The Believer

The author discusses the film The Believer (2001) as illustrative of ambivalence and conflict regarding aggression in the father-son relationship. The biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, a preoccupation of the film's protagonist, is explored in terms of its implications in considering oedipal rivalry themes. Filial conflict regarding the wish to surrender to the father is explored, as are conflicts regarding masculine and feminine identifications. The theme of Jewish self-hatred is discussed.     

Rapid picture presentation and affective engagement

Emotional reactions were assessed to pictorial stimuli presented in a continuous stream at rapid speeds that compromise conceptual memory and the processing of specific picture content. Blocks of unpleasant, neutral, or pleasant pictures were presented at the rate of either three pictures per second or seven pictures per second. Even with rapid presentation rates, startle reflexes, corrugator muscle activity, and skin conductance responses were heightened when viewing unpleasant pictures. These effects were stronger later in the aversive block, suggesting that cumulative exposure increasingly activates the defense system. The findings suggest that, despite conceptual masking inherent in rapid serial visual presentation, affective pictures prompt measurable emotional engagement.     

Early modulation of visual perception by emotional arousal: Evidence from steady-state visual evoked brain potentials

Allocation of processing resources to emotional picture stimuli was examined using steady-state visual evoked brain potentials (ssVEPs). Participants viewed a set of 60 colored affective pictures from the International Affective Picture System, presented in a flickering mode at 10 Hz in order to elicit ssVEPs. Phase and amplitude of the 10-Hz ssVEP were examined for six picture categories: threat and mutilation (unpleasant), families and erotica (pleasant), and household objects and persons (neutral). Self-reported affective arousal and hedonic valence of the picture stimuli were assessed by means of subjective ratings. Viewing affectively arousing (unpleasant and pleasant) pictures was associated with enhanced ssVEP amplitude at parieto-occipital recording sites, as compared with neutral stimuli. Phase information suggested increased coactivation of right occipitotemporal and frontotemporal sources during processing of affectively arousing stimuli. These findings are consistent with reentrant modulation of early visual processing by distributed networks including subcortical and neocortical structures according to a stimulus's motivational relevance.     

Neuropsychological outcome of GPi pallidotomy and GPi or STN deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease

This paper highlights the neuropsychological sequelae of posteroventral pallidotomy (PVP) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and the internal segment of the globus pallidus (GPi) at 3/6 months postoperatively. Results are based on our extensive experience with PVP and our preliminary observations with DBS. Patients with borderline cognitive or psychiatric functioning risk postoperative decompensation. Nonlateralizing attentional and hemisphere-specific impairments of frontostriatal cognitive functions followed unilateral PVP. "Frontal" behavioral dyscontrol was observed in approximately 25% of patients. Three cases of staged bilateral PVP suggest that premorbid factors may predict outcome, although lesion size and location are also critical. Older patients are at risk for significant cognitive and behavioral decline after bilateral STN DBS, while GPi DBS may be safer.     

Fearfulness and Affective Evaluations of Pictures

Subjects high and low in temperamental fearfulness made a speeded decision regarding whether each of a series of affective pictures was unpleasant or pleasant. Fearful subjects made faster decisions on unpleasant pictures than did low fear subjects, whereas no difference was found between low and high fear participants when processing pleasant materials. Reaction time differences as a function of fearfulness were amplified when unpleasant pictures were also high in arousal, suggesting that stimulus intensity is a relevant methodological factor when assessing effects of temperament in cognitive processing. Taken together, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that an anxious or fearful temperament is associated with rapid reactions to unpleasant events.     

Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex

This theoretical model of emotion is based on research using the startle-probe methodology. It explains inconsistencies in probe studies of attention and fear conditioning and provides a new approach to emotional perception, imagery, and memory. Emotions are organized biphasically, as appetitive or aversive (defensive). Reflexes with the same valence as an ongoing emotional state are augmented; mismatched reflexes are inhibited. Thus, the startle response (an aversive reflex) is enhanced during a fear state and is diminished in a pleasant emotional context. This affect-startle effect is not determined by general arousal, simple attention, or probe modality. The effect is found when affects are prompted by pictures or memory images, changes appropriately with aversive conditioning, and may be dependent on right-hemisphere processing. Implications for clinical, neurophysiological, and basic research in emotion are outlined.     

Optimism, self-mastery, and symptoms of depression in women professionals

The construct validity and predictive utility of dispositional optimism were examined in a sample of 192 women professionals. By using covariance structure modeling with latent variables, opotimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985) and self-mastery (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978) were found to be empirically distinct, although substantially correlated, constructs. Furthermore, although optimism and self-mastery were significant and negatively correlated with symptoms of depression, only self-mastery was independently associated with symptom levels. In addition, no evidence was found that optimism and self-mastery interact to influence depressive symptoms. These results suggest that the apparent predictive power of optimism may derive from its substantial overlap with self-mastery. Implications for the assessment and interpretation of optimism and self-mastery are discussed.     

Memory and learning in early Parkinson's disease: evidence for a "frontal lobe syndrome"

Fifteen untreated patients in the earliest stages of Parkinson's disease were compared to fifteen age- and intellectually matched control subjects on a number of memory tasks assessing short- and long-term recall of both meaningful and unrelated material, semantic relations in the organization of memory, priming, and source forgetting, and the ability to form new stimulus-response associations under conditions of maximal task interference. While patients demonstrated considerable evidence of preserved function, impaired performance on a subgroup of tasks was consistent with selective frontostriatal system involvement. These findings are discussed with reference to the underlying pathological processes in Parkinson's disease.     

Fear conditioning, meaning, and belongingness: a selective association analysis

Twenty-three subjects rated the belongingness of pairs of conditionable (photographic slides) and unconditioned (e.g., shock, tone, human scream) stimuli. Forty new subjects were then classically conditioned, using rating-defined high (angry face/scream) and low (landscape/scream) belongingness pairs. Finger-pulse responses to the high-belongingness pairs showed superior acquisition and resistance to extinction. Another 40 subjects were conditioned to compound stimuli: a slide (either landscape or angry face) that was the same over trials, and a yellow or blue background that was the discriminant cue for the unconditioned stimulus (scream). When the angry face (the high-belongingness slide) was the invariant part of the compound, relatively poorer differential pulse-volume and skin-conductance conditioning was observed. Thus, depending on the task, a priori belongingness rendered stimuli selectively conditionable, either enhancing or inhibiting visceral response associations.     

Dissociating Indifferent,Directional, and Extreme Responding in Personality Data: Applying the Three‐Process Model to Self‐ and Observer Reports

Research suggests that respondents vary in their tendency to use the response scale of typical (Likert‐style) questionnaires. We study the nature of the response process by applying a recently introduced item response theory modeling procedure, the three‐process model, to data of self‐ and observer reports of personality traits. The three‐process model captures indifferent, directional, and extreme responding. Substantively, we hypothesize that, and test whether, trait Honesty‐Humility is negatively linked to extreme responding. We applied the three‐process model to personality data of 577 dyads (self‐ and observer reports of the HEXACO Personality Inventory‐Revised; Lee & Ashton, 2006 ) of Dutch and German undergraduate respondents. First, we provide evidence that indifferent, directional, and extreme responding can be separated from each other in personality data through the use of the three‐process model. Second, we show that the various response processes show a pattern of correlations across traits and rating sources which is in line with the idea that indifferent and extreme responding are person‐specific tendencies, whereas directional responding is content‐specific. Third, we report findings supporting the hypothesis that Honesty‐Humility is negatively linked to extreme responding. In Likert‐based personality data, applying the three‐process model can unveil individual differences in the response process.