Learned fear of "unseen" faces after Pavlovian, observational, and instructed fear

This study compared fear learning acquired through direct experience (Pavlovian conditioning) and fear learning acquired without direct experience via either observation or verbal instruction. We examined whether these three types of learning yielded differential responses to conditioned stimuli (CS+) that were presented unmasked (available to explicit awareness) or masked (not available to explicit awareness). In the Pavlovian group, the CS+ was paired with a mild shock, whereas the observational-learning group learned through observing the emotional expression of a confederate receiving shocks paired with the CS+. The instructed-learning group was told that the CS+ predicted a shock. The three groups demonstrated similar levels of learning as measured by the skin conductance response to unmasked stimuli. As in previous studies, participants also displayed a significant learning response to masked stimuli following Pavlovian conditioning. However, whereas the observational-learning group also showed this effect, the instructed-learning group did not.     

Expression without recognition: contributions of the human amygdala to emotional communication

A growing body of evidence from humans and other animals suggests the amygdala may be a critical neural substrate for emotional processing. In particular, recent studies have shown that damage to the human amygdala impairs the normal appraisal of social signals of emotion, primarily those of fear. However, effective social communication depends on both the ability to receive (emotional appraisal) and the ability to send (emotional expression) signals of emotional state. Although the role of the amygdala in the appraisal of emotion is well established, its importance for the production of emotional expressions is unknown. We report a case study of a patient with bilateral amygdaloid damage who, despite a severe deficit in interpreting facial expressions of emotion including fear, exhibits an intact ability to express this and other basic emotions. This dissociation suggests that a single neural module does not support all aspects of the social communication of emotional state.     

Encouragement and Ethnicity in African American College Students

Encouragement and ethnicity were examined in 112 African American college students attending 2 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and a predominantly White institution (PWI). Results indicated a positive relationship between Ethnic Pride and View of Others for the HBCU group and positive relationships between Ethnic Pride and the Encouragement Scale for the PWI group. Ethnic Worry was negatively correlated with the Encouragement Scale for both groups. In addition, Ethnic Discrimination was negatively correlated with Openness to Experience for the PWI group. The usefulness of conceptualizing encouragement and ethnicity together for African American college students and practice implications are discussed.     

The role of medial temporal lobe in item recognition and source recollection of emotional stimuli

Recent neuroimaging results suggest that distinct regions within the medial temporal lobe (MTL) may differentially support the episodic encoding of item and relational information for nonemotional stimuli (for a review, see Davachi, 2006). The present study was designed to assess whether these findings generalize to emotional stimuli. Behaviorally, we found that emotion reduced item recognition accuracy but did not reliably affect relational memory. fMRI analyses revealed that neutral and emotional words elicited distinct activation patterns within MTL regions predictive of subsequent memory. Consistent with previous findings for neutral words, hippocampal activation predicted later relational memory, whereas activation in the perirhinal cortex predicted successful item recognition. However, for emotional words, activation in the amygdala, hippocampus, and posterior parahippocampal cortex predicted item recognition only. These data suggest that MTL regions differentially support encoding of neutral and emotional stimuli.     

The Impact of Child Symptom Severity on Stress Among Parents of Children with ASD: The Moderating Role of Coping Styles

We examined the impact of autism severity and parental coping strategies on stress in parents of children with ASD. Children’s autism symptoms and parental coping strategies (task-oriented, emotion-oriented, social diversion, and distraction) were evaluated as predictors of four types of parental stress (parent and family problems, pessimism, child characteristics, and physical incapacity). In order to examine potential buffering effects of coping strategies on stress associated with the child’s symptom severity, the interactive effects of autism symptoms with coping strategies were also examined. Participants included 77 primary caregivers of a child with ASD. Using multiple regression analyses, emotion-oriented coping scores were associated with more parent and family problems, and task-oriented coping was associated with lower physical incapacity scores. The child’s autism severity was the strongest and most consistent predictor of stress. Further, emotion-oriented coping moderated the relationship between pessimism stress and autism symptomatology, and distraction coping was a moderator between parent and family stress and autism symptoms. Results indicate that increasing our knowledge of the coping strategies that are more or less effective and under what conditions some coping strategies may be either beneficial or harmful for this population of parents has direct implications for treatment and parent education efforts.     

Selection or Training? A Two-Fold Test of the Validity of Job-Analytic Ratings of Trainability

Decisions to use selection devices or training are typically based on subject matter expert (SME) judgments concerning the trainability of job components, including tasks and knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs). The studies reported here examined the validity of SME trainability judgments from two perspectives. We found that (1) different SME groups' judgments related differently to actual learning changes in KSAOs covered in a training program and (2) sources of variability thought to be unrelated to the job influenced trainability ratings. Implications for the selection of SMEs in job analysis applications intended to determine the trainability of various job components are outlined.     

Advancing Medical Family Therapy Through Research: A Consideration of Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-Methods Designs

To survive in today??s healthcare climate, stakeholders across all mental health disciplines must work to produce empirical evidence that earns their fields?? regard by educators, providers, and policy makers. As the field of Medical Family Therapy (MedFT) answers this call, it will be important for researchers to clearly define, characterize, and assess MedFT practice across clinical, operational, and financial arenas of care. In this account, we propose a common lexicon from which to do this, highlighting the following core tenets of MedFT: systems theory, biopsychosocial-spiritual sensitivity in practice, agency, communion, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the three-world model of healthcare. We conclude by offering concrete ways to advance the MedFT research agenda using qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method approaches.     

Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching and the Mathematical Quality of Instruction: An Exploratory Study

This study illuminates claims that teachers' mathematical knowledge plays an important role in their teaching of this subject matter. In particular, we focus on teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT), which includes both the mathematical knowledge that is common to individuals working in diverse professions and the mathematical knowledge that is specialized to teaching. We use a series of five case studies and associated quantitative data to detail how MKT is associated with the mathematical quality of instruction. Although there is a significant, strong, and positive association between levels of MKT and the mathematical quality of instruction, we also find that there are a number of important factors that mediate this relationship, either supporting or hindering teachers' use of knowledge in practice.     

How evolutionary history shapes recognition mechanisms

Evolutionary psychologists have emphasized the importance of natural selection in shaping cognitive functions, but historical contingency has not received direct study. This is crucial because in response to selection, complex traits tend to be fine-tuned or jury-rigged rather than totally reconstructed. We hypothesize that the neural and cognitive strategies an animal employs in signal recognition are influenced by the strategies used by its ancestors. The responses of female túngara frogs to ancestral calls and to calls of other closely related species are influenced by history. By training artificial neural networks with a series of calls that mimic the species' past history of call evolution or various control histories, we have shown that only networks that evolved through the mimetic history predict the response biases of túngara frogs.