Psychologica Belgica最新文献

Mixed results of the impact of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on working memory have been reported. Contrarily to previous studies who focused mainly on stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, we modulated the left intraparietal sulcus (IPS) area which is considered to support attentional control aspects of working memory. Using a within-participant experimental design, participants completed three different conditions: anodal stimulation of the IPS, cathodal stimulation of the IPS, and sham stimulation of the IPS. Both visual and verbal working memory tasks were administered. In the visual task, participants had to memorize a random set of colored figures. In the verbal task, participants had to memorize a string of letters. Working memory load was manipulated in both tasks (six figures/letters vs. two figures/letters). No significant differences in accuracy or reaction time between the anodal, cathodal and sham conditions were found. Bayesian analysis supported evidence for an absence of effect. The results of the present study add to the growing body of contradictory evidence regarding the modulatory effects of single session tDCS on working memory performance.

This exploratory study assessed parents' perceptions of the emotional and behavioral impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on their children. The total sample included 749 children, aged 4 to 13 years old (353 girls, 396 boys); 524 parents took part. The emotional and behavioral changes observed during the societal lockdown, family coexistence, the impact of COVID-19 on family well-being, and the frequency of social contacts before and during this lockdown were investigated. Results show that the most frequently reported difficulties were worry, agitation, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, nervousness, arguing, anger, frustration, boredom, irritability, behavioral problems, and laziness. Family coexistence declined significantly during this lockdown, and parents mentioned that COVID-19 had an impact on family well-being. Various ordinal logistic regressions showed that family coexistence, children's nervousness due to COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on family well-being, age, and social contacts before and during this lockdown seemed to explain the various emotional and behavioral changes observed in children during the societal lockdown. These results are discussed and recommendations are made.

The spread of COVID-19 and the implementation of various containment strategies across the world have seriously disrupted people's everyday life, and it is especially uncertain what the psychological impact of this pandemic will be for vulnerable individuals, such as psychiatric (ex-)patients. Governments fear that this virus outbreak may prelude a major mental health crisis, and psychiatrists launch critical calls to flatten an upcoming mental ill-health surge. Here, we aim to add nuance to the idea that we are heading towards a mental health pandemic and that psychiatric populations will unavoidably (re)develop psychopathology. Despite being subjected to the same challenges posed by COVID-19, we argue that people with a history of psychiatric illness will psychologically deal with this adversity in different ways. To showcase the short-term differential impact of COVID-19 on patients' mental health, we present the day-to-day emotion and symptom trajectories of different psychiatric patients that took part in an experience sampling study before, during, and after the start of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 and associated lockdown measures in Belgium. Piecewise regression models show that not all patients' psychological well-being is affected to a similar degree. As such, we argue that emphasizing human resilience, also among the more vulnerable in society, may be opportune in these unsettling times.

Egocentric distance perception is a psychological process in which observers use various depth cues to estimate the distance between a target and themselves. The impairment of basic visual function and treatment of amblyopia have been well documented. However, the disorder of egocentric distance perception of amblyopes is poorly understood. In this review, we describe the cognitive mechanism of egocentric distance perception, and then, we focus on empirical evidence for disorders in egocentric distance perception for amblyopes in the whole visual space. In the personal space (within 2 m), it is difficult for amblyopes to show normal hand-eye coordination; in the action space (within 2 m~30 m), amblyopes cannot accurately judge the distance of a target suspended in the air. Few studies have focused on the performance of amblyopes in the vista space (more than 30 m). Finally, five critical topics for future research are discussed: 1) it is necessary to systematically explore the mechanism of egocentric distance perception in all three spaces; 2) the laws of egocentric distance perception in moving objects for amblyopes should be explored; and 3) the comparison of three subtypes of amblyopia is still insufficient; 4) study the perception of distance under another theoretical framework; 5) explore the mechanisms of amblyopia by Virtual Reality.

Virtual reality (VR) offers many opportunities for post-stroke rehabilitation. However, "VR" can refer to several types of computer-based rehabilitation systems. Since these systems may impact the feasibility and the efficacy of VR interventions, consistent terminology is important. In this study, we aimed to optimize the terminology for VR-based post-stroke rehabilitation by assessing whether and how review papers on this topic defined VR and what types of mixed reality systems were discussed. In addition, this review can inspire the use of consistent terminology for other researchers working with VR. We assessed the use of the term VR in review papers on post-stroke rehabilitation extracted from Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed. We also developed a taxonomy distinguishing 16 mixed reality systems based on three factors: immersive versus semi-immersive displays, the way in which real and virtual information is mixed, and the main input device. 64% of the included review papers (N = 121) explicitly defined VR and 33% of them described different subtypes of VR, with immersive and non-immersive VR as the most common distinction. The most frequently discussed input devices were motion-capture cameras and handheld devices, while regular 2D monitors were the most frequently mentioned output devices. Our analysis revealed that reviews on post-stroke VR rehabilitation did not or only broadly defined "VR" and did not focus on a specific system. Since the efficacy and feasibility of rehabilitation may depend on the specific system, we propose a new data-driven taxonomy to distinguish different systems, which is expected to facilitate communication amongst researchers and clinicians working with virtual reality.

When presented with novel but semantically related elements after learning verbal material, healthy participants tend to endorse these items as previously learned. This reflects the normal integration and association of novel verbal information into long-term memory. How obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) negatively impacts verbal memory performance, and whether deficits are reversible following positive airway pressure (PAP) treatment, remain elusive. We investigated immediate and delayed OSA- and PAP treatment-related effects on verbal memory integration, using a false memory paradigm. Twenty-three patients with OSA learned lists of words semantically related to target non-presented words (1) at baseline after a polysomnography diagnosis night, (2) after a consecutive polysomnography night under PAP titration, and (3) after three months of compliant PAP treatment. At each session, participants learned 10 different lists of words, each list comprising 15 semantically related items. They had then to recognize 15 minutes later (after an intermediate vigilance task) previously learned words within a list including studied words (learned), unstudied but semantically related items (lures), and non-related unstudied items (controls). Sleep quality and fatigue questionnaires, and psychomotor vigilance tests (PVT) were administered at each session. PAP treatment led to OSA remission and improvement in objective and subjective sleep quality. Crucially, recognition of learned and lure words increased after the first night under treatment and remained stable three months later, suggesting successful memory integration and restoration of semantic processes. No treatment-related outcome was found on PVT performance. OSA exerts a detrimental but PAP-reversible effect on verbal learning and semantic memory integration mechanisms underlying the acquisition of novel memory representations.

Despite the frequency of women's exposure to sexually objectifying behaviors in their daily life (e.g., through comments on their appearance, gazing or touching), no previous work has investigated how such a focus on their physical appearance influences women's meta-perceptions. Capitalizing on recent studies showing that sexually objectified women are dehumanized by both male and female participants, the present paper investigates women's metadehumanization (i.e., their perceptions of being viewed as less than fully human) and its emotional consequences following interpersonal sexual objectification. In three studies, we showed that when an interaction partner focuses on their physical appearance, women report higher levels of metadehumanization, as well as increased anger and sadness, than when the partner focuses on non-physical parts. Theoretical and empirical contributions of the present findings are discussed.

The study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Dutch Life Orientation Test-Revised for Adolescents (LOT-R-A), a self-report questionnaire assessing dispositional optimism, and to evaluate the two-factor structure (optimism, pessimism). The LOT-R-A and the questionnaires measuring well-being (MHC-SF-A) and psychological problems (SDQ) were completed by 459 Dutch adolescents (178 boys and 281 girls) between the ages of 11 and 18 years at baseline and 281 adolescents at a four-week follow-up. The results confirmed the two-factor structure (optimism, pessimism) of the LOT-R-A. The findings provided evidence of internal consistency of scores ranging from low to good, and evidence of good test-retest reliability of scores. Further, scores of optimism were cross-sectionally positively associated with scores of positive emotions and well-being and negatively with scores of psychological problems and negative emotions, providing evidence of convergent and divergent validity of optimism scores with emotions, well-being, and psychological problems. Lastly, scores of optimism were prospectively positively associated with scores of well-being and negatively with scores of psychological problems, providing evidence of criterion validity of optimism scores with well-being and psychological problems. Based on these findings it can be concluded that the LOT-R-A is a valid instrument to examine optimism among adolescents. Future research can help to elucidate the role of optimism in mental health interventions and can gather knowledge on how these interventions can be refined to optimally cultivate optimism during the developmental period of adolescence.

Adult attachment style has consequences for mental health, interpersonal functioning and emotion regulation. This occurs partly deliberately, also referred to as explicit, and partly on an automatic level outside of conscious awareness, also referred to as implicit. Whereas explicit adult attachment can be assessed with self-report instruments, measurement of implicit adult attachment requires indirect methods. This paper describes the psychometric properties of two Implicit Association Tests measuring general adult attachment in a population sample. The study evaluated the reliability and the validity of the Avoidant Attachment IAT (ANX-IAT) and the Anxious Attachment IAT (AVOID-IAT). Validity was evaluated against self-report measures of adult attachment style (RQ), psychopathology (SQ-48), and well-being (MHC-SF). The split-half reliabilities of both IATs were good; the test-retest reliability of the ANX-IAT was adequate; however the AVOID-IAT had low test-retest reliability. Both IATs did not explain variance in psychopathology additional to explicit measures. The AVOID-IAT showed added value over explicit measurement of avoidant attachment in explaining variance in well-being, particularly regarding emotional and psychological well-being. The ANX-IAT did not explain variance in any measure of well-being additional to the explicit measure of anxious attachment. Our findings provide a basis from which more valid IATs measuring general adult attachment can be developed. Furthermore, they suggest that implicit avoidant attachment might be related to well-being, particularly emotional and psychological well-being. However, further research is needed to investigate the role of implicit general adult attachment in mental health and to optimize the two IATs in terms of validity before clinical use is recommended.

The objective of the current study was to investigate the role of perceived parental support as a moderator in the association between adolescents' expectations in romantic relations and their psychological well-being. The sample consisted of 647 adolescents (boys = 285, girls = 362). Their age ranged from 16 to 18 years (M = 17.19 years, SD = .77) and they were regular students in different colleges of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They completed the Perceived Parental Support Scale, the Well-being Questionnaire-W-BQ12 and the Romantic Relations Scale for Adolescents. The results showed that there were significant gender differences on expectations in romantic relations and psychological well-being with girls scoring higher than boys on expectations in romantic relations while boys scoring higher than girls on psychological well-being. The results also indicated that there was a significant negative association between expectations in romantic relations and psychological well-being. Findings of the moderation analysis showed that perceived parental support moderated the association. Simple slope analysis indicated that there was a significant negative slope for low and medium levels of perceived parental support while the slope was non-significant for high levels of perceived parental support. These results indicated that perceived parental support counters the negative effect of expectations in romantic relations on psychological well-being during adolescence. It is suggested that perceived parental support is important in planning interventions to improve the well-being of adolescents.