Effects of the premenstrual syndrome on facial expressions of sadness

This study examined the relationship between PMS and emotion-related electromyographic facial activity at different phases of the menstrual cycle. Twenty-four women of reproductive age (12 with PMS, 12 controls) participated in two EMG sessions (T1 and T2) in which they were shown photographic images that can elicit various emotions (IAPS stimuli). T1 took place in the follicular phase, T2 in the luteal phase. The activity of the musculus depressor anguli oris ("depressor", expression of sadness) was measured. Depressor activity was compared to activity of musculus orbicularis oculi ("orbicularis"; expression of joy). ANOVA yielded a significant increase of the activity of the depressor at T2 in the PMS group. The PMS group showed more frequent depressor activity during the luteal than the follicular phase. Orbicularis activity did not change from T1 to T2. Conclusions: The PMS group experienced various visual stimuli in a more depressed way during the luteal phase.     

Diminished cooperativeness of psychopaths in a prisoner's dilemma game yields higher rewards

Maladaptive social behavior is one of the defining characteristics of psychopathic personality disorder. Nevertheless, maladaptive social behavior has only rarely been observed among psychopaths in experimentally controlled situations. The authors assessed the behavior of criminal psychopaths from high-security psychiatric hospitals in a computer simulation of a social dilemma situation. The psychopaths showed a markedly higher proneness to competitive (i.e., noncooperative) behavior than did healthy adults from the general population. The odds ratio between defection and being a psychopath was estimated at 7.86 in the sample. The probability to choose selfish instead of cooperative behavior was significantly linked to the following subscales of the Psychopathy Personality Inventory-Revised (S. O. Lilienfeld & M. R. Widows, 2005): rebellious nonconformity, Machiavellian egocentricity, and the total score. On average, the psychopathic participants accumulated higher gain and more strongly exploited their counterpart than did the healthy participants.     

Why positive information is processed faster: the density hypothesis

The authors postulate and show a speed advantage in the processing of positive information and hypothesize that this advantage is caused by the higher density of positive information in memory: Positive information is more similar to other positive information, in comparison with the similarity of negative information to other negative information. This "density" hypothesis is supported by multidimensional scaling of evaluative stimuli and response latency experiments. The relevance and explanatory power of the hypothesis is demonstrated by secondary data analyses of prior research in the evaluative priming paradigm. The final discussion is concerned with further theoretical implications of the density hypothesis, its generality and limitations, and its relation to other theoretical conceptions and applications.     

Forgetting in immediate serial recall: decay, temporal distinctiveness, or interference?

Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of serial recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (serial order in a box) model, respectively. The models were fit to 2 experiments investigating the effect of filled delays between items at encoding or at recall. Short delays between items, filled with articulatory suppression, led to massive impairment of memory relative to a no-delay baseline. Extending the delays had little additional effect, suggesting that the passage of time alone does not cause forgetting. Adding a choice reaction task in the delay periods to block attention-based rehearsal did not change these results. The interference-based SOB fit the data best; the primacy model overpredicted the effect of lengthening delays, and SIMPLE was unable to explain the effect of delays at encoding. The authors conclude that purely temporal views of forgetting are inadequate.     

Emotions evoked by the sound of music: characterization, classification, and measurement

One reason for the universal appeal of music lies in the emotional rewards that music offers to its listeners. But what makes these rewards so special? The authors addressed this question by progressively characterizing music-induced emotions in 4 interrelated studies. Studies 1 and 2 (n=354) were conducted to compile a list of music-relevant emotion terms and to study the frequency of both felt and perceived emotions across 5 groups of listeners with distinct music preferences. Emotional responses varied greatly according to musical genre and type of response (felt vs. perceived). Study 3 (n=801)--a field study carried out during a music festival--examined the structure of music-induced emotions via confirmatory factor analysis of emotion ratings, resulting in a 9-factorial model of music-induced emotions. Study 4 (n=238) replicated this model and found that it accounted for music-elicited emotions better than the basic emotion and dimensional emotion models. A domain-specific device to measure musically induced emotions is introduced--the Geneva Emotional Music Scale.     

Psychopathologie und Behandlung der Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung

Zusammenfassung Das Wissen über Psychopathologie, Ätiopathogenese und Behandlungsmöglichkeiten der Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung (BPS) hat sich in den letzten Jahren deutlich verbessert. Heute sehen die meisten Wissenschaftler eine generalisierte Störung der Affektregulation im Zentrum der BPS, deren Ursachen in Wechselwirkungen zwischen genetischen Faktoren, traumatischen biographischen Erfahrungen und dysfunktionalen Verhaltensmustern liegen. Störungsspezifische Therapieverfahren, insbesondere die Dialektisch Behaviorale Therapie (DBT) nach Linehan, flankiert von psychopharmakologischer Behandlung, zeigen gute Behandlungsergebnisse sowohl im stationären als auch im ambulanten Bereich. In jüngster Zeit wurden viel versprechende Konzepte zur Behandlung schwerer komorbider Störungen [Alkohol und Drogenabhängigkeit, Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung (PTBS)] entwickelt.     

Base rate effects on the IAT

We investigated the influence of stimulus base rates on the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Using an East/West-German attitude-IAT, we demonstrated that both overall response speed and differential response speed underlying IAT effects depend on the relative frequencies of the stimulus categories. First, when those stimuli that are more common in reality also occurred more frequently in the stimulus list, response speed generally increased. Second, IAT effects increased when congruent blocks profited from the compatibility of frequency-based response biases (i.e., frequent target stimuli and frequent valence stimuli mapped onto the same response key), whereas IAT effects decreased when incongruent trial blocks profited from response compatibility. These findings demonstrate that the stimulus context moderates the magnitude of the IAT effect. Simultaneously, they highlight the need to explore the extent to which implicit measures reflect properties of the task or the environment rather than attributes of test-takers.     

That baby caught my eye... attention capture by infant faces

An alternative to the view that during evolution the human brain became specialized to preferentially attend to threat-related stimuli is to assume that all classes of stimuli that have high biological significance are prioritized by the attention system. Newborns are highly biologically relevant stimuli for members of a species, as their survival is important for reproductive success. The authors examined whether the Kindchenschema (baby schema) as described by Lorenz (1943) captures attention in the dot probe task. The results confirm attentional capture by photos of human infants presented to the left visual field, suggesting right hemisphere advantage. The magnitude of the attentional modulation was highly correlated with subjective arousal ratings of the photos. The findings show that biologically significant positive stimuli are prioritized by the attention system.     

Multimodal expression of emotion: affect programs or componential appraisal patterns?

In earlier work, the authors analyzed emotion portrayals by professional actors separately for facial expression, vocal expression, gestures, and body movements. In a secondary analysis of the combined data set for all these modalities, the authors now examine to what extent actors use prototypical multimodal configurations of expressive actions to portray different emotions, as predicted by basic emotion theories claiming that expressions are produced by fixed neuromotor affect programs. Although several coherent unimodal clusters are identified, the results show only 3 multimodal clusters: agitation, resignation, and joyful surprise, with only the latter being specific to a particular emotion. Finding variable expressions rather than prototypical patterns seems consistent with the notion that emotional expression is differentially driven by the results of sequential appraisal checks, as postulated by componential appraisal theories.