Jan Antfolk | Åbo Akademi University (original) (raw)

Papers by Jan Antfolk

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2016

The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, 2015

Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2017

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Jan 23, 2017

The efficacy of working memory (WM) training has been a controversial and hotly debated issue dur... more The efficacy of working memory (WM) training has been a controversial and hotly debated issue during the past years. Despite a large number of training studies and several meta-analyses, the matter has not yet been solved. We conducted a multi-level meta-analysis on the cognitive transfer effects in healthy adults who have been administered WM updating training with n-back tasks, the most common experimental WM training paradigm. Thanks to this methodological approach that has not been employed in previous meta-analyses in this field, we were able to include effect sizes from all relevant tasks used in the original studies. Altogether 203 effect sizes were derived from 33 published, randomized, controlled trials. In contrast to earlier meta-analyses, we separated task-specific transfer (here untrained n-back tasks) from other WM transfer tasks. Two additional cognitive domains of transfer that we analyzed consisted of fluid intelligence (Gf) and cognitive control tasks. A medium-siz...

Evolutionary psychology : an international journal of evolutionary approaches to psychology and behavior, 2017

Whereas women of all ages prefer slightly older sexual partners, men-regardless of their age-have... more Whereas women of all ages prefer slightly older sexual partners, men-regardless of their age-have a preference for women in their 20s. Earlier research has suggested that this difference between the sexes' age preferences is resolved according to women's preferences. This research has not, however, sufficiently considered that the age range of considered partners might change over the life span. Here we investigated the age limits (youngest and oldest) of considered and actual sex partners in a population-based sample of 2,655 adults (aged 18-50 years). Over the investigated age span, women reported a narrower age range than men and women tended to prefer slightly older men. We also show that men's age range widens as they get older: While they continue to consider sex with young women, men also consider sex with women their own age or older. Contrary to earlier suggestions, men's sexual activity thus reflects also their own age range, although their potential intere...

Applied neuropsychology. Adult, Jan 21, 2016

Executive tasks are important instruments for neuropsychological and cognitive research, but only... more Executive tasks are important instruments for neuropsychological and cognitive research, but only a limited number of studies have investigated the test-retest reliability of these tasks. Such information is needed for optimizing task usage, for example, in longitudinal and intervention studies. In this study with healthy adults, we investigated the temporal stability of five executive tasks: the Simon task, a visuoverbal N-back task, a visuospatial N-back task, a running memory task, and the Number-letter task. These five tasks are frequently used in research, but previously published reliability data is very limited or totally lacking. The results from the present study showed considerable variability with the highest test-retest reliabilities amongst the three working memory tasks. Furthermore, reaction time measures indicated practice effects between the two sessions across the tasks. The present results set constraints to the interpretation of the results of longitudinal and in...

Journal of interpersonal violence, Jan 3, 2016

Experiencing emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse in childhood increases the risk (compared w... more Experiencing emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse in childhood increases the risk (compared with baseline) of developing psychopathological symptoms in adulthood. In the present study, we explored the effects of experiencing only a single abusive event on adulthood psychopathology, and compared this with the risk in individuals with no abusive experiences and with the risk in individuals with several abusive experiences. We used a Finnish population-based sample of 10,980 adult participants (3,766 male and 7,214 female twins and their siblings). The participants reported abuse experiences using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and current psychopathology symptoms using the depression and anxiety scales of the Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18). We found that in both men and women even single experiences of emotional and sexual abuse were associated with increased psychopathology symptoms compared with no abuse experiences. Single experiences of physical abuse did not, h...

Journal of Social Sciences Research, Dec 6, 2014

Evolutionary theory suggests that the availability of environmental cues of biological relatednes... more Evolutionary theory suggests that the availability of environmental cues of biological relatedness (i.e., kinship cues) is an important predictor of both positive investment (e.g., altruism) and maltreatment (e.g., physical and sexual abuse) within families. Although several studies have supported these assumptions, many suffer methodological limitations. Studies often rely on small convenience samples and often one or only a few possible family relationships are investigated. To combat these shortcomings, we aimed to obtain data on kinship cues, altruism, and sexual aversions from a larger set of family members in a sizeable population-based sample of Finns. Using two surveys (one directed to adults with questions regarding their own children, nieces, and nephews [AtC] and one directed to adults with questions regarding their parents, aunts, and uncles [CtA]) we obtained data from 3,362 individuals living in Finland (Corrected completion rates of those who responded for AtC was 84.5% and AtC was 88.4%). Comparing the response patterns of some key variables with earlier studies, we found our final sample to be representative of the Finnish population. In the present study we describe the methodology of data-collection and report descriptive information regarding kinship cues, altruism, incest aversion, and various individual variables.

Personality and Individual Differences, 2016

The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 2015

European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 2015

ABSTRACT (1) Background. Pedophilia - a disorder of sexual preference with primary sexual interes... more ABSTRACT (1) Background. Pedophilia - a disorder of sexual preference with primary sexual interest in prepubescent children - is forensically relevant yet difficult to detect using self-report methods. (2) Aims. The present study evaluated the criterion validity of the Choice Reaction Time (CRT) task to differentiate between a sample of child sex offenders with a presumably high rate of pedophilic individuals and three control groups (other sex offenders, non-sex offenders and community controls, all male; N = 233). (3) Methods. The CRT task required locating a dot superimposed on images depicting men, women, girls, or boys and scrambled pictures as quickly as possible. We used two picture sets, the Not Real People (NRP) set and the Virtual People Set (VPS). We predicted sexually relevant pictures to elicit longer reaction times in interaction with the participant group. (4) Results. Both CRTs showed main effects of stimulus explicitness and preferred stimulus gender. The CRT-NRP yielded also an interaction effect of participant group and stimulus maturity while the CRT-VPS showed a tendency in this direction. The overall effect size was moderate. (5) Discussion. The results offer support for the usefulness of the CRT task in forensic assessment of child sex offenders.

Evolutionary Psychology, 2014

Reliable recognition of kin is an important factor in modulating kin-directed behaviors. For exam... more Reliable recognition of kin is an important factor in modulating kin-directed behaviors. For example, in selectively directing cooperative behavior to kin and diverting sexual interest away from them, kin first need to be recognized as such. Although an increasing number of studies have examined what information is employed in recognizing siblings and children, less is known about the information children employ in identifying their parents. In a web-based survey, we asked 702 Finnish undergraduate and graduate students to report the availability of a number of possible kinship cues during their childhood and youth. After factorization of the responses, we found that the reported amount of parental support, phenotypic similarity, and behavioral similarity generally predicted subjective certainty in relatedness and kin-directed behavior (i.e., cooperative behavior and inbreeding aversion) to parents in adulthood. Although the data suffer from their retrospective nature, the present study provides potentially useful information about kin-recognition of parents.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2016

In the present study, we investigated the possible gene-environment correlation between the dopam... more In the present study, we investigated the possible gene-environment correlation between the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) polymorphism and childhood experiences of abuse and neglect. Genetic information was obtained from 1,442 male and 2,178 female twins and their siblings drawn from a Finnish population-based sample. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire was used to measure the childhood experiences of abuse and neglect. In men, the DAT1 polymorphism was associated with having experienced sexual abuse in childhood, such that men with the 9R9R genotype reported less sexual abuse experiences than men with the 9R10R or the 10R10R genotypes. In women, there was an association between the DAT1 polymorphism and childhood experiences of emotional abuse, such that women with the 9R9R genotype reported less emotional abuse experiences than women with the 9R10R or 10R10R genotypes. No other associations between the DAT1 polymorphism and childhood experiences of abuse and neglect were found. In sum, the results suggested that some genetic components might predispose children to experience childhood abuse and neglect. Possible reasons for this association were discussed.

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As faking threatens the validity of sexual preference measurements in forensic contexts, we inves... more As faking threatens the validity of sexual preference measurements in forensic contexts, we investigated in an analogue study the fakeability of the dual-target Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), an attention-based measurement procedure. In the dual-target RSVP, when observers attempt to detect two targets (T1 and T2) in a stream of stimuli presented in rapid succession, identification of T2 is impaired

An English translation of Edward Westermarck's (1889) speech to a student union at the univer... more An English translation of Edward Westermarck's (1889) speech to a student union at the university of Helsinki. In this quite brilliant speech Westermarck mentions for the first time what later became known as the Westermarck hypothesis.