The literature indicates that cognitive appraisals and illness-related beliefs are key cognitive factors that affect the outcome of psychological adaptation to chronic illness. The main aim of the current study was to identify which cognitive appraisals and illness-related beliefs are the best predictors of adaptation to living with chronic illness as well as which of these predictors are universal, and which are illness-specific. Data was collected online from 505 panel study participants who reported diagnoses of rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, hypothyroidism, diabetes, and hypertension. Adaptation indicators (i.e., depressive symptoms and level of acceptance of living with the illness) differed significantly across samples with different medical diagnoses. Additionally, illness-related cognitive appraisals, but not illness-related beliefs, had a statistically significant specific contribution to explaining the variance in adaptation indicators. The predictors of adaptation to living with chronic illness differ between the diagnoses and the adaptation indicators. The results can contribute to a better matching of therapeutic interventions as well as social campaigns aimed at people suffering from chronic illnesses.

With the rapid development of multimedia and Internet technologies, understanding what visual contexts are well-received among viewers is important for message designers and visual practitioners. This study investigated the effects of valence (positive vs. negative), picture type (animated vs. still), and their interaction effect on attention, motivational intensity (sympathetic arousal), memory sensitivity and judgment. Eighty-seven participants in a mixed factorial design experiment were exposed to six pictures that were either animated or still. Results indicated that animated pictures led to greater attention and motivational intensity than still ones. Negative pictures also elicited greater motivational intensity but were less remembered than positive ones. Additionally, people exhibited greater sympathetic arousal when processing negative animated pictures than other types of pictures. Implications are also discussed.

Working memory (WM) has been found to play a major role in learning L2 grammar (Li et al., 2019). However, there is little research into the longitudinal effects of phonological short-term memory and WM capacity on L2 grammar knowledge development (Sagarra, 2017). The current longitudinal study investigated the relationship between phonological short-term memory, WM capacity, and the development of L2 grammar knowledge over the period of two years. This report is part of an ongoing larger-scale study including the components of reading, writing, and speaking. Participants were 107 Year 1, 2, and 3 Polish university students majoring in English as an L2. The measurements included two phonological short-term memory capacity tests, two WM capacity tests, and four tests of grammar knowledge. The results indicated that grammar tests correlated with nonword, listening, and reading spans. However, latent growth models showed that only WM capacity positively predicted changes in L2 grammar knowledge over time.

The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between reflectivity/impulsivity and aspects of moral reasoning (general level and individual stages) while considering assessment times and relevance of moral arguments. The study involved 442 participants (163 female and 279 male) aged between 19 and 76, with different levels of education. The study was conducted online and two measuring instruments were applied: the cognitive reflection test and the test of moral reasoning The obtained results showed that problem solving time was significantly shorter for intuitive answers as opposed to correct answers. Predominantly reflective and predominantly impulsive individuals differed in various aspects concerning problem solving and the assessment of moral arguments. Predominantly impulsive individuals demonstrated: significantly longer problem solving time for correct answers (there were no differences for intuitive answers), lower general level of moral reasoning, longer assessment time, and higher assessment of the relevance of moral arguments (sensitivity to argument strength) in almost all stages of moral development. The results suggest that there are different ways in which dominant cognitive styles determine the effects in tasks of different types.

Previously, it was shown that the environment of a waiting room can influence the perception of waiting time. The goal of the current study was to examine how waiting environment influ-ences temporal experience, and to explore which dimensions of room atmosphere predict the perception of waiting time. Twenty-four participants spent 90 minutes in an ordinary doctor’s waiting room, and on a different day, another 90 minutes in a sacral room of a distinctly con-templative character. As dependent variables, we assessed various aspects of temporal experi-ence, including passageof- time judgments, time awareness judgments, and duration judg-ments for the waiting time. As independent variables, we assessed the perceived atmosphere of the waiting environment along different dimensional scales, including detachment, cozi-ness, liveliness, tenseness, and valence. The results suggest that perceived valence, detach-ment, and tenseness of a room predict passageof- time judgments and time awareness judg-ments. However, more research is needed to confirm these results. Furthermore, the results were likely biased towards an increased time awareness due to the within-subjects design of the study. Nevertheless, a possible explanation could be that especially unpleasant and de-tached rooms draw one’s attention towards time, whereas more pleasant and less detached rooms allow attention to be deployed on the nontemporal aspects of the situation.

Thyroid hormones play an essential role in brain functioning not only during development, but also in adult life. A link between visuospatial abilities and thyroid hormones has already been established. However, it is unclear whether this link is related to the changes in visual information processing, whether the ventral or the dorsal streams are more affected, or the interaction of the two pathways is impaired. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of hypothyroidism on the visuospatial abilities related to the ventral and dorsal visual pathways using behavioral tasks. Twenty-six newly diagnosed hypothyroid patients and 26 euthyroid controls took part in the study. They had to determine whether the virtual center of radial Glass patterns (GPs) was shifted to the left or right of the screen center, or to discriminate between radial and concentric GPs with varying coherence. Three different conditions were applied: static and two dynamic flicker conditions with a limited lifetime of the dot pairs. The results show that the coherence thresholds were higher in the static condition and the center location task for both groups. The hypothyroid group had higher thresholds in discriminating the radial from the concentric patterns in the dynamic flicker conditions. The proportion of correct responses was lower in the hypothyroid group for patterns with the centers shifted to the right and for concentric compared to the radial patterns. The control group showed decreased performance in localizing the pattern centers shifted to the left. The findings imply that hypothyroidism leads to subtle changes in integrating spatiotemporal information that might be related to deficient processing in the ventral system and the reallocation of spatial attention under cognitive load.

The aim of the current study was to examine the correlates and determinants of perception of marital communication. The role of emotional intelligence and gender schema were examined. The data were collected from 71 married couples, aged 23-71 years (Mage = 41.60, SD = 12.76). Perception of communication in marriage was assessed with the Marital Communication Questionnaire by Kaźmierczak and Plopa (2008). Gender schema was measured with the Sex-Role Inventory by Kuczyńska (2012). Ability emotional intelligence was assessed with two performance tests, the Emotional Intelligence Scale – Faces and the Emotion Understanding Test. Trait emotional intelligence was measured with the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale. The results indicated that perception of communication in marriage is, above all, associated with trait emotional intelligence and gender schema. There were also gender differences in the perception of the spouse’s communication in marriage associated with their psychological characteristics. The husbands’ psychological characteristics affected the wives’ perception of the husbands’ communication, whereas the husbands’ perception of the wives’ communication was not associated with the wives’ psychological characteristics.