Classifying chimpanzee facial expressions using muscle action

The Chimpanzee Facial Action Coding System (ChimpFACS) is an objective, standardized observational tool for measuring facial movement in chimpanzees based on the well-known human Facial Action Coding System (FACS; P. Ekman & W. V. Friesen, 1978). This tool enables direct structural comparisons of facial expressions between humans and chimpanzees in terms of their common underlying musculature. Here the authors provide data on the first application of the ChimpFACS to validate existing categories of chimpanzee facial expressions using discriminant functions analyses. The ChimpFACS validated most existing expression categories (6 of 9) and, where the predicted group memberships were poor, the authors discuss potential problems with ChimpFACS and/or existing categorizations. The authors also report the prototypical movement configurations associated with these 6 expression categories. For all expressions, unique combinations of muscle movements were identified, and these are illustrated as peak intensity prototypical expression configurations. Finally, the authors suggest a potential homology between these prototypical chimpanzee expressions and human expressions based on structural similarities. These results contribute to our understanding of the evolution of emotional communication by suggesting several structural homologies between the facial expressions of chimpanzees and humans and facilitating future research.     

Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure: Can They Survive in the Market Place of Ideas?

Recently academic freedom and academic tenure have been in the media spotlight because of concerns that academic freedom is being misused and that academic tenure provides job security to a select few. First, this paper provides a brief history of these two institutions and follow with an analysis using Stone’s (2002) policy analysis format. Second, this paper examines the university through two lenses: (a) an economic market lens; and (b) a community lens. These two lenses offer contrasting views of the university and help explain the different views of academic freedom and tenure. The authors suggest that faculty make use of the economic model to increase their chances of maintaining tenure in a university atmosphere frequently characterized by a business approach rather than a collegial one. Recommendations for future research are also provided.     

The Power of Personality: The Comparative Validity of Personality Traits, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Ability for Predicting Important Life Outcomes

ABSTRACT— The ability of personality traits to predict important life outcomes has traditionally been questioned because of the putative small effects of personality. In this article, we compare the predictive validity of personality traits with that of socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive ability to test the relative contribution of personality traits to predictions of three critical outcomes: mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment. Only evidence from prospective longitudinal studies was considered. In addition, an attempt was made to limit the review to studies that controlled for important background factors. Results showed that the magnitude of the effects of personality traits on mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment was indistinguishable from the effects of SES and cognitive ability on these outcomes. These results demonstrate the influence of personality traits on important life outcomes, highlight the need to more routinely incorporate measures of personality into quality of life surveys, and encourage further research about the developmental origins of personality traits and the processes by which these traits influence diverse life outcomes.     

Focus identification during sentence comprehension: evidence from eye movements

Three eye movement experiments investigated focus identification during sentence comprehension. Participants read dative or double-object sentences (i.e., either the direct or indirect object occurred first), and a replacive continuation supplied a contrast that was congruous with either the direct or the indirect object. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated focus by locating only adjacent to either the direct or indirect object of dative (Experiment 1) or double-object (Experiment 2) sentences. Reading-time effects indicated that the surface position of the focus particle influenced processing. In addition, Experiment 1 reading times were longer when the replacive was incongruous with the constituent that only adjoined, and particle position modulated a similar effect in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 showed that this effect was absent when only was omitted. We conclude that the surface position of a focus particle modulates focus identification during on-line sentence comprehension.     

Multisensory exploration and object individuation in infancy

Recent research indicates that by 4.5 months, infants use shape and size information as the basis for individuating objects but that it is not until 11.5 months that they use color information for this purpose. The present experiments investigated the extent to which infants' sensitivity to color information could be increased through select experiences. Five experiments were conducted with 10.5- and 9.5-month-olds. The results revealed that multimodal (visual and tactile), but not unimodal (visual only), exploration of the objects prior to the individuation task increased 10.5-month-olds' sensitivity to color differences. These results suggest that multisensory experience with objects facilitates infants' use of color information when individuating objects. In contrast, 9.5-month-olds did not benefit from the multisensory procedure; possible explanations for this finding are explored. Together, these results reveal how an everyday experience--combined visual and tactile exploration of objects--can promote infants' use of color information as the basis for individuating objects. More broadly, these results shed light on the nature of infants' object representations and the cognitive mechanisms that support infants' changing sensitivity to color differences.     

Symptom-system fit in couples: emotion regulation when one or both partners smoke

In a laboratory smoking experiment, 25 couples in which 1 or both partners continued to smoke despite 1 of them having heart or lung disease discussed a health-related disagreement before and during a period of smoking. Immediately afterward, the partners used independent joysticks to recall their continuous emotional experience during the interaction while watching themselves on video. Participants in dual-smoker couples reported increased positive emotion contingent upon lighting up, whereas those in single-smoker couples reported the opposite. The results highlight the role of smoking in close relationships, particularly in regulating emotional closeness when both partners smoke. Attention to this fit between symptom and system may be useful in helping couples achieve stable cessation.     

The impact of negative moods on self-enhancing cognitions: the role of reflective versus ruminative mood orientations

This research program examined how self-focused attention to feelings affects the relation between mood negativity and self-enhancing thought. The primary hypothesis was that the particular manner in which people focus on their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) determines whether they reveal positive (i.e., mood-incongruent) or negative (i.e., mood-congruent) self-relevant thoughts in response to negative moods. Studies 1-4 revealed that social comparisons, temporal comparisons, and other self-enhancing cognitions (i.e., attributions, disidentification, relationship evaluations) are more likely to be mood incongruent when people adopt a reflective orientation to their negative feelings and more likely to be mood congruent when they adopt a ruminative orientation. Additionally, moods and mood orientations affected self-enhancing thoughts through the mediating influence of mood regulation goals and intentions (Studies 5 and 6).     

Choice as an act of meaning: the case of social class

Social class is one important source of models of agency--normative guidelines for how to be a "good" person. Using choice as a prototypically agentic action, 5 studies test the hypotheses that models of agency prevalent in working-class (WK) contexts reflect a normative preference for similarity to others, whereas models prevalent in middle-class (MD) contexts reflect a preference for difference from others. Focusing on participants' choices, Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants from WK relative to MD contexts more often chose pens that appeared similar to, rather than different from, other pens in the choice set, and more often chose the same images as another participant. Examining participants' responses to others' choices, Studies 3 and 4 demonstrated that participants from WK relative to MD contexts liked their chosen pens more when a confederate chose similarly and responded more positively when a friend chose the same car in a hypothetical scenario. Finally, Study 5 found that car advertisements targeting WK rather than MD consumers more often emphasized connection to, rather than differentiation from, others, suggesting that models of agency are reflected in pervasive cultural products.     

Change blindness and eyewitness testimony

The authors explored the relevance of research on change blindness to eyewitness identification and testimony under intentional and incidental memory conditions. Participants (N = 80, 40 men and 40 women) viewed a video enactment of a burglary in which the identity of the burglar changed at the halfway point of the film. Half of participants were briefed to remember the content, and the other half were not. All were tested for the recall of the content, awareness of the change, and ability to identify either or both of the burglars. Some 61% of participants did not notice the identity change. Rates of detection were significantly higher in participants in the intentional condition, who also recalled significantly more detail from the film. Awareness of change was also significantly related to content recall scores and accuracy of identification of both burglars. The results illustrate the interrelation between the eyewitness and change blindness literatures.     

Utility of the Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic (MBMD) to predict adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) medication regimens among HIV-positive men and women

Psychosocial and behavioral factors may be strong predictors of adherence to medications in a wide variety of diseases. Newly emerging antiretroviral medications for HIV have been shown to be effective but require near perfect adherence to offer clinically significant benefits. There is currently great interest in deriving patient factors that may predict optimal medication adherence in HIV-positive persons. In this study, we examined the association of psychosocial and behavioral characteristics using the Millon Behavioral Medicine Diagnostic (MBMD; Millon, Antoni, Millon, Meagher, & Grossman, 2001) and adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) among 117 HIV-positive individuals on HAART regimens. Specific indexes of the MBMD were associated with HAART adherence as assessed through patient interview, at baseline assessment, and at 3-month follow-up at a point after which participants had received medication adherence training. As hypothesized, the Medication Abuse scale of the MBMD was uniquely associated with overall adherence at baseline assessment and also predictive of adherence at 3-month follow-up. Additional MBMD scales were also related to overall adherence as well as specific adherence behaviors such as missed doses, following specific instructions, and overmedicating, although the Medication Abuse scale emerged as the most consistent predictor of adherence in the study. These results suggest that the MBMD can be used to predict adherence to HAART medication in a sample of HIV-positive men and women and may subsequently be used to identify those in need of adherence counseling at the point when medications are initiated.