Non-associative fear acquisition: a review of the evidence from retrospective and longitudinal research

It is axiomatic that the capacity to experience fear is adaptive, enabling rapid and energetic response to imminent threat or danger. Despite the generally accepted utility of functional fear, the nature of maladaptive fear remains controversial. There is still no consensus about how specific fears and phobias are acquired and modulated. Two major schools of thought are apparent: those suggesting dysfunctional fear arises largely as the result of associative-conditioning processes versus those who favour more biologically based etiological explanations. In this regard, the non-associative model of fear acquisition postulates the existence of a limited number of innate, evolutionary-relevant fears, while emphasising conditioning modes of onset for evolutionary-neutral fears. Recent retrospective and longitudinal studies have tested predictions from the non-associative model. In general, findings support non-associative hypotheses and are difficult to reconcile with neo-conditioning explanations of fear acquisition. These data suggest that four pathways to fear may provide the most parsimonious theory of fear etiology. The theoretical and practical implications of adding a fourth, non-associative path to Rachman's (Behav. Res. Ther. (1977) 15, 375-387) three 'associative' pathways are discussed. Unresolved issues requiring further investigation are considered.     

Positive and negative symptoms of schizotypy and the Five-factor model: a domain and facet level analysis

In this study, we investigated the Five-factor model in the concurrent prediction of positive symptom schizotypy as measured by the Magical Ideation (Eckblad & Chapman, 1983) and Perceptual Aberration (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1978) scales and negative symptom schizotypy as measured by the Physical Anhedonia (Chapman, Chapman, & Raulin, 1976) and Revised Social Anhedonia (Eckblad, Chapman, Chapman, & Mishlove, 1982; Mishlove & Chapman, 1985) scales. Previous studies suggest that these measures reflect the core symptoms found in schizotypal and schizoid personality disorder (Bailey, West, Widiger, & Freiman, 1993). Negative symptoms were significantly predicted by Neuroticism (+), Extraversion (-), Openness (-), and Agreeableness (-) domains of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992). Additionally, positive symptoms were significantly predicted by Neuroticism (+), Openness (+), and Agreeableness (-). In addition, we examined the validity of lower order traits in de- scribing these symptoms of character pathology. These findings lend further support for the use of domain and facet scales of the NEO-PI-R in the identification of personality pathology.     

The effect of category learning on sensitivity to within-category correlations

A salient property of many categories is that they are not just sets of independent features but consist of clusters of correlated features. Although there is much evidence that people are sensitive to between-categories correlations, the evidence about within-category correlations is mixed. Two experiments tested whether the disparities might be due to different learning and test tasks. Subjects learned about categories either by classifying items or by inferring missing features of items. Their knowledge of the correlations was measured with classification, prediction, typicality, and production tests. The inference learners, but not the classification learners, showed sensitivity to the correlations, although different tests were differentially sensitive. These results reconcile some earlier disparities and provide a more complete understanding of people's sensitivities to within-category correlations.     

Mother-infant interactions in western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla): spatial relationships,communication, and opportunities for social learning

This study investigated mother-infant interactions in lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) with particular focus on the relative role of mothers and infants in creating situations that are potentially conducive to infant social learning. Eleven gorilla mother-infant dyads were focally observed in weekly 1-hr sessions for 12 months. Spatial relationships were affected by age as well as by ambient temperature. Although the youngest infant was encouraged by its mother to walk and climb, mothers showed little or no encouragement in other contexts. In contrast, infants were quite interested in their mothers' activities, on some occasions repeated their mother's behavior, and actively encouraged their mothers to share food, play, or follow them. These findings suggest that gorilla infants are more active than their mothers in creating situations that are potentially conducive to the acquisition of knowledge or skills.     

Forgetting to remember: the functional relationship of decay and interference

Functional decay theory proposes that decay and interference, historically viewed as competing accounts of forgetting, are instead functionally related. The theory posits that (a) when an attribute must be updated frequently in memory, its current value decays to prevent interference with later values, and (b) the decay rate adapts to the rate of memory updates. Behavioral predictions of the theory were tested in a task-switching paradigm in which memory for the current task had to be updated every few seconds, hundreds of times. Reaction times and error rates both increased gradually between updates, reflecting decay of memory for the current task. This performance decline was slower when updates were less frequent, reflecting a decrease in the decay rate following a decrease in the update rate. A candidate mechanism for controlled decay is proposed, the data are reconciled with practice effects, and implications for models of executive control are discussed.     

Animal spare parts? A Canadian public consultation on xenotransplantation

Xenotransplantation, or the use of animal cells, tissues and organs for humans, has been promoted as an important solution to the worldwide shortage of organs. While scientific studies continue to be done to address problems of rejection and the possibility of animal-to-human virus transfer, socio-ethical and legal questions have also been raised around informed consent, life-long monitoring, animal welfare and animal rights, and appropriate regulatory practices. Many calls have also been made to consult publics before policy decisions are made. This paper describes the Canadian public consultation process on xenotransplantation carried out by the Canadian Public Health Association in an arm’s length process from Health Canada, the ministry overseeing government health policy and regulation. Focusing on six citizen fora conducted around the country patterned after the citizen jury deliberative approach, the paper describes the citizen panelists’ recommendations to hold off on proceeding with clinical trials and the rationales behind this recommendation. The consultation process is discussed in the context of constructive technology assessment, a framework which argues for broader input into earlier stages of technology innovation, particularly at the technology design stage. This study was supported by a grant to the first author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada.     

Milliseconds matter: an introduction to microstrategies and to their use in describing and predicting interactive behavior

Interactive behavior is constrained by the design of the artifacts available (e.g., a mouse and button) as well as by the ways in which elementary cognitive, perceptual, and motor operations can be combined. Any 2 basic activities, for example, (a) moving to and (b) clicking on a button, can be combined to yield a limited number of microstrategies. The results of an experimental study suggest that alternative microstrategies can be deployed that shave milliseconds from routine interactive behavior. Data from a usability study are used to explore the potential of microstrategies for (a) bracketing the range of individual performance, (b) profiling individual differences, and (c) diagnosing mismatches between expected and obtained performance. These 2 studies support the arguments that the microstrategies deployed can be sensitive to small features of an interface and that task analyses at the millisecond level can inform design.     

Risky driving behavior: a consequence of motion adaptation for visually guided motor action

The authors examined the effect of adaptation to expansion on overtaking maneuvers in a driving simulator. Following driving on a straight empty road for 5 min, drivers initiated overtaking substantially later (220-510 ms) than comparable maneuvers made following viewing a static scene or following 5 min of curve driving. Following adaptation to contraction (produced by driving backward), observers initiated overtaking significantly sooner. The removal of the road texture significantly reduced the size of the adaptation effect. The authors propose that these changes in overtaking behavior are due to misestimation of the time headway produced by local adaptation of looming detectors that signal motion-in-depth for objects near the focus of expansion. This adaptation effect may increase the risk of rear-end collisions during highway driving.     

Psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale in a clinical sample

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) in a clinical sample of 513 youth referred for mental health assessment at a university clinic. Internal consistency and factor analysis provided support for the factorial validity of the RCADS. Convergent and discriminant validity tests against both clinical interview and self-report criteria also suggested favorable properties of the RCADS. In comparative tests with traditional measures of anxiety and depression, the RCADS generally showed greater correspondence to specific diagnostic syndromes. Clinical cutoffs are reported for the purposes of future clinical and research applications.