Social interactions elicit androgen responses whose function has been posited to be the adjustment of androgen-dependent behaviors to social context. The activation of this androgen response is known to be mediated and moderated by psychological factors. In this study we tested the hypothesis that the testosterone (T) changes after a competition are not simply related to its outcome, but rather to the way the subject evaluates the event. In particular we tested two evaluative dimensions of a social interaction: familiarity with the opponent and the subjective evaluation of the outcome as threat or challenge. Challenge/threat occurs in goal relevant situations and represent different motivational states arising from the individuals’ subjective evaluation of the interplay between the task demands and coping resources possessed. For challenge the coping resources exceed the task demands, while threat represents a state where coping resources are insufficient to meet the task demands. In this experiment women competed in pairs, against a same sex opponent using the number tracking test as a competitive task. Losers appraised the competition outcome as more threatening than winners, and displayed higher post-competition T levels than winners. No differences were found either for cortisol (C) or for dehydroepiandrosterone. Threat, familiarity with the opponent and T response were associated only in the loser condition. Moderation analysis suggests that for the women that lost the competition the effect of threat on T is moderated by familiarity with the opponent.

Time perception relies on the motor system. Involves core brain regions of this system, including those associated with feelings generated from sensorimotor states. Perceptual timing is also distorted when movement occurs during timing tasks, possibly by interfering with sensorimotor afferent feedback. However, it is unknown if the perception of time is an active process associated with specific patterns of muscle activity. We explored this idea based on the phenomenon of electromyographic gradients, which consists of the dynamic increase of muscle activity during cognitive tasks that require sustained attention, a critical function in perceptual timing. We aimed to determine whether facial muscle dynamic activity indexes the subjective representation of time. We asked participants to judge stimuli durations (varying in familiarity) while we monitored the time course of the activity of the zygomaticus-major and corrugator-supercilii muscles, both associated with cognitive and affective feelings. The dynamic electromyographic activity in corrugator-supercilii over time reflected objective time and this relationship predicted subjective judgments of duration. Furthermore, the zygomaticus-major muscle signaled the bias that familiarity introduces in duration judgments. This suggests that subjective duration could be an embodiment process based in motor information changing over time and their associated feelings.

ResumoNeste trabalho apresentamos as normas de valência, familiaridade, medo, nojo (i.e., bee, gecko, centipede, mouse and cockroach) or non-domestic Laboratório de Psicologia, 12(1): 41-56 (2014) Abstract In this paper we present the norms for a set of 50 images of animals that were evaluated by a total sample of 78 college students regarding the following dimensions: valence, familiarity, fear, disgust and dangerousness. Ten categories of animals were selected based on the assumption of their negativity and association to emotions such as fear and disgust and included images of animals likely to be found either in a domestic ISPA -Instituto UniversitárioO presente artigo foi preparado com o apoio da Fundação Bial no âmbito do projecto #172/10 coordenado pot Teresa GarciaMarques.A correspondência relativa a este artigo deverá ser enviada para:

The current meta-analysis accumulates empirical findings for the familiarity temporal effect (FTE) in duration judgments (the duration of more familiar stimuli is judged to be longer than that of less familiar stimuli). It brings together data from 2 separate literatures: time perception and processing fluency. In doing so, this review offers more and stronger evidence for testing the reliability of the effect; it defines the relevant moderators for addressing the validity of the 2 main explanations for the FTE: the attentional and the fluency-attributional hypotheses. The analysis (random effect model) of a total of 128 experiments (N = 3,338) showed that the effect of familiarity on perceived short durations (seconds) is highly reliable (g = .52); the same (or a similar) effect also occurs for other fluency manipulations (g = .51). The analysis supports assumptions generated by both the attentional and the fluency-misattributional explanations, suggesting that more research is needed to understand their possible dynamic relationship. Hence, this meta-analysis provides important guidance for future research with regard to time estimates.

ResumoNeste artigo apresentamos o paradigma base subjacente ao estudo das ilusões temporais (i.e IntroduçãoEnquanto o tempo objectivo (físico) avança linearmente em unidades constantes, a experiência subjectiva do tempo pode ser dramaticamente alterada. Intervalos de tempo com durações idênticas não são sempre percebidos como equivalentes na sua duração subjectiva, podendo estas alterações, comumente referidas como ilusões temporais 1 , ser sistematicamente induzidas por diferentes Laboratório de Psicologia, 10(2): 265-286 (2012 Ilusões temporais: Paradigma experimentalAlexandre C. Fernandes Teresa Garcia-Marques ISPA -Instituto UniversitárioNota do autor: Este trabalho foi realizado como parte dos trabalhos de doutoramento de Alexandre Fernandes financiado pela bolsa SFRH/BD/62500/2009 da FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, e pela bolsa de investigação BIAL 137/2006 da Fundação BIAL. A correspondência relativa a este artigo deverá ser enviada para: Alexandre C. Fernandes, ISPA -Instituto Universitário, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1149-041 Lisboa; E-mail: alexandre@ispa.pt 1 Salienta-se que o estudo da percepção de tempo não se limita ao estudo das estimativas de duração e suas distorções (i.e., ilusões temporais), que neste trabalho abordamos. Outras características temporais como simultaneidade, sucessividade, ordem temporal, ritmo, velocidade do fluxo do tempo, são igualmente estudadas neste campo, dimensões em que várias ilusões igualmente têm

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A robust finding in social psychology research is that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context, promoting social inhibition or facilitation effects. In the present experiment, we examined if and how social presence impacts holistic face perception processes by asking participants, in the presence of others and alone, to perform the composite face task. Results suggest that completing the task in the presence of others (i.e., mere co-action) is associated with better performance in face recognition (less bias and higher discrimination between presented and non-presented targets) and with a reduction in the composite face effect. These results make clear that social presence impact on the composite face effect does not occur because presence increases reliance on holistic processing as a "dominant" well-learned response, but instead, because it increases monitoring of the interference produced by automatic response.

It has been proposed in the literature that the testosterone (T) response to competition in humans may be modulated by cognitive variables. In a previous experiment with a female sample we have reported that opponent familiarity and threat appraisal moderated the T response to competition in women. With this experiment we aim to investigate if these variables have the same impact on males T response to competition, extending the previous findings in our lab. Forty male participants (20 dyads) were recruited to engage in a same sex, face to face competition using the Number Tracking Test as a competitive task. Levels of T, cortisol (C) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) were measured before and 20 min after the competition. Results show that losers report higher levels of threat than winners and increased their T levels after the competition, however this T change was not predicted by opponent familiarity or threat appraisal. No variation was detected for C and DHEA levels. These findings suggest that there could be sex differences for the moderators/mediators of the T response to competition in humans.