MATERNAL SENSITIVITY AND LATENCY TO POSITIVE EMOTION FOLLOWING CHALLENGE: PATHWAYS THROUGH EFFORTFUL CONTROL

The ability to self‐generate positive emotions is an important component of emotion regulation. In this study, we focus on children's latency to express positive emotions following challenging situations and assess whether this ability operates through early maternal sensitivity and children's effortful control. Longitudinal relations between maternal sensitivity, infant negative affect, effortful control, and latency to positive emotion following challenge were examined in 156 children who were 33 months of age. Structural equation models supported the hypothesis that maternal sensitivity during infancy predicted better effortful control and, in turn, shorter latencies to positive emotions following challenge at 33 months. Directions for future research are discussed.     

Successive teacher expectation effects across the early school years

The capacity for teacher expectation effects to interact and compound across a child's schooling offers a largely untested mechanism for magnifying or minimizing effects. This study examined four types of long-term teacher expectation effects: within-year effects of single teachers, cross-year effects of single teachers, mediated effects of single and multiple teachers, and compounded effects of multiple teachers. Participants were 110 students tracked from preschool through Grade 4 on measures of achievement and teacher expectations. Evidence was found for within-year but not direct cross-year effects. However, path models demonstrated enduring indirect effects of teacher expectations on cross-year achievement. Multiple years of teacher expectation effects were additive in predicting student achievement at fourth grade, with similar effects for teachers' over- and underestimates of student ability. The study extends understanding of longer-term teacher expectation effects.     

The Impact of Early Life Stress on the Neurodevelopment of the Stress Response System

The focus of this article is on the impact of early life stress on the neurodevelopment of the stress response mechanisms of the brain. The functioning of the stress response system and mechanisms of neurodevelopmental change are described. The theoretical and clinical implications of the reviewed literature are discussed.     

Implementation Intentions Improve Prospective Memory and Inhibition Performances in Older Adults: The Role of Visualization

Implementation intentions have been shown to be a very effective strategy in improving prospective memory in older adults. However, their efficacy in improving inhibition has never been assessed in aging. We thus examined the efficacy of implementation intentions in a prospective memory task and an inhibition task in 87 older participants. Following a crossover design, half of the participants were instructed to form an implementation intention in the prospective memory task, the other half in the inhibition task. The moderating role of working memory, visualization and verbalization habits, and impulsivity were also assessed. Regression analyses revealed that for both tasks, participants benefited from implementation intentions but only if they were used to using visual strategies in daily life. The efficacy of implementation intentions was not moderated by working memory, impulsivity, or the use of verbal strategies in everyday life. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The scene and the unseen: Manipulating photographs for experiments on change blindness and scene memory

The change blindness paradigm, in which participants often fail to notice substantial changes in a scene, is a popular tool for studying scene perception, visual memory, and the link between awareness and attention. Some of the most striking and popular examples of change blindness have been demonstrated with digital photographs of natural scenes; in most studies, however, much simpler displays, such as abstract stimuli or “free-floating” objects, are typically used. Although simple displays have undeniable advantages, natural scenes remain a very useful and attractive stimulus for change blindness research. To assist researchers interested in using natural-scene stimuli in change blindness experiments, we provide here a step-by-step tutorial on how to produce changes in natural-scene images with a freely available image-processing tool (GIMP). We explain how changes in a scene can be made by deleting objects or relocating them within the scene or by changing the color of an object, in just a few simple steps. We also explain how the physical properties of such changes can be analyzed using GIMP and MATLAB (a high-level scientific programming tool). Finally, we present an experiment confirming that scenes manipulated according to our guidelines are effective in inducing change blindness and demonstrating the relationship between change blindness and the physical properties of the change and inter-individual differences in performance measures. We expect that this tutorial will be useful for researchers interested in studying the mechanisms of change blindness, attention, or visual memory using natural scenes.     

Neuronal correlates of three attentional strategies during affective picture processing: an fMRI study

This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study directly compared the neurocircuitry involved in three different attentional strategies during affective picture processing. We exposed 40 participants (20 men, 20 women) to images depicting dental treatment, as well as neutral scenes. They were asked to do one of three tasks while watching the same pictures: directing their attention toward a foreground object within the picture (distraction), classifying whether the image showed dental treatment, or deciding whether the scene elicited fear of pain (introspection). The participants performed the distraction and classification task with high accuracy and rated only 11 % of the dental treatment pictures as pain relevant. Introspection was associated with increased activation of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), relative to the two other conditions. Since the dental, relative to the neutral, pictures elicited enhanced DMPFC activation across all conditions, this underlines the role of this brain region for the assignment, as well as self-reference, of affective meaning. Moreover, self-reported dental anxiety was positively correlated with activation of a pain modulatory network (DMPFC, basal ganglia) when the participants focused on the pain relevance of the dental treatment cues. For future studies, it seems promising to study a high-anxious group or even patients afflicted with dental phobia.     

Changes in Specialists’ Perspectives on Cancer Genetic Testing,Prophylactic Surgery and Insurance Discrimination: Then and Now

We surveyed cancer genetics specialists in 1998 to learn what they would do if at 50 % risk to carry a BRCA or Lynch syndrome mutation. We chose to repeat our study 14 years later, to examine how perspectives have changed with the extensive data now available. In July 2012 we surveyed the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Cancer Special Interest Group via an internet based survey. We found statistically significant increases in the percentage of specialists who: would undergo BRCA testing (p?=?0.0006), opt for prophylactic bilateral mastectomy (p =0.0001), opt for prophylactic removal of their uterus and ovaries for Lynch syndrome (p =0.0057 and P?=?0.0090, respectively), and bill testing to insurance (p >0.0001). There were also statistically significant decreases in the percentage of participants who would have their colon removed for Lynch syndrome (p?=?0.0002) and use an alias when pursuing testing (p?>?0.0001). Over the past 14 years there has been a major change in perspective amongst cancer genetic specialists regarding genetic testing, prophylactic surgery and insurance discrimination.     

Feeling body dissatisfied after viewing thin-ideal pictures is mediated by self-activation

The present study sought to investigate the influence of self-activation on body and weight satisfaction in restrained and unrestrained eaters, after exposure to thin-ideal images. Restrained eaters (n = 39) and unrestrained eaters (n = 40) were randomly assigned to a self-activation manipulation versus a control manipulation. After the manipulation, all participants were exposed to eight thin-ideal images. Measures of state body and weight satisfaction and of social comparison tendencies were assessed throughout the experiment. Self-activated restrained eaters showed a significant decrease in body and weight satisfaction after exposure to thin-ideal images, compared to restrained eaters who were not self-activated. In unrestrained eaters, the self-activation manipulation did not have any effect on body or weight dissatisfaction. In conclusion, exposure to fashion models only had a negative influence on women's self-evaluations when two conditions were met: (1) the participant was ‘self-activated’ and (2) the participant classified as a restrained eater.     

Attenuating the haptic horizontal—vertical curvature illusion

In a number of experiments, blindfolded subjects traced convex curves whose verticals were equal to their horizontal extent at the base. Overestimation of verticals, as compared with horizontals, was found, indicating the presence of a horizontal-vertical illusion with haptic curves, as well as with visible curves. Experiment 1 showed that the illusion occurred with stimuli in the frontal plane and with stimuli that were flat on the table surface in vision and touch. In the second experiment, the stimuli were rotated, and differences between vision and touch were revealed, with a stronger illusion in touch. The haptic horizontal-vertical illusion was virtually eliminated when the stimuli were bimanually touched using free exploration at the body midline, but a strong illusion was obtained when curves were felt with two index fingers or with a single hand at the midline. Bimanual exploration eliminated the illusion for smaller 2.5- through 10.2-cm stimuli, but a weakened illusion remained for the largest 12.7-cm patterns. The illusion was present when the stimuli were bimanually explored in the left and right hemispace. Thus, the benefits of bimanual exploration derived from the use of the two hands at the body midline combined with free exploration, rather than from bimanual free exploration per se. The results indicate the importance of haptic exploration at the body midline, where the body can serve as a familiar reference metric for size judgments. Alternative interpretations of the results are discussed, including the impact of movement-based heuristics as a causal factor for the illusion. It was suggested that tracing the curve’s peak served to bisect the curve in haptics, because of the change in direction.