Automatic mimicry reactions as related to differences in emotional empathy

The hypotheses of this investigation were derived by conceiving of automatic mimicking as a component of emotional empathy. Differences between subjects high and low in emotional empathy were investigated. The parameters compared were facial mimicry reactions, as represented by electromyographic (EMG) activity when subjects were exposed to pictures of angry or happy faces, and the degree of correspondence between subjects' facial EMG reactions and their self-reported feelings. The comparisons were made at different stimulus exposure times in order to elicit reactions at different levels of information processing. The high-empathy subjects were found to have a higher degree of mimicking behavior than the low-empathy subjects, a difference that emerged at short exposure times (17-40 ms) that represented automatic reactions. The low-empathy subjects tended already at short exposure times (17-40 ms) to show inverse zygomaticus muscle reactions, namely "smiling" when exposed to an angry face. The high-empathy group was characterized by a significantly higher correspondence between facial expressions and self-reported feelings. No differences were found between the high- and low-empathy subjects in their verbally reported feelings when presented a happy or an angry face. Thus, the differences between the groups in emotional empathy appeared to be related to differences in automatic somatic reactions to facial stimuli rather than to differences in their conscious interpretation of the emotional situation.     

Returning the tables: language affects spatial reasoning

Li and Gleitman (Turning the tables: language and spatial reasoning. Cognition, in press) seek to undermine a large-scale cross-cultural comparison of spatial language and cognition which claims to have demonstrated that language and conceptual coding in the spatial domain covary (see, for example, Space in language and cognition: explorations in linguistic diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in press; Language 74 (1998) 557): the most plausible interpretation is that different languages induce distinct conceptual codings. Arguing against this, Li and Gleitman attempt to show that in an American student population they can obtain any of the relevant conceptual codings just by varying spatial cues, holding language constant. They then argue that our findings are better interpreted in terms of ecologically-induced distinct cognitive styles reflected in language. Linguistic coding, they argue, has no causal effects on non-linguistic thinking--it simply reflects antecedently existing conceptual distinctions. We here show that Li and Gleitman did not make a crucial distinction between frames of spatial reference relevant to our line of research. We report a series of experiments designed to show that they have, as a consequence, misinterpreted the results of their own experiments, which are in fact in line with our hypothesis. Their attempts to reinterpret the large cross-cultural study, and to enlist support from animal and infant studies, fail for the same reasons. We further try to discern exactly what theory drives their presumption that language can have no cognitive efficacy, and conclude that their position is undermined by a wide range of considerations.     

At what age do children learn to discriminate between act and actor?

Children's ability to make moral judgements about an act on the basis of aspects of the act rather than on liking and preconceived ideas about the actor was investigated. 85 children of 4 age groups (preschool, Grades 1, 2, and 3, age range 5-9 years) participated. Act/Actor discrimination was investigated with a test consisting of 8 cartoons. In 4, a rabbit was behaving aggressively against a wolf; the other 4 portrayed identical acts with the wolf as aggressor and the rabbit as victim. Participants made moral evaluations of each cartoon. IQ was measured with Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, and the general level of moral development was measured in accord with Piaget's (1932) criteria. Age, IQ, and general moral development correlated with discriminative ability for Act and Actor. In Piagetian terms, children at the heteronomous level were not capable of such discrimination, while children at the autonomous level (above 7 years of age) in general were.     

Hierarchical modeling of paired comparison data

The method of paired comparisons belongs to a small group of techniques that provide explicit information about the consistency of individual and aggregated choices. This article investigates the link between the individual- and group-level judgments by extending R. D. Luce's (1959) model, which was originally developed for individual choice behavior, to a mixed-effects paired comparison model. It is shown that standard multilevel software for binary data can be used to estimate the model. The interpretation of the paired comparison parameters and statistical model tests are discussed in detail. An extensive analysis of an experimental study illustrates the usefulness of a hierarchical approach in modeling multiple pairwise judgments.     

The role of attribution of motivation in producing postsuppressional rebound

Three studies demonstrated that postsuppressional rebound (PSR) may be both reduced and enhanced by manipulating people's attributions about why they experience difficulty during suppression. Telling participants that suppression failures indicate a high motivation to use the suppressed construct produced more PSR than telling them that suppression failures indicate a low motivation to use the construct (Study 1). Telling participants that an external stimulus would make suppression easy produced more PSR than telling them that it would make suppression difficult (Study 2). Telling participants that suppressing a stereotype is difficult and unindicative of prejudice eliminated PSR (Study 3). These results support the notion that PSR occurs because people infer from the difficulty experienced during suppression and from suppression failures that they are motivated to use the suppressed construct.     

Set-Theoretic Absoluteness and the Revision Theory of Truth

We describe the solution of the Limit Rule Problem of Revision Theory and discuss the philosophical consequences of the fact that the truth set of Revision Theory is a complete 1/2 set.     

Familial correlates of social anxiety in children and adolescents

Retrospective studies suggest a relationship between parental rearing practices and social phobia. The present study investigated whether socially anxious children perceive their current parental rearing as rejecting, overprotective, and lacking emotional warmth, and as emphasizing the importance of other's opinion, and de-emphasizing social initiatives and family sociability. Furthermore, we examined whether parents of socially anxious children report to rely on such rearing practices, and suffer themselves from social fears. A regression analysis as well as extreme group comparisons were applied. Little support was found for the presumed role of the assessed family rearing aspects in the development of social anxiety in children. Solely family sociability (children's and mothers' report) and children's perception of overprotection of the mother predicted social anxiety in the regression analysis. Given the influence of the mentioned rearing practices, social anxiety of the mother still significantly predicted social anxiety of the child. In the extreme group comparisons, differences in the expected direction were found between socially anxious and normal children on parental rejection, emotional warmth, and family sociability. However, the lack of differences between socially anxious and clinical control children suggests that these variables do not form a specific pathway to social fears.     

Body dissatisfaction and irrational beliefs

To test the hypothesis that the irrational evaluative beliefs, postulated by Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, are associated with body dissatisfaction, 94 women (21 diagnosed with an eating disorder, 38 with high body dissatisfaction but without an eating disorder, and 35 with low body dissatisfaction) completed the Survey of Personal Beliefs and the Eating Disorders Inventory. Analysis showed no significant difference in body dissatisfaction between the Eating Disordered and High Body Dissatisfaction subgroups. No significant correlations between body dissatisfaction and irrational beliefs were found for the Eating Disordered subgroup. For the High Body Dissatisfaction subgroup, significant but low correlations were found between scores on body dissatisfaction and irrational standards for self and others and with negative self-rating. In terms of irrational beliefs the Eating Disordered and High Body Dissatisfaction subgroups showed a significantly greater tendency towards Catastrophizing, Low Frustration Tolerance, and Negative self-rating, compared to the controls, without any significant difference between the former two groups. The Eating Disordered subgroup but not the High Body Dissatisfaction subgroup differed significantly from the controls in terms of more Self-directed demands.     

Die Selektion dimensionaler räumlicher Präpositionen: automatisch und nicht ressourcenadaptierend

The selection of dimensional spatial prepositions: automatic and not resource adaptive Summary. Speakers were required to generate dimensional spatial expressions in order to specify the position of a to-be-localized object (LO) relative to a reference object (RO). Placing LO in different positions around RO enabled us to establish the areas of application for the different German spatial terms. Canonical expressions (to the right of/ to the left of or above/ below) were only used if LO was placed horizontally or vertically aligned with RO. In all other directions combined expressions, e.g. 'rechts oben' (to the right and above) were used, which are common in German. These areas of application were of the same shape when subjects were under time pressure (Experiment 1). Additionally, a concurrent secondary task which was proven having high cognitive demands (Experiment 2) did not influence the area of application (Experiment 3). We conclude from these results that the selection of dimensional prepositions is automatic and that it is not resource adaptive. Zusammenfassung. SprecherInnen sollten ein zu lokalisierendes Objekt (LO) relativ zu einem Referenzpunkt (RO) sprachlich durch dimensionale räumliche Ausdrücke lokalisieren. LO wurde in unterschiedlichen Richtungen um RO platziert, sodass sich die Anwendbarkeitsräume für die verschiedenen räumlichen Ausdrücke im Deutschen bestimmen ließen. Die kanonischen Bezeichner (rechts von /links von oder über/unter) wurden praktisch nur bei direkt horizontaler oder vertikaler Lage von LO gewählt, in allen anderen Fällen wurden kombinierte Ausdrücke (z.B. rechts oben) benutzt. Diese Anwendbarkeitsräume änderten sich nicht, wenn die Personen unter Zeitdruck produzierten (Experiment 1). Eine gleichzeitig zu bearbeitende Nebenaufgabe, die das kognitive System stark belastet (Experiment 2), führte ebenfalls zu keiner Änderung der Anwendbarkeitsräume (Experiment 3). Wir schließen daraus, dass die Selektion der räumlichen Ausdrücke automatisch erfolgt und dass sie nicht ressourcenadaptierend ist.     

Cell-mediated immune hypersensitivity is stronger in the left side of the body than the right in healthy young subjects.

More frequent appearance of herpes zoster infection on the left side of the body has been noted. In women, breast cancer occurs more frequently on the left side. It has been suggested that the left neocortex is involved in neuroimmunomodulation via the dopaminergic system. In this study, our purpose was to investigate the possible difference in cell-mediated hypersensitivity between right and left body sides using the tuberculin test with 22 male and 36 female healthy high school students. In the present study, the cell-mediated hypersensitivity was higher in the left side of the body than the right. This difference was slightly more apparent in the girls and may be related to brain asymmetry in neuroimmunomodulation.