This handbook presents an international state-of-the-art book on love in research and practice. It is anchored in classical, contemporary and postmodern perspectives and various disciplines. The book expands previous theoretical, empirical and applied research by presenting new transcultural and transdisciplinary approaches. The authors describe concepts and theories of love from cultural viewpoints with regard to manifestations of love in digital, social, cultural and political contexts. They also focus on love in the context of religion, belief systems, family and intergenerational relations, in the context of counselling, therapy and psychiatry. Additionally, authors explore love in the context of globalisation, in the literature, in workplace and business contexts and with regard to its dark side.

This volume is a must for scientists, researchers and practitioners interested in positive emotions, love, as well as cultural and international perspectives.

Language is a uniquely human cognitive function which plays a defining role in our psychological and social traits. Despite the obvious importance of language and speech, they remain one of the least understood human cognitive functions with the cortical underpinnings of these crucial skills still obscure. In recent decades, a large amount of data that account for the neural bases of language processes in both children and adults have been acquired through the use of many advanced neurophysiology techniques. These include high-density electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, functional magnetic-resonance tomography, transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, and eye-tracking. The combined use of these approaches continues to shed light on brain mechanisms of language acquisition, comprehension and processing, on speech disorders and their treatment, and on interactions between language and other neurocognitive systems and functions. The aim of this Research Topic in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of this diverse and multidisciplinary area of research, with special emphasis on bridging the gap between different methodologies.

Acculturation is the process of group and individual changes in culture and behaviour that result from intercultural contact. These changes have been taking place forever, and continue at an increasing pace as more and more peoples of different cultures move, meet and interact. Variations in the meanings of the concept, and some systematic conceptualisations of it are presented. This is followed by a survey of empirical work with indigenous, immigrant and ethnocultural peoples around the globe that employed both ethnographic (qualitative) and psychological (quantitative) methods. This wide-ranging research has been undertaken in a quest for possible general principles (or universals) of acculturation. This Element concludes with a short evaluation of the field of acculturation; its past, present and future

Face perception and memory ("face cognition") are basic facets of social intelligence, and their development is a central topic for developmental science. Nevertheless, there is acute controversy over the issue of early or late maturation of these abilities. In addition, variance in face cognition abilities was ignored so far, leading to the absence of information, how children in a given age cohort differ in these abilities and making it impossible to investigate the association of face cognition abilities with general cognitive abilities; hence, the question about the specificity of face cognition abilities in childhood and adolescence remains open. Based on the earlier differential psychological studies of the structure of face cognition and variance in adulthood, within the current dissertation this approach was adopted to childhood and adolescence. Based on the results of 338 children and adolescents, the following conclusions were formulated: a) the individual differences approach allowed to establish the 2-factorial model of face cognition abilities (face perception and face memory) and to demonstrate invariance of this structure across childhood and adolescence; b) current approach allowed to demonstrate substantial age-related performance differences in both latent factors; c) although the level of maturation of face cognition is highly associated with general cognitive development, face perception and face memory are specific and have a social character compared to object recognition. The current dissertation contains a number of methodological recommendations related to the measurement of face cognition in childhood and adolescence, most important - the development of multivariate measurement.

This book consists of previously unpublished manuscripts by Vygotsky found in the first systematic study of Vygotsky’s family archive. The notebooks and scientific diaries gathered in this volume represent all periods of Vygotsky’s scientific life, beginning with the earliest manuscript, entitled The tragicomedy of strivings (1912), and ending with his last note, entitled Pro domo sua (1934), written shortly before his death. The notes reveal unknown aspects of the eminent psychologist’s personality, show his aspirations and interests, and allow us to gain insights into the development of his thinking and its internal dynamics. Several texts reflect the plans that Vygotsky was unable to realize during his lifetime, such as the creation of a theory of emotions and a theory of consciousness, others reveal Vygotsky’s involvement in activities that were previously unknown, and still others provide outlines of papers and lectures. The notes are presented in chronological order, preceded by brief introductions and accompanied by an extensive set of notes. The result is a book that allows us to obtain a much deeper understanding of Vygotsky’s innovative ideas. 

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 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.

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.

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.

Most books and articles still treat leadership and ethics as related though separate phenomena. This edited volume is an exception to that rule, and explicitly treats leadership and ethics as a single domain. Clearly, ethics is an aspect of leadership, and not a distinct approach that exists alongside other approaches to leadership. This holds especially true for the for the military, as it is one of the few organizations that can legitimately use violence. Military leaders have to deal with personnel who have either used or experienced violence. This intertwinement of leadership and violence separates military leadership from leadership in other professions. Even in a time that leadership is increasingly questioned, it is still good leadership that keeps soldiers from crossing the thin line between legitimate force and excessive violence

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.

Vecchione et al. (Br J Psychol, 106, 2015, 84) demonstrated the effects of four higher‐order values on political participation across 20 European countries. In their Study 1, they found that political participation was related to three higher‐order basic values and that these associations were stronger in more democratic countries. The present study attempted a replication using a more rigorous modelling approach. Multilevel structural equation models with latent variables for both participation and basic values replicated the main effects of Self‐Transcendence and Conservation values but demonstrated negative effects of Openness values (vs. positive in the original study) and positive effects of Self‐Enhancement values (vs. ambiguous or insignificant in the original study), while cross‐level interactions indicated weaker effects of values in more democratic countries (vs. the opposite in the original study). These discrepancies appeared mostly due to the original study’s implicit assumption that basic values’ measurement errors were zero. The new results indicated a counter‐intuitive similarity of effects of supposedly opposite values. Self‐Transcendence–Self‐Enhancement is suggested to be a politically motivating value dimension, whereas Openness to Change–Conservation is a dimension that discourages political participation regardless of the preferred extreme.

Description: Visual working memory (VWM) is prone to interference from stored items competing for its limited capacity. These competitive interactions can arise from different sources. For example, one such source is poor item distinctiveness causing a failure to discriminate between items sharing common features. Another source of interference is imperfect binding, a problem of determining which of the remembered features belonged to which object or which item was in which location. In two experiments, we studied how the conceptual distinctiveness of real-world objects (i.e., whether the objects belong to the same or different basic categories) affects VWM for objects and object-location binding. In Experiment 1, we found that distinctiveness did not affect memory for object identities or for locations, but low-distinctive objects were more frequently reported at “swapped” locations that originally went with different objects. In Experiment 2 we found evidence that the effect of distinctiveness on the object-location swaps was due to the use of categorical information for binding. In particular, we found that observers swapped the location of a tested object with another object from the same category more frequently than with any of the objects from another category. This suggests that observers can use some coarse category-location information when objects are conceptually distinct. Taken together, our findings suggest that object distinction and object-location binding act upon different components of VWM.

When storing multiple objects in visual working memory, observers sometimes misattribute perceived features to incorrect locations or objects. These misattributions are called binding errors (or swaps) and have been previously demonstrated mostly in simple objects whose features are easy to encode independently and arbitrarily chosen, like colors and orientations. Here, we tested whether similar swaps can occur with real-world objects, where the connection between features is meaningful rather than arbitrary. In Experiments 1 and 2, observers were simultaneously shown four items from two object categories. Within a category, the two exemplars could be presented in either the same or different states (e.g., open/closed; full/empty). After a delay, both exemplars from one of the categories were probed, and participants had to recognize which exemplar went with which state. We found good memory for state information and exemplar information on their own, but a significant memory decrement for exemplar–state combinations, suggesting that binding was difficult for observers and swap errors occurred even for meaningful real-world objects. In Experiment 3, we used the same task, but in one-half of the trials, the locations of the exemplars were swapped at test. We found that there are more errors in general when the locations of exemplars were swapped. We concluded that the internal features of real-world objects are not perfectly bound in working memory, and location updates impair object and feature representations. Overall, we provide evidence that even real-world objects are not stored in an entirely unitized format in working memory.

Recently, Cleeremans et al. (2020a) presented their Self-Organizing metarepresentational account (SOMA) of consciousness. The theory unifies many other views and aptly paints a coherent picture of how a system like the human brain, can experience consciousness. In addition to SOMA, however, Attention Schema Theory of Consciousness (AST) also provides an account of both conscious experience and how a system comes to believe it has conscious experience, by combining different theories (Graziano, 2016, 2019). Despite the plenty of core features that are shared by the two views, here I would like to highlight a potential point of conflict, that I argue makes AST a better account of consciousness than SOMA, at least in its current form.

The COVIDiSTRESS global survey collects data on early human responses to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic from 173 429 respondents in 48 countries. The open science study was co-designed by an international consortium of researchers to investigate how psychological responses differ across countries and cultures, and how this has impacted behaviour, coping and trust in government efforts to slow the spread of the virus. Starting in March 2020, COVIDiSTRESS leveraged the convenience of unpaid online recruitment to generate public data. The objective of the present analysis is to understand relationships between psychological responses in the early months of global coronavirus restrictions and help understand how different government measures succeed or fail in changing public behaviour. There were variations between and within countries. Although Western Europeans registered as more concerned over COVID-19, more stressed, and having slightly more trust in the governments' efforts, there was no clear geographical pattern in compliance with behavioural measures. Detailed plots illustrating between-countries differences are provided. Using both traditional and Bayesian analyses, we found that individuals who worried about getting sick worked harder to protect themselves and others. However, concern about the coronavirus itself did not account for all of the variances in experienced stress during the early months of COVID-19 restrictions. More alarmingly, such stress was associated with less compliance. Further, those most concerned over the coronavirus trusted in government measures primarily where policies were strict. While concern over a disease is a source of mental distress, other factors including strictness of protective measures, social support and personal lockdown conditions must also be taken into consideration to fully appreciate the psychological impact of COVID-19 and to understand why some people fail to follow behavioural guidelines intended to protect themselves and others from infection. The Stage 1 manuscript associated with this submission received in-principle acceptance (IPA) on 18 May 2020. Following IPA, the accepted Stage 1 version of the manuscript was preregistered on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/g2t3b. This preregistration was performed prior to data analysis.

Existing studies show that there is a positive association between pro-migrant integration policies and the subjective well-being of immigrants. However, there is a lack of research elucidating the relations between migrant integration policies and the subjective well-being of the host (i.e., non-migrant) population. This study is based on European data and uses multilevel analysis to clarify the relations between migrant integration policy (both as a whole and its eight separate components such as: Labor market mobility and Family reunion) and the subjective well-being of the non-immigrant population in European countries. We examined relations between the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) for 22 countries in Europe and subjective well-being, as assessed by the European Social Survey (ESS) data. The results demonstrated that there is a positive relation between the MIPEX and subjective well-being for non-immigrants. Considering different components of the MIPEX separately, we found most of them being positively related to the subjective well-being of non-immigrants. As no negative relationship was identified between any of the eight MIPEX components and subjective well-being, policies in favor of immigrant integration also seem to benefit the non-immigrant population.

Using movies and narratives as naturalistic stimuli in human neuroimaging studies has yielded significant ad- vances in understanding of cognitive and emotional functions. The relevant literature was reviewed, with em- phasis on how the use of naturalistic stimuli has helped advance scientific understanding of human memory, attention, language, emotions, and social cognition in ways that would have been difficult otherwise. These ad- vances include discovering a cortical hierarchy of temporal receptive windows, which supports processing of dynamic information that accumulates over several time scales, such as immediate reactions vs. slowly emerging patterns in social interactions. Naturalistic stimuli have also helped elucidate how the hippocampus supports segmentation and memorization of events in day-to-day life and have afforded insights into attentional brain mechanisms underlying our ability to adopt specific perspectives during natural viewing. Further, neuroimaging studies with naturalistic stimuli have revealed the role of the default-mode network in narrative-processing and in social cognition. Finally, by robustly eliciting genuine emotions, these stimuli have helped elucidate the brain basis of both basic and social emotions apparently manifested as highly overlapping yet distinguishable patterns of brain activity. 

While univariate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data analysis methods have been utilized successfully to map brain areas associated with cognitive and emotional functions during viewing of naturalistic stimuli such as movies, multivariate methods might provide the means to study how brain structures act in concert as networks during free viewing of movie clips. Here, to achieve this, we generalized the partial least squares (PLS) analysis, based on correlations between voxels, experimental conditions, and behavioral measures, to identify large-scale neuronal networks activated during the first time and repeated watching of three ∼5-min comedy clips. We identified networks that were similarly activated across subjects during free viewing of the movies, including the ones associated with self-rated experienced humorousness that were composed of the frontal, parietal, and temporal areas acting in concert. In conclusion, the PLS method seems to be well suited for the joint analysis of multi-subject neuroimaging and behavioral data to quantify a functionally relevant brain network activity without the need for explicit temporal models.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that allows interaction with endogenous cortical oscillatory rhythms by means of external sinusoidal potentials. The physiological mechanisms underlying tACS effects are still under debate. Whereas online (e.g., ongoing) tACS over the motor cortex induces robust state-, phase- and frequency-dependent effects on cortical excitability, the offline effects (i.e. after-effects) of tACS are less clear. Here, we explored online and offline effects of tACS in two single-blind, sham-controlled experiments. In both experiments we used neuronavigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the primary motor cortex (M1) as a probe to index changes of cortical excitability and delivered M1 tACS at 10 Hz (alpha), 20 Hz (beta) and sham (30 s of low-frequency transcranial random noise stimulation; tRNS). Corticospinal excitability was measured by single pulse TMS-induced motor evoked potentials (MEPs). tACS was delivered online in Experiment 1 and offline in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, the increase of MEPs size was maximal with the 20 Hz stimulation, however in Experiment 2 neither the 10 Hz nor the 20 Hz stimulation induced tACS offline effects. These findings support the idea that tACS affects cortical excitability only during online application, at least when delivered on the scalp overlying M1, thereby contributing to the development of effective protocols that can be applied to clinical populations.

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 as the spatial component of a model 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 shifts of attention. Our model was able to predict eye movements based on unsupervised learning from raw image input, combined with supervised learning from fixation maps retrieved during an eye-tracking experiment. The results imply that it is possible to match the spatial and temporal distributions of the model to spatial and temporal human distributions.

Updating is an important executive function that is vital for the attainment of goals such as cognitive tasks, daily activities and the regulation of emotion. The ability to update affective content in working memory is said to be influenced by mood. However, little is known regarding influences of mood on the valence of the affective content. We hypothesized that first, negative mood would impair updating of affective information. Second, this impeding impact would be weaker for the updating of negative information due to mood congruence effect. Sixty-three Russian speaking participants were recruited for the experiment. Half of the participants were induced into negative mood by negative pictures; the other half were presented with neutral pictures. All participants performed the affective 2-back task before and after mood induction. The results showed that negative mood impaired the accuracy rates of updating. However, the mood congruence effect was not observed in the updating of positive and negative materials. We recommend that more experiments be conducted with varied affective stimuli and across different populations.

Perceptual load theory claims that the processing of task-irrelevant information can be predicted by the level of perceptual load. If a particular task places a high demand on attention, taskirrelevant stimuli processing can be prevented. That means that in a high-load condition the subjects are more likely to ignore distractors, while in a low-load condition, task-relevant information and task-irrelevant information are processed simultaneously. Although several studies showed that perceptual load can play a crucial role in inattentional blindness, there is a lack of applied research conducted using real-life tasks. This study implemented a real-life task to describe the effect perceptual load has on banner blindness, which has common grounds with inattentional blindness. Banner blindness is a phenomenon in usability studies which shows that subjects do not notice webpage banners despite their saliency. The study represents an important application of load theory to the realworld behavior of internet users. Participants were divided into low-load and high-load groups (which differed in number of stimuli presented) and asked to find items on a shopping website. In the critical trial, a banner appeared. The subjects under the high-load condition were expected to notice the banner less often, than under the low-load condition. The hypothesis was not supported. However, a tendency towards more reports about the banner’s presence can be seen in the low-load group. We assume that if there are enough people who noticed the banner, we will be able to detect the effect of cognitive load on banner blindness

There are a number of factors that influence emotion recognition, one of which is the perceiver’s emotional state. This study verifies the predictions of two theories concerning the influence of mood on emotion recognition. According to the affect as information theo ry, people in a positive mood are prone to a more global processing style and perceive emotional facial expressions more easily compared to those in a negative mood. The emotion congruence theory claims that people in a positive mood are more sensitive to positive expressions and people in a negative mood are more sensitive to negative expressions. These predictions were tested with the experimental paradigm using morphed faces developed by Jackson and Arlegui Prieto. Study 1 used participants’ natural mood s; its findings failed to replicate the main results of the original study. Study 2 used laboratory mood induction and showed that participants in a negative mood are more sensitive to negative emotions compared to those in positive mood. These findings su pport the emotion congruence theory. However, this result was obtained only for the participants with the most effective mood induction. The observed effects of mood are weak and fragile. For more persuasive results, a study with greater statistical power using more effective mood induction procedures is needed.

Subsequent search misses refer to the decrease in accuracy of second target detection in dual-target visual search. One of the theoretical explanations of SSM errors is similarity bias – the tendency to search for similar targets and to miss the dissimilar ones. The current study focuses on both perceptual and categorical similarity and their individual roles in SSM. Three experiments investigated the role of perceptual and categorical similarity in subsequent search misses, wherein perceptual and categorical similarity were manipulated separately, and task relevance was controlled. The role of both perceptual and categorical similarity was revealed, however, the categorical similarity had greater impact on second target detection.

Both linguistic (e.g., words, syntax) and extralinguistic (e.g., voice quality) information needs to be considered by interlocutors during linguistic communication. The effects of extralinguistic information on neural sentence processing are particularly poorly understood. Here, we used EEG and passive non-attend design with visual distraction in order to investigate how extralinguistic information affects brain activity during syntactic processing. We collected ERPs while participants listened to Russian pronoun-verb phrases recorded in either male or female voice. We manipulated congruency between the grammatical gender signaled by the verb’s ending and the speaker’s apparent gender. We registered both early and late phrase processing signatures in the incongruent conditions including ELAN (peaking at ~150 ms) and N400. Our data suggest a high degree of automaticity in integrating extralinguistic information during syntactic processing indicating existence of a rapid automatic syntactic integration mechanism sensitive to both linguistic and extralinguistic information.

This paper presents a study in the format of general personology that involves an interpretation of ideas about personality explicated from cultural sources, in psychological concepts, methods of individual self-cognition and empirical approaches. A continuum of personological methods was applied that follows the selected format, including the hermeneutic method, the theoretical modeling method, and the method of constructing reflexive practices. The author puts forward the idea of the I-Other inner dialogue as an essential intrapersonal condition for the development of the I’s self-identity. In the concept of self-identity, its “achievement” is emphasized as the way in which the I’s tendency to maintain “self” meets the I’s challenges to “part with self” and to gain self-identity on a new level. The specifics of the original approach consisted in identifying mutually necessary oppositions that determine the paradoxes of self-identity that are “removed” when it is achieved. These oppositions include: I and the Other, the Real Other and the Inner Other, the I’s self-sufficiency and the need for dialogs with others, the attitude to self and the attitude to the Other, self-identity anddisdentification of the I with itself, the Other’s reflection and “viewpoint”, and the I for itself and the I for the Other. The “idea of the opposition” was applied to propose a structure for a developing dialogue focused on the multidimensional reflective disclosure of the I in relation to the Other from the position of the I-myself and from the position of the Inner Other. It is substantiated that such a dialogue (fulfilled by a person) can enrich and strengthen the self- identity of the I through the problematization and synthesis of I-representations obtained from these standpoints. The author’s idea was developed in the form of a continuum “hermeneutic model – theoretical model – reflexive model” that can be used in research and implementation of opportunities for the I’s self-identity achievement in the inner dialogue.

Vecchione et al. (2015) demonstrated effects of four higher-order values on political participation across 20 European countries. In their Study 1, they found that political participation was related positively to self-transcendence and openness to change values while negatively to conservation and ambiguously to self-enhancement values. Moreover, these effects were stronger in more democratic countries. The current study attempted a replication of the Vecchione et al.’s Study 1 using more rigorous modeling approach. The multilevel structural equation models with latent variables for both participation and basic values replicated the main effects of self-transcendence and conservation values but demonstrated a negative effect of openness values (vs positive in the original study), a positive effect of self-enhancement values (vs ambiguous or insignificant in the original study), and counter-intuitive cross-level interactions pointing to a lower effects of values in more democratic countries (vs the opposite in the original study). Overall model fit and explanatory power was much larger in the models with less assumptions. These discrepancies resulted mostly due to the original study’s implicit assumption that basic values’ measurement errors were zero. The new results have an important substantive contribution as they indicate a counter-intuitive similarity of effects of the supposedly opposite values. I suggest that self-transcendence – self-enhancement is a politically activating value dimension, whereas openness to change – conservation is a dimension that discourages political participation regardless of a preferred extreme.

Three studies conducted in the U.S. and Russia examine a novel pathway by which the perseverance component of the personality trait grit might predict college students’ behavioral persistence when solving challenging math problems. Specifically, we focus on the intervening role of what we refer to as math determination, which captures students’ perceived tendency to persevere on challenging math problems. Across studies, we found that math determination was correlated with behavioral math persistence, whereas grit was not. Despite there being no correlation between grit and math persistence, we found statistically significant indirect effects of grit on persistence through math determination in all three studies: the grittier students were, the more they viewed themselves as capable of persevering on challenging math problems, which ultimately predicted their math persistence at a later time point.

In the recent years facial emotion recognition algorithms have evolved and in some cases top commercial algorithms detect emotions like happiness better than humans do. To evaluate the performance of these algorithms, the common practice is to compare them with human-labeled ground truth. This article covers monitoring of the advancements in automatic emotion recognition solutions, and here we suggest an additional criteria for their evaluation, that is the agreement between algorithms’ predictions. In this work, we compare the performance of four commercial algorithms: Affectiva Affdex, Microsoft Cognitive Services Face module Emotion Recognition, Amazon Rekognition Face Analysis, and Neurodata Lab Emotion Recognition on three datasets AFEW, RAVDESS, and SAVEE, that differ in terms of control over conditions of data acquisition. We assume that the consistency among algorithms’ predictions indicates the reliability of the predicted emotion. Overall results show that the algorithms with higher accuracy and f1-scores that were obtained for human-labeled ground truth (Microsoft’s, Neurodata Lab’s, and Amazon’s), showed higher agreement between their predictions. Agreement among algorithms’ predictions is a promising criteria in terms of further exploring the option to replace human data labeling with automatic annotation.

The article presents the results of the selection of relevant to the Russian context emotions perceived as primary (which humans share with animals) or secondary (experienced only by humans). Three stages of the selection and evaluation of emotions made it possible to distinguish 12 emotions: primary positive emotions (Joy, Pleasure, and Interest), primary negative emotions (Anger, Irritation, and Rage), secondary positive emotions (Inspiration, Afflatus, and Enthusiasm), and secondary negative emotions (Disappointment, Regret, and Devastation). The results of confirmatory and multigroup confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that these emotions are well grouped into primary-secondary subgroups and that their valence is important to grouping. The highlighted emotions can be used to study implicit prejudices towards various social groups

The issue of actualization of labor interests as a motivational driver and one of the 9  sources of labor productivity is little-studied in applied and organizational psychology. The study 10  given in the paper fills some “blanks” of this problem. The leading approach to research is the 11  motivational system proposed on the basis of theoretical analysis and the developed psychological 12  model of labor interests. Using the methods of a special survey, questioning and interview guides, 13  the analysis and comparative assessment of the labor interests of 50 candidates for the  service 14  manager position  (entertainment and restaurant industry field)  was conducted; as well as of 45 15  employees of this industry aged 18 to 25. The main results of the paper show the connection of labor 16  interests with the company's personnel management system, namely with the processes of selection, 17  adaptation and training. It was revealed that the candidates who had been selected for the service 18  manager position were of primary group interest, and financial incentive was only in the second 19  place. At the same time, financial incentive contributed to the successful passage of the adaptation 20  period. Occupational interests of employees depended on their education and job specifics; career 21  interests were influenced by the time planned with the company. The recommendations necessary 22  for the employer to create the conditions corresponding to the leading labor interests of the 23  employees were substantiated. single paragraph of about 200 words maximum. For research articles, 24  abstracts should give a pertinent overview of the work. We strongly encourage authors to use the 25  following style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question 26  addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly 27  the main methods or treatments applied; 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) 28  Conclusions: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective 29  representation of the article, it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in 30  the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions. 

Bishop Berkeley suggested that the distance of an object can be estimated if the object’s size is familiar to the observer. The distance can be computed by comparing the size of the retinal image of the object to the memorized size of the object. It has been suggested that humans can perceive the distance of the object by using such “familiarity” information. However, prior experiments looking for an effect of familiarity had not been designed to minimize, or eliminate potential influences of: (i) higher cognitive factors on the observers' responses, or (ii) the influences of low-level image features in the visual stimuli. We tested the familiarity effect in two psychophysical experiments that were conducted both in Russia and in Japan. Forty Russian students and forty Japanese students participated in these experiments. The visual stimuli used were images of three coins in Russia and in Japan. The participants' depth perception was measured with a multiple-choice task testing the perceived depth-order of the coins. Our expectation was that any effect of “familiarity” on depth perception would only be observed with the coins of the participant's country. We expected a substantial effect of familiarity based on our meta-analysis of the "familiarity" effects observed in prior experiments. But, our results in both experiments showed that the familiarity effect on depth perception was virtually zero. Our experiments clearly show that familiarity, studied for the first time without any obvious confounds, does not serve as a cue for depth.

This study investigates the role of the climato-economic characteristics of 85 Russian regions in the formation of collectivism in those territories. Based on the results of previous research, the authors suggested that in regions with harsh climatic conditions, the richer population has a lower level of collectivism, whereas the poorer population has a higher level of collectivism. For testing these theoretical assumptions, we prepared a dataset with statistical data about each Russian region for the climatic demand (based on the temperature characteristics), monetary resources (the gross regional product (GRP)) and collectivism (the population natural growth, multi-generational households, marriages, divorces, etc.). We used correlation and moderation analyses where regional climate and GRP were the predictors of collectivism. The study demonstrated that these factors predicted the level of collectivism in regions. The study also revealed the moderating role of GRP in the relation between regional climatic conditions and the level of collectivist among the population, which allows the identification of the specific and universal relationships of the indicators.

This research is devoted to the study of the relationship between home country intercultural experience, intercultural competence and creativity among Russian students. We assume that students from culturally heterogeneous groups or/and student having the study course dedicated to intercultural issues are more creative, as cultural diversity and cultural learning are associated with a higher level of intercultural competence, and intercultural competence may be positively related to creativity.  The sample of the first study included 72 students and the sample of the second study included 272 students of the Higher School of Economics. Creativity was measured by the indicators of creative thinking (fluency, flexibility, and originality) via "Many instances game" from the creativity test battery of M. Runco; intercultural competence was measured via scales of "Assessment of intercultural competence" create in the project of A. Fantini & A. Tirmizi. Home country intercultural experience was operationalized via presence of students from other countries in the study groups and via inclusion of Cross-Cultural Psychology course into the students’ curriculum. The results of the first study show that cultural learning in the home country institution leads to the higher levels of creativity, while cultural heterogeneity of the groups is associated with an increase in creativity only when cultural learning was applied. The results of the second study show such components of intercultural competence as attitudes and adaptability of behavior play an important role in creativity of Russian students: attitudes are positively and adaptability of behavior is negatively related to creativity.