Institutions of higher learning have continued to record high cases of gender-based violence (GBV) despite all efforts put in place to fight the vice. The most common forms of GBV are physical, sexual assault and psychological violence. Women and girls make up the majority of the GBV victims worldwide. For many years, institutions of higher learning have proved to be fertile environments for GBV cases. The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of GBV on the well-being of (...) students in institutions of higher learning in Zambia. The study employed a mixed research methodology, and it was anchored on pragmatic philosophical paradigm. An explorative study design was used. Data were collected using both probabilistic and non-probabilistic methods, and the sample size was 150 respondents. The main findings of the study showed both academic and non-academic effects of GBV on students and included stigma, low academic performance, mental and psychological trauma as well as high drop outs. Contribution: The study highlighted effects of GBV as being both academic and non-academic in nature. Once students and staff ignore the word of God spoken in scriptures and begin to follow their egos, the consequences are devastating. For scriptures says love one another, forgive each other and bear each other’s burdens in love. Do unto others as you would want then to do unto you. For where there is love, no one will desire to hurt others. Where there is no love of God or forgiveness, there is pain and damage that can spoil someone’s future, especially that of the youth. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a survey examining if there are gender and career stage differences between male and female practitioners regarding ethical judgment. The results show that, on average, females adopted a more strict ethical stance than their male counterparts on 7 out of 19 vignettes. Males on the other hand, demonstrated a more ethical stance than their female counterparts on 2 out of 19 vignettes. The results furthermore indicate there is a significant difference in ethical judgment across (...) career stages. Overall, it appears that practitioners in later career stages display higher ethical judgment than practitoners in lower career stages. Implications are provided for both practitioners and academicians. (shrink)

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 2-9.

Statements of the form ''Osorno is in Chile'' were presented in colors that made them easy or difficult to read against a white background and participants judged the truth of the statement. Moderately visible statements were judged as true at chance level, whereas highly visible statements were judged as true significantly above chance level. We conclude that perceptual fluency affects judgments of truth.

Although organizational commitment continues to interest researchers because of its positive effects on organizations, we know relatively little about the effects of the ethical context on organizational commitment. As such, we contribute to the organizational commitment field by assessing the effects of ethical climates (Victor and Cullen, 1987, 1988) on organizational commitment. We hypothesized that an ethical climate of benevolence has a positive relationship with organizational commitment while egoistic climate is negatively related to commitment. Results supported our (...) propositions for both a benevolent climate and an egoistic climate. We also hypothesized that a principled climate is positively related to organizational commitment for professional workers but has no relationships for nonprofessional workers. Results supported this hypothesis. (shrink)

War is an appalling crisis and destructive force on human dignity and life. War was permitted in biblical times at the hand of God, with disastrous consequences for the nations of the Ancient World. The current war between Ukraine and Russia is fast becoming a global catastrophe, with the threat of World War III looming. Warfare destroys families, and families are vital units God instituted in society. The critical issue addressed in this article is the ruining effects of gender-based (...) violence (GBV) on family life. Therefore, this article responds to GBV as a social ill and destructive form of warfare against women and aims to propose feasible, viable, and practical theological ways to curb this ruinous issue. Gender-based violence, as a form of warfare against women and children, is one of the most destructive forces regarding family life and the key reason for unstable, disrupted, and fractured families. Because this article is grounded on a practical theological response, its pastoral role is explored. Practical theology builds a theological framework for critical evaluation. It also takes a more direct role on the moral debates of society on issues such as GBV, father absence, and family violence that occurs in Church, family, and society. Contribution: This article employed a descriptive modus operandi on GBV against women and endorses the journal’s focus on family and society who is experiencing a violation of human rights and a life-threatening issue in the field of Practical Theology. (shrink)

This study empirically examined the effects of ethical leadership and ethical climate on employee ethical behavior in the international port context using survey data collected from 128 respondents who worked in Taiwan International Ports Corporation in Taiwan. Research hypotheses were formulated from the previous literature and tested using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that ethical leadership had a significant impact on ethical climate and the ethical behavior of TIPC employees. Ethical climate was found to be positively associated with employee (...) ethical behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the research findings are discussed. (shrink)

Mildly-to-moderately depressed and nondepressed subjects were randomly assigned to spend 8 minutes focusing their attention on their current feeling states and personal characteristics (rumination condition) or on descriptions of geographic locations and objects (distraction condition). Depressed subjects in the rumination condition became significantly more depressed, whereas depressed subjects in the distraction condition became significantly less depressed. Rumination and distraction did not affect the moods of nondepressed subjects. These results support the hypothesis that ruminative responses to depressed mood exacerbate and prolong (...) depressed mood. whereas distracting response shorten depressed mood. (shrink)

Drawing upon the unfolding model of turnover and the dual-process theory of information processing, we examined the roles which ethical leadership and abusive supervision play in the turnover process. The central conclusion of this study is that ethical leadership influences job satisfaction, which then influences intentions to quit, which then impacts job search behaviors. Conversely, abusive supervision, which is the conceptual opposite of ethical leadership, has a negative influence on job satisfaction with corresponding impacts on intentions to quit and job (...) search behavior. But, unlike ethical leadership, which does not directly lead to job search behavior, abusive supervision can also directly make people so upset that they initiate job search behaviors. Moreover, findings indicate that even low levels of abusive supervision can neutralize high levels of ethical leadership. Implications for research and practice in human resource management are discussed. (shrink)

Using survey methodology we examined the relationships between commitment to moral self-improvement (CMSI), religiosity, ethical problem recognition, and behavioral intentions in a sample of 242 business students. Results of the study suggest that CMSI predicts ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Our findings also suggest that CMSI is positively related to religiosity. The study provides some evidence of CMSI being a mediator in the influence of religiosity on ethical problem recognition and behavioral intentions. Compared to religiosity, CMSI turned out to (...) be a better predictor of perceived importance of ethics, ethical problem recognition, and ethical behavioral intentions. The results of the study have implications for increasing understanding of ethical decision-making, future studies of business ethics, and business ethics education. (shrink)

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of acute aerobic exercise on underlying neuronal activities associated with task-switching processes including both mixing and switch costs. A total of 29 healthy young adults (21.4 ±1.2 years) participated in this study. The experiment consisted of an exercise and a rest condition. In the exercise condition, participants completed 30 minutes of walking and/or jogging on a motor driven treadmill sufficient to achieve an intensity of 70% of maximum heartrate (HRmax). In the (...) rest condition, participants rested quietly for 30 minutes. Both conditions were conducted on different days, and the order was counterbalanced across participants. Participants performed the task-switching paradigm (switching between two different tasks), after both exercise and rest conditions respectively. The P3 amplitude was smaller in the non-switch trial than the single trial only in the rest condition, but not in the exercise condition. In other words, more attentional resources were allocated to the non-switch trial requiring greater amounts of working memory following the exercise condition. Mixing and switch effects on the P3 component were influenced by acute aerobic exercise. This result suggests that acute aerobic exercise may serve to facilitate the flexibility of task-set reconfiguration and maintaining the task set in working memory. Furthermore, during the switch trials, the P3 latency was shorter in the exercise condition than in the rest condition. This result is consistent with the findings of previous studies, indicating that cognitive processing speed is increased only during task conditions requiring greater amounts of executive control. Our study clearly indicates that acute aerobic exercise may facilitate cognitive flexibility as well as other executive functions (i.e., inhibitory control and working memory). (shrink)

This study focuses on the effects of socially responsible human resource management practices on female employees’ turnover intentions and the moderating effect of supervisor gender on this relationship. With a sample of 212 female employees from eight different industries in Finland, the results indicate that SR-HRM practices promoting equal career opportunities and work–family integration play a significant role in reducing women's turnover intentions. The study adds to the academic discourse of corporate social responsibility by highlighting the impact of the (...) organizational-level HRM determinants on the individual-level outcome. In addition, supervisor gender makes a difference in the studied relationship: female supervisors have a stronger and more significant impact on the relationship than male supervisors. Our findings suggest that organizational measures which support work–family integration should be taken seriously to decrease female employees’ turnover intentions. Male supervisors could adopt some gender-incongruent leadership behaviors, such as individualized emotional concern and caring when dealing with female employees. In the future, other gender combinations in the supervisor–employee relationship would merit research. (shrink)

Although scholars have invoked the escalation framework as a means of explaining the occurrence of numerous organizationally undesirable behaviors on the part of decision makers, to date no empirical research on the potential influences of escalating commitment on the likelihood of unethical behavior at the individual level of analysis has been reported in either the escalation or the ethical decision-making literatures. Thus, the main purpose of this project is to provide a theoretical foundation and empirical support for the contention that (...) escalating commitment situations can induce unethical behavior in decision makers. An experimental research design utilizing a computerized investment task was administered to 155 undergraduate business majors as a means of assessing the hypotheses presented here. Results from a hierarchical logistic regression analysis found strong support for the contention that exposure to an escalation situation increases the likelihood of unethical behavior on the part of decision makers. Further, results also supported previous ethical decision-making findings by confirming the effects of locus of control (LOC) on ethical behavior. Specifically, the data indicated that individuals with an external LOC orientation were significantly more likely to select the unethical option than were individuals with an internal LOC orientation. Interestingly, support was not found for the effects of Machiavellianism or gender on ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Self-compassion, sharing some commonalities with positive psychology 2.0 approaches, is associated with better mental health outcomes in diverse populations, including workers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is heightened awareness of the importance of self-care for fostering mental health at work. However, evidence regarding the applications of self-compassion interventions in work-related contexts has not been systematically reviewed to date. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to synthesize and evaluate the utility of self-compassion interventions targeting work-related well-being, as well as assess the (...) methodological quality of relevant studies. Eligible articles were identified from research databases including ProQuest, PsycINFO, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The quality of non-randomized trials and randomized controlled trials was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and the Quality Assessment Table, respectively. The literature search yielded 3,387 titles from which ten studies met the inclusion criteria. All ten studies reported promising effects of self-compassion training for work-related well-being. The methodological quality of these studies was medium. All ten studies recruited workers in a caring field and were mostly conducted in Western countries. The Self-Compassion Scale or its short-form was used in almost all instances. Findings indicate that self-compassion training can improve self-compassion and other work-related well-being outcomes in working populations. However, in general, there is need for greater methodological quality in work-related self-compassion intervention studies to advance understanding regarding the applications and limitations of this technique in work contexts. Furthermore, future studies should focus on a broader range of employee groups, including non-caring professions as well as individuals working in non-Western countries. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an escalation in cases of cyber violence, which has had a chilling effect on users' behavior toward social media sites. This article explores the causes behind cyber violence and provides empirical data for developing means for effective prevention. Using elements of the stimulus–organism–response theory, we constructed a model of cyber-violence behavior. A closed-ended questionnaire was administered to collect data through an online survey, which results in 531 valid responses. A proposed model was tested using (...) partial least squares structural equation modeling using SmartPLS 3.0, v. Research findings show that information inequality is a strong external stimulus with a significant positive impact on digital distrust and negative emotion. However, the effects of information overload on digital distrust and the adverse effects of communication overload on negative emotions should not be ignored. Both digital distrust and negative emotions have significant positive impacts on cyber violence and cumulatively represent 11.5% changes in cyber violence. Furthermore, information overload, communication overload, information inequality, and digital distrust show a 27.1% change in negative emotions. This study also presents evidence for competitive mediation of digital distrust by information overload, information inequality, and cyber violence. The results of this study have implications for individual practitioners and scholars, for organizations, and at the governmental level regarding cyber-violence behavior. To test our hypotheses, we have constructed an empirical, multidimensional model, including the role of specific mediators in creating relationships. (shrink)

Use of videogames (VGs) is almost ubiquitous in preadolescents’ and adolescents’everyday life. One of the most intriguing research topic about positive effects of VG use is about the domain of visuospatial competencies. Previous research show that training with videogames enables children and adolescents to improve their scores in visuospatial tests (such as mental rotation of shapes and cubes), and that such training could overcome gender differences in these domains. Our study aimed at (1) verifying the positive effects of (...) videogame use in the visuospatial domain both for male and female adolescents and preadolescents and (2) verifying whether the visualization style (2D or isometric 3D) of the VG has an influence about the positive effects of gaming. Six measures of visuospatial competency were administered to 318 preadolescents (mean of age = 13.94 years, range 10-18) prior and after a 3-day training with 2D and 3D Tetris. Results indicate that (1) gaming on the whole has slight positive effects both for males and females in enhancing visuospatial competencies, at least in the short term, and (2) it seems that participants who used the videogame with 2D graphics obtained greater improvements in the mental rotation domain while the participants who used the videogame with 3D gobtained greater improvements in the spatial visualization domain. However, a general learning effect between T1 and T2 was measured, which was found regardless of Experimental condition, indicating that the effect of training with videogames can be less relevant than expected. (shrink)

The simultaneous recording of brain activity in two or more people, termed hyperscanning, is an emerging field of research investigating the neural basis of social interaction. Hyperscanning studies of adult–infant dyads have great potential to provide insights into how social functions develop. In particular, taking advantage of functional near-infrared spectroscopy for its spatial resolution and invulnerability to motion artifacts, adult–infant fNIRS may play a major role in this field. However, there remains a problem in analyzing hyperscanning data between adult and (...) young populations. Namely, there are intrinsic differences in hemodynamic time latencies depending on age, and the peak latency of the hemodynamic response function is longer in younger populations. Despite this fact, the effects of such differences on quantified synchrony have not yet been examined. Consequently, the present study investigated the influence of intrinsic hemodynamic differences on wavelet coherence for assessing brain synchrony, and further examined the statistical removal of these effects through simulation experiments. First, we assumed a social signal model, where one counterpart of the dyad sends a social signal to the other, which eventually results in simultaneous brain activation. Based on this model, simulated fNIRS activation sequences were synthesized by convolving boxcar event sequences with HRFs. We set two conditions for the event: synchronized and asynchronized event conditions. We also modeled the HRFs of adults and infants by referring to previous studies. After preprocessing with additional statistical processing, we calculated the wavelet coherence for each synthesized fNIRS activation sequence pair. The simulation results showed that the wavelet coherence in the synchronized event condition was attenuated for the combination of different HRFs. We also confirmed that prewhitening via an autoregressive filter could recover the attenuation of wavelet coherence in the 0.03–0.1 Hz frequency band, which was regarded as being associated with synchronous neural activity. Our results showed that variability in hemodynamics affected the analysis of inter-brain synchrony, and that the application of prewhitening is critical for such evaluations between adult and young populations. (shrink)

This work explored the mediating effects of affective commitment on transformational leadership and job performance and job insecurity on transformational leadership and affective commitment. Meanwhile, the inter-relationships between the four verified the mediating effect of affective commitment, including job insecurity. The results were as follows: transformational leadership and job performance were positively related. Transformational leadership was proportional to an emotional commitment. The affective commitment had a positive impact on job performance. Transformational leadership indirectly positively affected job performance through the (...) intermediary effect of affective commitment. Transformational leadership regulated affective commitment through job insecurity. The more job security employees have, the higher the impact of transformational leadership on affective commitment; the lower the contrary. (shrink)

One of the new ways used by companies to demonstrate their social responsibility is to encourage employee volunteering, whereby employees engage in socially beneficial activities on company time, while being paid by the company. The reasoning is that it is good for employee motivation (internal effects) and good for the company reputation (external effects). This article reports an empirical investigation of the internal effects of employee volunteering conducted amongst employees of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank. The study showed (...) that (a) socio-demographic characteristics from employee volunteers markedly differ from those of non-volunteers and community volunteers and (b) employee volunteering seems to have positive effects on attitudes and behavior towards the organization. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Case-based instruction has been regarded by many as a viable alternative to traditional lecture-based education and training. However, little is known about how case-based training techniques impact training effectiveness. This study examined the effects of two such techniques: (a) presentation of alternative outcome scenarios to a case, and (b) conducting a structured outcome evaluation. Consistent with the hypotheses, results indicate that presentation of alternative outcome scenarios reduced knowledge acquisition, reduced sensemaking and ethical decision-making strategy use, and reduced decision ethicality. (...) Conducting a structured outcome evaluation had no impact on these outcomes. Results indicate that those who use case-based instruction should take care to use clear, less complex cases with only a singular outcome if they are seeking these types of outcomes. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of two trends in contemporary biomedicine that have so far been largely addressed separately: the steering of fields through programmatic “buzzwords” and the projectified nature of contemporary health research, care, and promotion. Drawing on a case study of an Austrian diversity-sensitive health promotion project related to obesity prevention, we show how the articulation of these trends—governance by buzzwords and projectification—often leads to not unproblematic and often paradoxical outcomes. Buzzwords such as “diversity” become especially important (...) in an innovation-driven environment encouraging a promissory rhetoric. At the same time, the project form shapes and restricts how buzzwords are articulated and translated into a specific project design. In our case study of an obesity prevention program, the need to translate diversity into a “doable” project encouraged the identification of seemingly clearly delineated target groups and thus promoted a rather narrow understanding of diversity, which stands in tension with much more fluid and context-sensitive ways of performing “diversity.” We show how actors grapple with these paradoxes. This restricts the full power a buzzword such as diversity could achieve in terms of social justice. (shrink)

Physical activities are generally accepted as promoting important psychological benefits. However, studies examining martial arts as a form of physical activity and mental health have exhibited many methodological limitations in the past. Additionally, recent philosophical discussion has debated whether martial arts training promotes psychological wellbeing or illness. Self-efficacy has an important relationship with mental health and may be an important mechanism underpinning the potential of martial arts training to promote mental health. This study examined the effect of martial arts training (...) on the psychological construct of self-efficacy. A total of 283 secondary school students with a mean age of 12.76 (SD = 0.68) years were recruited to complete a time-limited (10-session) martial arts intervention, which was examined using a randomised controlled trial. Univariate ANOVAs found that the intervention improved the experimental group’s self-efficacy compared to the control group, which was sustained at follow-up. Regression analysis indicated that socio-educational status moderated this outcome. These findings support the martial arts-based intervention’s potential to improve self-efficacy and promote wellbeing through physical activity. Martial arts training may be an efficacious psychosocial treatment that can be used as a complementary approach to promote mental health. (shrink)

Cross-sector social partnerships are often studied from a macro and meso perspective, also in an attempt to assess effectiveness and societal impact. This article pays specific attention to the micro perspective, i.e. individual interactions between and within organizations related to partnerships that address the 'social good'. By focusing on the potential effects and mechanisms at the level of individuals and the organization(s) with which they interact, it aims to help fill a gap in research on partnerships, including more insight (...) into the process of interaction. We conceptually explore micro level interactions, and how partnership effects may 'trickle down' (e.g. from management to employees), or 'trickle up' (from employees to management) or 'trickle round' (e.g. between employees). Based on the literature from various disciplines, we discuss how more generic theories on social exchange and contagion, social learning and attraction-selection-attrition can help shed light on micro level interactions in a partnership, considering in particular transmission mechanisms via employees, top and middle management, and customers. In this way, partnerships can have wider benefits, as individuals have multiple roles and effects at the micro level can spread to the meso and macro levels as well. Implications for research and practice are outlined. (shrink)

Our daily lives unfold continuously, yet our memories are organised into distinct events, situated in a specific context of space and time, and chunked when this context changes (at event boundaries). Previous research showed that this process, termed event segmentation, enhances object-context binding but impairs temporal order memory. Physiologically, peaks in pupil dilation index event segmentation, similar to emotion-induced bursts of autonomic arousal. Emotional arousal also modulates object-context binding and temporal order memory. Yet, these two critical factors have not been (...) systematically studied together. To address this gap, we ran a behavioural experiment using a paradigm validated to study event segmentation and extended it with emotion manipulation. During encoding, we sequentially presented greyscale objects embedded in coloured frames (colour changes defining events), with a neutral or aversive sound. During retrieval, we tested participants’ memory of temporal order memory and object-colour binding. We found opposite effects of emotion and event segmentation on episodic memory. While event segmentation enhanced object-context binding, emotion impaired it. On the contrary, event segmentation impaired temporal order memory, but emotion enhanced it. These findings increase our understanding of episodic memory organisation in laboratory settings, and potentially in real life with perceptual changes and emotion fluctuations constantly interacting. (shrink)

The capacity to search for information effectively by asking informative questions is crucial for self-directed learning and develops throughout the preschool years and beyond. We tested the hypothesis that explaining observations in a given domain prepares children to ask more informative questions in that domain, and that it does so by promoting the identification of features that apply to multiple objects, thus supporting more effective questions. Across two experiments, 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 168) were prompted to explain observed (...) evidence or to complete a control task prior to a 20-questions game. We found that prior prompts to explain led to a decrease in the number of questions needed to complete the game, but only for older children (ages 6-7). Moreover, we found that effects of explanation manifested as a shift away from questions that targeted single objects. These findings shed light on the development of question asking in childhood and on the role of explanation in learning. (shrink)

Background: Physical exercises can affect executive function both acutely and chronically, with different mechanisms for each moment. Currently, only a few reviews have elaborated on the premise that different types of exercises have different mechanisms for improving executive function. Therefore, the primary purpose of our systematic review was to analyze the effects of acute and chronic exercises on executive function in children and adolescents.Objective: We identified acute and chronic exercise studies and randomized controlled trials of executive function in children (...) and adolescents that reported overall effect, heterogeneity, and publication bias of acute and chronic exercises on executive function.Methods: We searched for RCTs of exercise interventions in children and adolescents from databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, and Wanfang, from January 1 2009 to December 31 2019. We performed methodological quality evaluations on the included literature using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database Scale and graded evidence with a meta-analysis using Stata 12.0 software.Results: In total, 36 RCTs were included ; the overall results of the meta-analysis indicated that acute exercises significantly improved working memory = −0.72; 95% confidence interval −0.89 to −0.56; p < 0.001), inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility, whereas chronic exercises significantly improved working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility.Conclusion: Acute and chronic exercises can effectively improve the executive function of children and adolescents. The effects on inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility are considered as small effect sizes, while the effects on working memory are considered as moderate effect size. Limited by the quantity and quality of the included studies, the above conclusions need to be verified with more high-quality studies. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the Agrégation de Philosophie—the French national examination that certifies philosophy teachers for both lycée and university instruction—in terms of the role it has played in the intellectual formation of all French philosophers and, as a corollary, its impact on developments in 20th-century French philosophy. Following a recounting of the history and structure of the examination, I discuss how the examination reveals that a thorough grounding in the history of philosophy, especially pre-1800 philosophy, is a necessary (...) condition for employment as an instructor of philosophy. After discussing the connections between the examination and the teaching activities of the Sorbonne’s Department of Philosophy, I analyze the content of the exam, showing how it offers important insights into the French philosophical tradition and how it differs from the English language and German philosophical traditions. I conclude by examining in detail the appearances of Comte, Plotinus, and Nietzsche on the examination, showing how their appearances correlate with publication trends as well as the careers of influential philosophers. (shrink)

In this study, we examined the effects of emotional experience, a relatively new dimension of emotional knowledge that gauges the ease with which words evoke emotional experience, on abstract word processing in the Stroop task. In order to test the context-dependency of these effects, we accentuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1A by blocking the stimuli such that one block consisted of the stimuli with the highest emotional experience ratings and the other block consisted of the (...) stimuli with the lowest emotional experience ratings. We attenuated the saliency of this dimension in Experiment 1B by intermixing the stimuli. We observed slower color naming performance for words with higher emotional experience ratings only in Experiment 1A, suggesting that the dimension of emotional experience is an aspect of semantic representation for abstract words but that its influence can be modulated by context. We interpret these results more generally using Vigliocco, Meteyard, Andrews, and Kousta's framework of semantic representation, and more specifically using Cohen, Dunbar, and McClelland's model of Stroop task performance. (shrink)

Increasing psychophysical evidence suggests that specific image features - or statistics - can appear unpleasant or induce visual discomfort in humans. Such unpleasantness tends to be particularly profound if the image's amplitude spectrum deviates from the regular 1/f spatial-frequency falloff expected in natural scenes. Here, we show that profound unpleasant impressions also result if the orientation spectrum of the image becomes flatter. Using bandpass noise with variable orientation and spatial-frequency bandwidths, we found that unpleasantness ratings decreased with spatial- frequency bandwidth (...) but increased with orientation bandwidth. Similarly, a subsequent experiment revealed that sinusoidal modulations in the amplitude spectrum of 1/f noise along the spatial frequency increased unpleasantness, but modulations along the orientation decreased it. Given that natural scenes tend to have a linear slope along the spatial frequency but an uneven spectrum along the orientation dimension, our opposing results in the spatial-frequency and orientation domains commonly support the idea that images deviating from the spectral regularity of natural scenes can give rise to unpleasant impressions. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo simulate hemodynamic changes after extraluminal compression in pulsatile tinnitus patients with a prominent transverse-sigmoid sinus junction.MethodsOne patient-specific case was reconstructed based on computed tomography venography images of a PT patient. The compression degree served as a new index in this study. Cases with 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90% of the compression degree of the control subject were constructed. Steady-state computational fluid dynamics were assessed. The wall pressure distribution, wall maximum pressure and flow pattern of (...) the PTSJ were calculated to evaluate hemodynamic differences among all cases.ResultsWith increasing compression, the wall pressure at the compression point and downstream of the PTSJ decreased but increased upstream. When the compression degree exceeded 70%, the upstream pressure increased significantly. Above 50% compression, the blood flow pattern downstream of the sigmoid sinus tended to spiral, especially after 80% compression. Beyond 60% compression, the blood flow pattern under the compression axis became more medial.ConclusionMechanical compression of PTSJ changes wall pressure and blood flow patterns. The degree of compression should be carefully observed to avoid possible complications or reoccurrence. (shrink)