Retraining automatic action tendencies changes alcoholic patients' approach bias for alcohol and improves treatment outcome

This study tested the effects of a new cognitive-bias modification (CBM) intervention that targeted an approach bias for alcohol in 214 alcoholic inpatients. Patients were assigned to one of two experimental conditions, in which they were explicitly or implicitly trained to make avoidance movements (pushing a joystick) in response to alcohol pictures, or to one of two control conditions, in which they received no training or sham training. Four brief sessions of experimental CBM preceded regular inpatient treatment. In the experimental conditions only, patients' approach bias changed into an avoidance bias for alcohol. This effect generalized to untrained pictures in the task used in the CBM and to an Implicit Association Test, in which alcohol and soft-drink words were categorized with approach and avoidance words. Patients in the experimental conditions showed better treatment outcomes a year later. These findings indicate that a short intervention can change alcoholics' automatic approach bias for alcohol and may improve treatment outcome.     

Psychometric properties of reverse-scored items on the CES-D in a sample of ethnically diverse older adults

Reverse-scored items on assessment scales increase cognitive processing demands and may therefore lead to measurement problems for older adult respondents. In this study, the objective was to examine possible psychometric inadequacies of reverse-scored items on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) when used to assess ethnically diverse older adults. Using baseline data from a gerontologic clinical trial (n = 460), we tested the hypotheses that the reversed items on the CES-D (a) are less reliable than nonreversed items, (b) disproportionately lead to intraindividually atypical responses that are psychometrically problematic, and (c) evidence improved measurement properties when an imputation procedure based on the scale mean is used to replace atypical responses. In general, the results supported the hypotheses. Relative to nonreversed CES-D items, the 4 reversed items were less internally consistent, were associated with lower item-scale correlations, and were more often answered atypically at an intraindividual level. Further, the atypical responses were negatively correlated with responses to psychometrically sound nonreversed items that had similar content. The use of imputation to replace atypical responses enhanced the predictive validity of the set of reverse-scored items. Among older adult respondents, reverse-scored items are associated with measurement difficulties. It is recommended that appropriate correction procedures such as item readministration or statistical imputation be applied to reduce the difficulties.     

Dissociating positive and negative influences of verbal processing on the recognition of pictures of faces and objects

Four experiments investigated the role of verbal processing in the recognition of pictures of faces and objects. We used (a) a stimulus-encoding task where participants learned sequentially presented pictures in control, articulatory suppression, and describe conditions and then engaged in an old-new picture recognition test and (b) a poststimulus-encoding task where participants learned the stimuli without any secondary task and then either described or not a single item from memory before the recognition test. The main findings were as follows: First, verbalization influenced picture recognition. Second, there were contrasting influences of verbalization on the recognition of faces, compared with objects, that were driven by (a) the stage of processing during which verbalization took place (as assessed by the stimulus-encoding and poststimulus-encoding tasks), (b) whether verbalization was subvocal (whereby one goes through the motions of speaking but without making any sound) or overt, and (c) stimulus familiarity. During stimulus encoding there was a double dissociation whereby subvocal verbalization interfered with the recognition of faces but not objects, while overt verbalization benefited the recognition of objects but not faces. In addition, stimulus familiarity provided an independent and beneficial influence on performance. Post stimulus encoding, overt verbalization interfered with the recognition of both faces and objects, and this interference was apparent for unfamiliar but not familiar stimuli. Together these findings extend work on verbalization to picture recognition and place important parameters on stimulus and task constraints that contribute to contrasting beneficial and detrimental effects of verbalization on recognition memory.     

"HIV testing is so gay": the role of masculine gender role conformity in HIV testing among men who have sex with men

Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for more than half of all new cases of HIV infection in the United States. Yet, many MSM are unaware of their HIV serostatus. Consistent with research indicating that gender role conformity impacts health behaviors, this study examined how masculine norms may influence HIV testing among MSM in the United States. Data from 170 self-identified MSM (age M = 46.45, SD = 12.18) of self-reported negative or unknown HIV serostatus living in the United States were used in this study. About half (52%) of participants reported that they had been tested for HIV within the past 12 months; 48% reported that they had not. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between domains of masculine gender role conformity and HIV testing within the past 12 months, controlling for number of sexual partners in the last 12 months. The masculine norm of heterosexual self-presentation (i.e., desire to be perceived by others as heterosexual) was negatively associated with HIV testing (B = -0.74, SE B = 0.36, O.R. = 0.48, 95% CI [0.24, 0.96]), after controlling for the effect of number of sexual partners. Psychologists and other health professionals may remain mindful of potential implications of HIV testing among MSM, including potential for MSM to view HIV testing as an "outing" procedure.     

A neutral face is not neutral even if you have not seen it: social anxiety disorder and affective priming with facial expressions

Cognitive theories suggest that social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by biased processing of negative facial expressions. Recently, however, it has been proposed that the fear of positive evaluation may play an additional, important role. In order to investigate which specific expressions evoke biased processing, 15 patients diagnosed with SAD and 15 non-anxious controls (NACs) completed an affective priming procedure: they rated neutral symbols which were preceded by sub-optimally presented primes of angry, neutral, and smiling faces. Patients with SAD rated the symbols significantly more negatively than NACs when they were primed with a neutral face. In addition, SAD patients tended to rate all symbols significantly more negatively suggesting that all faces (negative, positive, and neutral) are threatening to SAD patients.     

I See Dead People: Insights From the Humanities Into the Nature of Plastinated Cadavers

Accounts from the humanities which focus on describing the nature of whole body plastinates are examined. We argue that this literature shows that plastinates do not clearly occupy standard cultural binary categories of interior or exterior, real or fake, dead or alive, bodies or persons, self or other and argue that Noël Carroll’s structural framework for horrific monsters unites the various accounts of the contradictory or ambiguous nature of plastinates while also showing how plastinates differ from horrific fictional monsters. In doing so, it offers an account of the varied reactions of those responding to exhibitions of plastinated whole bodies.     

Probabilistic single function dual process theory and logic programming as approaches to non-monotonicity in human vs. artificial reasoning

In this paper, it is argued that single function dual process theory is a more credible psychological account of non-monotonicity in human conditional reasoning than recent attempts to apply logic programming (LP) approaches in artificial intelligence to these data. LP is introduced and among other critiques, it is argued that it is psychologically unrealistic in a similar way to hash coding in the classicism vs. connectionism debate. Second, it is argued that causal Bayes nets provide a framework for modelling probabilistic conditional inference in System 2 that can deal with patterns of inference LP cannot. Third, we offer some speculations on how the cognitive system may avoid problems for System 1 identified by Fodor in 1983. We conclude that while many problems remain, the probabilistic single function dual processing theory is to be preferred over LP as an account of the non-monotonicity of human reasoning.