Les passions de l'ame: on obsessive and harmonious passion

Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, that they find important, and in which they invest time and energy. Two types of passion are proposed: obsessive and harmonious. Obsessive passion (OP) refers to a controlled internalization of an activity in one's identity that creates an internal pressure to engage in the activity that the person likes. Harmonious passion (HP) refers to an autonomous internalization that leads individuals to choose to engage in the activity that they like. HP promotes healthy adaptation whereas OP thwarts it by causing negative affect and rigid persistence. Results from four studies involving more than 900 participants from different populations supported the proposed conceptualization.     

The relationship between spoken language and speech and nonspeech processing in children with autism: a magnetic event‐related field study

It has been proposed that language impairments in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) stem from atypical neural processing of speech and/or nonspeech sounds. However, the strength of this proposal is compromised by the unreliable outcomes of previous studies of speech and nonspeech processing in ASD. The aim of this study was to determine whether there was an association between poor spoken language and atypical event‐related field (ERF) responses to speech and nonspeech sounds in children with ASD (n = 14) and controls (n = 18). Data from this developmental population (ages 6–14) were analysed using a novel combination of methods to maximize the reliability of our findings while taking into consideration the heterogeneity of the ASD population. The results showed that poor spoken language scores were associated with atypical left hemisphere brain responses (200 to 400 ms) to both speech and nonspeech in the ASD group. These data support the idea that some children with ASD may have an immature auditory cortex that affects their ability to process both speech and nonspeech sounds. Their poor speech processing may impair their ability to process the speech of other people, and hence reduce their ability to learn the phonology, syntax, and semantics of their native language.     

The Role of Race in the Association between Corporal Punishment and Externalizing Problems: Does Punishment Severity Matter?

Parental corporal punishment is frequently associated with emotional and behavioral problems among youth. Some researchers propose that this association does not exist in African–American families, although the literature is mixed. Among recent studies, there is a lack of standardization in the measure of corporal punishment, which may help explain the inconsistent findings. The present study used a community sample (N = 106, 34 % African–American, 48 % female) to test for racial differences in the association between corporal punishment and youths’ aggression and delinquency, while examining different corporal punishment types separately by severity level. The three corporal punishment variables were spanking, severe corporal punishment (hitting and hitting with an object), and total corporal punishment (a composite of spanking, hitting, and hitting with an object). Regression analyses revealed that race moderated the association between corporal punishment and delinquency, although this moderation was contingent upon the corporal punishment variable. Specifically, severe corporal punishment and total corporal punishment were associated with delinquency only for Caucasian and not African–American youth. The model testing spanking and delinquency was not moderated by race. Additionally, race moderated the association between severe corporal punishment and youth aggression. Findings suggest that corporal punishment is associated with youth externalizing problems, but that this varies based upon race, severity of corporal punishment, and type of externalizing problem.     

Face-sex categorization is better above fixation than below: Evidence from the reach-to-touch paradigm

The masked congruence effect (MCE) elicited by nonconsciously presented faces in a sex-categorization task has recently been shown to be sensitive to the effects of attention. Here we investigated how spatial location along the vertical meridian modulates the MCE for face-sex categorization. Participants made left and right reaching movements to classify the sex of a target face that appeared either immediately above or below central fixation. The target was preceded by a masked prime face that was either congruent (i.e., same sex) or incongruent (i.e., opposite sex) with the target. In the reach-to-touch paradigm, participants typically classify targets more efficiently (i.e., their finger heads in the correct direction earlier and faster) on congruent than on incongruent trials. We observed an upper-hemifield advantage in the time course of this MCE, such that primes affected target classification sooner when they were presented in the upper visual field (UVF) rather than the lower visual field (LVF). Moreover, we observed a differential benefit of attention between the vertical hemifields, in that the MCE was dependent on the appropriate allocation of spatial attention in the LVF, but not the UVF. Taken together, these behavioral findings suggest that the processing of faces qua faces (e.g., sex-categorization) is more robust in upper-hemifield locations.     

Perspective Taking as a Continuum

The Psychological Record - In recent years, behavior analysts have given an increasing amount of attention to the topic of perspective taking. However, the construct of perspective taking refers to...     

Comparing the Effects of Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM), Music and LKM Plus Music on Psychological Well-Being

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a meditative practice directing caring feelings toward self and others, is a popular, evidence-base approach to increasing well-being. Music listening is also a popular form of emotion regulation used to enhance well-being. This interdisciplinary study evaluated a novel intervention called Convergence—combining LKM with accompanying classical guitar music—and its effects on adults’ well-being, mindfulness, compassion and self-compassion outcomes. Convergence was compared to active control groups LKM-only and Music-only regarding their relative effectiveness in improving these outcomes. Participants (N?=?78; aged 18 to 69?years; 90% females; recruited from the general public) were assigned to either the Convergence, LKM-only, or Music-only condition. Each condition received a 2-hour workshop, involving psychoeducation, three prerecorded meditations, and group enquiry and discussion. Participants were assessed at pre-program, post-program, and 4-week follow-up. Findings revealed that Convergence, LKM-only and Music-only were equally effective interventions, producing improvements in dependent variables with small effect sizes. There was no additive effect of the components when delivered together as Convergence. Significant correlations were found between the amount of home practice, and mindfulness and self-compassion at follow-up. LKM, music listening and Convergence all provide brief, evidence-based alternatives for improving well-being. Practical and theoretical implications are provided, as well as recommendations for future research.     

Associative and Normative Accounts of Negative Transfer

Subjects were given a prediction task in which they had to learn that one cue, P (positive), was followed by the outcome, and a compound of P and another cue, N (negative), was not followed by the outcome. Next, N was tested in compound with a transfer cue, T, which had signalled the outcome but had never been compounded with N. Experiment 1 confirmed an important assumption of the Rescorla-Wagner model (Wagner & Rescorla, 1972) that negation of T should depend on the specific P cue compound with N being positively contingent. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the model's prediction that no decrement in negative transfer should be observed following postlearning devaluation of P. Unfortunately, the model did not anticipate that a large proportion of devaluation trials relative to learning trials would attenuate negative transfer (Experiment 4), nor did it predict that negative transfer would occur when P was neutral during the learning stage and was only later made positive (Experiment 3). The results can be accommodated by the Rescorla-Wagner model if one assumes that absent cues have their associative strengths altered.