identify the views of health professionals' research priorities in adult palliative care that lead to development of a palliative care research agenda in Australia.

Turn an Ear to Hear: How Hearing-Impaired Listeners Can Exploit Head Orientation to Enhance Their Speech Intelligibility in Noisy Social Settings.

Turning an ear toward the talker can enhance spatial release from masking. Here, with their head free, listeners attended to speech at a gradually diminishing signal-to-noise ratio and with the noise source azimuthally separated from the speech source by 180° or 90°. Young normal-hearing adult listeners spontaneously turned an ear toward the speech source in 64% of audio-only trials, but a visible talker's face or cochlear implant (CI) use significantly reduced this head-turn behavior.

Problem gambling and family violence: Findings from a population-representative study.

Background And Aims: Few studies have investigated the association between problem gambling (PG) and violence extending into the family beyond intimate partners. This study aimed to explore the association between PG and family violence (FV) in a population-representative sample. It was hypothesized that: (a) PG would be positively associated with FV, even after adjusting for sociodemographic variables and comorbidities and (b) these relationships would be significantly exacerbated by substance use and psychological distress.

What Is Transferred in Causal Generalization Across Contexts?

The covariation and causal power account for causal induction make different predictions for what is transferred in causal generalization across contexts. Two experiments tested these predictions using hypothetical scenarios in which the effect of an intervention was evaluated between (Experiment 1) or within (Experiment 2) groups. Each experiment contained a manipulation of ΔP, power and their combination.

Metacognitive judgements of perceptual-motor steering performance.

Control of skilled actions requires rapid information sampling and processing, which may largely be carried out subconsciously. However, individuals often need to make conscious strategic decisions that ideally would be based upon accurate knowledge of performance. Here, we determined the extent to which individuals have explicit awareness of their steering performance (conceptualised as "metacognition").

Self-Serving Bias in Memories.

Protecting one's positive self-image from damage is a fundamental need of human beings. Forgetting is an effective strategy in this respect. Individuals show inferior recall of negative feedback about themselves but unimpaired recognition of self-related negative feedback.

Self-Other Differences in Decision-Making Under Risk.

Decisions made for others reflect not only decision-makers' cognitive and emotional states but also decision-makers' interpersonal concerns. People who make choices for others will potentially be blamed for unappealing outcomes by others. Therefore, we hypothesize that individuals will seek sure gains (which increase individuals' responsibility for desirable outcomes) and avoid sure losses (which decrease individuals' responsibility for undesirable outcomes) when making risky decisions for others more than when making such decisions for themselves.

Engaging Men in Psychological Treatment: A Scoping Review.

Tailoring psychological treatments to men's specific needs has been a topic of concern for decades given evidence that many men are reticent to seek professional health care. However, existing literature providing clinical recommendations for engaging men in psychological treatments is diffuse. The aim of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive summary of recommendations for how to engage men in psychological treatment.

Automaticity and cognitive control: Effects of cognitive load on cue-controlled reward choice.

The extent to which human outcome-response (O-R) priming effects are automatic or under cognitive control is currently unclear. Two experiments tested the effect of cognitive load on O-R priming to shed further light on the debate. In Experiment 1, two instrumental responses earned beer and chocolate points in an instrumental training phase.

How Well Do Caregivers Detect Depression and Anxiety in Patients With Parkinson Disease?

Depression and anxiety are prevalent in Parkinson disease (PD) yet underrecognized in clinical practice. Caregiver reports are frequently utilized to aid in the assessment of neuropsychiatric symptoms but little is known about caregivers' ability to recognize them in patients with PD. This study sought to examine the accuracy of caregiver reports.

"What Smell?" Temporarily Loading Visual Attention Induces a Prolonged Loss of Olfactory Awareness.

The human sense of smell is highly sensitive, often conveying important biological signals. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that we commonly fail to notice suprathreshold environmental olfactory stimuli. The determinants of olfactory awareness are, as yet, unknown.

Cognitive Stimulation of Elderly Individuals with Instrumental Virtual Reality-Based Activities of Daily Life: Pre-Post Treatment Study.

As the demographic structure in western societies ages, the prevalence and impact of cognitive decline rises. Thus, new solutions to tackle this problem are required. The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based cognitive exercises has emerged in the last few decades, though with inconsistent results.

Working memory in older adults declines with age, but is modulated by sex and education.

Working memory (WM), which underlies the temporary storage and manipulation of information, is critical for multiple aspects of cognition and everyday life. Nevertheless, research examining WM specifically in older adults remains limited, despite the global rapid increase in human life expectancy. We examined WM in a large sample ( N = 754) of healthy older adults (aged 58-89) in a non-Western population (Chinese speakers) in Taiwan, on a digit n-back task.

The role of social attention in older adults' ability to interpret naturalistic social scenes.

Age-related differences on theory of mind (ToM) tasks are well established. However, the literature has been criticised for predominantly relying on tasks with poor ecological validity, and consequently it remains unclear whether these age differences extend to tasks with greater realism. In addition, we currently have a limited understanding of the factors that may contribute to age-related declines in ToM.

Effects of Cyberbullying and Cybervictimization on Early Adolescents' Mental Health: Differential Mediating Roles of Perceived Peer Relationship Stress.

The purpose of this study was to examine the differential mediational roles of perceived peer relationship stress (PPRS) in accounting for the association between cyberbullying (CB) and cybervictimization (CV) and mental health among early adolescents in cross-sectional data and longitudinal data, respectively. A total of 606 early adolescents completed questionnaires as part of a 3-year longitudinal study on three occasions at 1-year intervals. Structural equation modeling revealed that (1) compared to CB, CV showed a stronger relationship with mental health.