Rapid reacquisition of fear to a completely extinguished context is replaced by transient impairment with additional extinction training

A series of experiments studied reacquisition of fear reactions to a completely extinguished context. Reacquisition was rapid when reconditioning occurred as soon as the fear reactions were completely extinguished, showing that the original conditioning was intact. However, when reconditioning occurred after massive extinction training, fear reactions were depressed but then recovered across a long retention interval. This recovery was due to reconditioning and was similar to that produced by conditioning a massively preexposed context. These results show that massive extinction converts a potentially dangerous context into one that is merely familiar.     

Cognitive style and learning: performance of adaptors and innovators in a novel dynamic task

The influence of cognitive style on performance in a novel dynamic task modelled on the task of controlling air traffic was investigated. It was hypothesized that participants who preferred a more adaptive cognitive style would maintain better rule adherence and safe distances between aircraft in a low‐fidelity air traffic control task than those who preferred a more innovative style. Problems were presented to participants using computer‐based scenarios in screening, practice, and experimental trials. Performance was measured by the number of times the participant violated two types of scenario rules. Screening, practice, and experimental performance were analysed separately. Cognitive style had a significant effect on performance only during experimental trials. Performance of individuals who preferred a more adaptive style improved across experimental trials while those preferring a more innovative style did not. Results suggest that the more innovative participants, although perhaps having some initial advantage, may not be able to sustain performance in this type of task. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the Strategic Weighting of Spectral Information in Consonant Identification

When identifying speech sounds, do listeners direct attention specifically to those frequency regions in which distinctive phonetic information is located? Scharf, Dai, and Miller (1988) concluded that they do, based on an experiment that involved listeners identifying the members of a pair of voiced stop consonants differing primarily in their third-formant transitions. Adding extra contrastive acoustic energy to the third-formant region of one of the consonants enhanced performance more than did adding energy to a region where the consonants were otherwise identical. The present experiments extended this paradigm to reveal evidence of an interaction between the frequency region in which extra distinctive energy was added and the class of consonant to which it was added. The results were more consistent with an account in terms of the effects of added energy on phonetic identity than one based on spectral selective attention.     

Attributional style in depression: a meta-analytic review

In this article we report meta-analyses of the relation of attributional styles to depression. In 104 studies involving nearly 15,000 subjects, several attributional patterns had reliable associations with depression scores. For negative events, attributions to internal, stable, and global causes had a reliable and significant association with depression. Studies in which the attribution factors of ability and luck were measured also showed a reliable association with depression. For positive events, attributions to external, unstable, and specific causes were associated with depression. Ability and luck attribution factors for positive events were also associated with depression. The relations for positive events, however, were weaker than the corresponding ones for negative events. In general, these patterns of relations were independent of a number of potential mediators suggested by authors in this literature, including the type of subject studied (psychiatric vs. college student), the type of event about which the attribution is made (real vs. simulated), the depression measure used, or the publication status of the research report. These conclusions are compared with those of other reviews. Implications for attributional models of depression are discussed.     

Correlation between Changes in Stress-Induced Corticosterone Secretion and GR mRNA Levels

The current study was conducted to determine the potential relationship between stress-induced corticosterone secretion and corticosteroid receptor mRNA levels after 5 days of intermittent stress. In particular, we were interested in the rate at which animals terminate a stress response, and how this termination may be altered by repeated stress. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to either 5 days of restraint stress or 5 days of an unpredictable stress paradigm. Restraint-stress induced corticosterone secretion was measured on Days 1 and 5 in both groups, and animals were killed on Day 6. Glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and mineralocorticoid (MR) mRNA levels were determined using in-situ hybridization techniques. Five days of restraint stress caused an habituation of the plasma corticosterone response to stress measured 60 and 90 min post-stress initiation; this pattern of corticosterone secretion was not observed in the animals subjected to unpredictable stress. Five days of either stress paradigm did not alter MR mRNA levels measured within the hippocampus or GR mRNA levels within the hippocampus or the medial parvocellular division of the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (mpPVN). However, an individual's GR mRNA levels measured within the CA1/2 region of the hippocampus and the mpPVN were significantly correlated with the degree of habituation of the corticosterone response to stress measured on Day 5. This suggests that an increase in the rate of termination of the stress response and levels of GR within the hippocampus and mpPVN may be functionally related.     

Action and emotion in everyday life

This study of naturally occurring behaviour employed a "beeper technique" to investigate the actions carried out by 152 subjects in eight different groups, viz. adult students, employed students who were also parents, unemployed, art students, doctoral students, alcoholics, retired people and a control group. Actions were sampled for seven subsequent days, five times per day between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. at randomly selected occasions. Each action was rated on a number of variables, shortly after it was sampled (median delay approximately 10 min). Some of the findings were: Time allocation corresponded well with national estimates. Being under situational control was highly aversive. Instrumental and consummatory orientations correlated positively. The background variables were, on the whole, only rather weakly related to action ratings, but it was found that women and retired persons tended to report a higher level of well-being.