Cognitive,affective and social mechanisms in depression risk: Cognition,hostility, and coping style

Although some research has assessed cognitive variables in individuals at risk for depression, few studies have specifically assessed the role of automatic thinking, and virtually no studies have assessed anger and coping in this group. The current study compared measures of these variables in a high-risk group that was defined on the basis of a previous episode of depression, and a control group comprised of low-risk/never depressed individuals. Even though neither group evidenced depressive symptoms at the time of assessment, group comparisons and regression analyses indicated that high-risk individuals reported more negative automatic thoughts than did low-risk participants and that social support seeking, self-blame, and avoidance emerged as coping predictors of risk as did higher levels of anger and hostility. These data thus suggest patterns of interpersonal, behavioural, and cognitive variables that may characterise depression risk.     

Executive functions and extraversion

Executive functions and extraversion have been linked to similar neurological substrates. Participants were tested on a variety of tasks that assessed performance on three components of executive functioning (i.e., shifting, updating, and inhibition) and two measures of extraversion (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised and Carver and White’s BIS/BAS scales). More extraverted participants showed different patterns of executive function performance than the more introverted participants. Extraverts performed best on more difficult tasks and on updating tasks. Conversely, introverts performed best on set shifting tasks. These results suggest that executive functioning strengths differ based on degree of extraversion.     

The psychometrics of photographic cropping: the influence of colour, meaning, and expertise

Cropping is the central act of photography, the viewfinder of a camera being used to crop a portion of the visual world which is then surrounded with a frame. Six studies are described which show that the act of cropping is carried out reliably and confidently by both expert and non-expert participants. Two studies confirm that some croppers are better croppers than others, their cropped images being preferred aesthetically over the croppings of less-good croppers. Colour had little impact on cropping decisions, whereas thresholded monochrome images ('Mooney images') dramatically altered crop positions. That suggests that cropping can be driven top-down, by the meaning of objects in photographs, but the fact that the Mooneyised images are still cropped consistently, suggests that image structure, perhaps in the form of low-level image properties, may still be important. Experts crop pictures differently from non-experts, and they take longer, viewing a wider range of possible crops, pausing longer to assess crops, and using more formal terminology when reflecting on their cropping decisions. Experts' crops are not, however, preferred more, either by non-expert viewers or by expert viewers. Cropping, it is suggested, is an ideal paradigm for experimental aesthetics, allowing precise experimental control with Fechner's Method of Production, a technique which normally is not easy to use.     

What can What-When-Where (WWW) binding tasks tell us about young children's episodic foresight? Theory and two experiments

We analyze theoretical differences between conceptualist and minimalist approaches to episodic processing in young children. The ‘episodic-like’ minimalism of Clayton and Dickinson (1998) is a species of the latter. We asked whether an ‘episodic-like’ task (structurally similar to ones used by Clayton and Dickinson) in which participants had to bind What (kind of object), to Where (location of object) to When (temporal duration from present) - WWW-binding - would produce the often-found developmental trajectory in episodic foresight performance of failure at 3 years, transitional performance at 4 and success at 5. Although failure at 3 years was reproduced, the performance of 4 and 5 year olds was likely affected by the executive challenge of inhibiting reference to the currently preferable item.     

Children's drawings of significant figures for a peer or an adult audience

The present study assessed if children would present different information in their drawings of emotion eliciting stimuli when they believed that an adult or a child audience would view their drawings. Seventy‐five 6‐year‐olds (44 boys and 31 girls) were allocated to three groups: the reference group, the child audience group and the adult audience group. All children completed a drawing session where they first drew a neutral uncharacterised figure, followed by drawings of a sad and a happy figure in counterbalanced order. Findings demonstrated that children did consider who would be viewing their drawings when communicating emotional affect and included different features within their drawings. In particular, almost all happy drawings included a smile, but only those drawings where an audience was specified included a wave, and only the adult drawings included flower giving. Within the sad drawings tears and frowns were drawn regardless of audience type, whereas stomping was more likely to be portrayed in drawings with a child audience and thumbs down were more likely to be portrayed in drawings with adult audiences. The findings are discussed in terms of the need to further examine communicative aspects of children's drawings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stereotyping starlings are more ‘pessimistic’

Negative affect in humans and animals is known to cause individuals to interpret ambiguous stimuli pessimistically, a phenomenon termed ‘cognitive bias’. Here, we used captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to test the hypothesis that a reduction in environmental conditions, from enriched to non-enriched cages, would engender negative affect, and hence ‘pessimistic’ biases. We also explored whether individual differences in stereotypic behaviour (repetitive somersaulting) predicted ‘pessimism’. Eight birds were trained on a novel conditional discrimination task with differential rewards, in which background shade (light or dark) determined which of two covered dishes contained a food reward. The reward was small when the background was light, but large when the background was dark. We then presented background shades intermediate between those trained to assess the birds’ bias to choose the dish associated with the smaller food reward (a ‘pessimistic’ judgement) when the discriminative stimulus was ambiguous. Contrary to predictions, changes in the level of cage enrichment had no effect on ‘pessimism’. However, changes in the latency to choose and probability of expressing a choice suggested that birds learnt rapidly that trials with ambiguous stimuli were unreinforced. Individual differences in performance of stereotypies did predict ‘pessimism’. Specifically, birds that somersaulted were more likely to choose the dish associated with the smaller food reward in the presence of the most ambiguous discriminative stimulus. We propose that somersaulting is part of a wider suite of behavioural traits indicative of a stress response to captive conditions that is symptomatic of a negative affective state.     

Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) show a feature-negative effect specific to social learning

Previous laboratory studies on social learning suggest that some animals can learn more readily if they first observe a conspecific demonstrator perform the task unsuccessfully and so fail to obtain a food reward than if they observe a successful demonstrator that obtains the food. This effect may indicate a difference in how easily animals are able to associate different outcomes with the conspecific or could simply be the result of having food present in only some of the demonstrations. To investigate we tested a scatter-hoarding mammal, the eastern grey squirrel, on its ability to learn to choose between two pots of food after watching a conspecific remove a nut from one of them on every trial. Squirrels that were rewarded for choosing the opposite pot to the conspecific chose correctly more frequently than squirrels rewarded for choosing the same pot (a feature-negative effect). Another group of squirrels was tested on their ability to choose between the two pots when the rewarded option was indicated by a piece of card. This time, squirrels showed no significant difference in their ability to learn to choose the same or the opposite pot. The results add to anecdotal reports that grey squirrels can learn by observing a conspecific and suggest that even when all subjects are provided with demonstrations with the same content, not all learning occurs equally. Prior experience or expectations of the association between a cue (a conspecific) and food influences what can be learned through observation whilst previously unfamiliar cues (the card) can be associated more readily with any outcome.     

Reducing ethnic prejudice: an evaluation of seven recommended principles for incorporation in public campaigns

The present study investigated the effects of seven principles drawn from cognitive models of ethnic prejudice, general information processing models and persuasion models, on levels of ethnic prejudice. It was hypothesized that exposure to cue cards incorporating these principles would result in lower levels of prejudice than cue cards which did not incorporate the principles. A total of 400 caucasian participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions (where participants were exposed to a cue card incorporating or omitting each of the seven principles), or the control condition (with no cue card exposure), and completed a questionnaire measuring ethnic prejudice. Results revealed that the absence of the principles in the cards led in several cases to unwanted negative effects (higher levels of prejudice than the control group). Reasons for these findings and implications for launching poster campaigns to reduce ethnic prejudice are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.