A smile biases the recognition of eye expressions: Configural projection from a salient mouth

A smile is visually highly salient and grabs attention automatically. We investigated how extrafoveally seen smiles influence the viewers' perception of non-happy eyes in a face. A smiling mouth appeared in composite faces with incongruent non-happy (fearful, neutral, etc.) eyes, thus producing blended expressions, or it appeared in intact faces with genuine expressions. Attention to the eye region was spatially cued while foveal vision of the mouth was blocked by gaze-contingent masking. Participants judged whether the eyes were happy or not. Results indicated that the smile biased the evaluation of the eye expression: The same non-happy eyes were more likely to be judged as happy and categorized more slowly as not happy in a face with a smiling mouth than in a face with a non-smiling mouth or with no mouth. This bias occurred when the mouth and the eyes appeared simultaneously and aligned, but also to some extent when they were misaligned and when the mouth appeared after the eyes. We conclude that the highly salient smile projects to other facial regions, thus influencing the perception of the eye expression. Projection serves spatial and temporal integration of face parts and changes.     

Recognition of all basic emotions varies in accuracy and reaction time: A new verbal method of measurement

To study different aspects of facial emotion recognition, valid methods are needed. The more widespread methods have some limitations. We propose a more ecological method that consists of presenting dynamic faces and measuring verbal reaction times. We presented 120 video clips depicting a gradual change from a neutral expression to a basic emotion (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise), and recorded hit rates and reaction times of verbal labelling of emotions. Our results showed that verbal responses to six basic emotions differed in hit rates and reaction times: happiness > surprise > disgust > anger > sadness > fear (this means these emotional responses were more accurate and faster). Generally, our data are in accordance with previous findings, but our differentiation of responses is better than the data from previous experiments on six basic emotions.     

Masked emotional priming: A double dissociation between direct and indirect effects reveals non-conscious processing of emotional information beyond valence

We demonstrate non-conscious processing beyond valence by employing the masked emotional priming paradigm (Rohr, Degner, & Wentura, 2012) with a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) variation. Emotional faces were briefly presented and directly masked, followed by the target face, using a SOA of either 43 ms or 143 ms. Targets were categorized as happy, angry, fearful, or sad. With short SOA, we replicated the differentiated priming effect within the negative domain (i.e., angry differentiate from fearful/sad). A direct test of prime awareness indicated that primes could not be discriminated consciously in this condition. With long SOA, however, we did not observe the priming effect whereas the direct test indicated some degree of conscious processing. Thus, indirect effects dissociated from direct effects in our study, an indication for non-conscious processing. Thereby, the present study provides evidence for non-conscious processing of emotional information beyond a simple positive-negative differentiation.     

Brief Report The coherence of emotion systems: Comparing “on‐line” measures of appraisal and facial expressions,and self‐report

Recently, investigators have challenged long‐standing assumptions that facial expressions of emotion follow specific emotion‐eliciting events and relate to other emotion‐specific responses. We address these challenges by comparing spontaneous facial expressions of anger, sadness, laughter, and smiling with concurrent, “on‐line” appraisal themes from narrative data, and by examining whether coherence between facial and appraisal components were associated with increased experience of emotion. Consistent with claims that emotion systems are loosely coupled, facial expressions of anger and sadness co‐occurred to a moderate degree with the expected appraisal themes, and when this happened, the experience of emotion was stronger. The results for the positive emotions were more complex, but lend credence to the hypothesis that laughter and smiling are distinct. Smiling co‐occurred with appraisals of pride, but never occurred with appraisals of anger. In contrast, laughter occurred more often with appraisals of anger, a finding consistent with recent evidence linking laughter to the dissociation or undoing of negative emotion.     

In all questions, my interest is not in the individual people but in the analytic movement as a whole. It will be hard enough here in Europe in the times to come to keep it going. After all, we are just a handful of people who really have that in mind

The paper tries to deal with the difficult and at times contradictory decisions that the then leaders of the IPA, S. Freud, A. Freud, E. Jones etc. had to adopt as whether or not to clearly inform the readers of Die Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse and the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, the official scientific periodicals of the IPA, of the tragic events concerning first the German Psychoanalytic Society and then the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and the newborn Italian Psychoanalytic Society and other European psychoanalytic societies during the years 1933-1945. Because of the anti-Jewish persecution by the Nazi and fascist regimes the IPA had to face the extremely difficult task of helping its Continental Jewish members to emigrate to the USA, Great Britain and other countries in order to save their lives and to allow psychoanalysis to survive, with enormous radical consequences for the scientific and sociocultural future developments of the discipline.The following notes are dedicated to those non-Aryans and Aryans who could not find a proper rescue and whose graves became the wind which scattered the ashes of their bodies with the smoke coming out of the chimneys of the Nazi gas chambers.     

When hoarding is a symptom of OCD: A case series and implications for DSM-V

Hoarding, the excessive collection and failure to discard objects of apparently little value, can represent a serious psychiatric problem and pose a threat to public health. Hoarding has traditionally been considered a symptom (or symptom dimension) of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), but its nosological status has recently been debated. Mounting evidence suggests that, once other primary causes are ruled out, hoarding may be a discrete diagnostic entity, recently named Hoarding Disorder. However, hoarding can sometimes be a genuine OCD symptom. This can be confusing and clinicians may sometimes struggle making the differential diagnosis. To illustrate this, we describe 10 OCD patients with severe hoarding behavior that is better conceptualized as a symptom of OCD. We focus on the motivations for hoarding and the overlapping of hoarding with other obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions. We estimate that this clinical presentation is relatively rare and accounts for a minority of severe hoarding cases. We discuss the unique characteristics of hoarding as a symptom of OCD and the implications for DSM-V.     

The Savanna-IQ interaction hypothesis: A critical examination of the comprehensive case presented in Kanazawa's The Intelligence Paradox

Kanazawa (2012b) has recently presented the most comprehensive case yet for his Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, intelligence is a domain-specific adaptation which has been selected for as humans have moved away from the (evolutionarily familiar) Savanna. As such, ability in ‘evolutionarily novel’ tasks and ‘evolutionarily novel’ preferences are positively correlated with high IQ. This article will present a critical examination of the hypothesis, arguing that there is a strong case against anchoring human nature on the Savanna, the hypothesis predicts contradictory findings, there is empirical evidence against it, it is not falsifiable, and it is not necessary to explain that data which Kanazawa presents.