Effects of threat cues on attentional shifting, disengagement and response slowing in anxious individuals

According to cognitive models of anxiety, attentional biases for threat may cause or maintain anxiety states. Previous research using spatial cueing tasks has been interpreted in terms of difficulty in disengaging attention from threat in anxious individuals, as indicated by contrasts of response times (RTs) from threat cue versus neutral cue trials. However, on spatial cueing tasks, differences in RT between threat cue and neutral cue trials may stem from a slowing effect of threat on RT, as well as effects on allocation of visuospatial attention. The present study examined the effects of threat cues on both attentional cueing and response slowing. High and low anxious individuals completed a central cue task, which assessed threat-related response slowing, and a spatial cueing task, which assessed attentional biases for angry, happy and neutral faces. Results indicated that interpretation of the anxiety-related bias for threat depended on whether the effect of response slowing was taken into account. The study illustrates an important problem in using the modified spatial cueing task to assess components of threat-related attentional bias. As this experimental method may reflect both threat-related attentional cueing and response slowing effects, it cannot be assumed to provide pure measures of shift or disengagement components of attention bias.     

Links between rapid ERP responses to fearful faces and conscious awareness

To study links between rapid ERP responses to fearful faces and conscious awareness, a backward‐masking paradigm was employed where fearful or neutral target faces were presented for different durations and were followed by a neutral face mask. Participants had to report target face expression on each trial. When masked faces were clearly visible (200 ms duration), an early frontal positivity, a later more broadly distributed positivity, and a temporo‐occipital negativity were elicited by fearful relative to neutral faces, confirming findings from previous studies with unmasked faces. These emotion‐specific effects were also triggered when masked faces were presented for only 17 ms, but only on trials where fearful faces were successfully detected. When masked faces were shown for 50 ms, a smaller but reliable frontal positivity was also elicited by undetected fearful faces. These results demonstrate that early ERP responses to fearful faces are linked to observers' subjective conscious awareness of such faces, as reflected by their perceptual reports. They suggest that frontal brain regions involved in the construction of conscious representations of facial expression are activated at very short latencies.     

Infants lost in (peripersonal) space?

A significant challenge in developing spatial representations for the control of action is one of multisensory integration. Specifically, we require an ability to efficiently integrate sensory information arriving from multiple modalities pertaining to the relationships between the acting limbs and the nearby external world (i.e. peripersonal space), across changes in body posture and limb position. Evidence concerning the early development of such spatial representations points towards the independent emergence of two distinct mechanisms of multisensory integration. The earlier-developing mechanism achieves spatial correspondence by representing body parts in their typical or default locations, and the later-developing mechanism does so by dynamically remapping the representation of the position of the limbs with respect to external space in response to changes in postural information arriving from proprioception and vision.     

Deconstructing Differentiation: Self Regulation, Interdependent Relating, and Well-Being in Adulthood

This study examined underlying similarities between the Personal Authority in the Family System Questionnaire (PAFS; Bray, Williamson, & Malone, 1984a) and the Differentiation of Self Inventory (DSI; Skowron & Friedlander, 1998). Generalized least-squares factor analysis yielded two related factors, Self Regulation and Interdependent Relating, accounting for 60% of the variance in the solution. Greater Self Regulation—comprised of DSI scales characterized by less emotional reactivity and the ability to take an I position in relationships—and Interdependent Relating—marked by greater personal authority, intergenerational intimacy and less intergenerational fusion on the PAFS and less emotional cutoff on the DSI—predicted well-being among both women and men. Implications for family therapy and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Caring for Nature: From Fact to Value, from Respect to Reverence

Abstract. Despite the classical prohibition of moving from fact to value, encounter with the biodiversity and plenitude of being in evolutionary natural history moves us to respect life, even to reverence it. Darwinian accounts are value‐laden and necessary for understanding life at the same time that Darwinian theory fails to provide sufficient cause for the historically developing diversity and increasing complexity on Earth. Earth is a providing ground; matter and energy on Earth support life, but distinctive to life is information coded in the genetic molecules that superintends this matter‐energy. Life is generated and regenerated in struggle, persists in its perishing. Such life is also a gift; nature is grace. Biologists and theologians join in celebrating and conserving the genesis on Earth, awed in their encounter with this creativity that characterizes our home planet.     

Interpersonal Expectations as the Building Blocks of Social Cognition: An Interdependence Theory Perspective

In this paper I use interdependence theory as an analytic framework for depicting the logically interconnected network of expectations that determines social interaction. The framework focuses on expectations about a partner’s goals (B) relevant to particular interdependence situations (S), and suggests that expectations about these two elements define the social situation that activates a person’s own goals (A). Together, these elements determine interaction behavior (I). This SABI framework is complementary to Mischel and Shoda’s (1995) CAPS theory of personality in its logic. It depicts a person’s interpersonal dispositions as having profiles or signatures dependent on both the expected features of situations and the expected dispositions of partners. A taxonomic theory for classifying both situations and the functionally relevant goals of interaction partners is outlined. Research on attachment theory and trust is used to illustrate the model. Finally, I suggest that people’s expectations about partners’ prosocial motivations—their perceived responsiveness toward the self—play an imperial role in social cognition, and, further, that complex SABI models can be seen as detailing a set of security operations that serve as a program for social action. SABI models detail the set of mechanisms that constitute the basic survival kit of interpersonal relations.     

Reducing depressive intrusions via a computerized cognitive bias modification of appraisals task: Developing a cognitive vaccine

A feature of depression is the distressing experience of intrusive, negative memories. The maladaptive appraisals of such intrusions have been associated with symptom persistence. This study aimed to experimentally manipulate appraisals about depressive intrusions via a novel computerized cognitive bias modification (CBM) of appraisals paradigm, and to test the impact on depressive intrusion frequency for a standardized event (a depressive film). Forty-eight participants were randomly assigned to either a session of positive or negative CBM. Participants then watched a depressing film (including scenes of bereavement and bullying) and subsequently monitored the occurrence of depressive intrusions related to the film in a diary for one week. At one-week follow-up, participants completed additional measures of intrusions – the Impact of Event Scale (IES) and an intrusion provocation task. As predicted, compared to the negative condition, participants who underwent positive CBM showed a more positive appraisal bias. Further, one week later, positive CBM participants reported fewer intrusions of the film and had lower IES scores. Our findings demonstrate that it is possible to manipulate maladaptive appraisals about depressive intrusions via a computerized CBM task. Further, this effect transfers to reducing intrusive symptomatology related to a standardized event (a depressive film) over one week, suggesting novel clinical implications.     

Tell me more: Can a memory test reduce analogue traumatic intrusions?

Information processing theories of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) state that intrusive images emerge due to a lack of integration of perceptual trauma representations in autobiographical memory. To test this hypothesis experimentally, participants were shown an aversive film to elicit intrusive images. After viewing, they received a recognition test for just one part of the film. The test contained neutrally formulated items to rehearse information from the film. Participants reported intrusive images for the film in an intrusion diary during one week after viewing. In line with expectations, the number of intrusive images decreased only for the part of the film for which the recognition test was given. Furthermore, deliberate cued-recall memory after one week was selectively enhanced for the film part that was in the recognition test a week before. The findings provide new evidence supporting information processing models of PTSD and have potential implications for early interventions after trauma.     

Electrophysiological markers of categorical perception of color in 7-month old infants

The origin of color categories has been debated by psychologists, linguists and cognitive scientists for many decades. Here, we present the first electrophysiological evidence for categorical responding to color before color terms are acquired. Event-related potentials were recorded on a visual oddball task in 7-month old infants. Infants were shown frequent presentations of one color (standard) interspersed with infrequent presentations of a color that was either from the same category (within-category deviant) or from a different category (between-category deviant) to the standard. Differences in the event-related potentials elicited by the stimuli were found that were related to the categorical relationship of the standard and the deviant stimuli. The data are discussed in relation to the processes that underlie categorical responding in infancy, as well as the debate about the origin of color categories in language and cognition.     

Fear of success: The influence of sex,sex-role identity,and components of masculinity

Phase I of this experiment was conducted to determine the nature of the relationship between fear of success and sex-role identity. Eighty female and 124 male subjects completed a measure of fear of success (the Sadd Fear of Success Scale, SFOS) and two sex-role scales (the Bem Sex Role Inventory, BSRI; and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, PAQ). Subjects were subsequently classified by their responses to the BSRI and PAQ as either androgynous, masculine, feminine, or undifferentiated. The results indicated that androgynous and masculine individuals reported less fear of success than feminine or undifferentiated individuals, regardless of their sex. Subsequent analyses revealed that fear of success was more related to the absence of masculine traits than to the presence of feminine traits. Phase II of this investigation was conducted to determine whether a specific component of masculinity was related to the fear of success. The masculinity scales were factor analyzed and factor scores were regressed on the fear-of-success scores. Factor scores reflecting high self-confidence, decisiveness, analyticalness, and independence were related to low levels of fear of success; factor scores reflecting assertiveness, competitiveness, and opinionatedness were not related to the fear of success.