Influence of positive affect on the subjective utility of gains and losses: it is just not worth the risk

A modification of the procedure originally used by Davidson, Suppes, and Siegel (1956) to measure subjective utility was used to study the influence of positive affect on individuals' perceived value (utility) functions. Results indicated, as expected, that persons in whom positive affect had been induced showed a more negative subjective utility for losses than did controls. This indicates that losses seem worse to people who are feeling happy than to those in a control condition. The subjective utility functions of the two groups did not differ as much, however, when people were considering potential gain. Thus, at least in the situation tested in this study, potential gains did not seem to be more appealing (nor less so) for affect subjects than they did for controls. These findings are discussed in relation to theoretical issues in decision making and work suggesting that positive affect can promote increased sensitivity to losses in situations of potential meaningful loss.     

Autonomic arousal feedback and emotional experience: evidence from the spinal cord injured

We interviewed spinal-cord-injured, other handicapped, and nonhandicapped subjects to investigate the relation between the perception of autonomic arousal and experienced emotion. The three groups differed significantly on only one measure of affect intensity, with the spinal-cord-injured subjects more often reporting stronger fear in their lives now compared with the past. In addition, spinal-cord-injured subjects often described intense emotional experiences. Spinal-cord-injured subjects who differed in their level of autonomic feedback differed in intensity on several measures. Subjects with greater autonomic feedback tended to report more intense levels of negative emotions. The findings indicate that the perception of autonomic arousal may not be necessary for emotional experience. There were weak trends in our data, however, suggesting that the perception of arousal may enhance the experience of emotional intensity. The subjective well-being reports of the handicapped groups were comparable to those of nonhandicapped subjects, indicating successful coping with their disability.     

Role of visual information in ball catching

The present study is concerned with the perceptual information about the body and space underlying the act of catching a ball. In a series of four experiments, subjects were asked to catch a luminous ball under various visual conditions. In general, catching in a normally illuminated room was contrasted with catching the luminous ball in an otherwise completely dark room. In the third and fourth experiments, intermediate conditions of visual information were included. The results suggest that it is possible to catch a ball with one hand when only the ball is visible, but performance is better when the subject has the benefit of a rich visual environment and two hands. The second experiment indicated that subject performance does improve with practice in the dark, but time spent in the darkened room itself doesn't result in a significant decrement in performance. Results of the third study suggest that vision of one's hand does not aid in the performance of this task whereas the presence of a minimal visual frame appears to aid performance. The final study examined the relation between catching performance and body sway under similar visual conditions. Results of this experiment imply that persons who exhibit relatively little postural sway in full-room lighting performed better at this catching task.     

Spontaneous covariations of movement parameters in 5- to 7-year-old boys

The kinematic parameters of to and fro forearm movements in the horizontal plane were investigated in 5- to 7-year-old boys. In one condition, the period of the movements was induced by an acoustic stimulus, while the amplitude was left free. In a second condition, the amplitude of the swing was suggested by a visual frame, but the movement was self-paced. In both conditions, the unconstrained variable (amplitude and period, respectively) was found to covary spontaneously with the constrained variable. The results suggest that, within the age range considered here, motor control processes do not conceive of amplitude and velocity as two independent variables.     

Specific forms of facial EMG response index emotions during an interview: from Darwin to the continuous flow hypothesis affect-laden information processing

Previous research has demonstrated that mild negative emotional imagery and unpleasant sensory stimuli lead to greater electromyographic activity over the brow muscle region than mild positive imagery and stimuli, even in the absence of significant changes in visceral and general facial EMG activity. Previous research has not addressed whether electromyographic responses over the brow region are a sensitive and specific index of emotions, however, since a multiplicity of events lead to changes in brow activity. In this research, facial electromyographic and audiovisual recordings were obtained while individuals were interviewed about themselves. Afterwards, individuals were asked to describe what they had been thinking of during specific segments of the interview marked by distinctive electromyographic responses over the brow region in the context of ongoing but stable levels of activity elsewhere in the face. The results are interpreted in terms of a continuous flow hypothesis of affect-laden information processing.     

Mood, memory, and social judgments in children

The influence of positive and negative moods on children's recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments was investigated in a two-list experimental design. A total of 161 schoolchildren, 8 to 10 years old, were presented with audiovisual information containing positive and negative details about 2 target children. Each presentation was preceded by happy or sad mood manipulations. One day later, the children were again placed in a happy or sad mood, and their recall and recognition memory and impression-formation judgments were assessed. Results showed that memory was better when (a) the children felt happy during encoding, retrieval, or both; (b) the material was incongruent with learning mood; (c) the 2 target characters were encountered in contrasting rather than in matching mood states; and (d) recall mood matched encoding mood. A happy mood increased the extremity of both positive and negative impression-formation judgments. Results are contrasted with experimental data obtained with normal or depressed adults, and implications are considered for contemporary theories of mood effects on cognition and for social-developmental research.     

Marital conflict and adjustment: speech nonfluencies in intimate disclosure

Speech nonfluency in response to questions about the marital relationship was used to assess anxiety. Subjects were 31 husbands and 31 wives, all white, college educated, from middle- to lower-middle-class families, and ranging from 20 to 30 years of age. Three types of nonfluencies were coded: filled pauses, unfilled pauses, and repetitions. Speech-disturbance ratios were computed by dividing the sum of speech nonfluencies by the total words spoken. The results support the notion that some issues within marriage are more sensitive and/or problematic than others, and that, in an interview situation, gender interacts with question content in the production of nonfluencies.     

Prosodic aspects of motherese: effects on gaze and responsiveness in developmentally disabled children

This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of using voice tones (prosody) typical of "motherese" (O. K. Garnica, 1977, in C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), Talking to Children: Language Input and Acquisition, pp. 63-88, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press) on responsiveness and eye gaze in children with severe handicaps. Specifically, two conditions, "motherese" and "conversational" voice tones, were compared. The current study presents data from naturalistic observations of six children, and controlled experimental manipulations with four children. The results of the naturalistic observations in Study 1 suggested a positive relationship between the use of voice tones typical of "motherese" and responsiveness and eye gaze. Further analysis using an alternating treatments design in Study 2 revealed similar results. Specifically, the use of prosody associated with "motherese" showed increased levels of eye gaze when compared to the use of "conversational tones." The results suggest the importance of considering normal development in analyzing social and teaching interactions between teachers and severely handicapped children.     

Perceptual sensitivity to dimensional and similarity relations in free and rule-governed classifications

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the perceptual primacy of dimensional and similarity relations in the stimulus classifications of younger and older subjects. In Experiment 1, 4- and 10-year-olds were given free classifications in which they could group stimuli according to overall similarity or identities in size, color, or orientation. Both age groups classified stimuli most frequently according to identities on separate dimensions. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds and adults were given free classifications followed by rule-governed classifications which required them to group stimuli according to specific relations. In the free classifications, a majority of subjects in both age groups classified the stimuli most frequently according to identities on separate dimensions. In the rule-governed classifications, both age groups were more accurate when a single separate relation was required for solution than when overall similarity was required. These results support a differential-sensitivity view of perceptual development, which asserts that individuals at all ages primarily perceive and use separate relations.