Personality traits modulate skin conductance response to emotional pictures: An investigation with Cloninger’s model of personality

Several studies found strong relationships between main personality dimensions and emotions, and more particularly between neuroticism and negative emotions, as well as between extraversion and positive ones. In these studies, personality was mainly assessed with respect to the big five model, and emotions were evaluated with subjective rating scales. To extend the exploration of the associations between personality and emotion, the aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships between Cloninger’s dimensions of personality and emotional reactivity assessed by skin conductance response (SCR). In 55 normal subjects, SCR was recorded while they were presented pictures selected as positive, negative and neutral from the International Affective Picture System. The results showed no influence of personality on response magnitude, but subjects with higher harm avoidance scores showed longer half-recovery times for negative relative to neutral pictures. This result is consistent with the dispositional bias of harm avoidance to respond intensely to signals of aversive stimuli.     

The abilities of children with mental retardation to remember personal experiences: implications for testimony

Investigated the abilities of children with mental retardation to remember the details of a personally experienced event. A simulated health check was administered to 20 children with mental retardation and 40 normally developing children, half matched on mental age (MA) and half matched on chronological age (CA) with the children with mental retardation. The children's memory was assessed immediately after the health check and 6 weeks later. Overall, the children with mental retardation accurately recalled the health check features, provided detail, and resisted misleading questions about features that did not occur. The group with mental retardation performed similarly to the MA matches on virtually all of the memory variables. The children with mental retardation performed worse than the CA matches on most of the memory variables, although they were able to recall a similar number of features. The findings are discussed in terms of the ability of children with mental retardation to provide accurate testimony.     

Interactions Between Exogenous Auditory and Visual Spatial Attention

Six experiments were carried out to investigate the issue of cross-modality between exogenous auditory and visual spatial attention employing Posner's cueing paradigm in detection, localization, and discrimination tasks. Results indicated cueing in detection tasks with visual or auditory cues and visual targets but not with auditory targets (Experiment 1). In the localization tasks, cueing was found with both visual and auditory targets. Inhibition of return was apparent only in the within-modality conditions (Experiment 2). This suggests that it is important whether the attention system is activated directly (within a modality) or indirectly (between modalities). Increasing the cue validity from 50% to 80% influenced performance only in the localization task (Experiment 4). These findings are interpreted as being indicative for modality-specific but interacting attention mechanisms. The results of Experiments 5 and 6 (up/down discrimination tasks) also show cross-modal cueing but not with visual cues and auditory targets. Furthermore, there was no inhibition of return in any condition. This suggests that some cueing effects might be task dependent.     

Effects and aftereffects of continuous noise and computation work on risk and effort choices

Choices between risk and effort, in a format (COPE) previously shown to reflect fatigue, were obtained from subjects in noise or quiet. Both sexes were used in the experiment, half the subjects working at the Norinder arithmetic task while half rested. The COPE test took a computational form, offering choices between digit lists of differing lengths in which target sums were imbedded. The baseline choice levels were established in quiet, but half the subjects were exposed to noise during the posttest. As previously found in comparable conditions, the Norinder task showed no effect of noise. Pretest-posttest comparisons on the COPE test showed that exposure to noise, like computation work, had the predicted effect of decreasing the choice of high-probability, high-effort alternatives. The presence of noise during posttest had no overall effect on risk effort choices, although there were indications that changes of any kind in the test conditions might be a factor. The data seem difficult to explain in an arousal framework, but may be simply interpreted as showing that exposure to noise produces real fatigue.     

Sensory scaling and the psychophysical law

Sensory scaling is analysed as a sensori-motor task for which two relations must be determined, the first, S = f(I), being the relation between I, the stimulus intensity, and S, a measure of the neural effect of the stimulus, and the second being the relation between the subject's response, R, and S. It is shown that for any scaling procedure the relation between R and S can be arbitrarily specified, and according to the choice made S = f(I) will be found to be either a power function or a logarithmic function; these two “psycho- physical laws” do not reflect empirical differences between scaling procedures but conventional differences in the assumptions made when interpreting these procedures. A model is then elaborated in which S = f(I) is fixed and the relation between R and S depends on the demands of the psychophysical task and the effects of previous learning. With this more complex model the empirical implications of the power function and log function differ; it is shown that if the latter is accepted explanations can be given for two major problems in scaling theory, the disparity between the functions given by category scaling and the direct methods, and the difference between prothetic and metathetic continua.     

Slow wave sleep and recollection in recognition memory

Recognition memory performance reflects two distinct memory processes: a conscious process of recollection, which allows remembering specific details of a previous event, and familiarity, which emerges in the absence of any conscious information about the context in which the event occurred. Slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep are differentially involved in the consolidation of different types of memory. The study assessed the effects of SWS and REM sleep on recollection, by means of the "remember"/"know" paradigm. Subjects studied three blocks of 12 words before a 3-h retention interval filled with SWS, REM sleep or wakefulness, placed between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Afterwards, recognition and recollection were tested. Recollection was higher after a retention interval rich in SWS than after a retention interval rich in REM sleep or filled with wakefulness. The results suggest that SWS facilitates the process of recollection in recognition memory.     

Executive functioning and memory as potential mediators of the episodic feeling-of-knowing accuracy

The study focused on the cognitive determinants of the accuracy of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments made on episodic memory information. An individual differences approach was used on a sample of healthy older adults assessed on an episodic FOK task and on several neuropsychological measures. At a global level of analysis of FOK accuracy, the contributions of four general cognitive processes--episodic memory, executive functioning, fluid intelligence and processing speed--were examined concurrently. Stepwise regression analyses showed that executive functioning accounted for the major part of variance on FOK accuracy, followed by a significant contribution of episodic memory. After controlling for executive and memory involvement, fluid intelligence and processing speed no longer accounted for significant variance. At a more detailed level of analysis of FOK accuracy, the contributions of three specific executive processes--shifting, updating and inhibition--were assessed. The results revealed shifting function as the primary executive process engaged in the production of accurate FOK judgments in episodic memory. Some hypotheses are put forward to better understand the central role of executive functioning in the production of accurate FOK judgments.     

Less power or powerless? Egocentric empathy gaps and the irony of having little versus no power in social decision making

The authors investigate the effect of power differences and associated expectations in social decision making. Using a modified ultimatum game, the authors show that allocators lower their offers to recipients when the power difference shifts in favor of the allocator. Remarkably, however, when recipients are completely powerless, offers increase. This effect is mediated by a change in framing of the situation: When the opponent is without power, feelings of social responsibility are evoked. On the recipient side, the authors show that recipients do not anticipate these higher outcomes resulting from powerlessness. They prefer more power over less, expecting higher outcomes when they are more powerful, especially when less power entails powerlessness. Results are discussed in relation to empathy gaps and social responsibility.     

Developing ecological research in judo

Discussions and exchanges identify axes of research. From an example in physiology and perspectives in biomechanics, experimental judo situations nearer real ones may yield complementary data from applied and laboratory research.