Ability to disengage attention predicts negative affect

This investigation addresses the hypothesis that negative affect is associated with decreased ability to shift attention to a new focus. Thirty-nine participants completed a covert attentional orienting task and then viewed a distressing film clip. Mood was measured by self-report at the beginning and end of the session. Correlations between attentional orienting performance and self-reported mood indicated that participants with greater response time costs on invalidly cued trials reported more negative affect in response to the film. These results support the hypothesis that negative affect is associated with a slowness to disengage attention.     

Neurophysiological indices of free recall memory biases in major depression: The impact of stimulus arousal and valence

This study examined differential impact of the valence and arousal characteristics of stimuli on memory biases and brain activity in major depressive disorder (MDD) and non-depressed control participants. P300 and slow wave (SW) components of the event-related brain potential (ERP) were recorded in 18 MDD and 18 control individuals during the encoding of positive and negative, high and low arousal words in a free recall task. Control participants demonstrated expected enhanced memory for positive stimuli that was accompanied by a corresponding increase in SW ERP components. These effects were not seen in the MDD participants. Rather, memory biases for negative information in MDD were only observed for low arousal words and were not reflected in ERP amplitudes. This study suggests that the inconsistency in the MDD memory bias literature may be related to the arousing nature of the stimuli incorporated in the study.     

Development in children's attribution of embarrassment and the relationship with theory of mind and shyness

The present study examined the two-stage developmental theory of the understanding of embarrassment (Modigliani & Blumenfeld, 1979) through the administration of verbal and non-verbal measures. Moreover, the relationship between children's attributions of embarrassment and their ability to understand false beliefs and propensity to be shy was investigated. Ninety-five children (4 to 9 years old) were presented with brief stories in which the main character received negative, neutral, or positive social reactions. Verbal and non-verbal attributions of embarrassment were examined. In addition, a false-belief task and a shyness-propensity questionnaire were administered. Using verbal measures, older children reported more embarrassment in the negative and neutral conditions compared to younger children. However, using non-verbal measures, these age differences disappeared. This suggests that young children may have a “mature” understanding of embarrassment, but may not be able to express this linguistically. Verbal and non-verbal embarrassment attributions were not related to the understanding of false beliefs, but they were related to shyness propensity. The results are discussed in terms of socio-cognitive and emotional factors in understanding emotions.     

Fear of negative evaluation augments negative affect and somatic symptoms in social-evaluative situations

The aim of this study was to determine whether fear of negative evaluation (FNE) moderates effects of eye contact on mood, bodily symptoms and physiological activity during social-evaluative situations. Facial blood flow, skin conductance, heart rate and respiration rate were recorded in 42 participants while they sang a children's song, while they were observed or made direct eye contact with the experimenter, and while they listened to an audiotape of themselves singing. Physiological responses were similar in high and low FNE groups. However, differences lay in the perception of bodily symptoms and ratings of negative affect, with the high FNE group reporting greater ratings. In addition, prior eye contact enhanced the perception of bodily symptoms in the high FNE group when they listened to the audiotape. Concern about the social consequences of displaying bodily disturbances such as trembling, blushing and sweating may explain these findings.     

Disentangling schematic and conceptual processing: A test of the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems framework

Central to the Interacting Cognitive Subsystems framework (ICS) is the assertion that meaning exists at both the propositional and implicational levels. This assertion was tested by having 26 fast-year undergraduates make speeded judgements of emotional expression and emotional content in separate tasks on 120 single recorded words. Propositional meaning was represented by the content of the words while implicational meaning was conveyed by the expression of the word. In two tasks, participants decided whether the content or the expression of the word was emotional or neutral. In the expression task main effects were found for expression but not for content. In the content task main effects were found for both content and expression with an interaction between the two factors. Some congruency effects were evident in both tasks. Predictions of the framework concerning the independent processing and eventual integration of these two levels of meaning were partially supported. The significance of separating conceptual and schematic processing for other models of multilevel cognitive processing is addressed.     

One night of sleep is insufficient to achieve sleep-to-forget emotional decontextualisation processes

Neutral memories unbind from their emotional acquisition context when sleep is allowed the night after learning and testing takes place after two additional nights of sleep. However, mood-dependent memory (MDM) effects are not abolished after a restricted sleep episode mostly featuring non rapid-eye-movement (NREM) or rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. Here, we tested whether (1) one night of sleep featuring several NREM-REM sleep cycles is sufficient to suppress MDM effects and (2) a neutral mood is a sufficiently contrasting state to induce MDM effects, i.e. interfere with the recall of information learned in happy or sad states. Results disclosed MDM effects both in the post-learning sleep and wake conditions, with better recall in congruent than incongruent emotional contexts. Our findings suggest that the emotional unbinding needs several consecutive nights of sleep to be complete, and that even subtle mood changes are sufficient to produce MDM effects.     

Positive emotion can protect against source memory impairment

Despite widespread belief that memory is enhanced by emotion, evidence also suggests that emotion can impair memory. Here we test predictions inspired by object-based binding theory, which states that memory enhancement or impairment depends on the nature of the information to be retrieved. We investigated emotional memory in the context of source retrieval, using images of scenes that were negative, neutral or positive in valence. At study each scene was paired with a colour and during retrieval participants reported the source colour for recognised scenes. Critically, we isolated effects of valence by equating stimulus arousal across conditions. In Experiment 1 colour borders surrounded scenes at study: memory impairment was found for both negative and positive scenes. Experiment 2 used colours superimposed over scenes at study: valence affected source retrieval, with memory impairment for negative scenes only. These findings challenge current theories of emotional memory by showing that emotion can impair memory for both intrinsic and extrinsic source information, even when arousal is equated between emotional and neutral stimuli, and by dissociating the effects of positive and negative emotion on episodic memory retrieval.     

Prime time news: The influence of primed positive and negative emotion on susceptibility to false memories

We examined the relation between emotion and susceptibility to misinformation using a novel paradigm, the ambiguous stimuli affective priming (ASAP) paradigm. Participants (N = 88) viewed ambiguous neutral images primed either at encoding or retrieval to be interpreted as either highly positive or negative (or neutral/not primed). After viewing the images, they either were asked misleading or non-leading questions. Following a delay, memory accuracy for the original images was assessed. Results indicated that any emotional priming at encoding led to a higher susceptibility to misinformation relative to priming at recall. In particular, inducing a negative interpretation of the image at encoding led to an increased susceptibility of false memories for major misinformation (an entire object not actually present in the scene). In contrast, this pattern was reversed when priming was used at recall; a negative reinterpretation of the image decreased memory distortion relative to unprimed images. These findings suggest that, with precise experimental control, the experience of emotion at event encoding, in particular, is implicated in false memory susceptibility.     

Remembering the silver lining: Reappraisal and positive bias in memory for emotion

Reappraisal and distraction, unlike suppression, are known to decrease the intensity of negative emotion in the short term. Little is known about long-term characteristics associated with emotion regulation strategies, however. In a longitudinal study, we examined the relation between the strategies people reported using to regulate emotions during a stressful situation and their later memory for their emotions. Students in Italy rated the intensity of positive and negative emotions they were experiencing as they prepared for their high school exit exam. They also rated the extent to which they were regulating emotion using reappraisal, distraction, and suppression. Six weeks later, students recalled their pre-exam emotions. The more students reported engaging in reappraisal before the exam, the more they overestimated positive emotion and underestimated negative emotion when recalling their experience. The association between reported reappraisal and memory bias was partially mediated by positive changes over time in students’ appraisals of the exam preparation experience. Reports of engaging in distraction and suppression were not associated with memory bias. Because remembered emotion guides future choices, these findings suggest that reappraisal is a highly adaptive strategy for coping with stressful situations, not only in the short run, but also in the long run.     

Istituto Erich Fromm di Psicoanalisi Neofreudiana: Report on how the Institute has taken up Fromm's psychoanalytic teachings and on the terms in which it conceives Fromm's contribution to psychoanalysis

The Institute intends to contribute to the formation of a Frommian research tradition and to its development in Italy. During his lifetime Fromm carried out a daily clinical work on which he based all his theories. The Institute is interested in collecting this wealth of clinical experience through study and research. On the subject of technique, written and recorded documents consist of valuable notes, which are found in various books, and of posthumous works and recorded seminars and interviews. After a brief historical note on the Institute, the Frommian perspective is presented at length with a view to understanding how psychoanalysis reacts to the radical humanism. Emphasis is placed on the idea that Fromm's thought orientation is not an organised school of psychoanalysis but an open and critical contribution. This view offers an explanation of Fromm's abstention to codify a psychoanalytic technique to be applied in a standardised way. Although this report regards above all the clinical psychoanalysis, we must remember great thinkers such as Meister Eckhart and Spinoza, who inspired Fromm's perspective and gave strength to it.