Hemispheric asymmetries in recognition memory for negative and neutral words

Federmeier and Benjamin (2005) have suggested that semantic encoding for verbal information in the right hemisphere can be more effective when memory demands are higher. However, other studies (Kanske & Kotz, 2007) also suggest that visual word recognition differ in function of emotional valence. In this context, the present study was designed to evaluate the effects of retention level upon recognition memory processes for negative and neutral words. Sample consisted of 15 right-handed undergraduate portuguese students with normal or corrected to normal vision. Portuguese concrete negative and neutral words were selected in accordance to known linguistic capabilities of the right hemisphere. The participants were submitted to a visual half-field word presentation using a continuous recognition memory paradigm. Eye movements were continuously monitored with a Tobii T60 eye-tracker that showed no significant differences in fixations to negative and neutral words. Reaction times in word recognition suggest an overall advantage of negative words in comparison to the neutral words. Further analysis showed faster responses for negative words than for neutral words when were recognised at longer retention intervals for left-hemisphere encoding. Electrophysiological data through event related potentials revealed larger P2 amplitude over centro-posterior electrode sites for words studied in the left hemifield suggesting a priming effect for right-hemisphere encoding. Overall data suggest different hemispheric memory strategies for the semantic encoding of negative and neutral words.

Innovative use of vodcast (Video-Podcast) to enrich learning experience in structures laboratory

Students may have difficulty in understanding some of the complex concepts which they have been taught in the general areas of science and engineering. Whilst practical work such as a laboratory based examination of the performance of structures has an important role in knowledge construction this does have some limitations. Blended learning supports different learning styles, hence further benefits knowledge building. This research involves an empirical study of how vodcasts (video-podcasts) can be used to enrich learning experience in the structural properties of materials laboratory of an undergraduate course. Students were given the opportunity of downloading and viewing the vodcasts on the theory before and after the experimental work. It is the choice of the students when (before or after, before and after) and how many times they would like to view the vodcasts. In blended learning, the combination of face-to-face teaching, vodcasts, printed materials, practical experiments, writing reports and instructors’ feedbacks benefits different learning styles of the learners. For the preparation of the practical, the students were informed about the availability of the vodcasts prior to the practical session. After the practical work, students submitted an individual laboratory report for the assessment of the structures laboratory. The data collection consisted of a questionnaire completed by the students, follow-up semi-structured interviews and the practical reports submitted by them for assessment. The results from the questionnaire were analysed quantitatively, whilst the data from the assessment reports were analysed qualitatively. The analysis shows that most of the students who have not fully grasped the theory after the practical, managed to gain the required knowledge by viewing the vodcasts. According to their feedbacks, the students felt that they have control over how to use the material and to view it as many times as they wish. Some students who have understood the theory may choose to view it once or not at all. Their understanding was demonstrated by their explanations in their reports, and was illustrated by the approach they took to explicate the results of their experimental work. The research findings are valuable to instructors who design, develop and deliver different types of blended learning, and are beneficial to learners who try different blended approaches. Recommendations were made on the role of the innovative application of vodcasts in the knowledge construction for structures laboratory and to guide future work in this area of research.

Women in art: the last taboo

The intention of this paper is to explore traditions and current trends in art with particular reference to the depiction of female experiences such as pregnancy, abortion, birth and motherhood. The inclusion and exclusion of such images in art history over time and across societies reflects prevailing attitudes, whilst affirming various stereotypical and gendered constructions developed and sustained within those societies. These constructions in turn relate to criteria defined by class, access to education and notions of femininity. Work by artists which feature aspects of these experiences (particularly childbirth), is considered taboo by many in a Western society which continues to render the essentially female experience as private, invisible and stigmitised and confuses the natural with the sexual. The work of undergraduate art students, inspired by the artwork of women artists who make explicit or are influenced by essentially female experiences, is discussed and attempts made to connect their work to the issues outlined.

O processo de composição narrativa no encontro terapêutico : (des)construindo autorias

Essa pesquisa procurou investigar o processo de composição narrativa pela dupla estagiário-terapeuta/paciente, em uma situação de psicoterapia psicanalítica, a partir do contexto de uma prática supervisionada de estágio em Psicologia Clínica. Participaram da pesquisa duas acadêmicas de Psicologia que realizaram o estágio em um abrigo municipal. O trabalho clínico desenvolvido pelas estagiárias foi acompanhado pela supervisão acadêmica, cuja responsável na época era a pesquisadora. Também participaram dessa pesquisa três meninas de seis, nove e dez anos de idade, acolhidas temporariamente na instituição e em acompanhamento psicoterapêutico pelas estagiárias. Os atendimentos foram realizados uma vez por semana, individualmente, na própria instituição. As estagiárias relataram cada entrevista preliminar realizada com as crianças sob a forma escrita de entrevista dialogada, cujo objetivo é a memorização do desenvolvimento da entrevista. Essa memorização associada às reflexões acerca do estágio produzidas no espaço de supervisão acadêmica formaram as fontes dos dados. Para atingir o objetivo dessa pesquisa, três estudos foram realizados e, em cada um deles, três casos, constituídos por diferentes duplas terapêuticas, foram analisados. Os resultados dos três estudos demonstram, inicialmente, que o discurso elaborado pelas duplas terapêuticas, em cada entrevista preliminar isoladamente, estrutura-se narrativamente porque esse discurso apresenta os dois princípios da narrativa, que são a sucessão e a transformação, como propõe Tzvetan Todorov. A análise conjunta dessas entrevistas denota, entretanto, que as narrativas constituídas nesse processo não podem ser reduzidas a uma lógica de sucessão linear como formula esse autor. A seqüência narrativa é regida pela lógica de causalidade semântica, que é de natureza polifônica, como propõe Paul Ricoeur. As intervenções das estagiárias sob a forma de construções, conforme conceito estabelecido por Freud, mesmo que guiadas pelo princípio da associação livre, são demarcadas, em sua maioria, pela repetição de uma versão já conhecida da história da vida de seu paciente, geralmente àquela que versa sobre o motivo do abrigamento. Assim, essas intervenções, cujo efeito possível seria que o paciente pudesse desconstruir os sentidos dados a priori, reconstruindo novas versões para os acontecimentos de sua vida e, com isso, ocupasse o lugar de autor de sua história, acabam insistindo no trauma. Dessa forma, fica explicitado um dos paradoxos do processo de formação da escuta clínica: o estagiário, ao procurar abrir os sentidos para o seu paciente, construindo junto com ele uma versão possível para a sua história, acaba, muitas vezes, fechando o sentido, construindo uma única versão para os eventos narrados pelo paciente.

Valores, atitudes e intenção empreendedora: um estudo com universitários brasileiros e cabo-verdianos

A presente pesquisa apresentou como seu objetivo principal verificar as relações entre valores, atitude em relação ao empreendedorismo (AE) e intenção empreendedora (IE) em um estudo comparativo com universitários de graduação em Administração das Cinco Regiões Brasileiras e Cabo Verde. O instrumento de pesquisa foi composto por um questionário sócio demográfico, a escala de Valores Humanos – Questionário de Perfis de Valores de Schwartz(2001) e o Questionário de Intenção Empreendedora de Liñán & Chen (2009). Após o consentimento livre e informado, os alunos responderam o instrumento de pesquisa, perfazendo um total de 1561 respostas válidas. Os dados foram tabulados e analisados nos Softwares: SPSS 21 e AMOS 21 para a produção de Estatísticas Descritivas, Análises de Confiabilidade, Análises de Correlação, Análise de Variância (ANOVA), Gráficos, Análise Fatorial Confirmatória e Modelagem de Equações Estruturais (SEM). Os modelos utilizaram a Teoria de Ação Racional (FISHBEIN & AJZEN,1971) e Teoria do Comportamento Planejado(AJZEN,1991), testando o impacto dos valores nas atitudes e intenções. Os resultados indicaram que os valores de Estimulação, Poder e Hedonismo foram tiveram os maiores efeitos na IE e na AE. Diferenças significativas foram encontradas entre os gêneros, com os homens apresentando maior IE e AE. Diferenças regionais foram encontradas. Limitações, implicações práticas e teóricas, além de sugestões para pesquisas futuras são apresentadas.

Análise conceitual e pensamento crítico: uma relação complementar na enfermagem

ENDERS, Bertha Cruz ; BRITO RS ; MONTEIRO, Akemi Ywata. Analise conceitual e pensamento critico: uma relacao complementar na enfermagem. Rev Gaucha Enferm, Porto Alegre (RS) 2004 dez;25(3):295-305.

Análise conceitual e pensamento crítico: uma relação complementar na enfermagem

O propósito deste trabalho é mostrar a relação entre o processo de análise conceitual e as habilidades de pensamento crítico na enfermagem. Utilizando uma abordagem de ensaio discursivo, argumenta-se que a técnica de análise conceitual promove a criticidade em alunos de enfermagem. Os passos da atividade de análise são examinados quanto às operações cognitivas neles inseridas e que representam habilidades de raciocínio crítico. Reflete-se sobre a análise conceitual como atividade didática na promoção do pensamento crítico em uma experiência com alunos de graduação. Conclui-se que os dois processos se complementam no repensar e no enfrentamento de desafios na enfermagem

Estágio supervisionado em enfermagem: visão de preceptores

The present study aimed to analyze the vision of tutors from a university hospital about supervised internship in nursing. It is a descriptive nature research with qualitative approach, developed at the University Hospital Onofre Lopes (HUOL), located in Natal/RN. The population was composed of eleven assisting nurses engaged the precentorship of undergraduate course students in nursing, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). For the empirical research, conducted in the period from September to November 2013, the semi-structured interview involving questions directed to the stage was used, as advocate the national curriculum guidelines, as regards this curricular component. With the consent of the institution where the study has been developed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of UFRN, as n° 17800613.9.0000.5537, besides CAAE signing an informed consent by participants. The analysis of the information was held from the analysis of content, thematic mode. Thereby four categories were defined a priori, namely: the supervised internship in the vision of nurses; To be preceptor; The internship concerned: contributions and difficulties; Do the institutional actors communicate? The results indicate that in the view of the supervised internship preceptors is a sine qua non for the training of nurses, considering that it prepares for professional life. Besides being a moment conducive to the exercise of management and a greater rapprochement between theory and practice, stimulates the preceptor to upgrade to better exercise the function and also provides an exchange of knowledge between students and tutors, thus contributing to optimize the service. Nevertheless, the respondents indicate the existence of a distancing and little communication with the academic institution. In summary, it is realized that the nurses understand the importance of its function of tutors and supervised stage for vocational training. It is necessary, however, to reflect on the paths to be pinched in the confrontation of difficulties in this process, especially as regards the teaching/service relationship, which, while remaining at a distance, strengthens the existing dichotomy between theory and practice

Rendimento acadêmico e sua relação com os estilos de personalidade de estudantes universitários

One of the Psychology challenges, especially among the assessment and educational areas, is to understand and predict individual differences. In this context, this research aimed to verify the personality styles of students with high and low academic performance. The study included 236 university students from Petrolina-PE and Juazeiro-BA campus of the UNIVASF (Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco). They were uniformly distributed in four disciplines (medicine, psychology, administration and civil engineering), 10 students from each semester (five highest scores average students and five lowest scores average students) took place of the sample. The Millon Index Personality Styles (MIPS) was applied to analyze the personality/behavioral styles of the students. The MIPS is a 180 dichotomous (true/false) item scale. It was also developed and applied a questionnaire about the students characteristics and their academic information. Descriptive and central tendency statistics analysis (mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage) were done to provide sample information. Then we performed a Mann-Whitney test in the overall sample and in each course and a factorial ANOVA. The results suggest that the university population is heterogeneous and there are significant differences (p <0.05) between the personality styles of students with high and low academic performance, when analyzing the overall sample and in courses of different areas of knowledge. Students of Medicine who have higher performance as personality styles prevalent the conformism and compliance, while students with lower income in this course, the styles are: innovation and discrepancy. Psychology students with higher income are more systematic and lower income students to score significantly on accommodation. The civil engineering students of the two groups differed only in personality style intuition, being such a style more characteristic of higher income students. Students of Management with higher yield stand out more in the style of the doubt and lower yields in these styles: individual, reflection and discrepancy. This study is correlational, but had an exploratory nature because there are no studies about this relationship in Brazil. Therefore, it provided a better understanding of the action characteristics of students with high and low academic performance. Further studies using the Big Five Personality Factors instruments are required because it is the most used model in understanding the influence of personality on students performance. This way, the relation between personality and academic performance will be better discussed. Otherwise, it will be possible to compare with the existing studies in the area

As políticas sociais na formação graduada do psicólogo no Piauí: análise curricular dos cursos

This research aimed to investigate the place of social policies in Psychology undergraduate programs from Piauí/Brazil. A documental study was done by analysing the Projeto Pedagógico de Curso (PPC) from five universities. Also, interviews were conducted, for each program, with a coordinator and a professor who teaches subjects related to social policies. The main results indicates that the Psychology undergraduate programs in Piauí are recent, created between the late 1990s and early 2000s, when professionals in this area were in demand. The social policies appear in PPC related to student profile; curricula emphasis, subjects and internships; albeit in a peripheral condition. Furthermore, disconnection between proposed profile and the curriculum; fragmentation and insufficient content about social policies; and predominance of clinical area were perceived in these institutions. It is noteworthy that health policies stand out in PPC while social assistance policy or other social policies were poorly mentioned. Therefore, the place of social policies must be reviewed in Psychology undergraduate programs from Piauí in order to include other social policies and improve the subjects articulation, assuming a central, critical and policy perspective

Comparing the Teaching-Learning Process With and Without the Use of Computerized Technological Resources

Computerized technological resources have become essential in education, particularly for teaching topics that require the performance of specific tasks. These resources can effectively help the execution of such tasks and the teaching-learning process itself. After the development of a Web site on the topic of nursing staff scheduling, this study aimed at comparing the development of students involved in the teaching-learning process of the previously mentioned topic, with and without the use of computer technology. Two random groups of undergraduate nursing students from a public university in São Paulo state, Brazil, were organized: a case group (used the Web site) and a control group (did not use the Web site). Data were collected from 2003 to 2005 after approval by the Research Ethics Committee. Results showed no significant difference in motivation or knowledge acquisition. A similar performance for the two groups was also verified. Other aspects observed were difficulty in doing the nursing staff scheduling exercise and the students' acknowledgment of the topic's importance for their training and professional lives; easy access was considered to be a positive aspect for maintaining the Web site.

Algumas Considerações Sobre Ensino e Aprendizagem na Disciplina Laboratório de Eletromagnetismo

Baseados por um lado em avanços conceituais recentes das pesquisas em ensino de ciências, epor outro em nossa experiência docente, propomos algumas reflexões sobre as práticas de ensino e aprendizagem na disciplina Laboratório de Eletromagnetismo. Apresentamos e interpretamos resultados e comentários dos estudantes, os quais forneceram elementos para a análise da efetividade de propostas de novo enfoque para esta disciplina.

Cartografias clínicas, dispositivos de gêneros, estratégia saúde da família

A subjetividade é a argamassa de toda e qualquer produção e, diante disso, percebemos os processos de subjetivação presentes na feitura dos sujeitos, dos grupos e das instituições. Como ferramentas de análise, tomamos a ideia de dispositivo como um emaranhado de linhas que tecem as relações humanas, e dentre suas diversas linhas destacamos os gêneros como elementos importantes na escuta e intervenção clínica, de modo a ampliar o universo de referência presente nos encontros, no qual os corpos afetam e são afetados dentro de contextos marcados por processos psicossociais, políticos e culturais relevantes para uma prática psi ampliada. Neste trabalho, colocamos em análise a experiência que temos tido como supervisor de estágios em Psicologia Clínica-Institucional que realizamos no Programa Saúde da Família, na Vila Progresso, em Assis, SP, evidenciando a necessidade de diálogos com outros saberes, tais como os estudos culturais, a teoria queer e a esquizoanálise. Como resultados iniciais, percebemos nos relatos de nossos estagiários uma preocupação maior com o cuidado das pessoas atendidas que vão além das leituras psicológicas, que dialoga com questões sociais, econômicas, sexuais, de gênero, políticas e culturais, ampliando as análises e concebendo os seres humanos como híbridos, maquínicos e diferentes, o que evidencia a perspectiva de subjetividades em construção permanente. Surge a necessidade de nos orientarmos pelo viés de uma clínica crítica e ampliada.

Reprodutibilidade de medidas antropométricas estáticas de graduandos de odontologia e de mochos odontológicos

Objective: To evaluate the intraexaminer reproducibility of static anthropometric measurements of undergraduate dental students as well as the characteristics and regulating measurements of the dental stools used by them. Methods: Forty volunteers and 6 types of dental stools were evaluated. For the anthropometric measurements the employed equipments were: an adapted office chair, aflexible measuring tape with two adapted rods, a metallic device with a 90 degree central angle, string, a 35 x 24 cm rectangular wooden board, isolating tape and crepe tape. In order to standardize the position of the adapted office chair and the volunteers' feet, the floor was marked with the isolating and crepe tapes. A string was attached to the waist of each volunteer to mark the area corresponding to the kidney region making it possible to measure the seat-renal region area. The examined anthropometric measurements were height, trunkcephalic heigh, sacral-popliteal distance (OK?), hip width, popliteal height and the seat-renal region height. The evaluated characteristics of the dental stools relative to the seat were depth, horizontal width and minimum/maximum height. The back of the dental stool was evaluated as for the minimum/ maximum height adjustment. The anthropometric and dental stool measurements were obtained by a single examiner at two moments with a 1-week interval between the evaluations. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ρ) was used to estimate the intraexaminer reproducibility. Results: Excellent reproducibility was observed for all anthropometric measurements obtained (ρ=0.99) as well as for all dental stools evaluated (ρ=0.99). Conclusion: The method used to obtain the anthropometric and dental stools measurements was reproducible and can be used reliably.