Intoxication level and emotional response

We used affective modulation of the eye-blink component of the startle reflex to examine effects of three levels of alcohol intoxication and a no-intoxication control on emotional responses to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. Non-problematic student drinkers (n=101; 48 female) were randomly assigned to intoxication groups. Normal inhibition of startle during exposure to pleasant pictures was intact across groups. In contrast, potentiation of startle during viewing of unpleasant pictures was evident in the no- and low-intoxication groups, compared to the intermediate- and high-intoxication groups, in which it was significantly reduced. This pattern suggests that a direct and selective anxiolytic effect of alcohol can occur at higher levels of intoxication without an analogous impact on response to emotionally positive stimuli at similar levels.     

Cross-modal attention capture by affective stimuli: Evidence from event-related potentials

The P3 component of the event-related potential (ERP) to an acoustic startle probe is modulated during picture viewing, with reduced P3 amplitude when participants view either pleasant or unpleasant, as opposed to neutral, pictures. We have interpreted this as reflecting capture of attentional resources by affective pictures, with fewer resources available for processing the secondary startle probe. In the present study, we tested this resource allocation hypothesis by presenting either pictures or sounds as foreground stimuli, with the prediction that P3 amplitude in response to secondary startle probes would be reduced for affectively engaging foregrounds regardless of modality. Using dense-array electroencephalography and a source estimation procedure, we observed that P3 amplitude was indeed smaller when startle probes were presented during emotional, as opposed to neutral, stimuli for both sound and picture foregrounds. Source modeling indicated a common frontocentral maximum of P3 modulation by affect. The data support the notion that emotionally arousing stimuli transmodally attract resources, leading to optimized processing of the affective stimuli at the cost of the processing of concurrent stimuli.     

客体运动方向的视觉工作记忆存储方式

采用变化觉察范式,以独立运动的客体为对象,通过两个实验,探讨多个客体的运动方向在视觉工作记忆中的存储机制,即单个对象独立存储,抑或其存储受多个客体构型的影响。实验一和实验二相继考察了非目标客体运动方向变化,以及是否存在非目标客体对觉察目标客体运动方向的影响。结果发现,非目标客体运动方向变化条件下的觉察正确率显著低于不变的条件,然而只呈现目标客体条件下的觉察正确率与同时呈现目标和非目标条件无显著差异。该结果与前人在静态条件下对目标客体的觉察受目标客体和非目标客体整体构型影响的结论不一致。本研究的结果支持多个客体的运动方向信息在工作记忆中是以独立方式存储的假设。     

How Do Children Stigmatize People With Mental Illness?

A way to promote eliminating stigma surrounding mental illnesses is targeting the phenomenon in children. This study's purpose is to validate models of mental illness stigma on children in Grades 6–8. Children completed the revised Attribution Questionnaire in a pretest of a larger study on a mental health education program. Data from this study permitted testing of roles of demographics in these social cognitive models. Subsequent analyses using manifest model structural equations were mixed, but mostly showed adequate fit for multiple versions of the models. These results suggest that models of blame and dangerousness are relevant to the way 10 to 13-year-olds stigmatize mental illness. Demographics were not found to fit these models satisfactorily. Implications of these findings for stigma-change agenda are discussed.     

Nothing More or Less than Logic: General Logic, Transcendental Philosophy, and Kant's Repudiation of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre

In this paper I lay the foundations for an understanding of one of Fichte's most neglected and least understood texts: the late lecture course on Transcendental Logic. I situate this work in the context of Fichte's lifelong struggle with the problem of understanding the relation between logic and philosophy – a problem that I show to figure centrally both in Fichte's own revolutionary thinking and in his response to Kant's notorious denunciation of the Wissenschaftslehre. By attending to this context we can understand Fichte's philosophical ambitions in the late lectures: a critique of particular doctrines of general logic; a critique of the conception of thought presupposed both by the traditional logic and by Kant himself; and a new conception of the relation between logic and the philosophical theory of experience. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cognitive load and the imagination effect

When presented with a procedure or concept to learn, imagining the procedure or concept may be an effective instructional technique compared to conventional studying, thus generating an imagination effect. However, it was hypothesized that the importance of learning through imagining as an instructional technique depends on modes of presentation. Experiment 1 tested adults studying or imagining contour maps as participants and was designed to verify the generality of the imagination effect. Imagination instructions were superior to study instructions on subsequent test questions. Experiment 2 further investigated the effect by comparing much younger students (Grade 4), studying or imagining temperature/time graphs presented in either a split‐attention (spatially separated diagram and text) or an integrated (spatially combined diagram and text) format. Results on a subsequent test indicated that the Grade 4 students found imagining beneficial to their learning, compared with studying the material but the effect was only obtained using an integrated rather than a split‐attention format. Experiment 3 was conducted to obtain verbal protocols from Grade 4 imagination and study groups using the same instructional materials to throw light on the cognitive mechanisms behind the imagination effect. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of the everyday memory questionnaire with children.

The Everyday Memory Questionnaire (EMQ; Sunderland, Harris, & Baddeley, 1983) was examined for its suitability to assess children's memory. The parents of 226 school children (6-12 years) completed the EMQ in relation to their own children. A subset of these children (N = 101), in 6, 8 and 10 years age groups, completed subtests of the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning (WRAML; Sheslow & Adams, 1990). Comparison of EMQ and WRAML data found aspects of verbal memory correlated moderately with the EMQ in the 10 years age group. There were no meaningful correlations in the 8 years age group. In the 6 years age group aspects of visual memory correlated moderately with the EMQ. The diagnostic utility of the EMQ for children was assessed by comparing the school group to children diagnosed with ADHD and/or learning disorders. Diagnostic indicators revealed the EMQ to have high sensitivity (89%) but poor positive predictive power, identifying 40% of the school group as having memory deficits. Negative predictive power (confirming a negative diagnosis) was high. Validity data suggested that the EMQ could be useful with children at least as young as 10 years and further research needs to be conducted to establish the utility of the EMQ in clinical groups with primary memory deficits.