Evaluating interactions between emotion regulation strategies through the interpersonal context of female friends

Introduction: There is a growing interest in examining how interpersonal relationships may shape associations between emotion regulation (ER) strategies and psychopathology.Methods: We used multilevel modeling to test if respondents’ self-reported intrapersonal ER, friends’ self-reported intrapersonal ER, and their interaction were associated with psychopathology in a sample of 120 female friend dyads.Results: Respondents’ use of brooding rumination, expressive suppression, and worry were positively associated with respondent psychopathology. Friend reappraisal moderated the association between respondent reappraisal and respondent psychopathology. Consistent with an interference hypothesis, respondent cognitive reappraisal was only associated with respondent psychopathology when friend cognitive reappraisal was low. Consistent with a compensatory hypothesis, respondent reappraisal was primarily associated with respondent psychopathology when friend repetitive negative thought was high.Discussion: Results support the extension of models of ER strategy interactions from intrapersonal to interpersonal contexts. Future research is needed to replicate the interference and compensatory interactions observed in the data.

Oviposition by a lycaenid butterfly onto old host parts is adaptive to avoid interference by conspecific larvae

Oviposition site selection by herbivores can depend not only on the quality of host resources, but also on the risk of predation, parasitism and interference. Females of the lycaenid butterfly Arhopala bazalus (Lepidoptera) lay eggs primarily on old host foliage away from fresh growth, where larval offspring live and feed. Resource availability of young host leaves seems not to affect the oviposition site preference by the females. To clarify the adaptive significance of A. bazalus oviposition behavior on old foliage, we tested three hypotheses: eggs on fresh foliage are (1) easily dropped during rapid leaf expansion (bottom-up hypothesis), (2) more likely to be attacked by egg parasitoids (top-down hypothesis), and (3) frequently displaced or injured by other herbivores (interference hypothesis). In field surveys, rates of egg dropping and parasitism by egg parasitoids were not significantly different between fresh and old host parts. However, the portions of fresh leaves on which A. bazalus eggs had been laid were cut from shoots on which conspecific larvae fed. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that eggs on young leaves were displaced in the presence of conspecific larvae and we observed that fifth instar larvae actively displaced conspecific eggs by feeding on the surrounding leaf tissue. These findings indicate that eggs laid on fresh leaves are at risk of being displaced by conspecific larvae, and support the interference hypothesis. Larval behavior is a likely evolutionary force for A. bazalus to lay eggs apart from larval feeding sites on the host plant.

Re-examining the effect of phonological similarity between the native- and second-language intonational systems in second-language speech segmentation

This study investigates how phonological and phonetic aspects of the native-language (L1) intonation modulate the use of tonal cues in second-language (L2) speech segmentation. Previous research suggested that prosodic learning is more difficult if the L1 and L2 intonations are phonologically similar but phonetically different (French–Korean) than if they are phonologically different (English–French/Korean) (Prosodic-Learning Interference Hypothesis; Tremblay, Broersma, Coughlin & Choi, 2016). This study provides another test of this hypothesis. Korean listeners and French-speaking and English-speaking L2 learners of Korean in Korea completed an eye-tracking experiment investigating the effects of phrase tones in Korean. All groups patterned similarly with the phrase-final tone, but, unlike Korean and French listeners, English listeners showed early benefits from the phrase-initial tone (signaling word-initial boundaries in English). Importantly, French listeners patterned like Korean listeners with both tones. The Prosodic-Learning Interference Hypothesis is refined to suggest that prosodic learning difficulties may not be persistent for immersed L2 learners.

The Effects of Smartphones on Well-Being: Theoretical Integration and Research Agenda

As smartphones become ever more integrated in people’s lives, a burgeoning new area of research has emerged on their well-being effects. We propose that disparate strands of research and apparently contradictory findings can be integrated under three basic hypotheses, positing that smartphones influence well-being by (1) replacing other activities (displacement hypothesis), (2) interfering with concurrent activities (interference hypothesis), and (3) affording access to information and activities that would otherwise be unavailable (complementarity hypothesis). Using this framework, we highlight methodological issues and go beyond net effects to examine how and when phones boost versus hurt well-being. We examine both psychological and contextual mediators and moderators of the effects, thus outlining an agenda for future research.

Implementation of a chemical background method for atmospheric OH measurements by laser-induced fluorescence: characterisation and observations from the UK and China

Hydroxyl (OH) and hydroperoxy (HO2) radicals are central to the understanding of atmospheric chemistry. Owing to their short lifetimes, these species are frequently used to test the accuracy of model predictions and their underlying chemical mechanisms. In forested environments, laser-induced fluorescence–fluorescence assay by gas expansion (LIF–FAGE) measurements of OH have often shown substantial disagreement with model predictions, suggesting the presence of unknown OH sources in such environments. However, it is also possible that the measurements have been affected by instrumental artefacts, due to the presence of interfering species that cannot be discriminated using the traditional method of obtaining background signals via modulation of the laser excitation wavelength (OHwave). The interference hypothesis can be tested by using an alternative method to determine the OH background signal, via the addition of a chemical scavenging prior to sampling of ambient air (OHchem). In this work, the Leeds FAGE instrument was modified to include such a system to facilitate measurements of OHchem, in which propane was used to selectively remove OH from ambient air using an inlet pre-injector (IPI). The IPI system was characterised in detail, and it was found that the system did not reduce the instrument sensitivity towards OH ( 99 %) without the removal of OH formed inside the fluorescence cell (

Interference Can Affect Response Times to False Items in Category Verification

Previous research has found faster response times in category verification tasks to false stimuli pairing highly similar coordinate concepts (“pea—bean”) than to false stimuli pairing less similar coordinate concepts (“pea—onion”). Such a finding indicates that knowledge of which concepts are coordinate to one another is represented within a semantic network. However, the finding has not been entirely consistent. One reason for that inconsistency may be that the faster retrieval of a coordinate association between highly related words is offset by hesitancy on the part of participants to make a “false” response to strongly related stimuli. To test this hypothesis, termed the relation-strength interference hypothesis, participants served in two conditions. In the Similarity condition, they judged whether pairs of words were semantically similar. In the Classification condition, they judged whether pairs of words exhibited a class-inclusion relation “pea—vegetable”) or a coordinate relation. Both conditions included both coordinate items and class-inclusion items. Latencies were longer in the Classification condition than in the Similarity condition. The increase in latency in the Classification condition relative to the Similarity condition, however, was the same for coordinate items as for class-inclusion items, a finding consistent with the relation-strength interference hypothesis.

Probing the “Default Network Interference Hypothesis” With EEG: An RDoC Approach Focused on Attention

Studies have shown that specific networks (default mode network [DMN] and task positive network [TPN]) activate in an anticorrelated manner when sustaining attention. Related EEG studies are scarce and often lack behavioral validation. We performed independent component analysis (ICA) across different frequencies (source-level), using eLORETA-ICA, to extract brain-network activity during resting-state and sustained attention. We applied ICA to the voxel domain, similar to functional magnetic resonance imaging methods of analyses. The obtained components were contrasted and correlated to attentional performance (omission errors) in a large sample of healthy subjects (N = 1397). We identified one component that robustly correlated with inattention and reflected an anticorrelation of delta activity in the anterior cingulate and precuneus, and delta and theta activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and with alpha and gamma activity in medial frontal regions. We then compared this component between optimal and suboptimal attentional performers. For the latter group, we observed a greater change in component loading between resting-state and sustained attention than for the optimal performers. Following the National Institute of Mental Health Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach, we prospectively replicated and validated these findings in subjects with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Our results provide further support for the “default mode interference hypothesis.”

Lexical Attrition

This chapter clarifies what first language (L1) lexical attrition is and synthesizes the literature that describes its varied manifestations as well as the three most prominent hypotheses that have been formulated to account for how, why, when, and where L1 lexical attrition will occur. These include the dormant language hypothesis, threshold hypothesis, and interference hypothesis. The chapter also discusses the findings of past studies that have investigated the potential effects of linguistic, social, and psycholinguistic variables on the L1 lexical fluency and accuracy of language learners, bilinguals, and multilinguals. Additionally, the chapter describes the proper use of existing methods for measuring L1 lexical attrition in relation to lexical accuracy, fluency, and complexity through tasks designed to elicit free-production, controlled, and paralinguistic (e.g., reaction-time) data, and through the use of instruments specially designed to measure lexical complexity in free-production data. The chapter concludes with recommendations for necessary future research.