Facial Emotion Recognition in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroimaging Studies

Behavioral studies of facial emotion recognition (FER) in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have yielded mixed results. Here we address demographic and experiment-related factors that may account for these inconsistent findings. We also discuss the possibility that compensatory mechanisms might enable some individuals with ASD to perform well on certain types of FER tasks in spite of atypical processing of the stimuli, and difficulties with real-life emotion recognition. Evidence for such mechanisms comes in part from eye-tracking, electrophysiological, and brain imaging studies, which often show abnormal eye gaze patterns, delayed event-related-potential components in response to face stimuli, and anomalous activity in emotion-processing circuitry in ASD, in spite of intact behavioral performance during FER tasks. We suggest that future studies of FER in ASD: 1) incorporate longitudinal (or cross-sectional) designs to examine the developmental trajectory of (or age-related changes in) FER in ASD and 2) employ behavioral and brain imaging paradigms that can identify and characterize compensatory mechanisms or atypical processing styles in these individuals.     

The Influence of Religion and Spirituality on HIV Prevention Among Black and Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men,New York City

Journal of Religion and Health - The influence of religion and spirituality (R/S) on HIV prevention has been understudied, especially for Black and/or Latino men who have sex with men (BLMSM), who...     

Implementing Group Prenatal Counseling for Expanded Noninvasive Screening Options

Recently, practices have begun integrating cell-free DNA-based noninvasive prenatal screening as a screening option for a variety of genetic conditions. According to the National Society of Genetic Counselors, the integration of cfDNA screening into clinical prenatal practice may "significantly shift the paradigm of prenatal testing and screening for all women." The purpose of this study was to determine whether group information sessions can feasibly serve as an alternative to extended one-on-one genetic counseling for the increasing number of women making decisions about prenatal testing and screening. This study assessed the effect of group genetic information sessions coupled with abbreviated counseling on pregnant women’s knowledge about and attitudes toward prenatal testing and screening.     

A standardized list of affect-related life events

In experimental contexts, affect-related word lists have been widely applied when examining how cognitive processes interact with emotional processes. These lists, however, present limitations when studying the relation between emotion and cognitive processes such as time and number processing because affective words do not inherently contain time or quantity information. Live events, in contrast, are experienced by an observer and therefore inherently carry affect information. Unfortunately, existing life-event lists and inventories have been largely applied within clinical contexts as diagnostic tools, and therefore are not suitable for many experimental contexts because they do not contain a balanced number of reliably positive, negative, and neutral life events. In Experiment 1, we create a standardized affect-related life-events list with 171 positive, negative, and neutral affect-related life events. In Experiment 2, we show that strength of affect and significance of the event are integral dimensions, suggesting that these two features are difficult to separate perceptually. The implications of these findings and some potential future applications of the created life-events list are discussed.     

The episodic nature of episodic-like memories

Studying episodic memory in nonhuman animals has proved difficult because definitions in humans require conscious recollection. Here, we assessed humans' experience of episodic-like recognition memory tasks that have been used with animals. It was found that tasks using contextual information to discriminate events could only be accurately performed using recollection, not familiarity. However, tasks using temporal information to discriminate events could be accurately performed using either recollection or familiarity. The results strengthen the position that some episodic-like recognition memory tasks are a valid model of episodic memory. However, tasks that rely on temporal information may be susceptible to nonepisodic strategies.     

Experimental test of a planning intervention for forming a ‘higher order’ health-habit

Abstract

Objective: Habit-formation interventions may help individuals initiate and maintain behaviour change. This paper proposes and empirically tests the idea that it is possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order habits’, or behaviours that can be executed in more than one way, and still be habitual.

Design: Participants (N?=?82) were healthy adults randomly assigned to an action-and-coping-planning intervention for forming a ‘higher-order habit’ of filling half of their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables or a control condition. Key measures were collected at baseline and 1, 2 and 3 weeks post-baseline. Participants submitted 3 pictures per week of their dinner plates via snapchat/email.

Main Outcome Measures: Intrinsic motivation, habit strength and behavioural frequency for filling half their dinner plates with fruits and vegetables.

Results: Intervention participants reported significantly greater habit strength at each follow-up time point. Controls did show some degree of habit formation, despite not fully forming a habit. Behavioural automaticity increased despite consuming a variety of fruits/vegetables; results did not depend on participants’ intrinsic motivation to consume fruits/vegetables.

Conclusion: It may be possible for individuals to form ‘higher-order’ habits, which may be particularly important in health contexts, in which many target behaviours are complex and can be seen as higher-order.     

HIV/AIDS Prevention, Faith, and Spirituality among Black/African American and Latino Communities in the United States: Strengthening Scientific Faith-Based Efforts to Shift the Course of the Epidemic and Reduce HIV-Related Health Disparities

Black/African American and Latino communities are disproportionately affected by the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic. Blacks/African Americans and Latinos are also more likely to report a formal, religious, or faith affiliation when compared with non-Hispanic whites. As such, faith leaders and their institutions have been identified in the National HIV/AIDS Strategy as having a vital role to serve in reducing: (1) HIV-related health disparities and (2) the number of new HIV infections by promoting non-judgmental support for persons living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS and by serving as trusted information resources for their congregants and communities. We describe faith doctrines and faith–science partnerships that are increasing in support of faith-based HIV prevention and service delivery activities and discuss the vital role of these faith-based efforts in highly affected black/African American and Latino communities.     

Being attractive,advantage or disadvantage? Performance-based evaluations and recommended personnel actions as a function of appearance,sex, and job type

Prompted by a concern with the effects of appearance on how individuals and their work are regarded and how rewards are allocated in work settings, an experiment was conducted to determine whether physical attractiveness differentially affects the performance evaluations and recommended personnel actions for men and women holding managerial and nonmanagerial jobs. As predicted, attractiveness proved to be advantageous for women in nonmanagerial positions and disadvantageous for women in managerial ones. Unexpectedly, however, appearance had no effects whatsoever on reactions to men. Additional results indicated that attractiveness enhanced the perceived femininity of our female stimulus people, but did not enhance the perceived masculinity of those who were male. These data were interpreted as supportive of the idea that the differential effects of appearance in work settings are mediated by gender characterizations, and that fluctuations in the perceived person-job fit are key to understanding the seemingly inconsistent reactions to attractive and unattractive women in employment situations. The theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.