The Psychophysiology of Orthostatic Panic in Cambodian Refugees Attending a Psychiatric Clinic

Orthostatically triggered panic was examined in female Cambodian refugees. Heart rate, blood pressure (BP), panic, and dizziness responses were assessed during orthostatic challenge in three diagnostic groups: orthostatic panic without comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), orthostatic panic with PTSD, and other mental disorders without orthostatic panic or PTSD. During orthostatic challenge, the panic group without PTSD showed a significant drop, whereas the group with other mental disorders showed an increase in systolic BP. The group with panic and PTSD showed a blunted systolic BP response during orthostasis that fell between the responses of the other groups. Catastrophic, culturally specific cognitions present during orthostatic challenge were significantly correlated with the amount of reported panic upon standing. Some patients recalled previous traumatic events during the orthostatic challenge. The findings suggest that orthostatically induced panic attacks in Cambodian refugees are generated by an interaction of orthostasis physiology, catastrophic cognitions, and trauma associations.     

In search of reflective behavior and shared understanding in ad hoc expert teams.

The work reported on here concentrates on virtual ad hoc expert teams for the integration of learning and working, as ad hoc teams seem to be one way to cope with complexity in a knowledge-intensive society. In order to let ad hoc teams learn and work together, group members require effective communication and shared understanding among each other. Two empirical studies were conducted to study collaborative learning and shared understanding, one exploratory study and one experiment. In the first study, it was explored how virtual design teams work and learn together. Based on conceptual ideas, collaborative learning and shared understanding were observed and assessed in a design team over a period of four months. It was concluded that shared understanding was suboptimal; mainly due to the effect that hardly any questions were raised and answered. The second study elaborates on the need to encourage question-answer patterns and reflective behavior in such teams. A tool was developed that supported questioning behavior. As it was hypothesized that this tool leads to better questioning behavior, which in turn results in more reflective behavior and in increased shared understanding, an experiment was conducted. In the exploratory study, as well as in the experimental study, the perceived shared understanding increased over time. However, in both studies suboptimal questioning behavior and little reflective activity were noticed. The main results of the two empirical studies are compared and discussed.     

Generalized relational matching by guinea baboons (Papio papio) in two-by-two-item analogy problems

Analogical reasoning is considered the hallmark of human reasoning, but some studies have demonstrated that language- and symbol-trained chimpanzees can also reason analogically. Despite the potential adaptive value of this ability, evidence from other studies strongly suggests that other nonhuman primates do not have this capacity for analogical reasoning. In our three experiments, 6 of 29 baboons acquired the ability to perform a relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) task in which pairs of shapes composed relational displays. Five of these 6 monkeys then transferred this ability to RMTS tasks using novel exemplars of identity (elements in a pair are the same) and nonidentity (elements in a pair are different) relations. This transfer occurred even on trials in which the incorrect pair shared an element with the sample pair with which it was being compared. The baboons retained this ability 12 months later. The findings from our study of symbol-naive monkeys indicate that although language and symbol training facilitate conceptual thinking in nonhuman primates, such training is not a prerequisite for analogical reasoning.     

The Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire: a measurement invariance examination among U.S. Anglos and U.S. Hispanics

The aim of this article is to assess the measurement invariance of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) in U.S. Anglo (n = 490) and U.S. Hispanic ( n = 379) samples of college students. The BVAQ items demonstrated invariance of the factor loadings, the latent item intercepts, and unique factor variances. However, Hispanics had higher verbalizing scores and lower fantasizing scores on the latent variables. As a whole, the BVAQ requires additional testing and/or refinement for use with a Hispanic sample. Until such refinements, the authors recommend that the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 be used with U.S. Hispanic samples.     

The intention interference effect

Intentions have been shown to be more accessible (e.g., more quickly and accurately recalled) compared to other sorts of to-be-remembered information; a result termed an intention superiority effect (Goschke & Kuhl, 1993). In the current study, we demonstrate an intention interference effect (IIE) in which color-naming performance in a Stroop task was slower for words belonging to an intention that participants had to remember to carry out (Do-the-Task condition) versus an intention that did not have to be executed (Ignore-the-Task condition). In previous work (e.g., Cohen et al., 2005), having a prospective intention in mind was confounded with carrying a memory load. In Experiment 1, we added a digit-retention task to control for effects of cognitive load. In Experiment 2, we eliminated the memory confound in a new way, by comparing intention-related and control words within each trial. Results from both Experiments 1 and 2 revealed an IIE suggesting that interference is very specific to the intention, not just to a memory load.     

语言期望概率、不确定性输入及其对阅读的眼动研究启示(中文)

One nearly ubiquitous assumption in models of linguistic comprehension and of eye movement control in reading alike is of partial modularization between word-level and sentence-level processing: that the outcome of word recognition, and thus the input to sentence-level comprehension, is a categorial representation. Yet such a partial modularization throws away residual uncertainty regarding word identity that might potentially be of value to the comprehender further downstream in the sentence. Here I describe a line of research combining computational modeling with experimental eye-tracking work to explore the consequences of removing this partial modularity assumption.     

The relationship between basic need satisfaction and emotional eating in obesity

Emotional eating has been identified as a factor that promotes the development and maintenance of obesity and hinders its treatment. This study investigated the relationship between unsatisfied basic needs and emotional eating, including the mediating factors of self‐esteem and coping strategies. The results from a survey of 136 obese individuals indicated support for a significant relationship between basic need satisfaction and emotional eating, with a mediating effect of negative coping strategies. These findings extend previous research and provide guidance on how to help individuals who engage in emotional eating by focusing on developing more adaptive coping strategies.     

Listeners invest in an assumed other's perspective despite cognitive cost

We explored perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task that requires listeners to adopt an egocentric or “other-centric” frame of reference. In the current task, objects could be interpreted relative to the point-of-view of the listener (egocentric) or of a simulated partner (other-centric). Across three studies, we evaluated participants’ willingness to consider and act on partner-specific information, showing that a partner’s perceived ability to contribute to collaborative mutual understanding modulated participants’ perspective-taking behavior, either by increasing other-centric (Study 2) or egocentric (Study 3) responding. Moreover, we show that a large proportion of participants resolved referential ambiguity in terms of their partner’s perspective, even when it was more cognitively difficult to do so (as tracked by online movement measures), and when the presence of a social partner had to be assumed (Studies 1 and 2). In addition, participants continued to consider their partner’s perspective during trials where visual perspectives were shared. Our results show that participants will thoroughly invest in either an other-centric or egocentric mode of responding, and that perspective-taking strategies are not always dictated by minimizing processing demands, but by more potent (albeit subtle) factors in the social context.