The discrimination of facial expressions by typically developing infants and toddlers and those experiencing early institutional care

Early experience likely plays an important role in the development of the ability to discriminate facial expressions of emotion. We posited that compared to children reared with their biological families (n=72), abandoned children being reared in institutions (n=39) should demonstrate impairments in this ability. The visual paired comparison procedure was utilized to assess the abilities of 13- to 30-month-old children to discriminate among multiple pairs of photographs of facial expressions. Both groups exhibited a normative profile of discrimination, with no group differences evident. Such findings suggest that early institutionalization does not affect the ability of 1- to 3-year-olds to discriminate facial expressions of emotion, at least as inferred by the Visual Paired Comparison Procedure.     

Trial design and informed consent for a clinic-based study with a treatment as usual control arm

Employing the National Institute of Mental Health-funded Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly Collaborative Trial as a case study, we discuss 2 sets of ethical issues: obtaining informed consent for a clinic-based intervention study and using treatment as usual (TAU) as the control condition. We then address these ethical issues in the context of the debate about the quality improvement efforts of health care organizations. Our analysis reveals the tension between ethics and scientific integrity involved with using TAU as a control condition and the difficulty in designing high-quality research in a community-based setting.     

Amphetamine and morphine produce a conditioned taste and place preference in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus)

Rats have been shown to avoid consuming a flavor, but prefer a location, previously paired with amphetamine or morphine. A series of 4 experiments evaluated the hedonic properties of amphetamine and morphine in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus), an insectivore that (unlike rats) is capable of vomiting when exposed to toxins. Unlike rats, amphetamine (20 mg/kg) and morphine (20 mg/kg) produced both a conditioned sucrose (0.3 M) and saccharin (0.1%) preference in shrews (administered intraperitoneally), when measured by both a 1- and a 2-bottle test. At the same dose, both drugs also produced a place preference in shrews. These results suggest that the potential of rewarding drugs to produce taste avoidance may vary on the basis of the ability of the species to vomit.     

The influence of stimulus array on training of a speeded response

We conducted two experiments to study the training of speeded responses to stimuli in a clock face array. Participants were trained on one clock face and later tested on either the same or a different clock face. The clock faces varied along 3 dimensions of change (left-right flip, up-down flip, and 180 degrees rotation). Skill acquisition was reflected in decreases in overall, initiation, and movement response times in the training and test phases except that movement time reached an asymptote during training and did not decrease further during test. Test performance was best when training and test used the same clock face and worst when the training to test change involved an up-down flip. The transition to different clock faces was consistent with an interpretation based on the violation of expectations about target positions acquired during training. Consistent trial-by-trial feedback led to better initiation time but not movement time during training than periodic feedback, but this effect did not persist into the test phase.     

Processing of facial expressions of negative emotion in alexithymia: the influence of temporal constraint

Alexithymia, a characteristic involving a limited affective vocabulary appears to involve three components: difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking. There is evidence that alexithymic characteristics are associated with differences in emotion information-processing. We examined the role of temporal factors in alexithymic emotion-processing deficits, taking into account the confound between alexithymic characteristics and positive and negative affectivity. One hundred forty-six participants completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. In a signal-detection paradigm, participants judged facial expressions depicting neutral or negative emotions under slow and rapid presentation conditions. The alexithymia component of difficulty in describing feelings was inversely related to the ability to detect expressions of negative emotion in the speeded condition. This relationship was independent of positive and negative affectivity. Alexithymic components positive and negative affectivity were unrelated to response bias. The results emphasize the influence of difficulty describing feelings within the alexithymia construct and its difference from positive and negative affectivity. They suggest that an alexithymic deficit in describing feelings is associated with a deficit in processing negative emotions that is most apparent when processing capacity is challenged. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.     

Egocentrism over e-mail: can we communicate as well as we think?

Without the benefit of paralinguistic cues such as gesture, emphasis, and intonation, it can be difficult to convey emotion and tone over electronic mail (e-mail). Five experiments suggest that this limitation is often underappreciated, such that people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can. Studies 4 and 5 further suggest that this overconfidence is born of egocentrism, the inherent difficulty of detaching oneself from one's own perspective when evaluating the perspective of someone else. Because e-mail communicators "hear" a statement differently depending on whether they intend to be, say, sarcastic or funny, it can be difficult to appreciate that their electronic audience may not.     

Reality monitoring in adults reporting repressed, recovered, or continuous memories of childhood sexual abuse

People who report either repressed or recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) may have deficits in reality monitoring--the process whereby one discriminates memories of percepts from memories of images. Using signal detection methods, the authors found that adults reporting either repressed or recovered memories of CSA were less able to discriminate between words they had seen from words they had imagined seeing than were adults reporting either never having forgotten their CSA or adults reporting no history of CSA. Relative deficits in the ability to discriminate percepts from images (i.e., low d') were apparent on only some tests. The groups did not differ in their criterion--response bias--for affirming having seen versus imagined stimuli.     

Issues of ethics and identity in diagnosis of late life depression

Depression is often diagnosed in patients nearing the end of their lives and medication or psychotherapy is prescribed. In many cases this is appropriate. However, it is widely agreed that a health care professional should treat sick persons so as to improve their condition as they define improvement. This raises questions about the contexts in which treatment of depression in late life is appropriate. This article reviews a problematic case concerning the appropriateness of treatment in light of the literature in bioethics. Specific attention is paid to the concept of authenticity and the role of suffering. Suffering is often the result of a situation in which one's self is damaged. In some circumstances, this suffering should not be seen as a symptom of illness, but as a reflection, in a difficult life context, of the individual's authentic nature. Assessment of depression in the elderly must go beyond a symptom list and must consider both the context of the individual's situation and his or her authentic self. When the symptoms reflect the individual's assessment of the situation in the context of the authentic self, they may be "appropriate." However, even when the symptoms are appropriate, if they interfere with life assessment and adjustment, treatment should be considered.