Attentional bias in high- and low-anxious individuals: evidence for threat-induced effects on engagement and disengagement

Attentional bias to threatening visual stimuli (words or pictures) is commonly present in anxious individuals, but not in non-anxious people. There is evidence to show that attentional bias to threat can be induced in all individuals when threat is imposed by threat not of symbolic nature, but by cues that predict aversive stimulation (loud noise or electric shock). However, it is not known whether attentional bias in such situations is still influenced by individual differences in anxiety. This question was addressed in two experiments using a spatial cuing task in which visual cues predicted the occurrence of an aversive event consisting of a loud human scream. Speeded attentional engagement to threat cues was positively correlated with trait anxiety in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed that speeded attentional engagement was present only in participants selected for high anxiety but not in low-anxious participants. In both experiments, slower disengagement from threat cues was found in all participants, irrespective of their trait anxiety levels.     

Interaction of Tremor and Magnification in a Motor Performance Task With Visual Feedback

In this study, the interaction between increased gain in the visual feedback loop and motor control of the periphery was investigated. Participants (N = 15) were asked to maintain a constant finger position while they used magnified visual feedback. The measure of the accuracy of each trial was the standard deviation (trial error) of the finger position. Trials performed under magnification had lower trial errors than trials without magnification. The change in trial error between trials with and without magnification proved greater than the difference between trials at any 2 magnifications. In contrast, the differences between individual subjects were often greater than the differences between performances at individual magnifications. At higher magnifications, performance seemed to be limited by the tremor; the ratio of trial error to tremor intensity was constant. When applied to microsurgery, the present results accord with those found in earlier research, including investigations that have found that the level of magnification used in microsurgery is not the most significant factor in achieving good results and that tremor is the limiting factor in microsurgical tasks.     

fMRI responses to Jung's Word Association Test: implications for theory,treatment and research

Jung's Word Association Test was performed under fMRI conditions by 12 normal subjects. Pooled complexed responses were contrasted against pooled neutral ones. The fMRI activation pattern of this generic ‘complexed response’ was very strong (corrected Z scores ranging from 4.90 to 5.69). The activation pattern in each hemisphere includes mirror neurone areas that track ‘otherness’ (perspectival empathy), anterior insula (both self‐awareness and emotional empathy), and cingulated gyrus (self‐awareness and conflict‐monitoring). These are the sites described by Siegel and colleagues as the ‘resonance circuitry’ in the brain which is central to mindfulness (awareness of self) and empathy (sense of the other), negotiations between self awareness and the ‘internal other’. But there is also an interhemispheric dialogue. Within 3 seconds, the left hemisphere over‐rides the right (at least in our normal subjects). Mindfulness and empathy are central to good psychotherapy, and complexes can be windows of opportunity if left‐brain hegemony is resisted. This study sets foundations for further research: (i) QEEG studies (with their finer temporal resolution) of complexed responses in normal subjects (ii) QEEG and fMRI studies of complexed responses in other conditions, like schizophrenia, PTSD, disorders of self organization.     

The Undecidability of Propositional Adaptive Logic

We investigate and classify the notion of final derivability of two basic inconsistency-adaptive logics. Specifically, the maximal complexity of the set of final consequences of decidable sets of premises formulated in the language of propositional logic is described. Our results show that taking the consequences of a decidable propositional theory is a complicated operation. The set of final consequences according to either the Reliability Calculus or the Minimal Abnormality Calculus of a decidable propositional premise set is in general undecidable, and can be -complete. These classifications are exact. For first order theories even finite sets of premises can generate such consequence sets in either calculus.     

Type of Job Loss and its Impact on Decision Control,Mastery, and Depression: Comparison of Employee and Company-Stated Reasons

In the present study, we explore agreement between company versus self-reported reasons for job loss and the degree of perceived control employees report over the job loss, looking to see if either job loss type or perceived control is related to subsequent levels of mastery and depression. Two thousand two hundred seventy-nine of 3,700 (61%) employees responded to a survey at Time One; of these participants, 310 later lost their jobs and were mailed a Time Two survey. Comparison of self- versus company-reported reasons for the job loss from the 171 usable surveys (55% response rate) revealed relatively good agreement. Roughly one third of the former employees, however, categorized the job loss in more than one way. There was also a very strong tendency for employees to report that they had very high control over the decision to leave the company, and nearly all employees reported improvements to their levels of mastery and depression; exceptions to this pattern were observed for those losing their jobs due to “rule violation” or “involuntary layoff.” Control over the job loss was related to Time Two levels of mastery and depression, but only weakly related to changes in these outcomes moving from Time One to Time Two.     

The effect of spatial order on piecemeal shape recognition: A developmental study

Stationary shapes were displayed piecemeal by moving an aperture from one place to another around their contours. Shape recognition was poorer with an unpredictable order of display. This result is more consistent with hypothesis-testing than with either eye-movement or visual information models of shape recognition. Shape recognition was poorer for 9- and 11-year-old children than for adults.     

What Is Social Construction?

In this paper I discuss the question of what it means to say that a property is socially constructed. I focus on an influential project that many social constructivists are engaged in, namely, arguing against the inevitability of a trait, and I examine several recent characterizations of social construction, with the aim of assessing which one is more suited to the task.