Age differences in the neural response to negative feedback

Affective processing is one domain that remains relatively intact in healthy aging. Investigations into the neural responses associated with reward anticipation have revealed that older and younger adults recruit the same midbrain reward regions, but other evidence suggests this recruitment may differ depending on the valence (gain, loss) of the incentive cue. The goal of the current study was to examine functional covariance during gain and loss feedback in younger and healthy older adults. A group of 15 older adults (mean age = 68.5) and 16 younger adults (mean age = 25.4) completed a revised Monetary Incentive Delay task (rMID; Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser, &; Hommer, 2000) while in the fMRI scanner. The rMID is a reaction time task where successful performance, either gaining a reward or avoiding a loss, is defined by hitting a button during the brief presentation of a visual target. Participants receive gain and loss anticipation cues before each trial and feedback after each trial with four possible outcomes: +$5.00, +0.00, -$5.00, and -Affective processing is one domain that remains relatively intact in healthy aging. Investigations into the neural responses associated with reward anticipation have revealed that older and younger adults recruit the same midbrain reward regions, but other evidence suggests this recruitment may differ depending on the valence (gain, loss) of the incentive cue. The goal of the current study was to examine functional covariance during gain and loss feedback in younger and healthy older adults. A group of 15 older adults (mean age = 68.5) and 16 younger adults (mean age = 25.4) completed a revised Monetary Incentive Delay task (rMID; Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser, & Hommer, 2000) while in the fMRI scanner. The rMID is a reaction time task where successful performance, either gaining a reward or avoiding a loss, is defined by hitting a button during the brief presentation of a visual target. Participants receive gain and loss anticipation cues before each trial and feedback after each trial with four possible outcomes: +$5.00, +0.00, -$5.00, and -$0.00. Using seed-voxel partial least squares analyses, with seed voxels in the caudate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, whole-brain functional covariance revealed that younger and older adults engage the same network of regions to support general feedback processing. However, older adults engaged two additional networks to support processing of negative feedback, gain_miss (+0), loss_miss (-$5), and loss_hit (?0), specifically. These findings are in line with theories of a positivity effect in aging and may have implications for reward-stimulus learning and decision making following performance-contingent negative feedback.     

Information structuring improves recall of emergency discharge information: a randomized clinical trial

This article examines the extent to which structuring Emergency Department discharge information improves the ability to recall that information, and whether such benefits interact with relevant prior knowledge. Using three samples of students with different levels of prior medical knowledge, we investigated the amount of information recalled after structured vs. non-structured presentation of information. Across all student samples, the structured discharge information led to a relative increase in recalled items of 17% compared to non-structured discharge information (M = 9.70, SD = 4.96 vs. M = 8.31, SD = 4.93). In the sample with least medical knowledge, however, the structured discharge information resulted in a relative increase in recall by 42% (M = 8.12 vs. M = 5.71). These results suggest that structuring discharge information can be a useful tool to improve recall of information and is likely to be most beneficial for patient populations with lower levels of medical knowledge.     

“Tell Me How That Makes You Feel”: Philosophy's Reason/Emotion Divide and Epistemic Pushback in Philosophy Classrooms

Alison Bailey has recently explored the nature of what she calls privilege‐evasive epistemic pushback or “the variety of willful ignorance that many members of dominant groups engage in when they are asked to consider both the lived experience and structural injustices that members of marginalized groups experience daily.” In this article, I want to use Bailey's argument to demonstrate how privilege‐evasive epistemic pushback is facilitated and obscured by the disciplinary tools of traditional Western philosophy. Specifically, through exploring philosophical cultures of justification and case studies, this work will reveal how students engage in privilege‐evasive epistemic pushback by deploying the reason/emotion divide and various philosophical norms and practices it underlies to protect their epistemic home turf. Then, I offer three emotion‐enhancing critical philosophical practices aimed at disrupting the ignorance‐promoting moves of privilege‐evasive epistemic pushback and, instead, engage emotion as epistemically significant.     

The Impact of Films on Viewer Attitudes towards People with Schizophrenia

The media, including television, newspapers, and popular films have been implicated in the facilitation of mental illness stigmatization by presenting negative and inaccurate depictions of various diagnoses. The current study examined the impact of film on participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards people with schizophrenia. A total of 106 participants completed questionnaires before and after viewing a 45-min film excerpt. Films viewed included a fear-based inaccurate, likeable-inaccurate, and an educational-accurate depiction of schizophrenia. There was also a control group. There were significant increases in stigmatizing attitudes for participants in the fear-based inaccurate group compared to the accurate and control group. Fear-based participants reported increased negative affect and endorsed statements suggesting that people with schizophrenia were unpredictable, dependent, and dangerous. These results provide support for the hypothesis that negative, inaccurate portrayals of severe mental illness enhance stigmatizing attitudes. Accurate film depictions, advocacy for social equality, and the continued education of individuals, clients, families, communities and organizations will help to mitigate the impact of films on mental illness stigmatization.     

Forging a Collaborative Relationship Between the Black Church and the Counseling Profession

In the field of counseling, there has been a growing awareness of the important role the Black church plays in African American communities. Although counseling professionals have begun recognizing the influence the Black church has in the lives of African Americans, there seems to be little information on how counselors can collaborate with African American congregations to meet the mental health needs of African American clients. The authors examine how counselors can use the psychological and social strengths of the Black church. Strategies and implications for collaborating with this institution are also discussed.     

Focusing on fear: Attentional disengagement from emotional faces

Evidence suggests that anxiety is associated with a shift of visual attention toward threatening stimuli in the environment, such as facial expressions (Mogg & Bradley, 1999). More recent evidence, however, indicates that anxiety may be better characterized by a failure to rapidly disengage the visual attention system away from threat-related facial expressions (Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001). The present study further investigates this delayed disengagement hypothesis. Results show that high trait-anxious individuals, in contrast to low trait-anxious individuals, take longer to classify peripheral target letters when fearful facial expressions were presented at fixation relative to sad, happy, or neutral expressions. These findings demonstrate a specific tendency to dwell on fear-relevant stimuli, as opposed to negative information in general. These findings are considered from an evolutionary perspective and the possible role of delayed disengagement from threat in the maintenance of anxiety states is also discussed.     

Women Psychologists within Academic Health Systems: Mentorship and Career Advancement

Women are underrepresented on the faculties and within the senior leadership ranks of academic health systems. Nevertheless, despite the continuing existence of career development challenges related to gender, it is possible for women to thrive professionally in these settings. Mentorship is extremely important, and it is argued that effective mentorship is facilitated by an understanding of both gender differences in social behaviors and the culture of academic health systems. Furthermore, a systems’ level emphasis on faculty diversity and the career development of women faculty is recommended.     

The legacy of Adolf Meyer’s comparative approach: Worcester rats and the strange birth of the animal model

The breeding of albino rats had an enormous impact on experimental psychology in the twentieth century: Rats were, and for many questions still remain, the “standard animal” for laboratory research in neurology, psychology, and physiology. Albert Meyer was one of the figures most responsible for developing the albino rat as an experimental model. Despite Meyer’s pioneering work with albino rats, his rat research has received only sparse attention. Little is known about the way in which the animal served Meyer’s more famous psychiatric program. In this article, the author discusses the role that albino rats played in Meyer’s animal research. He then turn to the contrast between the way in which Meyer viewed the animal’s role in research and the way rats were later used as a laboratory “standard” to assure scientific generality. This comparison highlights the changes that occurred in comparative psychology in the twentieth century, and it further clarifies some of the concerns associated with the use of animal models today. Reprinted from Jaan Valsiner (ed.).Thinking in Psychological Science: Ideas and Their Makers. Transaction Publishers. Previously published inFrom Past to Future, Vol. 4(1),Animal models in human psychology: The uses of comparative methodologies, pp. 23–36. @ 2003 Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology, Clark University. Author: Cheryl A. Logan, Ph.D., Departments of Psychology and Biology, P. O. Box 26170, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greansboro, NC. The author is graterful for permission to quote from the Adolf Meyer papers, which was granted by The Alan M. Chesney Medical Archives at The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.     

Adolescent Violence: The Protective Effects of Youth Assets

The authors explored adolescent physical fighting and weapon carrying, using in‐home interviews with 1,098 middle/high school students and their parents. Logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between youth assets and the risk behaviors while controlling for demographic information. Both demographic factors and assets were associated with no physical fighting, and 6 of 9 assets were linked to not carrying a weapon. These findings indicate that certain assets may protect youth from physical fighting and carrying a weapon.