A different recruitment of the lateral and basolateral amygdala promotes contextual or elemental conditioned association in Pavlovian fear conditioning

Convergent data suggest dissociated roles for the lateral (LA) and basolateral (BLA) amygdaloid nuclei in fear conditioning, depending on whether a discrete conditioned stimulus (CS)-unconditional stimulus (US) or context-US association is considered. Here, we show that pretraining inactivation of the BLA selectively impaired conditioning to context. In contrast, inactivation of the LA disrupted conditioning to the discrete tone CS, but also either impaired or enhanced contextual conditioning, depending on whether the context was in the foreground or in the background. Hence, these findings refine the current model of the amygdala function in emotional learning by showing that the BLA and the LA not only differentially contribute to elemental and context-US association, but also promote, through their interaction, the most relevant of these two associations.     

Shape-from-shading depends on visual, gravitational, and body-orientation cues

The perception of shading-defined form results from an interaction between shading cues and the frames of reference within which those cues are interpreted. In the absence of a clear source of illumination, the definition of 'up' becomes critical to deducing the perceived shape from a particular pattern of shading. In our experiments, twelve subjects adjusted the orientation of a planar disc painted with a linear luminance gradient from one side to the other, until the disc appeared maximally convex-that is, until the luminance gradient induced the maximum perception of a three-dimensional shape. The vision, gravity, and body-orientation cues were altered relative to each other. Visual cues were manipulated by the York Tilted Room facility, and body cues were altered by simply lying on one side. The orientation of the disc that appeared maximally convex varied in a systematic fashion with these manipulations. We present a model in which the direction of perceptual 'up' is determined from the sum of three weighted vectors corresponding to the vision, gravity, and body-orientation cues. The model predicts the perceived direction of 'up', contributes to our understanding of how shape-from-shading is deduced, and also predicts the confidence with which the 'up' direction is perceived.     

Perfectionism and depression symptom severity in major depressive disorder.

In recent years it has been recognized that perfectionism is a multidimensional construct and two Multidimensional Perfectionism Scales have been developed and investigated in relative isolation [Frost, R.O., Marten, P., Lahart, C., & Rosenblate, R. (1990). The dimensions of perfectionism. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 449-468; Hewitt, P.L., & Flett, G.L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts: Conceptualization, assessment and association with psychopathology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 456-470]. The present study sought to evaluate the association between various dimensions of perfectionism, higher-order personality dimensions, and self and observer rated depressive symptoms in a group of 145 patients with major depressive disorder. Only three of ten perfectionism dimensions (socially prescribed perfectionism, concern over mistakes and self-criticism) displayed medium to large correlations with depressive symptoms, especially self-report symptoms reflecting depressive cognitive distortions. The results are discussed in relation to the specificity of perfectionism dimensions to depression, adaptive versus maladaptive aspects of perfectionism, and in the context of previous research, much of which has relied on college student samples.     

Suffering and the Dialectical Self in Buddhism and Relational Psychoanalysis

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

How sweet it is to be loved by you: the role of perceived regard in the terror management of close relationships

Drawing from terror management theory, the present research examined whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) leads people to exaggerate how positively their romantic partners see them and demonstrated that people are more committed to their partners to the extent that their romantic partners serve as a source of perceived regard after MS (Study 3). Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.