A longitudinal study of psychosocial distress in breast cancer: prevalence and risk factors

This longitudinal study was conducted among 102 women with non-metastasic breast cancer to identify the time evolution and prevalence of distress at specific times through diagnosis and treatment of disease: preliminary diagnosis, surgery, definitive diagnosis and chemotherapy. Additionally, the study aimed to examine the role of demographic, medical and psychosocial factors on distress. The results indicated that prevalence of distress was higher at initial diagnosis (25%) than the following time points (approximately 17%). The differences inter-individuals in the levels of distress were observed over the four assessments. No relation between distress and demographic and medical factors was found. However, psychosocial aspects were significant risk factors. Patterns of emotional suppression and specific coping responses like helplessness/hopelessness, anxious preoccupation, cognitive avoidance and fatalism were positively related to distress, whereas fighting spirit and perceived social support showed a protective role. Moreover, helplessness/hopelessness and anxious preoccupation jointly predicted 75% of cases and 98% non-cases of distress. Finally, a mediational model between emotional suppression and distress through helplessness/hopelessness was tested. Results support the necessity of routine distress screening all through the illness. Implications of data for psychosocial interventions with breast cancer patients are highlighted.     

Trait empathy as a predictor of individual differences in perceived loneliness

Loneliness has been shown to be inversely correlated with empathy in younger adults. The present study extends previous research by investigating the association between empathy and loneliness across the adult lifespan and examining the role of relevant demographic and personality factors. 110 community-dwelling adults (18 to 81 years old) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Empathy Quotient. Empathy scores were inversely associated with rated loneliness and predicted 8.7% of variance in loneliness scores after accounting for sex, age, relationship status, education, and neuroticism. The Social Skills factor of the Empathy Quotient was the strongest predictor of the association between perceived empathy and loneliness. Previous research is extended by the finding that rated loneliness was inversely associated with empathy scores across the adult lifespan. Underlying this relationship may be negative perceptions of personal social proclivity as a function of difficulty in understanding the mental states of others and high trait neuroticism.     

Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.     

Insights into spared memory capacity in amnestic MCI and Alzheimer's Disease via minimal interference

Impairment on standard tests of delayed recall is often already maximal in the aMCI stage of Alzheimer's Disease. Neuropathological work shows that the neural substrates of memory function continue to deteriorate throughout the progression of the disease, hinting that further changes in memory performance could be tracked by a more sensitive test of delayed recall. Recent work shows that retention in aMCI patients can be raised well above floor when the delay period is devoid of further material - 'Minimal Interference'. This memory enhancement is thought to be the result of improved memory consolidation. Here we used the minimal interference/interference paradigm (word list retention following 10 min of quiet resting vs. picture naming) in a group of 17 AD patients, 25 aMCI patients and 25 controls. We found (1) that retention can be improved significantly by minimal interference in patients with aMCI and patients with mild to moderate AD; (2) that the minimal interference paradigm is sensitive to decline in memory function with disease severity, even when performance on standard tests has reached floor; and (3) that this paradigm can differentiate well (80% sensitivity and 100% specificity) between aMCI patients who progress and do not progress to AD within 2 years. Our findings support the notion that the early memory dysfunction in AD is associated with an increased susceptibility to memory interference and are suggestive of a gradual decline in consolidation capacity with disease progression.     

Grouping by achromatic color and surface segregation

The study explored the achromatic-color determinants of grouping of uniform surfaces. The stimuli were a set of separate uniform achromatic disks on either a uniform or a bipartite achromatic background. The participants rated the salience of grouping of these disks for different combinations of stimulus luminances. The results show that achromatic color similarity alone could not sufficiently explain the pattern of obtained factorial curves but this factor coupled with the factor of surface segregation could. Luminance contrast similarity per se was found to be unimportant for grouping.     

From aesthetics to ethics: Testing the link between an emotional experience of awe and the motive of quixoteism on (un)ethical behavior

Motivation and Emotion - According to the awe-quixoteism hypothesis, one experience of awe may lead to the engagement in challenging actions aimed at increasing the welfare of the world. However,...     

Inference and coherence in causal-based artifact categorization

In four experiments, we tested conditions under which artifact concepts support inference and coherence in causal categorization. In all four experiments, participants categorized scenarios in which we systematically varied information about artifacts’ associated design history, physical structure, user intention, user action and functional outcome, and where each property could be specified as intact, compromised or not observed. Consistently across experiments, when participants received complete information (i.e., when all properties were observed), they categorized based on individual properties and did not show evidence of using coherence to categorize. In contrast, when the state of some property was not observed, participants gave evidence of using available information to infer the state of the unobserved property, which increased the value of the available information for categorization. Our data offers answers to longstanding questions regarding artifact categorization, such as whether there are underlying causal models for artifacts, which properties are part of them, whether design history is an artifact’s causal essence, and whether physical appearance or functional outcome is the most central artifact property.     

Eye movements disrupt spatial but not visual mental imagery

It has long been known that eye movements are functionally involved in the generation and maintenance of mental images. Indeed, a number of studies demonstrated that voluntary eye movements interfere with mental imagery tasks (e.g., Laeng and Teodorescu in Cogn Sci 26:207–231, 2002). However, mental imagery is conceived as a multifarious cognitive function with at least two components, a spatial component and a visual component. The present study investigated the question of whether eye movements disrupt mental imagery in general or only its spatial component. We present data on healthy young adults, who performed visual and spatial imagery tasks concurrently with a smooth pursuit. In line with previous literature, results revealed that eye movements had a strong disruptive effect on spatial imagery. Moreover, we crucially demonstrated that eye movements had no disruptive effect when participants visualized the depictive aspects of an object. Therefore, we suggest that eye movements serve to a greater extent the spatial than the visual component of mental imagery.     

Executive functions,impulsivity, and inhibitory control in adolescents: A structural equation model

Background. Adolescence represents a critical period for brain development, addressed by neurodevelopmental models to frontal, subcortical-limbic, and striatal activation, a pattern associated with rise of impulsivity and deficits in inhibitory control. The present study aimed at studying the association between self-report measures of impulsivity and inhibitory control with executive function in adolescents, employing structural equation modeling. Method. Tests were administered to 434 high school students. Acting without thinking was measured through the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale and the Dickman Impulsivity Inventory, reward sensitivity through the Behavioral Activation System, and sensation seeking through the Zuckerman–Kuhlman–Aluja Personali- ty Questionnaire. Inhibitory control was assessed through the Behavioral Inhibition System. The performance at the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task indicated executive function. Three models were specified using Sample Covariance Matrix, and the estimated parameters using Maximum Likelihood. Results. In the final model, impulsivity and inhibitory control predicted executive function, but sensation seeking did not. The fit of the model to data was excellent. Conclusions. The hypothesis that inhibitory control and impulsivity are predictors of executive function was supported. Our results appear informative of the validity of self-report measures to examine the relation between impulsivity traits rather than others to regulatory function of cognition and behavior.