Social anxiety describes a marked and persistent fear of negative evaluation in social performance situations that invariably evokes anxiety. In the following study, three dimensions of perception and information processing in context of social anxiety were covered: distinctions between state and trait anxiety, implicit associations, and subliminal priming. Implicit associations may be defined as unconscious cognitive processes related to one's preferences and biases. Implicit associations may also affect how quickly an individual perceives a threatening situation. Exposure to subliminal stimuli also appears to have an effect on the perception of stress-inducing stimuli. This research examined how subliminal priming may influence implicit associations. Results from the present study suggested that the implicit associations of social anxiety were minimally but significantly related to explicit reports of anxiety. Subliminal priming significantly influenced the participants' implicit associations of social anxiety.

research examines associations between perfectionism and acceptance for the self and towards others, alongside their link with psychological health. Reported beliefs are compared with underlying implicit beliefs, as measured by response latencies on the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP; Barnes-Holmes et al., 2006). Ninetynine native English-language speaking university students completed measures of selforiented and other-oriented perfectionism, unconditional self-acceptance, acceptance of others and general health; together with the IRAP computer task. Self-perfectionism scores were observed to be significantly higher than other-perfectionism scores on both explicit and implicit measures. Acceptance of others was significantly higher than selfacceptance on explicit measures; however the two were non-significantly different as recorded by the IRAP. This suggests that participants may have under-reported selfacceptance levels or over-reported their acceptance of others. Possible reasons for this are explored. In addition, all explicit measures demonstrated no significant associations with implicit findings; meaning that participants‟ responses to the assessment tasks appeared to be driven by different processes. Low levels of explicit self-acceptance were the biggest predictor of psychological distress. As such, this research provides further support for the move towards acceptance-based strategies in the treatment of clinical perfectionism.

Two Inattentional Blindness type experiments involving 446 participants were performed in order to examine how unexpected objects are noticed. Perception of these unexpected objects was measured using explicit and implicit measurements. Despite initial difficulty in determining implicit perception, results showed a dissociation between implicit measurements and explicit measurements, providing strong evidence for unconscious processing. Research into attention capture often emphasizes the role of either expectations or stimulus properties in attention capture; the current research examines both. Critical objects presented were either of a colour that participants were familiar with, or of a new colour. The different patterns of results for these two categories of objects provide evidence for two separate mechanisms of attention capture: a parallel process driven by the features of objects, and a serial process, driven by the intentions of the observer. Predications of the recent theoretical work produced by Most, Scholl, Clifford & Simons, (2005) are examined, and support is obtained for their theoretical formulation.

After failing to solve items from the Remote Associates Test (RAT), subjects showed significant priming effects when the solutions were presented in a lexical-decision task (Experiment 1). Experiments 2 and 3 found no significant priming effect when subjects were asked merely to remember the RAT elements, or for targets that were associates of only two of the three elements in incoherent RAT items. Experiment 4 showed that identifying a correct solution took longer than lexical decision, and that the probability of correct identifications for a given item was uncorrelated to the priming effect for the item. Experiment 5 yielded item-difficulty norms for 68 RAT items as well as a replication of the priming effect observed for unsolved items in Experiment 1. In Experiment 6, a significant priming was observed for targets that were solutions to hard items but not for solutions to easy items. This research provides evidence for implicit problem-solving, which is nonconscious but not automatic, and is neither a perceptual nor a purely memory-related phenomenon.

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This thesis provides a conceptual and empirical analysis of implicit concept formation. A review of concept formation studies highlights the need for improving existing methodology in establish- ing the claim for implicit concept formation. Eight experiments are reported that address this aim. A review of theoretical issues highlights the need for computational modelling to elucidate the nature of implicit learning. Two chapters address the feasibility of different exemplar and Connectionist models in accounting for how subjects perform on tasks typically employed in the implicit learn- ing literature. The first five experiments use a concept formation task that involves classifying "computer people" as belonging to a particular town or income category. A number of manipulations are made of the underlying rule to be learned and of the cover task given subjects. In all cases, the knowledge underlying classification performance can be elicited both by free recall and by forced choice tasks. The final three experiments employ Reber's (e.g., 1989) grammar learning paradigm. More rigorous methods for eliciting the knowledge underlying classification performance are employed than have been used previously by Reber. The knowledge underlying clas- sification performance is not elicited by free recall, but is elicited by a forced-choice measure. The robustness of the learning in this paradigm is investigated by using a secondary task methodol- ogy. Concurrent random number generation interferes with all knowledge measures. A number of parameter-free Connectionist and exemplar models of artificial grammar learning are tested against the experimental data. The importance of different assumptions regarding the coding of features and the learning rule used is investigated by determin- ing the performance of the model with and without each assumption. Only one class of Connectionist model passes all the tests. Fur- ther, this class of model can simulate subject performance in a different task domain. The relevance of these empirical and theoretical results for understanding implicit learning is discussed, and suggestions are made for future research.

This thesis investigates impact of pension reforms implemented in the EU27 countries in time period 1993 - 2013 to implicit pension debt. We applied Holzmann's (2004) methodology to calculate implicit pension debt. Primary outcome is that in the investigated period, 21 countries have reduced its im- plicit pension debt in range of 57% to 700% of its GDP. On the other side, in Denmark, Germany and Portugal, implicit pension debt increased in range 10% - 194% of their GDP. Paper also investigated impact of individual components implemented in pension reforms. Largest impact was recorded by change of pension age. In- creasing pension age by 1 year reduced the IPD by 46% of GDP on EU27 level. This was also the most often used measure as it was implemented 42 times in the investigated period. Reforms of indexation have also significant impact on IPD, however, as indexation is linked to chosen variables to decrease IPD it is only possible to change indexation linkage. Possibilities of early retire- ment were also limited, as it was adjusted 13 times. The effect was smaller in comparison to increasing retirement age where increasing early retirement age decreased implicit pension debt by 21% of GDP on the EU27 level. This equals to impact of increasing contribution rate by 1 p.p. The smallest impact was...

This study examined the direct and indirect associations of the perceived coach-created motivational climate, athletes' implicit theory, and athletes' achievement goal orientation in relation to their levels of grit. Five hundred twenty-three Division I and II collegiate student-athletes (male = 246, female = 277) from five institutions across the south-central and southeast areas of the United States completed self-report measures assessing the previously described constructs. The measurement model fit the data well (SRMR = .055; CFI = .938; RMSEA = .067) and demonstrated invariance across the male and female athletes. The structural model demonstrated adequate fit (SRMR = .088; CFI = .918; RMSEA = .068). All direct and indirect paths in the model were significant in the expected direction, with the exception of the direct path from entity theory to ego goal orientation and the indirect path from ego-involving climate to ego goal orientation through entity theory, which were both non-significant. The mastery-incremental constructs accounted for 65% of the variance in grit. Results indicate that achievement motivation theory is an appropriate framework through which to examine grit, and achievement motivation constructs may be significant antecedents of grit's development. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

<p>Chronic pain is a costly health problem that affects more than 100 million people in the United States. Race differences exist in the way that pain is experienced and in how it is treated. Many biopsychosocial factors contribute to race differences in pain tolerance. Beliefs about race differences in pain sensitivity may be one of these factors. Previous research has identified that individuals’ explicit beliefs about their gender group influence their own pain tolerance on a cold pressor task. Explicit beliefs about race and pain sensitivity have also been identified but have yet to be linked to actual pain tolerance. Implicit beliefs about race are well documented; however, little is known about the extent to which individuals hold implicit beliefs about race differences in pain sensitivity or whether these beliefs contribute to actual race differences in pain. My thesis examined explicit and implicit beliefs about race and pain and explored whether these beliefs moderated race differences in pain tolerance. I found that White participants had a higher pain tolerance than Black participants on the cold pressor task, <i>U</i>=1165.50, <i>p</i><.01. Participants held the explicit, <i>t</i>(131)=-6.83, <i>p</i><.01, and implicit, <i>t</i>(131)=6.35, <i>p</i><.01, belief that White people are more pain sensitive than Black people. Both explicit, <i>b</i>=-0.37, <i>p</i>=.71, and implicit, <i>b</i>=-21.87, <i>p</i>=.65, beliefs failed to moderate the relationship between race and pain tolerance. Further exploration indicated that participants’ comparisons of their own pain sensitivity to that of their race group moderated the relationship between race and pain tolerance, ⍵=4.40, <i>p</i>=.04. These results provide further insight into race differences in pain tolerance. Researchers may consider examining explicit and implicit beliefs about race differences in pain in health care providers to better understand disparities in pain related recommendations.</p>

Neste trabalho estudamos as equações diferenciais binárias em uma vizinhança de um ponto singular isolado. Usando a abordagem geométrica de Bruce e Tari para o estudo da multiplicidade de uma equação diferencial binária, introduzimos uma definição de índice para esta classe de equações, o qual coincide com a definição clássica de Hopf para o índice de equações diferenciais binárias positivas. O principal resultado é uma fórmula que expressa o índice em termos de informação obtida a partir dos coeficientes da equação original. A invariância do índice por equivalências suaves é também estudada. Para uma classe especial de equações diferenciais implícitas, relacionamos o índice da equação com índices de especiais 1-formas e campos vetoriais em variedades com singularidades isoladas / In this work we study binary differential equations in a neighborhood of an isolated singular point. Following the geometric approach of Bruce and Tari in their work on multiplicity of a binary differential equation, we introduce a new definition of index for this class of equations, which coincides with the classical definition by Hopf for positive binary differential equations. The main result is a formula expressing the index in terms of information obtained from the coefficients of the original equation. The invariance of the index by smooth equivalences is also proved. Some results relating the index with the indices of 1-forms and vector fields in singular varieties are given for a special class of implicit differential equations