Electrophysiological responses to errors and feedback in the process of action regulation

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is believed to be involved in the executive control of actions, such as in monitoring conflicting response demands, detecting errors, and evaluating the emotional significance of events. In this study, participants performed a task in which evaluative feedback was delayed, so that it was irrelevant to immediate response control but retained its emotional value as a performance indicator. We found that a medial frontal feedback-related negativity similar to the error-related negativity (ERN) tracked affective response to the feedback and predicted subsequent performance. Source analysis of the feedback-related negativity and ERN revealed a common dorsomedial ACC source and a rostromedial ACC source specific to the ERN. The oscillatory nature of these sources provides further evidence that the ERN reflects ongoing theta activity generated in the mediofrontal regions. These results suggest that action regulation by the cingulate gyrus may require the entrainment of multiple structures of the Papez corticolimbic circuit.     

Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control

This study examined the role of self-reported attentional control in regulating attentional biases related to trait anxiety. Simple detection targets were preceded by cues labeling potential target locations as threatening (likely to result in negative feedback) or safe (likely to result in positive feedback). Trait anxious participants showed an early attentional bias favoring the threatening location 250 ms after the cue and a late bias favoring the safe location 500 ms after the cue. The anxiety-related threat bias was moderated by attentional control at the 500-ms delay: Anxious participants with poor attentional control still showed the threat bias, whereas those with good control were better able to shift from the threatening location. Thus, skilled control of voluntary attention may allow anxious persons to limit the impact of threatening information.     

Sources of Heterogeneity in Schizophrenia: The Role of Neuropsychological Functioning

Although schizophrenia is often characterized as a heterogeneous disorder, efforts to validate stable and meaningful subtypes have met with limited success. Thus, the issue of whether schizophrenia reflects a continuum of severity or a number of discrete subtypes remains controversial. This review evaluates efforts to establish subtypes based upon a model that includes causes, characteristics, and course and outcomes of heterogeneity. Emphasis is placed on empirical classification studies utilizing cognitive tests or symptom rating scales, sometimes in conjunction with neuroimaging procedures. Results of recent cluster analytic studies are reviewed that produced evidence of four or five clusters, varying in level and pattern of performance. Although this research typically generated meaningful subtypes, it was often the case that there was little correspondence between subtyping systems based upon cognitive function and those based upon symptom profile. It was concluded that there may be different mechanisms for producing cognitive and symptomatic heterogeneity, and that diversity in presentations of schizophrenia reflects a combination of continuities in severity of the disorder with a number of meaningful and stable subtypes.     

Eating disorder and obsessive–compulsive symptoms in a sample of bulimic women: Perfectionism as a mediating factor

The present study aimed to investigate whether perfectionism mediates the association between obsessive–compulsive (OC) and eating disorder (ED) symptoms. Analyses were conducted using data collected among a national sample of eating disordered women diagnosed with BN or a subclinical variant of BN (N = 204). Each participant completed a series of self-report inventories on perfectionism, as well as OC, ED, and depressive symptoms. Higher ED symptoms were significantly associated with greater levels of perfectionism (p < .01) and OC symptoms (p < .05). As hypothesized, perfectionism significantly mediated the relationship between ED and OC symptoms, controlling for depression. Findings indicate that perfectionism may be considered a shared etiological or phenomenological factor in ED and OC symptoms.     

Multi-Couple Group and Self-Directed PREP Formats Enhance Relationship Satisfaction and Improve Anger Management Skills in Air Force Couples

This study examined the effectiveness of delivering the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP) to volunteer couples in the U.S. Air Force in either a six-week instructional multi-couple group condition or a self-directed book condition. A standardized pre/post protocol was employed and outcomes included relationship satisfaction and anger management skills, two known risk factors for partner maltreatment. Significant improvement was found for the group condition in both relationship satisfaction and anger management skills, but only for anger management skills in the self-directed book condition. Finally, the group condition reported greater program satisfaction. Implications are discussed.     

Developmental Changes in the Consideration of Sample Diversity in Inductive Reasoning

Determining whether a sample provides a good basis for broader generalizations is a basic challenge of inductive reasoning. Adults apply a diversity-based strategy to this challenge, expecting diverse samples to be a better basis for generalization than homogeneous samples. For example, adults expect that a property shared by two diverse mammals (e.g., a lion and a mouse) is more likely to be shared by all mammals than a property that is shared by two more similar mammals (e.g., a lion and a tiger). Across four studies, we document a developmental progression in children's understanding that diverse samples provide a strong basis for generalizations, such that young children (grade 1) consistently failed to consider sample diversity within their inductive reasoning, but older children (grade 5) preferred to create diverse samples on which to base inferences about basic-level categories. These results suggest that recognizing the value of a diverse sample for inductive reasoning emerges slowly across the elementary school years.     

The Development of Compensatory Stepping Skills in Children

The development of the ability to use the step for balance recovery was studied among twenty-five 9- to 19-month-old children. The children were grouped according to walking experience (4 levels) and exposed to backward support surface translations, 8 cm in amplitude, under 3 velocity conditions: 15, 20, and 25 cm/s. New walkers (up to 2 weeks' walking experience) used the step infrequently and ineffectively in response to threats to balance. Intermediate walkers (1-3 months' walking experience) showed an increasing use of the step and significant improvement in step execution compared with new walkers. Advanced walkers (> 3 months' walking experience) experienced no falls throughout the protocol, capturing balance with feet-in-place or step responses under all perturbation conditions. A significant developmental transition in the emergence of the compensatory step occurred between the new walker and the intermediate walker experience levels, that is, within the first 3 months of walking experience. Three to 6 months' experience was required for the development of an effective stepping response. A concomitant change in mediolateral stability paralleled the emergence of compensatory stepping.     

Religious delusions and filicide: a psychodynamic model

In this article, we present a psychodynamic explanation for the complex crime of filicide motivated by religious delusions. To begin, we provide an overview of filicide, including its typology and epidemiology. Second, we examine the psychoanalytic theories of Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg so as to better understand how family-of-origin experiences add to the ways in which psychotic disorders later take shape in filicide cases. Third, we offer an explication of the psychology of religion, including the role that religious defences and religious delusions play in cases involving filicide. Ultimately, we hypothesise that mothers with religious delusions commit acts of filicide due to the dynamic and reciprocal interaction between mental illness, psychological functioning, and the psychological role played by religion. We conclude our article with a case illustration to demonstrate our theoretical model.     

Visual discrimination of species in dogs (Canis familiaris)

In most social interactions, an animal has to determine whether the other animal belongs to its own species. This perception may be visual and may involve several cognitive processes such as discrimination and categorization. Perceptual categorization is likely to be involved in species characterized by a great phenotypic diversity. As a consequence of intensive artificial selection, domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, present the largest phenotypic diversity among domestic mammals. The goal of our study was to determine whether dogs can discriminate any type of dog from other species and can group all dogs whatever their phenotypes within the same category. Nine pet dogs were successfully trained through instrumental conditioning using a clicker and food rewards to choose a rewarded image, S+, out of two images displayed on computer screens. The generalization step consisted in the presentation of a large sample of paired images of heads of dogs from different breeds and cross-breeds with those of other mammal species, included humans. A reversal phase followed the generalization step. Each of the nine subjects was able to group all the images of dogs within the same category. Thus, the dogs have the capacity of species discrimination despite their great phenotypic variability, based only on visual images of heads.