Emotion Dysregulation Mediates the Relationship Between Child Maltreatment and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury

One risk factor for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents is exposure to traumatic experiences, particularly child maltreatment. However, the mechanisms through which childhood maltreatment predicts NSSI are largely unknown. Emotion dysregulation (ED) is likely an important mechanism in this relationship. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between childhood maltreatment, ED, and NSSI in a sample of adolescent inpatients (n = 53). Results demonstrated that child physical and emotional maltreatment, but not child sexual abuse, was significantly associated with NSSI frequency. More specifically, ED mediated the relationship between child physical and emotional maltreatment and NSSI frequency. Findings support the importance of ED as a mediating factor in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and NSSI behaviors and highlight the need for teaching emotion regulation skills to youth affected by trauma.     

Are two spaces better than one? The effect of spacing following periods and commas during reading

The most recent edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) Manual states that two spaces should follow the punctuation at the end of a sentence. This is in contrast to the one-space requirement from previous editions. However, to date, there has been no empirical support for either convention. In the current study, participants performed (1) a typing task to assess spacing usage and (2) an eye-tracking experiment to assess the effect that punctuation spacing has on reading performance. Although comprehension was not affected by punctuation spacing, the eye movement record suggested that initial processing of the text was facilitated when periods were followed by two spaces, supporting the change made to the APA Manual. Individuals’ typing usage also influenced these effects such that those who use two spaces following a period showed the greatest overall facilitation from reading with two spaces.     

Forgetting of prior remembering in persons reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

Case studies of individuals reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse suggest that some overestimate their prior forgetting of the abuse. People reporting recovered or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse and control subjects reporting no history of abuse participated in two experiments examining this "forgot it all along" phenomenon. Participants in Experiment 1 were more likely to forget that they had previously recalled a studied item if they were cued to think of it differently on two recall tests than if they were cued to think of it in the same way on the two tests. This effect was stronger for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants. In Experiment 2, participants recalled autobiographical events three times over a period of 4 months. Much as in Experiment 1, they underestimated prior remembering when the events had been recalled in a different emotional frame (positive vs. negative) on the previous occasion. This underestimation was more pronounced for recovered-memory participants than for continuous-memory and control participants.     

A brief cognitive-behavioral approach to reducing anxiety sensitivity decreases pain-related anxiety

Anxiety sensitivity (AS; fear of anxiety-related sensations) is a known risk factor for anxiety disorders and recently has been linked to pain disorders. The present study was guided by the hypothesis that a program designed to reduce AS levels might also result in a decrease in anxiety related to pain sensations. Female undergraduates, selected as either high or low in AS according to screening scores on the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), were randomly assigned to participate in 3 1-hour, small group sessions of either cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT; psycho-education, cognitive restructuring, and interoceptive exposure) or a non-specific treatment (NST). Immediately prior to and following the intervention, participants completed the 20-item Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale (PASS-20). Consistent with hypothesis, results revealed a 3-way interaction between AS group, intervention condition, and time on PASS-20 total scores. Only participants with high pre-morbid levels of AS assigned to the CBT condition showed a significant reduction in scores on the PASS-20 from pre- to post-treatment. Implications for improving CBT approaches for pain disorders are discussed.     

Differences in high and low anxiety sensitive women's responses to a laboratory-based cold pressor task

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been linked to a variety of disabling chronic health conditions, including pain-related conditions. A recent study has found that healthy women with high AS reported significantly higher levels of sensory and affective pain on an experimental cold pressor task compared to women with low AS. However, this study found no differences between AS groups for pain tolerance or pain threshold. In the present study, which was designed to replicate and extend these findings, 90 undergraduate university women were selected for inclusion in 1 of 2 AS groups (high or low) based on their screening scores on a 16-item measure of AS. Participants were tested individually on a lab-based cold pressor task using a variety of self-report and observer-measured variables. Data analyses revealed that, as expected, the high AS participants reported significantly more fear in response to the cold pressor on a relevant item of the McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form (SF-MPQ) than did the low AS participants. Also as expected, the high AS participants reported more pain in response to the cold pressor on the Present Pain Index (PPI) of the SF-MPQ than did the low AS participants. High AS participants did not differ from low AS participants on other aspects of the cold pressor response (e.g. pain threshold, pain tolerance, pain recovery). These results support the role of pain-related fear as a mediating variable between AS and increased perceived pain intensity.     

Separating item-related electrophysiological indices of retrieval effort and retrieval orientation

The relationship between two classes of retrieval process-retrieval orientation and retrieval effort-was investigated using electrophysiological (ERP) and behavioural measures. ERPs were recorded during retrieval phases of exclusion tasks in which participants focused on retrieval of either phonological or semantic associates that were generated in a prior study phase. Participants were separated into two groups on the basis of the relative accuracy of their memory judgments in the retrieval tasks (high vs. low relative difficulty) as a means of assessing retrieval effort. The critical contrasts were between the ERPs evoked by unstudied test items separated according to group and emphasis of the retrieval task (semantic vs. phonological). Reliable differences according to task were evident in the high relative difficulty group only. This finding is consistent with the view that, for this task pair at least, ERPs are sensitive to the processes set in train in pursuit of task relevant information (retrieval orientations) only when relative difficulty is high.     

Accuracy and Confidence in Person Identification: The Relationship Is Strong When Witnessing Conditions Vary Widely

We hypothesized that both accuracy and confidence in suspect identifications depend, in part, on participants' ability to identify the target, and that both accuracy and confidence therefore tend to be higher under conditions that lead to good memory for the target than under conditions that lead to poor memory for the target. Furthermore, we hypothesized that a substantial correlation between accuracy and confidence will be observed if, because of variations in conditions, there is considerable variability across participants in ability to identify the target. Consistent with these hypotheses, manipulations that affected accuracy also affected confidence in the same direction, and when data were collapsed across conditions the accuracy-confidence correlation was substantial (mean r = .59).     

Biased lineups: sequential presentation reduces the problem.

Biased lineups have been shown to increase significantly false, but not correct, identification rates (Lindsay, Wallbridge, & Drennan, 1987; Lindsay & Wells, 1980; Malpass & Devine, 1981). Lindsay and Wells (1985) found that sequential lineup presentation reduced false identification rates, presumably by reducing reliance on relative judgment processes. Five staged-crime experiments were conducted to examine the effect of lineup biases and sequential presentation on eyewitness recognition accuracy. Sequential lineup presentation significantly reduced false identification rates from fair lineups as well as from lineups biased with regard to foil similarity, instructions, or witness attire, and from lineups biased in all of these ways. The results support recommendations that police present lineups sequentially.     

Developmental changes in memory source monitoring.

Previous research suggests that children are more likely than adults to confuse memories of actions they imagined themselves performing with memories of actions they actually performed (Realization Judgments), but are not more likely to confuse memories of actions they had imagined performing with memories of actions they saw another person perform (Reality Monitoring). We approach these findings in terms of a theory about the processes by which people identify the sources of their recollections (Source Monitoring). This approach suggests that children may be more likely than adults to confuse memories from different sources whenever the sources are highly similar to one another. Experiments 1 and 2 tested this hypothesis by manipulating the perceptual and semantic similarity of two sources of information and testing 4- and 6-year-old and adult subjects' recollection of the sources of particular pieces of information. Experiment 3 tested the hypothesis that children are more likely than adults to mistakenly identify memories of things they imagined another person doing as memories of things they witnessed that person doing. The findings indicate that (a) people are more likely to confuse memories from similar than dissimilar sources, (b) source monitoring improves during the preschool and childhood years, and (c) children may be especially vulnerable to the effects of source similarity.