Validation of a Four Factor Measure: Scale of Perceived Instructor Support

Academic-related stressors are common for college students, such as future career decisions or pressures to succeed academically. Furthermore, the impact of health and finance issues may add to the burden. Perceived support from an academic community, peers, or family can provide a buffer to mitigate the effects of these stressors. Several studies have emphasized the importance of support by instructors in particular and found that students' perceptions of instructor support can counteract academic stress and promote retention. The purpose of the present study was to validate a scale for instructor support, which consisted of four factors: autonomy, expectation, interpersonal relationships, and engagement. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit for the items within each factor. Results also indicated that students who planned to return to the university next semester were more likely to report higher levels of autonomy and expectation. The Scale of Perceived Instructor Support (SPIS) is a short, 24 item-inventory that can be used by faculty advisors as part of a formal advising practice or informally by class instructors.

Auditory Sensory Gating and the Big Five Personality Factors

Abstract. Sensory gating allows an individual to filter out irrelevant sensory information from the environment, potentially freeing attentional resources for more complex tasks. Some work has demonstrated a relationship between auditory sensory gating and cognitive skills such as executive function, although the functional significance is not well understood. The relationship between sensory gating and personality dimensions has not been adequately explored. Participants completed a paired-tone sensory gating event-related potential (ERP) paradigm and the Big Five Inventory to assess personality characteristics. Participants with more robust P50 sensory gating reported a significantly greater degree of conscientiousness; conscientiousness (but not the other Big Five factors) predicted sensory gating ability. Longer ERP latencies were associated with participants being more conscientious (P50 component), more agreeable, and less neurotic (N100 component). A better understanding of the behavioral correlates of sensory gating will help elucidate the functional consequences of reduced sensory gating both in typical adults and clinical groups.

The Effects of Vigilance and Visual Distraction on the P50 Mid-Latency Auditory Evoked Potential

Sensory gating function has been investigated through measurement of the P50 evoked potential. However, the susceptibility of auditory P50 sensory gating to attentional modulation remains unclear. We sought to investigate the effects of vigilance (sustaining alertness across multiple recording blocks) and visual distraction (watching a muted movie versus a static fixation cross). We specifically chose a movie as the distracting stimulus because investigators sometimes show muted movies during P50 paradigms and the effects of this method were previously unknown. We recorded evoked potentials in a standard paired-click paradigm from groups watching a movie or static fixation cross; both groups completed four identical blocks of recording. Ratings of fatigue were recorded throughout the experiment. P50 and N100 amplitude showed signs of habituation, although N100’s amplitude reduction was more prominent than P50. P50 suppression did not change over the course of the recording session, despite increasing fatigue ratings. P50 suppression was significantly stronger for the participants who watched a movie during the recording. When comparing P50 gating results across studies, care should be taken to consider differing methodologies.

Infidelity and Kin Selection: Does Cheating Seem as Bad when it's “All in the Family”?

The current study explored people's perceptions of how they would feel if their partners cheated on them by having sex with their relatives, such as if a man's wife had sex with his brother. Kin selection theory suggests that in such situations, victims of infidelity might feel slightly better if their partners had sex with biological relatives (compared to sex with nonrelatives) because some of the victims' genes could still get passed on through their relatives. In two experiments, participants reported how they would feel in various scenarios involving their partners having sex with participants' relatives and nonrelatives. As expected, participants generally reported being very disapproving of a partner's hypothetical infidelity with both their relatives and nonrelatives. However, contrary to predictions generated by kin selection theory, participants tended to report that they would feel worse if their partners had sex with their relatives. We propose several explanations for the current findings and discuss their implications for kin selection theory.

Infidelity and kin selection: does cheating seem as bad when it's "all in the family"?

The current study explored people's perceptions of how they would feel if their partners cheated on them by having sex with their relatives, such as if a man's wife had sex with his brother. Kin selection theory suggests that in such situations, victims of infidelity might feel slightly better if their partners had sex with biological relatives (compared to sex with nonrelatives) because some of the victims' genes could still get passed on through their relatives. In two experiments, participants reported how they would feel in various scenarios involving their partners having sex with participants' relatives and nonrelatives. As expected, participants generally reported being very disapproving of a partner's hypothetical infidelity with both their relatives and nonrelatives. However, contrary to predictions generated by kin selection theory, participants tended to report that they would feel worse if their partners had sex with their relatives. We propose several explanations for the current findings and discuss their implications for kin selection theory.

When word identification fails: ERP correlates of recognition without identification and of word identification failure

Recognition without identification (RWI) refers to people's ability to discriminate studied from unstudied items when the items themselves fail to be identified, as when people fail to identify words from fragments. We sought to identify the ERP correlates of word fragment RWI in an effort to better understand its underlying mechanisms; in so doing, we also examined the ERP correlates of word identification failure vs. success. We found the ERP correlate of the RWI effect to be the N300; greater negativity was shown for unidentified fragments of studied words than for unidentified fragments of unstudied words between 300-325 ms post test fragment onset. We further separated the ERPs according to whether subjects showed the behavioral RWI effect or not; the N300 effect emerged only among those subjects who showed the behavioral effect, suggesting that the N300 is related to the behavioral effect itself. With regard to the ERP correlates of word identification failure vs. success, we found very early indicators of later word identification success vs. failure (starting at 125 ms) that were independent of priming. These early effects may be preconscious markers of downstream word identification success vs. failure. We also found a later persistent negativity associated with successfully identified words that we propose to be associated with executive function and possibly the successful suppression of irrelevant words that might initially come to mind when attempting to complete a unique word fragment; word fragment identification failure may sometimes be due to a failure to suppress irrelevant or incorrect words.

The role of metabotropic glutamate receptors and cortical adaptation in habituation of odor-guided behavior

Decreases in behavioral investigation of novel stimuli over time may be mediated by a variety of factors including changes in attention, internal state, and motivation. Sensory cortical adaptation, a decrease in sensory cortical responsiveness over prolonged stimulation, may also play a role. In olfaction, metabotropic glutamate receptors on cortical afferent pre-synaptic terminals have been shown to underlie both cortical sensory adaptation and habituation of odor-evoked reflexes. The present experiment examined whether blockade of sensory cortical adaptation through bilateral infusion of the group III metabotropic glutamate receptor antagonist cyclopropyl-4-phosphonophenylglycine (CPPG) into the anterior piriform cortex could reduce habituation of a more complex odor-driven behavior such as investigation of a scented object or a conspecific. The results demonstrate that time spent investigating a scented jar, or a conspecific, decreases over the course of a continuous 10 minute trial. Acute infusion of CPPG bilaterally into the anterior piriform cortex significantly enhanced the time spent investigating the scented jar compared to investigation time in control rats, without affecting overall behavioral activity levels. Infusions into the brain outside of the piriform cortex were without effect. CPPG infusion into the piriform cortex also produced an enhancement of time spent investigating a conspecific, although this effect was not significant.