Anxiety-related bias in the classification of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions

High- and low-trait socially anxious individuals classified the emotional expressions of photographic quality continua of interpolated ("morphed") facial images that were derived from combining 6 basic prototype emotional expressions to various degrees, with the 2 adjacent emotions arranged in an emotion hexagon. When fear was 1 of the 2 component emotions, the high-trait group displayed enhanced sensitivity for fear. In a 2nd experiment where a mood manipulation was incorporated, again, the high-trait group exhibited enhanced sensitivity for fear. The low-trait group was sensitive for happiness in the control condition. The mood-manipulated group had increased sensitivity for anger expressions, and trait anxiety did not moderate these effects. Interpretations of the results related to the classification of fearful expressions are discussed.     

Neural mechanisms of affective interference in schizotypy

Negatively valenced stimuli foster cognitive impairment in schizotypy and schizophrenia. To identify relevant brain mechanisms, the authors had 16 positive-schizotypy and 16 control participants perform an emotional Stroop task, judging the ink color of negative and neutral words during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of regional brain activity. Schizotypy individuals showed increased right and decreased left activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, indicating a deficit in maintenance of attentional set in the presence of negative emotional distractors. They also showed abnormal activity in ventral limbic areas, including decreased activity in nucleus accumbens and increased activity in hippocampus and amygdala, a circuit involved in the integration of cognitive and affective processes. These results indicate that aspects of emotion-cognition processes and the brain mechanisms that implement them are similar in schizotypy and schizophrenia.     

Laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity

Previous research and theory have conceptualized impulsivity as a multifaceted construct that requires multiple modes of measurement for accurate assessment. This article describes a software package that includes four paradigms for measuring multiple and unique aspects of impulsivity. Specifically, four tasks are described: (1) the two choice impulsivity paradigm, (2) the single key impulsivity paradigm, (3) the GoStop impulsivity paradigm, and (4) the time paradigm. These tasks measure processes related to the capacity to tolerate delay for reward, to inhibit an already initiated response, and to estimate the passage of time. These processes have been found to be important to the understanding of impulsive behaviors. The programs are flexible and allow the experimenter to manipulate a number of parameters related to delay-reward contingencies, timing, performance feedback/payment, and data output variables. Manipulation of these parameters makes the paradigms scalable to a wide range of ability levels and appropriate for samples ranging from children to adults. The four paradigms in this software package are available at no cost and can be obtained by contacting the corresponding author.     

The Relation Between Coordinated Interpersonal Timing and Maternal Sensitivity in Four-Month-Old Infants

The relation between mother–infant coordinated interpersonal timing, an automated microanalytic measure of dyadic vocal coordination, and maternal sensitivity was explored. Thirty-five mothers and their developmentally normal 4-month-old infants were audio-recorded during a 20-min laboratory vocal interaction session, that was later analyzed for degree of vocal coordination. Maternal Sensitivity ratings (Ainsworth & Bell, 1969) were based on a video-taped 45-min unstructured laboratory interaction period. A significant curvilinear relation between the degree to which mother coordinated her noninterruptive co-occurring speech to that of her infant was found and revealed that mothers highest in sensitivity were characterized by moderate levels of coordination. Examining mother-infant interaction at the specific behavioral level, while incorporating tests of nonlinear trends, may provide important information about the nature of sensitive parenting.     

Euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the philosophical anthropology of Karol Wojtyla.

The lack of consensus in American society regarding the permissibility of assisted suicide and euthanasia is due in large part to a failure to address the nature of the human person involved in the ethical act itself. For Karol Wojtyla, philosopher and Pope, ethical action finds meaning only in an authentic understanding of the person; but it is through acting (actus humanus) alone that the human person reveals himself. Knowing what the person ought to be cannot be divorced from what he ought to do; for Wojtyla, the structure of the ethical "do"--the act itself--comes first. The current paper will focus on four arguments used to justify assisted suicide and euthanasia: (1) the argument from autonomy, (2) the argument from compassion, (3) the argument from the evil of suffering, and (4) the argument from the loss of dignity. It will seek to answer each claim from the perspective of Karol Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. Much of this will come from his defining work in pure philosophy, The Acting Person (1969). The final part of the paper will suggest some positive solutions to the stalemate over the euthanasia debate, again drawn from Wojtyla's idea of human fufillment through participation with the other, and with the community itself.