Stimulus properties of facial expressions and their influence on the classical conditioning of fear

The influence of particular stimulus properties of facial expressions of emotion upon associative learning to a neutral cue was examined in the present investigation. A compound stimulus, composed of either a fearful, happy, or neutral facial expression paired with a neutral cue (tone), signaled an aversive event (mild electric shock). Phasic change in skin conductance (SC) was used as the measure of associative learning. Analyses of variance revealed that subjects who saw a fearful expression paired with the tone gave larger SC responses to the fearful expression than to the tone. The opposite pattern was obtained for subjects who had a happy expression paired with the tone. Subjects who had the neutral expression paired with the tone showed no significant difference in their responses to the two stimuli. Results of the present investigation were consistent with those of an earlier study by Lanzetta and Orr (1980), and extend the earlier theoretical interpretations by suggesting that fear expressions function as excitatory stimuli and happy expressions act as inhibitory stimuli. Methodological changes in the present study, which include a shorter CS interval and asynchronous stimulus onsets, also extend the previous findings.This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. 7912422-AO1 and by funds from the Lincoln Filene endowment to Dartmouth College.     

The Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC) Conceptual Model to Promote Mental Health for Adolescents with ASD

Despite an increased risk of mental health problems in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is limited research on effective prevention approaches for this population. Funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism, a theoretically and empirically supported school-based preventative model has been developed to alter the negative trajectory and promote wellbeing and positive mental health in adolescents with ASD. This conceptual paper provides the rationale, theoretical, empirical and methodological framework of a multilayered intervention targeting the school, parents and adolescents on the spectrum. Two important interrelated protective factors have been identified in community adolescent samples, namely the sense of belonging (connectedness) to school and the capacity for self and affect regulation in the face of stress (i.e. resilience). We describe how a confluence of theories from social psychology, developmental psychology and family systems theory, along with empirical evidence (including emerging neurobiological evidence), supports the interrelationships between these protective factors and many indices of wellbeing. However, the characteristics of ASD (including social and communication difficulties, and frequently difficulties with changes and transitions, and diminished optimism and self-esteem) impair access to these vital protective factors. The paper describes how evidence-based interventions at the school level for promoting inclusive schools (using the Index for Inclusion) and interventions for adolescents and parents to promote resilience and belonging [using the Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP)] are adapted and integrated for adolescents with ASD. This multisite proof-of-concept study will confirm whether this multilevel school-based intervention is promising, feasible and sustainable.     

Improving Fairness in Coverage Decisions: Performance Expectations for Quality Improvement

Patients and physicians often perceive the current health care system to be unfair, in part because of the ways in which coverage decisions appear to be made. To address this problem the Ethical Force Program, a collaborative effort to create quality improvement tools for ethics in health care, has developed five content areas specifying ethical criteria for fair health care benefits design and administration. Each content area includes concrete recommendations and measurable expectations for performance improvement, which can be used by those organizations involved in the design and administration of health benefits packages, such as purchasers, health plans, benefits consultants, and practitioner groups.     

Near, yet so far: the effect of pictorial cues on spatial attention

Distinct cognitive and neural mechanisms underlie perception and action in near (within-reach) and far (outside-reach) space. Objects in far space can be brought into the brain's near-space through tool-use. We determined whether a near object can be pushed into far space by changing the pictorial context in which it occurs. Participants (n = 372) made relative length judgements for lines presented in near space, but superimposed over photographs of near and far objects. The left segment of the line was overestimated in the baseline and near-context conditions whereas the right was overestimated in the far-context. The change from leftward to rightward overestimation is the same when lines are physically shifted from near to far space. Because participants did not have to do anything in relation to the photograph, the results suggest that simply viewing images with a near/far context can cause a shift of attention along the distal/proximal axis, which may reflect differential activation of the ventral/dorsal visual streams.     

Going forth in the laboratory

FORTH is a computer language that is useful for writing programs to control experiments. The language is extensible in that new capabilities may be added to FORTH by using FORTH. This article describes a FORTH application word set for animal psychophysics. The words in the application word set facilitate the translation from state diagrams of behavioral psychophysical procedures to experiment-control programs.