Research In Experimental Psychology Research Articles

EMOKINE: A software package and computational framework for scaling up the creation of highly controlled emotional full-body movement datasets.

EMOKINE is a software package and dataset creation suite for emotional full-bodymovement research in experimental psychology, affective neuroscience, and computer vision. A computational framework, comprehensive instructions, a pilot dataset, observer ratings, and kinematic feature extraction code are provided to facilitate future dataset creations at scale. In addition, the EMOKINE framework outlines how complex sequences of movements may advance emotion research. Traditionally, often emotional-'action'-based stimuli are used in such research, like hand-waving or walking motions. Here instead, a pilot dataset is provided with short dance choreographies, repeated several times by a dancer who expressed different emotional intentions at each repetition: anger, contentment, fear, joy, neutrality, and sadness. The dataset was simultaneously filmed professionally, and recorded using XSENS® motion capture technology (17 sensors, 240 frames/second). Thirty-two statistics from 12 kinematic features were extracted offline, for the first time in one single dataset: speed, acceleration, angular speed, angular acceleration, limb contraction, distance to center of mass, quantity of motion, dimensionless jerk (integral), head angle (with regards to vertical axis and to back), and space (convex hull 2D and 3D). Average, median absolute deviation (MAD), and maximum value were computed as applicable.The EMOKINE software is appliable to other motion-capture systems and is openly available on the Zenodo Repository. Releases on GitHub include: (i) the code to extract the 32 statistics, (ii) a rigging plugin for Python for MVNX file-conversion to Blender format (MVNX=output file XSENS® system), and (iii) a Python-script-powered custom software to assist with blurring faces; latter two under GPLv3 licenses.

Perception-action Dissociations as a Window into Consciousness.

Understanding the neural correlates of unconscious perception stands as a primary goal of experimental research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. In this Perspectives paper, we explain why experimental protocols probing qualitative dissociations between perception and action provide valuable insights into conscious and unconscious processing, along with their corresponding neural correlates. We present research that utilizes human eye movements as a sensitive indicator of unconscious visual processing. Given the increasing reliance on oculomotor and pupillary responses in consciousness research, these dissociations also provide a cautionary tale about inferring conscious perception solely based on no-report protocols.

The Expressivity Dimension of Speech is the basis of the Expression Dimension. Evidence from Behavioural and Neuroimaging Studies

The Expressivity Dimension of Speech is the basis of the Expression Dimension. Evidence from Behavioural and Neuroimaging Studies

Neuropsychological syndromes of disorders of mnestic activity in patients with strokes in the right (subdominant) hemisphere

The work carried out a neuropsychological assessment of different types of memory and determined the profiles of mnestic disorders depending on the type of hemispheric asymmetry and localization of the lesion. The analysis of the features of the course of stroke in the right (subdominant) hemisphere was carried out. The main symptoms of impaired types of memory, for which the subdominant hemisphere is responsible, were studied. The presented data correlate with the data found in the world literature: stroke in the subdominant hemisphere has a less pronounced effect on memory impairment, is associated with a better prognosis, while visual memory, spatial, logical, and mechanical suffer more often. A detailed topographic analysis of the syndromatics is presented, comparing instrumental data on visualization of the lesion and psychological tests that reveal a deficiency of a particular type of memory. The data obtained make it possible to identify targets and opportunities for early neuropsychological correction of disorders by attracting compensatory brain capabilities, which is important when planning an individual rehabilitation program. The analysis of mnestic activity in patients with strokes in the right (subdominant) hemisphere was carried out. The applied set of patho- and neuropsychological methods: The Wexler memory scale, Indirect memorization according to A.N. Leontiev, the "Pictograms" technique, Benton's Visual retention, the "Memorizing 10 words" Technique, the "Memorizing faces" technique, the "Memorizing shapes" method., the MOSS test. For the first time, a comprehensive clinical, psychological and experimental psychological study was conducted, which made it possible to characterize the quality and hierarchy of impaired and preserved types of mental activity in the defeat of the right (subdominant) hemisphere. For the first time, a comparative analysis of disorders of the mnestic activity of the dominant and subdominant hemispheres of the brain was carried out, which allowed us to identify the specifics of memory disorders depending on the lateralization of lesions. The novelty is also represented by the systematization of mnestic disorders carried out by the author, accompanied by the isolation of neuropsychological syndromes of disorders of mnestic activity in the defeat of various parts of the right (subdominant) hemisphere in the acute period of syndromes of occipital, temporal, parietal lobe lesions and their combinations. Based on the data obtained, the necessity of studying the features of mnestic activity in order to restore and further rehabilitate higher mental functions in patients with cerebral infarction in the right hemisphere is justified.

Smartphone mobility assistants. A lever to guide route choice preferences in mass transit?

The regulation of passenger congestion in mass transit is a persistent issue that requires ingenious and cost-effective solutions to ensure that related operations run at optimum capacity. Mass transit operators may implement Public Transport Demand Management (PTDM) strategies like cognitive levers to tackle this issue by targeting passengers’ behaviour during the route planning that precedes travel in mass transit. In this regard, multiple experimental studies in cognitive psychology and sciences have shown that transit maps can be used to guide passengers’ route choice preferences in mass transit.A route choice experiment was conducted to examine the potential of smartphone mobility assistants as a tool to guide mass transit users’ away from the fastest options that tend to be predominantly preferred. 582 participants took part in an online study where they engaged in a route selection task by indicating their route choices in the Île-de-France mass transit system. We measured how participants’ preferences for the fastest route varied depending on the visual format in which routes were presented (on a transit map, on a timeline or listed briefly as per current trends), the presence of conflicting visuo-spatial information on the transit map (fastest choice = shortest vs. longest choice) and the level of comfort (availability of simple transfers and/or less congested routes).The main results suggest the existence of two levers than can be implemented in smartphone mobility assistants to manage passenger congestion in mass transit: (1) a perceptive heuristic whereby passengers presented with a transit map manifest a preference for the route presented as the shortest on the map and (2) the possibility to sway a proportion of passengers away from the choice of the fastest route by presenting information about the comfort levels of alternative options.

A Naturalistic Setup for Presenting Real People and Live Actions in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Studies.

Perception of others' actions is crucial for survival, interaction, and communication. Despite decades of cognitive neuroscience research dedicated to understanding the perception of actions, we are still far away from developing a neurally inspired computer vision system that approaches human action perception. A major challenge is that actions in the real world consist of temporally unfolding events in space that happen "here and now" and are actable. In contrast, visual perception and cognitive neuroscience research to date have largely studied action perception through 2D displays (e.g., images or videos) that lack the presence of actors in space and time, hence these displays are limited in affording actability. Despite the growing body of knowledge in the field, these challenges must be overcome for a better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of the perception of others' actions in the real world. The aim of this study is to introduce a novel setup to conduct naturalistic laboratory experiments with live actors in scenarios that approximate real-world settings. The core element of the setup used in this study is a transparent organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen through which participants can watch the live actions of a physically present actor while the timing of their presentation is precisely controlled. In this work, this setup was tested in a behavioral experiment. We believe that the setup will help researchers reveal fundamental and previously inaccessible cognitive and neural mechanisms of action perception and will be a foundation for future studies investigating social perception and cognition in naturalistic settings.

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN ELDERLY PEOPLE

The article is about an experimental psychological study of the mental health of 152 elderly people between the ages of 55 and 92 years. To achieve this goal, a special battery of techniques was selected. The results showed that 1) the mental health status of the elderly population may be considered normal; 2) Elderly people who receive a personal income from work, play sports, have hobbies and actively pursue activities suited to their age, and participate in the public life of the country are in good mental health; 3) The mental health status of elderly people who live in the suburbs or in nursing homes and who are employed in industries that require a high level of intelligence is worse than that of other elderly people. Elderly people living with their spouses have the best mental health status. 4) A negative attitude of elderly people toward disease and their environments can adversely affect their mental health, but a harmonious attitude does not significantly affect the mental state of elderly people.

Pervasive failure to report properties of visual stimuli in experimental research in psychology and neuroscience: Two metascientific studies.

Pervasive failure to report properties of visual stimuli in experimental research in psychology and neuroscience: Two metascientific studies.

Visuo-spatial imagery in dreams of congenitally and early blind: a systematic review.

The presence of visual imagery in dreams of congenitally blind people has long been a matter of substantial controversy. We set to systematically review body of published work on the presence and nature of oneiric visuo-spatial impressions in congenitally and early blind subjects across different areas of research, from experimental psychology, functional neuroimaging, sensory substitution, and sleep research. Relevant studies were identified using the following databases: EMBASE, MEDLINE and PsychINFO. Studies using diverse imaging techniques and sensory substitution devices broadly suggest that the "blind" occipital cortex may be able to integrate non-visual sensory inputs, and thus possibly also generate visuo-spatial impressions. Visual impressions have also been reported by blind subjects who had near-death or out-of-body experiences. Deciphering the mechanistic nature of these visual impression could open new possibility in utilization of neuroplasticity and its potential role for treatment of neurodisability.

Validation of the Edited Tromsø Infant Faces Database (E-TIF): A study on differences in the processing of children's emotional expressions

Images of emotional facial expressions are often used in emotion research, which has promoted the development of different databases. However, most of these standardized sets of images do not include images from infants under 2 years of age, which is relevant for psychology research, especially for perinatal psychology. The present study aims to validate the edited version of the Tromsø Infant Faces Database (E-TIF) in a large sample of participants. The original set of 119 pictures was edited. The pictures were cropped to remove nonrelevant information, fitted in an oval window, and converted to grayscale. Four hundred and eighty participants (72.9% women) took part in the study, rating the images on five dimensions: depicted emotion, clarity, intensity, valence, and genuineness. Valence scores were useful for discriminating between positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions. Results revealed that women were more accurate at recognizing emotions in children. Regarding parental status, parents, in comparison with nonparents, rated neutral expressions as more intense and genuine. They also rated sad, angry, disgusted, and fearful faces as less negative, and happy expressions as less positive. The editing and validation of the E-TIF database offers a useful tool for basic and experimental research in psychology.

Improving e-learning websites: the role of menu depth and metacognitive support

IntroductionResults from experimental research in instructional psychology imply that a deep menu structure of a e-learning website may provide useful segmentation. However, menu depth also increases the need for navigation and thus, might have impairing effects on learning. Furthermore, instructional support can be provided by including a checklist, to ensure that learners reflect on their study progress. The study aimed at investigating which menu structure is beneficial for e-learning websites and whether a checklist could compensate the negative effects of an unfavorable menu structure.MethodsTherefore, in an online experiment, we let 101 students learn facts about rocks from an e-learning website with either a deep or a flat menu structure. We further manipulated whether metacognitive support through a checklist was provided or not. Learning outcomes, cognitive load, metacognitive factors as well as learning time were measured.ResultsResults show no main effects of the menu depth or the presence of a checklist on retention and transfer performance. Learning achievements in percent for retention were 37.31 (deep menu/checklist), 31.10 (deep menu/no checklist), 36.07 (flat menu/checklist), 38.13 (flat menu, no checklist) and for transfer were 35.19 (deep menu/checklist), 34.40 (deep menu/no checklist), 37.78 (flat menu/checklist), 33.23 (flat menu, no checklist). Yet, there are hints that the deeper menu structure had a negative effect on learning processes: The deep menu structure led to an enhanced extraneous cognitive load (ECL) and reduced learning efficiency. However, providing a checklist had beneficial effects mainly when learning with a deep menu structure but not overall. Unexpectedly, the presence of the checklist did not influence metacognitive measures.DiscussionOur study suggests that possible costs of a deep menu structure should be considered when designing instructional checklists. However, the study also provides a way in which these costs can be compensated, which is by using a checklist. Implications for instructional research and e-learning are discussed.

Between Concealment and Disclosure: Approaches to the History of Privacy in Knowledge-Making

Between Concealment and Disclosure: Approaches to the History of Privacy in Knowledge-Making

Message from the incoming editor.

The Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology (CJEP) publishes rigorous experimental psychology research through a fair and constructive review process. CJEP is supported and managed by the Canadian Psychological Association, who partners with the American Psychological Association with respect to journal production. CJEP represents world class research communities that affiliate with the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Sciences (CPA), and the Brain and Cognitive Sciences section of CPA. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

STUDYING THE PROBLEM OF DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCES OF FUTURE OFFICERS

In the article, the problem of developing professional and communicative competences of future officers - the forms, methods and conditions of its development is studied as a subject of experimental psychological and pedagogical research.

Psychological experiments on student self-government: The early impact of Wilhelm Mann's work in Chile and the German Empire.

One of the most important successes in the history of psychology in Chile was the foundation in 1908 of the first experimental psychology laboratory in Santiago by the German psychologist Wilhelm Mann (1974-1943). Four years later, Mann give a shift to his classical experimental psychology research to intervene in the discussions about German School Reform (1900-1920). Mann used Chile as a "testing ground" for explore the viability of student self-government published in three papers. The method used to verify the early impact of Mann's papers was the quantitative analysis of citations with Publish or Perish software using a Google Books database and Scripta Paedagogica. The reception of Mann's texts was analyzed using the context of citation and the functions and use of those citations. The three unknow Mann's papers about Student Self-Government published in 1913 and his citations. The results shows that Mann's critics and recommendations published in one of his papers was the fourth more citated in a database of 16 foundational German works of to self-student government. Finally, this Mann's article was cited and used in an ideological way to argue in favor of reactionary and conservative opinions of school democratization in German Empire teacher circles. Mann's diagnosis and critical suggestions was recognized by prominent German philosophers and pedagogues. Precisely Mann criticized the Student Republics as the only way to stimulate the student self-government for their artificial character and especially for the loss of students' psychological individuality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of staircase stopping accuracy and testing environment on stop-signal reaction time.

The stop-signal task is widely used in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience research, as well as neuropsychological and clinical practice for assessing response inhibition. The task requires participants to make speeded responses on a majority of trials, but to inhibit responses when a stop signal appears after the imperative cue. The stop-signal delay after the onset of the imperative cue determines how difficult it is to cancel an initiated action. The delay is typically staircased to maintain a 50% stopping accuracy for an estimation of stopping speed to be calculated. However, the validity of this estimation is compromised when participants engage in strategic slowing, motivated by a desire to avoid stopping failures. We hypothesized that maintaining stopping accuracy at 66.67% reduces this bias, and that slowing may also be impacted by the level of experimenter supervision. We found that compared with 50%, using a 66.67% stopping accuracy staircase produced slower stop-signal reaction time estimations (≈7 ms), but resulted in fewer strategic slowing exclusions. Additionally, both staircase procedures had similar within-experiment test-retest reliability. We also found that while individual and group testing in a laboratory setting produced similar estimations of stopping speed, participants tested online produced slower estimates. Our findings indicate that maintaining stopping accuracy at 66.67% is a reliable method for estimating stopping speed and can have benefits over the standard 50% staircase procedure. Further, our results show that care should be taken when comparing between experiments using different staircases or conducted in different testing environments.

Модель діагностики та прогнозу психічних розладів у хворих на ревматоїдний артрит

Abstract Topicality. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a stress-dependent disease, so exposure to a long-term psychotraumatic situation, such as the war in Ukraine, can lead to an increase in the number of RA onsets and exacerbations. The prevalence and incidence of psychiatric disorders in rheumatoid arthritis, especially depression and anxiety, are known to be high and exceed those in the general population. Comorbid psychiatric comorbidity can complicate RA treatment decisions, leading to an increased likelihood of adverse outcomes, including reduced disease control, lack of quality remission, poor quality of life, and higher mortality. The purpose of the study is to create a screening - diagnostic model for predicting the mental state of patients with rheumatoid arthritis for the timely treatment of mental disorders. Methods. All patients underwent a clinical-psychopathological and clinical-catamnestic examination followed by dynamic observation and analysis of disease histories. At the same time, along with the general clinical examination, in order to identify psycho-emotional disorders, all patients underwent an experimental psychological study. The results. The proposed model for diagnosing and predicting the mental state of patients with rheumatoid arthritis consists of two algorithms: the algorithm for coding patients and the algorithm for determining and predicting the mental state of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The new method makes it possible to speed up the determination of the mental state of a sick person without testing and take it into account in the treatment of the underlying disease.

On the problem of planning and organization of experimental research in psychology

On the problem of planning and organization of experimental research in psychology

Supplemental Material for Pervasive Failure to Report Properties of Visual Stimuli in Experimental Research in Psychology and Neuroscience: Two Metascientific Studies

Supplemental Material for Pervasive Failure to Report Properties of Visual Stimuli in Experimental Research in Psychology and Neuroscience: Two Metascientific Studies

AUDITORY IMAGE: PHENOMENOLOGICAL LOCALIZATION OF THE PROBLEM

The article aims to concretize the phenomenological account concerning the problem of an auditory image. The author considers auditory imagery as a scientific object and compares different treatments of the problem to fix the potential and advantages of its phenomenological interpretation. In the first stage of the study, the author distinguishes the key characteristics of the image by means the lexical analysis. This is the perceptual (predominantly visual) nature of an image, integrality, and essentiality (image as an idea). In the second stage, the understandings of the mental and auditory imagery in physiology, experimental psychology, music psychology, musicology, and interdisciplinary studies are described. In the third stage, the peculiar phenomenological ways of the comprehension of an auditory image are revealed. The phenomenological interest is to pick out consciousness which perceiving of an image equally from the process of perceiving and from entailing in an image. The specific phenomenological stance is placing an auditory image on the bound of transcendent (the process of perceiving) and immanent (an image that is already perceived). The auditory image is conceived as the unity of Modi of its givenness. Most fecks of this Modi are original, they cannot be transferred into other science scopes: they are the interconnection of all moments of the temporal unfolding, self-organization in the time, self-referentiality, non-semanticity, periodicity/randomness, eventuality, quasi-embodiment (physicality). Solely phenomenological problems are problems of the constitution of an auditory image, its life-horizon, intersubjectivity, and regional matching. The author infers that phenomenology does not conceive auditory image as sustained auditory representation, associated with acoustic memory. Its perceptual nature does not play a key role here. Moreover, the perceptual-semantic duality of the image is not fixed by the phenomenological description. The phenomenological approach is unique because it researches auditory data exhaustively but does not use semantic and referential analysis of them. The main feature of phenomenological description is the focus on the unity of auditory image: All the elements of auditory data are interpreted in their synthesis as the different levels of the unity of hearing image. Thus, the phenomenological approach as a whole is the most promising for comprehending such a dominant quality of the auditory image as integrality.