Differentiating emotional processing and attention in psychopathy with functional neuroimaging

Individuals with psychopathy are often characterized by emotional processing deficits, and recent research has examined the specific contexts and cognitive mechanisms that underlie these abnormalities. Some evidence suggests that abnormal features of attention are fundamental to emotional deficits in persons with psychopathy, but few studies have demonstrated the neural underpinnings responsible for such effects. Here, we use functional neuroimaging to examine attention–emotion interactions among incarcerated individuals (n = 120) evaluated for psychopathic traits using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Using a task designed to manipulate attention to emotional features of visual stimuli, we demonstrate effects representing implicit emotional processing, explicit emotional processing, attention-facilitated emotional processing, and vigilance for emotional content. Results confirm the importance of considering mechanisms of attention when evaluating emotional processing differences related to psychopathic traits. The affective-interpersonal features of psychopathy (PCL-R Factor 1) were associated with relatively lower emotion-dependent augmentation of activity in visual processing areas during implicit emotional processing, while antisocial-lifestyle features (PCL-R Factor 2) were associated with elevated activity in the amygdala and related salience network regions. During explicit emotional processing, psychopathic traits were associated with upregulation in the medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and superior frontal regions. Isolating the impact of explicit attention to emotional content, only Factor 1 was related to upregulation of activity in the visual processing stream, which was accompanied by increased activity in the angular gyrus. These effects highlight some important mechanisms underlying abnormal features of attention and emotional processing that accompany psychopathic traits.     

The Influence of Time Estimation and Time‐Saving Preferences on Learning to Make Temporally Dependent Decisions from Experience

In this paper, we merge research related to experiential learning, temporal perception, and the value of time and money by examining decisions where the timing of action (response) determines the outcome received. We predicted that time‐saving preferences and impatience would decrease maximization (i.e., taking action when it returned the largest reward), and that the constraints of temporal perception would compound their effects. Across three studies, participants undershot on average (i.e., responded earlier than the period of time during which a response would return the maximal reward) showed a preference for shorter‐delay options and often did not find the maximal reward. In addition, participants' reliance on temporal perception increased undershooting, increased preferences for shorter‐delay options, and reduced maximization. Nevertheless, participants who found the maximal reward continued to maximize at a high rate rather than opting for shorter delays and smaller rewards. Thus, while most participants appeared to have a preference for saving time, most behaved as reward maximizers rather than temporal discounters. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of the change in self-stigma following a single session of group counseling

One of the major obstacles to seeking psychological help is the stigma associated with counseling and therapy. Self-stigma, the fear of losing self-respect or self-esteem as a result of seeking help, is an important factor in the help-seeking process. In the present study, college students meeting a clinical cutoff for psychological symptoms participated in 1 session of group counseling that either contained therapist self-disclosure or did not. In general, participants reported significantly less self-stigma following the session. Working alliance-bond and session depth significantly predicted the change in self-stigma. Furthermore, self-stigma (as well as bond, depth, psychological symptoms, and being female) predicted the intention to seek help following the session. Self-stigma and session depth also predicted interest in continuing with counseling. The therapist self-disclosure condition, however, had no effect on the change in self-stigma, intentions to seek help, or interest in continuing with group counseling.     

INCOMMENSURABILITY,RELATIVISM, SCEPTICISM: REFLECTIONS ON ACQUIRING A CONCEPT

Some opponents of the incommensurability thesis, such as Davidson and Rorty, have argued that the very idea of incommensurability is incoherent and that the existence of alternative and incommensurable conceptual schemes is a conceptual impossibility. If true, this refutes Kuhnian relativism and Kantian scepticism in one fell swoop. For Kuhnian relativism depends on the possibility of alternative, humanly accessible conceptual schemes that are incommensurable with one another, and the Kantian notion of a realm of unknowable things‐in‐themselves gives rise to the possibility of humanly inaccessible schemes that are incommensurable with even our best current or future science. In what follows we argue that the possibility of incommensurability of either the Kuhnian or the Kantian variety is inescapable and that this conclusion is forced upon us by a simple consideration of what is involved in acquiring a concept. It turns out that the threats from relativism and scepticism are real, and that anyone, including Davidson himself, who has ever defended an account of concept acquisition is committed to one or the other of these two possibilities. 1     

Decision theory,reinforcement learning,and the brain

Decision making is a core competence for animals and humans acting and surviving in environments they only partially comprehend, gaining rewards and punishments for their troubles. Decision-theoretic concepts permeate experiments and computational models in ethology, psychology, and neuroscience. Here, we review a well-known, coherent Bayesian approach to decision making, showing how it unifies issues in Markovian decision problems, signal detection psychophysics, sequential sampling, and optimal exploration and discuss paradigmatic psychological and neural examples of each problem. We discuss computational issues concerning what subjects know about their task and how ambitious they are in seeking optimal solutions; we address algorithmic topics concerning model-based and model-free methods for making choices; and we highlight key aspects of the neural implementation of decision making.     

Triangulation,Untranslatability, and Reconciliation

Donald Davidson used triangulation to do everything from explicate psychological and semantic externalism, to attack relativism and skepticism, to propose conditions necessary for thought and talk. At one point Davidson tried to bring order to these remarks by identifying three kinds of triangulation, each operative in a different situation. Here I take seriously Davidson’s talk of triangular situations and extend it. I start by describing Davidson’s situations. Next I establish the surprising result that considerations from one situation entail the possibility that at any one time one language is partially untranslatable into another. Because the possibility is time-indexed, it need not conflict with Davidson’s own argument against the possibility of untranslatability. I derive the result, not to indict Davidson, but to propose a new kind of triangulation, the reconciliation of untranslatability, which I investigate. Insofar as triangulation is central to Davidson’s views, getting a handle on his various triangular situations is key to getting a handle on his contributions to philosophy. Insofar as those contributions have enriched our understanding of how language, thought, and reality interrelate, extending Davidson’s model promises to extend our understanding too.

Reception of Morse code through motional, vibrotactile, and auditory stimulation

The potential for communication through the kinesthetic aspect of the tactual sense was examined in a series of experiments employing Morse code signals. Experienced and inexperienced Morse code operators were trained to identify Morse code signals that were delivered as sequences of motional stimulation through up-down displacements (roughly 10 mm) of the fingertip. Performance on this task was compared with that obtained for both vibrotactile and acoustic presentation of Morse code using a 200-Hz tone delivered either to the fingertip through a minishaker or diotically to the two ears under headphones. For all three modalities, the ability to receive Morse code was examined as a function of presentation rate for tasks including identification of single letters, random three-letter sequences, common words, and sentences. Equivalent word-rate measures (i.e., product of percent correct scores and stimulus presentation rate) were nearly twice as high for auditory presentation as for vibrotactile stimulation, which in turn was about 1.3 times that for motional stimulation. The experienced subjects outperformed the inexperienced subjects by amounts that increased with task complexity. For example, the former were able to receive sentences at 18 words/min with motional stimulation, whereas the latter, following 75 h of training, were unable to perform this task. The present results and those of other research with tactual communication systems are compared, particularly regarding estimates of information-transfer rates.