An imputed dissociation might be an artifact: Further evidence for the generalizability of the observations of Durgin et al. 2010

We recently showed that palm board measures are systematically inaccurate for full-cue surfaces within reach of one's hand, whereas free-hand gestures and reaching actions are quite accurate for such surfaces (Durgin, Hajnal, Li, Tonge, & Stigliani, 2010). Proffitt and Zadra (2010) claim that our demonstration that palm boards are highly inaccurate is irrelevant to interpreting past and present findings concerning dissociations between verbal reports and palm board estimates. In their paper they offer a theoretical representation of the findings of Bhalla and Proffitt (1999) and argue that our analysis is incompatible with their account. We offer here an alternative account of the findings of Bhalla and Proffitt, based on their actual data (which are fully compatible with our original analysis). We further show how our account generalizes to more recent studies that continue (1) to mistakenly describe null statistical effects on (insensitive) palm boards as evidence of a “dissociation” from (more sensitive) verbal measures that show a similar relative magnitude of change and (2) to introduce uncontrolled demand characteristics.     

Category-contingent face adaptation for novel colour categories: Contingent effects are seen only after social or meaningful labelling

A face appears normal when it approximates the average of a population. Consequently, exposure to faces biases perceptions of subsequently viewed faces such that faces similar to those recently seen are perceived as more normal. Simultaneously inducing such aftereffects in opposite directions for two groups of faces indicates somewhat discrete representations for those groups. Here we examine how labelling influences the perception of category in faces differing in colour. We show category-contingent aftereffects following exposure to faces differing in eye spacing (wide versus narrow) for blue versus red faces when such groups are consistently labelled with socially meaningful labels (Extravert versus Introvert; Soldier versus Builder). Category-contingent aftereffects were not seen using identical methodology when labels were not meaningful or were absent. These data suggest that human representations of faces can be rapidly tuned to code for meaningful social categories and that such tuning requires both a label and an associated visual difference. Results highlight the flexibility of the cognitive visual system to discriminate categories even in adulthood.     

Trauma-Focused CBT for Traumatic Grief in Military Children

Although military children are typically as resilient as the general child population, the ongoing conflict has exposed military children to unusual stressors such as repeated deployment, severe injury, or the death of a parent or sibling. U.S. forces have experienced more than 5,600 casualties during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, with growing numbers of suicides among Service members. These deaths have affected thousands of military children. Most bereaved military children experience adaptive grief characterized by deep sadness, longing for the deceased person, and being comforted by positive memories of the deceased. A smaller number of military children develop childhood traumatic grief, characterized by trauma symptoms that interfere with adaptive grieving. Children with traumatic grief get “stuck” on the traumatic aspects of the death such as picturing the imagined or real details of the death; imagining the pain their loved one experienced in the moments before dying; wishing for revenge; and becoming angry at those who do not understand or share the child’s thoughts and feelings about the death. These children avoid reminders of the deceased person. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) is an evidence-based treatment for children with trauma symptoms including those with traumatic grief. TF-CBT may be particularly suitable for military families. This article describes the clinical application of TF-CBT for traumatic grief in military children.     

Job demands,work‐family conflict,and emotional exhaustion in police officers: A longitudinal test of competing theories

We propose and test a comprehensive theory designed to explain seemingly contradictory relations between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and work‐family conflict (WFC) reported in the literature. Using job demands‐resources theory, effort‐recovery theory, and personal resources theory we hypothesized that job demands would spillover to emotional exhaustion as mediated by WFC (causality model), and alternatively that job demands would also spillover to WFC as mediated by emotional exhaustion (reverse causal model). Further, we also hypothesized using loss spiral theory that a more comprehensive model representing reciprocal and cross‐linked effects (causal and reverse causal simultaneously) would best fit the data. The hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal study of 257 Australian (Victorian) frontline police officers at two time points approximately 12 months apart. We used structural equation modelling and found in support of the simultaneous reciprocal effects hypothesis, that the more comprehensive model fitted the data better than either the causality or the reverse causal model. Future research should more comprehensively model the important relationships between job demands, emotional exhaustion, and WFC to reflect their complex interplay. Interventions to reduce work demands arising from work pressure and emotional demands are indicated to prevent conflict at home and emotional exhaustion in police officers.     

Testing pigeon memory in a change detection task

Six pigeons were trained in a change detection task with four colors. They were shown two colored circles on a sample array, followed by a test array with the color of one circle changed. The pigeons learned to choose the changed color and transferred their performance to four unfamiliar colors, suggesting that they had learned a generalized concept of color change. They also transferred performance to test delays several times their 50-msec training delay without prior delay training. The accurate delay performance of several seconds suggests that their change detection was memory based, as opposed to a perceptual attentional capture process. These experiments are the first to show that an animal species (pigeons, in this case) can learn a change detection task identical to ones used to test human memory, thereby providing the possibility of directly comparing short-term memory processing across species.     

Gene knockout of insulin-regulated aminopeptidase: Loss of the specific binding site for angiotensin IV and age-related deficit in spatial memory

The AT₄ ligands, angiotensin IV and LVV-hemorphin 7, elicit robust effects on facilitating memory by binding to a specific site in the brain historically termed the angiotensin AT₄ receptor. The identification of the AT₄ receptor as insulin-regulated aminopeptidase (IRAP) is controversial, with other proteins speculated to be the target(s) of these peptides. In this study we have utilized IRAP knockout mice to investigate IRAP in the brain. We demonstrate that the high-affinity binding site for angiotensin IV is absent in IRAP knockout mice brain sections in parallel with the loss of IRAP immunostaining, providing irrefutable proof that IRAP is the specific high-affinity binding site for AT₄ ligands. However, our characterization of the behavioural phenotype of the IRAP knockout mice revealed a totally unexpected finding. In contrast to the acute effects of IRAP inhibitors in enhancing memory, deletion of the IRAP gene resulted in mice with an accelerated, age-related decline in spatial memory that was only detected in the Y maze paradigm. Moreover, no alterations in behaviour of the IRAP knockout mice were observed that could assist in elucidating the endogenous substrate(s). Our results highlight the importance of analysing the behavioural phenotype of knockout mice across different ages and in distinct memory paradigms.     

Links between sex-related expectations about alcohol, heavy episodic drinking and sexual risk among young men in a shantytown in Lima, Peru

CONTEXT: Alcohol use is frequently identified as a contributor to risky sexual behaviors; however, research results are mixed. Given the conflicting evidence, researchers have focused on other factors, such as expectations about alcohol's effects that might help explain the relationship of alcohol use and risky sexual behaviors. METHODS: Cross-sectional data from 312 sexually experienced males aged 18-30 in a shantytown in Lima, Peru, were used in logistic regression models to identify associations of heavy episodic drinking and sex-related expectations about alcohol with sexual risk behaviors. RESULTS: Heavy episodic drinking was associated with having had two or more sexual partners and having had sex with a casual partner in the past year (odds ratios, 2.8 and 2.5, respectively). After controlling for alcohol consumption, sex-related expectations about alcohol were associated with these high-risk sexual behaviors, as well as with not using a condom at last sex (1.2) and not using a condom at last sex with a casual partner (1.3). CONCLUSION: Beliefs about the effect of alcohol on sexual performance could help explain links between alcohol consumption and risky sexual behavior not completely accounted for by the pharmacological effects of alcohol.     

The roles of aggressive and affiliative behaviors in resource control: A behavioral ecological perspective

Extant literature in developmental psychology has documented the co-occurrence of aggressive and affiliative behaviors with various measures of social dominance. While these findings have been taken as evidence for the functional value of aggression, they have not been integrated into a more general theoretical frame accounting for contextual variation. In this paper the literature on aggression, agonism, affiliation, and social dominance is reviewed in light of behavioral ecological theory suggesting that different forms of competition (scramble and contest) determine, respectively, the use of affiliative and aggressive strategies. Results generally support the hypotheses advanced by this theory. In order to further integrate these findings suggestions for the study sequences of behavior, where reconciliations follow aggression, are made.     

Distressed Mothers and Their Infants Use a Less Efficient Timing Mechanism in Creating Expectancies of Each Other’s Looking Patterns

The prediction of events and the creation of expectancies about their time course is a crucial aspect of an infant's mental life, but temporal mechanisms underlying these predictions are obscure. Scalar timing, in which the ratio of mean durations to their standard deviations is held constant, enables a person to use an estimate of the mean for its standard deviation. It is one efficient mechanism that may facilitate predictability and the creation of expectancies in mother-infant interaction. We illustrate this mechanism with the dyadic gaze rhythm of mother and infant looking at and looking away from each other's faces. Two groups of Hi- and Lo-Distress mothers were created using self-reported depression, anxiety, self-criticism and childhood experiences. Lo-Distress infants (controls) used scalar timing 100% of the time, about double that of Hi-Distress infants. Lo-Distress mothers used scalar timing about nine times as much as Hi-Distress mothers. The diminished use of scalar timing patterns in Hi-Distress mothers and infants may make the anticipation of each other's gaze patterns more difficult for both partners.     

Survey and behavioral measurements of interpersonal trust

Although many studies treat trust as a situational construct, individual differences can be used to study and predict trusting behavior. We report two studies, the first showing the psychometric properties of a new trust inventory (the Propensity to Trust Survey or PTS), the second study validating this inventory using the standard economic task, the Investment Game. The first study utilized online survey data (N > 8000) to show that the PTS scales were reliable and measured broad constructs related to Big Five personality domains. Trust was related to extraversion and negative neuroticism, and trustworthiness was related to agreeableness and conscientiousness. The second study (N = 90) validated the PTS trust scale as a predictor of behavior in the Investment Game. These findings are evidence that trust and trustworthiness are compound personality traits, and that PTS scales are preferable to general Big Five measures for predicting trusting behavior.