Priming of affective word evaluation by pictures of faces showing positive and negative emotional expressions was investigated in two experiments that used a double task procedure where participants were asked to respond to the prime or to the target on different trials. The experiments varied between-subjects the prime task assignment and the prime-target interval (SOA, stimulus onset asynchrony). Significant congruency effects (that is, faster word evaluation when prime and target had the same valence than when they were of opposite valence) were observed in both experiments. When the prime task oriented the subjects to an affectively irrelevant property of the faces (their gender), priming was observed at SOA 300 ms but not at SOA 1000 ms (Experiment 1). However, when the prime task assignment explicitly oriented the subjects to the valence of the face, priming was observed at both SOA durations (Experiment 2). These results show, first, that affective priming by pictures of facial emotion can be obtained even when the subject has an explicit goal to process a non-affective property of the prime. Second, sensitivity of the priming effect to SOA duration seems to depend on whether it is mediated by intentional or unintentional activation of the valence of the face prime.

Almost 40 years ago I began what turned out to be a programme of research on the way in which experience can change the effectiveness of the events used as stimuli in standard associative learning procedures. In this personal history I will describe my early (failed) attempts to find evidence for the acquired distinctiveness of cues, and my conclusion that experience tends to reduce, not enhance the associability of stimuli. I then go on to describe my attempts to square this conclusion with the stubborn empirical fact that, in some circumstances, pretraining with (or preexposure to) stimuli, can facilitate subsequent discrimination between them. I describe experiments (conducted mostly with rats as the subjects) showing how some of these effects can be explained in associative terms. Others, however, seemed to demand an explanation in terms of a new learning process that modulates the effective salience of stimuli. I go on to describe attempts to specify the nature of this process, and (bringing the story up to date) to describe recent experiments investigating the effects of salience modulation in human perceptual learning.

Evaluative conditioning is best defined as an effect, that is, as a change in the valence of a stimulus that results from pairing the stimulus with another stimulus. This definition has several advantages that are made explicit in this paper. One of the advantages is that it clarifies that evaluative conditioning can be due to multiple processes. Therefore, the conditions under which evaluative conditioning is observed can depend on the processes that underlie a particular manifestation of evaluative conditioning. This could explain why there are so many conflicting results about the conditions under which evaluative conditioning can be found. Future research should adopt a meta-conditional approach that focuses not only on whether a certain condition is crucial for obtaining evaluative conditioning but should also examine when a certain condition is crucial.

The main aim of this work was to look for cognitive biases in human inference of causal relationships in order to emphasize the psychological processes that modulate causal learning. From the effect of the judgment frequency, this work presents subsequent research on cue competition (overshadowing, blocking, and super-conditioning effects) showing that the strength of prior beliefs and new evidence based upon covariation computation contributes additively to predict causal judgments, whereas the balance between the reliability of both, beliefs and covariation knowledge, modulates their relative weight. New findings also showed “inattentional blindness” for negative or preventative causal relationships but not for positive or generative ones, due to failure in codifying and retrieving the necessary information for its computation. Overall results unveil the need of three hierarchical levels of a whole architecture for human causal learning: the lower one, responsible for codifying the events during the task; the second one, computing the retrieved information; finally, the higher level, integrating this evidence with previous causal knowledge. In summary, whereas current theoretical frameworks on causal inference and decision-making usually focused either on causal beliefs or covariation information, the present work shows how both are required to be able to explain the complexity and flexibility involved in human causal learning.

Rats given the combination of unrestricted access to an activity wheel and restricted access to food can lose weight to the extent that they will die unless removed from these conditions. Although this has been known for forty years, why this happens has remained unclear. The phenomenon is paradoxical in that one might expect such rats to eat more as their weight decreases, but in fact they eat less than resting controls. This lecture first examines some of the factors than influence whether self-starvation will occur, such as age, time of food access, type of food and ambient temperature. It then compares competing explanations such as circadian adaptation, thermo-regulation and food aversion learning. As so often in psychology, it turns out that self-starvation results from a combination of many separate factors. The general implications of this research are examined, including whether it provides a useful animal model for human anorexia nervosa.

The world we perceive is delayed in relation to its flowing content, as well as the outcome of our actions on the world in relation to the moment we decide to act. This mosaic of different latencies permeating both perception and action has to be taken into account critically in order for us to cope with the temporal challenges constantly imposed by the environment. Fundamental notions, such as the sense of agency and causality, depend on the temporal relationship of events occurring in well-defined windows of time. Here, we offer a broad, yet abridged, historical view of some thought-provoking issues concerning the time of perception and action. From the pioneering work of Wundt, Titchener, and Libet to recent findings and ideas related to the employment of visual illusions as psychophysical probes (such as the flash-lag effect), we have tried to expose some problems inherent to the act of measuring the time of both perception and action, and devise possible solutions as well.

Auditory perception of the depth of space is based mainly on spectral and amplitude changes of sound waves originating from the sound source and reaching the listener. The perceptive illusion of movement of an auditory image caused by changes in amplitude and/or frequency of the signal tone emanating from an immobile loudspeaker was studied. Analysis of data obtained from the participants revealed the diapason of combinations of amplitude and frequency changes for which the movement direction was perceived similarly by all participants, despite significantly different movement assessment criteria. Additional auditory and visual information of the conditions of radial movement (near or far fields) determined listeners' interpretation of changes in the signal parameters. The data obtained about the perception of approach and withdrawal models are evidence of the fact that the principal cues of the perception of the distance of immobile sound sources manifests similarly to that of an auditory image moving along a radial axis.

Twelve healthy subjects underwent investigation of averaged (electroencephalogram) EEG potentials during preparation for motor activity and in the latent period (LP) of visually evoked saccades by presentation of stimuli using Posner's (1980) design of “cost-benefit.” It has been shown that covert spatial attention orientation leads to an increase in amplitude and decrease in latency of presaccadic initiation potential peaks within the saccadic latent period (LP) (P-100, N –50). Processes of covert orientation of attention during the interstimulus interval period of anticipation of the target stimulus correlate with the increase of slow negativity of fronto-parietal-temporal localization. Spatial-temporal changes of presaccadic potentials are evidence of the fact that orientation of attention during motor preparation and saccadic initiation is reflected in intensification of fronto-parietal networks of saccadic control and attention, activating the fronto-medio-thalamic and thalamo-parietal modulating systems.

In this study, the incidence of the degree of abstraction in solving addition and subtraction problems with the unknown in the first term and in the result is analyzed. Ninety-six students from first grade to fourth grade in Primary Education (24 students per grade) solved arithmetic problems with objects, drawings, algorithms, and verbal problems. The participants were interviewed individually and all sessions were video-taped. The results indicate a different developmental pattern in achievement for each school grade depending on the levels of abstraction. The influence of the level of abstraction was significant, especially in first graders, and even more so in second graders, that is, at the developmental stage in which they start to learn these arithmetic tasks. Direct modeling strategies are observed more frequently at the concrete and pictorial level, counting strategies occur at all levels of abstraction, whereas numerical fact strategies are found at higher levels of abstraction.

This work analyzes the possibility that the differences in the performance of men and women in dynamic spatial tasks such as the Spatial Orientation Dynamic Test-Revised (SODT-R; Santacreu & Rubio, 1998), obtained in previous works, are due to cognitive style (Reflexivity-Impulsivity) or to the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SATO) that the participants implement. If these differences are due to cognitive style, they would be independent of intelligence, whereas if they are due to SATO, they may be associated with intelligence. In this work, 1652 participants, 984 men and 668 women, ages between 18 and 55 years, were assessed. In addition to the SODT-R, the “Test de Razonamiento Analítico, Secuencial e Inductivo” (TRASI [Analytical, Sequential, and Inductive Reasoning Test]; Rubio & Santacreu, 2003) was administered as a measure of general intelligence. Impulsivity scores (Zi) of Salkind and Wright (1977) were used to analyze reflexivity-impulsivity and SATO. The results obtained indicate that (a) four performance groups can be identified: Fast-accurate, Slow-inaccurate, Impulsive, and Reflexive. The first two groups solve the task as a function of a competence variable and the last two as a function of a personality variable; (b) performance differences should be attributed to SATO; (c) SATO differs depending on sex and intelligence level.

After designing a writing program to enhance students' reflexivity and thus improve their compositions (García & de Caso, 2002a, 2002b), the aim of the research project was to show how reflexivity levels could influence the effectiveness of this program. This writing instruction through reflexivity was carried out with 5th and 6th grade students with learning disabilities (LD) and/or low achievement (LA) during 25 sessions. One hundred participants were assigned to either the experimental group (n = 49), which received specific intervention in writing and reflexivity, or the control group (n = 51), which simply received the ordinary curriculum. Both groups were assessed on the productivity and quality of their writing composition as well as their attitudes, self-efficacy, and reflexivity towards writing. The results show that coherence and reflexivity improved depending on the level of reflexivity, whereas the relationship with attitudes and self-efficacy is not so clear. Thus, it seems possible to improve LD and/or LA students' compositions by taking their reflexive style into account. Depending on the students' learning style, teachers should use either one or another technique.

Despite the money and sweat that go into new instructional technologies, they do not produce the overall high level of student performances that societies seek. More effective teaching calls for a profound solution. It requires a coordinate triad of factors: a proper science, the correct organizational structure, and an engineering instructional technology. This second of a series of articles on the Triad Model of Education concentrates on instructional engineering. The instructional engineering drawn from the science is contingency-based. Contingency-based instructional systems always handle the inevitable two components of instruction: the repertoires of students and the setups that shape those repertoires. The setup component features five elements: subject matter, objectives, quality control, presentation modes, and logistics. The repertoire component consists of the governance of repertoires—event and lingual governed, the type of repertoire—knowing, solving, and creating, and the variability of the repertoire—convergent and divergent. These elements, and their required engineering, reveal an instructional task more complex than previously considered. Progress with such complexity occurs only when all components of the triad are in place.

This paper presents evidence from a psychosocial framework about the relationship among youth, work, and identity construction. The aims of this research were twofold. The first one was to analyze the working conditions of Spanish youth and their impact on individuals' biographies. The second one was to examine the effect of labor-related variables on construction / change of identity elements in Spanish youth. For this purpose, two research techniques were used: the Delphi method (103 experts sample from several entities and organizations closely related to our topic) and deep interviews (15 interviews with youths classified according to their relationship with the work market).

The relationship of parenting styles with adolescents' outcomes was analyzed within a sample of Spanish adolescents. A sample of 1456 teenagers from 13 to 16 years of age, of whom 54.3% were females, reported on their parents' child-rearing practices. The teenagers' parents were classified into one of four groups (authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, or neglectful). The adolescents were then contrasted on two different outcomes: (1) priority given to Schwartz's self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence) and conservation (security, conformity, and tradition) values and (2) level of self-esteem (appraised in five domains: academic, social, emotional, family and physical). The results show that Spanish adolescents from indulgent households have the same or better outcomes than adolescents from authoritative homes. Parenting is related with two self-esteem dimensions—academic and family—and with all the self-transcendence and conservation values. Adolescents of indulgent parents show highest scores in self-esteem whereas adolescents from authoritarian parents obtain the worst results. In contrast, there were no differences between the priority given by adolescents of authoritative and indulgent parents to any of the self-transcendence and conservation values, whereas adolescents of authoritarian and neglectful parents, in general, assign the lowest priority to all of these values.

In this article, a leadership model is presented, with which to investigate the relationship of trait emotional intelligence (trait EI), leadership self-efficacy and leader's task self-efficacy with collective task efficacy and group performance. The sample was made up of 217 undergraduate students, randomly assigned to work teams of 1 leader and 2 followers that were requested to perform a production task. An adapted version of the Schutte Self-Report Inventory (SSRI; Schutte et al., 1998) was used to measure trait EI. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Results indicated that task self-efficacy was a mediator between leadership self-efficacy and collective task efficacy; the latter, in turn, was the best predictor of group performance. No significant relationship was found between trait EI and collective task efficacy although, unexpectedly, trait EI was positively associated with leadership self-efficacy. Implications of the results are discussed.

This study has two main goals: (a) to compare the relationship between transformational leadership and other important leadership styles (i.e., democratic versus autocratic or relations- and task-oriented leadership) and (b) to compare the effects of transformational leadership and the other styles on some important organizational outcomes such as employees' satisfaction and performance. For this purpose, a sample of 147 participants, working in 35 various work-teams, was used. Results show high correlations between transformational leadership, relations-oriented, democratic, and task-oriented leadership. On the other hand, according to the literature, transformational leadership, especially high levels, significantly increases the percentage of variance accounted for by other leadership styles in relevant organizational outcome variables (subordinates' performance, satisfaction and extra effort).

In three experiments, participants were faced with a social dilemma in which they could benefit themselves, the group, or other group members as individuals. The results showed that participants who felt high empathy toward a certain individual allocated more resources to the target of empathy, but without reducing the collective good. Then, we adapted the measure of empathy developed by Batson and colleagues (Batson, Ahmad, et al., 1999; Batson, Batson, et al., 1995) to the Spanish context. The results of Experiment 3 supported the existence of a new process: awareness of other individuals present in the social dilemma. It is proposed that this process is independent of those typically studied in research of this field: self-interest, group identification, and the empathy for a specific individual.

The announcement about the handicap of a child is communicated to parents by gynecologists or ultrasonographists, in the prenatal period. Often, these professionals are not prepared to communicate this news to the parents, and they have some limitations that lead them to act inappropriately. Therefore, the aims of this research were to identify and to describe the feelings of professionals facing this situation, and to examine their behaviors when they have to inform a couple about the child's anomaly. Ten gynecologists and ultrasonographists were interviewed: five were consultants in Public Health Services and five were private clinicians. Interviews were carried out with a semi-structured script. The results showed that, according to the participants, there is no specific moment, nor a standard behavior, that is most appropriate for making such an announcement. Yet the data show that all the participants feel hurt or frustrated when they must announce this phenomenon, becoming involved with the case. In conclusion, no graduate course has prepared them to deal with this deficiency. Suggestions are made concerning the graduate curriculum in order to improve the preparation of future doctors. A mental health professional is even necessary among the multidisciplinary team formed to deal with the pain produced in the moment of the announcement.

A study was carried out with 501 persons to analyze the predictive capacity of various psychosocial variables—symptom perception, neuroticism, Personality Types 2 and 4 of Grossarth-Maticek and Eysenck, beliefs about health, social support, or certain coping styles—on two health-related behaviors: the frequency of visits to the doctor and self-medication. The results were analyzed by two structural equation models that revealed that some of the variables have direct effects on the behaviors, whereas other variables, such as attribution style, coping styles, or the impact of the stressors, have indirect effects via the reported symptoms or neuroticism. In addition, self-medication and the frequency of health service visits are independent of each other, which shows that their determinants are different. It is concluded that to address these factors in the two health indicators, it is also necessary to take in account the psychosocial variables considered herein.

In the last few years, many researchers have studied the presence of common dimensions of temperament in subjects with symptoms of anxiety. The aim of this study is to examine the association between temperamental dimensions (high negative affect and activity level) and anxiety problems in clinical preschool children. A total of 38 children, ages 3 to 6 years, from the Infant and Adolescent Mental Health Center of Girona and the Center of Diagnosis and Early Attention of Sabadell and Olot were evaluated by parents and psychologists. Their parents completed several screening scales and, subsequently, clinical child psychopathology professionals carried out diagnostic interviews with children from the sample who presented signs of anxiety. Findings showed that children with high levels of negative affect and low activity level have pronounced symptoms of anxiety. However, children with anxiety disorders do not present different temperament styles from their peers without these pathologies.