Face-induced expectancies influence neural mechanisms of performance monitoring

In many daily situations, the consequences of our actions are predicted by cues that are often social in nature. For instance, seeing the face of an evaluator (e.g., a supervisor at work) may activate certain evaluative expectancies, depending on the history of prior encounters with that particular person. We investigated how such face-induced expectancies influence neurocognitive functions of performance monitoring. We recorded an electroencephalogram while participants completed a time-estimation task, during which they received performance feedback from a strict and a lenient evaluator. During each trial, participants first saw the evaluator’s face before performing the task and, finally, receiving feedback. Therefore, faces could be used as predictive cues for the upcoming evaluation. We analyzed electrocortical signatures of performance monitoring at the stages of cue processing, task performance, and feedback reception. Our results indicate that, at the cue stage, seeing the strict evaluator’s face results in an anticipatory preparation of fronto-medial monitoring mechanisms, as reflected by a sustained negative-going amplitude shift (i.e., the contingent negative variation). At the performance stage, face-induced expectancies of a strict evaluation rule led to increases of early performance monitoring signals (i.e., frontal-midline theta power). At the final stage of feedback reception, violations of outcome expectancies differentially affected the feedback-related negativity and frontal-midline theta power, pointing to a functional dissociation between these signatures. Altogether, our results indicate that evaluative expectancies induced by face-cues lead to adjustments of internal performance monitoring mechanisms at various stages of task processing.     

Acute exposure to stress improves performance in trace eyeblink conditioning and spatial learning tasks in healthy men

The present study investigated the effects of acute stress exposure on learning performance in humans using analogs of two paradigms frequently used in animals. Healthy male participants were exposed to the cold pressor test (CPT) procedure, i.e., insertion of the dominant hand into ice water for 60 sec. Following the CPT or the control procedure, participants completed a trace eyeblink conditioning task followed by a virtual navigation Morris water task (VNMWT). Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis and sympathetic autonomic system (SAS) activity were assessed by measuring salivary cortisol, heart rate, and skin conductance at selected timepoints. Results revealed positive effects of stress on performance in both tasks. The stress group showed significantly more conditioned blinks than the control group during acquisition of trace eyeblink conditioning. The stress group also performed significantly better in the VNMWT than the control group, with the former showing significantly fewer failures to locate the hidden platform in the allotted time and smaller heading errors than the latter. Regression analyses revealed positive relationships between HPA axis and SAS activity during stress and eyeblink conditioning performance. Our results directly extend findings from animal studies and suggest potential physiological mechanisms underlying stress and learning.     

Validating the Restricted Focus Viewer: A study using eye-movement tracking

Investigation of cognitive processes and visual attention during problem-solving tasks is an important part of understanding human reasoning. Eyetracking technology has proven to have many benefits in revealing visual attention patterns. However, the high price of accurate eyetrackers and the difficulties associated with using them represent major obstacles to their wider application. Therefore, previous studies have sought to find alternatives to eyetracking. The Restricted Focus Viewer (RFV) brings a small part of an otherwise blurred display to the focus of visual attention: A user controls what part of the screen is in focus by using a computer mouse and explicitly selecting the area to be shown in focus. Recently, some studies have employed the RFV to investigate cognitive behavior of users, and some researchers have even enhanced the tool to study usability. We replicated a previous RFV-based study while also recording gaze data. We compared the attention allocation in time and space as reported by the RFV and an eyetracker. Further, we investigated the effects of RFV’s display blurring on the visual attention allocation of 18 novice and expert programmers. Our results indicate that the data obtained from the two tools differ. Also, the RFV-blurring interferes with the strategies utilized by experts, and has an effect on fixation duration. However, task performance was preserved.     

Consciousness and Modal Empiricism

David Chalmers supports his contention that there is a possible world populated by our zombie twins by arguing for the assumption that conceivability entails possibility. But, I argue, the modal epistemology he sets forth, ‘modal rationalism,’ ignores the problem of incompleteness and relies on an idealized notion of conceivability. As a consequence, this epistemology can’t justify our quotidian judgments of possibility, let alone those judgments that concern the mind/body connection. Working from the analogy that the imagination is to the possible as perception is to the actual, I set forth a competing epistemology, ‘modal empiricism.’ This epistemology survives the incompleteness objection and allows some of our everyday modal judgments to be justified. But this epistemology can’t justify the claim that Zombie World is possible, which leaves Chalmers’s property dualism without the support it needs.

Hopelessness as a predictor of attempted suicide among first admission patients with psychosis: a 10-year cohort study

Little is known about the longitudinal relationship of hopelessness to attempted suicide in psychotic disorders. This study addresses this gap by assessing hopelessness and attempted suicide at multiple time-points over 10 years in a first-admission cohort with psychosis (n = 414). Approximately one in five participants attempted suicide during the 10-year follow-up, and those who attempted suicide scored significantly higher at baseline on the Beck Hopelessness Scale. In general, a given assessment of hopelessness (i.e., baseline, 6, 24, and 48 months) reliably predicted attempted suicide up to 4 to 6 years later, but not beyond. Structural equation modeling indicated that hopelessness prospectively predicted attempted suicide even when controlling for previous attempts. Notably, a cut-point of 3 or greater on the Beck Hopelessness Scale yielded sensitivity and specificity values similar to those found in nonpsychotic populations using a cut-point of 9. Results suggest that hopelessness in individuals with psychotic disorders confers information about suicide risk above and beyond history of attempted suicide. Moreover, in comparison with nonpsychotic populations, even relatively modest levels of hopelessness appear to confer risk for suicide in psychotic disorders.     

Attentional bias to negative information and 5-HTTLPR genotype interactively predict students' emotional reactivity to first university semester

People strongly differ in their emotional reactions to potentially stressing and challenging environmental circumstances. Two classes of individual differences have independently been reported to contribute to such emotional vulnerability: an attentional bias to negative information and a variation in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR). The present study was conducted to investigate the possibility that these cognitive and genetic markers interact in their prospective prediction of emotional reactivity to an extended and mild potential stressor. Changes in dysphoria and anxiety across their first university semester were measured in 120 students. Results indicate that attentional bias toward negative information on Week 1 of the semester significantly predicted cross-semester changes in both anxiety and dysphoria. For the latter, this predictive capacity depended on the 5-HTTLPR genotype. Specifically, only in homozygous carriers of the 5-HTTLPR short allele did attentional bias to negative information on Week 1 significantly predict cross-semester change in dysphoria. These results carry important theoretical and practical implications concerning the ability to identify individuals vulnerable to experiencing elevated emotional reactivity to potentially stressing life-events.     

Parenting styles and psychological needs influences on adolescent life goals and aspirations in a South African setting

The present study examined the role of parenting styles and basic psychological needs in the adoption of goals and aspirations of learners, as well as for their psychological wellbeing (positive versus negative affect) in a South African sample of learners. A cross-sectional design was used to conduct this study with a sample of 853 learners at public schools in the Western Cape of South Africa (females?=?57%, mean age 16.96 years, SD?=?1.12). Data were collected using the Parenting Style and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ), Psychological Needs Scale, Aspiration Index and the Positive And Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The results suggest that authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles influence the adoption of life goals and psychological wellbeing of adolescents with fathers' negative parenting possibly reducing adolescent wellbeing. Extrinsic life goals was a significant predictor of positive affect, while need frustration was a significant predictor of negative affect. These findings suggest parenting styles and basic psychological needs influence life aspirations and psychological wellbeing of learners in a developing country context.     

Circle of Security parenting program efficacy for improving parental self-efficacy in a South African setting: Preliminary evidence

This pilot study examined the cross-cultural transportability of a western Circle of Security (COS) parenting program to improve on levels of parental self-efficacy in a South African setting. Participants (n = 9) were sampled from a fishing community on the West Coast of South Africa. The participants completed the COS with pre-test and post-test measures of their parenting self-efficacy. Furthermore, they completed an open-ended measure of their satisfaction with the parenting program. The data were analysed using the Wilcoxon sign-rank test and the Sign test to determine the significance in differences between pre-to-post-test change scores. In addition, a thematic analysis was conducted on participant’s satisfaction with the parenting program. Results indicated significant and possible change scores for the efficacy scores: ability to handle parenting pressures, control, and learning. The participants considered the COS program appropriate to their context and situation. These preliminary findings support the need for further study of the COS parenting program within the broader context of South Africa.