The Police Officer's Dilemma: A Decade of Research on Racial Bias in the Decision to Shoot

We review sociological, correlational, and experimental research that examines the effect of a target's race on the decision to shoot. Much of this work involves computer‐based simulations of a police encounter, in which a participant must decide whether or not to shoot a potentially hostile target who is either Black or White. Experimental work with undergraduate participants reveals a clear pattern of bias (a tendency to shoot Black targets but not Whites), which is associated with stereotypes linking Blacks with the concept of danger. Subsequent work with police officers presents a more complex pattern. Although police are affected by target race in some respects, they generally do not show a biased pattern of shooting. We suggest that police performance depends on the exercise of cognitive control, which allows officers to overcome the influence of stereotypes, and we conclude with potential implications of this research for law enforcement.     

Complex conditional control by pigeons in a continuous virtual environment

We tested two pigeons in a continuously streaming digital environment. Using animation software that constantly presented a dynamic, three‐dimensional (3D) environment, the animals were tested with a conditional object identification task. The correct object at a given time depended on the virtual context currently streaming in front of the pigeon. Pigeons were required to accurately peck correct target objects in the environment for food reward, while suppressing any pecks to intermixed distractor objects which delayed the next object's presentation. Experiment 1 established that the pigeons’ discrimination of two objects could be controlled by the surface material of the digital terrain. Experiment 2 established that the pigeons’ discrimination of four objects could be conjunctively controlled by both the surface material and topography of the streaming environment. These experiments indicate that pigeons can simultaneously process and use at least two context cues from a streaming environment to control their identification behavior of passing objects. These results add to the promise of testing interactive digital environments with animals to advance our understanding of cognition and behavior.     

Generalisation of fear and avoidance along a semantic continuum

Directly conditioned fear and avoidance readily generalises to dissimilar but conceptually related stimuli. Here, for the first time, we examined the conceptual/semantic generalisation of both fear and avoidance using real words (synonyms). Participants were first exposed to a differential fear conditioning procedure in which one word (e.g., “broth”; CS+) was followed with brief electric shock [unconditioned stimulus (US)] and another was not (e.g., “assist”; CS–). Next, an instrumental conditioning phase taught avoidance in the presence the CS+ but not the CS–. During generalisation testing, synonyms of the CS+ (e.g., “soup”; GCS+) and CS– (e.g., “help”; GCS–) were presented in the absence of shock. Conditioned fear and avoidance, measured via skin conductance responses, behavioural avoidance and US expectancy ratings, generalised to the semantically related, but not to the semantically unrelated, synonyms. Findings have implications for how natural language categories and concepts mediate the expansion of fear and avoidance repertoires in clinical contexts.     

Working memory and spatial judgments: Cognitive load increases the central tendency bias

Previous work demonstrates that memory for simple stimuli can be biased by information about the distribution of which the stimulus is a member. Specifically, people underestimate values greater than the distribution’s average and overestimate values smaller than the average. This is referred to as the central tendency bias. This bias has been explained as an optimal use of both noisy sensory information and category information. In largely separate literature, cognitive load (CL) experiments attempt to manipulate the available working memory of participants in order to observe the effect on choice or judgments. In two experiments, we demonstrate that participants under high cognitive load exhibit a stronger central tendency bias than when under a low cognitive load. Although not anticipated at the outset, we also find that judgments exhibit an anchoring bias not described previously.     

Short theta burst stimulation to left frontal cortex prior to encoding enhances subsequent recognition memory

Deep semantic encoding of verbal stimuli can aid in later successful retrieval of those stimuli from long-term episodic memory. Evidence from numerous neuropsychological and neuroimaging experiments demonstrate regions in left prefrontal cortex, including left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), are important for processes related to encoding. Here, we investigated the relationship between left DLPFC activity during encoding and successful subsequent memory with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). In a pair of experiments using a 2-session within-subjects design, we stimulated either left DLPFC or a control region (Vertex) with a single 2-s train of short theta burst stimulation (sTBS) during a semantic encoding task and then gave participants a recognition memory test. We found that subsequent memory was enhanced on the day left DLPFC was stimulated, relative to the day Vertex was stimulated, and that DLPFC stimulation also increased participants’ confidence in their decisions during the recognition task. We also explored the time course of how long the effects of sTBS persisted. Our data suggest 2 s of sTBS to left DLPFC is capable of enhancing subsequent memory for items encoded up to 15 s following stimulation. Collectively, these data demonstrate sTBS is capable of enhancing long-term memory and provide evidence that TBS protocols are a potentially powerful tool for modulating cognitive function.     

Perceived Injustice Mediates the Relationship Between Perceived Childhood Neglect and Current Function in Patients with Chronic Pain: A Preliminary Pilot Study

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - Cumulative evidence supports the association between perceived childhood neglect and adulthood psychological and physical health. To date,...     

A Brief,Hospital-Initiated Motivational Interviewing and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intervention to Link Postpartum Mothers Who Use Illicit Drugs With Treatment and Reproductive Care: A Case Report

Maternal substance use during the prenatal period often results in infants with compromised health outcomes. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends screening, brief motivational interviewing, and referral to existing treatment for women who use illicit substances prenatally. However, many of these women do not present for prenatal care and are not identified as using substances until delivery of their infants, many of whom are admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (ICU). We describe a case from a novel, hospital-initiated intervention study, Moms in ACTion (MIACT) that combines motivational interviewing (MI) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to target new mothers with an infant in the neonatal ICU who screen positive for illicit substance use prenatally or at delivery. The MIACT program consists of an adaptive intervention that includes up to three sessions. Initiation of substance use treatment and reproductive care via a gynecological visit are the primary targets of the intervention. Urine samples were collected at 2- and 6-month follow-up visits. The participant successfully completed the program, achieved both treatment outcomes, and had negative urine drug screens at follow-up visits. Improvements in readiness to change and psychological flexibility were also observed. The present case report of a new mother who used substances demonstrated feasibility for combining MI and ACT treatments and the potential for MIACT to increase treatment and contraception initiation, ultimately preventing future substance-exposed pregnancies.