Search results for " Experimental"

The Pain of Granting Otherness : Interoception and the Differentiation of the Other / Der Schmerz der Gewährung von Andersheit : Interozeption und di…

2017

SummaryThis article examines the foundations of social experience from a psychoanalytic perspective. In current developmental psychology, social cognition debate, and phenomenology of empathy, it is widely assumed that the self and the other are differentiated from the outset, and the basic challenge is accordingly taken to consist in explaining how the gap between the self and the other can be bridged. By contrast, in the psychoanalytic tradition, the central task is considered to lie in explaining how such a gap is established in the first place. My article develops this latter idea. I focus on the infant’s early experience of care, show how the presence of the caregiver can be interprete…

Anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2018

2021

Anemia is a globally widespread condition in women and is associated with reduced economic productivity and increased mortality worldwide. Here we map annual 2000–2018 geospatial estimates of anemia prevalence in women of reproductive age (15–49 years) across 82 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), stratify anemia by severity and aggregate results to policy-relevant administrative and national levels. Additionally, we provide subnational disparity analyses to provide a comprehensive overview of anemia prevalence inequalities within these countries and predict progress toward the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target (WHO GNT) to reduce anemia by half by 2030. Our results …

Commentary: Psychological Science's Aversion to the Null

2017

Cultural sport psychology: a critical review of empirical advances

2016

Despite a long standing assertion that sociocultural domain is one of the factors constituting human psychological phenomena, sport psychological science has only recently begun to examine culture as the principal basis of physical activity and sport participants’ behaviour, wellbeing, engagement, and performance outcomes. Emphasizing the centrality of culture in bringing meaning to athlete careers and life projects, I summarise empirical literature explicitly positioned within cultural sport psychology (CSP). Specifically, I focus on two areas of psychological inquiry – acculturation and athletic career – in which the CSP theoretical tenets and agenda stimulated emergence of novel research…

Sensorimotor Coarticulation in the Execution and Recognition of Intentional Actions

2017

Humans excel at recognizing (or inferring) another's distal intentions, and recent experiments suggest that this may be possible using only subtle kinematic cues elicited during early phases of movement. Still, the cognitive and computational mechanisms underlying the recognition of intentional (sequential) actions are incompletely known and it is unclear whether kinematic cues alone are sufficient for this task, or if it instead requires additional mechanisms (e.g., prior information) that may be more difficult to fully characterize in empirical studies. Here we present a computationally-guided analysis of the execution and recognition of intentional actions that is rooted in theories of m…

The effect of perspective taking on the mediation process

2018

Stefano Boca, Maria Garro, Isabella Giammusso, Costanza Scaffidi Abbate Department of Psychology, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy Background: Previous research demonstrated several benefits of strategic perspective taking in the field of intergroup relations and, more specifically, in the negotiation processes aimed at conflict resolution. The present study, which analyzes the effect of perspective taking and mediation in a conflict setting, corroborates the psychological models that hypothesize the positive effects of the assumption of the competitor’s perspective on having intergroup conflict and lessening of negative consequences. Materials and methods: After being involv…

The Development of Motor and Pre-literacy Skills by a Physical Education Program in Preschool Children: A Non-randomized Pilot Trial

2019

It is known in the literature that fundamental motor skill acquisition is strongly associated with the development of neuromotor, cognitive, social, and emotional aspects in childhood. Unfortunately, in Italy, the physical education teacher is not included in the school’s core personnel, and it is very hard to find a specific physical education program (PEP) that could improve preschool children’s motor and cognitive status. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the quotient of gross motor development (QGMD) and pre-literacy skills concerning visual analysis and spatial orientation abilities changed after 16 weeks of PEP (2 h/week) in preschool children. We conducted a school-bas…

Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire: Factor structure, psychometric properties and gender differences

2016

Abstract The evolutionary psychological approach links evolved mechanisms of disease-avoidance to prejudices against individuals perceived as a threat to health. Perceived vulnerability to disease works as an adaptive strategy which explains why individuals perceived as a source of contagion are avoided. The self-report Perceived Vulnerability to Disease Questionnaire, PVDQ, is one of the most widely used to measure subjective vulnerability to disease, however, neither test–retest reliability has been studied nor has factor structure been confirmed so far in this questionnaire. In the present study, a sample of 878 participants completed the PVDQ. Subsamples also completed different scales …

Psychometric Evaluation of the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS) in Italy

2017

The purpose of this multistudy report was to adapt the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS) to the Italian context. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, we investigated the dimensionality, reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument in a sample of 544 participants (males = 41%) from 16 to 35 years old. In Study 2, we replicated the results concerning dimensionality in an independent sample of 502 participants (males = 42%) from 16 to 35 years old. Furthermore, we analyzed measurement invariance across gender. Results of both studies showed that comparing a series of competitive factorial models, the 6-factor model had the best f…

Experts’ successful psychomotor performance was characterized by effective switch of motor and attentional control

2019

Abstract Objectives This study proposed that Mu (8–13 Hz) and SMR (12–15 Hz) readings in the sensorimotor cortical area can be used to investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying optimal motor performance. Design This study used a within-subject design. Method Forty expert golfers were recruited to perform 60 putts while their EEGs were recorded. The putting distance was chosen to ensure that approximately 50% of all putts would be missed so that there was a need for constant adjustments to be made during performance. Successful performance was defined as the ball going in the hole. Results (a) Lower Mu power in Cz, and alpha power in Pz and Oz were observed for successful performances …