Implicit and explicit motor imagery ability after SCI: Moving the elbow makes the difference.

Cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) causes dramatic sensorimotor deficits that restrict both activity and participation. Restoring activity and participation requires extensive upper limb rehabilitation focusing elbow and wrist movements, which can include motor imagery. Yet, it remains unclear whether MI ability is impaired or spared after SCI. We investigated implicit and explicit MI ability in individuals with C6 or C7 SCI (SCIC6 and SCIC7 groups), as well as in age- and gender-matched controls without SCI. Inspired by previous studies, implicit MI evaluations involved hand laterality judgments, hand orientation judgments (HOJT) and hand-object interaction judgments. Explicit MI evaluations involved mental chronometry assessments of physically possible or impossible movements due to the paralysis of upper limb muscles in both groups of participants with SCI. HOJT was the paradigm in which implicit MI ability profiles differed the most between groups, particularly in the SCIC6 group who had impaired elbow movements in the horizontal plane. MI ability profiles were similar between groups for explicit MI evaluations, but reflected task familiarity with higher durations in the case of unfamiliar movements in controls or attempt to perform movements which were no longer possible in persons with SCI. Present results, obtained from a homogeneous population of individuals with SCI, suggest that people with long-term SCI rely on embodied cognitive motor strategies, similar to controls. Differences found in behavioral response pattern during implicit MI mirrored the actual motor deficit, particularly during tasks that involved internal representations of affected body parts.

Effect of the red uniform on the judgment of position or movement used in Wushu Routine, evaluated by practitioners of the modality.

In the artistic sports program, the referee' scores directly determine the final results of the athletes. Wushu is a artistic sport that has a Chinese characteristic and has the potential to become an official competition at the Summer Olympic. In this study we tested whether a red uniform color affects Wushu Routine practitioners' ratings of athletes' position or movement of Wushu Routine. We also tested whether the effect varied depending on the gender of the athlete and the practitioner, and depending on whether female practitioners were in the ovulation phase of their menstrual cycle. Male (Experiment 1: N = 72) and female (Experiment 1: N = 72; Experiment 2: N = 52) participants who major in Wushu Routine were recruited to take a referee's perspective and rate the movement quality of male and female athletes wearing red or blue uniforms. The results of Experiment 1 showed that both male and female athletes wearing red uniform (compared to blue uniform) received higher ratings (p = .002, η2 = .066; p = .014, η2 = .043), and the red effect was especially strong when male practitioners rated female athletes (p = .002, η2 = .069). The results of Experiment 2, in an all-female sample, showed that in most cases there was no difference in ratings made by women in the ovulation and non-ovulation phases of their menstrual cycle, with the exception of their ratings of male athletes wearing red; in this condition, women gave higher ratings when they were in the ovulation phase of their cycle (p = .026). The results suggest that there is a red effect in an artistic sport like Wushu Routine, in which gender and the female menstrual cycle play an important role.

Uncertain Facts or Uncertain Values? Testing the Distinction Between Empirical and Normative Uncertainty in Moral Judgments.

People can be uncertain in their moral judgments. Philosophers have argued that such uncertainty can either refer to the underlying empirical facts (empirical uncertainty) or to the normative evaluation of these facts itself (normative uncertainty). Psychological investigations of this distinction, however, are rare. In this paper, we combined factor-analytical and experimental approaches to show that empirical and normative uncertainty describe two related but different psychological states. In Study 1, we asked N = 265 participants to describe a case of moral uncertainty and to rate different aspects of their uncertainty about this case. Across this wide range of moral scenarios, our items loaded onto three reliable factors: lack of information, unclear consequences, and normative uncertainty. In Study 2, we confirmed this factor structure using predefined stimulus material. N = 402 participants each rated eight scenarios that systematically varied in their degree of uncertainty regarding the consequences of the described actions and in the value conflict that was inherent to them. The empirical uncertainty factors were mainly affected by the introduction of uncertainty regarding consequences, and the normative uncertainty factor was mainly affected by the introduction of value conflict. Our studies provide evidence that the distinction between empirical and normative uncertainty accurately describes a psychological reality. We discuss the relevance of our findings for research on moral judgments and decision-making, and folk metaethics.

Looking at Mental Images: Eye-Tracking Mental Simulation During Retrospective Causal Judgment.

How do people evaluate causal relationships? Do they just consider what actually happened, or do they also consider what could have counterfactually happened? Using eye tracking and Gaussian process modeling, we investigated how people mentally simulated past events to judge what caused the outcomes to occur. Participants played a virtual ball-shooting game and then-while looking at a blank screen-mentally simulated (a) what actually happened, (b) what counterfactually could have happened, or (c) what caused the outcome to happen. Our findings showed that participants moved their eyes in patterns consistent with the actual or counterfactual events that they mentally simulated. When simulating what caused the outcome to occur, participants moved their eyes consistent with simulations of counterfactual possibilities. These results favor counterfactual theories of causal reasoning, demonstrate how eye movements can reflect simulation during this reasoning and provide a novel approach for investigating retrospective causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking.

Timbral effects on consonance disentangle psychoacoustic mechanisms and suggest perceptual origins for musical scales.

The phenomenon of musical consonance is an essential feature in diverse musical styles. The traditional belief, supported by centuries of Western music theory and psychological studies, is that consonance derives from simple (harmonic) frequency ratios between tones and is insensitive to timbre. Here we show through five large-scale behavioral studies, comprising 235,440 human judgments from US and South Korean populations, that harmonic consonance preferences can be reshaped by timbral manipulations, even as far as to induce preferences for inharmonic intervals. We show how such effects may suggest perceptual origins for diverse scale systems ranging from the gamelan's slendro scale to the tuning of Western mean-tone and equal-tempered scales. Through computational modeling we show that these timbral manipulations dissociate competing psychoacoustic mechanisms underlying consonance, and we derive an updated computational model combining liking of harmonicity, disliking of fast beats (roughness), and liking of slow beats. Altogether, this work showcases how large-scale behavioral experiments can inform classical questions in auditory perception.

Development of a situational judgment test to supplement current US air force measures of officership.

Aptitude requirements for US Air Force officer commissioning include completion of a college degree and minimum scores on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test (AFOQT) Verbal and Quantitative composites. Although the AFOQT has demonstrated predictive validity for officer training, the Air Force has striven to improve predictive validity and diversity. To this end, a Situational judgment Test (SJT) was added to the AFOQT in 2015. SJT development was consistent with recommendations to broaden the competencies assessed by the AFOQT with the goal of providing incremental validity, while reducing adverse impact for historically underrepresented groups. To ensure content validity and realism, SJT development was based on competencies identified in a large-scale analysis of officership and input from junior officers in scenario and response generation and scoring. Psychometric evaluations have affirmed its potential benefits for inclusion on the AFOQT. An initial study showed the SJT to be perceived as highly face valid regardless of whether it was presented as a paper-and-pencil test (with narrative or scripted scenarios) or in a video-based format. Preliminary studies demonstrated criterion-related validity within small USAF samples, and a larger Army cadet sample. Additionally, operational administration of the SJT since 2015 has demonstrated its potential for improving diversity (i.e., reduced adverse impact relative to the AFOQT Verbal and Quantitative composites). Predictive validation studies with larger Air Force officer accession samples are ongoing to assess the incremental validity of the SJT beyond current AFOQT composites for predicting important outcomes across accession sources.

Exploring bias in horizontal and vertical spatial representations using mental number lines and the greyscales task.

People have a leftward bias when making visuospatial judgements about horizontally arranged stimuli ("pseudoneglect"), and a superior bias when making visuospatial judgements about vertically arranged stimuli. The leftward visuospatial bias in physical space seems to extend to the mental representation of space. However, whether any bias exists in mental representation of vertical space is unknown. We investigated whether people show a visuospatial bias in the mental representation of vertical space, and if any bias in mental representations of horizontal and vertical space related to the extent of bias in physical space. Participants (n = 171) were presented with three numbers and asked which interval was smaller/larger (counterbalanced): the interval between the first and middle, or middle and last number. Participants were instructed to either think of the numbers as houses on a street or as floors of a building, or were given no imagery instructions. Participants in the houses on a street condition showed a leftward bias, but there was no superior bias in the floors of a building condition. In contrast, we replicated previous findings of leftward and superior bias on greyscales tasks. Our findings reinforce previous evidence that numbers are represented horizontally and ascending left to right by default.

Designing a Situational Judgment Test for Use in Medical School Admissions.

ABSTRACT: It has long been acknowledged that professional competencies are required for success in medical school, residency training, and medical practice. Over the last decade, medical schools have begun to introduce standardized assessments of professional competencies, but many still rely on interviews to assess these competencies, which occur after about half of the applicant pool has already been screened out. In this article, the authors discuss the development, evaluation, and launch of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) situational judgment test (SJT) for use in medical school admissions. The AAMC SJT is designed to assess an examinee's understanding of effective and ineffective behaviors related to the core competencies for entering medical students, including service orientation, social skills, cultural competence, teamwork, ethical responsibility to self and others, reliability and dependability, resilience and adaptability, and capacity for improvement. The authors evaluate the evidence for the need for SJTs in medical school admissions by exploring common derailers in medical school, gaps in the admissions process regarding information about professional competencies, and the challenge of conducting holistic review in a high-volume context. They summarize existing research from the employment, international medical education, and residency selection contexts suggesting that SJT scores are positively associated with subsequent performance and may add value to the admissions process. The authors discuss 5 goals that were the foundation for developing the AAMC SJT: (1) assess the professional competencies needed for success in medical school using a proven method, (2) enable holistic review in a high-volume admissions context, (3) create and share a program of research to support the appropriate use of SJT scores, (4) signal the need for preparation in professionalism to learners, and (5) balance the need for a new assessment with minimizing the burden and risk for applicants.

Evidence of a metacognitive illusion in judgments about the effects of music on cognitive performance.

Two experiments serve to examine how people make metacognitive judgments about the effects of task-irrelevant sounds on cognitive performance. According to the direct-access account, people have direct access to the processes causing auditory distraction. According to the processing-fluency account, people rely on the feeling of processing fluency to make heuristic metacognitive judgments about the distracting effects of sounds. To manipulate the processing fluency of simple piano melodies and segments of Mozart's sonata K. 448, the audio files of the music were either left in their original forward direction or reversed. The results favor the processing-fluency account over the direct-access account: Even though, objectively, forward and backward music had the same distracting effect on serial recall, stimulus-specific prospective metacognitive judgments showed that participants incorrectly predicted only backward music but not forward music to be distracting. The difference between forward and backward music was reduced but not eliminated in global retrospective metacognitive judgments that participants provided after having experienced the distracting effect of the music first-hand. The results thus provide evidence of a metacognitive illusion in people's judgments about the effects of music on cognitive performance.

A uniform human multimodal dataset for emotion perception and judgment.

Face perception is a fundamental aspect of human social interaction, yet most research on this topic has focused on single modalities and specific aspects of face perception. Here, we present a comprehensive multimodal dataset for examining facial emotion perception and judgment. This dataset includes EEG data from 97 unique neurotypical participants across 8 experiments, fMRI data from 19 neurotypical participants, single-neuron data from 16 neurosurgical patients (22 sessions), eye tracking data from 24 neurotypical participants, behavioral and eye tracking data from 18 participants with ASD and 15 matched controls, and behavioral data from 3 rare patients with focal bilateral amygdala lesions. Notably, participants from all modalities performed the same task. Overall, this multimodal dataset provides a comprehensive exploration of facial emotion perception, emphasizing the importance of integrating multiple modalities to gain a holistic understanding of this complex cognitive process. This dataset serves as a key missing link between human neuroimaging and neurophysiology literature, and facilitates the study of neuropsychiatric populations.

No Peace for the Wicked? Immorality Is Thought to Disrupt Intrapersonal Harmony, Impeding Positive Psychological States and Happiness.

Why do people think that someone living a morally bad life is less happy than someone living a good life? One possibility is that judging whether someone is happy involves not only attributing positive psychological states (i.e., lots of pleasant emotions, few unpleasant emotions, and satisfaction with life) but also forming an evaluative judgment. Another possibility is that moral considerations affect happiness attributions because they tacitly influence attributions of positive psychological states. In two studies, we found strong support for the second hypothesis. Moral considerations only appear to affect happiness attributions when they also affect attributions of positive psychological states. Additionally, both studies supported a hypothesis about why moral judgments have these effects. Specifically, we found that when people judge that someone is living a bad life, they infer that the person is not at peace with themselves. However, when this inference is blocked, moral considerations do not affect attributions of happiness or positive psychological states. In sum, although "happiness" appears to be a purely psychological concept, happiness judgments are sensitive to moral considerations because people often assume that immorality disrupts intrapersonal harmony.

The puritanical moral contract: Purity, cooperation, and the architecture of the moral mind.

Commentators raise fundamental questions about the notion of purity (sect. R1), the architecture of moral cognition (sect. R2), the functional relationship between morality and cooperation (sect. R3), the role of folk-theories of self-control in moral judgment (sect. R4), and the cultural variation of morality (sect. R5). In our response, we address all these issues by clarifying our theory of puritanism, responding to counter-arguments, and incorporating welcome corrections and extensions.

Motion-Binding Property Contributes to Accurate Temporal-Order Perception in Audiovisual Synchrony.

Temporal perception in multisensory processing is important for an accurate and efficient understanding of the physical world. In general, it is executed in a dynamic environment in our daily lives. In particular, the motion-binding property is important for correctly identifying moving objects in the external environment. However, how this property affects multisensory temporal perception remains unclear. We investigate whether the motion-binding property influences audiovisual temporal integration. The study subjects performed four types of temporal-order judgment (TOJ) task experiments using three types of perception. In Experiment 1, the subjects conducted audiovisual TOJ tasks in the motion-binding condition, between two flashes, and in the simultaneous condition, in which the two flashes are perceived as simultaneous stimuli without motion. In Experiment 2, subjects conducted audiovisual TOJ tasks in the motion-binding condition and the short and long successive interval condition, in which the two stimuli are perceived as successive with no motion. The results revealed that the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) and the just-noticeable difference (JND) in the motion-binding condition differed significantly from those in the simultaneous and short and long successive interval conditions. Specifically, the PSS in the motion-binding condition was shifted toward a sound-lead stimulus in which the PSS became closer to zero (i.e., physical simultaneity) and the JND became narrower compared to other conditions. This suggests that the motion-binding property contributes to accurate temporal integration in multisensory processing by precisely encoding the temporal order of the physical stimuli.

The Design of an Automatic Temperature Compensation System through Smart Heat Comparison/Judgment and Control for Stable Thermal Treatment in Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) Surgery.

After surgery for ovarian cancer or colorectal cancer, residual tumors are left around. A practical way to treat residual tumors is to destroy them with heat by injecting high-temperature drugs into the abdominal cavity. The injected medicinal substances are induced to flow out of the abdominal cavity; then, the spilled drug flows back into the abdominal cavity through feedback. During this process, the heat starts to decrease; thus, the treatment performance reduces. To overcome this problem, this study compares and assesses the temperature needed to maintain the heat for treatment and transmits a command signal to the heat exchanger through a look-up table (LUT). When the temperature decreases during the circulation of medications leaking out of the abdominal cavity, the LUT transmits a control signal (Tp) to the heat exchanger, which increases or vice versa. However, if the temperature (To) is within the treatment range, the LUT sends a Ts signal to the heat exchanger. This principle generates a pulse signal for the temperature difference (Tdif) in TC by comparing and determining the temperature (To) of the substance flowing out of the abdominal cavity with the reference temperature (Tref) through the temperature comparator (TC). At this time, if the signal is 41 °C or less, the LUT generates (heats) a Tp signal so that the temperature of the heat exchanger can be maintained in the range of 41 °C to 43 °C. If the Tdif is 44 °C or higher, the LUT generates (cools) the Ta signal and maintains the temperature of the heat exchanger at 41-43 °C. If the Tdif is maintained at 41-43 °C, the LUT generates a Tx signal to stop the system performance. At this time, the TC operation performance and Tdif generation process for comparing and determining the signal of To and Tref for drugs leaking out of the abdominal cavity is very important. It was observed that the faster the response signal, the lower the comparison and judgment error was; therefore, the response signal was confirmed to be 0.209 µs. The proposed method can guarantee rapid/accurate/safe treatment and automatically induce temperature adjustment; thus, it could be applied to the field of surgery.

Learning Clinical Judgments With a Lens of Inclusivity.

ABSTRACT: To prepare practice-ready graduates and promote NCLEX® success, many schools of nursing have adopted a clinical judgment model (CJM) to provide a framework for their curriculum and teaching strategies. Missing from most CJMs are clear principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI), imperative to prepare a nursing workforce to care holistically for diverse populations. This article describes the curriculum integration of an adapted model with added JEDI principles. By intentionally integrating the language and understanding of a CJM with JEDI principles, nurse educators can promote the clinical judgment development necessary to prepare graduates to care for diverse populations.

Neural retrieval processes occur more rapidly for visual mental images that were previously encoded with high-vividness.

Visual mental imagery refers to our ability to experience visual images in the absence of sensory stimulation. Studies have shown that visual mental imagery can improve episodic memory. However, we have limited understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying this improvement. Using electroencephalography, we examined the neural processes associated with the retrieval of previously generated visual mental images, focusing on how the vividness at generation can modulate retrieval processes. Participants viewed word stimuli referring to common objects, forming a visual mental image of each word and rating the vividness of the mental image. This was followed by a surprise old/new recognition task. We compared retrieval performance for items rated as high- versus low-vividness at encoding. High-vividness items were retrieved with faster reaction times and higher confidence ratings in the memory judgment. While controlling for confidence, neural measures indicated that high-vividness items produced an earlier decrease in alpha-band activity at retrieval compared with low-vividness items, suggesting an earlier memory reinstatement. Even when low-vividness items were remembered with high confidence, they were not retrieved as quickly as high-vividness items. These results indicate that when highly vivid mental images are encoded, the speed of their retrieval occurs more rapidly, relative to low-vivid items.

Predicting Severe Complications from Cytoreductive Surgery with Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy: A Data-Driven, Machine Learning Approach to Augment Clinical Judgment.

BACKGROUND: CRS-HIPEC provides oncologic benefit in well-selected patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis; however, it is a morbid procedure. Decision tools for preoperative patient selection are limited. We developed a risk score to predict severity of 90 day complications for cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Adults who underwent CRS-HIPEC at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (March 2001-April 2020) were analyzed as part of this study. Primary endpoint was severe complications within 90 days following CRS-HIPEC, defined using Comprehensive Complication Index (CCI) scores as a dichotomous (determined using restricted cubic splines) and continuous variable. Data were divided into training and test sets. Several machine learning and traditional algorithms were considered. RESULTS: For the 1959 CRS-HIPEC procedures included, CCI ranged from 0 to 100 (median 32.0). Adjusted restricted cubic splines model defined severe complications as CCI > 61. A minimum of 20 variables achieved optimal performance of any of the models. Linear regression achieved the highest area under the receiving operator characteristic curve (AUC, 0.74) and outperformed the NSQIP Surgical Risk calculator (AUC 0.80 vs. 0.66). Factors most positively associated with severe complications included peritoneal carcinomatosis index score, symptomatic status, and undergoing pancreatectomy, while American Society of Anesthesiologists 2 class, appendiceal diagnosis, and preoperative albumin were most negatively associated with severe complications. CONCLUSIONS: This study refines our ability to predict severe complications within 90 days of discharge from a hospitalization in which CRS-HIPEC was performed. This advancement is timely and relevant given the growing interest in this procedure and may have implications for patient selection, patient and referring provider comfort, and survival.

Is Identity Essentialism a Fundamental Feature of Human Cognition?

The present research examines whether identity essentialism, an important component of psychological essentialism, is a fundamental feature of human cognition. Across three studies (Ntotal = 1723), we report evidence that essentialist intuitions about the identity of kinds are culturally dependent, demographically variable, and easily malleable. The first study considered essentialist intuitions in 10 different countries spread across four continents. Participants were presented with two scenarios meant to elicit essentialist intuitions. Their answers suggest that essentialist intuitions vary dramatically across cultures. Furthermore, these intuitions were found to vary with gender, education, and across eliciting stimuli. The second study further examined whether essentialist intuitions are stable across different kinds of eliciting stimuli. Participants were presented with two different scenarios meant to elicit essentialist intuitions-the "discovery" and "transformation" scenarios. Their answers suggest that the nature of the eliciting stimuli influences whether or not people report essentialist intuitions. Finally, the third study demonstrates that essentialist intuitions are susceptible to framing effects. Keeping the eliciting stimulus (i.e., the scenario) constant, we show that the formulation of the question eliciting a judgment influences whether or not people have essentialist intuitions. Implications of these findings for identity essentialism and psychological essentialism, in general, are discussed.

A group decision making method with preference analysis to re-build the Global Entrepreneurship Index.

This study proposes a group decision making (GDM) method with preference analysis to re-build the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI). Specifically, a single decision maker is firstly identified using a specified individual judgement about the importance order of three sub-indices of the GEI. A preliminary group decision matrix is constructed in terms of taking all possible individual judgments into account. Then the analysis of the preferential differences and preferential priorities with respect to the preliminary group decision matrix is conducted to obtain a revised group decision matrix, in which preferential differences calculate the weighted differences as the degrees of differences among different alternatives for each decision maker, preferential priorities describe the favorite ranking of alternatives for each decision maker. Finally, we employ the Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis for group decision-making (SMAA-2) to create the holistic acceptability indices for measuring the entrepreneurship performance. In addition, a satisfaction index is developed to indicate the merits of proposed GDM method. A case study using the GEI-2019 of 19 G20 countries is carried out to validate our GDM method.

Pediatricians' role in healthcare for Latino autistic children: Shared decision-making versus "You've got to do everything on your own".

LAY ABSTRACT: Latino parents may choose to use complementary health approaches, such as vitamins, supplements, and special diets, for their autistic children. However, they might not tell their pediatrician about their complementary health approach use if they worry that the pediatrician will disapprove or judge them. This fear, along with pediatricians' lack of autism knowledge, creates barriers to "shared decision-making" between parents and pediatricians. Shared decision-making is a process where families and healthcare providers collaborate and exchange information in order to come to an agreement about treatment options. In our qualitative study with 12 bilingual Latino families of autistic children, we interviewed and observed families to learn about their experiences with both conventional healthcare (their pediatrician) and complementary health approaches. Our study results describe the parents' different pathways to an autism assessment, a process that is sometimes called the "diagnostic odyssey." The parents reported that conventional healthcare met their needs for their child's physical health but not for their child's developmental challenges. The parents who used complementary health approaches for their autistic children were more frustrated about a lack of autism information from pediatricians than those who did not use complementary health approaches. Finally, we describe two examples of successful shared decision-making between parents and pediatricians. We conclude that pediatricians who are able to talk about complementary health approaches with Latino families may help to facilitate shared decision-making and reduce healthcare disparities for Latino autistic children.