Appraisals of dependent stressor controllability and severity are associated with depression and anxiety symptoms in youth

Background and objectives: Stress is well established as a strong risk factor for internalizing psychopathology. Learned helplessness research demonstrates that perceived controllability of stressors affects internalizing symptoms. Furthermore, subjective perceived stress is associated with psychopathology. However, most recent research has focused on measuring the frequency and expert-rated severity of stressful life events despite evidence for the importance of stress perceptions. The present study brings together past and current literatures to investigate the importance of perceived severity and controllability of recent life events in the association between stressors and internalizing symptoms.

Design and methods: We used a revised version of the Adolescent Life Events Questionnaire (ALEQ) that asked participants (ages 13–22, N?=?328) to rate the frequency of 65 stressful events typical to youth, as well as the perceived stressfulness and control they felt over each event. Events were categorized prior to analysis as dependent (self-generated), independent (fateful) or neither.

Results: Controllability and severity appraisals were associated with depression and anxiety symptoms, controlling for stressor frequency (which also predicted symptoms), for dependent but not independent stressors.

Conclusions: These results highlight the importance of controllability and severity appraisals as potential risk factors for internalizing disorders, exposing a potential target for therapy.     

The Role of Visual Feedback about Motion of the Ground on Postural Sway

Abstract

We asked whether body sway would be influenced by visual information about motion of the ground surface. On a ship at sea, standing participants performed a demanding visual search task or a simple visual inspection task. Display content was stationary relative to the ship or relative to the Earth. Participants faced the ship’s bow or its port side. Performance on the visual search task was representative of terrestrial studies. Body sway was greater during viewing of the Earth Stationary displays than during viewing of the Ship Stationary displays. We discuss possible implications of these results for theoretical and applied issues.     

Marking effects in instrumental performance on DRH schedules

Three experiments investigated the effect of presenting a brief stimulus after a response sequence on the rate of lever-pressing by rats on differential reinforcement of high rate (DRH) schedules. In Experiment 1 enhanced responding was produced by a visual stimulus presented during a 500-msec delay of reinforcement compared to a condition in which no stimulus was presented. In Experiment 2 rats responded on a multiple DRH DRH schedule in which the DRH contingency was reinforced on a 50% schedule in each component. Equivalent levels of responding occurred in the components when reinforcement was signalled in one component and when the signal was presented following the non-reinforced schedules in the other components. A further group of rats received the stimulus presented after non-reinforced schedules in one component but not at all in the other component; responding was enhanced in the former component relative to the latter component. In Experiment 3 brief stimuli presented after the completion of DRH components on a second-order VR (DRH) schedule elevated response rates irrespective of whether the signal was presented paired or unpaired with reinforcement. The present data support the view that a brief signal may serve to mark a response sequence in memory and facilitate instrumental performance.     

Feature representations and analytic/nonanalytic processing.

Lee Brooks' original formulation of instance theory embedded the notion of an instance within the larger conception of a distinction between analytic and nonanalytic processing. Brooks has recently argued that features can be represented either in terms of their specific feature appearance, or in terms of the abstract information some particular instantiation embodies. This work reviews some recent studies that link reliance on different types of feature representations to different decision-making processes, and to different patterns of categorization behaviour. This in turn complicates the analytic/nonanalytic distinction, suggesting a more precise reformulation.     

A comparison of information processing and dynamical systems perspectives on problem solving

Abstract

This article compares the information processing and dynamical systems perspectives on problem solving. Key theoretical constructs of the information-processing perspective include “searching” a “problem space” by using “heuristics” that produce “incremental” changes such as reaching a “subgoal” to solve a puzzle. Key theoretical constructs of the dynamical-systems perspective include “positive attractors”, “negative attractors”, and “latent attractors” that can cause large “nonincremental” changes in the possibility of a solution through the “emergence” of new ideas and beliefs that can resolve a conflict. The proposed alignment maps dynamical-system constructs to information-processing constructs: state space to problem space, negative attractor to impasse, positive attractor to productive subgoal, latent attractor to implicit cognition, and nonincremental change to insight. The purpose of the mapping is to explore similarities and differences between these constructs. Research from cognitive and social psychology illustrates how using constructs from both perspectives is helpful. The concluding section on Future Directions recommends an agenda based on three objectives: (1) create ontologies to organise current knowledge, (2) conduct research to obtain new knowledge, and (3) provide education to inform students about this knowledge.