Comparison of emotional responses in monkeys with rhinal cortex or amygdala lesions

Four emotionally arousing stimuli were used to probe the behavior of monkeys with bilateral ablations of the entorhinal and perirhinal cortex. The monkeys' behavioral changes were then contrasted with those observed earlier (M. Meunier, J. Bachevalier, E. A. Murray, L. Málková, & M. Mishkin, 1999) in monkeys with either neurotoxic or aspiration lesions of the neighboring amygdala. Rhinal cortex ablations yielded several subtle behavioral changes but none of them resembled any of the disorders typically seen after amygdalectomies. The changes produced by rhinal damage took mainly the form of heightened defensiveness and attenuated submission and approach responses; that is, just the opposite of some of the most distinctive symptoms following amygdala damage. These findings raise the possibility that the rhinal cortex and amygdala have distinct, interactive functions in normal behavioral adaptation to affective stimuli.     

Spatial variations of visual-auditory fusion areas

The tolerance to spatial disparity between two synchronous visual and auditory components of a bimodal stimulus has been investigated in order to assess their respective contributions to perceptual fusion. The visual and auditory systems each have specific information-processing mechanisms, and provide different cues for scene perception, with the respective dominance of space for vision and of time for hearing. A broadband noise burst and a spot of light, 500 ms in duration, have been simultaneously presented to participants who had to judge whether these cues referred to a single spatial event. We examined the influence of (i) the range and the direction of spatial disparity between the visual and auditory components of a stimulation and (ii) the eccentricity of the bimodal stimulus in the observer's perceptual field. Size and shape properties of visual-auditory fusion areas have been determined in two dimensions. The greater the eccentricity within the perceptual field, the greater the dimension of these areas; however, this increase in size also depends on whether the direction of the disparity is vertical or horizontal. Furthermore, the relative location of visual and auditory signals significantly modifies the perception of unity in the vertical plane. The shape of the fusion areas, their variation in the field, and the perceptual result associated with the relative location of the visual and auditory components of the stimulus, concur towards a strong contribution of audition to visual-auditory fusion. The spatial ambiguity of the localisation capabilities of the auditory system may play a more essential role than accurate visual resolution in determining fusion.     

Anxiety sensitivity in six countries

In the present study, the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-Revised (ASI-R; ) was administered to a large sample of persons (n=2786) from different cultures represented in six different countries: Canada, France, Mexico, The Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. We sought to (a) determine the factor structure and internal consistency of the ASI-R and (b) examine the correlations of the measure with psychiatric symptoms and personality dimensions in a single European non-English speaking country (The Netherlands). Partially consistent with the original hypothesis, the underlying structure of the anxiety sensitivity construct was generally similar across countries, tapping fear about the negative consequences of anxiety-related physical and social-cognitive sensations. Lower-order factors were moderately to strongly correlated with one another and showed good internal consistency. The observed lower-order ASI-R factors correlated with established psychiatric symptoms and with the personality trait of neuroticism. Partial correlations indicated that both factors are useful in accounting for variance in symptom measures. We discuss the results of this investigation in relation to the cross-cultural assessment of the anxiety sensitivity construct.     

Doings and Subject Causation

In the center of this paper is a phenomenological claim: we experience ourselves in our own doings and we experience others when we perceive them in their doings as active in the sense of being a cause of the corresponding physical event. These experiences are fundamental to the way we view ourselves and others. It is therefore desirable for any philosophical theory to be compatible with the content of these experiences and thus to avoid the attribution of radical and permanent error to human experience. A theory of ‘subject causation’ according to which the active subject continuously and simultaneously causes physical changes is sketched. This account is—according to the phenomenological claim defended—compatible with the content of our daily experiences in doing something and in observing others in their doings and it has a number of further more theoretical advantages: it does not touch the autonomy of neurophysiology and it is compatible with a thesis of supervenience of the mental on the physical. It does however require a weak version of subject-body dualism.

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The impact of experienced versus non‐experienced suggestions on children's recall of repeated events

Three experiments were conducted to test the proposition that children's suggestibility about an occurrence of a repeated event is heightened when an interviewer suggests false details that were experienced in non‐target occurrences of the event as opposed to new details that never occurred. In each experiment, children participated in a repeated event during which specific items varied each time (e.g. the children always got a sticker but the theme of the sticker was different in each occurrence). Separate biasing and memory interviews were then conducted. In Experiment 1, the interviewer merely suggested that the false details might have occurred in the event. In the remaining experiments, the suggested details were clearly linked to the target occurrence with either a contextual or temporal cue. The potential moderating effect of the child's age (Experiment 1) and the retention interval (Experiments 1 and 2) were also examined. Consistent with the initial hypothesis, suggestions about experienced (non‐target) details were more likely to be repeated by the children compared to suggestions about non‐experienced details. In Experiments 2 and 3, experienced suggestions were also more likely to inhibit children's recall of the target occurrence. The relevance and generalizability of these findings to the legal setting are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ergonomie cognitive d’un conseil génétique pour le test présymptomatique de maladie de Huntington

We would like to propose the analysis of a multidisciplinary genetic counselling activity. More precisely, we study an interaction that took place in the consultation between an asymptomatic patient who requests for a predictive genetic testing of Huntington’s disease and two doctors successively. We describe the failure of the multidisciplinary team’s attempt to influence the conviction, or the personal rationality, of the patient for the genetic risk perception. More generally, this study illustrates the communication practices which are engendered by modern medicine can be very delicate. Therefore, this information is carried by the act of informing. This action is made of processes which are relatively independent.     

How horses (Equus caballus) see the world: humans as significant “objects”

This study aimed to determine whether horses have a kind of memory of humans (based on previous interactions), leading to a general significance of humans revealed by their reactions to humans in subsequent interactions. Subjects were 59 adult horses used to interact daily with humans. Three types of behavioural tests involving an unknown experimenter evaluated three possibly different memorized types of human–animal interactions (not work-related, using work-related objects, unfamiliar working task). We also performed standardized observations of routine interactions between each horse and its familiar handler (caretaker). To get a broad overview of the horses’ reactions to humans, we recorded both investigative and aggressive behaviours during the tests, representing respectively a “positive” and a “negative” memory of the relationship. Whereas correlations between tests revealed a general perception of humans as either positive or negative, unusual tests, i.e. that are not usually performed, elicited more positive reactions. Moreover, some horses reacted positively to a motionless person in their box, but negatively when this same person approached them, for example for halter fitting. Overall, aggressive reactions were more reliable indicators of the relationship than positive reactions, both between tests and between familiar and unfamiliar humans. Our results also show generalization of the perception of humans. These results support our hypothesis that perception of humans by horses may be based on experience, i.e. repeated interactions. Altogether, our results support the hypothesis that horses can form a memory of humans that impacts their reactions in subsequent interactions.     

Developmental Differences in the Ability to Provide Temporal Information About Repeated Events

Children (n = 372) aged 4–8 years participated in one or four occurrences of a similar event and were interviewed 1 week later. Compared with 85% of children who participated once, less than 25% with repeated experience gave the exact number of times they participated, although all knew they participated more than once. Children with repeated experience were asked additional temporal questions, and there were clear developmental differences. Older children were more able than younger children to judge relative order and temporal position of the four occurrences. They also demonstrated improved temporal memory for the first and last relative to the middle occurrences, while younger children did so only for the first. This is the first systematic demonstration of children's memory for temporal information after a repeated event. We discuss implications for theories of temporal memory development and the practical implications of asking children to provide temporal information. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.