Influence of attention manipulation on emotion and autonomic responses

Psychopathologies such as depression and anxiety have been associated with self-consciousness, a trait focusing on the self in terms of emotions and social images. A technique designed to shift attention away from the self tends to reduce anxiety, so the present purpose was to assess the effect of self body-state information on an individual's emotional and autonomic activity. 24 undergraduate and graduate students (10 men and 14 women), ages 19 to 27 years (M = 22.1, SD = 2.5), were recruited as subjects. Focusing on body-state during an anxiety-inducing situation led to an increase of low to high frequency ratio of heart-rate variability which reflected cardiac sympathovagal balance. That is, attending to one's own bodily states enhanced relative sympathetic activity compared to parasympathetic activity, which can be interpreted as one of the physiological emotional responses elicited by anxiety.     

Velocity-dependent EMG activity of masseter and sternocleidomastoideus muscles during a ballistic arm thrusting movement

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the functional relationship between the general somatic motor function and the oral motor function. In Experiment 1, we analyzed the relationship between the amount of masseter muscle (MSS) activity and the velocity of a ballistic, 'karate-do' arm thrusting movement (ThrMov). ThrMov velocity was measured from video images taken with a high-speed CCD camera at a frequency of 500Hz. EMGs of MSS and sternocleidomastoideus (SCM) muscles as well as other related muscles were recorded simultaneously with video images in 6 varsity 'karate-do' athletes. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated between EMG amplitude and movement velocity. EMG activity of MSS as well as the other muscles increased as a function of ThrMov velocity in all participants, as evidenced by highly significant (p<.01) correlation coefficients, ranging from .64 to .87 (mean: .75). MSS EMG activity attained during ThrMovs performed at maximum velocity ranged between 14.6% and 113.8% of this muscle's MVC (45.7+/-39.3% MVC, mean+/-SD). SCM was also strongly active and closely associated with MSS. Besides changes in amount of EMG activity, it was further found that R-MSS EMG onset progressively shifted to the earlier phase of the ThrMov as ThrMov velocity increased. EMG onset time of R-MSS as well as R- and L-SCMs was negatively correlated with ThrMov velocity; when performed at maximum velocity MSS activation preceded the start of ThrMov by more than 100ms, whereas MSS was recruited last at approximately 150ms after the start of ThrMov when performed at moderate speed ( approximately 50% of maximum). In Experiment 2, the effects of head movement relative to the trunk on R-MSS and SCMs EMG activity were tested in both gazing and sidelong glancing conditions. A much smaller head rotation relative to the trunk was necessary during the ThrMov in the sidelong glancing condition compared to the gazing condition. R-MSS EMG activity was affected significantly by the difference between these conditions and decreased by 5.2% MVC in the sidelong glancing condition compared to the gazing condition. In association with the change in requirement for head movement between those conditions, EMG balance between the bilateral SCMs changed substantially. Finally, marked muscle activity during ThrMov was found in the MSS that was not directly involved in performing this movement, indicating a form of 'remote facilitation'.     

Religiosity and Ethical Ideology of Physicians: A Cross-Cultural Study

In this study of ethical ideology and religiosity, 1,255 physicians from Canada, China, Ireland, India, Japan and Thailand participated. Forsyth’s (1980) Ethical Position Questionnaire and Rohrbaugh and Jessor’s (J Pers 43:136–155, 1975) Religiosity Measure were used as the survey instruments. The results demonstrated that physicians from India, Thailand and China reported significantly higher rates of idealism than physicians from Canada and Japan. India, Thailand and China also scored significantly higher than Ireland. Physicians from Japan and India reported significantly higher rates of relativism than physicians from Canada, Ireland, Thailand and China. Physicians from China also reported higher rates of relativism than physicians from Canada, Ireland and Thailand. Overall, religiosity was positively associated with idealism and negatively associated with relativism. This study is the first to explore the differences between ethical ideology and religiosity among physicians in an international setting as well as the relationship between these two constructs. Both religiosity and ethical ideology are extremely generalized, and the extent to which they may impact the actual professional behaviour of physicians is unknown. This paper sets up a point of departure for future research that could investigate the extent to which physicians actually employ their religious and/or ethical orientation to solve ambiguous medical decisions.     

Affection of contact and transcendental telepathy in schizophrenia and autism

This paper seeks to demonstrate the structural difference in communication of schizophrenia and autism. For a normal adult, spontaneous communication is nothing but the transmission of phantasía (thought) by means of perceptual objects or language. This transmission is first observed in a make-believe play of child. Husserl named this function “perceptual phantasía,” and this function presupposes as its basis the “internalized affection of contact” (which functions empirically in eye contact, body contact, or voice calling me). Regarding autism, because of the innate lack of affection of contact, intersubjective perceptual phantasía does not occur spontaneously. Consequently, autistics do not engage in make-believe play but in stereotyped and solipsistic play. Without the formation of perceptual phantasía, there is no differentiation between phantasía and perception. For this reason, people with Asperger's syndrome consider conversation not an immediate communication of thought but a logical transmission of concepts. Schizophrenia is characterized by a distortion in the internalized affection of contact, resulting in a disturbance of perceptual phantasía, and this later is covered by various symptoms—for example, delusion as a pathological kind of communication of thought. This delusion is based on the pathological internalized affection of contact represented by a terrifying Other.     

Temporal modulations of agonist and antagonist muscle activities accompanying improved performance of ballistic movements

Although many studies have examined performance improvements of ballistic movement through practice, it is still unclear how performance advances while maintaining maximum velocity, and how the accompanying triphasic electromyographic (EMG) activity is modified. The present study focused on the changes in triphasic EMG activity, i.e., the first agonist burst (AG1), the second agonist burst (AG2), and the antagonist burst (ANT), that accompanied decreases in movement time and error. Twelve healthy volunteers performed 100 ballistic wrist flexion movements in ten 10-trial sessions under the instruction to "maintain maximum velocity throughout the experiment and to stop the limb at the target as fast and accurately as possible". Kinematic parameters (position and velocity) and triphasic EMG activities from the agonist (flexor carpi radialis) and antagonist (extensor carpi radialis) muscles were recorded. Comparison of the results obtained from the first and the last 10 trials, revealed that movement time, movement error, and variability of amplitudes reduced with practice, and that maximum velocity and time to maximum velocity remained constant. EMG activities showed that AG1 and AG2 durations were reduced, whereas ANT duration did not change. Additionally, ANT and AG2 latencies were reduced. Integrated EMG of AG1 was significantly reduced as well. Analysis of the alpha angle (an index of the rate of recruitment of the motoneurons) showed that there was no change in either AG1 or AG2. Correlation analysis of alpha angles between these two bursts further revealed that the close relationship of AG1 and AG2 was kept constant through practice. These findings led to the conclusion that performance improvement in ballistic movement is mainly due to the temporal modulations of agonist and antagonist muscle activities when maximum velocity is kept constant. Presumably, a specific strategy is consistently applied during practice.     

Depressed Adolescents and Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders: Are There Differences in the Presentation of Depression?

Patterns and correlates of comorbidity, as well as differences in manifest depressive profiles were investigated in a sample of depressed adolescents. A sub-sample of the youth were characterized as belonging to either a Pure depression group, an Internalizing group (depression and co-occurring internalizing disorders), or an Externalizing group (depression and co-occurring externalizing disorders). Item response theory (IRT) and differential item functioning (DIF) were used to assess whether the depressed adolescents from the different comorbidity groups presented with different depressive symptoms. Results indicated that the comorbidity groups were meaningfully distinct in terms of psychosocial correlates as well as showed differences in depressive symptom profiles as informed by DIF analyses. In particular, the comorbidity groups differed in terms of presentation of psychomotor changes and cognitive impairments. Implications for assessment are discussed.

The five‐factor personality inventory: cross‐cultural generalizability across 13 countries

In the present study, we investigated the structural invariance of the Five‐Factor Personality Inventory (FFPI) across a variety of cultures. Self‐report data sets from ten European and three non‐European countries were available, representing the Germanic (Belgium, England, Germany, the Netherlands, USA), Romance (Italy, Spain), and Slavic branches (Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia) of the Indo‐European languages, as well as the Semito‐Hamitic (Israel) and Altaic (Hungary, Japan) language families. Each data set was subjected to principal component analysis, followed by varimax rotation and orthogonal Procrustes rotation to optimal agreement with (i) the Dutch normative structure and (ii) an American large‐sample structure. Three criteria (scree test, internal consistency reliabilities of the varimax‐rotated components, and parallel analysis) were used to establish the number of factors to be retained for rotation. Clear five‐factor structures were found in all samples except in the smallest one (USA, N = 97). Internal consistency reliabilities of the five components were generally good and high congruence was found between each sample structure and both reference structures. More than 80% of the items were equally stable within each country. Based on the results, an international FFPI reference structure is proposed. This reference structure can facilitate standardized communications about Big Five scores across research programmes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.