Activity in the human amygdala corresponds to early, rather than late period autonomic responses to a signal for shock

Laboratory animal and human subject studies report that the amygdala is a critical brain structure that supports the acquisition and expression of conditional fear. Recent functional neuroimaging studies in humans have reported that activity in this region is closely related to the behavioral expression of conditional skin conductance responses (SCR). However, SCR waveforms following conditional stimulus (CS) presentation contain both early period and late period responses that may differ with respect to underlying central processes. It is not known whether amygdala activity corresponds to the expression of early conditonal responses (CRs) that occur shortly following CS onset or late CRs that closely precede UCS onset. The present study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and concurrent skin conductance measurements to determine whether amygdala activity is more closely related to the expression of early or late period CRs. Increased amygdala activity was detected during the formation of early, but not late period CRs. Additionally, this pattern of amygdala activity did not dissipate, but persisted into late stages of the experiment. These findings are consistent with the idea that amygdala responding is critically involved in the generation of CRs formed shortly following CS onset.     

Differences in African American and White Women’s Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men

The aim of the present study was to examine racial differences in women’s attitudes toward lesbians and gay men and to offer an understanding of these differences. Participants were 224 18–30 year old heterosexual African American (64%) and White (36%) female undergraduates from a large urban university in the southeastern United States. Participants completed measures of social demographics, sexual orientation, and sexual prejudice. Results showed that African American, relative to White, women endorsed more negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. Also, unlike White women, African American women reported more negative attitudes toward gay men than lesbians. Implications are discussed regarding differences in cultural contexts that exist between African American and White women.     

Superior discrimination between similar stimuli after simultaneous exposure

Human participants received unsupervised exposure to difficult-to-discriminate chequerboard stimuli (e.g., AX and BX), before learning a discrimination between them. Experiment 1 demonstrated that prior exposure enhanced later discrimination and that intermixed exposure (AX, BX, AX, BX ...) resulted in better subsequent discrimination than did blocked exposure (CY, CY ... DY, DY ...). Experiment 2 showed that simultaneous exposure to two similar stimuli (AX-BX, BX-AX ...) facilitated the later acquisition of a successive discrimination, more than successive exposure (AX-AX, BX-BX ...). These results parallel those observed by Mundy, Honey, and Dwyer (2007) who used pictures of human faces as stimuli and establish the generality of the fact that simultaneous exposure produces a particularly marked perceptual learning effect.     

The Moral Foundations of Human Rights Attitudes

Human rights are claimed to be innate and based on moral principles. Human rights attitudes have been shown to be related to political ideology, but there have been few studies investigating their relationship with morality. Using moral foundations theory, we examine whether morals can predict human rights attitudes across two studies. The first study used questionnaires to show that human rights are based exclusively on individualizing moral foundations; however, increases in individualizing and decreases in binding foundations predict increases in human rights endorsement. Moral foundations also mediated the relationship between political identification and human rights. Both individualizing and binding foundations performed a role in explaining the lower endorsement of human rights by conservatives as compared to liberals. The second study used textual analysis of newspaper articles to show that human-rights-related articles contained more moral language than other articles, in particular for the individualizing foundations. Conservative newspapers had a greater use of binding foundations in human rights articles than liberal newspapers.     

Valuing life and evaluating suffering in infants with life-limiting illness

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - In this paper, we explore three separate questions that are relevant to assessing the prudential value of life in infants with severe life-limiting illness....     

On‐line ostracism affects children differently from adolescents and adults

This research examines adults', and for the first time, children's and adolescents' reaction to being ostracized and included, using an on‐line game, ‘Cyberball’ with same and opposite sex players. Ostracism strongly threatened four primary needs (esteem, belonging, meaning, and control) and lowered mood among 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds, 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, and adults. However, it did so in different ways. Ostracism threatened self‐esteem needs more among 8‐ to 9‐year‐olds than older participants. Among 13‐ to 14‐year‐olds, ostracism threatened belonging more than other needs. Belonging was threatened most when ostracism was participants' first experience in the game. Moreover, when participants had been included beforehand, ostracism threatened meaning needs most strongly. Gender of other players had no effect. Practical and developmental implications for social inclusion and on‐line experiences among children and young people are discussed.     

Power of being present: the role of mindfulness on the relation between men's alcohol use and sexual aggression toward intimate partners

The primary aim of this investigation was to examine the association between men's level of mindfulness and histories of alcohol consumption and sexual aggression toward intimate partners. Participants were 167 heterosexual drinking males who completed self‐report measures of mindfulness, frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption during the past 12 months and sexual aggression against intimate partners during the past 12 months. Results indicated that a history of consuming larger amounts when drinking was associated with more frequent sexual coercion/aggression among men who reported low, but not high, levels of mindfulness. However, drinking more frequently by itself was not associated with more frequent sexual coercion/aggression. These results support the attention‐allocation model and suggest implications for future intervention research aimed at reducing alcohol‐related aggression. Aggr. Behav. 36:405–413, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The temporal distribution of information in audiovisual spoken-word identification

In the present study, we examined the distribution and processing of information over time in auditory and visual speech as it is used in unimodal and bimodal word recognition. English consonant-vowel-consonant words representing all possible initial consonants were presented as auditory, visual, or audiovisual speech in a gating task. The distribution of information over time varied across and within features. Visual speech information was generally fully available early during the phoneme, whereas auditory information was still accumulated. An audiovisual benefit was therefore already found early during the phoneme. The nature of the audiovisual recognition benefit changed, however, as more of the phoneme was presented. More features benefited at short gates rather than at longer ones. Visual speech information plays, therefore, a more important role early during the phoneme rather than later. The results of the study showed the complex interplay of information across modalities and time, since this is essential in determining the time course of audiovisual spoken-word recognition.