Music training enhances the rapid plasticity of P3a/P3b event-related brain potentials for unattended and attended target sounds

Neurocognitive studies have shown that extensive musical training enhances P3a and P3b event-related potentials for infrequent target sounds, which reflects stronger attention switching and stimulus evaluation in musicians than in nonmusicians. However, it is unknown whether the short-term plasticity of P3a and P3b responses is also enhanced in musicians. We compared the short-term plasticity of P3a and P3b responses to infrequent target sounds in musicians and nonmusicians during auditory perceptual learning tasks. Target sounds, deviating in location, pitch, and duration with three difficulty levels, were interspersed among frequently presented standard sounds in an oddball paradigm. We found that during passive exposure to sounds, musicians had habituation of the P3a, while nonmusicians showed enhancement of the P3a between blocks. Between active tasks, P3b amplitudes for duration deviants were reduced (habituated) in musicians only, and showed a more posterior scalp topography for habituation when compared to P3bs of nonmusicians. In both groups, the P3a and P3b latencies were shortened for deviating sounds. Also, musicians were better than nonmusicians at discriminating target deviants. Regardless of musical training, better discrimination was associated with higher working memory capacity. We concluded that music training enhances short-term P3a/P3b plasticity, indicating training-induced changes in attentional skills.     

Sustained attention, attentional selectivity, and attentional capacity across the lifespan

Changes in sustained attention, attentional selectivity, and attentional capacity were examined in a sample of 113 participants between the ages of 12 and 75. To measure sustained attention, we employed the sustained-attention-to-response task (Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, Neuropsychologia 35:747?C58, 1997), a short continuous-performance test designed to capture fluctuations in sustained attention. To measure attentional selectivity and capacity, we employed a paradigm based on the theory of visual attention (Bundesen, Psychological Review 97:523?C547, 1990), which enabled the estimation of parameters related to attentional selection, perceptual threshold, visual short-term memory capacity, and processing capacity. We found evidence of age-related decline in each of the measured variables, but the declines varied markedly in terms of magnitude and lifespan trajectory. Variables relating to attentional capacity showed declines of very large effect sizes, while variables relating to attentional selectivity and sustained attention showed declines of medium to large effect sizes, suggesting that attentional control is relatively preserved in older adults. The variables relating to sustained attention followed a U-shaped, curvilinear trend, and the variables relating to attentional selectivity and capacity showed linear decline from early adulthood, providing further support for the differentiation of attentional functions.     

Attentional spread in deaf and hearing participants: Face and object distractor processing under perceptual load

The case of human deafness constitutes a unique opportunity to examine possible consequences for perceptual processing due to altered sensory experiences. We tested whether deaf??in contrast to hearing??individuals are more susceptible to visual distraction from peripheral than from central face versus object stimuli. The participants were required to classify the gender of a target male or female symbol presented either alone (low perceptual load) or together with three filler symbols (high perceptual load), while ignoring gender-congruent or -incongruent face versus object distractors presented at central or peripheral positions. The gender classifications were affected by distractor gender under low, but not under high, perceptual load in hearing participants. In contrast, the responses of deaf participants were similarly influenced by distractor gender under both levels of perceptual load. There was no evidence for generally enhanced attention to the visual periphery in deaf individuals. Our results indicate that auditory deprivation may result in enhanced attentional capacities under high perceptual load.     

When emotional valence modulates audiovisual integration

We constantly integrate the information that is available to our various senses. The extent to which the mechanisms of multisensory integration are subject to the influences of attention, emotion, and/or motivation is currently unknown. The ??ventriloquist effect?? is widely assumed to be an automatic crossmodal phenomenon, shifting the perceived location of an auditory stimulus toward a concurrently presented visual stimulus. In the present study, we examined whether audiovisual binding, as indicated by the magnitude of the ventriloquist effect, is influenced by threatening auditory stimuli presented prior to the ventriloquist experiment. Syllables spoken in a fearful voice were presented from one of eight loudspeakers, while syllables spoken in a neutral voice were presented from the other seven locations. Subsequently, participants had to localize pure tones while trying to ignore concurrent visual stimuli (both the auditory and the visual stimuli here were emotionally neutral). A reliable ventriloquist effect was observed. The emotional stimulus manipulation resulted in a reduction of the magnitude of the subsequently measured ventriloquist effect in both hemifields, as compared to a control group exposed to a similar attention-capturing, but nonemotional, manipulation. These results suggest that the emotional system is capable of influencing multisensory binding processes that have heretofore been considered automatic.     

Perceiving performer identity and intended expression intensity in point-light displays of dance

This study investigated agent and expression intensity recognition in point-light displays depicting dancing performances. In a first session, participants danced with two different expression intensities to music, solo or in dyads. In a subsequent session, they watched point-light displays of 1–5-s duration, depicting their own, their partner’s or another participant’s recorded actions, and were asked to identify the agent (self vs. partner vs. stranger) and the intended expression intensity (expressive vs. inexpressive) of the performer. The results indicate that performer identity and expression intensity could be discerned reliably from displays as short as 1 s. The accuracy in judgment increased with exposure duration and, for performer identification, with higher expression intensity. Judgment accuracy in agent and expression intensity recognition tasks correlated with self-report empathy indices. Accuracy correlated also with confidence in judgment, but only in the intensity recognition task. The results are discussed in relation to perceptual and neural mechanisms underlying action and intention recognition.     

Inhibitory control and empathy-related personality traits: sex-linked associations

We here report two studies exploring associations between inhibitory control (measured with the Sustained Attention to Response Task, SART) on the one hand, and self-reports of trait cooperativeness and empathy on the other. A coherent picture was obtained in women whose inhibitory control proficiency predicted higher scores on the Temperament and Character Inventory Cooperativeness and a higher Empathy Quotient. Individual differences in working memory did not predict self-reported empathy. In men, the association between SART performance and empathy was less clear: Good performance on the inhibitory task predicted lower scores on Cooperativeness and was unrelated to the Empathy Quotient. In both studies, women outperformed men on the SART. The results in women may reflect how individual differences in elemental neuro-cognitive operations such as inhibitory control influence more complex functions such as social cognition.     

Searching for Specificity Between Cognitive Vulnerabilities and Mood and Anxiety Symptoms

Using two large nonclinical samples (N = 725), relations between five targeted cognitive variables [intolerance of uncertainty, negative problem orientation, perfectionism/certainty, responsibility/threat estimation, and importance/control of thoughts] and mood [depression] and anxiety [social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and obsessive–compulsive] symptoms were examined. Analyses provided multiple levels of specificity, including zero-order correlations, partial correlations controlling for the effects of positive and negative affect, regression analyses, and hierarchical structural modeling. Results were that (a) intolerance of uncertainty showed relative specificity to anxiety versus depression symptoms and (b) negative problem orientation was common to mood and anxiety symptoms. Although certain analyses suggested that (c) perfectionism/certainty specifically predicted generalized anxiety and (d) both responsibility/threat estimation and importance/control of thoughts were unique predictors of obsessive–compulsive symptoms, these three cognitive variables inconsistently predicted symptom scores across the two studies. Conceptual and therapeutic implications are discussed.     

Building Collaborative Mental Health Teams in Schools Through MFT School Certification: Initial Findings

Building collaborative multidisciplinary mental health teams to boost student achievement has been a growing initiative in American schools since the 1970s. Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs)joined those teams in 2008, when Connecticut became the first state to certify MFTs for schoolbased practice. This article chronicles the history of that collaboration and reports initial research into MFT school-based participation on those teams.     

HR Interventions that Go Viral

What causes one Human Resource (HR) intervention to thrive while another dies? The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics of HR interventions that are not only self-sustaining, but adapt and gain momentum over time. Based on a review of the literature, a case study, and 16 critical incident interviews with senior Industrial-Organizational (I–O) and HR professionals, several characteristics of the organization, the intervention, and the leader consistently emerged as important in creating sustainable HR programs, suggesting several new directions for future research.