Expressing the Author's Position in the English-Language Network Film Review

Introduction. The article presents the results of the analysis of the author’s position verbalization methods in the English online professional film review addressed to the mainstream audience. The authors proceed from the position that the methods of subject verbalization are determined by functional characteristics of discourse. The relevance of the study is due to the interest of modern linguistics in the study of the subject factor in “personal” types of discourse. The paper considers the factor of the subject in the discourse, defines the concepts of authorization and its nomination, analyzes the role of identifying categories of subjective modality and describing prevalent evaluation types in the study of the author's position in evaluative genres.Methodology and sources. Research methodology is based on the approaches to classification of modus and evaluation types developed by N.D. Arutyunova. The methodology of describing the author's position in evaluative genres is proposed, which boils down to the following steps: identifying the leading linguistic means of self-nomination; displaying main genre-typical patterns of subject modality (modus types); describing evaluation semantics specificity and linguistic means of dominant evaluative meanings verbalization. The study was conducted on the material of the corpus of texts selected on the English-language portal metacritic.com which includes 50 professional film reviews addressed to a wide audience (39,765 words in length).Results and discussion. Based on the methods of quantitative and contextual analysis the distribution of modus types verbalized by “subject-predicate” models with personal subject-representing pronouns was carried out; the distribution of personal and possessive pronouns as the main method of self-nomination in the discourse of the network English-language professional film review was revealed; on the basis of the analysis of the semantics of evaluative adjectives of the corpus, the types of evaluative meanings in the genre under study were identified. The leading methods of discourse subject nomination were shown to involve the 1-st person pl. inclusive pronoun, which indicates the author’s intention to establish a connection with the reader and to increase the manipulative potential of the text. The main types of evaluative meanings verbalized by the corpora adjectives were identified, which are emotional, intellectual, aesthetic and regulatory types.Conclusion. The conducted research allowed us to conclude that the specificity of the expression of the author's position in professional network film review is reduced to the following characteristics: the dominant nature of the perceptual mode and the mental mode of knowledge in the field of subjective modality of texts; the predominance of first-person plural pronouns in an inclusive meaning as a means of self-nomination of the subject discourse and the dominance of partial-evaluative meanings over general-evaluative ones. The predominance of emotional-psychological and intellectual-psychological types of evaluation indicates the author's intention to express an individualized subjective-emotional opinion about the evaluated object.

Metabolic Surgery Supporting Aftercare via Group-Intervention (MeSSAGES): study protocol of a randomised controlled trial

IntroductionObesity is a constantly rising and cost-intensive medical issue worldwide. Severe obesity often needs surgery to promote weight loss, but due to the rapid therapeutic success after the surgery, many patients lack the awareness of the need to consistently maintain the postoperative care. However, therapeutic success and psychological well-being can be increased through group interventions and social support of the group members. Therefore, aftercare via group intervention is a promising approach. In this prospective randomised controlled study, the self-efficacy in a social media-based interactive, psychoeducational intervention is to be tested.Methods and analysisThe intervention group will complete a social media-supported group intervention for 6 weeks with weekly postings of educative contents and the possibility to exchange in groups via anonymous avatars. The control group will receive treatment as usual (TAU) after the obesity surgery as recommended in the German S3-guidelines Obesity Surgery and Metabolic Surgery. We will examine the effectiveness of a social media-supported intervention group, and therefore, the change in self-efficacy expectation. For the primary outcome, we will perform a mixed analysis of variance with time as the within-subject factor (times of measurement T0–T4) and the group assignment as the between-subject factor (intervention +TAU vs TAU group).Ethics and disseminationThe study was approved by the Medical Association North Rhine (Ärztekammer Nordrhein, 2020031) and the patient enrolment will begin in July 2021.Trial registration numberDRKS00018089.

Exercise Capacity and Acute Effect of Exercise on Affect in a Substance Use Disorder Population

ABSTRACT Background It is known that exercise is beneficial to people with substance use disorder, however little evidence exists regarding their exercise capacity. This pilot study investigates the exercise capacity of patients with substance use disorder and effects of an acute bout of exercise on affect. Methods Twenty-nine participants admitted to a withdrawal management facility were recruited to complete a health and exercise assessment (18 females, 11 males; 41 ± 11 years old). Mood was measured before and after exercise assessments using the subjective experience to exercise scale. Data was grouped by sex, and descriptive analyses were performed against age-matched normative data. Within group, before and after subjective experience to exercise scale measures were analyzed using 2-way ANOVA with sex as a between subject factor. Results Participants ranged from having 2 to 6 modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. Participants performed below average compared to age-matched and sex-matched normative data for the 6-minute walk test (females: 539 ± 54 m, males: 606 ± 89 m); and push-up test (females: 22% good, males: 36% good). Of the 29 participants, 29% failed to achieve the average range for sex-matched norms in the sit-to-stand test. However, all participants achieved above average for curl-ups, and 72% achieved an average or above score in the step-up test. Exercise significantly increased wellbeing (P < 0.001, effect size = 1.12) and decreased psychological distress (P = 0.045, effect size = 1.03) and fatigue (P < 0.001, effect size = 1.32). Conclusion Exercise is both feasible and beneficial in a withdrawal management setting. Capacity to perform exercise was generally poor with high individual variance. Design of future interventions will need tailored prescription for patients in this population.

Effects of Light Conditions and Falls Concerns on Older Adults’ Gait Characteristics: A Preliminary Study

Falls are one of the main safety concerns for the aging population, possibly caused by the difficulty in maintaining the gait and balance during walking. Vision and psychological effects are reported to be major factors affecting human gait and balance. However, only a few studies have collectively investigated the effects of vision and psychological status on gait characteristics. Therefore, this study aimed to compare the gait characteristics of older adults with different falls concerns under usual ambient and visual-guided light conditions. Twelve community-dwelling adults (five males and seven females, seven with eye diseases, all over 75 years old, 164.5 ± 9.1 cm in stature) were recruited. Participants were instructed to walk from their bed to the bathroom with their normal walking speed four times (two light conditions x two repetitions). Participants’ gait characteristics, including the walking performance, posture, and stability measures, were compared using mixed analyses of variance with light conditions as the within-subject factor, and falls concerns as the between-subject factor. The study found: (1) When compared to the usual ambient night light condition, the lighting with a visual-based guiding prompted participants to have a lower maximum value of right hip flexion and a higher maximum value of trunk accelerometry. Higher confidence in walking and increased numbers of walking direction corrections might contribute to the changes under the visual-guided light conditions. (2) When compared to older adults with low fall concerns, those with high fall concerns demonstrated a slower walking speed as well as a reduction in motion smoothness.

The Sunny Side of Negative Feedback: Negative Feedback Enhances One’s Motivation to Win in Another Activity

Negative feedback has been widely reported to be a demotivator that could frustrate the recipient’s need for competence and erode his intrinsic motivation in the same activity. Nevertheless, little attention has been devoted to the intertemporal effect of negative feedback on one’s intrinsic motivation in another activity. To fill this gap, we arranged participants in a game with two sessions and manipulated the content of feedback as a between-subject factor. In session 1, participants had to complete a time estimation task with moderate difficulty, during which half of the participants received normal performance feedback and the other half received negative performance feedback. In session 2, all participants were guided to accomplish a moderately difficult stopwatch task that was competence-supportive. A more pronounced win-loss difference wave of reward positivity (RewP) was detected in the experimental (negative performance feedback) group compared to the control (normal performance feedback) group during session 2. This finding indicates that negative feedback in an activity may have a positive impact on one’s intrinsic motivation in a following competence-supportive activity.

The Neurocognitive Study for the Aging: Longitudinal Analysis on the Contribution of Sex, Age, Education and APOE ɛ4 on Cognitive Performance

Objective: The effects of normal cognitive aging on executive functions (EF), Verbal Episodic Memory (VEM) and the contribution of age, sex, education, and APOΕ ε4 in a group of old Greek Cypriots across a five-year period were investigated.Design: NEUROAGE, the first project on cognitive aging in Cyprus, is a prospective longitudinal study with a rolling admission process. Participants are assessed at baseline and retested every 24–30 months.Subjects: 170 participants completed all three testing cycles; 86 men and 84 women with ages ranging between 60 and 88 years (mean = 73.21, SD = 5.84); education, 2–20 years (mean = 9.07, SD = 4.27).Results: Α Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Covariance was conducted with one between-subject factor: sex; two covariates: age and education, while Time (time 1, time 2, time 3) served as a within – subject factor. Time did not have an effect on mini mental status examination in Greek (MMSE), EF or VEM. Also, sex had no effect on MMSE, EF and VEM. There was no time by sex interaction. Age and Education significantly predicted the EF performance, F(1, 168) = 11.23, p < 0.05; F(1, 158) = 90.03, p < 0.001 and VEM performance, F(1, 171) = 17.22, p < 0.001; F(1, 171) = 61.25, p < 0.001. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between time and education, for EF, F(2, 167) = 7.02, p < 0.001. Performance of the APOE ε4 carriers did not differ on any of the above measures as compared to performance of non-carriers in this older adult group.Conclusion: Cognitively healthy adults maintained overall cognitive performance across the five-year period. Male and female participants performed similarly and the pattern of change over time was similar across the two sexes. Education was predictive of VEM and EF performance across time. Furthermore, those with higher education maintained higher levels of EF performance. APOE results did not differentiate performance at baseline. Implications of findings are discussed.

Far from the eyes, far from the heart. COVID-19 confinement dampened sensitivity to painful facial features.

In the last two years, governments of many countries imposed heavy social restrictions to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, with consequent increase of bad mood, distress, or depression for the people involved. Few studies investigated the impact of these restrictive measures on individual social proficiency, and specifically the processing of emotional facial information, leading to mixed results. The present research aimed at investigating systematically whether, and to which extent, social isolation influences the processing of facial expressions. To this end, we manipulated the social exclusion experimentally through the well-known Cyberball game (within-subject factor), and we exploited the occurrence of the lockdown for the Swiss COVID-19 first wave by recruiting participants before and after being restricted at home (grouping factor). We then tested whether either form of social segregation influenced the processing of pain, disgust or neutral expressions, across multiple tasks probing access to different components of affective facial responses (state-specific, shared across states). We found that the lockdown (but not game-induced exclusion) affected negatively the processing of pain-specific information, without influencing other components of the affective facial response related to disgust or broad unpleasantness. In addition, participants recruited after the confinement reported lower scores in both empathy questionnaires and affective assessments of Cyberball co-players. These results suggest that social isolation affected negatively individual sensitivity to other people’s affect and, with specific reference to the processing of facial expressions, the processing of pain-diagnostic information.

518 Preliminary report on the efficacy of behavioral therapy for insomnia in shift work disorder: a randomized control trial

Introduction Around 33% of shift workers suffer from shift work disorder (SWD). SWD includes insomnia and sleepiness related to the atypical work schedule. Most SWD treatments rely on light therapy or pharmacology. Few studies explored CBT-I efficacy for insomnia in shift work and reported promising results. The study aims to evaluate the efficacity of a behavioral therapy for insomnia adapted for SWD (BT-SWD). Methods Forty-three night shift workers meeting SWD criteria were recruited (mean age = 34 years old; 77% women) and randomized to either BT-SWD or waiting list control group. Eight participants dropped-out while waiting. Before and after treatment, participants completed questionnaires (ESS, ISI, STAI and BDI-II) and sleep diaries throughout the experimentation. BT-SWD involves sleep restriction therapy and stimulus control for insomnia as well as fixed sleep periods in the dark for shift workers. BT-SWD has been applied to night sleep, day sleep, and naps in this order. It consists of 6 sessions of 50 minutes delivered on 8 weeks. A mixed MANOVA was conducted on questionnaires scores with group (treatment or waitlist) as the between-subject factor and time as the within subject factor. Results A multivariate interaction effect was significant, F(6,21) = 8.24, p<.001. A univariate interaction effect was observed for the BDI-II (p=.042), the trait scale of the STAI (p=.021) and the ISI, both for night sleep (p=.027) and day sleep (p<.001), indicating that the scores of participants in the treatement group lowered significantly more than those of participants on the waiting group. The treatment group had a significantly less severe insomnia, both for day sleep during night work (p<.001), and night sleep during days off (p<.001). There was no significant difference between the control and the treatment group on sleepiness levels. Conclusion BT-SWD is effective at reducing insomnia severity as well as levels of trait anxiety and depression. Results are more equivocal for sleepiness. The waiting list control group design used has led to an important attrition in the context of shift work. Further analyses are needed to determine the BT-SWD efficacy on sleep variables. Support (if any) The study was supported by a CIHR grant (#110254) awarded to the first author

Play First Before Doing Your Exercise: Does Acting in a Game-Like Task Improve 5-Year-Olds’ Working Memory Performance?

It has been shown that acting in a game-like task improves preschoolers’ working memory when tested in a reconstruction task. The game context and the motor activity during the game would provide goal cues bringing support to the memory processes. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis by examining preschoolers’ working memory performance in a game-like task compared to an exercise-like task, which offers less goal cues. In the present study, 5-year-olds had to maintain a series of fruits and vegetables while acting in a game-like task or remaining static during the same task presented in a school-exercise context (within-subject factor). Memory performance was tested either through oral recall or reconstruction of the series of memory items (between-subject factor). Despite the fact that memory performance did not differ between the two conditions (game vs. exercise) whatever the type of memory tests, performance was worst in the game-like than in the exercise condition when the exercise was presented first. No difference emerged between conditions when the game condition was performed first. This result suggests that preschoolers were able to take advantage of acting in the game-like condition to integrate some task requirements, which were beneficial for performing the exercise condition.

Effects of Raising Student Teachers’ Metacognitive Awareness of Their Educational Psychological Misconceptions

Fostering metacognitive awareness of misconceptions should enhance deep processing of scientifically correct explanations and thereby decrease misconceptions. To explore these potentially beneficial effects, we conducted a field study implemented in a regular educational psychology course in an Australian teacher education program. In a two-by-two within-subject experimental design, student teachers ( n = 119) answered misconception questionnaires, made metacognitive judgments, and participated in awareness activities at the start (T1) and the end (T2) of the semester (within-subject factor: time). Half of the misconception items focused on educational psychology course content, while the other half focused on related topics that were not covered in the course (non-course content). Awareness activities (AA) consisted of providing feedback regarding all misconception items. During the lectures, we provided additional scientifically correct refutational explanations (RE) regarding course content. Thus, we compared the combined AA+RE treatment for course content with the AA treatment for non-course content (within-subject factor: treatment). Our findings confirm that student teachers harbor numerous high-confidence educational psychological misconceptions. Furthermore, awareness activities plus refutational explanations resulted in significant increases in metacognitive awareness and in performance. Additionally, initial metacognitive overconfidence was related to persistent misconceptions, indicating that overconfidence may hinder correction of course content misconceptions.