催产素对共情反应的影响及其作用机制

催产素是一种亲社会激素, 对人类的共情反应有重要的影响作用, 主要表现为可以促进情绪识别率, 增强对他人不幸的共情关注, 并弱化自身的个体忧伤水平等。从作用机制上来看, 催产素可能是通过促进具身模仿能力, 弱化自我中心主义倾向及调节情感表征过程来影响人类的共情反应的。未来研究可以进一步关注催产素对不同类型共情反应的影响及其催产素影响共情反应的性别差异问题, 并积极将催产素应用于共情缺陷的临床干预中。     

Sleep-Related Problems in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Intensive Exposure Therapy

Limited research has examined sleep-related problems (SRPs) among children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The present study addresses this gap by investigating preliminary associations between SRPs, demographic factors (gender and age), family variables (family accommodation and parental stress), and clinical factors (medication status, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, OCD severity, OCD-related impairment), and treatment outcomes in a sample of 103 youth (aged 7 to 17 years; 53% female) with a primary diagnosis of OCD. Clinician, parent, and child measures were used to assess demographic, family, and clinical predictors. SRPs were assessed using an 8-item measure comprising items of the Child Behaviour Checklist, Child Depression Inventory, and Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children as used in previous studies. Results showed that SRPs were highly prevalent among this sample and that more SRPs were associated with younger age, internalizing problems, and functional impairment. However, SRPs were not an independent predictor of OCD severity, impairment, or treatment response. Preliminary findings suggest that SRPs among youth with OCD may be more strongly associated with broader internalizing symptoms than with OCD itself. Future longitudinal research is warranted to further explore the complexity of SRPs when co-occurring with pediatric OCD.     

Mental Contamination in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Associations With Contamination Symptoms and Treatment Response

The most common symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is contamination fear. Feelings of contamination can be provoked through contact with a physical contaminant, referred to as contact contamination (CC), as well as in the absence of one, referred to as mental contamination (MC). Prior research indicates that CC and MC are distinct, and MC may interfere with treatment for CC. However, no study to date has examined how MC may be associated with responses to physical contaminants and treatment response for CC. This study examined the relationships between CC and MC in a sample of individuals with elevated contamination symptoms (N = 88), half of whom met diagnostic criteria for OCD. Participants engaged in three sessions of exposure and response prevention (ERP) for CC and completed self-report measures and behavioral tasks assessing CC and MC at pretreatment, posttreatment, and follow-up. As hypothesized, at pretreatment, MC was positively associated with reactivity to physical contaminants, even after participants washed their hands. ERP for CC was associated with unique changes in CC and MC across self-report and behavioral measures, and greater pretreatment MC predicted greater posttreatment CC, though this effect was evident in only one of two CC measures. Additionally, specificity analyses indicated changes in MC were independent of changes in disgust propensity, a related construct. Pretreatment disgust propensity also predicted treatment outcome, though the addition of pretreatment disgust propensity as a covariate reduced the relationship between pretreatment MC and posttreatment CC to nonsignificance. Results suggest MC plays an important role in the manifestation and treatment of CC symptoms and may represent a manifestation of disgust proneness. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

Assessing item-feature effects with item response tree models

Recent applications of item response tree models demonstrate that this model class is well suited to detect midpoint and extremity response style effects in both attitudinal and personality measurements. This paper proposes an extension of this approach that goes beyond measuring response styles and allows us to examine item-feature effects. In a reanalysis of three published data sets, it is shown that the proposed extension captures item-feature effects across affirmative and reverse-worded items in a psychological test. These effects are found to affect directional responses but not midpoint and extremity preferences. Moreover, accounting for item-feature effects substantially improves model fit and interpretation of the construct measurement. The proposed extension can be implemented readily with current software programs that facilitate maximum likelihood estimation of item response models with missing data.     

The Influence of Number Magnitude on Vocal Responses

The study investigated whether number magnitude can influence vocal responses. Participants produced either short or long version of the vowel [ɑ] (Experiment 1), or high or low-pitched version of that vowel (Experiment 2), according to the parity of a visually presented number. In addition to measuring reaction times (RT) of vocal responses, we measured the intensity, the fundamental frequency (f₀) and the first and second formants of the vocalization. The RTs showed that the long and high-pitched vocal responses were associated with large numbers, while short and low-pitched vocal responses were associated with small numbers. It was also found that high-pitched vocalizations were mapped with the odd numbers, while the low-pitched vocalizations were mapped with the even numbers. Finally, large numbers increased the f₀ values. The study shows systematic interactions between the processes that represent number magnitude and produce vocal responses.     

Gleaning Information for Cognitive Operations from Don’t Know Responses in Cognitive and Noncognitive Assessments

The Don’t Know (DK) response – taking the form of an omitted response or not-reached at the end of a cognitive test, or explicitly presented as a response option in a social survey – contains important information that is often overlooked. Direct psychometric modeling efforts for DK responses are few and far between. In this article, the linear logistic test model (LLTM) is proposed for delineating the impacts of cognitive operations for a test that contains DK responses. We assume that the DK response is a valid response. The assumption is reasonable for many situations, including low-stakes cognitive tests and attitudinal assessments. By extracting information embedded in the DK response, the method shows how DK can inform the latent construct of interest and the cognitive operations underlying the response to stimuli. Using a proven recoding scheme, the LLTM could be implemented through commonly used programs such as PROC GLIMMIX. Two simulation experiments to evaluate how well the parameters can be recovered were conducted. In addition, two real data examples, from a noncognitive test of health belief assessment and a cognitive test of knowledge in diabetes, are also presented as case studies to illustrate the LLTM for DK response.     

Electrophysiological response during source memory decisions in older and younger adults

We recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) as individuals made source monitoring decisions in a paradigm in which the influence of item familiarity and goal relevance could be separately evaluated. Younger and older adults read a list of words and subsequently distinguished these words from foils in a running recognition test in which some foils were repeated after a lag of 6 items, creating familiar lures. Behaviorally, older and younger adults performed equally well in the recognition of study words and the rejection of singly presented foils. However, older adults were more likely to respond to the familiar lures as though they had come from the study list, thus producing the expected group difference in source-monitoring error. For younger adults the ERPs elicited by the targeted study words were maximal at posterior sites and significantly greater than those elicited by either familiar lures or foils. Older adults generated far less differentiated ERP waveforms but with a markedly greater amplitude at frontal sites. We interpret this frontal maximum in the context of poorer source monitoring as suggesting that older adults are more dependent on controlled processes to make discriminations that seem to occur much earlier and more automatically for younger adults.     

Queuing or sharing? A critical evaluation of the single-bottleneck notion

The model of a single central bottleneck for human information processing is critically examined. Most evidence cited in support of the model has been observed within the overlapping tasks paradigm. It is shown here that most findings obtained within that paradigm and that were used to support the model are also consistent with a simple resource model. The most prominent findings are the millisecond-for-millisecond slope at the left of the RT2-SOA curve, the high RT1-RT2 correlation, the additivity of the effects on RT2 of SOA and of the difficulty of selecting R2, and the washout of the effect of S2 discriminability on RT2 in a dual-task condition. In addition, the asymmetry of the effects of the dual-task requirement on RT1 and RT2 can be accounted for by the resource model provided that it assumes uneven allocation of resources, which is quite reasonable in view of the task asymmetry inherent in the demand characteristics of the paradigm. The same is true for two other findings that appear to support the single-bottleneck model-that in the dual-task condition, the demand of the first task affects equally RT1 and RT2 and that its effect on RT1 is the same as the corresponding effect in the single-task condition. Furthermore, the single-bottleneck model is hard to reconcile with a negative slope at the left of the RT1-SOA curve or a positive slope at the left of the IRI-SOA curve, unless augmented by ancillary assumptions that are yet to be substantiated. Representative data were fit by each of the models using its optimal set of parameters. Both models achieved quite good degrees of fit. It is further argued that since the overlapping tasks paradigm is heavily biased in favor of a speedy reaction to the stimulus that appears first, it is nonoptimal for testing the central bottleneck model. Finally, the bottleneck model is examined in terms of other scientific criteria.     

Response-initiated imaging of operant behavior using a digital camera

A miniature digital camera, QuickCam Pro 3000, intended for use with video e-mail, was modified so that snapshots were triggered by operant behavior emitted in a standard experimental chamber. With only minor modification, the manual shutter button on the camera was replaced with a simple switch closure via an I/O interface controlled by a PC computer. When the operant behavior activated the I/O switch, the camera took a snapshot of the subject's behavior at that moment. To illustrate the use of the camera, a simple experiment was designed to examine stereotypy and variability in topography of operant behavior under continuous reinforcement and extinction in 6 rats using food pellets as reinforcement. When a rat operated an omnidirectional pole suspended from the ceiling, it also took a picture of the topography of its own behavior at that moment. In a single session after shaping of pole movement (if necessary), blocks of continuous reinforcement, in which each response was reinforced, alternated with blocks of extinction (no reinforcement), with each block ending when 20 responses had occurred. The software supplied with the camera automatically stored each image and named image files successively within a session. The software that controlled the experiment also stored quantitative data regarding the operant behavior such as consecutive order, temporal location within the session, and response duration. This paper describes how the two data types--image information and numerical performance characteristics-can be combined for visual analysis. The experiment illustrates in images how response topography changes during shaping of pole movement, how response topography quickly becomes highly stereotyped during continuous reinforcement, and how response variability increases during extinction. The method of storing digital response-initiated snapshots should be useful for a variety of experimental situations that are intended to examine behavior change and topography.     

Discrete-trial training for autistic children when reward is delayed: a comparison of conditioned cue value and response marking

Three children with autism were taught to identify pictures of objects. Their speed of acquisition of receptive speech skills was compared across two conditions. In the cue-value condition, a compound audiovisual stimulus was presented after correct responses and again when a primary reinforcer was delivered after a 5-s delay; in the response-marking condition, a second stimulus was presented after both correct and incorrect responses, but not prior to the primary reinforcer. In both conditions primary reinforcement was delayed for 5 s. Although the children learned receptive speech skills in both conditions, acquisition was faster in the cue-value condition.