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BACKGROUND: The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is implicated in depression. The hypothesis investigated was whether the OFC sensitivity to reward and nonreward is related to the severity of depressive symptoms.
METHODS: Activations in the monetary incentive delay task were measured in the IMAGEN cohort at ages 14 years (n = 1877) and 19 years (n = 1140) with a longitudinal design. Clinically relevant subgroups were compared at ages 19 (high-severity group: n = 116; low-severity group: n = 206) and 14.
RESULTS: The medial OFC exhibited graded activation increases to reward, and the lateral OFC had graded activation increases to nonreward. In this general population, the medial and lateral OFC activations were associated with concurrent depressive symptoms at both ages 14 and 19 years. In a stratified high-severity depressive symptom group versus control group comparison, the lateral OFC showed greater sensitivity for the magnitudes of activations related to nonreward in the high-severity group at age 19 (p = .027), and the medial OFC showed decreased sensitivity to the reward magnitudes in the high-severity group at both ages 14 (p = .002) and 19 (p = .002). In a longitudinal design, there was greater sensitivity to nonreward of the lateral OFC at age 14 for those who exhibited high depressive symptom severity later at age 19 (p = .003).
CONCLUSIONS: Activations in the lateral OFC relate to sensitivity to not winning, were associated with high depressive symptom scores, and at age 14 predicted the depressive symptoms at ages 16 and 19. Activations in the medial OFC were related to sensitivity to winning, and reduced reward sensitivity was associated with concurrent high depressive symptom scores.
Die vorliegende Arbeit setzt sich aus zwei Teilstudien zusammen. In Teilstudie 1 wird die Stabilität eines allgemeinen Modells zu den Zusammenhängen zwischen Über- und Unterforderungsmerkmalen, sozialen Belastungen, Anforderungen und organisationalen Ressourcen einerseits sowie den Fehlbeanspruchungen emotionale Erschöpfung und Klientenaversion bzw. Distanzierungstendenzen andererseits für personenbezogene Dienstleistungstätigkeiten untersucht. Einbezogen wurden Ärztinnen und Ärzte, Pflegende und Mitarbeitende aus dem paramedizinischen Bereich sowie Lehrkräfte. Die deutlichsten positiven Zusammenhänge zeigen sich zwischen den Belastungen und der emotionalen Erschöpfung, wobei für die quantitative Überforderung die stabilsten Ergebnisse resultieren. Die Belastungen weisen über die emotionale Erschöpfung hinaus signifikante Zusammenhänge mit aversiven Gefühlen gegen Klientinnen und Klienten auf. Hinsichtlich der modellimplizierten Annahmen zu den positiven Zusammenhängen zwischen den Belastungen und der Distanzierung können in dieser Untersuchung zwar signifikante Ergebnisse, aber keine über die Stichproben hinweg stabilen Zusammenhänge gefunden werden. Die Annahmen zu einem negativen Zusammenhang zwischen den Anforderungen/Ressourcen und der Distanzierung können nur für die Anforderungsmerkmale bestätigt werden. In Teilstudie 2 erfolgte auf der Basis des in Teilstudie 1 entwickelten Arbeitsmodells eine vertiefte Betrachtung der Lehrkräftetätigkeit. Dabei wurden sowohl verschiedene Schulsystemebenen einbezogen als auch verschiedene Aufgabentypen unterschieden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass auf organisationaler Ebene Gratifikationskrisen und mangelnde kollektive Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungen fehlbeanspruchungsrelevant sein können. Besonders deutliche Zusammenhänge mit den Fehlbeanspruchungen und der Distanzierung zeigen sich für die primäraufgabenbezogenen Belastungen. Auch die Reziprozitätseinschätzungen in Bezug auf Schülerinnen und Eltern zeigen diesbezüglich ähnliche, wenn auch weniger deutliche, Zusammenhänge. Die Ergebnisse zu den Personmerkmalen lassen darauf schliessen, dass die Rolle der Person bei der Burnoutentwicklung nicht unterschätzt werde sollte. Als praktische Implikationen der Untersuchungsergebnisse werden u.a. Vorschläge für eine Stärkung der unterrichtsbezogenen und der klassenübergreifenden Kooperation, für eine Optimierung der Organisationsstruktur und eine „Professionalisierung“ der Organisation sowie für eine weiterführende Erarbeitung schulhausspezifischer Konzepte und Leitlinien gemacht. Es wird die Frage gestellt, ob die Lehrkräftetätigkeit sinnvollerweise als Lebensberuf verstanden werden sollte. Schliesslich wird auf die Bedeutung der Distanzierungsfähigkeit und der Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungen der Lehrkräfte hingewiesen.
People engage in a multitude of different relationships. Relatives, spouses, and friends are modestly to moderately similar in various characteristics, e.g., personality characteristics, interests, appearance. The role of psychological (e.g., skills, global appraisal) and social (e.g., gender, familial status) similarities in personal relationships and the association with relationship quality (emotional closeness and reciprocity of support) were examined in four independent studies. Young adults (N = 456; M = 27 years) and middle-aged couples from four different family types (N = 171 couples, M = 38 years) gave answer to a computer-aided questionnaire regarding their ego-centered networks. A subsample of 175 middle-aged adults (77 couples and 21 individuals) participated in a one-year follow-up questioning. Two experimental studies (N = 470; N = 802), both including two assessments with an interval of five weeks, were conducted to examine causal relationships among similarity, closeness, and reciprocity expectations. Results underline the role of psychological and social similarities as covariates of emotional closeness and reciprocity of support on the between-relationship level, but indicate a relatively weak effect within established relationships. In specific relationships, such as parent-child relationships and friendships, psychological similarity partly alleviates the effects of missing genetic relatedness. Individual differences moderate these between-relationship effects. In all, results combine evolutionary and social psychological perspectives on similarity in personal relationships and extend previous findings by means of a network approach and an experimental manipulation of existing relationships. The findings further show that psychological and social similarity have different implications for the study of personal relationships depending on the phase in the developmental process of relationships.
Trait emotional intelligence (TEI) is an important individual difference variable that is related to the quality of romantic relationships. The present study investigated the associations between TEI, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction. A convenience sample of N = 136 heterosexual couples was recruited online. When the actor-partner interdependence model was applied to the data, TEI showed a positive actor effect and a positive partner effect on relationship satisfaction. The actor effect and partner effect of TEI on relationship satisfaction were partially mediated through positive dyadic coping and common dyadic coping, respectively. A small total indirect actor effect was also found for negative dyadic coping. Controlling for potential content overlap between TEI and relationship satisfaction did not alter the results. However, removing variance from the TEI score that was shared with the Big Five trait factors attenuated TEI's actor and partner effects on relationship satisfaction and rendered all but one actor effect for TEI on dyadic coping and all but one indirect effect nonsignificant. The results underline the importance of TEI for the quality of romantic relationships and they shed light on underlying mechanisms. Implications for theory, research, and applications in counseling contexts will be discussed.
Previous research on the interplay between static manual postures and visual attention revealed enhanced visual selection near the hands (near-hand effect). During active movements there is also superior visual performance when moving toward compared to away from the stimulus (direction effect). The "modulated visual pathways" hypothesis argues that differential involvement of magno- and parvocellular visual processing streams causes the near-hand effect. The key finding supporting this hypothesis is an increase in temporal and a reduction in spatial processing in near-hand space (Gozli et al., 2012). Since this hypothesis has, so far, only been tested with static hand postures, we provide a conceptual replication of Gozli et al.'s (2012) result with moving hands, thus also probing the generality of the direction effect. Participants performed temporal or spatial gap discriminations while their right hand was moving below the display. In contrast to Gozli et al (2012), temporal gap discrimination was superior at intermediate and not near hand proximity. In spatial gap discrimination, a direction effect without hand proximity effect suggests that pragmatic attentional maps overshadowed temporal/spatial processing biases for far/near-hand space.
The optical density of human macular pigment was measured for 50 observers ranging in age from 10 to 90 years. The psychophysical method required adjusting the radiance of a 1°, monochromatic light (400–550 nm) to minimize flicker (15 Hz) when presented in counterphase with a 460 nm standard. This test stimulus was presented superimposed on a broad-band, short-wave background. Macular pigment density was determined by comparing sensitivity under these conditions for the fovea, where macular pigment is maximal, and 5° temporally. This difference spectrum, measured for 12 observers, matched Wyszecki and Stiles's standard density spectrum for macular pigment. To study variation in macular pigment density for a larger group of observers, measurements were made at only selected spectral points (460, 500 and 550 nm). The mean optical density at 460 nm for the complete sample of 50 subjects was 0.39. Substantial individual differences in density were found (ca. 0.10–0.80), but this variation was not systematically related to age.
The spectral efficiency of blackness induction was measured in three normal trichromatic observers and in one deuteranomalous observer. The psychophysical task was to adjust the radiance of a monochromatic 60–120′ annulus until a 45′ central broadband field just turned black and its contour became indiscriminable from a dark surrounding gap that separated it from the annulus. The reciprocal of the radiance required to induce blackness with annulus wavelengths between 420 and 680 nm was used to define a spectral-efficiency function for the blackness component of the achromatic process. For each observer, the shape of this blackness-sensitivity function agreed with the spectral-efficiency function based on heterochromatic flicker photometry when measured with the same 60–120′ annulus. Both of these functions matched the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage Vλ function except at short wavelengths. Ancillary measurements showed that the latter difference in sensitivity can be ascribed to nonuniformities of preretinal absorption, since the annular field excluded the central 60′ of the fovea. Thus our evidence indicates that, at least to a good first approximation, induced blackness is inversely related to the spectral-luminosity function. These findings are consistent with a model that separates the achromatic and the chromatic pathways.
In einer Laengsschnittstudie wird die Entwicklung von Motivationskomponenten zum Lernen in Mathematik von der fuenften bis zur neunten Klassenstufe untersucht. Motivationskomponenten wurden mit dem "Potsdamer Motivations-Inventar" erfasst, die Bezugsnormorientierung der Lehrer sowie das mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Anregungsklimas im Elternhaus mit eigens entwickelten Skalen. Daten wurden an einer Stichprobe von urspruenglich zirka 750 Schuelerinnen und Schuelern erhoben. An der dritten Erhebung nahmen nur noch etwa 600 von ihnen teil. Es zeigte sich, dass sich die Mathematiknote am Ende eines Schuljahres sehr gut durch die zu Schulbeginn erfassten Motivationskomponenten vorhersagen laesst. Waehrend das insgesamt geringe Angsterleben im Mathematikunterricht von der fuenften bis zur neunten Klasse stabil blieb, nahm das Sachinteresse kontinuierlich ab. Bei der Einschaetzung des mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Anregungsklimas im Elternhaus fanden sich ueberraschenderweise grosse Unterschiede zwischen Kindern und Eltern. (U.B. - ZPID)
Interpretation of and reasoning with conditionals : probabilities, mental models, and causality
(2003)
In everyday conversation "if" is one of the most frequently used conjunctions. This dissertation investigates what meaning an everyday conditional transmits and what inferences it licenses. It is suggested that the nature of the relation between the two propositions in a conditional might play a major role for both questions. Thus, in the experiments reported here conditional statements that describe a causal relationship (e.g., "If you touch that wire, you will receive an electric shock") were compared to arbitrary conditional statements in which there is no meaningful relation between the antecedent and the consequent proposition (e.g., "If Napoleon is dead, then Bristol is in England"). Initially, central assumptions from several approaches to the meaning and the reasoning from causal conditionals will be integrated into a common model. In the model the availability of exceptional situations that have the power to generate exceptions to the rule described in the conditional (e.g., the electricity is turned off), reduces the subjective conditional probability of the consequent, given the antecedent (e.g., the probability of receiving an electric shock when touching the wire). This conditional probability determines people's degree of belief in the conditional, which in turn affects their willingness to accept valid inferences (e.g., "Peter touches the wire, therefore he receives an electric shock") in a reasoning task. Additionally to this indirect pathway, the model contains a direct pathway: Cognitive availability of exceptional situations directly reduces the readiness to accept valid conclusions. The first experimental series tested the integrated model for conditional statements embedded in pseudo-natural cover stories that either established a causal relation between the antecedent and the consequent event (causal conditionals) or did not connect the propositions in a meaningful way (arbitrary conditionals). The model was supported for the causal, but not for the arbitrary conditional statements. Furthermore, participants assigned lower degrees of belief to arbitrary than to causal conditionals. Is this effect due to the presence versus absence of a semantic link between antecedent and consequent in the conditionals? This question was one of the starting points for the second experimental series. Here, the credibility of the conditionals was manipulated by adding explicit frequency information about possible combinations of presence or absence of antecedent and consequent events to the problems (i.e., frequencies of cases of 1. true antecedent with true consequent, 2. true antecedent with false consequent, 3. false antecedent with true consequent, 4. false antecedent with false consequent). This paradigm allows testing different approaches to the meaning of conditionals (Experiment 4) as well as theories of conditional reasoning against each other (Experiment 5). The results of Experiment 4 supported mainly the conditional probability approach to the meaning of conditionals (Edgington, 1995) according to which the degree of belief a listener has in a conditional statement equals the conditional probability that the consequent is true given the antecedent (e.g., the probability of receiving an electric shock when touching the wire). Participants again assigned lower degrees of belief to the arbitrary than the causal conditionals, although the conditional probability of the consequent given the antecedent was held constant within every condition of explicit frequency information. This supports the hypothesis that the mere presence of a causal link enhances the believability of a conditional statement. In Experiment 5 participants solved conditional reasoning tasks from problems that contained explicit frequency information about possible relevant cases. The data favored the probabilistic approach to conditional reasoning advanced by Oaksford, Chater, and Larkin (2000). The two experimental series reported in this dissertation provide strong support for recent probabilistic theories: for the conditional probability approach to the meaning of conditionals by Edgington (1995) and the probabilistic approach to conditional reasoning by Oaksford et al. (2000). In the domain of conditional reasoning, there was additionally support for the modified mental model approaches by Markovits and Barrouillet (2002) and Schroyens and Schaeken (2003). Probabilistic and mental model approaches could be reconciled within a dual-process-model as suggested by Verschueren, Schaeken, and d'Ydewalle (2003).
Background: There is an increasing awareness of the impact of parental risk perception on the weight course of the child and the parent's readiness to engage in preventive efforts, but only less is known about factors related to the parental perception of the right time for the implementation of preventive activities. The aim of this study was to examine parental perceptions of the appropriate time to engage in child weight management strategies, and the factors associated with different weight points at which mothers recognize the need for preventive actions.
Methods: 352 mothers with children aged 2-10 years took part in the study. We assessed mothers' perceptions of the actual and preferred weight status of their child, their ability to identify overweight and knowledge of its associated health risks, as well as perceptions of the right time for action to prevent overweight in their child. A regression analysis was conducted to examine whether demographic and weight related factors as well as the maternal general risk perception were associated with recognizing the need to implement prevention strategies.
Results: Although most of the parents considered a BMI in the 75th to 90th percentile a valid reason to engage in the prevention of overweight, 19% of the mothers were not willing to engage in prevention until their child reached the 97th percentile. Whereas the child's sex and the identification of an elevated BMI were significant predictors for parents' recognition of the 75th percentile as right point to engage in prevention efforts, an inability to recognize physical health risks associated with overweight silhouettes emerged as a significant factor predicting which parents would delay prevention efforts until a child's BMI reached the 97th percentile.
Conclusion: Parental misperceptions of overweight and associated health risks constitute unfavorable conditions for preventive actions. Feedback on the health risks associated with overweight could help increase maternal readiness for change.
Die Adipositas und ihre mitunter schwerwiegenden Auswirkungen nimmt in öffentlichen Diskussionen einen immer größeren Stellenwert ein. In Deutschland leiden neben 37 Millionen Erwachsenen derzeit rund 2 Millionen Kinder an Übergewicht oder Adipositas. Das Arbeitsbuch wendet sich an die Eltern betroffener Kinder. Erklärt wird die Entstehung der Adipositas, zudem sind Informationen zu gesunder Ernährung und deren Umsetzung im Alltag enthalten. Zusätzlich wird auf den wichtigen Faktor der Bewegung sowie eine mögliche erneute Gewichtszunahme eingegangen. Entwickelt wurde das Arbeitsbuch im Rahmen einer Studie und spricht die teilnehmenden Eltern an, deren Kinder sich aufgrund von Adipositas in einer Reha-Klinik befinden. Die enthaltenen Informationen und Alltagshilfen sind jedoch auch für alle anderen betroffenen Eltern relevant.
Background
Body image distortion is highly prevalent among overweight individuals. Whilst there is evidence that body-dissatisfied women and those suffering from disordered eating show a negative attentional bias towards their own unattractive body parts and others’ attractive body parts, little is known about visual attention patterns in the area of obesity and with respect to males. Since eating disorders and obesity share common features in terms of distorted body image and body dissatisfaction, the aim of this study was to examine whether overweight men and women show a similar attentional bias.
Methods/Design
We analyzed eye movements in 30 overweight individuals (18 females) and 28 normalweight individuals (16 females) with respect to the participants’ own pictures as well as gender-
and BMI-matched control pictures (front and back view). Additionally, we assessed body image and disordered eating using validated questionnaires.
Discussion
The overweight sample rated their own body as less attractive and showed a more disturbed body image. Contrary to our assumptions, they focused significantly longer on attractive
compared to unattractive regions of both their own and the control body. For one’s own body, this was more pronounced for women. A higher weight status and more frequent body checking predicted attentional bias towards attractive body parts. We found that overweight adults exhibit an unexpected and stable pattern of selective attention, with a distinctive focus on their own attractive body regions despite higher levels of body dissatisfaction. This positive attentional bias may either be an indicator of a more pronounced pattern of attentional avoidance or a self-enhancing strategy. Further research is warranted to clarify these results.
Background: Functional abdominal pain (FAP) is not only a highly prevalent disease but also poses a considerable burden on children and their families. Untreated, FAP is highly persistent until adulthood, also leading to an increased risk of psychiatric disorders. Intervention studies underscore the efficacy of cognitive behavioral treatment approaches but are limited in terms of sample size, long-term follow-up data, controls and inclusion of psychosocial outcome data.
Methods/Design: In a multicenter randomized controlled trial, 112 children aged 7 to 12 years who fulfill the Rome III criteria for FAP will be allocated to an established cognitive behavioral training program for children with FAP (n = 56) or to an active control group (focusing on age-appropriate information delivery; n = 56). Randomization occurs centrally, blockwise and is stratified by center. This study is performed in five pediatric gastroenterology outpatient departments. Observer-blind assessments of outcome variables take place four times: pre-, post-, 3- and 12-months post-treatment. Primary outcome is the course of pain intensity and frequency. Secondary endpoints are health-related quality of life, pain-related coping and cognitions, as well as selfefficacy.
Discussion: This confirmatory randomized controlled clinical trial evaluates the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral intervention for children with FAP. By applying an active control group, time and attention processes can be controlled, and long-term follow-up data over the course of one year can be explored.
Background: Obesity is not only a highly prevalent disease but also poses a considerable burden on children and their families. Evidence is increasing that a lack of self-regulation skills may play a role in the etiology and maintenance of obesity. Our goal with this currently ongoing trial is to examine whether training that focuses on the enhancement of self-regulation skills may increase the sustainability of a complex lifestyle intervention.
Methods/Design: In a multicenter, prospective, parallel group, randomized controlled superiority trial, 226 obese children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 years will be allocated either to a newly developed computer-training program to improve their self-regulation abilities or to a placebo control group. Randomization occurs centrally and blockwise at a 1:1 allocation ratio for each center. This study is performed in pediatric inpatient rehabilitation facilities specialized in the treatment of obesity. Observer-blind assessments of outcome variables take place at four times: at the beginning of the rehabilitation (pre), at the end of the training in the rehabilitation (post), and 6 and 12 months post-rehabilitation intervention. The primary outcome is the course of BMI-SDS over 1 year after the end of the inpatient rehabilitation. Secondary endpoints are the self-regulation skills. In addition, health-related quality of life, and snack intake will be analyzed.
Discussion: The computer-based training programs might be a feasible and attractive tool to increase the sustainability of the weight loss reached during inpatient rehabilitation.
Content: Synopsis The Attitudes toward Rape Victims Scale: Psychometric Data from 14 Countries Scale Construction and Validation - Study One: Preliminary Analyses - Study Two: Test-Retest Reliability - Study Three: Construct Validity Cross-cultural Extensions - United States - United Kingdom - Germany - New Zealand - Canada - West Indies - Israel - Turkey - India - Hong Kong - Malaysia - Zimbabwe - Mexico - Metric Equivalence Discussion
Im Rahmen eines explorativen Vergleichsuntersuchungsplans wurde untersucht, inwieweit sich die durch biologische Faktoren bedingte unterschiedliche Lebenserfahrung sowie die Sozialisationsbedingungen in der psychosexuellen Entwicklung bei hetero-, homo- und postoperativen transsexuellen Männern (N = 191) auf die Integration der Geschlechterstereotypen in die kognitiven (Selbst-, Fremdwahrnehmung), emotionalen (Selbst- und Fremdbewertung) und verhaltensmäßigen Aspekte (Normen der geschlechtsspezifischen Verhaltens) der Geschlechtsidentität auswirken und ob sich Identifikationsmuster der Entwicklung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts ableiten lassen. Die Messung der kognitiven Aspekte des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts (Maskulinität und Femininität) erfolgte mittels der GERO-Skala von Brengelmann und Hendrich (1990). Zur Erfassung der emotionalen Aspekte und Identifikationsmuster der Entwicklung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts wurden die Werte für die Variablen Maskulinität und Femininität zuerst mittels der computergesteuerten Methodik IDEXMONO und IDEXIDIO, die auf der Identitätsstrukturanalyse (Identity Structure Analysis) von Weinreich (2003) basiert, aufgearbeitet und weiter interferenzstatistisch ausgewertet. Weiterhin wurden der Fragebogen zur Messung normativer Geschlechtsrollenorientierung (NGRO) von Athenstaedt (2000) sowie ein ad hoc entworfener demographischer Fragebogen eingesetzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Verlauf der psychosexuellen Entwicklung einen starken Einfluss auf die Integration der Geschlechterstereotypen in die geschlechtliche Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung hat. Im kognitiven Bereich, bezogen auf die persönliche Identität (Grad der Selbstzuschreibung männlicher und weiblicher Merkmale), stellt die Maskulinität eine stabile und erstrebenswerte Variable zur Herausbildung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts bei allen Gruppen dar. Die Femininität trägt am meisten zur Differenzierung zwischen den Hetero-, Homo- und Transsexuellen bei. Sie wird, je nach der Entwicklungsphase, unterschiedlich in das geschlechtliche Selbstkonzept integriert. Hinsichtlich der sozialen Identität (Zugehörigkeitsgefühl) lassen sich die Gruppen bezüglich der wahrgenommenen Ähnlichkeiten sowohl mit männlichen als auch weiblichen Personen, je nach der Entwicklungsphase, unterscheiden. Die soziale Wahrnehmung von Männern und Frauen (Fremdwahrnehmung), ist bei Transsexuellen traditioneller als die der Hetero- und Homosexuellen. Bei der Selbst- und Fremdbewertung ergaben sich keine signifikanten Unterschiede. Bei der Internalisierung der sozialen Normen des geschlechtsspezifischen Verhaltens zeigt sich, dass Heterosexuelle der Ausübung der Geschlechterrollen gegenüber egalitärer eingestellt sind als Trans- und Homosexuelle. Bei den Sozialisationsfaktoren ist hervorzuheben, dass generell weibliche Identifikationspersonen einen stärkeren Einfluss auf die Herausbildung des geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzeptes hatten als männliche Identifikationspersonen. Es scheint jedoch, dass Homosexuelle bei der Entwicklung ihres geschlechtlichen Selbstkonzepts stärker unter dem Einfluss der Frauen stehen als die anderen zwei erforschten Gruppen. Zur Beantwortung der Frage, welche selbstkonzeptbezogenen Variablen und Entwicklungsfaktoren die größte statistische Bedeutung für die Trennung und Prädiktion der einzelnen untersuchten Gruppen haben, wurde eine Diskriminanzanalyse berechnet. Die größte diskriminatorische Bedeutung besitzen die Variablen „Stereotypische Wahrnehmung der männlichen Personen“ und „Ego-Involvement mit weiblichen Personen“ für die Diskriminanzfunktion 1 (Trennung der Transsexuellen von Hetero- und Homosexuellen) und die Variablen „Empathische Identifikation mit männlichen Personen in der Vergangenheit“ und „Zuwachs an empathischer Identifikation mit weiblichen Personen“ für die Diskriminanzfunktion 2 (Trennung der Hetero- von Homosexuellen).
The limited capacity of working memory forces people to update its contents continuously. Two aspects of the updating process were investigated in the present experimental series. The first series concerned the question if it is possible to update several representations in parallel. Similar results were obtained for the updating of object features as well as for the updating of whole objects, participants were able to update representations in parallel. The second experimental series addressed the question if working memory representations which were replaced in an updating disappear directly or interfere with the new representations. Evidence for the existence of old representations was found under working memory conditions and under conditions exceeding working memory capacity. These results contradict the hypothesis that working memory contents are protected from proactive interference of long-term memory contents.
Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) is an increasingly popular training method and has become the focus of research in recent years. New EMS devices offer a wide range of mobile applications for whole-body EMS (WB-EMS) training, e.g., the intensification of dynamic low-intensity endurance exercises through WB-EMS. The present study aimed to determine the differences in exercise intensity between WB-EMS-superimposed and conventional walking (EMS-CW), and CON and WB-EMS-superimposed Nordic walking (WB-EMS-NW) during a treadmill test. Eleven participants (52.0 ± years; 85.9 ± 7.4 kg, 182 ± 6 cm, BMI 25.9 ± 2.2 kg/m2) performed a 10 min treadmill test at a given velocity (6.5 km/h) in four different test situations, walking (W) and Nordic walking (NW) in both conventional and WB-EMS superimposed. Oxygen uptake in absolute (VO2) and relative to body weight (rel. VO2), lactate, and the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured before and after the test. WB-EMS intensity was adjusted individually according to the feedback of the participant. The descriptive statistics were given in mean ± SD. For the statistical analyses, one-factorial ANOVA for repeated measures and two-factorial ANOVA [factors include EMS, W/NW, and factor combination (EMS*W/NW)] were performed (α = 0.05). Significant effects were found for EMS and W/NW factors for the outcome variables VO2 (EMS: p = 0.006, r = 0.736; W/NW: p < 0.001, r = 0.870), relative VO2 (EMS: p < 0.001, r = 0.850; W/NW: p < 0.001, r = 0.937), and lactate (EMS: p = 0.003, r = 0.771; w/NW: p = 0.003, r = 0.764) and both the factors produced higher results. However, the difference in VO2 and relative VO2 is within the range of biological variability of ± 12%. The factor combination EMS*W/NW is statistically non-significant for all three variables. WB-EMS resulted in the higher RPE values (p = 0.035, r = 0.613), RPE differences for W/NW and EMS*W/NW were not significant. The current study results indicate that WB-EMS influences the parameters of exercise intensity. The impact on exercise intensity and the clinical relevance of WB-EMS-superimposed walking (WB-EMS-W) exercise is questionable because of the marginal differences in the outcome variables.
Recent research suggests that the P3b may be closely related to the activation of the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system. To further study the potential association, we applied a novel technique, the non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), which is speculated to increase noradrenaline levels. Using a within-subject cross-over design, 20 healthy participants received continuous tVNS and sham stimulation on two consecutive days (stimulation counterbalanced across participants) while performing a visual oddball task. During stimulation, oval non-targets (standard), normal-head (easy) and rotated-head (difficult) targets, as well as novel stimuli (scenes) were presented. As an indirect marker of noradrenergic activation we also collected salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) before and after stimulation. Results showed larger P3b amplitudes for target, relative to standard stimuli, irrespective of stimulation condition. Exploratory post hoc analyses, however, revealed that, in comparison to standard stimuli, easy (but not difficult) targets produced larger P3b (but not P3a) amplitudes during active tVNS, compared to sham stimulation. For sAA levels, although main analyses did not show differential effects of stimulation, direct testing revealed that tVNS (but not sham stimulation) increased sAA levels after stimulation. Additionally, larger differences between tVNS and sham stimulation in P3b magnitudes for easy targets were associated with larger increase in sAA levels after tVNS, but not after sham stimulation. Despite preliminary evidence for a modulatory influence of tVNS on the P3b, which may be partly mediated by activation of the noradrenergic system, additional research in this field is clearly warranted. Future studies need to clarify whether tVNS also facilitates other processes, such as learning and memory, and whether tVNS can be used as therapeutic tool.
It has frequently been observed that single emotional events are not only more efficiently processed, but also better remembered, and form longer-lasting memory traces than neutral material. However, when emotional information is perceived as a part of a complex event, such as in the context of or in relation to other events and/or source details, the modulatory effects of emotion are less clear. The present work aims to investigate how emotional, contextual source information modulates the initial encoding and subsequent long-term retrieval of associated neutral material (item memory) and contextual source details (contextual source memory). To do so, a two-task experiment was used, consisting of an incidental encoding task in which neutral objects were displayed over different contextual background scenes which varied in emotional content (unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral), and a delayed retrieval task (1 week), in which previously-encoded objects and new ones were presented. In a series of studies, behavioral indices (Studies 2, 3, and 5), event-related potentials (ERPs; Studies 1-4), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Study 5) were used to investigate whether emotional contexts can rapidly tune the visual processing of associated neutral information (Study 1) and modulate long-term item memory (Study 2), how different recognition memory processes (familiarity vs. recollection) contribute to these emotion effects on item and contextual source memory (Study 3), whether the emotional effects of item memory can also be observed during spontaneous retrieval (Sstudy 4), and which brain regions underpin the modulatory effects of emotional contexts on item and contextual source memory (Study 5). In Study 1, it was observed that emotional contexts by means of emotional associative learning, can rapidly alter the processing of associated neutral information. Neutral items associated with emotional contexts (i.e. emotional associates) compared to neutral ones, showed enhanced perceptual and more elaborate processing after one single pairing, as indexed by larger amplitudes in the P100 and LPP components, respectively. Study 2 showed that emotional contexts produce longer-lasting memory effects, as evidenced by better item memory performance and larger ERP Old/New differences for emotional associates. In Study 3, a mnemonic differentiation was observed between item and contextual source memory which was modulated by emotion. Item memory was driven by familiarity, independently of emotional contexts during encoding, whereas contextual source memory was driven by recollection, and better for emotional material. As in Study 2, enhancing effects of emotional contexts for item memory were observed in ERPs associated with recollection processes. Likewise, for contextual source memory, a pronounced recollection-related ERP enhancement was observed for exclusively emotional contexts. Study 4 showed that the long-term recollection enhancement of emotional contexts on item memory can be observed even when retrieval is not explicitly attempted, as measured with ERPs, suggesting that the emotion enhancing effects on memory are not related to the task embedded during recognition, but to the motivational relevance of the triggering event. In Study 5, it was observed that enhancing effects of emotional contexts on item and contextual source memory involve stronger engagement of the brain's regions which are associated with memory recollection, including areas of the medial temporal lobe, posterior parietal cortex, and prefrontal cortex.
Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional contexts rapidly modulate the initial processing of associated neutral information and the subsequent, long-term item and contextual source memories. The enhanced memory effects of emotional contexts are strongly supported by recollection rather than familiarity processes, and are shown to be triggered when retrieval is both explicitly and spontaneously attempted. These results provide new insights into the modulatory role of emotional information on the visual processing and the long-term recognition memory of complex events. The present findings are integrated into the current theoretical models and future ventures are discussed.
It has recently been demonstrated that the presentation of a rare target in a visual oddball paradigm induces a prolonged inhibition of microsaccades. In the field of electrophysiology, the amplitude of the P300 component in event-related potentials (ERP) has been shown to be sensitive to the stimulus category (target vs. non target) of the eliciting stimulus, its overall probability, and the preceding stimulus sequence. In the present study we further specify the functional underpinnings of the prolonged microsaccadic inhibition in the visual oddball task, showing that the stimulus category, the frequency of a stimulus and the preceding stimulus sequence influence microsaccade rate. Furthermore, by co-recording ERPs and eye-movements, we were able to demonstrate that, despite being largely sensitive to the same experimental manipulation, the amplitude of P300 and the microsaccadic inhibition predict each other very weakly, and thus constitute two independent measures of the brain’s response to rare targets in the visual oddball paradigm.
While previous research underscores the role of leaders in stimulating employee voice behaviour, comparatively little is known about what affects leaders' support for such constructive but potentially threatening employee behaviours. We introduce leader member exchange quality (LMX) as a central predictor of leaders' support for employees' ideas for constructive change. Apart from a general benefit of high LMX for leaders' idea support, we propose that high LMX is particularly critical to leaders' idea support if the idea voiced by an employee constitutes a power threat to the leader. We investigate leaders' attribution of prosocial and egoistic employee intentions as mediators of these effects. Hypotheses were tested in a quasi-experimental vignette study (N = 160), in which leaders evaluated a simulated employee idea, and a field study (N = 133), in which leaders evaluated an idea that had been voiced to them at work. Results show an indirect effect of LMX on leaders' idea support via attributed prosocial intentions but not via attributed egoistic intentions, and a buffering effect of high LMX on the negative effect of power threat on leaders' idea support. Results differed across studies with regard to the main effect of LMX on idea support.
Researchers have made many approaches to study the complexities of the mammalian taste system; however molecular mechanisms of taste processing in the early structures of the central taste pathway remain unclear. More recently the Arc catFISH (cellular compartment analysis of temporal activity by fluorescent in situ hybridisation) method has been used in our lab to study neural activation following taste stimulation in the first central structure in the taste pathway, the nucleus of the solitary tract. This method uses the immediate early gene Arc as a neural activity marker to identify taste-responsive neurons. Arc plays a critical role in memory formation and is necessary for conditioned taste aversion memory formation. In the nucleus of the solitary tract only bitter taste stimulation resulted in increased Arc expression, however this did not occur following stimulation with tastants of any other taste quality. The primary target for gustatory NTS neurons is the parabrachial nucleus (PbN) and, like Arc, the PbN plays an important role in conditioned taste aversion learning.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate Arc expression in the PbN following taste stimulation to elucidate the molecular identity and function of Arc expressing, taste- responsive neurons. Naïve and taste-conditioned mice were stimulated with tastants from each of the five basic taste qualities (sweet, salty, sour, umami, and bitter), with additional bitter compounds included for comparison. The expression patterns of Arc and marker genes were analysed using in situ hybridisation (ISH). The Arc catFISH method was used to observe taste-responsive neurons following each taste stimulation. A double fluorescent in situ hybridisation protocol was then established to investigate possible neuropeptide genes involved in neural responses to taste stimulation.
The results showed that bitter taste stimulation induces increased Arc expression in the PbN in naïve mice. This was not true for other taste qualities. In mice conditioned to find an umami tastant aversive, subsequent umami taste stimulation resulted in an increase in Arc expression similar to that seen in bitter-stimulated mice. Taste-responsive Arc expression was denser in the lateral PbN than the medial PbN. In mice that received two temporally separated taste stimulations, each stimulation time-point showed a distinct population of Arc-expressing neurons, with only a small population (10 – 18 %) of neurons responding to both stimulations. This suggests that either each stimulation event activates a different population of neurons, or that Arc is marking something other than simple cellular activation, such as long-term cellular changes that do not occur twice within a 25 minute time frame. Investigation using the newly established double-FISH protocol revealed that, of the bitter-responsive Arc expressing neuron population: 16 % co-expressed calcitonin RNA; 17 % co-expressed glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor RNA; 17 % co-expressed hypocretin receptor 1 RNA; 9 % co-expressed gastrin-releasing peptide RNA; and 20 % co-expressed neurotensin RNA. This co-expression with multiple different neuropeptides suggests that bitter-activated Arc expression mediates multiple neural responses to the taste event, such as taste aversion learning, suppression of food intake, increased heart rate, and involves multiple brain structures such as the lateral hypothalamus, amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the thalamus.
The increase in Arc-expression suggests that bitter taste stimulation, and umami taste stimulation in umami-averse animals, may result in an enhanced state of Arc- dependent synaptic plasticity in the PbN, allowing animals to form taste-relevant memories to these aversive compounds more readily. The results investigating neuropeptide RNA co- expression suggest the amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and thalamus as possible targets for bitter-responsive Arc-expressing PbN neurons.
Eye movements are a powerful tool to examine cognitive processes. However, in most paradigms little is known about the dynamics present in sequences of saccades and fixations. In particular, the control of fixation durations has been widely neglected in most tasks. As a notable exception, both spatial and temporal aspects of eye-movement control have been thoroughly investigated during reading. There, the scientific discourse was dominated by three controversies, (i), the role of oculomotor vs. cognitive processing on eye-movement control, (ii) the serial vs. parallel processing of words, and, (iii), the control of fixation durations. The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate eye movements in tasks that require sequences of fixations and saccades. While reading phenomena served as a starting point, we examined eye guidance in non-reading tasks with the aim to identify general principles of eye-movement control. In addition, the investigation of eye movements in non-reading tasks helped refine our knowledge about eye-movement control during reading. Our approach included the investigation of eye movements in non-reading experiments as well as the evaluation and development of computational models. I present three main results : First, oculomotor phenomena during reading can also be observed in non-reading tasks (Chapter 2 & 4). Oculomotor processes determine the fixation position within an object. The fixation position, in turn, modulates both the next saccade target and the current fixation duration. Second, predicitions of eye-movement models based on sequential attention shifts were falsified (Chapter 3). In fact, our results suggest that distributed processing of multiple objects forms the basis of eye-movement control. Third, fixation durations are under asymmetric control (Chapter 4). While increasing processing demands immediately prolong fixation durations, decreasing processing demands reduce fixation durations only with a temporal delay. We propose a computational model ICAT to account for asymmetric control. In this model, an autonomous timer initiates saccades after random time intervals independent of ongoing processing. However, processing demands that are higher than expected inhibit the execution of the next saccade and, thereby, prolong the current fixation. On the other hand, lower processing demands will not affect the duration before the next saccade is executed. Since the autonomous timer adjusts to expected processing demands from fixation to fixation, a decrease in processing demands may lead to a temporally delayed reduction of fixation durations. In an extended version of ICAT, we evaluated its performance while simulating both temporal and spatial aspects of eye-movement control. The eye-movement phenomena investigated in this thesis have now been observed in a number of different tasks, which suggests that they represent general principles of eye guidance. I propose that distributed processing of the visual input forms the basis of eye-movement control, while fixation durations are controlled by the principles outlined in ICAT. In addition, oculomotor control contributes considerably to the variability observed in eye movements. Interpretations for the relation between eye movements and cognition strongly benefit from a precise understanding of this interplay.
The link between cognitive scripts for consensual sexual interactions and attitudes towards sexual coercion was studied in 524 Polish high school students. We proposed that risky sexual scripts, containing risk elements linked to sexual aggression, would be associated with attitudes condoning sexual coercion. Pornography use and religiosity were included as predictors of participants’ risky sexual scripts and attitudes towards sexual coercion. Risky sexual scripts were linked to attitudes condoning sexual coercion. Pornography use was indirectly linked to attitudes condoning sexual coercion via risky sexual scripts. Religiosity showed a positive direct link with attitudes towards sexual coercion, but a negative indirect link through risky sexual scripts. The results are discussed regarding the significance of risky sexual scripts, pornography use, and religiosity in understanding attitudes towards sexual coercion as well as their implications for preventing sexually aggressive behaviour.
We investigated the role of training-induced knowledge Schemas and encoding time on adult age differences in recall. High-plausible (schema coherent) words were recalled better than lowplausible (schema discrepant) words in both age groups. This difference was larger for old-adults than for young adults for presentation times ranging from 3 s to 11 s per word. After equating participants in overall recall (i.e., at 50% correct) by dynamic adjustment of presentation time, old adults again showed a stronger plausibility effect than young adults when recall was above criterion. In a second experiment with self-paced encoding, old adults used more time than young adults only for low-plausible pairs, yet they still remembered fewer of them. In a third experiment, both age groups preferred to imagine high- rather than low-plausible words, but this effect was more pronounced in old adults. The results indicate that, compared with young adults, old adults find it particularly difficult to form elaborative mental images of schema-discrepant information under a wide variety of time constraints during encoding. Results are discussed in relation to explanations based on age-related mental slowing.
In this paper we present an approach to recover the dynamics from recurrences of a system and then generate (multivariate) twin surrogate (TS) trajectories. In contrast to other approaches, such as the linear-like surrogates, this technique produces surrogates which correspond to an independent copy of the underlying system, i. e. they induce a trajectory of the underlying system visiting the attractor in a different way. We show that these surrogates are well suited to test for complex synchronization, which makes it possible to systematically assess the reliability of synchronization analyses. We then apply the TS to study binocular fixational movements and find strong indications that the fixational movements of the left and right eye are phase synchronized. This result indicates that there might be one centre only in the brain that produces the fixational movements in both eyes or a close link between two centres.
We present an approach to generate (multivariate) twin surrogates (TS) based on recurrence properties. This technique generates surrogates which correspond to an independent copy of the underlying system, i. e. they induce a trajectory of the underlying system starting at different initial conditions. We show that these surrogates are well suited to test for complex synchronisation and exemplify this for the paradigmatic system of R¨ossler oscillators. The proposed test enables to assess the statistical relevance of a synchronisation analysis from passive experiments which are typical in natural systems.
Justice structures societies and social relations of any kind; its psychological integration provides a fundamental cornerstone for social, moral, and personality development. The trait justice sensitivity captures individual differences in responses toward perceived injustice (JS; Schmitt et al., 2005, 2010). JS has shown substantial relations to social and moral behavior in adult and adolescent samples; however, it was not yet investigated in middle childhood despite this being a sensitive phase for personality development. JS differentiates in underlying perspectives that are either more self- or other-oriented regarding injustice, with diverging outcome relations. The present research project investigated JS and its perspectives in children aged 6 to 12 years with a special focus on variables of social and moral development as potential correlates and outcomes in four cross-sectional studies. Study 1 started with a closer investigation of JS trait manifestation, measurement, and relations to important variables from the nomological network, such as temperamental dimensions, social-cognitive skills, and global pro- and antisocial behavior in a pilot sample of children from south Germany. Study 2 investigated relations between JS and distributive behavior following distributive principles in a large-scale data set of children from Berlin and Brandenburg. Study 3 explored the relations of JS with moral reasoning, moral emotions, and moral identity as important precursors of moral development in the same large-scale data set. Study 4 investigated punishment motivation to even out, prevent, or compensate norm transgressions in a subsample, whereby JS was considered as a potential predictor of different punishment motives. All studies indicated that a large-scale, economic measurement of JS is possible at least from middle childhood onward. JS showed relations to temperamental dimensions, social skills, global social behavior; distributive decisions and preferences for distributive principles; moral reasoning, emotions, and identity; as well as with punishment motivation; indicating that trait JS is highly relevant for social and moral development. The underlying self- or other-oriented perspectives showed diverging correlate and outcome relations mostly in line with theory and previous findings from adolescent and adult samples, but also provided new theoretical ideas on the construct and its differentiation. Findings point to an early internal justice motive underlying trait JS, but additional motivations underlying the JS perspectives. Caregivers, educators, and clinical psychologists should pay attention to children’s JS and toward promoting an adaptive justice-related personality development to foster children’s prosocial and moral development as well as their mental health.
Intuitively, strongly constraining contexts should lead to stronger probabilistic representations of sentences in memory. Encountering unexpected words could therefore be expected to trigger costlier shifts in these representations than expected words. However, psycholinguistic measures commonly used to study probabilistic processing, such as the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, are sensitive to word predictability but not to contextual constraint. Some research suggests that constraint-related processing cost may be measurable via an ERP positivity following the N400, known as the anterior post-N400 positivity (PNP). The PNP is argued to reflect update of a sentence representation and to be distinct from the posterior P600, which reflects conflict detection and reanalysis. However, constraint-related PNP findings are inconsistent. We sought to conceptually replicate Federmeier et al. (2007) and Kuperberg et al. (2020), who observed that the PNP, but not the N400 or the P600, was affected by constraint at unexpected but plausible words. Using a pre-registered design and statistical approach maximising power, we demonstrated a dissociated effect of predictability and constraint: strong evidence for predictability but not constraint in the N400 window, and strong evidence for constraint but not predictability in the later window. However, the constraint effect was consistent with a P600 and not a PNP, suggesting increased conflict between a strong representation and unexpected input rather than greater update of the representation. We conclude that either a simple strong/weak constraint design is not always sufficient to elicit the PNP, or that previous PNP constraint findings could be an artifact of smaller sample size.
In einer Längsschnittstudie mit 215 Schülern der achten Klasse wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen selbstgesteuertem Lernen, motivationalen (Zielorientierungen, Selbstwirksamkeit, schulischer Affekt) und kognitiven Variablen (Intelligenz) sowie Leistungsindikatoren (Schulleistung, Noten) erhoben. Selbstgesteuertes Lernen wurde mit Hilfe eines strukturierten Interviews (Zimmerman, 1986) und eines Lernstrategie-Fragebogens erfasst. Zum einen zeigte sich, dass die Lernstrategie-Angaben im Interview und im Fragebogen in keiner bedeutsamen Beziehung zueinander standen. Zum anderen ergaben sich deutliche Unterschiede in der Vorhersage der Leistungsindikatoren. Die per Interview erfassten Lernstrategien besaßen sowohl Vorhersagekraft bezüglich Schulnoten und Schulleistung und zeigten signifikante Zusammenhänge zu den individuellen Zielorientierungen, dem schulischen Affekt und der Selbstwirksamkeit. Darüber hinaus konnten Leistungsveränderungen von der achten zur neunten Klasse vorhergesagt werden. Der parallel eingesetzte Lernstrategie-Fragebogen leistete im Vergleich dazu keine Erklärung der Leistungsvarianz. Implikationen für die Diagnostik selbstgesteuerten Lernens werden diskutiert.
The present study investigated the attribution of responsibility to victims and perpetrators in rape compared to robbery cases in Turkey. Each participant read three short case scenarios (vignettes) and completed items pertaining to the female victim and male perpetrator. The vignettes were systematically varied with regard to the type of crime that was committed (rape or robbery), the perpetrator’s coercive strategy (physical force or exploiting the victim’s alcohol-induced defenselessness), and the victim-perpetrator relationship prior to the incident (stranger, acquaintance, or ex-partner). Furthermore, participant gender and acceptance of rape myths (beliefs that justify or trivialize sexual violence) were taken into account. One half of the participants completed the rape myth acceptance (RMA) scales first and then received the vignettes, while the other half were given the vignettes first and then completed the RMA scales.
As expected, more blame was attributed to victims of rape than to victims of robbery. Conversely, perpetrators of rape were blamed less than perpetrators of robbery. The more participants endorsed rape myths, the more blame was attributed to the victim and the less blame was attributed to the perpetrators. Increasing levels of RMA were associated with an increase in victim blame (VB) in both rape and robbery cases, but the increase in rape VB was significantly more pronounced than in robbery VB. Increasing RMA was associated with an attenuation of perpetrator blame (PB) that was more pronounced for rape than for robbery cases, but the difference was not significant. As expected, victims of rape were blamed more when the perpetrator exploited their defenselessness due to alcohol intoxication than when they were overpowered by physical force. Contrary to the hypothesis, this was also true for robbery victims. Rape victims who knew their attacker (ex-partner or acquaintance) were blamed more than victims who were assaulted by strangers. Contrary to the hypothesis, robbery victims who were assaulted by an ex-partner were blamed more than acquaintance or stranger robbery victims. As predicted, the closer the relationship between victim and perpetrator, the less blame was attributed to perpetrators of rape while this factor had no effect on PB in robbery cases.
Men compared to women attributed more blame to the victims and less blame to the perpetrators. As expected, these gender differences in blame attributions were partially mediated by gender differences in RMA: After RMA was taken into account, the gender differences disappeared nearly completely for VB and were significantly reduced in PB. The order of presentation of the vignettes and the RMA measures was systematically varied to test the causal influence of RMA on rape blame attributions. The hypothesis that RMA causes VB and PB in rape cases (as opposed to the other way around or both are caused by a third variable) was not supported. Possible reasons for this failed manipulation and its implications for the mediation model are discussed.
With regard to blame attribution in rape cases, the present results match what was expected from previous studies which were mainly conducted in “Western” countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, or Germany. The present results support the notion that the victim-perpetrator relationship and the victim’s alcohol consumption are cross-culturally stable factors for blame attribution in rape cases. It was expected that blame attribution in robbery cases would be unaffected by the perpetrator’s coercive strategy and the victim-perpetrator relationship, but the results were inconsistent.
One unexpected effect is particularly noteworthy: When the perpetrator used physical force, more blame was attributed to rape than to robbery victims, but intoxicated victims were blamed more and almost equally so for both types of crime. Perpetrators who exploited drunk victims were blamed less in both rape and robbery cases. These results contradict German results collected with the German version of the same instruments (Bieneck & Krahé, 2011). Turkey is a Muslim country and alcohol is surrounded by a certain taboo. Possibly, the results reflect a cultural difference in that intoxicated victims are generally blamed more for their victimization and this factor is not limited to rape cases.
A growing body of research has demonstrated negative effects of sexualization in the media on adolescents' body image, but longitudinal studies and research including interactive and social media are scarce. The current study explored the longitudinal associations of adolescents' use of sexualized video games (SVG) and sexualized Instagram images (SII) with body image concerns. Specifically, our study examined relations between adolescents' SVG and SII use and appearance comparisons, thin- and muscular-ideal internalization, valuing appearance over competence, and body surveillance. A sample of 660 German adolescents (327 female, 333 male;M-age = 15.09 years) participated in two waves with an interval of 6 months. A structural equation model showed that SVG and SII use at Time 1 predicted body surveillance indirectly via valuing appearance over competence at Time 2. Furthermore, SVG and SII use indirectly predicted both thin- and muscular-ideal internalization through appearance comparisons at Time 1. In turn, thin-ideal internalization at Time 1 predicted body surveillance indirectly via valuing appearance over competence at Time 2. The results indicate that sexualization in video games and on Instagram can play an important role in increasing body image concerns among adolescents. We discuss the findings with respect to objectification theory and the predictive value of including appearance comparisons in models explaining the relation between sexualized media and self-objectification.
Background: A growing body of research has documented negative effects of sexualization in the media on individuals’ self-objectification. This research is predominantly built on studies examining traditional media, such as magazines and television, and young female samples. Furthermore, longitudinal studies are scarce, and research is missing studying mediators of the relationship. The first aim of the present PhD thesis was to investigate the relations between the use of sexualized interactive media and social media and self-objectification. The second aim of this work was to examine the presumed processes within understudied samples, such as males and females beyond college age, thus investigating the moderating roles of age and gender. The third aim was to shed light on possible mediators of the relation between sexualized media and self-objectification.
Method: The research aims were addressed within the scope of four studies. In an experiment, women’s self-objectification and body satisfaction was measured after playing a video game with a sexualized vs. a nonsexualized character that was either personalized or generic. The second study investigated the cross-sectional link between sexualized television use and self-objectification and consideration of cosmetic surgery in a sample of women across a broad age spectrum, examining the role of age in the relations. The third study looked at the cross-sectional link between male and female sexualized images on Instagram and their associations with self-objectification among a sample of male and female adolescents. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, the fourth study examined sexualized video game and Instagram use as predictors of adolescents’ self-objectification. Path models were conceptualized for the second, third and fourth study, in which media use predicted body surveillance via appearance comparisons (Study 4), thin-ideal internalization (Study 2, 3, 4), muscular-ideal internalization (Study 3, 4), and valuing appearance (all studies).
Results: The results of the experimental study revealed no effect of sexualized video game characters on women’s self-objectification and body satisfaction. No moderating effect of personalization emerged. Sexualized television use was associated to consideration of cosmetic surgery via body surveillance and valuing appearance for women of all ages in Study 2, while no moderating effect of age was found. Study 3 revealed that seeing sexualized male images on Instagram was indirectly associated with higher body surveillance via muscular-ideal internalization for boys and girls. Sexualized female images were indirectly linked to higher body surveillance via thin-ideal internalization and valuing appearance over competence only for girls. The longitudinal analysis of Study 4 showed no moderating effect of gender: For boys and girls, sexualized video game use at T1 predicted body surveillance at T2 via appearance comparisons, thin-ideal internalization and valuing appearance over competence. Furthermore, the use of sexualized Instagram images at T1 predicted body surveillance at T2 via valuing appearance.
Conclusion: The findings show that sexualization in the media is linked to self-objectification among a variety of media formats and within diverse groups of people. While the longitudinal study indicates that sexualized media predict self-objectification over time, the experimental null findings warrant caution regarding this temporal order. The results demonstrate that several mediating variables might be involved in this link. Possible implications for research and practice, such as intervention programs and policy-making, are discussed.
Numbers are omnipresent in daily life. They vary in display format and in their meaning so that it does not seem self-evident that our brains process them more or less easily and flexibly. The present thesis addresses mental number representations in general, and specifically the impact of finger counting on mental number representations. Finger postures that result from finger counting experience are one of many ways to convey numerical information. They are, however, probably the one where the numerical content becomes most tangible. By investigating the role of fingers in adults’ mental number representations the four presented studies also tested the Embodied Cognition hypothesis which predicts that bodily experience (e.g., finger counting) during concept acquisition (e.g., number concepts) stays an immanent part of these concepts. The studies focussed on different aspects of finger counting experience. First, consistency and further details of spontaneously used finger configurations were investigated when participants repeatedly produced finger postures according to specific numbers (Study 1). Furthermore, finger counting postures (Study 2), different finger configurations (Study 2 and 4), finger movements (Study 3), and tactile finger perception (Study 4) were investigated regarding their capability to affect number processing. Results indicated that active production of finger counting postures and single finger movements as well as passive perception of tactile stimulation of specific fingers co-activated associated number knowledge and facilitated responses towards corresponding magnitudes and number symbols. Overall, finger counting experience was reflected in specific effects in mental number processing of adult participants. This indicates that finger counting experience is an immanent part of mental number representations.
Findings are discussed in the light of a novel model. The MASC (Model of Analogue and Symbolic Codes) combines and extends two established models of number and magnitude processing. Especially a symbolic motor code is introduced as an essential part of the model. It comprises canonical finger postures (i.e., postures that are habitually used to represent numbers) and finger-number associations. The present findings indicate that finger counting functions both as a sensorimotor magnitude and as a symbolic representational format and that it thereby directly mediates between physical and symbolic size. The implications are relevant both for basic research regarding mental number representations and for pedagogic practices regarding the effectiveness of finger counting as a means to acquire a fundamental grasp of numbers.
To investigate the relationship between implicit psychological hypotheses and explicit empirical findings, summaries of twenty published studies on attitude-behaviour consistency were presented to a sample of forty-eight psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to estimate the percentage of agreement between attitudes and behaviour obtained by each study. Correlations between subjects' covariation judgements and empirically obtained attitude-behaviour consistencies were minimal and nonsignificant. Results are discussed in the light of more recent research on attitudebehaviour relationship.
Defensiv-externe Kontrollüberzeugungen bei der Attribution von Leistungs- und Sozialverhalten
(1980)
The traditional dichotomy of internal vs. external locus of control is substituted by the more recent distinction between internals, congruent externals, and defensive externals. While internals and congruent externals are predicted to make causal attributions of other persons' performance in accordance with their locus of control irrespective of the nature of the outcome (success vs. failure in achievement situations, positive vs. negative experience in social contacts), defensive externals are expected to vary their causal attributions as a function of outcome. Personal relevance attached to achievement and social contact is included as an additional variable. The presumed correspondence between locus of control and causal attribution - as derived from the conceptualization of locus of control as a personality variable - is not confirmed by our data. The differences expected between the three groups are demonstrated only for achievement-related items. Personal relevance does not significantly modify the relationship between locus of control and causal attribution.
This paper presents a new methodology for examining the phenomenon of subitizing. Subjects were presented with a standard numerosity-detection task but for a range of presentation times to allow Task-Accuracy Functions to be computed for individual subjects. The data appear to show a continuous change in processing for numerosities from 2 to 5 when the data are aggregated across subjects. At the level of individual subjects, there appear to be qualitative shifts in enumeration processing after 3 or 4 objects. The approach used in this experiment may be used to test the claim that subitizing is a distinct enumeration process that can be used for small numbers of objects.
Magnitude estimation has been studied since the beginnings of scientific psychology and constitutes a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Yet, it has apparently never been noticed that estimates depend on the spatial arrangement used. We tested 167 adults in three experiments to show that the spatial layout of stimuli and responses systematically distorts number estimation, length production, and weight reproduction performance. The direction of distortion depends on the observer's counting habits, but does not seem to reflect the use of spatially associated number concepts. Our results imply that all quantitative estimates are contaminated by a "spell of space" whenever stimuli or responses are spatially distributed.
Skilled reading requires information processing of the fixated and the not-yet-fixated words to generate precise control of gaze. Over the last 30 years, experimental research provided evidence that word processing is distributed across the perceptual span, which permits recognition of the fixated (foveal) word as well as preview of parafoveal words to the right of fixation. However, theoretical models have been unable to differentiate the specific influences of foveal and parafoveal information on saccade control. Here we show how parafoveal word difficulty modulates spatial and temporal control of gaze in a computational model to reproduce experimental results. In a fully Bayesian framework, we estimated model parameters for different models of parafoveal processing and carried out large-scale predictive simulations and model comparisons for a gaze-contingent reading experiment. We conclude that mathematical modeling of data from gaze-contingent experiments permits the precise identification of pathways from parafoveal information processing to gaze control, uncovering potential mechanisms underlying the parafoveal contribution to eye-movement control.
During sentence reading the eyes quickly jump from word to word to sample visual information with the high acuity of the fovea. Lexical properties of the currently fixated word are known to affect the duration of the fixation, reflecting an interaction of word processing with oculomotor planning. While low level properties of words in the parafovea can likewise affect the current fixation duration, results concerning the influence of lexical properties have been ambiguous (Drieghe, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2008; Kliegl, Nuthmann, & Engbert, 2006). Experimental investigations of such lexical parafoveal-on-foveal effects using the boundary paradigm have instead shown, that lexical properties of parafoveal previews affect fixation durations on the upcoming target words (Risse & Kliegl, 2014). However, the results were potentially confounded with effects of preview validity.
The notion of parafoveal processing of lexical information challenges extant models of eye movements during reading. Models containing serial word processing assumptions have trouble explaining such effects, as they usually couple successful word processing to saccade planning, resulting in skipping of the parafoveal word. Although models with parallel word processing are less restricted, in the SWIFT model (Engbert, Longtin, & Kliegl, 2002) only processing of the foveal word can directly influence the saccade latency.
Here we combine the results of a boundary experiment (Chapter 2) with a predictive modeling approach using the SWIFT model, where we explore mechanisms of parafoveal inhibition in a simulation study (Chapter 4). We construct a likelihood function for the SWIFT model (Chapter 3) and utilize the experimental data in a Bayesian approach to parameter estimation (Chapter 3 & 4).
The experimental results show a substantial effect of parafoveal preview frequency on fixation durations on the target word, which can be clearly distinguished from the effect of preview validity. Using the eye movement data from the participants, we demonstrate the feasibility of the Bayesian approach even for a small set of estimated parameters, by comparing summary statistics of experimental and simulated data. Finally, we can show that the SWIFT model can account for the lexical preview effects, when a mechanism for parafoveal inhibition is added. The effects of preview validity were modeled best, when processing dependent saccade cancellation was added for invalid trials. In the simulation study only the control condition of the experiment was used for parameter estimation, allowing for cross validation. Simultaneously the number of free parameters was increased. High correlations of summary statistics demonstrate the capabilities of the parameter estimation approach. Taken together, the results advocate for a better integration of experimental data into computational modeling via parameter estimation.
Changes in free symptom attributions in hypochondriasis after cognitive therapy and exposure therapy
(2016)
Background: Cognitive-behavioural therapy can change dysfunctional symptom attributions in patients with hypochondriasis. Past research has used forced-choice answer formats, such as questionnaires, to assess these misattributions; however, with this approach, idiosyncratic attributions cannot be assessed. Free associations are an important complement to existing approaches that assess symptom attributions. Aims: With this study, we contribute to the current literature by using an open-response instrument to investigate changes in freely associated attributions after exposure therapy (ET) and cognitive therapy (CT) compared with a wait list (WL). Method: The current study is a re-examination of a formerly published randomized controlled trial (Weck, Neng, Richtberg, Jakob and Stangier, 2015) that investigated the effectiveness of CT and ET. Seventy-three patients with hypochondriasis were randomly assigned to CT, ET or a WL, and completed a 12-week treatment (or waiting period). Before and after the treatment or waiting period, patients completed an Attribution task in which they had to spontaneously attribute nine common bodily sensations to possible causes in an open-response format. Results: Compared with the WL, both CT and ET reduced the frequency of somatic attributions regarding severe diseases (CT: Hedges's g = 1.12; ET: Hedges's g = 1.03) and increased the frequency of normalizing attributions (CT: Hedges's g = 1.17; ET: Hedges's g = 1.24). Only CT changed the attributions regarding moderate diseases (Hedges's g = 0.69). Changes in somatic attributions regarding mild diseases and psychological attributions were not observed. Conclusions: Both CT and ET are effective for treating freely associated misattributions in patients with hypochondriasis. This study supplements research that used a forced-choice assessment.
Visual perception is a complex and dynamic process that plays a crucial role in how we perceive and interact with the world. The eyes move in a sequence of saccades and fixations, actively modulating perception by moving different parts of the visual world into focus. Eye movement behavior can therefore offer rich insights into the underlying cognitive mechanisms and decision processes. Computational models in combination with a rigorous statistical framework are critical for advancing our understanding in this field, facilitating the testing of theory-driven predictions and accounting for observed data. In this thesis, I investigate eye movement behavior through the development of two mechanistic, generative, and theory-driven models. The first model is based on experimental research regarding the distribution of attention, particularly around the time of a saccade, and explains statistical characteristics of scan paths. The second model implements a self-avoiding random walk within a confining potential to represent the microscopic fixational drift, which is present even while the eye is at rest, and investigates the relationship to microsaccades. Both models are implemented in a likelihood-based framework, which supports the use of data assimilation methods to perform Bayesian parameter inference at the level of individual participants, analyses of the marginal posteriors of the interpretable parameters, model comparisons, and posterior predictive checks. The application of these methods enables a thorough investigation of individual variability in the space of parameters. Results show that dynamical modeling and the data assimilation framework are highly suitable for eye movement research and, more generally, for cognitive modeling.
As research on sexual aggression has been growing, methodological issues in assessing prevalence rates have received increased attention. Building on work by Abbey and colleagues about effects of question format, participants in this study (1,253; 621 female; 632 male) were randomly assigned to one of two versions of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). In Version 1, the coercive tactic (use/threat of physical force, exploitation of the inability to resist, verbal pressure) was presented first, and sexual acts (sexual touch, attempted and completed sexual intercourse, other sexual acts) were presented as subsequent questions. In Version 2, sexual acts were presented first, and coercive tactics as subsequent questions. No version effects emerged for overall perpetration rates reported by men and women. The overall victimization rate across all items was significantly higher in the tactic-first than in the sexual-act-first conditions for women, but not for men. Classifying participants by their most severe experience of sexual victimization showed that fewer women were in the nonvictim category and more men were in the nonconsensual sexual contact category when the coercive tactic was presented first. Sexual experience background did not moderate the findings. The implications for the measurement of self-reported sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are discussed.
Sexual aggression is a problem among college students worldwide, and a growing body of research has identified variables associated with an increased risk of victimization and perpetration. Among these, sexuality-related cognitions, such as sexual scripts, sexual self-esteem, perceived realism of pornography, and acceptance of sexual coercion, play a major role. The current experimental study aimed to show that these cognitive risk factors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration are amenable to change, which is a critical condition for evidence-based intervention efforts. College students in Germany (N = 324) were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a treatment group designed to change participants' sexual scripts for consensual sex with regard to the role of alcohol consumption, casual sex, and ambiguous communication of sexual intentions as risk factors for sexual aggression (EG1), a treatment group designed to promote sexual self-esteem, challenge the perceived realism of pornography, and reduce the acceptance of sexual coercion (EG2), and a non-treatment control group (CG). Baseline (T1), post-experimental (T2), and follow-up (T3) measures were taken across an eight-week period. Sexual scripts contained fewer risk factors for sexual aggression in EG1 than in EG2 and CG at T3. Sexual self-esteem was enhanced in EG2 at T2 relative to the other two groups. Acceptance of sexual coercion was lower in EG2 than in EG1 and CG at T2 and T3. No effect was found for perceived realism of pornography. The findings are discussed in terms of targeting cognitive risk factors as a basis for intervention programs.
Although many studies have shown that victims of child abuse have an increased vulnerability to revictimization in intimate relationships, the underlying mechanisms are not yet sufficiently well understood. Therefore, this study aimed at examining this relationship for both sexual and physical forms of violence as well as investigating the potential mediating role of attitudes toward sexual and physical intimate partner violence (IPV). Also, the potential moderating role of gender was explored. Sexual and physical child abuse and IPV victimization in adulthood as well as attitudes toward the respective form of IPV were assessed among 716 participants (448 female) in an online survey. The path analyses showed that child sexual abuse was positively linked to sexual IPV victimization among both women and men, whereas child physical abuse was positively associated with physical IPV victimization among women only. Furthermore, the relationship between both forms of child abuse and IPV victimization was mediated through more supportive attitudes toward the respective forms of IPV, but only among men. This study provides novel insights regarding the links between sexual and physical child abuse and revictimization in adulthood, suggesting that supporting attitudes toward IPV may be seen as vulnerability factor for revictimization. The moderating role of gender is especially discussed.
In Turkey, there is a shortage of studies on the prevalence of sexual aggression among young adults. The present study examined sexual aggression victimization and perpetration since the age of 15 in a convenience sample of N = 1,376 college students (886 women) from four public universities in Ankara, Turkey. Prevalence rates for different coercive strategies, victim-perpetrator constellations, and sexual acts were measured with a Turkish version of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S). Overall, 77.6% of women and 65.5% of men reported at least one instance of sexual aggression victimization, and 28.9% of men and 14.2% of women reported at least one instance of sexual aggression perpetration. Prevalence rates of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration were highest for current or former partners, followed by acquaintances/friends and strangers. Alcohol was involved in a substantial proportion of the reported incidents. The findings are the first to provide systematic evidence on sexual aggression perpetration and victimization among college students in Turkey, including both women and men.
Sexual Aggression Victimization and Perpetration among Male and Female College Students in Chile
(2016)
Evidence on the prevalence of sexual aggression among college students is primarily based on studies from Western countries. In Chile, a South American country strongly influenced by the Catholic Church, little research on sexual aggression among college students is available. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine the prevalence of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration since the age of 14 (the legal age of consent) in a sample of male and female students aged between 18 and 29 years from five Chilean universities (N = 1135), to consider possible gender differences, and to study the extent to which alcohol was involved in the reported incidents of perpetration and victimization. Sexual aggression victimization and perpetration was measured with a Chilean Spanish version of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale (SAV-S), which includes three coercive strategies (use or threat of physical force, exploitation of an incapacitated state, and verbal pressure), three victim-perpetrator constellations (current or former partners, friends/acquaintances, and strangers), and four sexual acts (sexual touch, attempted sexual intercourse, completed sexual intercourse, and other sexual acts, such as oral sex). Overall, 51.9% of women and 48.0% of men reported at least one incident of sexual victimization, and 26.8% of men and 16.5% of women reported at least one incident of sexual aggression perpetration since the age of 14. For victimization, only few gender differences were found, but significantly more men than women reported sexual aggression perpetration. A large proportion of perpetrators also reported victimization experiences. Regarding victim-perpetrator relationship, sexual aggression victimization and perpetration were more common between persons who knew each other than between strangers. Alcohol use by the perpetrator, victim, or both was involved in many incidents of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration, particularly among strangers. The present data are the first to provide a systematic and detailed picture of sexual aggression among college students in Chile, including victimization and perpetration reports by both men and women and confirming the critical role of alcohol established in past research from Western countries.
Prevalence and Predictors of Sexual Aggression Victimization and Perpetration in Chile and Turkey
(2017)
Background: Although sexual aggression is recognized as a serious issue worldwide, the current knowledge base is primarily built on evidence from Western countries, particularly the U.S. For the present doctoral research, Chile and Turkey were selected based on theoretical considerations to examine the prevalence as well as predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration. The first aim of this research project was to systematically review the available evidence provided by past studies on this topic within each country. The second aim was to empirically study the prevalence of experiencing and engaging in sexual aggression since the age of consent among college students in Chile and Turkey. The third aim was to conduct cross-cultural analyses examining pathways to victimization and perpetration based on a two-wave longitudinal design.
Methods: This research adopted a gender-inclusive approach by considering men and women in both victim and perpetrator roles. For the systematic reviews, multiple-stage literature searches were performed, and based on a predefined set of eligibility criteria, 28 studies in Chile and 56 studies in Turkey were identified for inclusion. A two-wave longitudinal study was conducted to examine the prevalence and predictors of sexual aggression among male and female college students in Chile and Turkey. Self-reports of victimization and perpetration were assessed with a Chilean Spanish or Turkish version of the Sexual Aggression and Victimization Scale. Two path models were conceptualized in which participants’ risky sexual scripts for consensual sex, risky sexual behavior, sexual self-esteem, sexual assertiveness, and religiosity were assessed at T1 and used as predictors of sexual aggression victimization and perpetration at T2 in the following 12 months, mediated through past victimization or perpetration, respectively. The models differed in that sexual assertiveness was expected to serve different functions for victimization (refusal assertiveness negatively linked to victimization) and perpetration (initiation assertiveness positively linked to perpetration).
Results: Both systematic reviews revealed that victimization was addressed by all included studies, but data on perpetration was severely limited. A great heterogeneity not only in victimization rates but also in predictors was found, which may be attributed to a lack of conceptual and methodological consistency across studies. The empirical analysis of the prevalence of sexual aggression in Chile revealed a victimization rate of 51.9% for women and 48.0% for men, and a perpetration rate of 26.8% for men and 16.5% for women. In the Turkish original data, victimization was reported by 77.6% of women and 65.5% of men, whereas, again, lower rates were found for perpetration, with 28.9% of men and 14.2% of women reporting at least one incident. The cross-cultural analyses showed, as expected, that risky sexual scripts informed risky sexual behavior, and thereby indirectly increased the likelihood of victimization and perpetration at T2 in both samples. More risky sexual scripts were also linked to lower levels of refusal assertiveness in both samples, indirectly increasing the vulnerability to victimization at T2. High sexual self-esteem decreased the probability of victimization at T2 through higher refusal assertiveness as well as through less risky sexual behavior also in both samples, whereas it increased the odds of perpetration at T2 via higher initiation assertiveness in the Turkish sample only. Furthermore, high religiosity decreased the odds of perpetration and victimization at T2 through less risky sexual scripts and less risky sexual behavior in both samples. It reduced the vulnerability to victimization through less risky sexual scripts and higher refusal assertiveness in the Chilean sample only. In the Turkish sample only, it increased the odds of perpetration and victimization through lower sexual self-esteem.
Conclusions: The findings showed that sexual aggression is a widespread problem in both Chile and Turkey, contributing cross-cultural evidence to the international knowledge base and indicating the clear need for implementing policy measures and prevention strategies in each country. Based on the results of the prospective analyses, concrete implications for intervention efforts are discussed.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) both are rare genetic neuromuscular diseases with progressive loss of motor ability. The neuromotor developmental course of those diseases is well documented. In contrast, there is only little evidence about characteristics of general and specific cognitive development. In both conditions the final motor outcome is characterized by an inability to move autonomously: children with SMA never accomplish independent motoric exploration of their environment, while children with DMD do but later lose this ability again. These profound differences in developmental pathways might affect cognitive development of SMA vs. DMD children, as cognition is shaped by individual motor experiences. DMD patients show impaired executive functions, working memory, and verbal IQ, whereas only motor ability seems to be impaired in SMA. Advanced cognitive capacity in SMA may serve as a compensatory mechanism for achieving in education, career progression, and social satisfaction. This study aimed to relate differences in basic numerical concepts and arithmetic achievement in SMA and DMD patients to differences in their motor development and resulting sensorimotor and environmental experiences. Horizontal and vertical spatial-numerical associations were explored in SMA/DMD children ranging between 6 and 12 years through the random number generation task. Furthermore, arithmetic skills as well as general cognitive ability were assessed. Groups differed in spatial number processing as well as in arithmetic and domain-general cognitive functions. Children with SMA showed no horizontal and even reversed vertical spatial-numerical associations. Children with DMD on the other hand revealed patterns in spatial numerical associations comparable to healthy developing children. From the embodied Cognition perspective, early sensorimotor experience does play a role in development of mental number representations. However, it remains open whether and how this becomes relevant for the acquisition of higher order cognitive and arithmetic skills.
Detecting and categorizing particular entities in the environment are important visual tasks that humans have had to solve at various points in our evolutionary time. The question arises whether characteristics of entities that were of ecological significance for humans play a particular role during the development of visual categorization.
The current project addressed this question by investigating the effects of developing visual abilities, visual properties and ecological significance on categorization early in life. Our stimuli were monochromatic photographs of structure-like assemblies and surfaces taken from three categories: vegetation, non-living natural elements, and artifacts. A set of computational and rated visual properties were assessed for these stimuli. Three empirical studies applied coherent research concepts and methods in young children and adults, comprising (a) two card-sorting tasks with preschool children (age: 4.1-6.1 years) and adults (age: 18-50 years) which assessed classification and similarity judgments, (b) a gaze contingent eye-tracking search task which investigated the impact of visual properties and category membership on 8-month-olds' ability to segregate visual structure. Because eye-tracking with infants still provides challenges, a methodological study (c) assessed the effect of infant eye-tracking procedures on data quality with 8- to 12-month-old infants and adults.
In the categorization tasks we found that category membership and visual properties impacted the performance of all participant groups. Sensitivity to the respective categories varied between tasks and over the age groups. For example, artifact images hindered infants' visual search but were classified best by adults, whereas sensitivity to vegetation was highest during similarity judgments. Overall, preschool children relied less on visual properties than adults, but some properties (e.g., rated depth, shading) were drawn upon similarly strong. In children and infants, depth predicted task performance stronger than shape-related properties. Moreover, children and infants were sensitive to variations in the complexity of low-level visual statistics. These results suggest that classification of visual structures, and attention to particular visual properties is affected by the functional or ecological significance these categories and properties may have for each of the respective age groups.
Based on this, the project highlights the importance of further developmental research on visual categorization with naturalistic, structure-like stimuli. As intended with the current work, this would allow important links between developmental and adult research.
The decision to exercise is not only bound to rational considerations but also automatic affective processes. The affective–reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise (ART) proposes a theoretical framework for explaining how the automatic affective process (type‑1 process) will influence exercise behavior, i.e., through the automatic activation of exercise-related associations and a subsequent affective valuation of exercise. This study aimed to empirically test this assumption of the ART with data from 69 study participants. A single-measurement study, including within-subject experimental variation, was conducted. Automatic associations with exercise were first measured with a single-target implicit association test. The somato-affective core of the participants’ automatic valuation of exercise-related pictures was then assessed via heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, and the affective valence of the valuation was tested with a facial expression (FE; smile and frown) task. Exercise behavior was assessed via self-report. Multiple regression (path) analysis revealed that automatic associations predicted HRV reactivity (β = −0.24, p = .044); the signs of the correlation between automatic associations and the smile FE score was in the expected direction but remained nonsignificant (β = −0.21, p = .078). HRV reactivity predicted self-reported exercise behavior (β = −0.28, p = .013) (the same pattern of results was achieved for the frown FE score). The HRV-related results illustrate the potential role of automatic negative affective reactions to the thought of exercise as a restraining force in exercise motivation. For better empirical distinction between the two ART type‑1 process components, automatic associations and the affective valuation should perhaps be measured separately in the future. The results support the notion that automatic and affective processes should be regarded as essential aspects of the motivation to exercise.
Even though the majority of individuals know that exercising is healthy, a high percentage struggle to achieve the recommended amount of exercise. The (social-cognitive) theories that are commonly applied to explain exercise motivation refer to the assumption that people base their decisions mainly on rational reasoning. However, behavior is not only bound to reflection. In recent years, the role of automaticity and affect for exercise motivation has been increasingly discussed. In this dissertation, central assumptions of the affective–reflective theory of physical inactivity and exercise (ART; Brand & Ekkekakis, 2018), an exercise-specific dual-process theory that emphasizes the role of a momentary automatic affective reaction for exercise-decisions, were examined. The central aim of this dissertation was to investigate exercisers and non-exercisers automatic affective reactions to exercise-related stimuli (i.e., type-1 process). In particular, the two components of the ART’s type-1 process, that are, automatic associations with exercise and the automatic affective valuation to exercise, were under study.
In the first publication (Schinkoeth & Antoniewicz, 2017), research on automatic (evaluative) associations with exercise was summarized and evaluated in a systematic review. The results indicated that automatic associations with exercise appeared to be relevant predictors for exercise behavior and other exercise-related variables, providing evidence for a central assumption of the ART’s type-1 process. Furthermore, indirect methods seem to be suitable to assess automatic associations. The aim of the second publication (Schinkoeth, Weymar, & Brand, 2019) was to approach the somato-affective core of the automatic valuation of exercise using analysis of reactivity in vagal HRV while viewing exercise-related pictures. Results revealed that differences in exercise volume could be regressed on HRV reactivity. In light of the ART, these findings were interpreted as evidence of an inter-individual affective reaction elicited at the thought of exercise and triggered by exercise-stimuli. In the third publication (Schinkoeth & Brand, 2019, subm.), it was sought to disentangle and relate to each other the ART’s type-1 process components—automatic associations and the affective valuation of exercise. Automatic associations to exercise were assessed with a recoding-free variant of an implicit association test (IAT). Analysis of HRV reactivity was applied to approach a somatic component of the affective valuation, and facial reactions in a facial expression (FE) task served as indicators of the automatic affective reaction’s valence. Exercise behavior was assessed via self-report. The measurement of the affective valuation’s valence with the FE task did not work well in this study. HRV reactivity was predicted by the IAT score and did also statistically predict exercise behavior. These results thus confirm and expand upon the results of publication two and provide empirical evidence for the type-1 process, as defined in the ART. This dissertation advances the field of exercise psychology concerning the influence of automaticity and affect on exercise motivation. Moreover, both methodical implications and theoretical extensions for the ART can be derived from the results.
In einer zweijährigen Längsschnittstudie wurde der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern Lernaufwand und Elaborationsstrategien den vermuteten Einfluß des Studieninteresses auf die zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erbrachte Studienleistung vermitteln. An der Studie nahmen 92 Studenten verschiedener Studiengänge teil. Zum ersten Erhebungszeitpunkt wurde mit Hilfe von Fragebogenverfahren das Studieninteresse, der Lernaufwand und die Verwendung von Elaborationsstrategien erfaßt. Zwei Jahre später wurden die Noten der inzwischen absolvierten Diplomvorprüfung erhoben. Die Ergebnisse von Pfadanalysen mit latenten Variablen zeigen, daß der Lernaufwand - im Unterschied zu Elaborationsstrategien - als signifikanter Mediator des Interesseneffekts auf die Studienleistung angesehen werden kann. Elaborationsstrategien erscheinen als ein Nebenprodukt hohen Studieninteresses ohne Auswirkung auf die erreichten Leistungsbeurteilungen.
Lernstrategien im Studium : Ergebnisse zur Faktorenstruktur und Reliabilität eines neuen Fragebogens
(1994)
Der vorliegende Beitrag berichtet über die Entwicklung eines Inventars zur Erfassung von Lernstrategien im Studium (LIST). Das Verfahren gliedert sich in drei Teilbereiche: (1) «Kognitive Strategien», (2) «Metakognitive Strategien» und (3) «Ressourcenbezogene Strategien». Jeder Teilbereich wird durch mehrere Einzelskalen abgebildet. Der Fragebogen wurde nach verschiedenen Pilotuntersuchungen an einer Stichprobe von 310 Studenten verschiedener Studiengänge eingesetzt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine gut interpretierbare Faktorenstruktur sowie zufriedenstellende Reliabilitätsindizes. Das Verfahren ist in erster Linie zur Anwendung bei Studenten vorgesehen, kann aber auch bei anderen erwachsenen Lernergruppen eingesetzt werden.
Die gegenwärtig diskutierten Verfahren zur Erfassung von Lernstrategien, Lernstilen und Lernorientierungen können in zwei Gruppen unterteilt werden. Die erste Gruppe ist induktiv konstruiert worden und hat auf der Grundlage von Interviewstudien relativ globale Lernermerkmale postuliert. Typisch für diese Verfahren ist auch die Integration motivationaler und kognitiver Komponenten des Lernverhaltens. Die zweite Gruppe zeichnet sich durch ein deduktives Vorgehen aus. Ausgehend von kognitionspsychologischen Modellen des Lernprozesses sowie verschiedenen Motivationstheorien wurden differenzierte Tragebögen zu Lernstrategien undmotivationalen Merkmalen entwickelt. Die kognitiven und motivationalen Komponenten sind dabei strikt getrennt worden. Der vorliegende Artikel stellt beide Gruppen von Verfahren anhand ausgewählter Beispiele dar und diskutiert ihre Vor- und Nachteile.
Die vorliegende Studie stellt eine konzeptuelle Replikation der Untersuchung von Shirey & Reynolds (1988) dar. In dieser Untersuchung ergab sich unerwarteterweise ein negativer Zusammenhang zwischen Interesse und Aufmerksamkeit, während gleichzeitig ein positiver Zusammenhang zwischen Interesse und Behalten bestand. Unser Ziel war es, zu prüfen, ob sich dieser erwartungswidrige Befund auch mit einer anderen Stichprobe und anderem Lernmaterial replizieren läßt. Darüber hinaus kontrollierten wir die subjektive Wichtigkeit des Lernmaterials und unterschieden zwischen wörtlicher und bedeutungsorientierter Lernleistung. Die Ergebnisse unserer Studie stimmen weitgehend mit denen von Shirey & Reynolds überein. Abschließend diskutieren wir einige Interpretationsmöglichkeiten der Befunde und geben Hinweise für die weitere Forschung.
In insgesamt drei Untersuchungen wurden die folgenden Fragestellungen bzw. Problembereiche bearbeitet: (1) die quantitative Erfassung von Studieninteresse, [ 2 \ der Zusammenhang zwischen Studieninteresse und Leistungsmotiv, (3) die Beziehung zwischen Studieninteresse und kognitiven Variablen. Der von Winteler ii Sierwald(1987) entwickelte "Fragebogen zum Studieninteresse" (FSI) wurde an einer Stichprobe von N=621 Studenten aus verschiedenen Fachbereichen hinsichtlich seiner generellen Anwendbarkeit überprüft (Studie 1). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß das Studieninteresse sich nur mit dem Alter verändert, während andere Variablen keinen Einfluß haben. Die zweite Studie (N = 169) ergab, daß zwischen Studieninteresse und dem Leistungsmotiv erwartungsgemäß nur ein geringer Zusammenhang besteht. Darüber hinaus zeigte sich, daß Interesse stärker mit der Studienleistung (Durchschnittsnote) korreliert als das Leistungsmotiv. In Studie 3 (N = 59) wurde der Zusammenhang von Studieninteresse und einem mittels Wortassoziationstest erfaßten Ausschnitt der fachbezogenen Wissensstruktur geprüft. Obwohl keine quantitativen Unterschiede auftraten, ergab eine qualitative Analyse, daß hoch Interessierte fachlich adäquatere Assoziationen produzieren und hinsichtlich ihrer Wissensstruktur einer Gruppe von Experten ähnlicher sind als niedrig Interessierte.
Die vorliegende Arbeit gibt einen Überblick zu Theorien der intrinsischen Lernmotivation (ILM) und berichtet von einer Metaanalyse empirischer Befunde zum Zusammenhang von ILM und Lernen anhand von vier Gruppen von Lernindikatoren: Noten, Leistungstests, spezifische Lernkriterien (z.B. Behalten eines spezifischen Textes) und Verwendung von Lernstrategien. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß ILM niedrige aber konsistent positive Korrelationen mit Noten und Tests aufweist, und daß ILM vor allem tiefergehende bzw. konzeptuelle Formen des Lernens begünstigt. Die Ausprägung extrinsischer Lernmotivation (ELM) erwies sich als schwacher und meist nicht signifikanter Prädiktor der Lernleistung. Wenn überhaupt, so scheint ELM oberflächliche Formen des Lernens zu fördern.
Die Untersuchung beschäftigte sich mit dem Einfluß thematischer Interessen auf die Qualität des Textverstehens. Darüber hinaus sollte der Einfluß von Interesse auf motivationale und kognitive Variablen des Leseprozesses (z.B. Flow-Erleben, Elaborationen) überprüft werden. 53 Studenten wurden auf der Basis eines Fragebogens in hoch und niedrig thematisch interessierte eingeteilt. Die Vpn bekamen einen Text zum Thema „Emotion" zu lesen, angeblich um ihn später zu bewerten. Anschließend wurden retrospektiv die Prozeßvariablen Aktivierung, Flow-Erleben und Elaborationen erhoben. Zusätzlich wurde die Zahl der Unterstreichungen und Notizen registriert. Schließlich erfolgte der Verstehenstest, in dem drei Ebenen der Verstehenstiefe unterschieden wurden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß der Einfluß des thematischen Interesses auf das Verstehen mit zunehmender Verstehenstiefestärker wird. Die Berücksichtigung des Vorwissens und der Intelligenz hatte keine Minderung des Interesseneffekts zur Folge. Interesse führte darüber hinaus zu einer Erhöhung des Aktivierungsniveaus, zu flow-ähnlichem Erleben, zu verstärkten elaborativen Prozessen und zu erhöhter Häufigkeit von Notizen. Die Ergebnisse unterstreichen die Bedeutsamkeit motivationaler Variablen für qualitativ höherwertige Verstehensprozesse.
Motivational conditions have been thus far largely neglected by contemporary theoretical approaches in knowledge psychology. The present article attempts to demonstrate the necessity for the greater integration of both. Suggestions are made regarding the choice and conceptualization of relevant motivational factors. Two possible groups of factors can be distinguished: (1) motivational factors of personality, and (2) motivational effects of action. Available theoretical approaches (e.g., the "levels of processing" approach) and examples are used to clarify the potential effects of these factors on the acquisition and representation of knowledge. Finally, a review is made of empirical studies allowing confirmatory allegations about the posited relationships between motivational factors and processes related to knowledge. This review reveals substantial research deficits on this topic.
Ausgehend von der Feststellung, daß die bisherige Forschung zum Textlernen motivationale Variablen, die gerade aus pädagogischer Sicht als sehr bedeutsam erscheinen, vernachlässigt hat, wird ein Überblick über Untersuchungen gegeben, die den Einfluß von Interesse auf das Verstehen von Texten überprüften. Ein Großteil der betrachteten Arbeiten kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß Interesse eine bedeutsame Rolle beim Textlernen einnimmt. Trotzdem sind eine Reihe von Einwänden vorzubringen, die vor allem Defizite bei der Konzeptualisierung und Messung von Interesse und die Vernachlässigung qualitativer, prozessualer und struktureller Aspekte der Verstehensleistung betreffen. Abschließend wird auf pädagogische Konsequenzen bezüglich der Gestaltung von Lehrtexten hingewiesen.
Die Untersuchung beschäftigte sich mit dem Einfluß des thematischen Interesses auf die Ausprägung der nach dem Textverarbeitungsmodell von van Dijk & Kintsch (1983) unterschiedenen Komponenten der Textrepräsentation. Darüber hinaus sollte der Einfluß von Interesse auf motivationale und kognitive Variablen des Leseprozesses (z.B. Elaboration) überprüft werden. Zusätzlich wurde eine Reihe relevanter Einflußgrößen (z.B. Vorwissen) im Sinne von Kontrollvariablen erhoben. 43 Studenten wurden auf der Basis eines Fragebogens in hoch und niedrig thematisch interessierte eingeteilt. Die Vpn bekamen einen Text zum Thema «Kommunikation» zu lesen. Anschließend wurde retrospektiv eine Reihe von Prozeßvariablen erhoben. Es folgte ein Rekognitionstest, der die Ermittlung der unterschiedlichen Stärke der wörtlichen, propositionalen und situativen Textrepräsentation erlaubt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß die wörtliche Textrepräsentation bei den niedrig Interessierten signifikant stärker ausgeprägt ist, während die hoch Interessierten eine stärker ausgeprägte propositionale Abbildung des Textes erkennen lassen. Keine erkennbaren Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Versuchsgruppen zeigten sich hinsichtlich der situativen Repräsentation. Die Berücksichtigung der einbezogenen Kontrollvariablen hatte keine Minderung des Interesseneffekts zur Folge. Interesse hängt darüber hinaus eng mit dem Ausmaß von Aktivierung, Flow-Erleben, elaborativen Prozessen und der Häufigkeit von Notizen zusammen. Es ergaben sich Anhaltspunkte, daß diese Variablen auch eine wichtige Rolle bei der Vermittlung des beobachteten Interesseneffekts spielen.
Es wurde der Zusammenhang zwischen allgemeinem Studieninteresse, Interesse an empirischen Forschungsmethoden sowie dem Leistungsmotiv (unabhängige Variablen) und Umfang, Inhalt und Struktur methodischen Wissens im Studienfach Pädagogik (abhängige Variablen) geprüft. Im Mittelpunkt der Analysen standen die Auswirkungen des Methodeninteresses. Auf der Basis eines Fragebogens wurden 20 Pädagogikstudenten zu Beginn eines Methodenseminars für Studienanfänger in zwei Gruppen mit hohem bzw. niedrigem Methodeninteresse geteilt. Die verschiedenen Aspekte methodenspezifischen Wissens wurden acht Wochen später mittels eines Assoziationstests zu neun Stimulusbegriffen erhoben. Die Ergebnisse belegen, daß hohes Interesse zu qualitativen (Inhalt und Struktur), nicht jedoch zu quantitativen Wissensunterschieden (Umfang) führt.
The influence of topic interest, prior knowledge, and cognitive capabilities on text comprehension
(1990)
The present study investigated the influence of topic interest on the comprehension of texts. The primary goals of the study were as follows: (1) to formulate a new definition of the concept "topic interest", (2) to control for cognitive capabilities (intelligence, short-term memory) and prior knowledge, and(3) to assess different levels of comprehension. A total of 53 male students, majoring in computer science, took part in the study. Subjects were presented with a text on "Psychology of Emotion". Prior to reading the text, they were asked to indicate their level of interest in the topic. After reading the text, subjects were given a test of comprehension involving open-ended questions. The questions were designed to represent different levels of comprehension. The results show that the effect of topic interest on text comprehension is especially pronounced when a deeper level of understanding is required. Surprisingly, prior knowledge had no effect on the level of comprehension. Verbal intelligence, on the other hand, showed a clear effect on comprehension, especially in answering questions of simple knowledge. The effects of interest and verbal intelligence could be shown to be independent of one another.
Der Artikel diskutiert die Bedeutung positiven emotionalen Erlebens beim Lernen und die Notwendigkeit der Unterscheidung zwischen generellen Lernmotiven und fachspezifischen Interessen. Es wird ausführlich auf Csikszentmihalyis Theorie des optimalen Erlebens und die von ihm mitbegründete "Erlebens-Stichproben-Methode" eingegangen. Des weiteren wird von einer empirischen Studie berichtet, in der der Zusammenhang zwischen Interesse und der Qualität des Erlebens im Unterricht untersucht wurde. Die Stärke des Interesses als Prädiktor des Erlebens wurde dabei verglichen mit der des Leistungsmotivs und eines Indikators schulbezogener kognitiver Fähigkeit. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß Interesse in deutlich engerem Zusammenhang mit der Ericbensqualität steht als Leistungsmotiv und Fähigkeit. Insbesondere die Erlebensdimensionen Aktiviertheit, intrinsische Motivation, Selbstwert und Wahrnehmung eigener Fähigkeit wiesen signifikante Zusammenhänge mit der Interessenausprägung auf.
This study addressed the role of reading motivation as a potential determinant of losses or gains in reading competence over six weeks of summer vacation (SV). Based on a sample of 223 third-grade elementary students, structural equation analyses showed that intrinsic reading motivation before SV contributed positively to both word and sentence comprehension after SV when controlling for comprehension performance before SV. These effects were mediated by reading amount. Extrinsic reading motivation did not show significant associations with end-of-summer comprehension scores. Taken together, the findings suggest that intrinsic reading motivation facilitates students’ development of reading comprehension over SV.
The olfactomotor system is especially investigated by examining the sniffing in reaction to olfactory stimuli. The motor output of respiratory-independent muscles was seldomly considered regarding possible influences of smells. The Adaptive Force (AF) characterizes the capability of the neuromuscular system to adapt to external forces in a holding manner and was suggested to be more vulnerable to possible interfering stimuli due to the underlying complex control processes. The aim of this pilot study was to measure the effects of olfactory inputs on the AF of the hip and elbow flexors, respectively. The AF of 10 subjects was examined manually by experienced testers while smelling at sniffing sticks with neutral, pleasant or disgusting odours. The reaction force and the limb position were recorded by a handheld device. The results show, inter alia, a significantly lower maximal isometric AF and a significantly higher AF at the onset of oscillations by perceiving disgusting odours compared to pleasant or neutral odours (p < 0.001). The adaptive holding capacity seems to reflect the functionality of the neuromuscular control, which can be impaired by disgusting olfactory inputs. An undisturbed functioning neuromuscular system appears to be characterized by a proper length tension control and by an earlier onset of mutual oscillations during an external force increase. This highlights the strong connection of olfaction and motor control also regarding respiratory-independent muscles.
In einer quasiexperimentellen Längsschnittstudie mit 380 Lehramtsstudierenden wurde das Interventionsprogramm „Gestärkt für den Lehrerberuf“, welches Elemente eines Self-Assessments der berufsrelevanten Kompetenzen mit konkreten Beratungsmöglichkeiten und einem Zieleffektivitätstraining (Dargel, 2006) zur Entwicklung individueller berufsbezogener Kompetenzen verbindet, auf seine Wirksamkeit (Reflexionskompetenz, Lehrerselbstwirksamkeit, berufsbezogene Kompetenzen, Beanspruchungserleben, Widerstandsfähigkeit) und den Wirkungsprozess (Zielbindung, Zielrealisierbarkeit, Zieleffektivität) hin überprüft. In dem Prä-Post-Follow-up-Test-Vergleichsgruppen-Design wurden eine Interventionsgruppe, deren Treatment auf dem Stärkenansatz basiert (1), eine defizitorientierte Interventionsgruppe (2), sowie eine kombinierte Interventionsgruppe, bei der der Stärkenansatz durch den Defizitansatz ergänzt wird (3), einer unbehandelten Kontrollgruppe sowie einer alternativ behandelten Kontrollgruppe, die ausschließlich in ihren sozial-kommunikativer Kompetenzen geschult wurde, gegenübergestellt. Es gelang zum Post- und Follow-up-Test, sowohl die individuellen beruflichen Kompetenzen als auch die Reflexionskompetenz von Teilnehmern der Interventionsgruppen im Vergleich zur unbehandelten Kontrollgruppe zu fördern. Die Teilnehmer der kombinierten Intervention profitierten im Vergleich zu den Teilnehmern der anderen beiden Interventionsgruppen stärker im Bereich Lehrerselbstwirksamkeit, Widerstandsfähigkeit und Zieleffektivität. Gegenüber der alternativen Kontrollgruppe zeigten sie ebenfalls einen stärkeren Zuwachs in der Entwicklung ihrer berufsrelevanten Kompetenzen und in ihrer Widerstandsfähigkeit. Die Studie liefert erste Hinweise darauf, dass ein Ansatz, welcher Stärkenfokussierung und Defizitorientierung integriert, besonders effektiv wirkt.
It sometimes happens that we finish reading a passage of text just to realize that we have no idea what we just read. During these episodes of mindless reading our mind is elsewhere yet the eyes still move across the text. The phenomenon of mindless reading is common and seems to be widely recognized in lay psychology. However, the scientific investigation of mindless reading has long been underdeveloped. Recent progress in research on mindless reading has been based on self-report measures and on treating it as an all-or-none phenomenon (dichotomy-hypothesis). Here, we introduce the levels-of-inattention hypothesis proposing that mindless reading is graded and occurs at different levels of cognitive processing. Moreover, we introduce two new behavioral paradigms to study mindless reading at different levels in the eye-tracking laboratory. First (Chapter 2), we introduce shuffled text reading as a paradigm to approximate states of weak mindless reading experimentally and compare it to reading of normal text. Results from statistical analyses of eye movements that subjects perform in this task qualitatively support the ‘mindless’ hypothesis that cognitive influences on eye movements are reduced and the ‘foveal load’ hypothesis that the response of the zoom lens of attention to local text difficulty is enhanced when reading shuffled text. We introduce and validate an advanced version of the SWIFT model (SWIFT 3) incorporating the zoom lens of attention (Chapter 3) and use it to explain eye movements during shuffled text reading. Simulations of the SWIFT 3 model provide fully quantitative support for the ‘mindless’ and the ‘foveal load’ hypothesis. They moreover demonstrate that the zoom lens is an important concept to explain eye movements across reading and mindless reading tasks. Second (Chapter 4), we introduce the sustained attention to stimulus task (SAST) to catch episodes when external attention spontaneously lapses (i.e., attentional decoupling or mind wandering) via the overlooking of errors in the text and via signal detection analyses of error detection. Analyses of eye movements in the SAST revealed reduced influences from cognitive text processing during mindless reading. Based on these findings, we demonstrate that it is possible to predict states of mindless reading from eye movement recordings online. That cognition is not always needed to move the eyes supports autonomous mechanisms for saccade initiation. Results from analyses of error detection and eye movements provide support to our levels-of-inattention hypothesis that errors at different levels of the text assess different levels of decoupling. Analyses of pupil size in the SAST (Chapter 5) provide further support to the levels of inattention hypothesis and to the decoupling hypothesis that off-line thought is a distinct mode of cognitive functioning that demands cognitive resources and is associated with deep levels of decoupling. The present work demonstrates that the elusive phenomenon of mindless reading can be vigorously investigated in the cognitive laboratory and further incorporated in the theoretical framework of cognitive science.
How distinct implicit and explicit motive systems differ has long been unclear. Schultheiss' (2001) information processing account of implicit motive arousal hypothesized that implicit motives respond to nonverbal stimuli to influence non-declarative measures of motivation and that explicit motives respond to verbal stimuli to influence declarative measures of motivation. Moreover, in individuals high in referential competence, i.e., with the ability to quickly translate non-verbal stimuli into a verbal representation, implicit motives are thought to respond to verbal stimuli and influence declarative measures of motivation and explicit motives are thought to respond to nonverbal stimuli and to influence non-declarative measures of motivation. The present study tested these hypotheses by assessing liking ratings as a declarative response format and an affective stroop task as a non-declarative response format using emotion words as verbal and emotional facial expressions as non-verbal stimuli. Individual power, affiliation, and achievement motive dispositions were assessed via the Picture Story Excercise for implicit motives and via questionnaires for explicit motives. Referential competence was assessed via a colour-naming/-reading task. I found that as expected explicit and implicit motives overall were not correlated across subjects. Moreover, implicit and explicit motives affected declarative and non-declarative responses for verbal and non-verbal stimuli. As predicted, however, implicit motives responded to verbal stimuli and influenced declarative responses more strongly for individuals high compared to those low in referential competence. Likewise, explicit motive effects were moderated by referential competence in some - but not all - of the predicted conditions. These results show that implicit and explicit motives can influence declarative and non-declarative responses to verbal and non-verbal stimuli. They support the hypothesis that referential processing is needed for implicit motives to respond to verbal stimuli and influence declarative response formats, and they partly support the hypothesis that referential processing plays a role for the influence of explicit motives. Results for explicit motives may suggest that new measures are needed to assess the referential competence to translate verbal stimuli into non-verbal representations. Overall, the findings provide support to the information processing account of implicit motive arousal by Schultheiss' (2001), suggesting that a non-verbal and non-declarative implicit motive system and a distinct verbal and declarative explicit motive system interact via referential processing, i.e., by translating information between representational formats.
Anorexia nervosa und unipolare Affektive Störungen stellen häufige und schwerwiegende kinder- und jugendpsychiatrische Störungsbilder dar, deren Pathogenese bislang nicht vollständig entschlüsselt ist. Verschiedene Studien zeigen bei erwachsenen Patienten gravierende Auffälligkeiten in den kognitiven Funktionen. Dahingegen scheinen bei adoleszenten Patienten lediglich leichtere Einschränkungen in den kognitiven Funktionen vorzuliegen. Die Prävalenz der Anorexia nervosa und unipolaren Affektiven Störung ist mit Beginn der Adoleszenz deutlich erhöht. Es ist anzunehmen, dass kognitive Dysfunktionen, die sich bereits in diesem Alter abzeichnen, den weiteren Krankheitsverlauf bis in das Erwachsenenalter, die Behandlungsergebnisse und die Prognose maßgeblich beeinträchtigen könnten. Zudem ist von einem höheren Chronifizierungsrisiko auszugehen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden daher kognitive Funktionen bei adoleszenten Patientinnen mit Anorexia nervosa sowie Patienten mit unipolaren Affektiven Störungen untersucht. Die Überprüfung der kognitiven Funktionen bei Patientinnen mit Anorexia nervosa erfolgte vor und nach Gewichtszunahme. Weiterhin wurden zugrundeliegende biologische Mechanismen überprüft. Zudem wurde die Spezifität kognitiver Dysfunktionen für beide Störungsbilder untersucht und bei Patienten mit unipolaren Affektiven Störungen geschlechtsbezogene Unterschiede exploriert. Insgesamt gingen 47 Patientinnen mit Anorexia nervosa (mittleres Alter 16,3 + 1,6 Jahre), 39 Patienten mit unipolaren Affektiven Störungen (mittleres Alter 15,5 + 1,3 Jahre) sowie 78 Kontrollprobanden (mittleres Alter 16,5 + 1,3 Jahre) in die Untersuchung ein. Sämtliche Studienteilnehmer durchliefen eine neuropsychologische Testbatterie, bestehend aus Verfahren zur Überprüfung der kognitiven Flexibilität sowie visuellen und psychomotorischen Verarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit. Neben einem Intelligenzscreening wurden zudem das Ausmaß der depressiven Symptomatik sowie die allgemeine psychische Belastung erfasst. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass bei adoleszenten Patientinnen mit Anorexia nervosa, sowohl im akut untergewichtigen Zustand als auch nach Gewichtszunahme, lediglich milde Beeinträchtigungen in den kognitiven Funktionen vorliegen. Im akut untergewichtigen Zustand offenbarten sich deutliche Zusammenhänge zwischen dem appetitregulierenden Peptid Agouti-related Protein und kognitiver Flexibilität, nicht jedoch zwischen Agouti-related Protein und visueller oder psychomotorischer Verarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit. Bei dem Vergleich von Anorexia nervosa und unipolaren Affektiven Störungen prädizierte die Zugehörigkeit zu der Patientengruppe Anorexia nervosa ein Risiko für das Vorliegen kognitiver Dysfunktionen. Es zeigte sich zudem, dass adoleszente Patienten mit unipolaren Affektiven Störungen lediglich in der psychomotorischen Verarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit tendenziell schwächere Leistungen offenbarten als gesunde Kontrollprobanden. Es ergab sich jedoch ein genereller geschlechtsbezogener Vorteil für weibliche Probanden in der visuellen und psychomotorischen Verarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit. Die vorliegenden Befunde unterstreichen die Notwendigkeit der Überprüfung kognitiver Funktionen bei adoleszenten Patienten mit Anorexia nervosa sowie unipolaren Affektiven Störungen in der klinischen Routinediagnostik. Die Patienten könnten von spezifischen Therapieprogrammen profitieren, die Beeinträchtigungen in den kognitiven Funktionen mildern bzw. präventiv behandeln.
Previous studies have not considered the potential influence of maturity status on the relationship between mental imagery and change of direction (CoD) speed in youth soccer. Accordingly, this cross-sectional study examined the association between mental imagery and CoD performance in young elite soccer players of different maturity status. Forty young male soccer players, aged 10-17 years, were assigned into two groups according to their predicted age at peak height velocity (PHV) (Pre-PHV; n = 20 and Post-PHV; n = 20). Participants were evaluated on soccer-specific tests of CoD with (CoDBall-15m) and without (CoD-15m) the ball. Participants completed the movement imagery questionnaire (MIQ) with the three- dimensional structure, internal visual imagery (IVI), external visual imagery (EVI), as well as kinesthetic imagery (KI). The Post-PHV players achieved significantly better results than Pre-PHV in EVI (ES = 1.58, large; p < 0.001), CoD-15m (ES = 2.09, very large; p < 0.001) and CoDBall-15m (ES = 1.60, large; p < 0.001). Correlations were significantly different between maturity groups, where, for the pre-PHV group, a negative very large correlation was observed between CoDBall-15m and KI (r = –0.73, p = 0.001). For the post-PHV group, large negative correlations were observed between CoD-15m and IVI (r = –0.55, p = 0.011), EVI (r = –062, p = 0.003), and KI (r = –0.52, p = 0.020). A large negative correlation of CoDBall-15m with EVI (r = –0.55, p = 0.012) and very large correlation with KI (r = –0.79, p = 0.001) were also observed. This study provides evidence of the theoretical and practical use for the CoD tasks stimulus with imagery. We recommend that sport psychology specialists, coaches, and athletes integrated imagery for CoD tasks in pre-pubertal soccer players to further improve CoD related performance.
Die vorliegende Studie beschäftigte sich mit der Bedeutung der dysfunktionalen Einstellungen für die Entwicklung von depressiven Symptomen bei Kindern und Jugendlichen. Nach der kognitiven Theorie der Depression von Beck (1967, 1996) führen dysfunktionale Einstellungen in Interaktion mit Stress zu depressiven Symptomen. Es existieren allerdings nur wenige Studien, die die longitudinale Beziehung zwischen den dysfunktionalen Einstellungen und der Depressivität bei Kindern und Jugendlichen untersucht haben (Lakdawalla et al., 2007). Folglich kann noch nicht eindeutig geklärt werden, ob die dysfunktionalen Einstellungen Ursache, Begleiterscheinung oder Konsequenz der Depression sind. Als Datengrundlage diente eine Stichprobe von Kindern und Jugendlichen im Alter von 9 bis 20 Jahren, die im Rahmen der PIER-Studie zu dysfunktionalen Einstellungen, kritischen Lebensereignissen und depressiven Symptomen befragt wurden (Nt1t2 = 1.053; t1: 2011/2012, t2: 2013/2014). Querschnittliche Analysen zeigten hohe Assoziationen zwischen den dysfunktionalen Einstellungen, kritischen Lebensereignissen und depressiven Symptomen. Eine latente Moderationsanalyse wies nur bei den Jugendlichen auf signifikante Interaktion zwischen den dysfunktionalen Einstellungen und den kritischen Lebensereignissen in der Vorhersage depressiver Symptomatik hin. Im Längsschnitt zeigten latente Cross-Lagged-Panel-Analysen erwartungsgemäß, dass die dysfunktionalen Einstellungen und die Depressivität mit dem Alter immer stabilere Konstrukte darstellen, die sehr eng miteinander zusammenhängen. Eine diesem Modell hinzugefügte latente Moderationsanalyse konnte das kognitive Modell der Depression nach Beck weder bei Kindern noch bei Jugendlichen bestätigen. Die spätere depressive Symptomatik konnte lediglich durch Haupteffekte der früheren Ausprägung der Depressivität und der kritischen Lebensereignisse vorhergesagt werden. Diese Ergebnisse legen den Schluss nahe, dass es sich bei den dysfunktionalen Einstellungen eher um Begleiterscheinungen als um Risikofaktoren oder Konsequenzen der depressiven Symptomatik handelt.
Understanding how humans move their eyes is an important part for understanding the functioning of the visual system. Analyzing eye movements from observations of natural scenes on a computer screen is a step to understand human visual behavior in the real world. When analyzing eye-movement data from scene-viewing experiments, the impor- tant questions are where (fixation locations), how long (fixation durations) and when (ordering of fixations) participants fixate on an image. By answering these questions, computational models can be developed which predict human scanpaths. Models serve as a tool to understand the underlying cognitive processes while observing an image, especially the allocation of visual attention.
The goal of this thesis is to provide new contributions to characterize and model human scanpaths on natural scenes. The results from this thesis will help to understand and describe certain systematic eye-movement tendencies, which are mostly independent of the image. One eye-movement tendency I focus on throughout this thesis is the tendency to fixate more in the center of an image than on the outer parts, called the central fixation bias. Another tendency, which I will investigate thoroughly, is the characteristic distribution of angles between successive eye movements.
The results serve to evaluate and improve a previously published model of scanpath generation from our laboratory, the SceneWalk model. Overall, six experiments were conducted for this thesis which led to the following five core results:
i) A spatial inhibition of return can be found in scene-viewing data. This means that locations which have already been fixated are afterwards avoided for a certain time interval (Chapter 2).
ii) The initial fixation position when observing an image has a long-lasting influence of up to five seconds on further scanpath progression (Chapter 2 & 3).
iii) The often described central fixation bias on images depends strongly on the duration of the initial fixation. Long-lasting initial fixations lead to a weaker central fixation bias than short fixations (Chapter 2 & 3).
iv) Human observers adjust their basic eye-movement parameters, like fixation dura- tions and saccade amplitudes, to the visual properties of a target they look for in visual search (Chapter 4).
v) The angle between two adjacent saccades is an indicator for the selectivity of the upcoming saccade target (Chapter 4).
All results emphasize the importance of systematic behavioral eye-movement tenden- cies and dynamic aspects of human scanpaths in scene viewing.
Implementing innovation laboratories to leverage intrapreneurship are an increasingly popular organizational practice. A typical feature in these creative environments are semi-autonomous teams in which multiple members collectively exert leadership influence, thereby challenging traditional command-and-control conceptions of leadership. An extensive body of research on the team-centric concept of shared leadership has recognized the potential for pluralized leadership structures in enhancing team effectiveness; however, little empirical work has been conducted in organizational contexts in which creativity is key. This study set out to explore antecedents of shared leadership and its influence on team creativity in an innovation lab. Building on extant shared leadership and innovation research, we propose antecedents customary to creative teamwork, that is, experimental culture, task reflexivity, and voice. Multisource data were collected from 104 team members and 49 evaluations of 29 coaches nested in 21 teams working in a prototypical innovation lab. We identify factors specific to creative teamwork that facilitate the emergence of shared leadership by providing room for experimentation, encouraging team members to speak up in the creative process, and cultivating a reflective application of entrepreneurial thinking. We provide specific exemplary activities for innovation lab teams to increase levels of shared leadership.
Rhythm is a temporal and systematic organization of acoustic events in terms of prominence, timing and grouping, helping to structure our most basic experiences, such as body movement, music and speech. In speech, rhythm groups auditory events, e.g., sounds and pauses, together into words, making their boundaries acoustically prominent and aiding word segmentation and recognition by the hearer. After word recognition, the hearer is able to retrieve word meaning form his mental lexicon, integrating it with information from other linguistic domains, such as semantics, syntax and pragmatics, until comprehension is achieved. The importance of speech rhythm, however, is not restricted to word segmentation and recognition only. Beyond the word level rhythm continues to operate as an organization device, interacting with different linguistic domains, such as syntax and semantics, and grouping words into larger prosodic constituents, organized in a prosodic hierarchy. This dissertation investigates the function of speech rhythm as a sentence segmentation device during syntactic ambiguity processing, possible limitations on its use, i.e., in the context of second language processing, and its transferability as cognitive skill to the music domain.
The role of alcohol and victim sexual interest in Spanish students' perceptions of sexual assault
(2017)
Two studies investigated the effects of information related to rape myths on Spanish college students’ perceptions of sexual assault. In Study 1, 92 participants read a vignette about a nonconsensual sexual encounter and rated whether it was a sexual assault and how much the woman was to blame. In the scenario, the man either used physical force or offered alcohol to the woman to overcome her resistance. Rape myth acceptance (RMA) was measured as an individual difference variable. Participants were more convinced that the incident was a sexual assault and blamed the woman less when the man had used force rather than offering her alcohol. In Study 2, 164 college students read a scenario in which the woman rejected a man’s sexual advances after having either accepted or turned down his offer of alcohol. In addition, the woman was either portrayed as being sexually attracted to him or there was no mention of her sexual interest. Participants’ RMA was again included. High RMA participants blamed the victim more than low RMA participants and were less certain that the incident was a sexual assault, especially when the victim had accepted alcohol and was described as being sexually attracted to the man. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the prevention and legal prosecution of sexual assault.
When the eyes fixate at a point in a visual scene, small saccades rapidly shift the image on the retina. The effect of these microsaccades on the latency of subsequent large-scale saccades may be twofold. First, microsaccades are associated with an enhancement of visual perception. Their occurrence during saccade target perception should, thus, decrease saccade latencies. On the other hand, microsaccades likely indicate activity in fixation-related oculomotor neurons. These represent competitors to saccade-related cells in the interplay of gaze holding and shifting. Consequently, an increase in saccade latencies after microsaccades would be expected. Here, we present evidence for both aspects of microsaccadic impact on saccade latency. In a delayed response task, participants made saccades to visible or memorized targets. First, microsaccade occurrence up to 50 ms before target disappearance correlated with 18 ms (or 8%) faster saccades to memorized targets. Second, if microsaccades occurred shortly (i.e., < 150 ms) before a saccade was required, saccadic reaction times in visual and memory trials were increased by about 40 ms (or 16%). Hence, microsaccades can have opposite consequences for saccade latencies, pointing at a differential role of these fixational eye movements in preparation of motor programs.
Microsaccades are an important component of the small eye movements that constitute fixation, the basis of visual perception. The specific function of microsaccades has been a long-standing research problem. Only recently, conclusive evidence emerged, showing that microsaccades aid both visual perception and oculomotor control. The main goal of this thesis was to improve our understanding of the implementation of microsaccade generation within the circuitry of saccade control, an unsolved issue in oculomotor research. We make a case for a model according to which microsaccades and saccades result from mutually dependent motor plans, competing for expression. The model consists of an activation field, coding for fixation at its center and for saccades at peripheral locations; saccade amplitude increases with eccentricity. Activity during fixation spreads to slightly peripheral locations in the field and, thus, may result in the generation of microsaccades. Inhibition of remote and excitation of neighbouring locations govern the dynamics of the field, resulting in a strong competition between fixation and saccade generation. We propose that this common-field model of microsaccade and saccade generation finds a neurophysiological counterpart in the motor map of the superior colliculus (SC), a key brainstem structure involved in the generation of saccades. In a series of five behavioral experiments, we tested implications of the model. Predictions were derived concerning (1) the behavior of microsaccades in a given task (microsaccade rate, amplitude, and direction), (2) the interactions of microsaccades and subsequent saccades, and (3) the relationship between microsaccadic behavior and neurophysiological processes at the level of the SC. The results yielded strong support for the model at all three levels of analysis, suggesting that microsaccade statistics are indicative of the state of the fixation-related part of the SC motor map.
Background: The engagement in aggressive behavior in middle childhood is linked to the development of severe problems in later life. Thus, identifying factors and processes that con-tribute to the continuity and increase of aggression in middle childhood is essential in order to facilitate the development of intervention programs. The present PhD thesis aimed at expand-ing the understanding of the development of aggression in middle childhood by examining risk factors in the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains as well as the interplay between these factors: Maladaptive anger regulation was examined as an intrapersonal risk factor; processes that occur in the peer context (social rejection and peer socialization) were included as interpersonal risk factors. In addition, in order to facilitate the in situ assessment of anger regulation strategies, an observational measure of anger regulation was developed and validated.
Method: The research aims were addressed within the scope of four articles. Data from two measurement time points about ten months apart were available for the analyses. Participants were elementary school children aged from 6 to 10 years at T1 and 7 to 11 years at T2. The first article was based on cross-sectional analyses including only the first time point; in the remaining three articles longitudinal associations across the two time points were analyzed. The first two articles were concerned with the development and cross-sectional as well as longitudinal validation of observational measure of anger regulation in middle childhood in a sample of 599 children. Using the same sample, the third article investigated the longitudinal link between maladaptive anger regulation and aggression considering social rejection as a mediating variable. The frequency as well as different functions of aggression (reactive and proactive) were included as outcomes measures. The fourth article examined the influence of class-level aggression on the development of different forms of aggression (relational and physical) over time under consideration of differences in initial individual aggression in a sample of 1,284 children. In addition, it was analyzed if the path from aggression to social rejection varies as a function of class-level aggression.
Results: The first two articles revealed that the observational measure of anger regulation developed for the purpose of this research was cross-sectionally related to anger reactivity, aggression and social rejection as well as longitudinally related to self-reported anger regula-tion. In the third article it was found that T1 maladaptive anger regulation showed no direct link to T2 aggression, but an indirect link through T1 social rejection. This indirect link was found for the frequency of aggression as well as for reactive and proactive aggression. The fourth article revealed that with regard to relational aggression, a high level of classroom ag-gression predicted an increase of individual aggression only among children with initially low levels of aggression. For physical aggression, it was found that the overall level of aggression in the class affected all children equally. In addition, physical aggression increased the likelihood of social rejection irrespective of the class-level of aggression whereas relational aggression caused social rejection only in classes with a generally low level of relational aggression. The analyses of gender-specific effects showed that children were mainly influenced by their same-gender peers and that the effect on the opposite gender was higher if children engaged in gender-atypical forms of aggressive behavior.
Conclusion: The results provided evidence for the construct and criterion validity of the observational measure of maladaptive anger regulation that was developed within the scope of this research. Furthermore, the findings indicated that maladaptive anger regulation constitutes an important risk factor of aggression through the influence of social rejection. Finally, the results demonstrated that the level of aggression among classmates is relevant for the development of individual aggression over time and that the children´s evaluation of relationally aggressive behavior varies as a function of the normativity of relational aggression in the class. The study findings have implications for the measurement of anger regulation in middle childhood as well as for the prevention of aggression and social rejection.
Inhibition, attentional control, and causes of forgetting in working memory: a formal approach
(2013)
In many cognitive activities, the temporary maintenance and manipulation of mental objects is a necessary step in order to reach a cognitive goal. Working memory has been regarded as the process responsible for those cognitive activities. This thesis addresses the question: what limits working-memory capacity (WMC)? A question that still remains controversial (Barrouillet & Camos, 2009; Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Brown, 2009). This study attempted to answer this question by proposing that the dynamics between the causes of forgetting and the processes helping the maintenance, and the manipulation of the memoranda are the key aspects in understanding the limits of WMC.
Chapter 1 introduced key constructs and the strategy to examine the dynamics between inhibition, attentional control, and the causes of forgetting in working memory.
The study in Chapter 2 tested the performance of children, young adults, and old adults in a working-memory updating-task with two conditions: one condition included go steps and the other condition included go, and no-go steps. The interference model (IM; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006), a model proposing interference-related mechanisms as the main cause of forgetting was used to simultaneously fit the data of these age groups. In addition to the interference-related parameters reflecting interference by feature overwriting and interference by confusion, and in addition to the parameters reflecting the speed of processing, the study included a new parameter that captured the time for switching between go steps and no-go steps. The study indicated that children and young adults were less susceptible than old adults to interference by feature overwriting; children were the most susceptible to interference by confusion, followed by old adults and then by young adults; young adults presented the higher rate of processing, followed by children and then by old adults; and young adults were the fastest group switching from go steps to no-go steps.
Chapter 3 examined the dynamics between causes of forgetting and the inhibition of a prepotent response in the context of three formal models of the limits of WMC: A resources model, a decay-based model, and three versions of the IM. The resources model was built on the assumption that a limited and shared source of activation for the maintenance and manipulation of the objects underlies the limits of WMC. The decay model assumes that memory traces of the working-memory objects decay over time if they are not reactivated via different mechanisms of maintenance. The IM, already described, proposes that interference-related mechanisms explain the limits of WMC. In two experiments and in a reanalysis of data of the second experiment, one version of the IM received more statistical support from the data. This version of the IM proposes that interference by feature overwriting and interference by confusion are the main factors underlying the limits of WMC. In addition, the model suggests that experimental conditions involving the inhibition of a prepotent response reduce the speed of processing and promotes the involuntary activation of irrelevant information in working memory.
Chapter 4 summed up Chapter 2 and 3 and discussed their findings and presented how this thesis has provided evidence of interference-related mechanisms as the main cause of forgetting, and it has attempted to clarify the role of inhibition and attentional control in working memory. With the implementation of formal models and experimental manipulations in the framework of nonlinear mixed models the data offered explanations of causes of forgetting and the role of inhibition in WMC at different levels: developmental effects, aging effects, effects related to experimental manipulations and individual differences in these effects. Thus, the present approach afforded a comprehensive view of a large number of factors limiting WMC.
Following up on research suggesting an age-related reduction in the rightward extent of the perceptual span during reading (Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009), we compared old and young adults in an N+2-boundary paradigm in which a nonword preview of word N+2 or word N+2 itself is replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N. The intermediate word N+1 was always three letters long. Gaze durations on word N+2 were significantly shorter for identical than nonword N+2 preview both for young and for old adults with no significant difference in this preview benefit. Young adults, however, did modulate their gaze duration on word N more strongly than old adults in response to the difficulty of the parafoveal word N+1. Taken together, the results suggest a dissociation of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Results are discussed in terms of age-related decline in resilience towards distributed processing while simultaneously preserving the ability to integrate parafoveal information into foveal processing. As such, the present results relate to proposals of regulatory compensation strategies older adults use to secure an overall reading speed very similar to that of young adults.
Cognitive psychology is traditionally interested in the interaction of perception, cognition, and behavioral control. Investigating eye movements in reading constitutes a field of research in which the processes and interactions of these subsystems can be studied in a well-defined environment. Thereby, the following questions are pursued: How much information is visually perceived during a fixation, how is processing achieved and temporally coordinated from visual letter encoding to final sentence comprehension, and how do such processes reflect on behavior such as the control of the eyes’ movements during reading. Various theoretical models have been proposed to account for the specific eye-movement behavior in reading (for a review see Reichle, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2003). Some models are based on the idea of shifting attention serially from one word to the next within the sentence whereas others propose distributed attention allocating processing resources to more than one word at a time. As attention is assumed to drive word recognition processes one major difference between these models is that word processing must either occur in strict serial order, or that word processing is achieved in parallel. In spite of this crucial difference in the time course of word processing, both model classes perform well on explaining many of the benchmark effects in reading. In fact, there seems to be not much empirical evidence that challenges the models to a point at which their basic assumptions could be falsified. One issue often perceived as being decisive in the debate on serial and parallel word processing is how not-yet-fixated words to the right of fixation affect eye movements. Specifically, evidence is discussed as to what spatial extent such parafoveal words are previewed and how this influences current and subsequent word processing. Four experiments investigated parafoveal processing close to the spatial limits of the perceptual span. The present work aims to go beyond mere existence proofs of previewing words at such spatial distances. Introducing a manipulation that dissociates the sources of long-range preview effects, benefits and costs of parafoveal processing can be investigated in a single analysis and the differing impact is tracked across a three-word target region. In addition, the same manipulation evaluates the role of oculomotor error as the cause of non-local distributed effects. In this respect, the results contribute to a better understanding of the time course of word processing inside the perceptual span and attention allocation during reading.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden Studenten des Regel- und Reformstudiengangs der Charitè Universitätsmedizin Berlin zu ihrer motivationalen Orientierung, ihrer Selbstwirksamkeit, ihrer Studienzufriedenheit und den Lernstrategien, die sie im Studium verwenden, gefragt. Aufgrund der im Reformstudiengang verwendeten Methode des problembasierten Lernens, der umgestalteten Prüfungsmodalitäten und der überschaubaren Anzahl an Studenten wurde erwartet, dass Reformstudenten Tiefenstrategien beim Lernen häufiger nutzen als Studenten des Regelstudiengangs. Studenten beider Studiengänge nutzen Tiefenstrategien häufiger als Oberflächenstrategien und lernen stärker ichorientiert als aufgabenorientiert. Jedoch sind die Reformstudenten mit den Bedingungen und Inhalten ihres Studiums zufriedener. Gutachter / Betreuer: Spörer, Nadine; Brunstein, Joachim C.; Kirsch, Bärbel
In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wurde ein arbeitspsychologisches Problem thematisiert, dass in Mensch-Maschine-Systemen auftritt. In Mensch-Maschine-Systemen werden Informationen in kodierter Form ausgetauscht. Diese inhaltlich verkürzte Informationsübertragung hat den Vorteil, keine lange Zustandsbeschreibung zu benötigen, so dass der Mensch auf die veränderten Zustände schnell und effizient reagieren kann. Dies wird aber nur dann ermöglicht, wenn der Mensch die kodierten Informationen (Kodes) vorher erlernten Bedeutungen zuordnen kann. Je nach Art der kodierten Informationen (visuelle, akustische oder alphanumerische Signale) wurden Gestaltungsempfehlungen für Kodealphabete entwickelt. Für Operateure resultiert die mentale Belastung durch Dekodierungsprozesse vor allem aus dem Umfang des Kodealphabetes (Anzahl von Kodezeichen), der wahrnehmungsmäßigen Gestaltung der Kodes und den Regeln über die Zuordnung von Bedeutungen zu Kodezeichen. Die Entscheidung über die Güte von Kodealphabeten geschieht in der Arbeitspsychologie in der Regel über Leistungsindikatoren. Dies sind üblicherweise die zur Dekodierung der Kodes benötigte Zeit und dabei auftretende Zuordnungsfehler. Psychophysiologische Daten werden oft nicht herangezogen. Fraglich ist allerdings, ob Zeiten und Fehler allein verlässliche Indikatoren für den kognitiven Aufwand bei Dekodierungsprozessen sind, da im hochgeübten Zustand bei gleichen Alphabetlängen, aber unterschiedlicher Kodezeichengestaltung sich häufig die mittleren Dekodierungszeiten zwischen Kodealphabeten nicht signifikant unterscheiden und Fehler überhaupt nicht auftreten. Die in der vorliegenden Arbeit postulierte Notwendigkeit der Ableitung von Biosignalen gründet sich auf die Annahme, dass mit ihrer Hilfe zusätzliche Informationen über die mentale Beanspruchung bei Dekodierungsprozessen gewonnen werden können, die mit der Erhebung von Leistungsdaten nicht erfasst werden. Denn gerade dann, wenn sich die Leistungsdaten zweier Kodealphabete nicht unterscheiden, können psychophysiologische Daten unterschiedliche Aspekte mentaler Beanspruchung erfassen, die mit Hilfe von Leistungsdaten nicht bestimmt werden können. Daher wird in Erweiterung des etablierten Untersuchungsansatzes vorgeschlagen, Biosignale als dritten Datenbereich, neben Leistungsdaten und subjektiven Daten mentaler Beanspruchung, abzuleiten, um zusätzliche Informationen über die mentale Beanspruchung bei Dekodierungsprozessen zu erhalten. Diese Annahme sollte mit Hilfe der Ableitung von Biosignalen überprüft werden. Der Begriff mentaler Beanspruchung wird in der bisherigen Literatur nur unzureichend definiert und differenziert. Daher wird zur Untersuchung dieses Konzepts, die wissenschaftliche Literatur berücksichtigend, ein erweitertes Modell mentaler Beanspruchung vorgestellt. Dabei wird die mentale Beanspruchung abgegrenzt von der emotionalen Beanspruchung. Mentale Beanspruchung wird weiterhin unterschieden in psychomotorische, perzeptive und kognitive Beanspruchung. Diese Aspekte mentaler Beanspruchung werden jeweils vom psychomotorischen, perzeptiven oder kognitiven Aufwand der zu bearbeitenden Aufgabe ausgelöst. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wurden zwei zentrale Fragestellungen untersucht: Einerseits wurde die Analyse der anwendungsbezogenen Frage fokussiert, inwieweit psychophysiologische Indikatoren mentaler Beanspruchung über die Leistungsdaten (Dekodierungszeiten und Fehleranzahl) hinaus, zusätzliche Informationen zur Bestimmung der Güte von Kodealphabeten liefern. Andererseits wurde der Forschungsaspekt untersucht, inwieweit psychophysiologische Indikatoren mentaler Beanspruchung die zur Dekodierung notwendigen perzeptiven und kognitiven Aspekte mentaler Beanspruchung differenzieren können. Emotionale Beanspruchung war nicht Gegenstand der Analysen, weshalb in der Operationalisierung versucht wurde, sie weitgehend zu vermeiden. Psychomotorische Beanspruchung als dritter Aspekt mentaler Beanspruchung (neben perzeptiver und kognitiver Beanspruchung) wurde für beide Experimentalgruppen weitgehend konstant gehalten. In Lernexperimenten hatten zwei anhand eines Lern- und Gedächtnistests homogenisierte Stichproben jeweils die Bedeutung von 54 Kodes eines Kodealphabets zu erwerben. Dabei wurde jeder der zwei unahbhängigen Stichproben ein anderes Kodealphabet vorgelegt, wobei sich die Kodealphabete hinsichtlich Buchstabenanzahl (Kodelänge) und anzuwendender Zuordnungsregeln unterschieden. Damit differierten die Kodealphabete im perzeptiven und kognitiven Aspekt mentaler Beanspruchung. Die Kombination der Abkürzungen entsprach den in einer Feuerwehrleitzentrale verwendeten (Kurzbeschreibungen von Notfallsituationen). In der Lernphase wurden den Probanden zunächst die Kodealphabete geblockt mit ihren Bedeutungen präsentiert. Anschließend wurden die Kodes (ohne deren Bedeutung) in sechs aufeinanderfolgenden Prüfphasen randomisiert einzeln dargeboten, wobei die Probanden instruiert waren, die Bedeutung der jeweiligen Kodes in ein Mikrofon zu sprechen. Während des gesamten Experiments wurden, neben Leistungsdaten (Dekodierungszeiten und Fehleranzahl) und subjektiven Daten über die mentale Beanspruchung im Verlauf der Experimente, folgende zentralnervöse und peripherphysiologische Biosignale abgeleitet: Blutdruck, Herzrate, phasische und tonische elektrodermale Aktivität und Elektroenzephalogramm. Aus ihnen wurden zunächst 13 peripherphysiologische und 7 zentralnervöse Parameter berechnet, von denen 7 peripherphysiologische und 3 zentralnervöse Parameter die statistischen Voraussetzungen (Einschlusskriterien) soweit erfüllten, dass sie in die inferenzstatistische Datenanalyse einbezogen wurden. Leistungsdaten und subjektive Beanspruchungseinschätzungen der Versuchsdurchgänge wurden zu den psychophysiologischen Parametern in Beziehung gesetzt. Die Befunde zeigen, dass mittels der psychophysiologischen Daten zusätzliche Erkenntnisse über den kognitiven Aufwand gewonnen werden können. Als weitere Analyse wurden die Kodes post hoc in zwei neue Kodealphabete eingeteilt. Ziel dieser Analyse war es, die Unterschiede zwischen beiden Kodealphabeten zu erhöhen, um deutlichere reizbezogene psychophysiologische Unterschiede in den EEG-Daten zwischen den Kodealphabeten zu erhalten. Dazu wurde diejenigen, hinsichtlich ihrer Bedeutung, parallelen Kodes in beiden Kodealphabeten ausgewählt, die sich in der Dekodierungszeit maximal voneinander unterschieden. Eine erneute Analyse der EEG-Daten erbrachte jedoch keine Verbesserung der Ergebnisse. Drei Hauptergebnisse bezüglich der psychophysiologischen Parameter konnten festgestellt werden: Das erste Ergebnis ist für die psychophysiologische Methodik bedeutsam. Viele psychophysiologische Parameter unterschieden zwischen den Prüfphasen und zeigen damit eine hinreichende Sensitivität zur Untersuchung mentaler Beanspruchung bei Dekodierungsprozessen an. Dazu gehören die Anzahl der spontanen Hautleitwertsreaktionen, die Amplitude der Hautleitwertsreaktionen, das Hautleitwertsniveau, die Herzrate, die Herzratendifferenz und das Beta-2-Band des EEG. Diese Parameter zeigen einen ähnlichen Verlauf wie die Leistungsdaten. Dies zeigt, dass es möglich ist, die hier operationaliserte Art mentaler Beanspruchung in Form von Dekodierungsprozessen psychophysiologisch zu analysieren. Ein zweites Ergebnis betrifft die Möglichkeit, Unterschiede mentaler Beanspruchung zwischen beiden Gruppen psychophysiologisch abzubilden: Das Hautleitwertsniveau und das Theta-Frequenzband des Spontan-EEG zeigten Unterschiede zwischen beiden Stichproben von der ersten Prüfphase an. Diese Parameter indizieren unterschiedlichen kognitiven Aufwand in beiden Stichproben über alle Prüfphasen. Das wichtigste Ergebnis betrifft die Frage nach einem Informationsgewinn bei Einsatz psychophysiologischer Methoden zur Bewertung der Güte von Kodealphabeten: Einen tatsächlichen Informationsgewinn gegenüber den Leistungsdaten zeigte die Amplitude der elektrodermalen Aktivität und die Herzraten-Differenz an. Denn in den späteren Prüfphasen, wenn sich die Leistungsdaten beider Kodealphabete nicht mehr unterschieden, konnten unterschiedliche Ausprägungen dieser psychophysiologischen Parameter zwischen beiden Kodealphabeten verzeichnet werden. Damit konnten unterschiedliche Aspekte mentaler Beanspruchung in beiden Kodealphabeten in den späteren Prüfphasen erfasst werden, in denen sich die Leistungsdaten nicht mehr unterschieden. Alle drei Ergebnisse zeigen, dass es, trotz erheblichen technischen und methodischen Aufwands, sinnvoll erscheint, bei der Charakterisierung mentaler Belastungen und für die Gestaltung von Kodealphabeten auch psychophysiologische Daten heranzuziehen, da zusätzliche Informationen über den perzeptiven und kognitiven Dekodierungsaufwand gewonnen werden können.
Abschlussbericht zum DFG-Projekt "Veränderung der Lernmotivation in Mathematik und Physik: eine Komponentenanalyse und der Einfluss elterlicher sowie schulischer Kontextfaktoren" Abstract: Dass die Lernmotivation besonders in mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Fächern im Verlauf der Sekundarschulzeit sinkt, kann als gesichert gelten (Krapp, 1998). Allerdings ergibt sich bei genauerem Hinsehen ein recht differenziertes Bild. Dies betrifft insbesondere die verschiedenen Komponenten von Lernmotivation (z. B. Erfolgserwartungen, Nützlichkeiten/Instrumentalitäten, intrinsische vs. extrinsische Folgenanreize, Sachinteressen, Selbstkontrollfunktionen etc.), die offenbar nicht gleichermaßen betroffen sind. Weiterhin wurden auch unterschiedliche Veränderungen je nach Fach, Klassenstufe und Geschlecht gefunden (z. B. Fend, 1997; Pekrun, 1993). Überdies sind hier individuell unterschiedliche Verlaufstypen der Lernmotivationsveränderung zu erwarten (Fend, 1997; Rheinberg, 1980). Je nachdem, aufgrund welcher Komponenten ein Absinken der Lernmotivation zustande kommt, sind ganz andere Interventionsmaßnahmen angezeigt. Von daher ist ein Instrumentarium erforderlich, das die einzelnen Komponenten der Lernmotivation in mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Fächern zu erfassen erlaubt. Ein solches Verfahren soll in einem zweijährigen Projekt theorieverankert entwickelt werden. Es stützt sich zunächst auf das Erweiterte Kognitive Modell zur Lernmotivation (Heckhausen & Rheinberg, 1980; Rheinberg, 1989), des weiteren auf Interessenkonzepte (Krapp, 1992, 1998) sowie auf die Handlungskontroll- bzw. die PSI-Theorie (Kuhl, 1987, 1998). Es soll die Lernmotivation in ihren Komponenten so erfassen, dass spezifische Interventionen hergeleitet bzw. schon bewährte fallbezogen platziert werden können. Solche Interventionen sind für mögliche Anschlussprojekte im DFG-Schwerpunktprogramm "Bildungsqualität" vorgesehen. In einem altersgestaffelten einjährigen Längsschnitt wird im jetzigen Projekt mit diesem Instrument die Veränderung dieser Komponenten in den Fächern Mathematik und Physik auf der Sekundarstufe I erhoben. Gewonnen werden dabei klassenstufenspezifische Veränderungen der Lernmotivationskomponenten sowie (via Typenanalysen) verschiedene Entwicklungstypen in der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Lernmotivation. Dies sind Basisinformationen, die für die Entwicklung, Platzierung und Effektsicherung nachfolgender Interventionsmaßnahmen benötigt werden. Um im Vorfeld zwei (von vielen) Ansatzpunkten solcher Interventionen näher abzuklären, wird bereits in der ersten Projektphase die Wirkung zweier Kontextfaktoren untersucht. Hier wird (a) das mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Anregungsklima des Elternhauses sowie (b) die Bezugsnorm-Orientierung des Mathematik- bzw. Physiklehrers erfasst. Von beiden Kontextfaktoren sind Auswirkungen auf spezifische Komponenten der mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Lernmotivation zu erwarten. Dies ist jedoch vorweg genauer abzuklären, ehe man die Kosten von Interventionen investiert. Das Instrumentarium (PMI) wird von Mai bis September 2000 entwickelt. Die einjährige Längsschnittstudie beginnt dann im Oktober 2000. Geplant sind drei Messzeitpunkte jeweils auf den Klassenstufen 5 bis 9 (Kombiniertes Längs- und Querschnittdesign)
Ziel des Projekts war die Verbesserung des Verständnisses des Flow-Phänomens. Mit einer Flow-Erhebung unter Alltagsbedingungen(ESM-Studie) und Experimenten mit Computerspielen sollten Auftretensbedingungen und Korrelate von Flow sowie der Einfluss verschiedener Person- und Situationsmerkmale geklärt werden. Die Durchführung des Projektes konnte fast vollständig wie im Projektantrag formuliert realisiert werden. <b>Flow unter Alltagsbedingungen (ESM-Studie)</b> Wie erwartet ließ sich Flow-Erleben unter Alltagsbedingungen mit der Flow-Kurzskala (FKS) ökonomisch und reliabel erfassen. Es zeigte sich, dass Flow während der Arbeitszeit stärker auftritt als in der Freizeit. Trotzdem fühlten sich die Teilnehmer in der Freizeit glücklicher als während der Arbeit (Replikation des „Paradoxons der Arbeit“ mit adäquater Methode). Dabei scheint die Zielausrichtung laufender Aktivitäten eine Schlüsselrolle zu spielen. Sie wirkt sich auf Flow förderlich aus, auf Glück/Zufriedenheit aber eher dämpfend. Da nun Arbeitsaktivitäten häufiger zielgerichtet sind als Freizeitaktivitäten, ließ sich das „Paradoxon der Arbeit“ zu einem erheblichen Teil auf die Zielausrichtung zurückführen. Die Tätigkeiten, die zu den einzelnen Messzeitpunkt von den Untersuchungsteilnehmern angegeben wurden, unterscheiden sich deutlich in dem Ausmaß, in dem bei ihrer Ausübung Flow-Erleben auftritt. Dabei sind hohe Flow-Werte sowohl bei Arbeits-, als auch bei Freizeitaktivitäten möglich. Außerdem unterscheiden sich die angegebenen Tätigkeiten darin, wie sehr Flow in ihrem Vollzug von Glücksgefühlen begleitet ist („Glückspotential“ von Flow bei verschiedenen Aktivitäten). Eine der Bedingungen für Flow-Erleben ist die optimale Beanspruchung. Sie ergibt sich aus der Passung bzw. Balance zwischen Fähigkeit und Anforderung. Flow-Erleben war dann am höchsten, wenn Anforderungen und Fähigkeiten in Balance waren. Allerdings war der Passungseffekt viel zu schwach, als dass man allein über die Passung das Vorliegen von Flow diagnostizieren sollte. Zudem wirkte sich die Passung von Fähigkeit und Anforderung in Kombination mit der Zielausrichtung verschieden stark auf das Flow-Erleben von Erfolgszuversichtlichen vs. misserfolgsängstlichen Teilnehmern aus. Mit Blick auf den Zusammenhang zwischen Personmerkmalen und Flow interessierte uns der Einfluss der Motive auf Flow. In der Gesamtstichprobe wurde Flow während der Arbeit überraschenderweise am ehesten über das Anschlussmotiv des Teilnehmers vorhergesagt. Die Varianzaufklärung ist mit 8,3% aber eher mäßig. Betrachtet man bestimmte Berufsgruppen dieser Stichprobe getrennt, so gilt dieser Befund in verstärktem Maße für die Gruppe der Sekretärinnen/ SachbearbeiterInnen (12 % Varianzaufklärung). In der Berufsgruppe der Professoren/Leitern/Wiss. Mitarbeitern war Flow dagegen sehr deutlich über das Leistungsmotiv der Teilnehmer vorhersagbar (41 % Varianzaufklärung), während das Anschlussmotiv hier keine Rolle spielt. Außerdem suchten wir eine Klärung des Einflusses der motivationalen Kompetenz, also der Übereinstimmung von impliziten Motiven und motivationalen Selbstbildern auf Flow. Flow-Effekte der motivationalen Kompetenz zeigten sich lediglich beim (erfolgszuversichtlichen) Leistungsmotiv – nicht jedoch bei anderen Motiven. Dies gilt insbesondere, wenn sich (a) die Untersuchungsteilnehmer in Leistungssituationen befinden sowie (b) zur Gruppe der Professoren, Leitern und Wissenschaftlern gehören. Glücks- und Zufriedenheitserlebnisse (PANAVA) im Alltag lassen sich über das Anschlussmotiv aber nicht über das Leistungsmotiv einer Person vorhersagen. Das Leistungsmotiv sagt dagegen die Aktivierung (PANAVA) im Alltag vorher allerdings sowohl in positiver (PA) als auch in negativer (NA) Ausprägung. <b>Flow unter experimentellen Bedingungen</b> Mit zwei modifizierten Computerspielen (Roboguard und Pacman) gelang es, das Auftreten von Flow systematisch zu beeinflussen und seine Korrelate und Folgen untersuchbar zu machen. Im Wesentlichen wurde - teils in Replikationen – folgendes gezeigt: Zwischen Flow-Erleben und Anforderung besteht gemäß Csikszentmihalyis ursprünglichem Kanalmodell ein kurvelinearer Zusammenhang. Die angepassten mittleren Anforderungen erzeugen nicht nur die höchsten Flow-Werte, sondern sind bei freier Aufgabenwahl auch am attraktivsten. Am unattraktivsten sind zu geringe Anforderungen. Auf Seiten von Personmerkmalen hat erwartungsgemäß eine „Lernziel-Orientierung“ einen leicht förderlichen Einfluss auf das Flow-Erleben in einem Computerspiel. Überraschenderweise hat aber die „Performanz-Orientierung“ einen noch stärkeren Einfluss. Flowdämpfend scheint sich allenfalls die Subskala „Anerkennungssuche“ auszuwirken. Sie korreliert auch leicht positiv mit Besorgnissen während des Spiels. Das Zeiterleben ist erwartungsgemäß auf den flowförderlichen optimalen Anforderungsstufen verkürzt. Je nach Erfassungsmodalität korreliert dieses Erleben auch mit den FKS-Werten. Erwartungsgemäß korreliert Flow-Erleben (FKS) mit der Leistung bei Pacman auf optimalem Anforderungslevel deutlich positiv. Ein erwarteter Bezugsnorm-Effekt verschiedener Rückmeldungsbedingungen auf Flow-Erleben wurde nicht festgestellt. Allerdings waren die realisierten Rückmeldungen sehr unsensibel gegenüber Leistungsschwankungen, weswegen die resultierenden Rückmeldungen unter individueller Bezugsnorm ungeplantermaßen ein (zu) stabiles Leistungsbild ergaben. Insgesamt hat sich besonders das Computerspiel Pacman für Flow-Experimente bewährt, wenn man die Probanden (a) nicht zu lange auf demselben Schwierigkeitsgrad spielen lässt und (b) eine gewisse Asymmetrie in Rechnung stellt, wonach in bedrohungsfreien Spielsituationen zu schwierige Anforderungen attraktiver und flow-induzierender sind als zu leichte Anforderungen und wenn man schließlich (c) den optimalen mittleren Anforderungsgrad an die individuelle Spielkompetenz anpasst. Diese Befundstruktur wurde mit Pacman inzwischen von einer Bielefelder Arbeitsgruppe im Wesentlichen repliziert (Schiefele, pers. Mitteilung, Oktober 2005). <hr> Die elektronische Version des Abschlussberichtes erscheint ohne den Anhang. Der Anhang ist auf Anforderung bei Prof. Dr. Rheinberg erhältlich: <a href="mailto:rheinberg@uni-potsdam.de">rheinberg@uni-potsdam.de</a>
Ausgehend von einer Charakterisierung des Flow-Erlebens als gaenzliches Aufgehen in einem glatt laufenden Taetigkeitsvollzug, den man trotz hoher Beanspruchung noch unter Kontrolle hat, wird auf die Erfassung dieser Motivationskomponente eingegangen. Dargestellt und diskutiert werden Vor- und Nachteile der bisherigen qualitativen (Interviews) und quantitativen Flow-Erfassung (Experience Sampling Method (ESM)) . Ausfuehrlicher wird eine "Flow-Kurzskala" (FKS) beschrieben, die mit zehn Items alle qualitativ verschiedenen Komponenten des Flow-Erlebens oekonomisch und reliabel erfasst. Sie liefert einen Gesamtwert sowie Werte fuer zwei Subskalen (glatter automatisierter Verlauf sowie Absorbiertheit). Daneben erfassen drei zusaetzliche Items die Besorgnis in der aktuellen Situation. Berichtet werden Vergleichskennwerte aus punktuellen Messungen und ESM-Studien. Die hoechsten Werte fuer Flow und Besorgnis wurden bislang bei Graffiti-Sprayern gefunden. Bei einer intellektuell herausfordernden Aufgabe (Postkorbuebung) sind die FKS-Werte mit der Hoffnung-auf-Erfolg-Komponente des Leistungsmotivs korreliert. Furcht-vor-Misserfolg korreliert dagegen mit dem Besorgniswert der FKS. Flow waehrend der Bearbeitung von Uebungsaufgaben fuer Statistik lieferte einen signifikanten Beitrag zur Vorhersage der nachfolgenden Klausurleistung. Dieser Beitrag blieb erhalten, auch wenn Faehigkeitsmasse kontrolliert wurden. (Buch/A.G. - ZPID)
Berichtet wird über eine Möglichkeit, Flow-Erleben unter experimentell kontrollierten Bedingungen systematisch zu variieren. Dabei werden die Tätigkeit (das Computerspiel Roboguard) und die Situationsbedingungen konstant gehalten. Variiert wird lediglich die Schwierigkeitsstufe, auf der gespielt wird. Als abhängiges Maß wurde die Flow-Kurzskala (FKS, Rheinberg, Vollmeyer & Engeser, 2002) verwandt. Es zeigten sich die vorhergesagten kurvilinearen Beziehungen zwischen Anforderungsstufe und Flow mit Effektstärken um 1 und größer. Zusammenhänge zwischen habitueller Zielorientierung (Hayamizu & Weiner, 1991) und Flow zeigten sich nur bei den flow-auslösenden Schwierigkeitsstufen. Es gab keine negative Beziehung zwischen Zielorientierung und Flow, vielmehr korrelierten sowohl die learning- als auch die performance goal orientation positiv mit der Flowkomponente Absorbiertheit. Aus diesem Befund wird eine Arbeitshypothese zur Beziehung von Motivation und Flow hergeleitet, wonach unter optimalen Bedingungen Besonderheiten der Initialmotivation vielleicht dann keine Rolle mehr spielen, wenn die Person erst einmal im Flow-Zustand ist.
Anreizanalyse intensiver Freizeitnutzung von Computern : Hacker, Cracker und zweckorientierte Nutzer
(2006)
Was bringt intensive Computernutzer dazu, ihre Freizeit am Rechner zu verbringen, und gibt es hierbei Unterschiede zwischen verschiedenen Nutzertypen? N = 271 Personen nahmen an einer online Befragung zu Anreizen freizeitlicher Computernutzung teil. Durch ausgewählte Internetverteiler waren gezielt besonders engagierte Computernutzer angesprochen worden (M = 3,9 Freizeitstunden am Rechner pro Tag). Für diese Nutzer fanden sich (in der Reihenfolge ihres Gewichtes) folgende Anreizfaktoren: Zugehörigkeit/Gemeinschaft; Kompetenzerleben; Vielseitigkeit/Nutzen; Langeweilevermeidung; rebellische Illegalitätstendenz. Gruppiert nach ihren bevorzugten Nutzungsweisen fanden sich drei Nutzertypen: Zweckorientierte Nutzer (58%), Hacker (= Eindringen in fremde Systeme ohne Schädigungsabsicht, 22%) und Cracker (Eindringen mit Schädigungsabsicht, 20%). Diese Nutzertypen unterschieden sich deutlich in ihrem Anreizprofil. Hacking und Cracking, nicht aber zweckorientierte Nutzungsweisen waren korreliert mit Flow-Erleben und positiver Aktivierung am Rechner. Die Ergebnisse sind nicht repräsentativ für alle Freizeitnutzer. Sie beziehen sich auf eine gezielt rekrutierte Stichprobe besonders engagierter Computernutzer, die über spezifische Netzwerke (z. B. relevante Fachschaften, Chaos Computer Club) erreichbar sind.
Bei N = 101 Arbeitnehmern verschiedener Berufe wurden mit der Experience Sampling Method (ESM) eine Woche lang Daten zum Flow-Erleben, zu Glück/Zufriedenheit und zur Zielausrichtung laufender Aktivitäten erhoben (N = 4603 Messungen). Die Daten wurden mit GLMM-Analysen ausgewertet. Auch bei der jetzt vollständigen Erfassung aller Flow-Komponenten mit der FKS bestätigte sich das „Paradoxon der Arbeit“, wonach während der Arbeit höhere Flow-Werte, aber niedrigere Werte für Glück/Zufriedenheit auftreten als jeweils in der Freizeit. Während der Arbeit waren Aktivitäten häufiger auf die Erreichung von Zielen ausgerichtet als während der Freizeit. Die Zielausrichtung wirkte auf Flow vs. Glück/Zufriedenheit signifikant verschieden. Während der Arbeit hat die Zielausrichtung auf Flow einen stark positiven Effekt, auf Glück/Zufriedenheit jedoch nicht. Im Freizeitbereich war der Effekt von Zielausrichtung auf Glück/Zufriedenheit sogar negativ. Das „Paradoxon der Arbeit“ lässt sich partiell als Effekt der Zielausrichtung verstehen.
Untersucht wurde, welche Anreize das Graffiti-Sprayen attraktiv machen. Dazu wurden in einer Vorphase 138 Anreizschilderungen gesammelt und in einen Fragebogen mit 50 Items transformiert. N = 294 Graffiti-Sprayer beantworteten diesen Fragebogen teils online im Internet, teils anonym gestreut auf Graffiti- oder Hip-Hop-Events.Faktorenanalytisch ließen sich sieben Anreizdimensionen ermitteln: Expertise/Kompetenzorientierung, Positive Emotionen/Flow, Kreativität, Gruppengefühl, Ruhm/Performanzorientierung, Lebenssinn, Sensation Seeking/Grenzerfahrung.Legales vs. illegales Graffiti-Sprayen unterschieden sich deutlich im Faktor Sensation Seeking/Grenzerfahrung und tendenziell im Faktor Lebenssinn. Das gesondert erfasste Flow-Erleben ließ sich beim illegalen Sprayen am besten über den Faktor Sensation Seeking/Grenzerfahrung vorhersagen, während Flow beim legalen Graffiti-Sprayen am besten über den Faktor Ruhm/Performanzorientierung vorhersagbar war. Innerhalb der legalen bzw. illegalen Sprayer ließen sich noch verschiedene Motivationstypen unterscheiden. Mit Blick auf alterskorrelierte Anreizveränderungen ließen sich beim legalen Graffiti-Sprayen keine nennenswerten Zusammenhänge zwischen Alter und Anreizgewicht feststellen. Dagegen nimmt beim illegalen Sprayen insbesondere die Bedeutung des Sensation Seeking sowie der Leistungsthematik signifikant mit dem Alter ab. Da dies die wichtigsten Anreize des illegalen Sprayens sind, dürfte dieser alterskorrelierte Anreizverlust erklären, warum es kaum illegale Sprayer gibt, die älter als 21 Jahre sind. Aus zusätzlich frei genannten Anreizen gab es noch Hinweise auf eine weitere Anreizkategorie, nämlich die Freude an „aggressiver Provokation“. Diese Kategorie war aber eher schwach besetzt. Diskutiert werden u. a. Möglichkeiten, unerwünschtes Graffiti-Sprayen einzudämmen. Hierzu wird auf die Notwendigkeit von „Aussteigeranalysen“ (Längsschnittstudien) hingewiesen, die offenlegen, für welche kritischen Anreize man Ersatz finden muss, wenn man z. B. in Interventionsprojekten das Engagement auffällig gewordener Sprayer auf andere Tätigkeitsfelder lenken möchte.
Auszug: "Man kann Motivation definieren als die „aktivierende Ausrichtung des momentanen Lebensvollzugs auf einen positiv bewerteten Zielzustand“ (Rheinberg, 2002b, S. 17). Definitionen dieser Art sollen den Kern des interessierenden Gegenstandes möglichst knapp und hoch verdichtet fassen. Besonderheiten bleiben deshalb zunächst unerwähnt und müssen dann zusätzlich erläutert werden. Im jetzigen Fall sind mindestens zwei Zusatzerläuterungen erforderlich. (1) Der „positiv bewertete Zielzustand“ kann gelegentlich in der Vermeidung oder der Abwehr unerwünschter Ereignisse bestehen. Eine solche Meiden-Motivation kann andere Qualitäten haben als eine reine Aufsuchungsmotivation. Dieser Punkt wird uns in diesem Kapitel nicht beschäftigen. Er wird in den Kapiteln xx behandelt. (2) Der zweite Punkt ist diffiziler und ist Gegenstand dieses Kapitels. Wenn man, wie hier, den Zielzustand zum Ausgangspunkt der Motivationsdefinition macht, so könnte man daraus vorschnell eine Aussage über die Lokalisierung von Anreizen ablesen: Der Zielzustand ist das, was Anreiz besitzt und die zielführende Aktivität ist lediglich das Instrument, das diesen Zielzustand herbeiführt. Danach würde eine Aktivität ihre Attraktivität aus dem Anreiz der Ergebnisse beziehen, auf die sie abzielt. Eine solche Auffassung findet sich z. B. bei Heckhausen (1977) oder Vroom (1964).
Recognizing, understanding, and responding to quantities are considerable skills for human beings. We can easily communicate quantities, and we are extremely efficient in adapting our behavior to numerical related tasks. One usual task is to compare quantities. We also use symbols like digits in numerical-related tasks. To solve tasks including digits, we must to rely on our previously learned internal number representations.
This thesis elaborates on the process of number comparison with the use of noisy mental representations of numbers, the interaction of number and size representations and how we use mental number representations strategically. For this, three studies were carried out.
In the first study, participants had to decide which of two presented digits was numerically larger. They had to respond with a saccade in the direction of the anticipated answer. Using only a small set of meaningfully interpretable parameters, a variant of random walk models is described that accounts for response time, error rate, and variance of response time for the full matrix of 72 digit pairs. In addition, the used random walk model predicts a numerical distance effect even for error response times and this effect clearly occurs in the observed data. In relation to corresponding correct answers error responses were systematically faster. However, different from standard assumptions often made in random walk models, this account required that the distributions of step sizes of the induced random walks be asymmetric to account for this asymmetry between correct and incorrect responses.
Furthermore, the presented model provides a well-defined framework to investigate the nature and scale (e.g., linear vs. logarithmic) of the mapping of numerical magnitude onto its internal representation. In comparison of the fits of proposed models with linear and logarithmic mapping, the logarithmic mapping is suggested to be prioritized.
Finally, we discuss how our findings can help interpret complex findings (e.g., conflicting speed vs. accuracy trends) in applied studies that use number comparison as a well-established diagnostic tool. Furthermore, a novel oculomotoric effect is reported, namely the saccadic overschoot effect. The participants responded by saccadic eye movements and the amplitude of these saccadic responses decreases with numerical distance.
For the second study, an experimental design was developed that allows us to apply the signal detection theory to a task where participants had to decide whether a presented digit was physically smaller or larger. A remaining question is, whether the benefit in (numerical magnitude – physical size) congruent conditions is related to a better perception than in incongruent conditions. Alternatively, the number-size congruency effect is mediated by response biases due to numbers magnitude. The signal detection theory is a perfect tool to distinguish between these two alternatives. It describes two parameters, namely sensitivity and response bias. Changes in the sensitivity are related to the actual task performance due to real differences in perception processes whereas changes in the response bias simply reflect strategic implications as a stronger preparation (activation) of an anticipated answer. Our results clearly demonstrate that the number-size congruency effect cannot be reduced to mere response bias effects, and that genuine sensitivity gains for congruent number-size pairings contribute to the number-size congruency effect.
Third, participants had to perform a SNARC task – deciding whether a presented digit was odd or even. Local transition probability of irrelevant attributes (magnitude) was varied while local transition probability of relevant attributes (parity) and global probability occurrence of each stimulus were kept constantly. Participants were quite sensitive in recognizing the underlying local transition probability of irrelevant attributes. A gain in performance was observed for actual repetitions of the irrelevant attribute in relation to changes of the irrelevant attribute in high repetition conditions compared to low repetition conditions. One interpretation of these findings is that information about the irrelevant attribute (magnitude) in the previous trial is used as an informative precue, so that participants can prepare early processing stages in the current trial, with the corresponding benefits and costs typical of standard cueing studies.
Finally, the results reported in this thesis are discussed in relation to recent studies in numerical cognition.
Calcularis is a computer-based training program which focuses on basic numerical skills, spatial representation of numbers and arithmetic operations. The program includes a user model allowing flexible adaptation to the child's individual knowledge and learning profile. The study design to evaluate the training comprises three conditions (Calcularis group, waiting control group, spelling training group). One hundred and thirty-eight children from second to fifth grade participated in the study. Training duration comprised a minimum of 24 training sessions of 20 min within a time period of 6-8 weeks. Compared to the group without training (waiting control group) and the group with an alternative training (spelling training group), the children of the Calcularis group demonstrated a higher benefit in subtraction and number line estimation with medium to large effect sizes. Therefore, Calcularis can be used effectively to support children in arithmetic performance and spatial number representation.
Postural balance represents a fundamental movement skill for the successful performance of everyday and sport-related activities. There is ample evidence on the effectiveness of balance training on balance performance in athletic and non-athletic population. However, less is known on potential transfer effects of other training types, such as plyometric jump training (PJT) on measures of balance. Given that PJT is a highly dynamic exercise mode with various forms of jump-landing tasks, high levels of postural control are needed to successfully perform PJT exercises. Accordingly, PJT has the potential to not only improve measures of muscle strength and power but also balance. To systematically review and synthetize evidence from randomized and non-randomized controlled trials regarding the effects of PJT on measures of balance in apparently healthy participants. Systematic literature searches were performed in the electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, and SCOPUS. A PICOS approach was applied to define inclusion criteria, (i) apparently healthy participants, with no restrictions on their fitness level, sex, or age, (ii) a PJT program, (iii) active controls (any sport-related activity) or specific active controls (a specific exercise type such as balance training), (iv) assessment of dynamic, static balance pre- and post-PJT, (v) randomized controlled trials and controlled trials. The methodological quality of studies was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. This meta-analysis was computed using the inverse variance random-effects model. The significance level was set at p <0.05. The initial search retrieved 8,251 plus 23 records identified through other sources. Forty-two articles met our inclusion criteria for qualitative and 38 for quantitative analysis (1,806 participants [990 males, 816 females], age range 9–63 years). PJT interventions lasted between 4 and 36 weeks. The median PEDro score was 6 and no study had low methodological quality (≤3). The analysis revealed significant small effects of PJT on overall (dynamic and static) balance (ES = 0.46; 95% CI = 0.32–0.61; p < 0.001), dynamic (e.g., Y-balance test) balance (ES = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.30–0.71; p < 0.001), and static (e.g., flamingo balance test) balance (ES = 0.49; 95% CI = 0.31–0.67; p < 0.001). The moderator analyses revealed that sex and/or age did not moderate balance performance outcomes. When PJT was compared to specific active controls (i.e., participants undergoing balance training, whole body vibration training, resistance training), both PJT and alternative training methods showed similar effects on overall (dynamic and static) balance (p = 0.534). Specifically, when PJT was compared to balance training, both training types showed similar effects on overall (dynamic and static) balance (p = 0.514). Conclusion: Compared to active controls, PJT showed small effects on overall balance, dynamic and static balance. Additionally, PJT produced similar balance improvements compared to other training types (i.e., balance training). Although PJT is widely used in athletic and recreational sport settings to improve athletes' physical fitness (e.g., jumping; sprinting), our systematic review with meta-analysis is novel in as much as it indicates that PJT also improves balance performance. The observed PJT-related balance enhancements were irrespective of sex and participants' age. Therefore, PJT appears to be an adequate training regime to improve balance in both, athletic and recreational settings.
Increased N400 amplitudes on indefinite articles (a/an) incompatible with expected nouns have been initially taken as strong evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonological word forms, and recently been intensely debated because they have been difficult to replicate. Here, these effects are simulated using a neural network model of sentence comprehension that we previously used to simulate a broad range of empirical N400 effects. The model produces the effects when the cue validity of the articles concerning upcoming noun meaning in the learning environment is high, but fails to produce the effects when the cue validity of the articles is low due to adjectives presented between articles and nouns during training. These simulations provide insight into one of the factors potentially contributing to the small size of the effects in empirical studies and generate predictions for cross-linguistic differences in article induced N400 effects based on articles’ cue validity. The model accounts for article induced N400 effects without assuming pre-activation of word forms, and instead simulates these effects as the stimulus-induced change in a probabilistic representation of meaning corresponding to an implicit semantic prediction error.