False autonomic feedback: Effects of attention to feedback on ratings of pleasant and unpleasant target stimuli

This study investigates the potential interactions among some of the key variables in Valins's (1966) false autonomic feedback paradigm. Subjects were shown mildly pleasant or mildly unpleasant slides of animals while they either paid attention to or ignored a continuous-tone soundtrack that increased in pitch in conjunction with half of the pictures. This soundtrack was described either as feedback of skin conductance level or as a neutral auditory stimulus. Slides associated with increased pitch were generally rated as more affectively potent (in either the positive or negative direction, depending on their initial affective valence). For pleasant slides, this effect was contingent on attention to the soundtrack, such that subjectsignoring the sounds showed a stronger differential rating effect regardless of the meaning ascribed to the sound. For both pleasant and unpleasant slide conditions, the only subject groups showing significant rating effects were those ignoring neutrally described sound. It is argued that this pattern of results poses severe problems for a conventional attributional analysis of the Valins effect.This article is based on research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) under its Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme. Its contents are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic and Social Research Council.We are grateful to Andrew Gregory for producing the computer program used in generating the soundtrack, and to Tony Manstead for his useful advice about an earlier version of this article.     

Cerebellar-Subcortical-Cortical Systems as Modulators of Cognitive Functions

Neuropsychology Review - Over the past few decades, research has established that the cerebellum is involved in executive functions; however, its specific role remains unclear. There are numerous...     

Talk about preschool: Patterns of topic discussion and elaboration related to gender and ethnicity

Sixty-six mothers and their 4-year-old children recorded conversations about the children's experiences during a typical preschool day. Each dyad's ethnic background was either Hispanic or Anglo, with similar numbers of mother—daughter and mother—son pairs represented in each ethnic group. Both low- and middle-income dyads participated. The mother—child conversations were analyzed in order to identify the dyads' tendencies to elaborate on discussions of aspects of the school day related to learning, other individuals, and behavioral conduct as a function of the ethnicity of the dyad and the gender of the child. Gender of child was associated with dyads' propensities to devote differing percentages of their total conversational utterances to the discussion of other individuals and behavioral conduct, and interacted with ethnicity to produce different patterns of discussion related to the topic of learning. Mothers of boys used more elaborative utterances in their discussion of learning-related topics than did mothers of girls. Possible implications of these results for children's subsequent school-related attitudes and performance are discussed.     

Does anxiety affect children's reports of memory for a stressful event?

The study was conducted to explore the effects of anxiety on children's memory for a naturalistic, potentially stressful event. Eighty children of two age groups, 4-5 and 7-8 years, visited the dentist for either a teeth-cleaning check-up or an operative procedure. Anxiety was assessed by a behavioural rating scale, as well as through Likert-scale ratings by the hygienist, parent, and child. Memory for the event was elicited through free recall and specific central and peripheral questions. High anxiety had a debilitative effect on the reports of the older children, but not on young children's reports. However, experience with the dental event mediated the influence of age and anxiety on memory. Although all measures of anxiety were significantly associated with each other, only the behavioural rating scale yielded statistically reliable effects of anxiety on memory. The anxiety-memory relationship is believed to be more complex than previous research with children suggests.     

The skill of recognizing musical structures

In three experiments, musicians and nonmusicians were compared in their ability to discriminate musical chords. Pairs of chords sharing all notes in common or having different notes were played in succession. Some pairs of chords differed in timbre independent of their musical structures because they were played on different instruments. Musicians outperformed nonmusicians only in recognizing the same chord played on different instruments. Both groups could discriminate between instrument timbres, although musicians did slightly better than nonmusicians. In contrast, with chord structures not conforming to the rules of tonal harmony, musicians and nonmusicians performed equally poorly in recognizing identical chords played on different instruments. Signal detection analysis showed that musicians and nonmusicians set similar criteria for these judgments. Musicians' superiority reflects greater sensitivity to familiar diatonic chords. These results are taken as evidence that musicians develop perceptual and cognitive skills specific to the lawful musical structures encountered in their culture's music. Nonmusicians who lack this knowledge based their judgments on the acoustical properties of the chords.