Dissociations between Covariation Bias and Expectancy Bias for Fear-relevant Stimuli

The illusory correlation paradigm of Tomarken, Mineka, and Cook (1989) was used to examine bias in threat appraisal for biological (snake, spider) and technological (gun, knife) fear-relevant stimuli. Subjects showed bias in terms of higher on-line shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, and higher post-experimental judgements of shock covariation, for fear-relevant stimuli. However, there were multiple dissociations between the measures: (1) expectancy bias was observed for both biological and technological stimuli, whereas covariation bias was restricted to biological stimuli; (2) prior fear of the target stimulus had no effect on expectancy bias, but covariation bias was restricted to high fear subjects; and (3) covariation bias was observed at the end of the experiment, by which time expectancy bias had disappeared. These results suggest that covariation bias is not simply a continuation of a pre-experimental expectancy bias.     

Counterconditioning of appetitive and defensive CRs in rabbits

Two experiments examined interactions between conditioned appetitive and defensive responses in the rabbit. In Experiment I, a conditioned jaw-movement response was established by following presentations of a clicker CS with intra-oral sucrose delivery on 50% of trials. The jaw-movement response was then maintained on this partial reinforcement schedule during a counterconditioning phase. A group which received para-orbital shock paired with the CS on non-sucrose trials showed acquisition of eyeblink responding and suppression of jaw-movement responding to the CS, in comparison to control groups which received either no shock or unpaired presentations of the CS and shock. Experiment II was identical in design to Experiment I except that the roles of the sucrose and shock reinforcers were reversed. The paired group acquired a conditioned jaw-movement response when sucrose was added in the counterconditioning phase, but in contrast to Experiment I showed a slight enhancement of the previously established eyeblink response. The asymmetry of appetitive and defensive counterconditioning was discussed in relation to opponent-process theories of motivation and reinforcement.     

Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response

A laboratory autonomic conditioning procedure was used to establish fear conditioning in human participants by pairing neutral stimuli with electric shock. Participants were also trained to make a button-press response to avoid shock. A target fear stimulus was then extinguished by presenting it without shock. The experimental group was given the opportunity to make the avoidance response during extinction whereas the control group was not. When the fear stimulus was tested without the response available, the control group showed normal extinction of both shock expectancy ratings and skin conductance responses, but the experimental group showed “protection from extinction”: they continued to give high expectancy ratings and strong skin conductance responses. We interpret this effect as analogous to the role of within-situation safety behaviours in preserving threat beliefs during exposure therapy for anxiety disorders. The results support a cognitive account of learning and anxiety. The procedure provides a potential laboratory model for further examination of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying anxiety and its reduction.     

Sabina Spielrein: psychoanalytic studies

The unconscious fantasies in Kuprin's Duel , p.201
Animal symbolism and a boy's phobia, p.202
The mother-in-law, p.205     

Critique of Turner, Young and Rachman's conditioning treatment of enuresis

The abstract of the paper begins by asserting that “one hundred and fifteen children were assigned to five treatment groups (including two control treatments)”. The abstract continues “over a one month period there was no difference between conditioning and control procedures”. A further sentence to the effect that conditioning treatment brought about an initial arrest of bedwetting in 81.4 per cent of cases, does nothing to dispel the implication of the earlier sentences that a large scale study has failed to produce evidence that conditioning treatment is superior to “placebo” or “arousal” treatments.     

Context-Specific Motivations to Read for Adolescent Struggling Readers: Does the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire Tell the Full Story?

Commonly used literacy motivation assessments do not specifically explore literacy motivation in school. These context-general assessments may be problematic for struggling adolescent readers, as qualitative research documents that these adolescents exhibit different levels of cross-context motivation. The present study explores whether an in-school measure predicts additional variance in reading performance beyond a non-context-specific measure. One hundred and fifteen fifth graders were administered the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire, an in-school reading motivation daily log, a demographic survey, and standardized reading assessments. Findings indicate that the in-school reading motivation measure predicted performance for struggling readers and the non-context-specific measure did not.     

A Matter of Life and Death: Understanding Continuing Bonds and Post-traumatic Growth When Young Adults Experience the Loss of a Close Friend

Young adults establish networks of friends for companionship, support, assistance, and resource exchange. Friends have been found to play an essential role in promoting young adults’ health and well-being. Yet, relatively little is known about how young adults cope with the death of a close friend. Studies of grief and bereavement in adulthood focus primarily on the death of a family member. In the present qualitative study, we examined the narrative accounts of 20 young adults (ages 21–34) to describe the prevalence and nature of continuing bonds and post-traumatic growth experiences in coping with the death of a close friend. Participants completed semi-structured interviews in which they described the circumstances of their friend’s death, the nature of their friendship, whether and how they continued their relationship with their deceased friend, and the impact of their friend’s death in their everyday lives. Overall, young adults articulated ways that they continued their relationship with the deceased friend that included personal communication, personal change, and homage activities. Post-traumatic growth experiences as a result of their friend’s death included behavioral changes and personal changes in outlook. The narratives of all participants reflected their simultaneous experience of continuing relationship ties with the deceased and a sense of personal growth as a result of their friend’s death. We report areas of overlap and distinctions between expressions of continuing bonds and post-traumatic growth in the lived experience of young adults coping with the loss of a friend. Implications of findings for future research are discussed.     

Blocking in Human Electrodermal Conditioning

Associative blocking in human conditioning was investigated using electrodermal and self-reported US expectancy measures. Previous null results using a design reported by Lovibond, Siddle, and Bond (1988) suggested that a clearly demarcated phase structure and visual cues with semantic content may have distracted attention from the experimental contingencies. Therefore the current experiment intermixed pre-training and compound training trials and masked the transition to the test phase to remove or reduce phase boundaries. Simple coloured squares were used as CSs to reduce semantic content. A significant blocking effect was observed on both the expectancy measure and on the electrodermal measure. Both results were due to improved transfer of conditioning to the target CS in the overshadowing control group in comparison to previous experiments. The results were interpreted as providing evidence that previous null results were due to failure of transfer of learning across clearly distinct phases. There was no evidence of a dissociation between the electrodermal and self-report measures. Theoretical and procedural implications for human Pavlovian conditioning are discussed.