9st European Conference on Positive Psychology June 27–30, 2018 • Budapest, Hungary. Book of Abstracts.

The key to the upliftment of the Adivasi community is a deep understanding of their culture, psychological resources and cognitive strengths. Ecology, Culture and Human Development: Lessons for Adivasi Education presents a comparative analysis of the cultural and cognitive dimensions of various communities in Canada, Ghana, China and India, and seeks answers from this analysis for Adivasi education. It debunks the myths of low intelligence and inferior cognitive capacity of the Adivasi community, and emphasizes the remarkable performance of Adivasi children when assessed in terms of their ecological and cultural contexts. Extensively illustrated and containing substantive data on all relevant aspects of human development, this book is a much-desired addition to the literature on this crucial aspect of social development in India. It is a comprehensive resource that aims to contribute substantially towards mitigating the travails of the Adivasi community and ensuring their social empowerment.

This book offers a comparative analysis of value and identity changes in several post-Communist countries. In light of the tremendous economic, social and political changes in former communist states, the authors compare the values, attitudes and identities of different generations and cultural groups. Based on extensive empirical data, using quantitative and qualitative methods to study complex social identities, this book examines how intergenerational value and identity changes are linked to socio-economic and political development. Topics include the rise of nationalist sentiments, identity formation of ethnic and religious groups and minorities, youth identity formation and intergenerational value conflicts

The general trend in Afghanistan is clear-cut: the overall security situation has consistently deteriorated since 2009, worsening dramatically since 2014. However, in the provinces of Afghanistan adjacent to Central Asia, the security situation has deteriorated even further than in Afghanistan as a whole. This report considers the range of options available to the Central Asian neighbors of Afghanistan (Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) in responding to this growing threat, both unilaterally and in their bilateral engagement with actors in Afghanistan. Furthermore, it considers how decisionmaking processes in Central Asia will be affected by future developments in Afghanistan by assessing options and likely outcomes under a set of security scenarios in Afghanistan itself.

In culturally diverse societies, one of the biggest questions on our minds is 'how shall we all live together?' Mutual Intercultural Relations offers an answer to this fundamental and topical issue. By exploring intercultural relationships between dominant/national and non-dominant/ethnic populations in seventeen societies around the world, the authors are each able to chart the respective views of those populations and generate 'universal' principles of intercultural relations. The research reported in this book is guided by three psychological hypotheses which are evaluated by empirical research. It was also carried out comparatively in order to gain knowledge about intercultural relations that may be general and not limited to a few social and political contexts. Understanding these general principles will offer help in the development of public policies and programmes designed to improve the quality of intercultural relations in culturally diverse societies around the world.

This textbook on Instructional Design for Learning is a must for all education and teaching students and specialists. It provides a comprehensive overview about the theoretical foundations of the various models of Instructional Design and Technology from its very beginning to the most recent approaches. It elaborates Instructional Design (ID) as a science of educational planning. The book expands on this general understanding of ID and presents an up-to-date perspective on the theories and models for the creation of detailed and precise blueprints for effective instruction. It integrates different theoretical aspects and practical approaches, such as conceptual ID models, technology-based ID, and research-based ID. In doing so, this book takes a multi-perspective view on the questions that are central for professional ID: How to analyze the relevant characteristics of the learner and the environment? How to create precise goals and adequate instruments of assessment? How to design classroom and technology-supported learning environments? How to ensure effective teaching and learning by employing formative and summative evaluation? Furthermore, this book presents empirical findings on the processes that enable effective instructional designing. Finally, this book demonstrates two different fields of application by addressing ID for teaching and learning at secondary schools and colleges, as well as for higher education.

This report presents the results of an ESRC-funded research project that examined the behavioural and attitudinal impacts of the English plastic bag charge that was introduced in October 2015. The project used a mixed-methods longitudinal approach, and included a national survey, a diary-interview study, and supermarket observation study. Overall, the research has shown that the English plastic bag charge has made a strong and positive impact on people’s behaviours and attitudes. The research found that the charge was eff ective at breaking old habits, and that it became more popular as people adapted to the policy. Evidence was also found that the charge increased environmental awareness and the acceptability of other environmental policies. The success of the plastic bag charge in eff ectively changing plastic bag use and increasing support for other charges to reduce waste suggests that similar policies could also be successfully implemented, such as a deposit return scheme on plastic bottles or a charge on disposable coff ee cups.

Background and aims. This research reported here presents findings from an evaluation of the development and implementation of the Healthy Community Challenge Fund (otherwise known as the ‘Healthy Towns’ programme). A key aim of the research has been to inform the development of future environmental and systems‐based ‘whole town’ approaches to obesity prevention. The overall aim of the Healthy Towns programme was to pilot and stimulate novel ‘whole town’ approaches that tackle the ‘obesogenic’ environment in order to reduce obesity, with a particular focus on improving diet and increasing physical activity. Through a competitive tender process, nine towns were selected that represented urban areas across England ranging from small market towns to areas of large cities. The fund provided £30 million over the period 2008‐2011, divided amongst the nine towns. The amounts awarded ranged from £900,000 to £4.85 million. Towns were instructed to be innovative and were given freedom to develop a locally‐specific programme of interventions. This report supplements local process and impact evaluations undertaken by each town (not reported here) by taking an overall view of the programme’s development and implementation. Our evaluation therefore addressed the following research questions: 1. What kinds of interventions were delivered across the Healthy Towns programme? 2. Were environmental and infrastructural interventions equitably delivered? 3. How was the Healthy Towns programme theorised and translated into practice? 4. How was evidence used in the selection and design of interventions? 5. What are the barriers and facilitators to the implementation of a systems approach to obesity prevention?

Crisis is a burning issue; this is not a phenomenon, which can be conquered forever. Current approach to crisis is an optimized collaboration, which allows for manageable, measurable and predictable software development. Crisis is a new reality to live and work with. The current software development crisis dates back to the 1960s. The root cause of crisis is misbalance between resources and options. Understanding the nature of crisis helps to understand the reasons for the future crises.

This book is a navigator in lifecycle models, methodologies, principles and practices for predictable and efficient software development in crisis, i.e. under rapid requirement changes, resource deficit and other uncertainties. Therefore, the starting chapters suggest the major approaches to software development and their applicability in crisis. Further narration is case-based; it involves large-scale software implementations in different industries and knowledge transfer processes in IT education. The book suggests a set of principles that potentially marry the client’s and the developer’s views of the future software product in order to avoid or to mitigate the crisis.

The book will be helpful for students, postdocs, theorists and practitioners in software development. It suggests approved principles and practices of crisis management for software development.

The aging of the Russian population and the rapid shrinking of its labor force in coming decades will make the human capital each worker contributes increasingly vital for sustaining economic output and growth. While improvements in general education are necessary to build the foundation for a productive future labor force, a broad-based and effective system of adult education can provide second-chance opportunities for current workers to enhance their productivity and lengthen their working lives and for low-skilled immigrants to be integrated into the workforce. How well the Russian Federation addresses these multiple needs at and beyond the workplace will depend on how effective its adult education system is. This study targeting policymakers outlines the problems of Russia's growing skills gap, especially the shortage of higher-order cognitive and socio-emotional skills, and examines the current state of adult education.

The phenomenon of self-disclosure can be considered at different levels of scientific exploration being approached either from the socio-psychological viewpoint or from the individually determined personal perspective, where the subject of openness may serve as an individual with his personal potential in the field of social communications, and social groups or corporations as well. At the level of communicative dialogue and interpersonal relationships self-disclosure is manifestation of human potential capabilities and his readiness for open and trusting cooperation in society. In practical terms, handling these issues can be referred to as a social order from the part of the representatives of those professions where comfortable social communication appears to be an important factor of communicative competence and professionalism of the person.

Cognitive Control, Communication and Perception: Psychological and Neurobiological Aspects (CCCP 2014) workshop proceedings (Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, December 4-6, 2014)

The book describes consequnces of culture in Russia.

The work was implemented as part of the Federal Dedicated Programme “Fostering Scientific and Academic Staff for Innovative Russia” for 2009-2013.

The first part of this book is devoted to the old problem of fundamental motivations that can hardly be approached in another way, other than theoretically. The second part of the book is devoted to new or rather marginal concepts that seem capable to enrich general models of motivational processes. Part three of the book deals with the issues of self-regulation and self-determination; in the last two decades the problems of motivation can be hardly dealt with without touching these issues. The focus of the last part of the book is cultural context and cultural mediation of motivation. This book was planned not as a collection of discoveries to be considered, but rather as a collection of nontrivial views that may turn helpful for making a better sense of the discoveries actually made. (Imprint: Nova)

Approval of hierarchy and inequality in society indexed by social dominance orientation (SDO) extends to support for human dominance over the natural world. We tested this negative association between SDO and environmentalism and the validity of the new Short Social Dominance Orientation Scale in two cross-cultural samples of students (N = 4,163, k = 25) and the general population (N = 1,237, k = 10). As expected, the higher people were on SDO, the less likely they were to engage in environmental citizenship actions, pro-environmental behaviors and to donate to an environmental organization. Multilevel moderation results showed that the SDO–environmentalism relation was stronger in societies with marked societal inequality, lack of societal development, and environmental standards. The results highlight the interplay between individual psychological orientations and social context, as well as the view of nature subscribed to by those high in SDO.

This study examined perfectionism as a multidimensional personality factor which influences foreign language learning and classroom anxiety. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that the two dimensions of perfectionism, adaptive and maladaptive, relate to Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA) differently. After controlling for the effects of general anxiety, perceptions of academic performance, and self-reported English fluency, perfectionistic discrepancy (maladaptive aspect) was a significant predictor of FLCA; perfectionistic standards (adaptive aspect) was not. Results indicated that this multidimensional nature of perfectionism affects Russian students in the context of foreign language classroom anxiety. Implications regarding the prevention and intervention of maladaptive perfectionism among students are discussed, as well as directions for future studies. These findings are important for teachers, students, and experts who may interact with FLCA and perfectionism as well as those who may personally experience it. The possible strategies to reduce anxiety could include discussing unrealistic beliefs and expectations with reference to foreign language learning, accepting mistakes as an integral part of foreign language learning as well as coaching.

Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment (‘cloze’). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words.

The article presents pilot data from a study conducted as part of a large project investigating the impact of socialization on child development supported by a Grant from the Government of the Russian Federation (№14.Z50.31.0027, PI: Grigorenko). The purpose of the study was to investigate indicators of psychological, social and emotional well-being in adults with experience of institutionalization in comparison with peers who grew up in biological families. We used scales from the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) and the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). Results showed no significant differences between the group of orphanage graduates and the comparison group. However, using classification procedures we established that living conditions (separate apartment vs. a "public" space - a communal apartment or a dormitory) is an important variable predicting group belonging based on well-being indices. Thus, it appears that in adulthood, it is not the history of institutionalization but the actual living environment that is associated with indicators of the psychological, social and emotional well-being of orphanage graduates.

People socialized in different cultures differ in their thinking styles. Eastern-culture people view objects more holistically by taking context into account, whereas Western-culture people view objects more analytically by focusing on them at the expense of context. Here we studied whether participants, who have different thinking styles but live within the same culture, exhibit differential brain activity when viewing a drama movie. A total of 26 Finnish participants, who were divided into holistic and analytical thinkers based on self-report questionnaire scores, watched a shortened drama movie during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We compared intersubject correlation (ISC) of brain hemodynamic activity of holistic vs analytical participants across the movie viewings. Holistic thinkers showed significant ISC in more extensive cortical areas than analytical thinkers, suggesting that they perceived the movie in a more similar fashion. Significantly higher ISC was observed in holistic thinkers in occipital, prefrontal and temporal cortices. In analytical thinkers, significant ISC was observed in right-hemisphere fusiform gyrus, temporoparietal junction and frontal cortex. Since these results were obtained in participants with similar cultural background, they are less prone to confounds by other possible cultural differences. Overall, our results show how brain activity in holistic vs analytical participants differs when viewing the same drama movie.

This paper describes the current state of the problem of time perspectives and the phenomenon

of procrastination in professional activities. The paper is primarily focused on special aspects of

time perspectives and procrastination of employees with different job titles. The paper contains

an empirical study of the interrelation of time perspective and procrastination of employees with

different job titles. The results show that top managers usually focus highly on future time

perspectives (59.03) and the positive past (36.06). Their level of procrastination is lower (53.45).

Groups of middle managers show high procrastination (57.2); they focus on hedonist present

(24.6) and the negative past (31.26). The article proves a statistically significant level of

distinctions of procrastination expressiveness on the entire sample (1211 a t p < .01). A connection

between life-purpose orientation and time representation was established: the most effective lifepurpose

orientations for top management were 'life goals' (35.28), 'locus control — life' (32.7)

and 'sense of purpose of life' (155.25); in the middle management group these facts are faintly

expressed. Correlation analysis using the Spearman's Rho allowed us to highlight a high level of

procrastination in the middle management group determined by their orientation on time

perspective of negative past against low focus on the future that complicates the success of

professional activities. The regression analysis revealed the main predictors of procrastination in

the groups of top managers (aims in life, process of life and locus control-ego) and middle

managers (Fatalistic present and future). It may be assumed that personal time perspective and

its time orientation are interconnected with procrastination processes and can be considered

both negative and positive consequences that aligns with the results of the latest research

examining procrastination in professional activities.

The perception of a pair of contours in a retinal image cannot be understood simply by adding up the perceptions of the individual contours, especially when they form a perpendicular junction, or are parallel to one another. It is the relationship among the contours that determines what is perceived. Note that it is hard to actually compare the perception of such configurations quantitatively. We managed to do this by testing the perception of such configurations in three psychophysical experiments in which the perception was characterized by measuring the orientation threshold of a single contour. This threshold was estimated by using a modified Method of Constant Stimulibased on the assumption that contours forming a configuration are perceived individually, and that they are integrated linearly. This assumption made the quantitative comparison of the perceived configurations possible. We found that changes of the estimated threshold depended on the type of the configuration, specifically thresholds estimated from a perpendicular junction were substantially lower than thresholds estimated from a single contour or from a non-perpendicular junction. The lowest thresholds were observed when the threshold was estimated from a pair of parallel contours. These results suggest that the visual system is sensitive to perpendicular junctions and parallel contours in a retinal image. Keywords: Orientation discrimination; Angle discrimination; Orientation threshold; Parallelism; Perpendicularity; Method of Constant Stimuli; Contour configuration

In the commentary to Jens Mammen’s book A New Logical Foundation for Psychology (2017), three issues are discussed. The first one concerns possible interrelations of: (a) others’ irreplaceability and existential irretrievability rigorously proved by Mammen; and (b) morality and attitudes to the others. Lem’s criticism of Heidegger’s existential philosophy, which paradoxically ignores mass homicide, is discussed in the context of topology of being. Different attitudes to the other as irreplaceable and irretrievable (e.g., in case of apprehension and execution of a murderer) are analyzed. The second issue concerns the possibility of true duplicates of the same person. The paradox of copied complexity is introduced. The third issue concerns reductionism (including brain reductionism) and opportunities to deduce various phenomena of development (mental development, actual genesis of creative thinking, etc.) from the new logical foundation for psychology built by Mammen.

Background

In the past decade, several studies have examined the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on long-term episodic memory formation and retrieval. These studies yielded conflicting results, likely due to differences in stimulation parameters, experimental design and outcome measures.

Objectives

In this work we aimed to assess the robustness of tDCS effects on long-term episodic memory using a meta-analytical approach.

Methods

We conducted four meta-analyses to analyse the effects of anodal and cathodal tDCS on memory accuracy and response times. We also used a moderator analysis to examine whether the size of tDCS effects varied as a function of specific stimulation parameters and experimental conditions.

Results

Although all selected studies reported a significant effect of tDCS in at least one condition in the published paper, the results of the four meta-analyses showed only statistically non-significant close-to-zero effects. A moderator analysis suggested that for anodal tDCS, the duration of the stimulation and the task used to probe memory moderated the effectiveness of tDCS. For cathodal tDCS, site of stimulation was a significant moderator, although this result was based on only a few observations.

Conclusions

To warrant theoretical advancement and practical implications, more rigorous research is needed to fully understand whether tDCS reliably modulates episodic memory, and the specific circumstances under which this modulation does, and does not, occur.

Whether the motor cortex activation accompanying concrete verbs comprehension is necessary for verbs conceptual processing is still a hotly debated topic in the literature. Answering this question, we examined to what extent the more difficult access to verb semantics requires an additional engagement of cortical motor system in verb generation task. Using power suppression of MEG beta oscillations (15-30 Hz) as an index of sensorimotor activation, we presented to our participants the noun cues which either were strongly associated with a single verb and prompted the fast and effortless verb retrieval, or were weakly associated with multiple verbs and were more difficult to respond to. A whole-brain analysis of beta suppression revealed that the only cortical regions sensitive to the difficulty of semantic access were the higher order motor areas on the medial and lateral surfaces of the frontal lobe. This differential activation of cortical motor system accompanied effortful verb retrieval and preceded the preparation of vocal response for more than 500 milliseconds. Since the mid-frontal frontal brain areas are involved in maintaining abstract representations of actions during their initiating and planning, we argue that our finding supports the view that motor associations contribute to retrieval of verb semantics.

This paper investigates the characteristics of the affective component in the structural mere exposure effect (SMEE). Two approaches are considered – fluency attribution approach (FA) and affect as predictive efficiency approach (APE) – within a predictive coding framework. Using the artificial grammar learning and affective priming paradigms, we demonstrate that a violation of implicitly learned regularities elicits an automatic negative affective response. This result suggests that SMEE can be observed without any overtly evaluative judgment. Participants’ decisions on the grammaticality of stimuli did not change this pattern. We conclude that SMEE is based on the affective response to prediction errors made by the cognitive system and may include the fluency attribution process in the later stages of processing.

Expectations of people with high and low intelligence differ considerably. High intelligence is associated with several desirable social outcomes, while low intelligence is associated with low social status and poverty. We assumed that attributing high intelligence to a person could lead to a more positive evaluation of them and, as a result, less negative attitudes toward them. In the experimental study (N = 781) we investigated how levels of perceived intelligence impact the long-term stigmatization of dirty workers. The results show that perceived high intelligence of dirty workers decreases long-term stigmatization towards them, but these findings relate only to people performing moral dirty work. Implicit theories about intelligence were controlled as a covariate and had no significant effect. Results are discussed in terms of the positive effect of perceived high intelligence on everyday perception. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

The human factor is always decisive in social development. The role of active behavior and above all economic behavior is obvious. However, there are some difficulties: the law regulates predominantly "external" behavior; psychology covers interests, motives, will, emotions.   This paper analyzes individuals’ interests and motives in economics. Coherence and contradictions of the labor interests are investigated on the basis of a survey made in several organizations. The rank of interests (economic, professional, career, group, corporate, territorial, and common civil) in the dependence of labor group type (shareholders, top managers, line managers, employees) is formed.  

This study tests the psychometrics of a Russian version of the Couple Motivation Questionnaire (CMQ), and analyzes the possible distinctions between the Russian and English versions of the instrument. We hypothesize that the adopted version of CMQ repeats the original structure, and a continuum of motivation in romantic relationships will be found as a result of the correlation analysis. We conducted a correlation study on an online sample of (N = 497) using CMQ, the Test of Existential Motivations in Interpersonal Relationships, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the Codependency Scale. The theoretical model, which was proposed in the original study (Blais et al., 1990), linked self-determination theory's motivational styles to adaptive relationship behaviors and the general quality of romantic relationships. The model was successfully confirmed for the Russian sample using a reverse translation and the psychometric testing of CMQ. The model revealed resistance to cultural influences, and the new instrument is suggested for studies of the motivational aspects of relationships using Russian samples.

According to the scientific literature on writing, poetry and prose have their own distinct characteristics. We suppose, therefore, that the value-motivational basis for being creatively active is specific and different for poetry and prose writers. On the basis of existing studies on individual values, motivation types and creative behavior, we build hypotheses about their interrelations, specifying the differences between poetry and prose writing. The research was an empirical correlational study using questionnaires for data gathering: the revised PVQ-R of Schwartz, the authors’ questionnaire to measure frequency of creative behavior and a questionnaire on the motivation of creative behavior developed on the basis of Deci and Ryan's CBI questionnaire. The sample includes 240 representatives of “little creativity”, those involved in the non-professional writing of poetry or prose during the previous year (2016). The results show that poets and prose writers have differences in values and their relations to specific creative behavior in micro-domains of literary creativity. We also found a positive relationship between specific motivation types and the main creative behavior. We identified the mediating role of autonomous motivation between values and creativity in the poets’ group. This research demonstrates that there is sense in the division of creativity into domains and micro-domains as there are differences in the values and motivation types related to creative activities in micro-domains. 

Recent geopolitical changes in Crimea initiated the process of massive identity transformation among ethnic majority and minority groups. Current study was aimed at examining the role of multiple identities and acculturation strategies in the psychological well-being of Crimean Tatar minority (N=80). The study revealed high motivation for ethno-cultural continuity among Crimean Tatars. The combination of ethnic, religious and place identities positively predicts both life-satisfaction and self-esteem. These combined identities also positively predict integration strategy and negatively assimilation strategy. Combined national and Russian ethno-linguistic identitiy positively predicts integration and assimilation strategies and negatively predicts separation strategy. The findings indicate the importance of taking historical, political, social context into account in the studies on minority issues.

This research investigates the relation of personality metatraits and negotiation styles, and the role of negotiation self-efficacy in it. This study was interviewed of Russians with negotiation background at the extractive industry (N=119). Participants were given Thomas-Kilmann questionnaire, CPM-Q personality questionnaire and negotiation self-efficacy questionnaire. It was found that some personality metatraits are significant and direct predictors of negotiation styles and, additionally, negotiation self-efficacy. Nevertheless, negotiation self-efficacy does not mediate the influence of personality metatraits on negotiation styles.

The leaky integrate and fire model of neural spiking has been used extensively to simulate saccadic responses in a variety of tasks from visual search to simple reaction times. Although it has been tested for its neural spiking accuracy and its spatial prediction of fixations in visual salience, it has not been well tested for its temporal accuracy. Saccade generation invariably results in a positively skewed distribution of saccadic reaction times over large numbers of samples, yet we show that the LIF algorithm tends to produce a distribution shifted to shorter fixations (in comparison with human data) in its classic implementation. Further, parameter optimization using a genetic algorithm and Nelder–Mead method does improve the fit of the resulting distribution, but is still unable to match temporal distributions of human responses in a simple visual search task. Further analysis revealed, that the LIF algorithm produces discrete reaction times instead of distributions. Aggregated over many pictures they may be treated as a distribution although the form of this distribution depends on the input images used to create it.

Approximately twenty years ago, Laurent Itti and Christof Koch created a model of saliency in visual attention in an attempt to recreate the work of biological pyramidal neurons by mimicking neurons with centre-surround receptive fields. The Saliency Model has launched many studies that contributed to the understanding of layers of vision and the sphere of visual attention. The aim of the current study is to improve this model by using an artificial neural network that generates saccades similar to how humans make saccadic eye movements. The proposed model uses a Leaky Integrate-and-Fire layer for temporal predictions, and replaces parallel feature maps with a deep learning neural network in order to create a generative model that is precise for both spatial and temporal predictions. Our deep neural network was able to predict eye movements based on unsupervised learning from raw image input, as well as supervised learning from fixation maps retrieved during an eye-tracking experiment conducted with 35 participants at later stages in order to train a 2D softmax layer. The results imply that it is possible to match the spatial and temporal distributions of the model to spatial and temporal human distributions.

Cognitive dissonance arises as a reaction to conflict appearing in choices between two equally attractive options. It leads to changes in the desirability of these options. The chosen option becomes more desirable whereas the rejected option is devalued. Despite cognitive dissonance being largely used by social psychologists to explain social conformity and preference reevaluation, little is known about the neural mechanisms of such choice-induced preference changes. In this study, we modulated the activity of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC), which has been found to be involved in cognitive dissonance in neuroimaging studies. We influenced the activity of the pMFC before individual choices using both cathodal and anodal transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) during a revised version of Brehm's free-choice paradigm. Our results showed that cathodal tDCS over the pMFC significantly decreased the typical choice-induced preference change relative to a sham stimulation. On the contrary, no significant effect of anodal tDCS was observed. Our findings of the influence cathodal tDCS on preference re-evaluation highlight the central contribution of the pMFC in cognitive dissonance and provide evidence that pMFC plays a key role in the implementation of subsequent post-decision preference change.

This is a theoretical study. Theoretical understanding of a visual stimulus in a psychophysical experiment is critical for controlling the experiment and for interpreting its results. This fact encourages vision scientists to use “simple” visual stimuli. A triangle in a 3D scene is one of the simplest stimuli for studying 3D perception. In this study, we analyzed geometrical properties of a relation between the triangle and its retinal image using a computer algorithm. Based on the analysis, we discuss validity of results of past studies that used triangles as their visual stimuli.

This is an empirical study. The perception of a pair of contours in a retinal image cannot be understood simply by adding up the perceptions of the individual contours, especially when they form a perpendicular junction, or are parallel to one another. It is the relationship among the contours that determines what is perceived. Note that it is hard to actually compare the perception of such configurations quantitatively. We managed to do this by testing the perception of such configurations in three psychophysical experiments in which the perception was characterized by measuring the orientation threshold of a single contour. This threshold was estimated by using a modified Method of Constant Stimuli based on the assumption that contours forming a configuration are perceived individually, and that they are integrated linearly. This assumption made the quantitative comparison of the perceived configurations possible. We found that changes of the estimated threshold depended on the type of the configuration, specifically thresholds estimated from a perpendicular junction were substantially lower than thresholds estimated from a single contour or from a non-perpendicular junction. The lowest thresholds were observed when the threshold was estimated from a pair of parallel contours. These results suggest that the visual system is sensitive to perpendicular junctions and parallel contours in a retinal image.

The temporal dynamic characteristics of mood play an important role in various aspects of our lives including our psychological health and well-being. It is assumed that the individuals with high emotional intelligence (EI) are characterized by more positive and stable moods. However, most studies analyze how EI is related to emotional traits or momentary assessments of mood; there are almost no findings on EI relationships with mood dynamics. The present study fills this gap. Two research questions were asked. How mood dynamics characteristics are related to each other and to what extent are they independent? Which aspects of EI are related to particular characteristics of mood dynamics? Method. To collect data on mood dynamics, an experience sampling procedure was implemented. Twenty-six female participants reported their mood for two weeks, three times a day, using the EmoS-18 questionnaire. Their emotional intelligence was measured with the EmIn questionnaire. Mean mood scores calculated across all measurement points were regarded as static characteristics showing a mood background typical for the participant. Also, three dynamic characteristics of mood were calculated, namely variability, instability, and inertia. Results. Mood variability and instability were found to be very closely related to each other, measuring essentially the same construct. Inertia is relatively independent. EI was not related to mean mood scores which contradicts the results of other studies and can be explained by the use of the experience sampling procedure. EI was positively related to the inertia of a positive mood with high arousal and a negative mood with low arousal. In addition, a negative relationship between EI and the instability of tension was found. Most of the correlations were low. Further studies with higher statistical power are needed for more decisive conclusions. However, the results show that experience sampling provides new important insights on the role of EI in mood

The well-known modern dimensional models of affect include two or three dimensions. They are typically based on self-reports using English emotion terms. It remains unclear to what extent these models can be applied to different cultures and languages. The present study is aimed at finding the dimensions underlying the descriptions of emotional states in Russian and suggests a structural model of affect based on these findings. At the first stage, a comprehensive list of Russian nouns denoting emotional states was compiled. It comprised 330 words and was reduced to a list of 56 words. At the second stage, participants rated their emotional states using this list. The exploratory factor analysis yielded three dimensions that underlay participant descriptions of the emotional states – negative affect with low activation, positive affect with high activation, and tension. This model is compared to other structural models of affect and its special features are discussed. This model can be used for developing Russian-based measures for the assessment of mood.

Attending a location in space facilitates responses to targets at that location when the time between cue and target is short.  Certain types of exogenous cues – such as sudden peripheral onsets – have been described as reflexive and automatic.  Recent studies however, have been showing many cases where exogenous cues are less automatic than previously believed and do not always result in facilitation.  Given a lack of the behavioral facilitation, we propose to test whether this also suggests a lack of underlying attention to that location.  We test exogenous cueing with saccadic responses at a range of cue-target onset asynchronies (CTOAs), but also alternate measures linked to the allocation of attention such as saccadic curvature, microsaccades and pupil size.  As expected, we find no early facilitation at short CTOAs, and likewise no impact of the cue on microsaccade direction or pupil size.  We do observe a small dip in the frequency of microsaccades after the cue as well as a tendency for saccadic curvature away from the cued location at short CTOAs.  We interpret these results as evidence of reduced attention at the cued location that is removed or inhibited too quickly to be measured as facilitation of saccadic responses.

In this paper, a novel application of the event-related potential (ERP) method is proposed. The authors applied an N400 evoked potential for brand perception analysis, particularly for brand associations. Traditionally, N400 has been used as a marker of semantic incongruence of a word to a context. The N400 activity is manifested in a more negative deflection of ERP response to incongruent stimuli. We recorded N400 in response to congruent and incongruent sentence endings in marketing and non-marketing contexts, respectively. In the main experimental condition, congruent and incongruent brand associations (nouns) presented before brand names were selected from real marketing campaigns building brand communities. In the control semantic memory N400 condition, the incongruent sentence endings evoked significant fronto- centrally distributed N400 brain response at 300–500 ms. The N400 response in the brand association condition was delayed for 250 ms compared to incongruent words in the context of short sentences and appeared in the central brain area. In this study, we showed for the first time the possibility of applying the N400 method to identify the strength of brand associations using ecologically valid stimuli.