Emotion and appraisal: A study using ecological momentary assessment

This study employed Ecological Momentary Assessment to test predictions from appraisal theories of emotion about the relationships between emotions and appraisals, using a sample of police officers from Singapore. Strong support was obtained for the predictions, thus demonstrating ecological validity of appraisal theories while circumventing shortcomings of previously used methods in appraisal studies. The results also indicate that the emotions were accounted for by specific configurations of appraisals over and above those accounted for by individual constituent appraisals.     

Disgust: Sensory affect or primary emotional system?

We argue in this paper for the inclusion in the primary emotional systems enumerated by Panksepp of a neural system that organises disgust responses. The DISGUST system arose phylogenetically in response to danger to the internal milieu from pathogens and their toxic products. We suggest that the primitive emotive circuit, which originally provided defence by regulating consummatory behaviours, gave rise to a primary emotional system that facilitates evaluation of reinforcers. Unlike the sensory affect of distaste from which it is experimentally dissociable, disgust responses can involve flexible learned components triggered by several modalities. The anterior insula is implicated as playing a major role in the DISGUST system both in organising disgust responses in the individual and recognising disgust responses in others.     

Reviews

Karantin by V. Maksimov, Possev, Frankfurt, 1973, 364 pp. French translation: En Quarantine by Vladimir Maximov, Grasset, Paris, 1974, 304 pp. 34 F.

Red Star Over Tibet, by Dawa Norbu, Collins, London, 1974, 254 pp. £3.50.

La Repressione Culturale In Lituania, Edizioni Jaca Book, Milano, 1972. A cura di Felix Milani, Centro Studi Russia Cristiana, Via Martinengo, Milano. 190 pp.     

Organisation: What levels of processing are levels of

The psychology of thought and memory has historically been concerned with a struggle between associationism and its opponents. Organisation theory—in part an offspring of Gestalt concepts—has been the most successful and vocal of these contenders. The levels-of-processing framework has been a part of the effort to overcome associationist predilections. Aspects of principles of organisation and of the recent history of organisation theory are presented, followed by an analysis of the levels-of-processing approach in terms of organisational concepts.     

Repertory grid in problem structuring: A case illustration

Although the results of previous psychological studies suggested the existence of behavioral freedom, there existed no methodology that could unequivocally identify the portion of human behavior resulting from self-determination or behavioral freedom in human action. The methodological innovations reviewed herein throw a different light on the factors involved in the genesis of human action than was previously possible with extant psychological research methodologies. But critics contend that in such studies subjects might simply be conforming to the experimenter's demands, rather than demonstrating their ability to self-determine. Two studies are presented that demonstrate that conformity is an extremely implausible explanation for the results attributed to self-determination in previous studies. Furthermore, the second study demonstrates the interaction between the idiographically construed meaningfulness of a behavior and one's desire or ability to voluntarily alter that behavior.     

Unrecognized Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as a Treatment Barrier for a Gang-Involved Juvenile Offender

This study examines the case of GH, an 18-year-old Latino male participating in an employment-based delinquency intervention for gang-affiliated youth. Although postintervention measures revealed that GH showed gains on key outcomes (i.e., delinquency, employment), he experienced sporadic treatment setbacks (e.g., work absenteeism, fighting) that disrupted his progress. A comprehensive psychological assessment suggested that his aggressive, illegal behavior and difficulty maintaining employment could have been influenced by previously undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Excerpts from counseling sessions illustrated how reactive aggression, hypervigilance, sleep disruptions, and emotional numbing could have interfered with treatment gains and ultimately contributed to GH's re-arrest. Implications for early, accurate identification of PTSD in delinquency interventions for gang youth are discussed.     

A Controlled Comparison of Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing and Progressive Counting

Ten therapists who were already trained and experienced in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) received training in progressive counting (PC), a newer trauma resolution method. Nineteen volunteers with single-incident trauma or loss were assigned to a therapist and then randomized to treatment condition; 15 completed treatment to termination criteria or until the 4th session. Participants in both conditions experienced significant reductions in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, memory-related distress, and presenting problems at one week posttreatment, and maintained at 12-week follow-up, with no significant differences in outcomes, treatment efficiency, or dropout rate. The preliminary findings of this pilot study suggest that PC is an efficient, well-tolerated, and effective trauma treatment that is relatively easy for therapists to master.     

The limits of visual resolution in natural scene viewing

We examined the limits of visual resolution in natural scene viewing, using a gaze-contingent multiresolutional display having a gaze-centred area-of-interest and decreasing resolution with eccentricity. Twelve participants viewed high-resolution scenes in which gaze-contingent multiresolutional versions occasionally appeared for single fixations. Both detection of image degradation (five filtering levels plus a no-area-of-interest control) in the gaze-contingent multiresolutional display, and eye fixation durations, were well predicted by a model of eccentricity-dependent contrast sensitivity. The results also illuminate the time course of detecting image filtering. Detection did not occur for fixations below 100 ms, and reached asymptote for fixations above 200 ms. Detectable filtering lengthened fixation durations by 160 ms, and interference from an imminent manual response occurred by 400-450 ms, often lengthening the next fixation. We provide an estimate of the limits of visual resolution in natural scene viewing useful for theories of scene perception, and help bridge the literature on spatial vision and eye movement control.     

Use of landmarks and allocentric reference frames for the control of locomotion

In the present study we assessed the use of landmarks and scene layout information for the control of locomotion. Observers were presented displays simulating forward locomotion through a random dot field with the horizontal position perturbed by a sum-of-sines function and were asked to steer and null out the horizontal disturbance of the path of locomotion. The results indicate greater control gain and accuracy when presented with a repeating layout of landmarks as compared to a changing layout of landmarks. Debriefing responses suggest that observers may have implicitly learned the layout of the repeating pattern. These results suggest that observers use an allocentric representation of the scene for steering control. A model for the control of locomotion is discussed that utilizes both scene-based information and optic flow.     

Focusing on fear: attentional disengagement from emotional faces

Evidence suggests that anxiety is associated with a shift of visual attention toward threatening stimuli in the environment, such as facial expressions (Mogg & Bradley, 1999). More recent evidence, however, indicates that anxiety may be better characterized by a failure to rapidly disengage the visual attention system away from threat-related facial expressions (Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001). The present study further investigates this delayed disengagement hypothesis. Results show that high trait-anxious individuals, in contrast to low trait-anxious individuals, take longer to classify peripheral target letters when fearful facial expressions were presented at fixation relative to sad, happy, or neutral expressions. These findings demonstrate a specific tendency to dwell on fear-relevant stimuli, as opposed to negative information in general. These findings are considered from an evolutionary perspective and the possible role of delayed disengagement from threat in the maintenance of anxiety states is also discussed.