Renewal of fear and avoidance in humans to escalating threat: Implications for translational research on anxiety disorders

Exposure-based treatment for threat avoidance in anxiety disorders often results in fear renewal. However, little is known about renewal of avoidance. This multimodal laboratory-based treatment study used an ABA renewal design and an approach–avoidance (AP–AV) task to examine renewal of fear/threat and avoidance in twenty adults. In Context A, 9 visual cues paired with increases in probabilistic money loss (escalating threats) produced increases in ratings of feeling threatened and loss expectancies and skin-conductance responses (SCR). During the AP–AV task, a monetary reinforcer was available concurrently with threats. Approach produced the reinforcer or probabilistic loss, while avoidance prevented loss and forfeited reinforcement. Escalating threat produced increasing avoidance and ratings. In Context B with Pavlovian extinction, threats signaled no money loss and SCR declined. During the AP–AV task, avoidance and ratings also declined. In a return to Context A with Pavlovian threat extinction in effect during the AP–AV task, renewal was observed. Escalating threat was associated with increasing ratings and avoidance in most participants. SCR did not show renewal. These are the first translational findings to highlight renewal of avoidance in humans. Further research should identify individual difference variables and altered neural mechanisms that may confer increased risk of avoidance renewal.     

Statistically Induced Chunking Recall: A Memory-Based Approach to Statistical Learning

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short-term memory is fundamentally shaped by long-term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word-like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two-alternative forced-choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature.     

In great-grandma's nursery

In recent decades, interest in the development of the baby during the first year of life has led to a prodigious explosion of information. Advantages and disadvantages of different methods of feeding infants have been considered, and many parents and professionals have advocated a return to breast-feeding. Parents of today make choices from a vast array of equipment available to stimulate and amuse their infants. Family relationships have been investigated in detail by researchers and discussed endlessly by the media. In particular, the father as caregiver has emerged as a topic of interest, and the role of this “New Father” has received extensive attention. Are these roles and concerns new? Or do they reflect a zeitgeist favoring their return? The purpose of this article is to provide a brief look at the advice given to parents of turn-of-the-century infants in the United States and at baby products advertised during this period.     

Infant music perception: domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms?

We review the literature on infants' perception of pitch and temporal patterns, relating it to comparable research with human adult and non-human listeners. Although there are parallels in relative pitch processing across age and species, there are notable differences. Infants accomplish such tasks with ease, but non-human listeners require extensive training to achieve very modest levels of performance. In general, human listeners process auditory sequences in a holistic manner, and non-human listeners focus on absolute aspects of individual tones. Temporal grouping processes and categorization on the basis of rhythm are evident in non-human listeners and in human infants and adults. Although synchronization to sound patterns is thought to be uniquely human, tapping to music, synchronous firefly flashing, and other cyclic behaviors can be described by similar mathematical principles. We conclude that infants' music perception skills are a product of general perceptual mechanisms that are neither music- nor species-specific. Along with general-purpose mechanisms for the perceptual foundations of music, we suggest unique motivational mechanisms that can account for the perpetuation of musical behavior in all human societies.     

Effects of training, prompting, and self-monitoring on staff behavior in a classroom for students with disabilities

This study extended the limited research on the utility of tactile prompts and examined the effects of a treatment package on implementation of a token economy by instructional assistants in a classroom for students with disabilities. During baseline, we measured how accurately the assistants implemented a classroom token economy based on the routine training they had received through the school system. Baseline was followed by brief in-service training, which resulted in no improvement of token-economy implementation for recently hired instructional assistants. A treatment package of prompting and self-monitoring with accuracy feedback was then introduced as a multiple baseline design across behaviors. The treatment package was successfully faded to a more manageable self-monitoring intervention. Results showed visually significant improvements for all participants during observation sessions.     

A decisional component of holistic encoding

It has been proposed (see, specifically, M. J. Farah, K. D. Wilson, M. Drain, & J. N. Tanaka, 1998) that human faces are used in cognition as undifferentiated wholes. General recognition theory (GRT; F. G. Ashby & J. T. Townsend, 1986) is used to represent hypotheses regarding the possible sources for the behavioral evidence supporting holistic representation. Specifically, it is suggested that holism can be understood in terms of violations of informational independence, informational separability, or decisional separability, as these constructs are defined in GRT. Stimuli were presented upright, inverted, and in an encoding task that emphasized the meaningful nature of the stimuli. Patterns of performance (recognition hit rates) were consistent with prior studies. However, there were only a handful of violations of informational separability. Instead, consistent violations of decisional separability suggested a decisional basis for holistic effects.     

Effect of forced laughter on mood

This study examined the effect of a brief period of forced laughter on the mood of adults. Participants (N=17) rated their mood before and after 1 min. of forced laughter. Although the participants generally rated their mood as positive prior to the intervention, after forced laughter more participants rated positive affect significantly higher.