Electrodermal nonresponding, premorbid adjustment, and symptomatology as predictors of long-term social functioning in schizophrenics

The hypothesis that electrodermal nonresponsiveness to orienting stimuli delineates a core group of "Kraepelinian" type schizophrenics was tested by following up social functioning outcome over a 2-year period in 37 schizophrenics. Good social functioning outcome required both some self-supporting ability in the job market and a minimal social life. The prior assessments included monitoring of electrodermal responses to a series of moderately intense tones, ratings of reported and observed symptoms during an interview, and ratings of premorbid adjustment on the basis of an interview with a close relative. Electrodermal nonresponding, poor premorbid adjustment, and negative symptomatology predicted poor social functioning during the second follow-up year, but the relationship to nonresponding pertained exclusively to a group of 15 first-episode patients. Discriminant analysis showed that electrodermal nonresponding and symptoms were the only independent predictors of outcome.     

AMOUNT OF INDUCED AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR TO LIGHT IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA AS A FUNCTION OF TIME AFTER TRAINING AND CELL FISSION

B ergström , S. R. Amount of induced avoidance behaviour to light in the Protozoa Tetrahymena as a function of time after training and cell fission. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 16–20.—Two cultures of Tetrahymena, dividing synchronously after exposure to an alternating heat treatment, were exposed to series of light and electric shocks paired. After 20 and 30 exposures resp. to the stimulus combination, samples of these cultures were drawn every 18 min and placed in a partially lighted chamber. In samples drawn shortly after training, an essentially smaller proportion was found in the light, in comparison with control samples, which had received either shocks or light or neither of the two stimuli. In later samples, this proportion increased until it approached level of control samples. The course of the increase was not influenced by intervening synchronous cell division.     

AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR TO LIGHT IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA: The effect of a gradual versus an abrupt boundary between dark and light

B ergström , S. R. Avoidance behaviour to light in the Protozoa Tetrahymena. The effect of a gradual versus an abrupt boundary between dark and light. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 81–88.—Samples of Tetrahymena, trained to avoid light, were placed in the dark part of a partially lighted chamber. The frequency of animals entering the lighted part through a gradual and through an abrupt boundary between dark and light was observed. It was found that a gradual boundary was a much more effective obstacle to the animals than an abrupt one.     

INDUCED AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOUR IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA

B ergstrom , S. R. Induced avoidance behaviour in the Protozoa Tetrahymena. Scand.J. Psychol ., 1968, 9, 215–219.—A sample of Tetrahymena, exposed to a series of light and electric shocks paired, was placed in a partially lighted glass chamber. During the first three minutes the number of animals in the lighted parts of the chamber decreased, and an essentially smaller proportion of the sample was then found in the light, in comparison with control samples, which had received either shocks or light or neither of the two stimuli.     

ACQUISITION OF AN AVOIDANCE REACTION TO LIGHT IN THE PROTOZOA TETRAHYMENA

B ergström , S. R. Acquisition of an avoidance reaction to light in the Protozoa Tetrahymena. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1968, 9 , 220–224.—A culture of Tetra-hymena, dividing synchronously after exposure to an alternating heat treatment, was exposed to a series of light and electric shocks paired. Samples of this culture were drawn after 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, and 31 exposures to the stimulus combination and were then placed in a partially lighted chamber. With an increasing number of stimulus presentations, the proportions of the samples found in the lighted parts decreased, while they remained roughly constant in control samples which had received either shocks or light or neither of the two stimuli.     

A PARADOX IN THE PERCEPTION OF LUMINANCE GRADIENTS. III

In the second paper of this series (Bergström, 1967) a psychophysical model of certain contrast phenomena in the perception of luminance gradients was outlined on the basis of empirical findings. From this model two predictions were derived about the appearance of a steplike luminance distribution. These predictions about relations between the brightness of different parts of the distribution have been tested by means of a ranking method and a matching technique. Both predictions were confirmed.     

The lability of the tactile-kinaesthetic framework

This paper is concerned with the ability to recognize settings of a rod (pivoted at the centre) at various angles of tilt without the use of vision. Five angles of tilt, all within the upper right quadrant, were used and 80 subjects took part in the experiments. It is shown that tactile-kinaesthetic recognition of a given angle of tilt is decidedly poor, subjects commonly reporting that the position of the rod had been changed. The direction of these subjective shifts was found to be in general towards the centre of the quadrant. If, following the recognition experiments, the subjects were required to judge settings of the rod in fact vertical and horizontal, errors made tended to be in a direction opposite to that normally found in making these judgements. It was further found that attempts to reinstate the original settings led to mean judgements equivalent to those given on the recognition tests, but with signs reversed. These various phenomena are ascribed to lability and disorganization of the tactile-kinaesthetic framework. An analogy with the autokinetic phenomenon is adduced.     

Gender differences in facial imitation and verbally reported emotional contagion from spontaneous to emotionally regulated processing levels

Previous studies on gender differences in facial imitation and verbally reported emotional contagion have investigated emotional responses to pictures of facial expressions at supraliminal exposure times. The aim of the present study was to investigate how gender differences are related to different exposure times, representing information processing levels from subliminal (spontaneous) to supraliminal (emotionally regulated). Further, the study aimed at exploring correlations between verbally reported emotional contagion and facial responses for men and women. Masked pictures of angry, happy and sad facial expressions were presented to 102 participants (51 men) at exposure times from subliminal (23 ms) to clearly supraliminal (2500 ms). Myoelectric activity (EMG) from the corrugator and the zygomaticus was measured and the participants reported their hedonic tone (verbally reported emotional contagion) after stimulus exposures. The results showed an effect of exposure time on gender differences in facial responses as well as in verbally reported emotional contagion. Women amplified imitative responses towards happy vs. angry faces and verbally reported emotional contagion with prolonged exposure times, whereas men did not. No gender differences were detected at the subliminal or borderliminal exposure times, but at the supraliminal exposure gender differences were found in imitation as well as in verbally reported emotional contagion. Women showed correspondence between their facial responses and their verbally reported emotional contagion to a greater extent than men. The results were interpreted in terms of gender differences in emotion regulation, rather than as differences in biologically prepared emotional reactivity.     

Threat-relevance impairs executive functions: negative impact on working memory and response inhibition

The effects of emotional stimulus content on attention are well-known. In contrast, the impact of emotional information on higher executive control functions is undetermined. To elucidate the role of negative emotion in cognitive control, 56 adult female participants performed a combined working memory and response inhibition task, with threat-relevant (spider and snake) and neutral (flower and mushroom) stimuli. Threat-relevant stimuli impaired performance, by causing prolonged response times to working memory items and increased response inhibition error rate relative to neutral stimuli. The impaired response inhibition was only evident when threat-relevant stimuli co-occurred with working memory matches, in line with a common resource pool view of executive functions and emotion processing. Individual differences in reported fear of spiders were associated with differences of inhibitory control, while fear of snakes was associated with impaired overall accuracy on working memory trials. The results are discussed in relation to the dual-competition framework for interaction between executive functions and emotion (Pessoa, 2009).