A vigilance task sensitive to the effects of stimulants, hypnotics, and environmental stress: The Scanning Visual Vigilance Test

The Scanning Visual Vigilance Test is a variable-length detection test designed to assess the ability of individuals to maintain visual alertness for sustained periods of time. The test was designed to be sensitive to changes in vigilance produced by subtle variations in performance, such as those produced by low doses of centrally acting food constituents, drugs, or environmental stress. The test has been shown to be sensitive to the effects of stimulants and sedatives, as well as cold stress and sleep loss. It requires the subject to continuously scan a video monitor to detect the occurrence of infrequent stimuli that are difficult to detect. The number of stimuli correctly detected, false alarms, and reaction times are recorded. The stimulus is a small rectangle displayed for 2 sec at random locations on a darker region of a video monitor at random or pseudo-random times. The brightness of the stimulus can be adjusted for each subject individually on an automated threshold detection test. Training and test session length are defined by the experimenter. Hardware requirements are an IBM-compatible personal computer (286 or higher) with a color or grayscale VGA monitor.     

on the acoustic analysis of primate vocalizations

The acoustic theory of speech production relates articulatory maneuvers to acoustic attributes of speech. Some procedures are discussed that make use of this theory to analyze the vocalizations of nonhuman primates. These procedures make use of sound spectrograms, oscillograms, and computer-implemented analogs of the primate vocal apparatus as well as anatomical measurements. The use of these techniques in recent studies of nonhuman primate vocalizations is reviewed. These studies show that nonhuman primates lack the anatomical apparatus that is necessary for the production of the full range of human speech. Some unresolved questions concerning the structure of nonhuman primate utterances are discussed with regard to human linguistic ability.     

Maternal Meta-Emotion Philosophy Moderates Effect of Maternal Symptomatology on Preschoolers Exposed to Domestic Violence

Exposure to domestic violence in the preschool years is consistently associated with children’s heightened risk for developing behavior problems. Maternal meta-emotion philosophy (awareness, acceptance, and coaching of children’s emotions) has been identified as an important protective factor in children’s development of internalizing and externalizing behaviors following exposure to domestic violence. However, mothers who are victims of domestic violence often experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress, which may undermine their capacity to respond to their children’s negative emotions. The present study examines the protective role of maternal meta-emotion philosophy among mothers and preschool-aged children exposed to domestic violence. Participants were 95 mothers (mean age?=?31.78) and their preschool-aged children (mean age?=?4.11) who had witnessed domestic violence involving their mothers. Multiple regression analyses, controlling for family socioeconomic status and child exposure to interpersonal violence in the family, indicated that maternal symptomatology was positively associated with children’s internalizing problems. In addition, maternal awareness and coaching of children’s negative emotions was found to moderate relations between maternal symptomatology and children’s internalizing behaviors, and maternal awareness of children’s negative emotions was found to moderate relations between maternal symptomatology and children’s externalizing behaviors. These findings expand our understanding of maternal meta-emotion philosophy as a protective factor for preschoolers who have witnessed domestic violence.     

Women's responses to stereotypical media portrayals: An fMRI study of sexualized and domestic images of women

Women tend to be portrayed in a sexualized or domestic manner in mainstream advertising; importantly this trend holds not only for ads targeting men but also for those targeting women themselves. Such a focus on sexualized portrayals in particular may not seem strategic given a wealth of evidence suggesting that women evaluate these portrayals quite negatively. Consumer attitudes toward domestic portrayals are more mixed but, unsurprisingly, vary according to how much a woman identifies as traditional. If female consumers do not evaluate these common portrayals positively, why might they persist? Past work suggests a disconnect between reported attitudes toward general visual sexual stimuli and physiological and neural responses; therefore, it is plausible that neural responses to stereotypical female portrayals in advertising may be at odds with reported attitudes and may have a bigger impact on consumer behavior. The current study exposed women to sexualized, domestic, and control images in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner as an initial test of this idea. We found that participants reported liking both domestic and control images more than sexualized images. In contrast, they showed more activity in regions associated with reward and arousal (ventral striatum and amygdala, respectively) while viewing sexualized images relative to both control and domestic images. Surprisingly, ventral striatum response to sexualized ads was stronger for women who endorsed traditional attitudes than those who reported less traditional attitudes. These results suggest that despite reporting negative attitudes toward sexualized portrayals, women may in fact have a favorable response to these images. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neural bases of moderation of cortisol stress responses by psychosocial resources

Psychosocial resources have been tied to lower psychological and biological responses to stress. The present research replicated this relationship and extended it by examining how differences in dispositional reactivity of certain neural structures may underlie this relationship. Two hypotheses were examined: (a) psychosocial resources are tied to decreased sensitivity to threat and/or (b) psychosocial resources are associated with enhanced prefrontal inhibition of threat responses during threat regulation. Results indicated that participants with greater psychosocial resources exhibited significantly less cortisol reactivity following a stress task, as predicted. Analyses using functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed that psychosocial resources were associated with greater right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and less amygdala activity during a threat regulation task but were not associated with less amygdala activity during a threat sensitivity task. Mediational analyses suggest that the relation of psychosocial resources to low cortisol reactivity was mediated by lower amygdala activity during threat regulation. Results suggest that psychosocial resources are associated with lower cortisol responses to stress by means of enhanced inhibition of threat responses during threat regulation, rather than by decreased sensitivity to threat.     

The lasting effect of words on feelings: words may facilitate exposure effects to threatening images

Previous studies have shown that mere words, particularly affective words, can dampen emotional responses. However, the effect of affective labels on emotional responding in the long term is unknown. The authors examined whether repeated exposure to aversive images would lead to more reduction in autonomic reactivity a week later if the images were exposed with single-word labels than without labels. In Experiment 1, healthy individuals were exposed to pictures of disturbing scenes with or without labels on Day 1. On Day 8, the same pictures from the previous week were exposed, this time without labels. In Experiment 2, participants were spider fearful and were exposed to pictures of spiders. In both experiments, although repeated exposure to aversive images (without labels) led to long-term attenuation of autonomic reactivity, exposure plus affective labels, but not nonaffective labels, led to more attenuation than exposure alone. Thus, affective labels may help dampen emotional reactivity in both the short and long terms. Implications for exposure therapy and translational studies are discussed.     

Why do the effects of delaying reinforcement in animals and delaying feedback in humans differ? A working-memory analysis

Animal research has shown that reinforcement is substantially less effective when it is delayed, but in studies of human motor learning delays in providing feedback typically have much less effect. One possible explanation is that in human research participants know the response to be learned and can thus focus on it during the delay; that is not the case in experiments on animals. We tested this hypothesis using a task in which participants had minimal information on what movement was correct and found that, as in animal experiments, participants learned only when feedback was immediate. A second experiment confirmed that the effects of the delay depended on how many responses had to be held in working memory: the greater the memory load, the poorer the learning. The results point to the importance of activity during a delay on learning; implications for the teaching of motor skills are discussed.     

A prevocational training project for emotionally disturbed adolescents

Adult inpatient populations, trained to develop a repertoire of work-related skills such as tracking and following directions, utilizing emotional controls, relating to the world in a realistic manner, as well as acceptance of supervision, grooming, punctuality, and attendance. These skills eased their transition to the community and assisted in a more positive existence once within that community as compared to their untrained cohort. Additionally, the process of vocational training has been demonstrated to have therapeutic benefits. This project used many of the same adult training principles but applied them to an adolescent inpatient population. A vocational training project using specific behavioral interventions resulted in comparable improvement for adolescent subjects otherwise evidenced in adult patients' work-related skills and abilities. This training project was conducted yearly, 32 h per week for 10 weeks for 4 years. The project combined actual work experience, classroom time and behavioral interventions and rewards. A 16 × 10 analysis of variance was computed to assess improvement in work-related skills and abilities. The analysis yielded and F = 2.57, p < 0.01, suggesting the efficacy of the behavioral interventions when applied to adolescent inpatient populations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.