Verbal versus olfactory cues: affect in elicited memories

Verbal processing has a reduced role for olfactory stimuli. It is difficult to provide a label for an odor experience. Odor perception can retrieve memories of life events with personal meaning and elicit affective experiences. Odors that have emotionally loaded content could produce older memories. Common odors with well-known names have been used. In Exp. 1 the names were shown, and the subjects were asked to imagine the corresponding odors; subsequently those odorants were presented. In Exp. 2 at first the odorants were presented and subsequently their names, printed one each per white card. The subjects were requested to provide written free associations. At the end of each session they scored a semantic differential. The hypothesis that emotionally loaded associations are more frequent when evoked by odorants seems confirmed, supported also by some reliable differences between the profiles for olfactory verbal stimuli. The evaluation of olfactory stimuli did not differ from one experiment to the other; verbal stimuli, on the contrary, are differently evaluated if the corresponding odorants were presented before or after their labels.     

Health anxiety moderates the effects of distraction versus attention to pain

Little is known about the relationship between health anxiety and chronic pain. The present study explored whether individual differences in health anxiety would influence the response of chronic pain patients to physical therapy. Furthermore, the interaction of health anxiety with coping strategy usage (distraction versus attention) was studied. Participants were 81 chronic pain patients who were interviewed and completed measures of pain, anxiety and cognition following an active physiotherapy session in which they either: (1) attended to physical sensations; (2) distracted from physical sensations or (3) completed the session as usual. Health anxious, compared to non-health anxious, individuals worried more about their health and injury during the session and attended to and catastrophically misinterpreted sensations more frequently. A complex interaction between health anxiety and coping strategy emerged. Among health anxious patients, attention to sensations resulted in lower anxiety and pain than did distraction. It appears as though attention had a short-term anxiety reducing effect for health anxious patients. Among non-health anxious patients, attention resulted in greater worry about health than distraction. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Correlates of professional versus organizational withdrawal cognitions

Using a more rigorous research design than previous studies, results generally supported the discriminant validity of professional withdrawal cognitions (PWC) versus organizational withdrawal cognitions (OWC). The sample consisted of 226 medical technologists tracked over a five year period, and the research design used pre- and post-measures of PWC and OWC. Attitudinal professional commitment had a stronger negative relationship to subsequent PWC versus OWC, while gender discrimination and organizational support had stronger relationships to subsequent OWC versus PWC.     

Paranoid cognitions,failure, and focus of attention in college students

Three experiments examined aspects of the link between focus of attention, manipulated by use of video camera and monitor, and paranoid and depressive cognitions in a sample of college students. In Experiment 1 participants were exposed to either a failure or neutral task, under high (HSA) or low self-awareness (LSA) conditions. HSA triggered paranoid cognitions on neutral and failure tasks; failure alone triggered depressive cognitions. In Experiment 2 the camera switched focus thrice between participant and experimenter using only neutral tasks. Paranoia scores initially were higher in the HSA condition. Paranoia scores increased when participants moved from LSA to HSA. Paranoia scores never fell when moving from HSA to LSA conditions. Experiment 3 used only HSA and failure, and showed how a priming task that increased the accessibility of either positive or negative self-cognitions led to significantly different paranoia and depression scores.     

Children's intervention strategies in situations of victimization by bullying: Social cognitions of outsiders versus defenders

This study examined the social cognitions of outsiders and defenders about intervening in situations of victimization by bullying. Do outsiders and defenders behave differently in victimization situations because of differences in competence beliefs, or because of a selectivity effect in intervening? These issues were examined in a sample of 102 outsiders and 107 defenders who were classified into these bullying roles through a peer-nomination procedure out of a total sample of 761 10- to 14-year-old Dutch children. These children were presented with imaginary victimization events. They answered questions about their cognitions and self-efficacy beliefs about intervening in victimization situations and about handling such situations. Outsiders, compared to defenders, claimed to intervene indirectly in victimization situations rather than directly. Defenders, compared to outsiders, claimed to intervene directly in victimization situations rather than indirectly. Both outsiders and defenders claimed to be more likely to intervene when a friend was being victimized than when a neutral classmate was being victimized. Outsiders and defenders did not differ in their self-efficacy for indirect intervention, but only defenders claimed a high self-efficacy for direct intervention. Both outsiders and defenders claimed to benefit from direct help when they themselves are victimized, but only outsiders also reported to need indirect help. The results suggest that outsiders and defenders behave differently in victimization situations because of differences in competence beliefs rather than because of a selectivity effect. More generally, the results suggest that not only defenders but also outsiders have the intention to help children who are being bullied. However, outsiders' anti-bullying attempts are likely to be indirect and less firm than those of defenders.     

Approach-motivated positive affect reduces breadth of attention

Research has found that positive affect broadens attention. However, these studies have manipulated positive affect that is low in approach motivation. Positive affect that is high in approach motivation should reduce the breadth of attention, as organisms shut out irrelevant stimuli as they approach desired objects. Four studies examined the attentional consequences of approach-motivated positive-affect states. Results were consistent with predictions. Participants showed less global attentional focus after viewing high-approach-motivating positive stimuli than after viewing low-approach-motivating positive stimuli (Study 1) or neutral stimuli (Study 2). Study 3 found that greater trait approach motivation resulted in less global attentional focus after participants viewed approach-motivating positive stimuli. Study 4 manipulated affect and approach motivation independently. Greater approach-motivated positive affect caused lower global focus. High-approach-motivated positive affect reduces global attentional focus, whereas low-approach-motivated positive affect increases global attentional focus. Incorporating the intensity of approach motivation into models of positive affect broadens understanding of the consequences of positive affect.     

Organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance: the role of affect and cognitions

To investigate the role of affect and cognitions in predicting organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and workplace deviance behavior (WDB), data were collected from 149 registered nurses and their coworkers. Job affect was associated more strongly than were job cognitions with OCB directed at individuals, whereas job cognitions correlated more strongly than did job affect with OCB directed at the organization. With respect to WDB, job cognitions played a more important role in prediction when job affect was represented by 2 general mood variables (positive and negative affect). When discrete emotions were used to represent job affect, however, job affect played as important a role as job cognition variables, strongly suggesting the importance of considering discrete emotions in job affect research.     

Movement versus focusing of visual attention

In two experiments, we investigated the idea that attention moves through visual space in an analog fashion. The spatial distribution of attention was determined by presenting a spatially informative cue and comparing reaction times to targets at cued and uncued locations as a function of the interval from cue onset to target onset (SOA). Facilitation and inhibition were measured by reference to a neutral condition in which the cue provided no spatial information. In the first experiment, we used a central cue (an arrow), and in the second experiment, we used a peripheral cue (a 50-msec flash). With central cue, the facilitatory effects of the cuing were initially equal for all locations on the indicated side of the display, and then decreased for all locations except the one that had been specifically cued. These results are interpreted as being more consistent with "focusing" of an initially broad "beam" of attention than with "movement" of a narrow beam from fixation to the cued location. With peripheral cues, strong facilitation specific to the cued location was manifest as early as 50 msec after cue onset, but this effect decreased with increasing SOA. Inhibition for uncued locations increased with increasing SOA at a rate that generally reflected their distance from the cued location. Taken together, these results reveal important differences between peripheral and central cues in the generation of attentional selectivity, not just in the time-course of events, but also in the nature of the processes involved.     

Prediction of experimental pain sensitivity by attention to pain-related stimuli in healthy individuals

The aim of the present study was to assess the predictive power of the processing of pain-related information, comprising concepts of hypervigilance to pain, pain catastrophizing, and pain-related anxiety (questionnaires) as well as attentional processes related to pain-related stimuli (dot-probe task) in explaining individual differences in experimental pain sensitivity (pressure/thermal pain threshold). In 160 healthy participants (ages 13-61; 80 females), results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that self-reported hypervigilance contributed significantly to the prediction of pain sensitivity, whereas pain catastrophizing and anxiety did not. However, inconsistent with prediction, the effect was in the opposite direction, indicating that vigilance to pain sensations or stimuli is associated with lower pain sensitivity in healthy individuals. Entering the attentional bias indices from the dot-probe task showed that an increased bias to pain words is related to higher experimental pain sensitivity, which confirms the hypothesis.     

Social attention across borders: A cross-cultural investigation of gaze cueing elicited by same- and other-ethnicity faces

The gaze-cueing effect is a robust phenomenon which illustrates how attention can be shaped by social factors. In four experiments, the present study explored the interaction between the ethnic membership of the participant and that of the face providing the gaze cue. Firstly, we aimed to further investigate the differential impact of White, Black, and Asian faces on the gaze-cueing effect in White individuals. Secondly, we aimed to explore, for the first time, the impact of faces belonging to different ethnicities on gaze cueing in Chinese participants. The results allowed to rule out alternative accounts and showed that White participants exhibit a gaze-cueing effect for White and Asian faces, but not for Black faces, consistent with previous studies. As regards Chinese participants, the overall findings suggested a stronger gaze-cueing effect for White faces than for Asian faces. The results are discussed with reference to differences in the perceived social status of the various groups, pointing to the need of taking into account different cultural contexts.     

Instructions and group versus individual reinforcement in modifying disruptive group behavior

Head Start children were matched into two groups on the basis of rates of disruptive behavior during rest periods. Attempts were made to modify their behavior using either individual or group token reinforcement procedures. While the reinforcement procedures reduced inappropriate behavior somewhat, the addition of instructions to the reinforcement reduced the inappropriate behavior to near zero for both groups. Instructions alone, however, were ineffective in controlling behavior. Type of reinforcement (group or individual) did not produce differential effects. While experimental control over the target behavior was demonstrated, there was little carryover from the experimental room to the regular classroom. Even when treatment was introduced into the regular class, follow-up results showed that with time the target behavior approximated pretreatment levels. The results suggest that (a) the combination of instructions and reinforcement is much more effective than either one of these alone, (b) behavior change is specific to the environmental contingencies, and (c) the group reinforcement technique, which is much more easily implemented, was at least as effective as individual reinforcement in the present study.     

The interruptive effect of pain on attention

Pain is known to disrupt attentional performance in both healthy adults and patients with chronic pain. Exactly which aspects of attentional function are affected are, however, still to be determined. The primary aim of this investigation was to systematically examine the effects of experimentally induced pain on a range of attentional performance tasks. Following a review of tests of attentional disruption, seven best candidate tasks were selected and examined across seven experiments. The tasks were: continuous performance, flanker, endogenous precueing, n-back, inhibition, attentional switching, and divided attention. Healthy adult participants performed each of these tasks under three different conditions: a painful heat sensation, a warm heat sensation, and a nonheat control. Pain differentially affected attentional performance across these tasks; pain-related attentional impairment was found on the n-back, attentional switching, and divided attention tasks, but not on the other tasks. This finding suggests that the aspects of attention most affected by pain are those essential for the completion of complex tasks that require the processing of multiple cues and control over attentional deployment. These results are discussed in the context of an emerging view of pain as a demand for executive control and the development of measures that could be used to examine attentional disruption in the context of pain.     

The interruptive effect of pain on attention

Pain is known to disrupt attentional performance in both healthy adults and patients with chronic pain. Exactly which aspects of attentional function are affected are, however, still to be determined. The primary aim of this investigation was to systematically examine the effects of experimentally induced pain on a range of attentional performance tasks. Following a review of tests of attentional disruption, seven best candidate tasks were selected and examined across seven experiments. The tasks were: continuous performance, flanker, endogenous precueing, n-back, inhibition, attentional switching, and divided attention. Healthy adult participants performed each of these tasks under three different conditions: a painful heat sensation, a warm heat sensation, and a nonheat control. Pain differentially affected attentional performance across these tasks; pain-related attentional impairment was found on the n-back, attentional switching, and divided attention tasks, but not on the other tasks. This finding suggests that the aspects of attention most affected by pain are those essential for the completion of complex tasks that require the processing of multiple cues and control over attentional deployment. These results are discussed in the context of an emerging view of pain as a demand for executive control and the development of measures that could be used to examine attentional disruption in the context of pain.     

Asymmetry in perception: attention versus other determinants

This experiment explored the role of expectancy in producing asymmetry in perceptual performance. Trigrams and randomly generated forms of low association value were presented in random sequence to the right and left visual fields. The results suggested that expectancy, when contrasted with such variables as mode of processing (visual vs verbal) and mnemonic factors, plays little role in the production of asymmetry in perceptual performance.     

Distributing versus focusing attention in visual short-term memory

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is traditionally considered a robust form of visual memory resistant to interference from subsequent visual input. This study shows that the robustness of VSTM depends on the way attention is allocated in VSTM. When attention is distributed across multiple memory items, VSTM for these items is vulnerable to interference from subsequent input, including passively viewed images and the postchange testing displays. Yet attention can readjust its focus in VSTM on the basis of an attentional orienting cue presented long after encoding. When attention is oriented to a particular memorized item, the memory is resistant to subsequent interference. This effect, however, is eliminated when the subset of items demanding focal attention exceeds one, suggesting that orienting attention in VSTM is less flexible than orienting attention in perception. We propose that the robustness of VSTM is influenced by whether attention is focused or distributed in VSTM.     

Arousal, affect, and attention as components of temperament

Contemporary models of human temperament have been based on the general constructs of arousal, emotion, and self-regulation. In order to more precisely investigate these constructs, they were theoretically decomposed into 19 subconstructs, and homogeneous scales were developed to assess them. The scales were constructed through an item-selection technique that maximized internal consistency and minimized conceptual overlap. Correlational and factor analyses suggested that arousal can be usefully assessed in terms of its central, autonomic, and motor components. The emotions of sadness, relief, and low-intensity pleasure were most closely related to the measures of central arousal. Emotions of fear, frustration, discomfort, and high-intensity pleasure were more closely related to measures of attentional control. We discuss these findings in terms of the functional relations between arousal, emotion, and attention.     

Different patterns of contingent stimulation differentially affect attention span in prelinguistic infants

The ability to sustain attention influences different domains including cognitive, motor, and communicative behavior. Previous research has demonstrated how an infant's parent can influence sustained attention. The purpose of our study was to expose infants systematically to both sensitive and redirective patterns of behavior to examine how unfamiliar individuals could influence attention. Results revealed infants changed their patterns of looking with the unfamiliar individuals. Infants had longer durations of sustained attention when interacting with a sensitive unfamiliar individual who followed into their attentional focus as opposed to an intrusive person who led their attentional focus. This study demonstrates that infants discriminate patterns of contingency to persons seen for only a short period of time broadening the range of potential mentors for learning.     

Gender differences in autobiographical memory for everyday events: retrieval elicited by SenseCam images versus verbal cues

Gender differences are frequently observed in autobiographical memory (AM). However, few studies have investigated the neural basis of potential gender differences in AM. In the present functional MRI (fMRI) study we investigated gender differences in AMs elicited using dynamic visual images vs verbal cues. We used a novel technology called a SenseCam, a wearable device that automatically takes thousands of photographs. SenseCam differs considerably from other prospective methods of generating retrieval cues because it does not disrupt the ongoing experience. This allowed us to control for potential gender differences in emotional processing and elaborative rehearsal, while manipulating how the AMs were elicited. We predicted that males would retrieve more richly experienced AMs elicited by the SenseCam images vs the verbal cues, whereas females would show equal sensitivity to both cues. The behavioural results indicated that there were no gender differences in subjective ratings of reliving, importance, vividness, emotion, and uniqueness, suggesting that gender differences in brain activity were not due to differences in these measures of phenomenological experience. Consistent with our predictions, the fMRI results revealed that males showed a greater difference in functional activity associated with the rich experience of SenseCam vs verbal cues, than did females.