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The aim of this paper was to study whether real angry faces do capture attention to the extent of overcoming the inhibition of return (IOR) effect and whether the anxiety level of participants modulates this effect by stressing biases toward threatening stimuli. With this purpose, participants categorized the emotional valence of face targets in a standard spatial cueing procedure suitable to measure IOR. In Experiment 1, participants were selected according to their high vs. low-trait anxiety, whereas in Experiment 2 participants were induced a positive vs. anxiety mood state. The typical IOR effect was observed with neutral and happy face targets, which disappeared with angry face targets. Similar results were observed for all anxiety groups and in both experiments. The results indicate that IOR is overridden when the target is a biologically relevant angry face, as highly relevant targets should suffer less from habituation to attentional capture regardless of anxiety. We suggest that these data show that attentional capture is less likely to habituate for threatening information, so that no cost is measured in detecting new threatening information appearing at recently cued locations.

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Parents and teachers are concerned about the academic outcomes of children. Among the variables that play an important role in school success, parenting styles and behavior problems are some of the most studied. Literature shows that presence of behavioral problem and parenting styles based on physical punishment, lack of consistency and ineffective limit setting are related to poor academic achievement. The present study examined the influence of maternal and paternal parenting styles and behavior problems on the academic outcomes of primary-school children. Measures used in this study included the Inventory of Parenting Guide, the Child Behavior Checklist and information on academic outcomes ( n = 78 families). The range age of the students was 6 to 13 years old (mean = 8.08; SD = 1.6; 38 girls). The participation rate was 90.7%. The results showed that behavior problems and sensitive parenting style were related to academic outcomes. Specifically, attentional problems and maternal sensitive parenting styles appeared to be significant predictors of academic outcomes in this study. These data suggest the relevance of attention and maternal sensitive parenting styles in understanding processes that promote academic outcomes.

The study examines the influence of induced negative mood on dictator game giving (DGG) with two recipients. Participants (N = 63) played the role of a dictator in a three-player dictator game. They could choose among two options: an altruistic option, where two receivers receive 10 Euros and the dictator himself receives nothing, or a selfish option, where the dictator himself receives 5 Euros and both receivers receive nothing. For half of the participants, the second option entailed that only one receiver receives nothing and the other receives 10 Euros. After four rounds, participants were randomly assigned to look at 10 pictures with either positive or negative emotional content with the purpose of inducing positive or negative mood. The results show that looking at pictures with negative emotional content increases anxiety and skin conductance and increases DGG in the remaining four rounds of the game. On the other hand, whether the selfish option would imply that one or both recipients receive nothing does not seem to have a strong influence on DGG.PsycINFO Classification code: 2340; 2360.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are associated to social attention (SA) impairments. A gaze bias to non-social objects over faces has been proposed as an early marker of ASD. This bias may be related to the concomitant circumscribed interests (CI), which question the role of competing objects in this atypical visual behavior. The aim of this study was to compare visual attention patterns to social and non-social images in young children with ASD and matched typical controls (N = 36; age range 41–73 months) assessing the role of emotion in facial stimuli and the type of competing object. A paired preference task was designed pairing happy, angry, and neutral faces with two types of objects (related or not related to autism CI). Eye tracking data were collected, and three indexes were considered as dependent variables: prioritization (attentional orientation), preference, and duration (sustained attention). Results showed that both groups had similar visual pattern to faces (prioritization, more attention and longer visits to faces paired with objects non-related to their CI); however, the ASD group attended to faces significantly less than controls. Children with ASD showed an emotional bias (late orientation to angry faces and typical preference for happy faces). Finally, objects related to their CI captured attention in both groups, significantly reducing SA in children with ASD. Atypical SA is present in young children with ASD regardless the competing non-social object. Identifying strengths and difficulties in SA in this population may have substantial repercussion for early diagnosis, intervention, and ultimately prognosis.

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La formación inicial y permanente del profesorado constituye una herramienta clave para lograr una enseñanza de calidad. Es necesario incluir en la formación de docentes el desarrollo de competencias socioemocionales para su futura práctica docente. El objetivo de este estudio es evaluar cómo percibe sus niveles de Inteligencia Emocional (IE) y Empatía el estudiantado universitario de primer y cuarto año en carreras de Educación y explorar si existen diferencias con otras titulaciones. La muestra estuvo constituida por 569 estudiantes de primer y último año de las carreras de Educación Infantil, Educación Primaria, Medicina y Química, quienes cumplimentaron la escala TMMS-24 para evaluar la IE y la escala IRI para evaluar la Empatía. Se elaboraron análisis de correlación y de covarianza. Los principales resultados en relación con los niveles de IE percibida muestran que el estudiantado de las carreras de Educación presenta mayores niveles de Atención Emocional a su ingreso y que el alumnado de cuarto año de Educación y Medicina presenta mayores niveles de Reparación y Claridad Emocional en comparación con los de primer año. Respecto a la Empatía, el estudiantado de Educación y Medicina denota mayores niveles percibidos de Preocupación Empática tanto en el momento de su ingreso como al finalizar la carrera. Los estudiantes de Educación, a diferencia de los de Medicina, no tuvieron mayores niveles de Toma de Perspectiva ni preocupación empática al finalizar sus estudios en comparación con los que ingresaron el primer año. Además, los niveles de Malestar Personal fueron mayores en las titulaciones de Educación y Química. Estos resultados reflejan la importancia de cambiar el currículo de las carreras de Educación para fomentar habilidades empáticas.