Spatial attention-related modulation of the N170 by backward masked fearful faces

Facial expressions are a basic form of non-verbal communication that convey important social information to others. The relevancy of this information is highlighted by findings that backward masked facial expressions facilitate spatial attention. This attention effect appears to be mediated through a neural network consisting of the amygdala, anterior cingulate, and visual cortex. However, a direct investigation of the neural time course associated with orienting to such stimuli has yet to be performed. In the current investigation, a backward masked fearful face dot-probe task was performed while ERPs were recorded. Reaction time results suggest that spatial attention is captured by backward masked fearful faces and attention is focused at the location of the fear stimulus. Masked right visual field fearful faces enhanced the N170 amplitudes of contralateral occipito-temporal electrodes. The rapid contralateral N170 enhancement was positively correlated with participants’ behavioral index of spatial attention. Thus, backward masked fearful face-elicited spatial attention facilitates behavior and modulates the early stage of facial processing reflected by the N170.     

Attentional blink magnitude is predicted by the ability to keep irrelevant material out of working memory

Participants have difficulty in reporting the second of two masked targets if the second target is presented within 500 ms of the first target—an attentional blink (AB). Individual participants differ in the magnitude of their AB. The present study employed an individual differences design and two visual working memory tasks to examine whether visual working memory capacity and/or the ability to exclude irrelevant information from visual working memory (working memory filtering efficiency) could predict individual differences in the AB. Visual working memory capacity was positively related to filtering efficiency, but did not predict AB magnitude. However, the degree to which irrelevant stimuli were admitted into visual working memory (i.e., poor filtering efficiency) was positively correlated with AB magnitude over and above visual working memory capacity. Good filtering efficiency may benefit the AB by not allowing irrelevant RSVP distractors to gain access to working memory.     

Predictors of response and drop-out during intensive dialectical behavior therapy

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness, and predictors of response and drop-out during a four-week course of intensive dialectical behavior therapy (I-DBT) in 447 outpatients suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD), over a 10-year period. Assessments included a diagnostic interview, the International Personality Disorder Examination Screening Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Beck Hopelessness Scale. Among these participants, 103 started a second course of treatment. In agreement with previous reports, I-DBT was effective in reducing levels of depression and hopelessness with a trend of increasing effectiveness over the study period. High schizoid scores and low narcissistic score predicted poor response. Treatment completion rate was high, and low education predicted dropout. A discussion on the usefulness of a second course of treatment should be held with patients and staff as it was not effective in reducing depression and hopelessness.     

Commitment of Cultural Minorities in Organizations: Effects of Leadership and Pressure to Conform

Purpose  

In this study, we investigated the commitment of cultural minorities and majorities in organizations. We examined how contextual factors, such as pressure to conform and leadership styles, affect the commitment of minority and majority members.     

Irrational Beliefs in Employees with an Adjustment,a Depressive,or an Anxiety Disorder: a Prospective Cohort Study

It remains unclear if patients with different types of common mental disorders, such as adjustment, anxiety and depressive disorders, have the same irrational ideas. The aim of this prospective cohort study (n = 190) is to investigate differences in level and type of irrational beliefs among these groups and to examine whether a change in irrational beliefs is related to symptom recovery. Irrational beliefs (IBI) and symptoms were measured at four points in time: at baseline, after 3, 6 and 12 months. Results showed that diagnostic groups differed in their level of irrational beliefs and this effect remained over time. Highest levels of irrationality were observed in the double diagnosis group, followed by the anxiety disorder group and the depression group. Participants with adjustment disorders showed the lowest levels of irrationality, comparable to a community sample. We did not find differences in the type of irrational beliefs between diagnostic groups. The level of irrationality declined over time for all diagnostic groups. No differences in decrease were observed between diagnostic groups. The magnitude and direction of change in irrational beliefs were related to the magnitude of recovery of depressive, anxiety and stress symptoms over time. These results support the application of general cognitive interventions, especially for patients with a depressive or an anxiety disorder.     

Personality predicts temporal attention costs in the attentional blink paradigm

Accuracy for a second target is reduced when it is presented within 500 msec of a first target. This phenomenon is called the attentional blink (AB). A diffused attentional state (via positive affect or an additional task) has been shown to reduce the AB, whereas a focused attentional state (via negative affect) has been shown to increase the AB, purportedly by influencing the amount of attentional investment and flexibility. In the present study, individual differences in personality traits related to positive affect, negative affect, and cognitive flexibility were used to predict individual differences in AB magnitude. As hypothesized, greater extraversion and openness predicted smaller ABs. Greater openness also predicted higher overall target accuracy. Greater neuroticism predicted larger ABs and lower overall target accuracy. Conscientiousness, associated with less cognitive flexibility, predicted lower overall target accuracy. Personality may modulate the AB by influencing overinvestment via dispositional tendencies toward more or less stringent or capable cognitive control.     

Gavagai Is as Gavagai Does: Learning Nouns and Verbs From Cross‐Situational Statistics

Learning to map words onto their referents is difficult, because there are multiple possibilities for forming these mappings. Cross‐situational learning studies have shown that word‐object mappings can be learned across multiple situations, as can verbs when presented in a syntactic context. However, these previous studies have presented either nouns or verbs in ambiguous contexts and thus bypass much of the complexity of multiple grammatical categories in speech. We show that noun word learning in adults is robust when objects are moving, and that verbs can also be learned from similar scenes without additional syntactic information. Furthermore, we show that both nouns and verbs can be acquired simultaneously, thus resolving category‐level as well as individual word‐level ambiguity. However, nouns were learned more quickly than verbs, and we discuss this in light of previous studies investigating the noun advantage in word learning.