When inclusion costs and ostracism pays, ostracism still hurts

Recent research indicates that ostracism is painful even in the face of mitigating circumstances. However, in all previous experiments, there have been no costs to inclusion or benefits for ostracism. If being included meant losing money and being ostracized meant retaining money, would individuals still be distressed when ostracized? In 2 studies, the authors attempted to "load the dice" against inclusion in favor of ostracism. Participants played a variant of Cyberball called euroyberball (pronounced Euroball), in which ostracism and inclusion were crossed with whether the participants earned or lost money for each ball toss they received. In 2 experiments, the authors found that even when being ostracized meant retaining more money than the other players, it was painful. In Study 2, the authors also introduced conditions in which participants were overincluded. In these conditions, participants were sensitive to financial incentives. However, even then participants felt worse when given no positive attention than when given punitive attention.     

Intertrial sources of stimulus control and delayed matching-to-sample performance in humans

Two experiments compared delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) accuracy under 2 procedures in adults with mental retardation. In the trial-unique procedure, every trial in a session contained different stimuli. Thus, comparison stimuli that were correct on one trial were never incorrect on other trials in that session (or vice versa). In the 2-sample DMTS procedure, the same 2 comparison stimuli were presented on each trial, and their function changed quasi-randomly across trials conditional upon the sample stimulus. Across 2 experiments, 7 of 8 subjects showed the highest overall accuracy under the trial-unique procedure, and no subject showed consistently higher accuracy under the 2-sample procedure. Negative, exponential decay functions fit to logit p values showed that this difference was due largely to the steeper delay-mediated decline in sample control for the 2-sample procedure. Stimulus-control analyses indicated that, under the 2-sample procedure, the selection of the comparison stimulus on Trial N was often controlled by the comparison stimulus selection on Trial N-1 rather than the Trial-N sample stimulus. This source of competing stimulus control is not present in trial-unique procedures. Experiment 2 manipulated intertrial interval duration. There was a small but consistent increase in accuracy as a function of intertrial interval duration under the 2-sample procedure, but not under the trial-unique procedure.     

The structure of disgust: domain specificity in relation to contamination ideation and excessive washing

The primary goal of the present study was to employ confirmatory factor analysis to compare two theoretical models regarding the factor structure of disgust (N=307). The two-factor model of Animal Reminder and Core disgust proposed by Rozin et al. (2000) demonstrated superior model fit over a one-factor model that has been implicated in prior research. However, contrary to theoretical predictions, categorizing Hygiene disgust as Core disgust rather than Animal Reminder disgust provided an overall better fit for the two-factor model. The second aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the empirically derived two-factor model and contamination ideation and excessive washing using structural equation modeling. Findings indicated that the Contamination Ideation and Excessive Washing latent factor was specifically related to Core disgust (domain specific) and negatively related to Animal Reminder disgust. The relevance of these findings in the context of future research investigating the role of disgust in specific anxiety disorders is discussed.     

Eye movements are functional during face learning

In a free viewing learning condition, participants were allowed to move their eyes naturally as they learned a set of new faces. In a restricted viewing learning condition, participants remained fixated in a single central location as they learned the new faces. Recognition of the learned faces was then tested following the two learning conditions. Eye movements were recorded during the free viewing learning condition, as well as during recognition. The recognition results showed a clear deficit following the restricted viewing condition, compared with the free viewing condition, demonstrating that eye movements play a functional role during human face learning. Furthermore, the features selected for fixation during recognition were similar following free viewing and restricted viewing learning, suggesting that the eye movements generated during recognition are not simply a recapitulation of those produced during learning.     

Visual perception and gaze control in judging versus producing phase relations

We studied visual perception and gaze control in nine participants while they judged the relative phase between two oscillating stimuli (Experiment 1), and while they moved their hand--and therewith a concurrent feedback signal--in-phase or in antiphase with an oscillating stimulus (Experiment 2). As in previous studies, the mean relative phase judgements in Experiment 1 corresponded to the presented phase relations (0 degree, 45 degrees, 90 degrees, 135 degrees, and 180 degrees), whereas their standard deviations followed an inverted U-function of relative phase. The relative phase judgements were hardly affected by the degree of visibility (fully visible, inner parts occluded, outer parts occluded) and the amplitude (5 degrees, 10 degrees, and 20 degrees) of the stimuli. Stimulus-gaze coupling decreased as relative phase increased, and its variability correlated with that of the relative phase judgements. Taken together, task performance and gaze behaviour suggested that the judgement of relative phase might be flexibly based on different variables, rather than a single variable like relative direction of motion. In Experiment 2, the production of the antiphase relation was less stable than that of the in-phase relation. Performance deteriorated when the outer parts of the signals were occluded and when their amplitudes were reduced. Stimulus-gaze coupling was stronger during in-phase than during antiphase tracking and weaker when the signals were partially occluded and when their amplitudes were reduced. Stimulus-gaze coupling at 0 degrees and 180 degrees was stronger in Experiment 2 than in Experiment 1, suggesting that the visual perception of relative phase may benefit from its active production. Overall, the results clearly indicated that visual perception of relative phase and the corresponding gaze control are strongly task-dependent.     

The clenching-grinding spectrum and fear circuitry disorders: clinical insights from the neuroscience/paleoanthropology interface

This review discusses the clenching-grinding spectrum from the neuropsychiatric/neuroevolutionary perspective. In neuropsychiatry, signs of jaw clenching may be a useful objective marker for detecting or substantiating a self-report of current subjective emotional distress. Similarly, accelerated tooth wear may be an objective clinical sign for detecting, or substantiating, long-lasting anxiety. Clenching-grinding behaviors affect at least 8 percent of the population. We argue that during the early paleolithic environment of evolutionary adaptedness, jaw clenching was an adaptive trait because it rapidly strengthened the masseter and temporalis muscles, enabling a stronger, deeper and therefore more lethal bite in expectation of conflict (warfare) with conspecifics. Similarly, sharper incisors produced by teeth grinding may have served as weaponry during early human combat. We posit that alleles predisposing to fear-induced clenching-grinding were evolutionarily conserved in the human clade (lineage) since they remained adaptive for anatomically and mitochondrially modern humans (Homo sapiens) well into the mid-paleolithic. Clenching-grinding, sleep bruxism, myofacial pain, craniomaxillofacial musculoskeletal pain, temporomandibular disorders, oro-facial pain, and the fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue spectrum disorders are linked. A 2003 Cochrane meta-analysis concluded that dental procedures for the above spectrum disorders are not evidence based. There is a need for early detection of clenching-grinding in anxiety disorder clinics and for research into science-based interventions. Finally, research needs to examine the possible utility of incorporating physical signs into Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition posttraumatic stress disorder diagnostic criteria. One of the diagnostic criterion that may need to undergo a revision in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition is Criterion D (persistent fear-circuitry activation not present before the trauma). Grinding-induced incisor wear, and clenching-induced palpable masseter tenderness may be examples of such objective physical signs of persistent fear-circuitry activation (posttraumatic stress disorder Criterion D).     

Book Reviews

J oseph C ampbell : Creative mythology
E leanor B ertine : Jung's contribution to our time
M ichael B alint : The basic fault
H einrich R acker : Transference and counter-transference
D avid B akan : Disease, pain and sacrifice
A senath P etrie : Individuality in pain and suffering
B runo B ettelheim : The empty fortress: infantile autism and the birth of the self
P aul R oazen : Freud: political and social thought
J oel A llison , S. J. B latt and C. N. Z imet : The interpretation of psychological tests
C harles R ycroft : Anxiety and neurosis
A nthony S torr : Human aggression
M ichael C ourtenay : Sexual discord in marriage
J olande J acobi . Frauenprobleme, Eheprobleme
J. M. H eaton : The Eye; phenomenology and psychology of function and disorder