Sex,stress, and fear: Individual differences in conditioned learning

It has long been recognized that humans vary in their conditionability, yet the factors that contribute to individual variation in emotional learning remain to be delineated. The goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship among sex, stress hormones, and fear conditioning in humans. Forty-five healthy adults (22 females) underwent differential delay conditioning, using fear-relevant conditioned stimuli and a shock unconditioned stimulus. Salivary cortisol samples were taken at baseline and after acquisition training and a 24-h-delayed retention test. The results showed that acquisition of conditioning significantly correlated with postacquisition cortisol levels in males, but not in females. This sex-specific relationship was found despite similar overall levels of conditioning, unconditioned responding, and cortisol. There was no effect of postacquisition cortisol on consolidation of fear learning in either sex. These findings have implications for the understanding of individual differences in fear acquisition and risk factors for the development of affective disorders.     

Is the curve relating temperature to aggression linear or curvilinear? Assaults and temperature in minneapolis reexamined

Using archival data from Minneapolis recorded in 3-hr time intervals, E. G. Cohn and J. Rotton concluded that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between temperature and assault, with the maximum assault rate occurring at 74.9 degrees F. They depicted this relationship by plotting temperature against assault. This plot, however, fails to take into account time of day. Time of day was strongly related to both temperature and assault, but in opposite directions. Between 9:00 p.m. and 2:59 a.m. of the next day, when most assaults occurred, there was a positive linear relationship between temperature and assault. The Minneapolis data actually provide stronger support of a positive linear (or monotonic) relationship between temperature and assault than of an inverted U-shaped relationship.     

The varieties of religious development in adulthood: a longitudinal investigation of religion and rational choice

The authors used growth mixture models to study religious development during adulthood (ages 27-80) in a sample of individuals who were identified during childhood as intellectually gifted. The authors identified 3 discrete trajectories of religious development: (a) 40% of participants belonged to a trajectory class characterized by increases in religiousness until midlife and declines in later adulthood; (b) 41% of participants belonged to a trajectory class characterized by very low religiousness in early adulthood and age-related decline; and (c) 19% of participants belonged to a trajectory class characterized by high religiousness in early adulthood and age-related increases. Gender, strength of religious upbringing, number of children, marrying, and agreeableness predicted membership in the trajectory classes. Results were largely consistent with the rational choice theory of religious involvement.     

Reconstruing the "reconstruction" of psychopathy: a comment on Cooke, Michie, Hart, and Clark

In this comment we highlight critical problems in the estimation of parameters for their hierarchical three-factor model of psychopathy, as assessed with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, and their interpretation of these factors as causally related to socially deviant behavior. We argue that there is nothing "causal" about a model in which cross-sectional data are used to assert that antisocial tendencies are consequences of other more fundamental psychopathic traits. We present an equally viable model, based on the PCL-R four-factor solution, in which antisocial tendencies play a fundamental role in the construct of psychopathy, consistent with previous research and clinical tradition.     

A comparison of tactile spatial sensitivity on the palm and fingerpad

Studies of tactile spatial pattern perception have, for the most part, been carried out using the fingerpad. On the basis of these studies, models have been developed linking spatial pattern identification and resolution with underlying neural structures. It has been suggested that with appropriate scaling, these models would apply to the processing of spatial patterns presented to other sites on the body. Spatial sensitivity was examined on another site on the body, the palm, using two measures, letter identification and grating orientation. The results from these measures were compared with results from similar studies conducted on the fingerpad and with estimates of the density of innervation of the fingerpad and palm. To produce levels of performance similar to those on the fingerpad required letters on the palm 50 mm in height, seven to nine times larger than those used on the fingerpad. Gratings had to be six to more than seven times larger on the palm to produce the same levels of performance achieved on the fingerpad. For the two types of receptor systems sensitive to spatial information, the ratio of density of innervation between the fingerpad and the palm is estimated to be 5.7:1 and 8.8:1. Performance of spatial tasks on the palm can be predicted quantitatively from fingerpad data with a moderate degree of accuracy. Qualitative comparisons between the palm and fingerpad data indicate that spatial patterns are processed similarly at the two sites.     

What a speaker’s choice of frame reveals: Reference points,frame selection,and framing effects

Framing effects are well established: Listeners’ preferences depend on how outcomes are described to them, or framed. Less well understood is what determines how speakers choose frames. Two experiments revealed that reference points systematically influenced speakers’ choices between logically equivalent frames. For example, speakers tended to describe a 4-ounce cup filled to the 2-ounce line as half full if it was previously empty but described it as half empty if it was previously full. Similar results were found when speakers could describe the outcome of a medical treatment in terms of either mortality or survival (e.g., 25% die vs. 75% survive). Two additional experiments showed that listeners made accurate inferences about speakers’ reference points on the basis of the selected frame (e.g., if a speaker described a cup as half empty, listeners inferred that the cup used to be full). Taken together, the data suggest that frames reliably convey implicit information in addition to their explicit content, which helps explain why framing effects are so robust.     

The antisocial process screening device: an examination of its construct and criterion-related validity

The clinical assessment of psychopathy in adulthood is well established via programmatic research. More recently, psychopathy has been extended to children and adolescents with correlates to maladaptive personality traits, violent behavior, and noncompliance with institutional rules. To screen for adolescent psychopathy, the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) was developed as a 20-item self-report measure of psychopathy. The original validation of the APSD was limited to samples of clinic-referred and community-based children. In extending this research to delinquent populations, the current article uses two separate samples of adolescent offenders incarcerated in a maximum security facility (n = 78) and a local juvenile detention facility (n = 77). As evidence of criterion-related validity, the APSD was compared with two versions of the Psychopathy Checklist that yielded mixed results. Construct validity was examined via a confirmatory factor analysis that provided support for a three-factor model of the APSD.     

Neural processing associated with true and false memory retrieval

We investigated the neural bases for false memory with fMRI by examining neural activity during retrieval processes that yielded true or false memories. We used a reality monitoring paradigm in which participants saw or imagined pictures of concrete objects. (A subsequent misinformation task was also used to increase false memory rates.) At test, fMRI data were collected as the participants determined whether they had seen or had only imagined the object at study. True memories were of seen pictures accurately endorsed as seen, and for false memories were of imagined pictures falsely endorsed as seen. Three distinct patterns of activity were observed: Left frontal and parietal activity was not different for true and for false memories, whereas activity was greater for true than for false memories in occipital visual regions and posterior portions of the parahippocampal gyrus, and activity was greater for false than for true memories in right anterior cingulate gyrus. Possible interpretations are discussed.     

The effect of motion on tactile and visual temporal order judgments

Four experiments were conducted, three with tactile stimuli and one with visual stimuli, in which subjects made temporal order judgments (TOJs). The tactile stimuli were patterns that moved laterally across the fingerpads. The subject's task was to judge which finger received the pattern first. Even though the movement was irrelevant to the task, the subjects' TOJs were greatly affected by the direction of movement of the patterns. Accuracy in judging temporal order was enhanced when the patterns moved in a direction that was consistent with the temporal order of presentation--for example, when the movement on each fingerpad was from right to left and the temporally leading site of stimulation was to the right of the temporally trailing site of stimulation. When movement was inconsistent with the temporal order of presentation, accuracy was considerably reduced, often well below chance.The bias in TOJs was unaffected by training or by presenting the stimuli to fingers on opposite hands. In a fourth experiment, subjects judged the temporal order of visual stimuli that, like the tactile stimuli, moved in a direction that was either consistent or inconsistent with the TOJ. The results were similar to those obtained with tactile stimuli. It is suggested that the bias may be affected by attentional mechanisms and by apparent motion generated between the two sites on the skin.