Exploring the mechanism of dishabituation

In this study we explored elicitation and habituation of the orienting reflex (OR) in the context of indifferent and significant stimuli, particularly aiming to clarify the mechanism driving dishabituation. An in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of electrodermal habituation and dishabituation was conducted, focusing on the role of state measures as determinants of the phasic response profile. Twenty-four young adult participants completed an auditory dishabituation task while electrodermal activity was recorded. Participants listened to a series of 10 innocuous tones of the same frequency (standards), followed by a deviant tone of a different frequency, and succeeded by 2-4 tones of the same frequency as the initial 10 stimuli. All stimuli had a random stimulus onset asynchrony of 5-7 s. Participants completed an indifferent condition in which there was no task in relation to the stimuli, and a significant condition where instruction was given to count the stimuli silently; order was counterbalanced between participants. As predicted, both skin conductance responses (SCRs) and skin conductance levels (SCLs) were larger for the significant than the indifferent condition. The initial phasic ORs were dependent on pre-stimulus arousal level, and there were significant decreases in both SCR and SCL over the first 10 standards in both conditions. Phasic response recovery was apparent to the deviant stimulus, and dishabituation to the following standard stimulus; both effects were enhanced in the significant condition. Sensitisation was apparent in SCL following the initial and deviant stimuli, but the extent of this was confounded with incomplete resolution of the preceding phasic OR in the significant condition. In the indifferent condition, dishabituation was independent of deviant-related sensitisation; this could not be tested in the significant condition. These findings suggest that dishabituation is not a process of sensitisation, but rather, a disruption of the habituation process.     

A 2 × 2 taxonomy of multilevel latent contextual models: accuracy-bias trade-offs in full and partial error correction models

In multilevel modeling, group-level variables (L2) for assessing contextual effects are frequently generated by aggregating variables from a lower level (L1). A major problem of contextual analyses in the social sciences is that there is no error-free measurement of constructs. In the present article, 2 types of error occurring in multilevel data when estimating contextual effects are distinguished: unreliability that is due to measurement error and unreliability that is due to sampling error. The fact that studies may or may not correct for these 2 types of error can be translated into a 2 × 2 taxonomy of multilevel latent contextual models comprising 4 approaches: an uncorrected approach, partial correction approaches correcting for either measurement or sampling error (but not both), and a full correction approach that adjusts for both sources of error. It is shown mathematically and with simulated data that the uncorrected and partial correction approaches can result in substantially biased estimates of contextual effects, depending on the number of L1 individuals per group, the number of groups, the intraclass correlation, the number of indicators, and the size of the factor loadings. However, the simulation study also shows that partial correction approaches can outperform full correction approaches when the data provide only limited information in terms of the L2 construct (i.e., small number of groups, low intraclass correlation). A real-data application from educational psychology is used to illustrate the different approaches.     

Alternative Psychopharmakatherapie im Alter

In ?sterreich steigt der Anteil von ?lteren Menschen in der Bev?lkerung stetig an. Besonders die Anzahl der Mitbürger über 85 Jahre zeigte in den letzten 20 Jahren einen überproportionalen Zuwachs. Alterstypische Erkrankungen gewinnen deshalb zunehmend an sozialmedizinischer und volkswirtschaftlicher Bedeutung. Zu den h?ufigsten Alterserkrankungen z?hlen psychiatrische St?rungen, wie die Delir, Demenz und Depression, die ihrerseits wieder mit psychotischer Symptomatik, wie Wahn und Halluzinationen, Pers?nlichkeitsver?nderungen, Verhaltensauff?lligkeiten und gest?rtem Schlaf-Wachrhythmus einhergehen. Die h?ufigsten Gründe für eine Institutionalisierung gerontopsychiatrischer Patienten sind kognitive St?rungen begleitet von der Unf?higkeit, sich selbst zu versorgen, sich ausreichend zu pflegen und zu orientieren, sowie dem Auftreten einer Inkontinenz und von wahnhafter Symptomatik mit Aggressivit?t, Verhaltensst?rungen und n?chtlichen Unruhephasen. Da es durch falsche Diagnose und Therapie der im Alter überproportional h?ufigen Schlaf- und Verhaltensst?rungen bei Demenz sehr oft zu einem Circulus vitiosus mit kognitiver Verschlechterung, zunehmender Inkontinenz, Immobilit?t, Sturz- und Frakturneigung kommt, ist es wesentlich, das ?rztliche „Primum nil nocere“ zu beachten – die schonendsten Medikamente in niedrigster Dosierung über einen erforderlichen Zeitraum, aber nicht darüber, hinaus zu verordnen. Alternative Ma?nahmen k?nnen sowohl bei der Behandlung der h?ufigen Schlaf-Wachrhythmusst?rungen, als auch bei Verhaltensauff?lligkeiten bei Demenz sehr hilfreich für eine Verbesserung der Lebensqualit?t von Patient, Betreuer und Umgebung sein.     

Alternative Psychopharmakatherapie im Alter

In ?sterreich steigt der Anteil von ?lteren Menschen in der Bev?lkerung stetig an. Besonders die Anzahl der Mitbürger über 85 Jahren zeigte in den letzten 20 Jahren einen überproportionalen Zuwachs. Alterstypische Erkrankungen gewinnen deshalb zunehmend an sozial-medizinischer und volkswirtschaftlicher Bedeutung. Zu den h?ufigsten Alterserkrankungen z?hlen psychiatrische St?rungen wie Delir, Demenz und Depression, die ihrerseits wieder mit psychotischer Symptomatik wie Wahn und Halluzinationen, Pers?nlichkeitsver?nderungen, Verhaltensauff?lligkeiten und gest?rtem Schlaf-Wachrhythmus einhergehen. Die h?ufigsten Gründe für eine Institutionalisierung gerontopsychiatrischer Patienten sind kognitive St?rungen begleitet von der Unf?higkeit, sich selbst zu versorgen, sich ausreichend zu pflegen und zu orientieren sowie dem Auftreten einer Inkontinenz und von wahnhafter Symptomatik mit Aggressivit?t, Verhaltensst?rungen und n?chtlichen Unruhephasen. Da es durch falsche Diagnose und Therapie der im Alter überproportional h?ufigen Schlaf- und Verhaltensst?rungen bei Demenz sehr oft zu einem Circulus vitiosus mit kognitiver Verschlechterung, zunehmender Inkontinenz, Immobilit?t, Sturz- und Frakturneigung kommt, ist es wesentlich, das ?rztliche “Primum nil nocere” zu beachten - die schonendsten Medikamente in niedrigster Dosierung über einen erforderlichen Zeitraum, aber nicht darüber hinaus, zu verordnen. Alternative Ma?nahmen k?nnen sowohl bei der Behandlung der h?ufigen Schlaf-Wachrhythmusst?rungen, als auch bei Verhaltensauff?lligkeiten bei Demenz sehr hilfreich für eine Verbesserung der Lebensqualit?t von Patient, Betreuer und Umgebung sein.     

Panorama

Panorama

Panorama     

When does mimicry affect evaluative judgment?

We investigated the effect of subliminally presented happy or angry faces on evaluative judgments when the facial muscles of participants were free to mimic or blocked. We hypothesized and showed that subliminally presented happy expressions lead to more positive judgments of cartoons compared to angry expressions only when facial muscles were not blocked. These results reveal the influence of socially driven embodied processes on affective judgments and have also potential implications for phenomena such as emotional contagion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

Negation as a means for emotion regulation? Startle reflex modulation during processing of negated emotional words

This study investigated startle reflex modulation in 33 healthy student participants during the processing of negated emotional items. To build upon previous research, our particular interest was to find out whether processing of negated emotional items modulates emotional responding in line with the logical meaning of the negated expression, or instead leads to paradox emotional effects that point in the direction opposite the one logically implied by the negation. Startle reflex modulation was assessed during silent reading of pleasant and unpleasant nouns. The nouns were either paired with the possessive pronoun my or with the negation word no. The startle eyeblink amplitude was enhanced during processing of the unpleasant pronoun–noun phrases and attenuated during processing of the pleasant phrases. Negation attenuated the startle eyeblink for negated unpleasant nouns and enhanced it for negated pleasant nouns. In line with this finding, negation decreased arousal ratings for unpleasant nouns and reversed the valence ratings for pleasant nouns. Our results are the first to show an effect of negation on both peripheral physiological and subjective indices of affective responding. Our results suggest that negation may be an effective strategy for spontaneous down-regulation of emotional responses to unpleasant, but not to pleasant, stimuli.     

Short assessment of the Big Five: robust across survey methods except telephone interviewing

We examined measurement invariance and age-related robustness of a short 15-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-S) of personality dimensions, which is well suited for applications in large-scale multidisciplinary surveys. The BFI-S was assessed in three different interviewing conditions: computer-assisted or paper-assisted face-to-face interviewing, computer-assisted telephone interviewing, and a self-administered questionnaire. Randomized probability samples from a large-scale German panel survey and a related probability telephone study were used in order to test method effects on self-report measures of personality characteristics across early, middle, and late adulthood. Exploratory structural equation modeling was used in order to test for measurement invariance of the five-factor model of personality trait domains across different assessment methods. For the short inventory, findings suggest strong robustness of self-report measures of personality dimensions among young and middle-aged adults. In old age, telephone interviewing was associated with greater distortions in reliable personality assessment. It is concluded that the greater mental workload of telephone interviewing limits the reliability of self-report personality assessment. Face-to-face surveys and self-administrated questionnaire completion are clearly better suited than phone surveys when personality traits in age-heterogeneous samples are assessed.     

Exaggeration is harder than understatement, but practice makes perfect!

Previous research on the fakeability of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) yielded inconsistent results. The present study simultaneously analyses several relevant factors: faking direction, type of instructions, and practice. Furthermore, it takes baseline individual differences into account. After a baseline assessment in a self-esteem IAT without faking instructions (t0), participants in the faking conditions then (t1) faked high or low scores without being provided with recommended strategies on how to do so (i.e., individual strategies). At t2 and t3, they were asked to fake the IAT after having received information on recommended faking strategies. At t4, faking direction was reversed. Without the recommended strategies, faking high scores was not possible, but faking low scores was. With the recommended strategies, participants needed additional practice to fake high scores. When faking directions were reversed, participants were successful without additional practice, suggesting a transfer in faking skills. In most of the faking attempts, faking success was moderated by individual differences in baseline implicit self-esteem. This suggests that the complex interplay of factors influencing faking success should be taken into account when considering the issue of fakeability of the IAT.