Learning and reminiscence in the pursuit rotor performance of normal and depressed subjects

Ten depressed in-patients were compared, after careful age- and sex-matching, with 12 normal controls on a pursuit tracking task which was performed for two 5-min periods, separated by a 10-min rest. The depressives performed significantly worse than the controls, but both groups showed within and between session improvements. This suggests that the depressive state adversely affects the performance but not the learning of a motor skill. Analysis of performance into high and low frequency components showed that the patients had specific difficulty in following high frequency target movements. This inability to follow high frequency movements was significantly correlated with tapping rate for the patient group, implying that both these measures reflect slowed motor responsivity. The result suggests that factors which interfere with the execution of a motor skill (i.e. motor retardation) do not necessarily interfere with the learning of that skill.     

The effects of distraction on performance in the chronically obese: Restraint, obesity, and neuroticism

The present study was conducted in order to assess the effect of distraction on the proof-reading performance of obese restrained and unrestrained eaters. Chronically obese subjects were categorized as restrained or unrestrained and assigned to conditions of distraction and no distraction. Results support the notion that restrained vs unrestrained eaters in the obese class differentially respond to external cues in their non-eating behavior. The pattern of the interaction suggested that distraction facilitates the performance of unrestrained eaters and inhibits the performance of restrained eaters. These results support previous research findings that some characteristics of the obese may be due to the over-representation of restrained eaters in that class. Also, neuroticism was found to be correlated with restraint. Additional analyses indicated that neuroticism moderated the restraint x distraction interaction. The relationship between neuroticism and restraint as well as the therapeutic implications of the study are discussed.     

Temperament, distraction, and learning in toddlerhood

The word- and nonword-learning abilities of toddlers were tested under various conditions of environmental distraction, and evaluated with respect to children's temperamental attentional focus. Thirty-nine children and their mothers visited the lab at child age 21-months, where children were exposed to fast-mapping word-learning trials and nonlinguistic sequential learning trials. It was found that both word- and nonword-learning were adversely affected by the presentation of environmental distractions. But it was also found that the effect of the distractions sometimes depended on children's level of attentional focus. Specifically, children high in attentional focus were less affected by environmental distractions than children low in attentional focus when attempting to learn from a model, whereas children low in attentional focus demonstrated little learning from the model. Translationally, these results may be of use to child health-care providers investigating possible sources of cognitive and language delay.     

Differential effects of stress-inducing instructions on anxiety, learning and performance

Marton, F. I., Fransson, A., Jonsson, B., Klenell, A.-Ch. & Roos, B. Differential effects of stress-inducing instructions on anxiety, learning and performance. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 213–219.-In an attempt to investigate the effects of induced stress on anxiety, learning and performance, the separate effects on the learning and performance phases were obtained by varying the timing of the introduction and the removal of stressinducing instructions. Stess-inducing instructions had a positive effect on learning but were not significantly related to the level of anxiety in the learning phase. In the performance phase the results were reversed, i.e. the stress-inducing instructions had a significantly positive effect on the level of anxiety but none on performance. The apparent paradox stemming from the significant negative relationship between anxiety and achievement within conditions could be resolved by considering the common confusion concerning statistical vs. causal relationship.     

The effects of distraction,performance demand,stimulus explicitness and personality on objective and subjective measures of male sexual arousal

The interaction of several parameters known to influence sexual arousal was investigated in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design. Distraction, performance demand, and the sexual explicitness of the arousing film were manipulated, with 32 male subjects randomly assigned to the experimental groups. Sexual arousal was elicited by either an explicit or nonexplicit videotape; level of performance demand was determined by one of two sets of experimental instructions: distraction, a within-subject factor, was produced by tone presentations. Arousal was assessed by both penile tumescence and a continuous subjective measure: marked individual differences were found in the degree to which these measures covaried. The results indicated a strong effect of distraction on tumescence, though none on subjectively reported arousal. Conversely. degree of film explicitness had a marked effect on subjective arousal without influencing tumescence. The performance-demand main effect was nonsignificant; however, a significant distraction x demand interaction for maximum tumescence was evident. Additional analyses indicated the predictive value of certain personality measures.     

The effects of analytical rumination, reappraisal, and distraction on anger experience

The manner in which individuals recall negative life events has important affective consequences. The present experiment investigated the effects of emotion regulation strategies on anger experience. One hundred and twenty-one undergraduates recalled an anger-inducing memory and were instructed to engage in either analytical rumination, cognitive reappraisal, or distraction for 20 minutes. In the remaining (control) condition, participants were instructed to write about their thoughts but were not given any emotion regulation instructions. Rumination maintained anger, whereas participants in the remaining conditions reported decreased anger following the writing task. Our results suggest that reappraisal facilitates adaptive processing of anger-inducing memories and distraction facilitates rapid reductions in anger experience. These findings have implications for the management of clinical populations that commonly experience difficulty with anger regulation.     

Differential effects of performance demand and distraction on sexually functional and dysfunctional males

Sexually functional and sexually dysfunctional male subjects viewed an erotic film while experiencing two different types of distraction. During a neutral distracting condition, subjects were asked to estimate the length and width of a straight line appearing on an adjacent video monitor. During the "performance demand" distraction condition, subjects viewed video feedback of their genital responses and were asked to estimate percentage of full erection. These conditions were compared to a no distraction control condition. Performance demand distraction significantly elevated the responding of functional subjects compared to the neutral distraction condition. The responding of dysfunctional subjects, on the other hand, decreased during the performance demand distraction and was significantly lower than arousal in functional subjects in this condition. Post hoc analyses examined possible cognitive and affective mediating factors of this differential response.     

The effects of different types of goal pursuit on experience and performance during a stressful social task

Researchers have recently suggested that anxiety research may benefit from the examination of motivational factors, such as the difference between approach and avoidance goals. This suggestion is consistent with the literature on self-regulation, which indicates that affect serves as feedback for goal pursuit, with anxiety primarily providing feedback regarding avoidance. However, no data are available on participant goals for a task that generates social anxiety. Data from 120 speech anxious participants who engaged in a public speaking task were used to test the following hypotheses: (1) avoidance goals would be more specific than approach goals; (2) goals regarding social anxiety would have a negative impact on public speaking experience and performance; and (3) participants would tend to organize approach and avoidance goals not as separate goals, but as opposite poles of the same overarching goal. Hypotheses (1) and (3) were fully supported and hypothesis (2) was partially supported. The results highlight the possibility that approach goals may be particularly important to anxiety reduction.     

The effects of varied retrieval cues on reminiscence in eyewitness memory

Eyewitnesses sometimes recall things at later interviews that they did not recall at previous interviews (reminiscence). When these cases are argued in the courtroom, attorneys may claim (and judges may warn jurors) that eyewitnesses who provide reminiscences are necessarily inaccurate witnesses. Consequently, their testimony may be prematurely discredited or dismissed. We examined here the role of varying the retrieval cues across interviews to account for reminiscence. Participants watched a videotaped mock crime and were tested for recall on two occasions using the same or different cues. Results supported the hypothesis that varying retrieval cues increases the amount of reminiscence. Furthermore, nearly all participants exhibited some reminiscence. Finally, reminiscence was not significantly correlated with overall accuracy of testimony. These findings suggest that many of the assumptions underlying legal tactics and judges' instructions regarding reminiscent inconsistencies are erroneous. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.