Motherhood Modulates Cognitive Biases Toward Family Members: the Maternal Self-concept Re-examined Through Categorization Tasks

The self-bias is a robust effect where self-related information is processed with greater priority than other-related information. Interestingly, the advantages of self-bias can be extended to close others – faster and more accurate responses for one’s mother and best friend have been observed compared to strangers – suggesting that significant others play an important role in the formation of one’s self-concept. Moreover, important life experiences such as childbirth can also impact the self-concept. Motherhood is a major transformation for women as one prepares to become a mother while maintaining the integrity of the pre-pregnant self-concept to achieve an ideal maternal self. The current study explored how the transition into motherhood changes the self-concept and subsequently impact the categorization of information for family members in postpartum mothers. In two experiments, results consistently revealed biases towards the self and close kin (one’s baby and mother) regardless of stimulus type (names in Experiment 1, faces in Experiment 2) and response category (self/other, family/non-family, familiar/non-familiar). A family bias (for baby and mother) over friend was observed in the family/non-family but not in the familiar/non-familiar categorization task, suggesting that motherhood may enhance the boundary between family and non-family to facilitate the processing of family-related information.

Perceiving the Self and Emotions with an Anxious Mind: Evidence from an Implicit Perceptual Task

Anxiety disorders cause mental distress and low wellbeing in many people worldwide. Theories of anxiety describe negative worldviews and self-views as maintaining factors of the disorders. Recent research in social cognition has found a link between depression and altered perceptual biases to emotions, but the same research on anxiety is still missing. In this study, we measured perceptual biases to emotional and self-related stimuli in sub-clinically anxious participants and healthy controls using a self-emotional shape-label matching task. Results demonstrate that anxious participants had a diminished perceptual self-bias compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the severity of anxiety was related to an emotional bias towards valanced other-related stimuli. The findings confirm the hypothesis that anxious individuals display an altered self-prioritisation effect in comparison with healthy individuals and that anxiety severity is linked to altered responses to emotionally valanced others. These findings have potential implications for early diagnosis and treatment of anxiety disorders.

Equivalent own name bias in autism: An EEG study of the Attentional Blink

The “Attentional Blink” refers to difficulty in detecting the second of two target stimuli presented in rapid temporal succession. Studies have shown that salient target stimuli, such as one’s own name, reduce the magnitude of this effect. Given indications that self-related processing is altered in autism, it is an open question whether this attentional self-bias is reduced in autism. To investigate this, in the current study we utilised an Attentional Blink paradigm involving one’s own and others’ names, in a group of 24 autistic adults, and 22 neurotypical adults, while measuring EEG. In line with previous studies, the Attentional Blink was reduced when the participant’s own name was the second target, with no differences between autistic and neurotypical participants. ERP results show that the effect on the Attentional Blink of one’s own name was reflected in increased N2 and P3 amplitudes, for both autistic and nonautistic individuals. This is the first event-related potential study of own-name processing in the context of the Attentional Blink. The results provide evidence of an intact attentional self-bias in autism, both at the behavioural and neural level.

Efficient Hydrogen Generation and Total Nitrogen Removal for Urine Treatment in a Neutral Solution Based on a Self-Driving Nano Photoelectrocatalytic System

Urine is the main source of nitrogen pollution, while urea is a hydrogen-enriched carrier that has been ignored. Decomposition of urea to H2 and N2 is of great significance. Unfortunately, direct urea oxidation suffers from sluggish kinetics, and needs strong alkaline condition. Herein, we developed a self-driving nano photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) system to efficiently produce hydrogen and remove total nitrogen (TN) for urine treatment under neutral pH conditions. TiO2/WO3 nanosheets were used as photoanode to generate chlorine radicals (Cl•) to convert urea-nitrogen to N2, which can promote hydrogen generation, due to the kinetic advantage of Cl–/Cl• cyclic catalysis. Copper nanowire electrodes (Cu NWs/CF) were employed as the cathode to produce hydrogen and simultaneously eliminate the over-oxidized nitrate-nitrogen. The self-driving was achieved based on a self-bias photoanode, consisting of confronted TiO2/WO3 nanosheets and a rear Si photovoltaic cell (Si PVC). The experiment results showed that hydrogen generation with Cl• is 2.03 times higher than in urine treatment without Cl•, generating hydrogen at 66.71 μmol h−1. At the same time, this system achieved a decomposition rate of 98.33% for urea in 2 h, with a reaction rate constant of 0.0359 min−1. The removal rate of total nitrogen and total organic carbon (TOC) reached 75.3% and 48.4% in 2 h, respectively. This study proposes an efficient and potential urine treatment and energy recovery method in neutral solution.

Characterization of SiO2 Etching Profiles in Pulse-Modulated Capacitively Coupled Plasmas

Although pulse-modulated plasma has overcome various problems encountered during the development of the high aspect ratio contact hole etching process, there is still a lack of understanding in terms of precisely how the pulse-modulated plasma solves the issues. In this research, to gain insight into previously observed phenomena, SiO2 etching characteristics were investigated under various pulsed plasma conditions and analyzed through plasma diagnostics. Specifically, the disappearance of micro-trenching from the use of pulse-modulated plasma is analyzed via self-bias, and the phenomenon that as power off-time increases, the sidewall angle increases is interpreted via radical species density and self-bias. Further, the change from etching to deposition with decreased peak power during processing is understood via self-bias and electron density. It is expected that this research will provide an informative window for the optimization of SiO2 etching and for basic processing databases including plasma diagnosis for advanced plasma processing simulators.

A comparison of self-bias measures across cognitive domains

Background The ‘self-bias’—i.e., the human proneness to preferentially process self-relevant stimuli—is thought to be important for both self-related and social processing. Previous research operationalized the self-bias using different paradigms, assessing the size of the self-bias within a single cognitive domain. Recent studies suggested a reduced self-bias in autism, yet findings are inconsistent. The lack of consensus across existing studies may result from variation in paradigms and cognitive domains tested. Therefore, the primary goal of the current study was to investigate whether self-biases found across cognitive domains (i.e., perception, memory, attention) are related or independent. The secondary goal was to explore the relationship between these self-biases and the extent of autistic traits in a neurotypical sample. Methods In an online procedure, 99 Dutch-speaking adults performed three self-processing tasks in counterbalanced order—i.e., the shape-label matching task (perception), the trait adjectives task (memory) and the visual search task (attention)—and completed two self-report measures of ASD symptomatology, i.e., AQ-10 and SRS-A. To control for level of familiarity, self-, close other- and famous other-relevant stimuli were included in each task. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted for each task, and both frequentist as well as Bayesian analyses were applied to investigate the correlational patterns between self-bias measures. Results We observed significant correlations of the self-bias magnitude between memory and attention, as well as attention and perception. However, Bayesian analysis provided only weak support for the latter association. Further, the size of the self-bias was not significantly related across memory and perception. No significant correlation between autistic traits and the self-bias magnitude was found for any of the three tasks, with Bayesian analyses strongly favoring the null hypothesis. Conclusions In contrast with the view of a ‘unidimensional’ self-bias, our findings provide evidence for a heterogeneous and multifaceted self consisting of a variety of related and unrelated aspects. None of the self-bias indices were found to relate to autistic traits in our neurotypical sample.

Ion and Radical Characteristics (Mass/Energy Distribution) of a Capacitively Coupled Plasma Source Using Plasma Process Gases (CxFy)

We constructed a capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) source and installed various diagnostic tools to perform process diagnosis using a plasma process gas (CxFy). We obtained the energy and mass distributions of the ions and radicals from Ar, C4F8/Ar, and C4F6/Ar plasmas. The energy distribution of the ions incident on the substrate was controlled using the self-bias voltage, and the ion energy was found to be inversely proportional to the mass. The measured species and density of the ions and radicals can help understand plasma process results as they provide information about the ions and radicals incident on the substrate.

Obedience to authority, cognitive and affective responses and leadership style in relation to a non-normative order: the Milgram experiment

The influence of the context on behavioral and emotional reactions to a war crime situation military cadets (N = 315) is analyzed. The study is based on Milgram’s experience and the tragedy of My Lai.It examines personal and peer obedience to an anti-normative order (asking participants whether they would obey an order to shoot unarmed civilians) in five vignettes or scenarios that reproduce Milgram’s conditions and MyLai scenario. This is an experimental between-within study of five scenarios by two conditions (Milgram, 1974). Personal and collective obedience of other military, emotional reactions and values of Schwartz (2012) were measured. Showing enhancement of self-bias it is reported that the pairs would be more likely to shoot than one would. Replicating Milgrams’s results, obedience is greater when the order is given directly by an authority, and lower when there is conflict between authorities and peers rebel. Confirming that identification with humanity and not just with the in-group may prompt respondents to reject an anti-normative order, values of transcendence of the self are associated with less obedience and congruent emotional reactions. Self-perceived transformational leadership was associated with positive emotions towards peer that disobey to fire. However a transformational style perceived in the superior was associated to positive emotions by respect to soldier who open fire, adding information on the potential dark side of this leadership style. The relevance of personal values, leadership style and affectivity in military context is discussed.