Experimental analyses of gene-brain-behavior relations: some notes on their application.

The fields of genetics and neuroscience are yielding findings useful in understanding complex behavior-environment relations. We believe that these developments in interdisciplinary basic research are of interest to applied behavior analysts because of the long history of basic findings being used by the readership of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis to improve everyday human activities. An awareness of contemporary developments in a range of basic research disciplines may facilitate the systematic replication of those functional relations in applied settings. In this context, we selectively review papers published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and other basic research journals that relate to gene-brain-behavior relations.     

Beyond Deficits: Intimate Partner Violence,Maternal Parenting,and Child Behavior Over Time

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) has negative consequences for children’s well-being and behavior. Much of the research on parenting in the context of IPV has focused on whether and how IPV victimization may negatively shape maternal parenting, and how parenting may in turn negatively influence child behavior, resulting in a deficit model of mothering in the context of IPV. However, extant research has yet to untangle the interrelationships among the constructs and test whether the negative effects of IPV on child behavior are indeed attributable to IPV affecting mothers’ parenting. The current study employed path analysis to examine the relationships among IPV, mothers’ parenting practices, and their children’s externalizing behaviors over three waves of data collection among a sample of 160 women with physically abusive partners. Findings indicate that women who reported higher levels of IPV also reported higher levels of behavior problems in their children at the next time point. When parenting practices were examined individually as mediators of the relationship between IPV and child behavior over time, one type of parenting was significant relationship, such that IPV lead to higher authoritative parenting and lower child behavior problems. On the other hand, there was no evidence that higher levels of IPV contributed to more child behavior problems due to maternal parenting. Instead, IPV had a significant cumulative indirect effect on child behavior via the stability of both IPV and behavior over time. Implications for promoting women’s and children’s well-being in the context of IPV are discussed.     

Emotion-induced blindness reflects competition at early and late processing stages: An ERP study

Emotion-induced blindness (EIB) refers to impaired awareness of items appearing soon after an irrelevant, emotionally arousing stimulus. Superficially, EIB appears to be similar to the attentional blink (AB), a failure to report a target that closely follows another relevant target. Previous studies of AB using event-related potentials suggest that the AB results from interference with selection (N2 component) and consolidation (P3b component) of the second target into working memory. The present study applied a similar analysis to EIB and, similarly, found that an irrelevant emotional distractor suppressed the N2 and P3b components associated with the following target at short lags. Emotional distractors also elicited a positive deflection that appeared to be similar to the P_D component, which has been associated with attempts to suppress salient, irrelevant distractors (Kiss, Grubert, Petersen, & Eimer, 2012; Sawaki, Geng, & Luck, 2012; Sawaki & Luck, 2010). These results suggest that irrelevant emotional pictures gain access to working memory, even when observers are attempting to ignore them and, like the AB, prevent access of a closely following target.     

Aesthetics and the Dream of Objectivity: Notes from Set Theory

In this paper, we consider various ways in which aesthetic value bears on, if not serves as evidence for, the truth of independent statements in set theory.

... the aesthetic issue, which in practice will also for me be the decisive factor—John von Neumann, letter to Carnap, 1931     

Illness coping behaviour of outpatients with depression or diabetes mellitus in two tertiary hospitals in Enugu state,southeast Nigeria

The study aims to compare the coping styles of patients with diabetes with those with depression. A total of 224 patients, 112 with depression and an equal number with diabetes were recruited. Sociodemographic variables were determined with the sociodemographic questionnaire, and coping styles with the Mental Adjustment to Cancer (MAC) adapted and Brief Religious Coping (Brief RCOPE) Scales. Fighting Spirit and MAC Summary Positive Adjustment were used more by participants with depression. Both groups of participants used the Brief RCOPE positive method to the same extent. Brief RCOPE negative was used more by participants with depression. Positive coping skills were used more by participants with depression than those with diabetes. This underscores the need for clinicians to explore the coping resources available to their patients, both religious and non-religious, and projecting them to their patients for enhancement and application as an adjunct for the purpose of a better clinical outcome.     

How do shoppers behave online? An observational study of online grocery shopping

The pace of online shopping revenue growth means it is important for retailers and manufacturers to understand how consumers behave online compared with their behaviour in brick and mortar stores. We conducted a study in which the detailed behaviour of 40 shoppers was screen recorded while they each undertook an online shopping ‘trip’. The shopping trip comprised purchasing a basket of 12 commonly bought grocery categories at one of two major retailers. The shoppers were all inexperienced in online grocery shopping. Results show that online grocery shopping is fast, even for these consumers who were new to it – half of the online shoppers spent less than 10 seconds purchasing from a category. This result is very similar to that of past studies in physical stores. Indeed, half of all the 12 item‐shopping trips took less than 10 minutes. Also, most purchases were made from the first category page displayed in the retailer's online store. Shoppers also consistently used the default display options chosen by the retailers but used a combination of navigational tools to find their products. We conclude that online shoppers do not behave differently from those offline in terms of time spent or effort expended. Online shopping, in the grocery context at least, seems to primarily reflect a desire for time efficiency on the part of the shopper. In that regard, online shopping seems very similar to in‐store shopping. The study begins the job of documenting shopper behaviour into this new channel and provides practical knowledge for retailers and manufacturers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trajectories of resilience, depression, and anxiety following spinal cord injury

Purpose/Objective: To investigate longitudinal trajectories of depression and anxiety symptoms following spinal cord injury (SCI) as well as the predictors of those trajectories. Research Method/Design: A longitudinal study of 233 participants assessed at 4 time points: within 6 weeks, 3 months, 1 year, and 2 years from the point of injury. Data were analyzed using latent growth mixture modeling to determine the best-fitting model of depression and anxiety trajectories. Covariates assessed during hospitalization were explored as predictors of the trajectories. Results: Analyses for depression and anxiety symptoms revealed 3 similar latent classes: a resilient pattern of stable low symptoms, a pattern of high symptoms followed by improvement (recovery), and delayed symptom elevations. A chronic high depression pattern also emerged but not a chronic high anxiety pattern. Analyses of predictors indicated that compared with other groups, resilient patients had fewer SCI-related quality of life problems, more challenge appraisals and fewer threat appraisals, greater acceptance and fighting spirit, and less coping through social reliance and behavioral disengagement. Conclusion/Implications: Overall, the majority of SCI patients demonstrated considerable psychological resilience. Models for depression and anxiety evidenced a pattern of elevated symptoms followed by improvement and a pattern of delayed symptoms. Chronic high depression was also observed but not chronic high anxiety. Analyses of predictors were consistent with the hypothesis that resilient individuals view major stressors as challenges to be accepted and met with active coping efforts. These results are comparable to other recent studies of major health stressors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Perceptual, not memorial, disruption underlies emotion-induced blindness

Emotion-induced blindness refers to impaired awareness of stimuli appearing in the temporal wake of an emotionally arousing stimulus (S. B. Most, Chun, Widders, & Zald, 2005). In previous emotion-induced blindness experiments, participants withheld target responses until the end of a rapid stream of stimuli, even though each target appeared in the middle of the stream. The resulting interval between the targets' offset and participants' initiation of a response leaves open the possibility that emotion-induced blindness reflects a failure to encode or maintain target information in memory rather than a failure of perception. In the present study, participants engaged in a typical emotion-induced blindness task but initiated a response immediately upon seeing each target. Emotion-induced blindness was nevertheless robust. This suggests that emotion-induced blindness is not attributable to the delay between awareness of a target and the initiation of a response, but rather reflects the disruptive impact of emotional distractors on mechanisms driving conscious perception.     

When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence

The status-enhancement theory of overconfidence proposes that overconfidence pervades self-judgment because it helps people attain higher social status. Prior work has found that highly confident individuals attained higher status regardless of whether their confidence was justified by actual ability ( Anderson, Brion, Moore, & Kennedy, 2012). However, those initial findings were observed in contexts where individuals’ actual abilities were unlikely to be discovered by others. What happens to overconfident individuals when others learn how good they truly are at the task? If those individuals are penalized with status demotions, then the status costs might outweigh the status benefits of overconfidence – thereby casting doubt on the benefits of overconfidence. In three studies, we found that group members did not react negatively to individuals revealed as overconfident, and in fact still viewed them positively. Therefore, the status benefits of overconfidence outweighed any possible status costs, lending further support to the status-enhancement theory.     

Differential brain shrinkage over 6 months shows limited association with cognitive practice

The brain shrinks with age, but the timing of this process and the extent of its malleability are unclear. We measured changes in regional brain volumes in younger (age 20–31) and older (age 65–80) adults twice over a 6 months period, and examined the association between changes in volume, history of hypertension, and cognitive training. Between two MRI scans, 49 participants underwent intensive practice in three cognitive domains for 100 consecutive days, whereas 23 control group members performed no laboratory cognitive tasks. Regional volumes of seven brain structures were measured manually and adjusted for intracranial volume. We observed significant mean shrinkage in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the caudate nucleus, and the cerebellum, but no reliable mean change of the prefrontal white matter, orbital-frontal cortex, and the primary visual cortex. Individual differences in change were reliable in all regions. History of hypertension was associated with greater cerebellar shrinkage. The cerebellum was the only region in which significantly reduced shrinkage was apparent in the experimental group after completion of cognitive training. Thus, in healthy adults, differential brain shrinkage can be observed in a narrow time window, vascular risk may aggravate it, and intensive cognitive activity may have a limited effect on it.