The Recognition of Adults' and Children's Facial Expressions of Emotions

The purpose of this study was to compare the recognition performance of children who identified facial expressions of emotions using adults' and children's stimuli. The subjects were 60 children equally distributed in six subgroups as a function of sex and three age levels: 5, 7, and 9 years. They had to identify the emotion that was expressed in 48 stimuli (24 adults' and 24 children's expressions) illustrating six emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, and sadness. The task of the children consisted of selecting the facial stimulus that best matched a short story that clearly described an emotional situation. The results indicated that recognition performances were significantly affected by the age of the subjects: 5-year-olds were less accurate than 7- and 9-year-olds who did not differ among themselves. There were also differences in recognition levels between emotions. No effects related to the sex of the subjects and to the age of the facial stimuli were observed.     

Impact of fearful expression on danger processing: The influence of the level of trait anxiety

Threat estimation is crucial for the adaptation of behavior to a dangerous situation. In anxiety, a bias to threat has been described as a core feature. Therefore, the sensitivity for threatening information in anxious individuals may have consequences for danger estimation. In this study, we used the affective priming paradigm to test the assumption that fearful expressions would facilitate danger detection in natural scenes in anxious individuals. Twenty-three high trait anxious individuals and 22 low trait anxious individuals participated in the study. They had to detect the potential threat of a target scene (neutral or threatening) following neutral or fearful face primes. High trait anxious participants detected threat more rapidly than low trait anxious participants, consistent with previous reports of emotional hypervigilance in anxiety. Furthermore, this effect was enhanced when the target scene followed a fearful expression: Only in anxious participants were reaction times shorter to detect danger following a fearful prime than a neutral prime. Our results tend to show that in anxiety, the hypervigilance to threat may be of an important value such as increasing the detection of a subsequent potential danger. Implication of attentional processes and attentional control is discussed.     

纪念福柯逝世20周年——欲望与快感

德勒兹区分了自己的“欲望”概念与福柯的“快感”概念，从而划清了他们的思想界线。就权力装置而论，福柯在《监视与惩罚》中指出，欲望装配与压抑使事物标准化也使我们遵守纪律：德勒兹则认为它们将事物译成电码且再度疆域化。德勒兹提出“快感何以激活一些反权力?福柯何以构思这个快感概念?”这两个问题，认为关键在于福柯赋予了力量关系、真理、快感以全新意义。福柯的基本观念是，权力装置与身体具有直接而正面的关系，德勒兹则指出，权力装置恰恰在一定程度上把组织强加到了身体上。     

Cortisol and Children’s Adjustment: The Moderating Role of Sympathetic Nervous System Activity

We examined relations among cortisol, markers of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity (including salivary alpha-amylase and skin conductance level), and children's adjustment. We also tested the Bauer et al. (Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 23(2), 102-113, 2002) hypothesis that interactions between the SNS and cortisol would be associated with internalizing and externalizing problems. Saliva samples were obtained from 8- to 9-year-olds before and after a laboratory assessment battery, and were assayed for cortisol and alpha-amylase (sAA). Basal skin conductance level (SCL) was measured during resting conditions. Parents reported on child adjustment. Interactions between basal SNS and cortisol levels explained moderate amounts of unique variance in children's externalizing and internalizing problems. More specifically, higher basal cortisol levels were positively associated with higher internalizing and externalizing problems among children with higher SNS activity, as compared to children with lower SNS activity. Findings underscore the utility of including information about the coordination between hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and SNS activity in biosocial models of atypical child development.     

Treatment of panic disorder with agoraphobia: randomized placebo-controlled trial of four psychosocial treatments combined with imipramine or placebo

Few randomized controlled trials have included panic disorder patients with moderate to severe agoraphobia. Therefore, this population was studied using pharmacotherapy as well as psychotherapy. At the time of the study, imipramine was widely used as a pharmacological treatment. Also, current practice guidelines for patients with panic disorder find selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and tricyclic antidepressants roughly comparable in terms of efficacy. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to compare four psychosocial treatments-cognitive and graded in vivo exposure treatments, graded in vivo exposure, cognitive treatment, and supportive therapy-to evaluate the benefits of combining cognitive therapy with exposure in vivo. These treatments were combined with imipramine or placebo for a total of eight experimental conditions. Participants presented moderate to severe agoraphobia. The method involved a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with 137 participants who completed a 14-session protocol involving the treatments just mentioned. Measures were taken at baseline and posttreatment and at 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-up. All treatment conditions were statistically and clinically effective in reducing self-reported panic-agoraphobia symptoms over the 1-year follow-up. No statistical differences were observed between imipramine and placebo conditions. This study found that all treatment modalities helped reduce panic and agoraphobic symptomatology over a 1-year follow-up period. These surprising results support the need to document the relations among the various components of an intervention. This would make it possible to assess the relative efficacy of the treatment components rather than of the intervention as a whole.     

Clinical application of attachment theory in permanency planning for children in foster care: The importance of continuity of care

Permanency planning is a critical issue facing all children in foster care. Foster children frequently suffer from developmental delays and severe behavior problems, often leading to repeated displacements that in turn increase the risk for attachment disorders. To prevent the emergence of such disturbances, an Attachment Clinic was developed in Montreal to offer consultation to Youth Protection workers. A specific problem has frequently been identified in this Clinic: Should a child who has developed a significant attachment to his or her foster parents return to the biological parents or stay in the foster family? The choice between the two families is even more difficult when the parenting competencies of the biological parents seem to have progressed while the child has developed secure attachments in the foster family. Clinical cases will be presented to illustrate such dilemmas. Concepts rooted in attachment theory have been very useful to understand such problems, and have led us to believe that children's best interests lie in the preservation of their attachment ties and that repeated ruptures of such ties constitute a severe trauma. Resistances of the milieu to our position will be discussed as well as the Court's decisions in light of Canadian jurisprudence.     

Modulatory effects of happy mood on performance monitoring: Insights from error-related brain potentials

Goal-adaptive behavior requires the rapid detection of conflicts between actions and intentions or goals. Although many studies have focused in the past on the influence of negative affect on this cognitive control process (and more specifically, on error monitoring), little is known about the possible modulatory effects of positive affect on it. To address this question, we used a standard (positive) mood induction procedure (based on guided imagery) and asked participants to carry out a speeded go/no-go task while high-density electroencephalography was recorded concurrently. As a control condition, we used a group with neutral mood. Event-related potential results showed that the error-related negativity (ERN) component, reflecting early error detection within the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, was not influenced by happy mood. In contrast, the subsequent error positivity (Pe) component, related to the appraisal of the motivational significance of errors, was reliably smaller in the happy than in the neutral mood group. Complementing source localization analyses showed that this effect was explained by decreased activation within the posterior cingulate and insular cortices. These results were obtained in the absence of group differences regarding behavioral performance and tonic arousal. These findings suggest that happy mood likely decreases and changes the motivational significance of worse-than-expected events (Pe), while leaving their earlier automatic detection (ERN) unaltered. We discuss these new results in terms of dynamic changes in the complex interplay of performance monitoring with motivation.     

Canadian Immigrants’ Access to a First Job in Their Intended Occupation

Using detailed information on employment trajectory provided by the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, this study examines the labor market outcomes of recent immigrants in terms of the duration until access to a first job in their intended occupation, as determined by a question in the first wave interview on labor market intentions. The matching between actual and intended occupations is obtained from the first two digits of the National Occupational Classification codes, which consider successively occupation type and skill level. Using a Cox proportional hazards model, the study investigates the roles of factors related to human and social capital in speeding up the matching process between actual and intended occupations. It is found that the initial year in Canada is critical for an immigrant to land a job in the intended field; after that period, the hazards of finding employment in the intended occupation flatten down. In general, those with intention to work in nonprofessional jobs, such as sales and services, trades, transport and equipment operators, primary industry, and processing and manufacturing occupations, enter the first job in the intended occupation more quickly. The results also show that education, English language ability, Canadian work experience, and friend networks facilitate access to the intended occupation.