Emotional expressivity and sex-role perceptions of repressors and sensitizers

Two studies were conducted examining the contributions of repression-sensitization (R-S) status, sex-role perceptions, and sex of the target of expressivity to assess the expression of emotional discomfort by males, in Experiment I verbal and nonverbal measures of emotional expressiveness were obtained for male repressors and sensitizers exposed to neutral or moderately negative arousal situations with sex of the target of the expressiveness controlled. In Experiment 2 repressors were found to be sex-typed masculine and male sensitizers sex-reversed in their sex-role perceptions. The usefulness of R-S status and sex, role perceptions to predicting emotional expressivity by males is discussed.     

Changes in perceived contrast,reaction time,and pattern-specific evoked potentials due to stimulus duration

Using patterned stimulation without luminance change, the authors manipulated the stimulus duration and measured three variables: the magnitude of contrast experience, simple reaction time, and the amplitude of pattern-specific visual evoked potentials. While contrast experience, measured by the scaling method, indicated no saturation below 85 msec, the other two variables saturated below 40 msec. The lower saturation value of the pattern-specific evoked potential is considered as the limit of the correlation between psychophysical measures and brain electric activity. This suprathreshold divergence can be seen as evidence that processes underlying the pattern-specific visual evoked potential components cannot be considered as mechanisms mediating subjective experience of spatial contrast.     

The relationship between latency of auditory evoked potentials,simple reaction time,and stimulus intensity

Summary The effects of loudness on the latency of evoked potentials and on simple reaction time were compared. It was found that both reaction time and the evoked-potential latency increases with decreasing stimulus intensity. However, different slopes of the curves were found. This is explained in terms of the arousal effect of loud auditory stimuli.     

Prediction and unconscious attention operate synergistically to facilitate stimulus processing: An fMRI study

There is considerable evidence that prediction and attention aid perception. However, little is known about the possible neural mechanisms underlying the impact of prediction and unconscious attention on perception, probably due to the relative neglect of unconscious attention in scholarly literature. Here, we addressed this issue using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We adopted a variant of the double-cue paradigm, in which prediction and attention were factorially manipulated by two separate cues (prediction and attention cues). To manipulate consciousness, the attention cues were presented subliminally and supraliminally. Behaviorally, we reported an unconscious-attended effect in the predictable trials and a conscious-attended effect in the unpredictable trials. On the neural level, it was shown that prediction and unconscious attention interacted in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). More specifically, there was a significantly decreased activation in dlPFC for predictable relative to unpredictable stimuli in the unconscious-attended trials, but not in the unconscious-unattended trials. This result suggests that prediction and unconscious attention operate synergistically to facilitate stimulus processing. This is further corroborated by the subsequent functional connectivity analysis, which revealed increased functional connectivity between the left dlPFC and the premotor cortex for predictable versus unpredictable stimuli in the unconscious-attended trials.     

Sequential modulations of interference evoked by processing task-irrelevant stimulus features

Compatibility level repetition benefits in interference paradigms have been taken to reflect enhanced processing selectivity in response to cognitive conflict elicited by a task-irrelevant stimulus feature. The authors demonstrate such sequential effects in the Simon task which (a) occur independent of previous behavioral conflict effects and (b) cannot be accounted for by selectivity enhancement. Furthermore, when presenting more than one type of irrelevant stimulus features, compatibility level repetition effects occurred in a type-specific manner. The results do not support the notion that cognitive conflict results in enhanced processing selectivity and favor a feature integration account.     

The square search test in connection with acoustic evoked brain stem potentials

A random sample of 15 patients suffering from multiple sclerosis without acute episodes and at least partially able to work, shows to a high degree of statistical certainty that reduction in amplitude of acoustically evoked brain stem potentials (BAEP) is closely linked with beta-weighted performance value of the square search test (QSP).     

Effect of stimulus frequency on the latency of acoustically evoked brain stem potentials in children

Acoustically evoked brain stem potentials (HSP) are employed as an additional neurological investigation in child patients. A standardisation of the conditions of derivation would be desirable for the application of the method. In a pilot study, the influence of the excitation frequency on the latency of the HSP of 25 organically and neurologically healthy children was studied. Results show that absolute latencies are prolonged by increase of stimulus frequency, with the peripheral, cochleo-encephalic, and central traveling times remaining virtually unaffected.