The miscommunication of deception: An adaptive perspective

Undergraduates were videotaped as they told lies and truths about their last job. Later, these undergraduates viewed the videotape and tried to guess which of their fellow subject were lying. Monetary incentives had been offered for successful lying and lie detection. Our subjects showed a “demeanor bias”—some looked honest even when they were lying; others looked dishonest even when they were telling the truth. These differences in apparent honesty were the primary determinant of deception judgments; perceivers' detection skills played a lesser role. Honest-looking subjects were predisposed to perceive others as dishonest. In general, our liars used hand gestures, maintained eye contact, and refrained from smiling. Perceivers misconstrued these behaviors as signs of honesty and could not often detect deceit—unless the lie was being told by a subject who had earlier told the truth. We draw on sociobiological concepts and offer an adaptive perspective on human deceit.     

Distress tolerance and early adolescent externalizing and internalizing symptoms: The moderating role of gender and ethnicity

A large body of research has examined the development of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in childhood and early adolescence. Notably, there is significant concomitant impairment associated with early adolescent symptomatology, as well as association of these symptoms with future development of psychopathology, poor physical health, self-destructive thoughts and behaviors, criminal behavior, and HIV risk behaviors. Drawing on negative reinforcement theory, the current study sought to examine the potential role of distress tolerance, defined as the ability to persist in goal-directed activity while experiencing emotional distress, as a potential mechanism that may underlie both internalizing and externalizing symptoms among 231 Caucasian and African American youth (M age = 10.9 years; 45.5% female; 54.5% Caucasian ethnicity). A series of regressions resulted in significant moderated relationships, such that low distress tolerance conferred increased risk for alcohol use among Caucasians, delinquent behavior among African Americans, and internalizing symptoms among females. Clinical implications, including the potential role of negative reinforcement models in early intervention with young adolescents, are discussed.     

High Hostility Among Smokers Predicts Slower Recognition of Positive Facial Emotion

High levels of trait hostility are associated with wide-ranging interpersonal deficits and heightened physiological response to social stressors. These deficits may be attributable in part to individual differences in the perception of social cues. The present study evaluated the ability to recognize facial emotion among 48 high hostile (HH) and 48 low hostile (LH) smokers and whether experimentally-manipulated acute nicotine deprivation moderated relations between hostility and facial emotion recognition. A computer program presented series of pictures of faces that morphed from a neutral emotion into increasing intensities of happiness, sadness, fear, or anger, and participants were asked to identify the emotion displayed as quickly as possible. Results indicated that HH smokers, relative to LH smokers, required a significantly greater intensity of emotion expression to recognize happiness. No differences were found for other emotions across HH and LH individuals, nor did nicotine deprivation moderate relations between hostility and emotion recognition. This is the first study to show that HH individuals are slower to recognize happy facial expressions and that this occurs regardless of recent tobacco abstinence. Difficulty recognizing happiness in others may impact the degree to which HH individuals are able to identify social approach signals and to receive social reinforcement.     

Eating behavior in obese BED, obese non-BED, and non-obese control participants: A naturalistic study

Laboratory studies have shown considerable differences between the eating behavior, particularly binge eating behavior, of participants with and without binge eating disorder (BED). However, these findings were not replicated in two field experiments employing ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in which obese BED and obese non-BED participants reported comparable binge eating behavior. In the current study, we examined differences in binge eating with an innovative assessment scheme employing both EMA and a standardized computer-based dietary recall program to avoid some of the limitations of past laboratory and field research. Obese BED, obese non-BED, and non-obese control participants reported significant differences in eating patterns, loss of control, overeating, and binge eating behavior. Of particular importance was the finding that BED participants engaged in more overeating and more binge eating episodes than non-BED participants. These findings suggest that the use of EMA in combination with dietary recall may be a relatively objective and useful approach to assessing binge eating behavior. The findings further suggest that individuals with BED are observably different from those without the disorder, which may have implications for eating disorder diagnoses in DSM-V.     

A Meta-Analysis of Structural and Functional Brain Imaging in Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type: A Neuroimaging Profile

We conducted a quantitative review of the imaging literature using meta-analytic methodology to characterize further the magnitude of hippocampal deficit in probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to determine whether other neuroanatomic structures in AD can better discriminate the disease from normal aging. Additionally, we parceled the discriminability of neuroanatomic structures by duration of disease to determine those structures most sensitive to AD in its early and late stages. One hundred twenty-one studies published between 1984 and 2000 met criteria for inclusion in the present analysis. In total, structural (i.e., CT and MRI) and functional (i.e., SPECT and PET) neuroimaging results from 3511 patients with AD, and 1632 normal healthy controls were recorded across meta-analyses. Our results include neuroimaging profiles for both early onset and longer duration patients with AD. In sum, these profiles yield a signature of diagnostic markers in both cortical and subcortical neuroanatomic areas. This signature is consistent with the clinical phenomenology of Alzheimer's dementia and should aid in the positive identification of AD.     

Quantitative evidence for distinct cognitive impairment in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

It is generally agreed that at least some aspects of abnormal eating behaviour is indeed due in part to disordered cognition. The accumulated literature illustrates cognitive impairment in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Yet beyond being inconsistent, these independent studies also do not reveal the magnitude of impairment within and across studies and fail to give due consideration to the magnitude of impairment so as to understand the severity and breadth of impairment and/or differences in cognitive profiles between patients with AN and BN. Hence, the present review on the subject sought to articulate the magnitude of cognitive impairment in patients with AN and BN by quantitatively synthesizing the existing literature using meta-analytic methodology. The results demonstrate modest evidence of cognitive impairment specific to AN and BN that is related to body mass index in AN in terms of its severity, and is differentially impaired between disorders. Together, these results suggest that disturbed cognition is figural in the presentation of eating disorders and may serve to play an integral role in its cause and maintenance. Implications of these findings with respects to future research are discussed.