Memory bias for faces that are perceived as hostile by crime victims with acute post-traumatic stress disorder

The present study tested, and found support for, the hypotheses that crime victims with acute post-traumatic stress disorder have: (i) a general memory impairment for faces; and (ii) a memory bias for faces that they perceive as hostile, even when these faces are not arranged to show any hostile face expressions. It is suggested that crime victims with acute post-traumatic stress disorder perform worse on recognition memory due to impaired concentration, and that they allocate their limited attentional resources to the detection of hostility in others in order to avoid being victimized again. This produces a memory bias for perceived hostility even in relatively innocuous everyday interactions with others, which contributes to maintaining the sense of serious current threat that characterizes post-traumatic stress disorder.     

Long-term, non-specific spinal pain: reliable and valid subgroups of patients

The aim of this study was to identify reliable and valid subgroups of spinal pain patients, using data from the Swedish version of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI-S). A second aim was to test the generalisability of the three patient profiles described in earlier studies on the MPI ("adaptive coper", "dysfunctional" and "interpersonally distressed" patients). The study base consisted of two samples of individuals suffering from long-term, non-specific spinal pain and the results were validated across these samples. Cluster analysis was used to detect distinct groups of patients and the validity of these subgroups was evaluated on variables not used to generate the cluster solution. One subgroup was characterised by lower pain severity, lower interference with everyday activities, lower affective distress and higher life control than the other two subgroups. This patient profile was similar to the MPI adaptive coper patients. A second subgroup resembled the dysfunctional patient profile, thus displaying a worse adjustment to chronic pain than the AC patients. The third patient group reported significantly lower levels of social support from "significant others" than the other subgroups. This patient profile was similar to that of the interpersonally distressed patient group. Taken together, the results support the reliability, validity and generalisability of three subgroups of chronic pain patients derived from the MPI-S.     

Visual perspective taking for avatars in a Simon task

In modern digital applications, users often interact with virtual representations of themselves or others, called avatars. We examined how these avatars and their perspectives influence stimulus–response compatibility in a Simon task. Participants responded to light/dark blue stimuli with left/right key presses in the presence of a task-irrelevant avatar. Changes in stimulus–response compatibility were used to quantify changes in the mental representation of the task and perspective taking toward this avatar. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that perspective taking for an avatar occurred in orthogonal stimulus–response mappings, causing a compatibility effect from the avatar’s point of view. In the following two experiments we introduced a larger variety of angular disparities between the participant and avatar. In Experiment 3, the Simon effect with lateralized stimulus positions remained largely unaffected by the avatar, pointing toward an absence of perspective taking. In Experiment 4, after avatar hand movements were added in order to strengthen the participants’ sense of agency over the avatar, a spatial compatibility effect from the avatar’s perspective was observed again, and hints of the selective use of perspective taking on a trial-by-trial basis were found. Overall, the results indicate that users can incorporate the perspective of an avatar into their mental representation of a situation, even when this perspective is unnecessary to complete a task, but that certain contextual requirements have to be met.     

Refutation of Poffenberger's inference: an existence proof and a countermodel

Interhemispheric relay time (IHRT) is inferred from simple (visual) reaction time (SRT) by subtracting SRTs in ipsilateral hand-field conditions from SRTs in contralateral hand-field conditions. This index, the "crossed-uncrossed differential" (CUD) is a synonym of IHRT in the current literature. The CUD has been shown to be significantly moderated by experimental variables, including attentional. One reason the CUD = IHRT hypostasy persists today is that no experimental manipulation has yet been able to generate a significantly negative CUD in a subject manifesting a significant positive CUD in classical conditions. We implemented an experimental manipulation, in SRT, consisting of increasing complexity of the response after the initial key press required at detection. In a very large scale single-case experiment, we found that the CUD thus went from significantly positive in classical SRT to significantly negative in the increased response load condition.     

Learning to ignore the mask in texture segmentation tasks

Although traditionally texture segmentation has been regarded as an automatic, preattentive process, participants confronted with texture segmentation in experimental settings (i.e., with brief presentation time and subsequent masking) are initially unable to perform the task. According to perceptual learning concepts, participants must learn to fine-tune their sensory channels before perception improves under restricted viewing conditions. The present article proposes an alternative perspective that emphasizes the role of the mask. Four experiments showed that the amount of observed learning depends on the structural and temporal homogeneity or heterogeneity of the mask. The authors suggest that learning consists of separating the task-relevant signal stemming from the texture from the task-irrelevant signal of the mask and of ignoring the mask.     

Persönlichkeitsfragebögen

The influence of defensivity, measured by validity scales of personality inventories (MMPI-K, FPI-R, GIESSEN-Test) on test results and psychotherapy outcome was studied in 309 patients treated with inpatient client-centered therapy. In general, psychotherapy patients exhibited low defensivity. 25% of patients, who denied psychopathology at admission, did so at discharge and to some extent at follow-up, demonstrating an ”especially good outcome” (means). Relative improvement (effect sizes), however, was significantly diminished in psychopathology scales and significantly enlarged in validity scales. – Results are discussed with regard to prior hypotheses about the influence of defensivity.     

Idioventricular low frequency oscillation in QT interval responds univocally to RR confusing kinds of mental stress

Seventeen male subjects, aged nineteen to twenty, went through a protocol including, while supine, relaxation at rest (10 min) and mental stress (MS) by a Kraepelin (arithmetic) test (5 min), as part of a larger study. With a polygraphic analog recording set-up we also collected a 1 ms - digital facsimile of a lead II-like thoracic ECG with maximum T-wave (Codas, Dataq Instr). Twenty-three stress responses were assigned to three classes according to known cardiotacho-, plethysmo-, and pneumo-graphic marks of “concentrated attention mainly,” “emotion,” or still “high emotion.” During each setting the most stationary 3 min RR epoch in cardiotachogram was selected for joint RR & QT beat-by-beat variability study. RR and QT intervals were detected using a published algorithm. Conventional RR and QT Fourier autospectra were computed while using RR^*QT mean square coherence spectrum we detached the RR-independent, idioventricular (IV) fraction of QT low frequency (LF: 0.04–0.15 Hz) power of variability (IV QT-LF). IV QT-LF responded consistently to varieties of mental stress that confuse RR-LF or let QT-LF unchanged, best witnessing the cortically-issued ventricular adrenergic strain. Indeed, while emotion propels the same way all spectral variables above, concentrated attention increased (Wilcoxon) significantly IV QT-LF only (0.54–0.80 ms²) and decreased RR-LF (715–465 ms²). Findings hold promise of a non-invasive, high resolution Holter based monitoring of sympathetic status of myocardium, robust vis-à-vis of confusion caused by the autonomic interplay at sino-atrial node.     

Vienna Indeterminism: Mach,Boltzmann, Exner

The present paper studies a specific way of addressing the question whether the laws involving the basic constituents of nature are statistical. While most German physicists, above all Planck, treated the issues of determinism and causality within a Kantian framework, the tradition which I call Vienna Indeterminism began from Mach’s reinterpretation of causality as functional dependence. This severed the bond between causality and realism because one could no longer avail oneself of a priori categories as a criterion for empirical reality. Hence, an independent reality criterion had to be sought, a problem which all three physicists to be studied solved in different ways that were mainly conditioned by their different concepts of probability. In order to prevent a dissipation of intuited facts, Mach had to resort to a principle of unique determination as his reality criterion, especially when discussing the Principle of Least Action. Giving theories more independence, Boltzmann understood atomism as property reduction to precisely defined theoretical entities and their interactions. While this served as a relative reality criterion, he also advocated a constructivist one because atomism was already implied by our finitary reasoning power. Finally, Exner contemplated the idea that all apparently deterministic laws are only a macroscopic limit of an irreducible indeterminism, because by adopting the frequency interpretation, observable collectives could be considered as the real basic entities. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Scientific Writing Between Tabloid Storytelling,Arcane Formulaic Hermetism,and Narrative Knowledge

The present discussion contribution argues that O. Müller not only suppresses Goethe’s declared intentions with regard to the latter’s Theory of Colors and ignores his place in what in any case is a different scientific culture than his (Müller’s) own or Newton’s, namely a premodern culture of “narrative knowledge” in the sense specified by Lyotard. Moreover, Müller entangles himself in the paradox of wanting on the one hand to back up Goethe on the level of fact when the latter opposes the militant selfrighteousness of the Newtonian school, but doing so on the other hand by constructing an epic-heroic narrative of Newtonian militance, not to say eristic belligerence contradictory to Goethe’s own “tolerant enlightenment” in Lakatos’ sense. Thus, we are confronted with one of those cases where, as Paul de Man puts it, a multidimensional critical reading on the semiological as well as rhetorical levels shows “that the text does not practice what it preaches” (1979, 5).