Assessing planning ability with the Tower of London task: psychometric properties of a structurally balanced problem set

In clinical and experimental settings, planning ability is typically assessed using the Tower of London (ToL) or one of its variants. For enhancing the comparability across studies, a common ToL problem set was recently suggested comprising a collection of 4- to 7-move problems. Based on previous theoretical and empirical analyses of problem space and task structure, development of the problem set accounted particularly for the influence of structural problem parameters on the detection of individual differences in planning ability. To assess its adequacy as a clinical and research instrument, the present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the suggested problem set. Results showed a clear and nearly perfect linear increase of task difficulty across minimum moves. Given a broad range of item difficulty, high- and low-achieving subjects could be well discriminated. The test scores' split-half reliability (r = .72) and internal consistency (α = .69) were satisfactory. Taken together, the ToL problem set evaluated here proved to have good psychometric qualities and constitutes a conceptually sound basis for diagnostic and research purposes.     

Increased levels of conditioned fear and avoidance behavior coincide with changes in phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) within the amygdala in a mouse model of extremes in trait anxiety

Patients diagnosed for anxiety disorders often display faster acquisition and slower extinction of learned fear. To gain further insights into the mechanisms underlying these phenomenona, we studied conditioned fear in mice originating form a bi-directional selective breeding approach, which is based on elevated plus-maze behavior and results in CD1-derived high (HAB), normal (NAB), and low (LAB) anxiety-related behavior mice. HAB mice displayed pronounced cued-conditioned fear compared to NAB/CD1 and LAB mice that coincided with increased phosphorylation of the protein kinase B (AKT) in the basolateral amygdala 45 min after conditioning. No similar changes were observed after non-associative immediate shock presentations. Fear extinction of recent but not older fear memories was preserved. However, HAB mice were more prone to relapse of conditioned fear with the passage of time. HAB mice also displayed higher levels of contextual fear compared to NAB and LAB mice and exaggerated avoidance following step-down avoidance training. Interestingly, HAB mice showed lower and LAB mice higher levels of acoustic startle responses compared to NAB controls. The increase in arousal observed in LAB mice coincided with the general absence of conditioned freezing. Taken together, our results suggest that the genetic predisposition to high anxiety-related behavior may increase the risk of forming traumatic memories, phobic-like fear and avoidance behavior following aversive encounters, with a clear bias towards passive coping styles. In contrast, genetic predisposition to low anxiety-related and high risk-taking behavior seems to be associated with an increase in active coping styles. Our data imply changes in AKT phosphorylation as a therapeutic target for the prevention of exaggerated fear memories.     

Dissociating contingency awareness and conditioned attitudes: evidence of contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning

Whether human evaluative conditioning can occur without contingency awareness has been the subject of an intense and ongoing debate for decades, troubled by a wide array of methodological difficulties. Following recent methodological innovations, the available evidence currently points to the conclusion that evaluative conditioning effects do not occur without contingency awareness. In a simulation, we demonstrate, however, that these innovations are strongly biased toward the conclusion that evaluative conditioning requires contingency awareness, confounding the measurement of contingency memory with conditioned attitudes. We adopt a process-dissociation procedure to separate the memory and attitude components. In 4 studies, the attitude parameter is validated using existing attitudes and applied to probe for contingency-unaware evaluative conditioning. A fifth experiment incorporates a time-delay manipulation confirming the dissociability of the attitude and memory components. The results indicate that evaluative conditioning can produce attitudes without conscious awareness of the contingencies. Implications for theories of evaluative conditioning and associative learning are discussed.     

Problem solving in great apes (Pan paniscus, Pan troglodytes, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo abelii): the effect of visual feedback

What kind of information animals use when solving problems is a controversial topic. Previous research suggests that, in some situations, great apes prefer to use causally relevant cues over arbitrary ones. To further examine to what extent great apes are able to use information about causal relations, we presented three different puzzle box problems to the four nonhuman great ape species. Of primary interest here was a comparison between one group of apes that received visual access to the functional mechanisms of the puzzle boxes and one group that did not. Apes' performance in the first two, less complex puzzle boxes revealed that they are able to solve such problems by means of trial-and-error learning, requiring no information about the causal structure of the problem. However, visual inspection of the functional mechanisms of the puzzle boxes reduced the amount of time needed to solve the problems. In the case of the most complex problem, which required the use of a crank, visual feedback about what happened when the handle of the crank was turned was necessary for the apes to solve the task. Once the solution was acquired, however, visual feedback was no longer required. We conclude that visual feedback about the consequences of their actions helps great apes to solve complex problems. As the crank task matches the basic requirements of vertical string pulling in birds, the present results are discussed in light of recent findings with corvids.     

The language of landmarks: the role of background knowledge in indoor wayfinding

To effectively wayfind through unfamiliar buildings, humans infer their relative position to target locations not only by interpreting geometric layouts, especially length of line of sight, but also by using background knowledge to evaluate landmarks with respect to their probable spatial relation to a target. Questionnaire results revealed that participants have consistent background knowledge about the relative position of target locations. Landmarks were rated significantly differently with respect to their spatial relation to targets. In addition, results from a forced-choice task comparing snapshots of a virtual environment revealed that background knowledge influenced wayfinding decisions. We suggest that landmarks are interpreted semantically with respect to their function and spatial relation to the target location and thereby influence wayfinding decisions. This indicates that background knowledge plays a role in wayfinding.     

THE RETURN OF THE DEAD SOULS: THE GERMAN STUDENTS' MOVEMENT AND THE GHOSTS OF AUSCHWITZ

The intellectual history determined by the 1968 students' revolt sometimes appears as a ghost scene, emerging from the strong identification of the radical students with Jews and Judaism. This essay wishes to demonstrate the inner connection between the messianic political theology of the movement and the psychological effects of this over-identification, leading to a leftist anti-Semitism. While the revolutionary students saw themselves as the true successors of Jewish revolutionary messianism, they accused the real Jew, the one who settled in Israel, of being an imperialist traitor. The essay reconstructs the metamorphosis of these ghosts in a “phenomenology of the spirits” as a “Geistergeschichte” behind the official “Geistesgeschichte.” Against this pathological path the essay presents Jürgen Habermas's reflections on the ethics of memory as its best therapy.     

Suicide and Religion: New Evidence on the Differences Between Protestantism and Catholicism

Suicide has remained a persistent social phenomenon and now accounts for more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. There has been much debate, however, over which religious constructs might best explain the variation in suicide rates. Our empirical analysis reveals that even though theological and social differences between Catholicism and Protestantism have decreased, Catholics are still less likely than Protestants to commit or accept suicide. This difference holds even after we control for such confounding factors as social and religious networks. In addition, although religious networks do mitigate suicides among Protestants, the influence of church attendance is more dominant among Catholics. Our analysis also indicates that alternative concepts such as religious commitment and religiosity strongly reduce suicide acceptance.     

The Trophy Effect

By extending a typical endowment effect experiment with the possibility of winning the endowment in a real effort contest, we found two reinforcing effects that led to a complete market failure. Subjects who won the item in the effortful competition had a very high willingness to accept (trophy winner effect). By contrast, subjects who were not successful had an extremely low willingness to pay for the same item (trophy loser effect). We disentangle different components of these effects and investigate the underlying emotional responses. Further, we analyze the duration of the effects and discuss economic implications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kognitive Dissonanz nach Entscheidungen und psychische Erkrankungen

Building upon Grawe’s consistency theory the target of this study was to examine if cognitive dissonance has an influence on mental disorders. More precisely, whether post-decisional cognitive dissonance (1) is more pronounced in patients with mental disorders and (2) whether it correlates with symptom burden. Obsessive-compulsive disorder patients (OCD; n?=?15), depressive patients (n?=?20) and controls (n?=?42) completed a post-decisional cognitive dissonance scale as well as a scale assessing their respective symptom burden. Solely OCD patients showed heightened cognitive dissonance compared to controls (p?=?0.019). Among depressive patients, however, a very high correlation was found to exist between symptom burden and cognitive dissonance (r?=?0.70). Therefore, OCD seems to be related to increased cognitive dissonance which supports the assumption that cognitive dissonance plays a role in this mental disorder.     

Aktuelle Entwicklungen der psychodynamischen Psychotherapieforschung

The effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy has been a “hot topic” in scientific and healthcare related debates in recent years. During this time a significant amount of new evidence supporting the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy has been published. The paper provides an overview on current psychodynamic psychotherapy research, with a focus on meta-analytic findings and randomized effectiveness trials. The results in the literature show robust evidence for the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapies for a wide range of psychiatric disorders. The methodological quality of current studies is good and comparative trials with other forms of psychotherapy yield mostly equivalent results. However, further studies are needed with regard to different mental disorders as well as effectiveness studies in everyday practice.