Affect intensity in voice recognized by tree shrews (Tupaia belangeri)

Shared acoustic cues in speech, music, and nonverbal emotional expressions were postulated to code for emotion quality and intensity favoring the hypothesis of a prehuman origin of affective prosody in human emotional communication. To explore this hypothesis, we examined in playback experiments using a habituation-dishabituation paradigm whether a solitary foraging, highly vocal mammal, the tree shrew, is able to discriminate two behaviorally defined states of affect intensity (low vs. high) from the voice of conspecifics. Playback experiments with communication calls of two different types (chatter call and scream call) given in the state of low affect intensity revealed that habituated tree shrews dishabituated to one call type (the chatter call) and showed a tendency to do so for the other one (the scream call), both given in the state of high affect intensity. Findings suggest that listeners perceive the acoustic variation linked to defined states of affect intensity as different within the same call type. Our findings in tree shrews provide first evidence that acoustically conveyed affect intensity is biologically relevant without any other sensory cue, even for solitary foragers. Thus, the perception of affect intensity in voice conveyed in stressful contexts represents a shared trait of mammals, independent of the complexity of social systems. Findings support the hypothesis that affective prosody in human emotional communication has deep-reaching phylogenetic roots, deriving from precursors already present and relevant in the vocal communication system of early mammals.     

Paw preference is not affected by postural demand in a nonprimate mammal (Felis silvestris catus)

Previously, it has been thought that handedness is unique to humans. Recently, it has been found that hand or paw preferences are common among a variety of vertebrate species. Different models have been put forth to describe the evolution of primate handedness. In this study we aimed to explore whether these models can also be used to predict manual laterality in nonprimate mammalian groups. The cat (Felis silvestris catus) is a good nonprimate model for manual laterality, as cats frequently use paws to catch and hold prey. Cats were exposed to two standardized manual laterality tasks, differing in postural demand. Subjects (N = 28) were forced to use either a stable or unstable body posture (i.e., sitting or standing vs. vertical clinging) to extract food items from a plastic box attached at two different heights. We revealed that cats exhibited paw preferences at an individual level with about 40% left, 30% right, 30% nonlateralized subjects. Postural demand was linked to task difficulty: the unstable body posture was found to be significantly more difficult than the stable body posture. However, these differences in postural demand and task difficulty did not lead to differences in direction or strength of paw preference. Findings suggested that nonprimate mammals differ from primates in their sensitivity to task related factors, such as postural demand. Results coincide with those of some prosimians, providing support for the hypothesis that postural demand and the associated task complexity became influencing factors on manual laterality in the course of primate evolution.     

Emotional Dynamics in the Development of Early Adolescent Psychopathology: A One-Year Longitudinal Study

This study examined the role of the level and variability of happiness, anger, anxiety, and sadness in the development of adolescent-reported anxiety disorder symptoms, depressive symptoms, and aggressive behavior in 452 adolescents (250 male) followed from age 13 to 14. Level and between-day variability of emotions were assessed through adolescent report at 3-month intervals across a 1 year period. Level and variability of the four emotions contributed to changes in anxiety disorder and depressive symptoms more consistently than to changes in aggressive behavior. All four emotions were predictive of changes in internalizing problems, while anger played the most prominent role in the development of aggressive behavior. Variability of emotions contributed to changes in anxiety disorder symptoms, while heightened levels of negative emotions and diminished happiness contributed to changes in depression. Results suggested somewhat stronger effects of negative affect on aggressive behavior for females than for males. Results underscore the role of emotion dysregulation in the development of psychopathology.     

Stability and Invariance of Psychopathic Traits from Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The current study examined the longitudinal stability and invariance of psychopathic traits in a large community sample of male twins from ages 17 to 23. Participants were assessed across 6 years to gauge the stability and measurement invariance of the Minnesota Temperament Inventory (MTI), a Cleckley-based measure of psychopathic personality traits, and how family functioning and externalizing behavior were linked to these traits. A latent variable approach was used to model the structure of the MTI and provide a statistical test of measurement invariance across time. The results revealed support for invariance and moderate to strong stability of the MTI factors, which showed significant associations with the external correlates in late adolescence but not early adulthood.     

Psychodynamische Kurzzeittherapie bei dependenter und vermeidender Persönlichkeitsstörung

Although dependent and avoidant personality disorders are frequent in patient populations, there are only few studies in which the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions for these two personality disorders was reviewed. The purpose of this study was to examine whether psychodynamic short-term therapy based on the model of the cyclic maladaptive pattern (CMP) is effective for reducing the mental impairment of patients diagnosed with a dependent or an avoidant personality disorder. Data were collected via a self-report scale (Symptom-Checklist, SCL) and expert ratings by therapists [Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale and Severity of Impairment-Score (Beeinträchtigungsschwere-Score, BSS)]. In the study 20 patients received 25 sessions of outpatient therapy. Mental impairment decreased significantly from the beginning to the end of the therapy; moreover this decrease remained stable over a 2-year period following completion of the therapy. The findings show that psychodynamic short-term therapy can lead to an enduring improvement in the mental health of patients with a dependent or an avoidant personality disorder.     

Die formalistische Grundlegung der Mathematik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Ensemble coding of faces occurs in children and develops dissociably from coding of individual faces

Ensemble coding allows adults to access useful information about average properties of groups, sometimes even in the absence of detailed representations of individual group members. This form of coding may emerge early in development with initial reports of ensemble coding for simple properties (size, numerosity) in young children and even infants. Here we demonstrate that ensemble coding of faces, which provides information about average properties of social groups, is already present in 6–8‐year‐old children. This access to average information increases with age from 6 to 18 years and its development is dissociable from age‐related improvements in the coding of individual face identities. This dissociation provides the first direct evidence that distinct processes underlie ensemble and individual coding of face identity, evidence that has been lacking from adult studies. More generally, our results add to the emerging evidence for impressively mature sensitivity to statistical properties of the visual environment in children. They indicate that children have access to gist information about social groups that may facilitate adaptive social behaviour.     

Excitatory and inhibitory priming by attended and ignored non-recycled words with monolinguals and bilinguals

Experiments examining identity priming from attended and ignored novel words (words that are used only once except when repetition is required due to experimental manipulation) in a lexical decision task are reported. Experiment 1 tested English monolinguals whereas Experiment 2 tested Twi (a native language of Ghana, Africa)-English bilinguals. Participants were presented with sequential pairs of stimuli composed of a prime followed by a probe, with each containing two items. The participants were required to name the target word in the prime display, and to make a lexical decision to the target item in the probe display. On attended repetition (AR) trials the probe target item was identical to the target word on the preceding attentional display. On ignored repetition (IR) trials the probe target item was the same as the distractor word in the preceding attentional display. The experiments produced facilitated (positive) priming in the AR trials and delayed (negative) priming in the IR trials. Significantly, the positive and negative priming effects also replicated across both monolingual and bilingual groups of participants, despite the fact that the bilinguals were responding to the task in their non-dominant language.     

DSM-defined anxiety disorders symptoms in South African youths: Their assessment and relationship with perceived parental rearing behaviors

This study investigated DSM-defined anxiety symptoms in South African youths. Children and adolescents (N = 701) from various cultural groups completed the SCARED and a questionnaire measuring perceived parental rearing behaviors. Results indicated that the psychometric properties of the SCARED were satisfactory in the total sample of South African youths, and acceptable in colored and black children and adolescents. Further, colored and black youths displayed higher SCARED scores than white youths, and there were also differences in the perceived parental rearing behaviors of the cultural groups. White youths generally rated their parents' rearing behaviors as less anxious, overprotective, and rejective, but more emotionally warm than colored and black youths. Finally, positive correlations were found between anxious rearing, overprotection, and rejection and anxiety symptoms. The clinical and research implications of these findings are briefly discussed.     

Effects of nicotine administration via a sublingual tablet on arousal and verbal ability in non‐smokers

Tobacco smoking or nicotine administration on its own can influence cognitive task performance. This study examined the effects of acute nicotine administration on verbal task performance and a physiological index of arousal. Healthy non‐smoking participants received either a 2‐mg sublingual nicotine tablet or placebo. Participants next completed various verbal tasks while heart rate recordings were taken concurrently. Nicotine increased heart rate relative to a pre‐administration baseline period, indicating that the new method of nicotine administration increased cardiovascular arousal. Nicotine was associated with reduced accuracy in a verbal matching task and reduced accuracy and increased reaction time in an anagram task, but had no effect on performance during an analogy or verbal fluency task. The data suggest that nicotine‐naïve individuals are unlikely to gain any benefit to their verbal ability from the single acute intake of nicotine, such as that obtained from cigarette smoking or by using nicotine replacement therapy products.