Ambiguous emotion recognition in temporal lobe epilepsy: The role of expression intensity

The lateralization of emotion processing is currently debated and may be further explored by examining facial expression recognition (FER) impairments in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Furthermore, there is also debate in the literature whether FER deficits in individuals with TLE are more pronounced in the right than in the left hemisphere. Individuals with TLE were tested with an FER task designed to be more sensitive than those classically used to shed light on this issue. A total of 25 right- and 32 left-TLE patients, candidates for surgery, along with controls, underwent an FER task composed of stimuli shown not only at full-blown intensities (100 %), but also morphed to lower-intensity display levels (35 %, 50 %, and 75 %). The results showed that, as compared to controls, right-TLE patients showed deficits in the recognition of all emotional categories. Furthermore, when considering valence, right-TLE patients were impaired only in negative emotion recognition, but no deficits for positive emotions were highlighted in left-TLE patients. Finally, only the right-TLE patients’ impairment was found to be related to the age of epilepsy onset. Our work demonstrates that the FER deficits in TLE span multiple emotional categories and show manifestations dependent on the laterality of the epileptic focus. Taken together, our findings provide the strongest evidence for the right-hemisphere model, but they also partially support the valence model. We suggest that current models are not exhaustive at explaining emotional-processing cerebral control, and further that multistep models should be developed.     

How shared preferences in music create bonds between people: values as the missing link

How can shared music preferences create social bonds between people? A process model is developed in which music preferences as value-expressive attitudes create social bonds via conveyed value similarity. The musical bonding model links two research streams: (a) music preferences as indicators of similarity in value orientations and (b) similarity in value orientations leading to social attraction. Two laboratory experiments and one dyadic field study demonstrated that music can create interpersonal bonds between young people because music preferences can be cues for similar or dissimilar value orientations, with similarity in values then contributing to social attraction. One study tested and ruled out an alternative explanation (via personality similarity), illuminating the differential impact of perceived value similarity versus personality similarity on social attraction. Value similarity is the missing link in explaining the musical bonding phenomenon, which seems to hold for Western and non-Western samples and in experimental and natural settings.     

Cognitive structure of emotion terms in Indonesia and The Netherlands

The rapid detection of facial expressions of anger or threat has obvious adaptive value. In this study, we examined the efficiency of facial processing by means of a visual search task. Participants searched displays of schematic faces and were required to determine whether the faces displayed were all the same or whether one was different. Four main results were found: (1) When displays contained the faces, people were slower in detecting the absence of a discrepant face when the faces displayed angry (or sad/angry) rather than happy expressions. (2) When displays contained a discrepant face people were faster in detecting this when the discrepant face displayed an angry rather than a happy expression. (3) Neither of these patterns for same and different displays was apparent when face displays were inverted, or when just the mouth was presented in isolation. (4) The search slopes for angry targets were significantly lower than for happy targets. These results suggest that detection of angry facial expressions is fast and efficient, although does not “pop-out” in the traditional sense.     

The Political Reputation of Students in Upper Secondary School: Consequences for Their Collective Political Activities Four Years Later

This longitudinal study examines the role that students' political reputation in class plays in their future political activities offline together with other people. When aged 16, students were asked to nominate the classmates they considered politically knowledgeable and verbal in class, that is, as having a political reputation. This measure of political reputation was used to predict the participants' political activities offline four years later at age 20 and their attempts to take a stand in public in the national election the same year. The study controlled for individual differences in political interest, self-perceived political impact in class, the students' political activities at age 16, and also gender and immigrant status. About 300 Swedish students were followed up four years later. Political reputation in class positively predicted future political activities offline, membership of political organizations, and attempts to take a stand in public for a party in the forthcoming national election. At the same time, the role played by political reputation depended upon students' other characteristics, especially their levels of anger and popularity, as observed by classmates. Evidently, the group dynamics in class that give some students a political reputation have long-term consequences for their future political activities.     

Target selection difficulty, negative priming, and aging

It has been recently suggested that the presence of identity negative priming effects in old adults could occur when there is substantial processing of the distracting information in a selective attention task (J. M. Kieley & A. A. Hartley, 1997). In three experiments, using a letter identification task, it was found that making target selection more difficult increased the magnitude of the negative priming effect to a similar extent in both young and old adults. Moreover, the size of the negative priming effect did not differ between young and elderly participants. These results are discussed with respect to the issue of age-related deficits in the mechanisms underlying negative priming.     

Domestic chicks perceive stereokinetic illusions

Stereokinetic illusions occur when certain 2-D patterns are set in slow rotation in a plane perpendicular to the line of sight. Such phenomena have never been investigated in animal species other than our own. We used the domestic chick (Gallus gallus) to check whether these illusions are experienced by non-human species, taking advantage of filial imprinting. Newly hatched visually naive chicks were individually exposed for 4 h to 2-D stimuli producing, to a human observer, the perception of a stereokinetic cone (experiment 1) or of a stereokinetic cylinder (experiment 2). Thereafter, each chick underwent a free-choice test between a solid 3-D cone and a solid 3-D cylinder. A control group of newly hatched but not imprinted chicks underwent the same testing procedure, to check for the presence of any spontaneous preference for one or other of the two solid objects. Imprinted chicks approached the 3-D stimulus closely resembling the stimulus they had been exposed to during imprinting (the cone in experiment 1 and the cylinder in experiment 2). Non-imprinted chicks did not show any preference. These results suggest that domestic chicks experience stereokinetic illusions.     

Dissecting the geometric module: a sense linkage for metric and landmark information in animals' spatial reorientation

Disoriented children can use geometric information in combination with featural information to reorient themselves in large but not in small spaces; somewhat similar effects have been found in nonhuman animals. These results call for an explanation. We trained young chicks to reorient to find food in a corner of a small or a large rectangular room with a distinctive featural cue (a blue wall) -- a task similar to that used with children. Then we tested the chicks after displacement of the feature to an adjacent wall. In the large enclosure, chicks chose the corner that maintained the correct arrangement of the featural cue with respect to sense, whereas in the small enclosure, they chose the corner that maintained the correct metrical arrangement of the walls with respect to sense. On the basis of these findings, we propose a simple model that can explain the effects of room size on spatial reorientation.     

Attachment predicts treatment completion in an eating disorders partial hospital program among women with anorexia nervosa

The goal of this study was to examine if attachment theory can provide a framework for understanding treatment completion in an eating disorders partial hospital program among women with anorexia nervosa (AN). Attachment was measured using the Attachment Styles Questionnaire (Feeney, Noller, & Hanrahan, 1994). As hypothesized, self-reports of high avoidant attachment predicted noncompletion of treatment for those with AN binge-purge subtype (ANB). However, this relationship did not emerge for those with AN restricting subtype (ANR). Also as hypothesized, self-reports of high anxious attachment predicted completing treatment for those with ANB but not for those with ANR. For completers with ANB and ANR, the program was helpful in increasing body weight and lowering drive for thinness, body dissatisfaction, interpersonal problems, and depression. Attachment avoidance, characterized by devaluing one's need for relationships, may be a contraindication for group-based partial hospital treatment of ANB. Attachment anxiety, characterized by high preoccupation with relationships, may facilitate remaining in treatment for those with ANB.     

Context in selection of men and women in hiring decisions: gender composition of the applicant pool

The hypothesis that the sex composition of an applicant pool affects the hiring probabilities of individual job applicants was tested using gender-distinctive information on accepted and rejected job applicants in The Netherlands. The evidence supports this hypothesis, although the effect sizes are moderate. Both men and women have a lower probability of being hired when the applicant pool contains fewer applicants from their own sex.     

Animals' use of landmarks and metric information to reorient: effects of the size of the experimental space

Disoriented children could use geometric information in combination with landmark information to reorient themselves in large but not in small experimental spaces. We tested fish in the same task and found that they were able to conjoin geometric and non-geometric (landmark) information to reorient themselves in both the large and the small space used. Moreover, fish proved able to reorient immediately when dislocated from a large to a small experimental space and vice versa, suggesting that they encoded the relative rather than the absolute metrics of the environment. However, fish tended to make relatively more errors based on geometric information when transfer occurred from a small to a large space, and to make relatively more errors based on landmark information when transfer occurred from a large to a small space. The hypothesis is discussed that organisms are prepared to use only distant featural information as landmarks.