Psychophysiological reactivity to sleep-related emotional stimuli in primary insomnia

The present study examined psychophysiological reactivity to emotional stimuli related and non-related to sleep in people with primary insomnia (PPI) and in good sleepers (GS). Twenty-one PPI and 18 GS were presented with five blocks of neutral, negative, positive, sleep-related negative and sleep-related positive pictures. During the presentation of the pictures, facial electromyography (EMG) of the corrugator and the zygomatic muscles, heart rate (HR) and cardiac vagal tone (CVT) were recorded. Subjective ratings of the stimuli were also collected. We found that only PPI exhibited greater inhibition of the corrugator activity in response to sleep-related positive stimuli compared to the other blocks of stimuli. Furthermore, PPI rated the sleep-related negative stimuli as more unpleasant and arousing and showed higher CVT in response to all stimuli as compared to GS. Results were interpreted as indicating that PPI exhibit craving for sleep-related positive stimuli, and also hyper-arousability in response to sleep-related negative stimuli, as compared to GS. Our results suggest that psychological treatment of insomnia could benefit by the inclusion of strategies dealing with emotional processes linked with sleep processes.     

A validation of eye movements as a measure of elementary school children's developing number sense

The number line estimation task captures central aspects of children's developing number sense, that is, their intuitions for numbers and their interrelations. Previous research used children's answer patterns and verbal reports as evidence of how they solve this task. In the present study we investigated to what extent eye movements recorded during task solution reflect children's use of the number line. By means of a cross-sectional design with 66 children from Grades 1, 2, and 3, we show that eye-tracking data (a) reflect grade-related increase in estimation competence, (b) are correlated with the accuracy of manual answers, (c) relate, in Grade 2, to children's addition competence, (d) are systematically distributed over the number line, and (e) replicate previous findings concerning children's use of counting strategies and orientation-point strategies. These findings demonstrate the validity and utility of eye-tracking data for investigating children's developing number sense and estimation competence.     

The effect of emotional faces on eye movements and attention

Using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, response times to a previously ignored item occurring after a target were measured. Using this procedure, it was possible to plot the time course of inhibition following target selection. Results showed that post-target distractors produce negative priming for at least 270 ms after target presentation. It is suggested that stimuli presented immediately after a target may be inhibited in order to prevent temporal binding errors. The results are discussed in relation to two selective attention paradigms: negative priming and the attentional blink.     

Probing the influence of unconscious fear-conditioned visual stimuli on eye movements

Efficient threat detection from the environment is critical for survival. Accordingly, fear-conditioned stimuli receive prioritized processing and capture overt and covert attention. However, it is unknown whether eye movements are influenced by unconscious fear-conditioned stimuli. We performed a classical fear-conditioning procedure and subsequently recorded participants’ eye movements while they were exposed to fear-conditioned stimuli that were rendered invisible using interocular suppression. Chance-level performance in a forced-choice-task demonstrated unawareness of the stimuli. Differential skin conductance responses and a change in participants’ fearfulness ratings of the stimuli indicated the effectiveness of conditioning. However, eye movements were not biased towards the fear-conditioned stimulus. Preliminary evidence suggests a relation between the strength of conditioning and the saccadic bias to the fear-conditioned stimulus. Our findings provide no strong evidence for a saccadic bias towards unconscious fear-conditioned stimuli but tentative evidence suggests that such an effect may depend on the strength of the conditioned response.     

Effects of eye movements on the recognition and localization of dichotic stimuli

Three experiments examined the effect of gaze shifts on overall performance and ear differences in dichotic listening. In the first two experiments, lights were switched on and off so as to induce rightward, leftward, or upward gaze during dichotic stimulation. The dichotic material consisted of musical passages in Experiment 1 and two kinds of verbal material in Experiment 2. Vertical eye movements enhanced the accuracy of identification of music but not verbal material. The lateral direction of eye movements affected subjects' ability to localize targets in Experiment 1: localization was more accurate in the direction toward which subjects were looking. In the third experiment it was found that optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) influenced the asymmetry of performance on a dichotic consonant-vowel (CV) test. The right-ear advantage was greatest when the OKN drum rotated from left to right and least when it rotated from right to left. The effect was due to corresponding variation in left-ear scores. Possible mechanisms through which shifts of gaze affect auditory identification and localization are proposed.     

Using eye movements during reading as an implicit measure of the acceptability of brand extensions

We apply eye movement monitoring techniques to examine how acceptable consumers find different brand extensions. Participants were presented with sentences (e.g. I wanted to record a song on Polaroid, but it cost too much.) which could only be fully understood if they made an inference that was based on extending the meaning associated with the brand name. By building on work on the processing of metonymic expressions (Frisson & Pickering, 1999) we predict that plausible brand extensions will cause little difficulty during initial reading, but that implausible extensions will cause immediate disruption. Analyses of the eye‐tracking data confirmed these predictions. Plausible extensions led to minor reading difficulty during late processing of the sentence, which we interpret in terms of the construction of a new interpretation associated with the brand. Implausible extensions, in contrast, caused immediate disruption, which we interpret in terms of the difficulty of providing a coherent interpretation for the term. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship of hemispheric preference,as measured by conjugate lateral eye movements,to accuracy of emotional facial expression

This study investigated the relationship between hemispheric preference and communication accuracy of facial affect. Hemispheric preference was determined by rating conjugate lateral eye movements. Forty right-handed females were classified: 10 right-movers (left hemisphere preference), 15 left-movers (right hemisphere preference), and 15 bidirectionals (no hemispheric preference). Subjects were shown emotionally loaded slides portraying happiness, fear, and disgust and their videotaped facial expressions were independently rated for accuracy. It was predicted that negative emotions involved right hemisphere activity and negative affect involved left hemisphere activity. As expected, it was found that left-movers were significantly better than right-movers at nonverbally communicating disgust and fear; hemispheric preference was unrelated to expression of happiness. The accuracy scores of the bidirectionals generally fell in between those of the left-movers and those of the right-movers. The results were discussed in reference to the differential lateralization of positive and negative emotions.This study was conducted as a senior research project by the first author under the supervision of the second author.     

Dispositional optimism as a buffer against emotional reactivity to daily stressors: A daily diary approach

The current research examined if dispositional optimism buffers against the negative influences of daily stressors on affective experiences, using a daily diary study of two large and nationally-drawn samples of American adults (N = 2,349). Optimism, exposure to daily stressors, and daily positive and negative affect were assessed over eight days. Multilevel modelling revealed that optimism significantly attenuated the associations between daily stressor exposure and negative affect reactivity even after controlling for demographic factors, subjective physical health, and socioeconomic status. However, in a similar analysis, the inclusion of socioeconomic variables fully accounted for the moderating effect of optimism on stress and positive affect reactivity. The findings suggest distinct processes that are involved in how optimism reduces daily stress reactivity.     

Effects of worry on physiological and subjective reactivity to emotional stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder and nonanxious control participants

The present study examined the effect of worry versus relaxation and neutral thought activity on both physiological and subjective responding to positive and negative emotional stimuli. Thirty-eight participants with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 35 nonanxious control participants were randomly assigned to engage in worry, relaxation, or neutral inductions prior to sequential exposure to each of four emotion-inducing film clips. The clips were designed to elicit fear, sadness, happiness, and calm emotions. Self reported negative and positive affect was assessed following each induction and exposure, and vagal activity was measured throughout. Results indicate that worry (vs. relaxation) led to reduced vagal tone for the GAD group, as well as higher negative affect levels for both groups. Additionally, prior worry resulted in less physiological and subjective responding to the fearful film clip, and reduced negative affect in response to the sad clip. This suggests that worry may facilitate avoidance of processing negative emotions by way of preventing a negative emotional contrast. Implications for the role of worry in emotion avoidance are discussed.     

A scale to measure Bowen's concept of emotional cutoff

This paper describes the Emotional Cut-off Scale (ECS), an instrument designed to measure Bowen's concept of emotional cutoff. The development of the scale and psychometric data from its use in three later studies are presented. The concept of emotional cut-off is critical to Bowen's broader theory. It is hoped that the ECS will allow researchers to begin to empirically examine propositions derived from Bowen's theory.     

A note on Tryon's measure of reliability

Two alternative formulas, based upon the analysis of variance, are given for Tryon's general form for the reliability coefficient.     

The eyes know what you are thinking: eye movements as an objective measure of mind wandering

Paralleling the recent work by Reichle, Reineberg, and Schooler (2010), we explore the use of eye movements as an objective measure of mind wandering while participants performed a reading task. Participants were placed in a self-classified probe-caught mind wandering paradigm while their eye movements were recorded. They were randomly probed every 2–3 min and were required to indicate whether their mind had been wandering. The results show that eye movements were generally less complex when participants reported mind wandering episodes, with both duration and frequency of within-word regressions, for example, becoming significantly reduced. This is consistent with the theoretical claim that the cognitive processes that normally influence eye movements to enhance semantic processing during reading exert less control during mind wandering episodes.     

Horizontal eye movements foster approach to negative pictures but do not change emotional valence: A dopaminergic regulation hypothesis

A new dopaminergic regulation hypothesis is proposed based on two experiments exploring eye-movement effects. In the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Saccade-Induced Retrieval Enhancement (SIRE) domains, eye-movement mechanisms are mainly studied with explicit measures. Here implicit and explicit measures of emotion and memory for positive and negative pictures were investigated after eye movements or fixation in extreme right-handers. Eye movements enhanced explicit recognition predominantly for negative pictures. The absence of implicit repetition priming in both experiments supported a dissociation between implicit and explicit memory. Motivational eye-movement effects emerged but implicit and explicit affect remained unchanged. Experiment 2 revealed, after initial freezing to negative pictures, an acceleration, particularly of approach responses. Eye movements are postulated to foster approach towards negative memories, and promote, though dopaminergic pathways from the Superior Colliculus, enhanced explicit memory and active emotion regulation, primarily in persons with a collateralization of eye and dopamine dominance.