The effect of emotional context on cognitive inhibition and attentional processing in dissociative identity disorder

In light of previous research, the current study tested the hypothesis that dissociative identity disorder (DID) would be characterised by effective cognitive inhibitory functioning when tested in a neutral context, but weakened inhibition when tested in an emotionally negative context. Using a negative priming task (i.e. the flanker task) to assess inhibitory ability 11 DID, 11 depressed, and 11 general population participants were tested in the two differing experimental contexts. The contexts were manipulated by instructions and word stimuli, and following the completion of this task participants completed the Dissociative Experiences Scale and the Schizotypal Personality Scale. DID participants displayed a greater degree of self-reported anxiety in the negative context and as expected displayed a reduction in inhibition in this context but not in the neutral context. The degree of negative priming for the depressed and general population samples remained stable across contexts as did their anxiety levels. The DID sample displayed slower response times to negative compared to neutral words but this attentional bias was not evident for the two comparison groups. The relationship between increased arousal, inhibitory functioning, dissociation and information processing in DID is discussed.     

Adult Children of Alcoholics and Psychological Distress

In this study, the author investigated the relationship between parental alcoholism and psychological distress and the mediating effects of social support and hardiness. The sample (N = 228 college students) consisted of n = 62 adult children of alcoholics (ACAs) and n = 166 non-ACAs. Data analysis indicated that parental alcoholism was positively related to psychological distress. Consistent with expectations, higher levels of social support and hardiness were associated with lower levels of psychological distress. No mediating effects of social support and hardiness, however, were found. Implications for current theories and therapeutic approaches that regard ACAs as being at increased risk for psychological distress are discussed.     

视觉观点采择需要抑制控制的参与：一项负启动研究

从抑制控制模型出发,采用负启动范式考察视觉观点采择的认知机制。实验1采用自身体转换任务(N=35) 、实验2采用圆点数量判断任务(N=33)分别考察成人在完成二级和一级视觉观点采择任务时是否需要抑制控制的参与。结果发现,成人在完成两类视觉观点采择任务时均出现了负启动效应,说明当他人观点和自我观点不一致时,个体需要抑制自我的观点才能成功采择他人的观点。     

利用无意识目标启动降低个体的冲动购买行为：个体目标状态的调节作用

冲动购买会给个体和社会带来诸多不良影响,而探讨如何降低冲动购买的研究报道却很少。此外,仅有的少数研究都是从提升自我控制能力的角度来开展,其干预方法具有一定的局限性。本研究从提升自我控制的动机角度出发,考察利用无意识目标启动能否降低冲动购买,并考察其适用条件。研究发现,无意识目标启动可以显著降低有省钱目标个体的冲动购买行为,而对无省钱目标个体的冲动购买行为没有显著影响。本研究结果提示,无意识目标启动有希望成为一种简单、便捷的降低冲动购买行为的有效干预方式,特别是对有省钱目标的个体而言。     

Age-related changes in implicit emotion processing

The aim of the present study was to compare the performance of older and younger adults on an emotional priming task. Moreover, a nonemotional priming paradigm was used as a control task to disentangle age-related changes due to emotional processing difficulties from modifications due to a decline of executive inhibitory control abilities. Twenty-two young and 22 older healthy participants completed an emotional priming task and a nonemotional priming task. In the older adult group, reaction times in the emotional priming paradigm were not influenced by any of the prime conditions, whereas both groups exhibited similar facilitation effects induced by the congruent prime in the nonemotional task. The selective lack of an emotional priming effect in older adults shown in this preliminary report suggests that aging-induced changes in the ability to recognize emotions implicitly are directly dependent on emotional processing difficulties and not due to a general age-related modification of cognitive processes.     

The Relationship Between Cognitive Ability and Positive and Negative Priming in Identity and Spatial Priming Tasks

The authors examined whether stimulus activation and inhibition in the identity priming task are related to the temporal lobe, and whether these processes in the spatial priming task are related to the parietal lobe. Forty participants performed spatial and identity positive and negative priming tasks, the Vandenberg Mental Rotation task, and the Digit Span task. Both men and women showed significant positive and negative priming in the identity and spatial tasks with no gender difference. The magnitude of identity positive priming was predicted by the Digit Span task, and the magnitude of spatial positive priming was predicted by the mental rotation task. Only women showed a correlation between spatial ability and spatial negative priming. The results are partially consistent with the dorsal-ventral model of cognitive inhibition.     

The relationship between cognitive ability and positive and negative priming in identity and spatial priming tasks

The authors examined whether stimulus activation and inhibition in the identity priming task are related to the temporal lobe, and whether these processes in the spatial priming task are related to the parietal lobe. Forty participants performed spatial and identity positive and negative priming tasks, the Vandenberg Mental Rotation task, and the Digit Span task. Both men and women showed significant positive and negative priming in the identity and spatial tasks with no gender difference. The magnitude of identity positive priming was predicted by the Digit Span task, and the magnitude of spatial positive priming was predicted by the mental rotation task. Only women showed a correlation between spatial ability and spatial negative priming. The results are partially consistent with the dorsal-ventral model of cognitive inhibition.     

Working memory and stroop interference: an individual differences investigation

We investigated the claim that individual differences in working-memory capacity reflect limitations on the ability to inhibit task-irrelevant information and/or to maintain activation in the face of distracting or interfering events. Specifically, we investigated whether high- and low-capacity individuals differed in their susceptibility to interference on the Stroop task and whether high-capacity individuals employed a strategy for minimizing Stroop interference. In Experiment 1, we found that high-capacity participants showed substantial interference when conflict trials were infrequent, but almost no interference when conflict trials were frequent. In contrast, low-capacity participants showed substantial interference irrespective of the proportion of conflict trials. In Experiment 2, we found that high-capacity participants experienced substantial negative priming, slow responses when the to-be-named color was the irrelevant word on the previous trial. We discuss these results and their implications for high-capacity individuals' ability to reduce Stroop interference in light of both inhibitory and noninhibitory accounts of negative priming.     

Evidence for attenuated affective processing in obesity

Attenuated affective processing is hypothesized to play a role in the development and maintenance of obesity. Using an affective priming task measuring automatic affective processing of verbal stimuli, a group of 30 obese participants in a weight-loss program at the Psychosomatic University Clinic Bonn (M age = 48.3, SD = 10.7) was compared with a group of 25 participants of normal weight (M age = 43.6, SD = 12.5). A smaller affective priming effect was observed for participants with obesity, indicating less pronounced reactions to valenced adjectives. The generally reduced affective processing in obese participants was discussed as a possible factor in the etiology of obesity. Individuals who generally show less pronounced affective reactions to a given stimulus may also react with less negative affect when confronted with weight gain or less positive affect when weight is lost. Consequently, they could be expected to be less motivated to stop overeating or to engage in dieting and will have a higher risk of becoming or staying obese.     

Priming effects of age stereotypes on memory of older adults in Korea

This study examined priming effects of age stereotypes on memory of Korean older adults. Age stereotypes refer to general beliefs about older adults. Through a priming task, older participants were briefly exposed to positive or negative age stereotypes without awareness. Before and after the priming task, free‐recall tasks were given to participants to measure their memory performance. Changes in performance caused by the priming task were estimated as priming effects of age stereotypes. Participants showed better memory performance after they were exposed to positive stereotypes during the priming task (positive priming effects). In contrast, participants showed worse memory performance after they were exposed to negative age stereotypes during the priming task (negative priming effects). The magnitude of priming effects was similar in positive and negative stereotypes. This result suggests that the implicit activation of age stereotypes can change memory of Korean elderly in both positive and negative ways.     

Preservation of implicit memory in adult children of alcoholics

The authors investigated implicit memory in 21 adult children of alcoholics (ACAs) and 24 control individuals (all college undergraduates) who performed a serial reaction time task (SRT) to evaluate their implicit memory performance and their formation of new associations. Each group was presented with 5 blocks of 100 trials per block in which Blocks 1-4 contained a 10-item repeating sequence; Block 5 was a pseudo-random sequence. The latency difference between Block 4 and Block 5 presumably measure implicit memory. The amount of implicit memory did not differ (in ms) between the ACAs (M = 55 ms) and the controls (M = 67 ms). Implicit memory (at least as measured by the SRT task) appears to be preserved in ACAs.     

Negative priming for obsessive-compulsive checkers and noncheckers

Negative priming--the slowing of a response to an item that was recently ignored--was investigated in three groups: obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) checkers, OCD noncheckers, and nonclinical control participants. All groups performed both a standard negative priming task, selecting targets based on a perceptual feature (i.e., color), and a modified negative priming task, selecting targets based on a semantic feature (i.e., referent size). All three groups demonstrated significant negative priming in both tasks, although the negative priming was much larger in the novel, semantic task than in the common, perceptual one. The findings suggest that patients with OCD do not demonstrate impairments in negative priming, contrary to earlier claims (Enright & Beech, 1990, 1993a, 1993b; Enright, Beech, & Claridge, 1995).     

死亡启动影响自我参照记忆的年龄差异

以往研究表明对死亡不可避免性的认识使人类产生死亡焦虑,并且为了降低该焦虑,年轻人倾向于抑制生理自我加工;然而相比年轻人,老年人对死亡的接受程度更高,并且自我抑制能力减弱。因此本研究采用死亡启动范式,探讨了死亡对自我相关记忆的影响以及可能存在的年龄差异。实验一以大学生为被试,结果发现死亡启动后,个体对自我相关信息的再认率显著低于消极启动后;实验二以老年人为被试,结果发现死亡启动后,个体对自我相关信息的再认率与消极启动后无差异。上述结果说明,死亡启动对自我相关记忆的影响存在年龄差异。在大学生中,死亡启动使个体抑制自我相关信息,而在老年人中该抑制效应并不存在。     

Prior cognitive activity implicitly modulates subsequent emotional responses to subliminally presented emotional stimuli

It has been reported that engagement in several kinds of cognitive activity can successfully inhibit unpleasant emotions. In this study, we tried to replicate the previous finding that cognitive activity can modulate subsequent psychological and physiological emotional processes and to investigate whether prior cognitive activity can attenuate implicit emotional processes triggered by subliminal emotional stimuli. Sixty students were randomly divided into three groups (cognitive task group, noncognitive task group, control group). The cognitive task group was asked to engage in an n-back task, while the control group was asked to stay calm. The noncognitive task group was asked to do a handgrip-squeezing task. All participants then engaged in a version of a subliminal affective priming task where they were unconsciously exposed to affectively negative pictures. The cognitive task group showed lower negative experiences after the subliminal affective priming task and a substantial reduction in their heart rate responses, as compared with the other groups. These results provide evidence that engagement in cognitive activity can attenuate emotional processes in an automatic and unconscious manner.     

Aging and the Deletion Function of Inhibition

The present study was adapted from the sentence completion task of Hartman and Hasher (1991). We addressed the question raised by Burke (1997): are the age-related differences in priming effects found in that task better explained by deficits in explicit memory or by inefficient inhibitory mechanisms? In the study phase, older and younger adults read high cloze sentences ending with an expected or an unexpected final word. In the second phase, participants were asked to complete sentence frames with either the final word presented during the study phase (inclusion condition) or with another, new word (exclusion condition). The third phase was an indirect memory test of perceptual identification. Finally, we compared explicit memory for recalled and inhibited words in a recognition test. In perceptual identification by older adults, priming was equivalent for recalled and inhibited words, whereas in younger adults priming was higher for recalled than for inhibited words. In the explicit memory test, recognition scores were lower for inhibited words in both age groups. These results are consistent with the view of Hasher and Zacks (1988), who assume an age-related decline in the ability to suppress no-longer-relevant information     

自我概念对自传体记忆的影响：来自藏族和汉族青少年的比较研究证据

共有136名藏族和139名汉族青少年参与本实验。研究使用指导语启动方法控制自我概念,把被试随机分到独立取向、互依取向和控制组。之后使用线索词技术,对自传体记忆进行测量,考察自我概念启动对自传体记忆的影响。结果表明,自我概念启动对藏族和汉族青少年的自传体记忆内容描述的自主取向产生了启动效应。自我概念启动对于藏族被试自传体记忆社会事件报告的影响较弱。藏族青少年的自传体记忆与自我概念存在一定程度的分离现象,其自传体记忆的社会性可能更多受到个体的文化建构影响,一定意义上表明自我概念和自传体记忆的联系具有文化差异性。     

Further considerations regarding inhibitory processes, working memory, and cognitive aging

The present study explored the relationship between inhibitory processing (as indexed by identity negative priming in a letter-naming task), working memory, discourse processing, and cognitive aging effects. Consistent with several other recent reports, this study found evidence of intact inhibitory processing, as measured by negative priming, in older adults as well as younger adults. This intact negative priming occurred in conjunction with diminished working memory span and impaired memory in the discourse processing task in the same sample of older adults, further arguing against the likelihood that declines in these areas are caused by impairments in the inhibitory processes measured by negative priming. The implications of these results for theories of cognitive aging and possible reasons for inconsistent findings regarding negative priming effects among the elderly are discussed.     

抑郁症状中学生自我相关生活事件的回忆、再认和启动效应特点

采用Tversky的实验设计,对非抑郁和抑郁症状中学生的回忆、再认和启动效应进行了探讨。实验发现,抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工存在负性回忆、负性再认、负性启动和负性加工偏向;抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工的回忆具有情境一致性;对再认材料的不同加工深度影响抑郁症状中学生自我相关生活事件信息加工的再认;抑郁症状中学生对自我相关生活事件信息加工的负性启动主要是由于对负性条目、中性条目的负性偏向加工引起     

创造性思维能力高、低大学生特性负启动效应的实验研究

本研究采用问卷法筛选出创造性思维能力高、低大学生作为被试,利用负启动实验范式考察两组大学生特性负启动效应的异同,探讨汉字特性负启动效应与创造性思维的关系。结果发现：低创造性思维能力组大学生具有显著的特性负启动效应,而高创造性思维能力组大学生则没有产生明显的特性负启动效应。     

Relationship of Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory Subscales with Negative Priming

The relationship between the 4 subscales (Checking, Cleaning, Doubting, Slowness) and total score of the Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory (MOCI) and performance in a negative-priming task and a response-speed task in 102 undergraduates was examined. Only Cleaning subscale performance correlated with magnitude of negative priming. Performance on the Checking, Slowing, and Doubting subscales was not significantly related to the magnitude of negative priming. The not significant correlation between Checking score and negative priming magnitude supports the findings of Maki, O'Neill, and O'Neill (1994), who observed that compulsive checking (of, e.g., whether the stove is turned off) appeared to be unrelated to deficiencies in inhibitory control. The present results are not, however, consistent with the view that obsessive-compulsive characteristics (as measured by the MOCI) result in a disruption in and a reduction of inhibitory control (Enright & Beech, 1993).