Perceptual biases in processing facial identity and emotion

Normal observers demonstrate a bias to process the left sides of faces during perceptual judgments about identity or emotion. This effect suggests a right cerebral hemisphere processing bias. To test the role of the right hemisphere and the involvement of configural processing underlying this effect, young and older control observers and patients with right hemisphere damage completed two chimeric faces tasks (emotion judgment and face identity matching) with both upright and inverted faces. For control observers, the emotion judgment task elicited a strong left-sided perceptual bias that was reduced in young controls and eliminated in older controls by face inversion. Right hemisphere damage reversed the bias, suggesting the right hemisphere was dominant for this task, but that the left hemisphere could be flexibly recruited when right hemisphere mechanisms are not available or dominant. In contrast, face identity judgments were associated most clearly with a vertical bias favouring the uppermost stimuli that was eliminated by face inversion and right hemisphere lesions. The results suggest these tasks involve different neurocognitive mechanisms. The role of the right hemisphere and ventral cortical stream involvement with configural processes in face processing is discussed.     

Threat interpretation bias as a vulnerability factor in childhood anxiety disorders

The present study examined threat interpretation biases in children 7-12 years of age with separation, social and generalised anxiety disorders (N=15), non-anxious offspring at risk due to parental anxiety (N=16) and non-anxious controls of non-anxious parents (N=14). Children provided interpretations of ambiguous situations to assess cognitive, emotional and behavioural responses. In comparison with non-anxious control children and at-risk children who did not differ from each other, anxious children reported stronger negative emotion and less ability to influence ambiguous situations. These results suggest that threat interpretation bias may be a cognitive factor associated with ongoing childhood anxiety but not a vulnerability factor associated with parental anxiety.     

Attention to faces and gaze-following in social anxiety: preliminary evidence from a naturalistic eye-tracking investigation

Social attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high (N?=?27) and low (N?=?25) in social anxiety traits (HSA and LSA respectively) entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following behaviour, although these null effects could potentially result from the relatively small sample. Findings suggest attention is biased towards faces in HSA individuals during initial scene inspection, but that overt gaze-following may be impervious to individual differences in social anxiety. Future research should seek to replicate these effects.     

超重女性对食物信息加工的注意偏向和记忆偏向

采用与食物图片相关的点探测任务和学习—再认范式考察超重女性对不同热量食物信息的注意偏向和记忆偏向。结果发现：(1) 超重女性对高热量食物信息存在注意警觉—注意脱离困难模式,对低热量食物信息仅表现为注意回避模式。(2) 超重组女性对高热量食物信息的再认正确率显著高于正常体重组,而对低热量食物信息的再认成绩组间差异不显著。研究结果证实了超重女性对高热量食物信息投入更多的认知资源,存在注意偏向和记忆偏向。     

生涯适应力与择业焦虑：注意偏向和归因的认知加工作用

为了探讨生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系及内部的认知加工过程。采用点探测范式测量注意偏向,问卷法调查大学生的生涯适应力、归因和择业焦虑。结果发现：（1）生涯适应力既能直接负向预测择业焦虑,又能通过积极事件归因方式、及注意偏向和积极事件归因方式的链式中介作用间接预测择业焦虑。（2）在生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系中受到消极事件归因方式的调节作用：只有消极事件积极归因时,生涯适应力才会影响择业焦虑。研究结果揭示了择业焦虑的内部作用过程,丰富了生涯适应力通过注意偏向和积极事件归因方式影响择业焦虑的解释视角,为通过归因和注意偏向的调整缓解不同生涯适应力个体择业焦虑提供了重要参考。     

受欺负与青少年外化问题关系的“健康环境悖论”：敌意性归因的中介作用

“健康环境悖论”是指在总体受欺负水平较低的环境中, 受欺负的个体会表现出更多适应问题。本研究以来自47个班级的1764名5年级到8年级学生为被试(男生956人, 平均年龄14.46岁), 考察了班级平均受欺负水平在个体受欺负经历与外化问题间的调节作用及敌意性归因的中介作用。结果发现：(1)受欺负与外化问题的关系存在“健康环境悖论”现象, 即班级平均受欺负水平能调节个体受欺负经历与外化问题的关系, 在班级平均受欺负水平较低的班级中受欺负经历与外化问题的关联更强; (2)班级平均受欺负水平对受欺负与外化问题的调节作用通过敌意性归因的中介作用实现。本研究证实了受欺负与外化问题的健康环境悖论现象, 并首次揭示了敌意性归因的中介作用机制。     

Early childhood education and crime

This article presents new evidence on the crime-reducing impacts of a high-quality, intensive early childhood program with long-term follow-up, evaluated by a randomized controlled trial. Proportionately, more women than men decrease their criminal activity after participating in the program. This gender difference arises because of the worse home environments for girls, with corresponding greater scope for improvement by the program. For both genders, treatment effects are larger for the least-advantaged children, as measured by their mother's education at baseline. The dollar value of the social cost of criminal activity averted is higher for men because they commit more costly violent crimes.     

The effects of different component response requirements in multiple and concurrent schedules

Six pigeons were trained on multiple and concurrent schedules. The reinforcement rates were varied systematically (a) when lever pressing was required in one component and key pecking in the successive component; (b) when lever pressing was required in both multiple components; (c) when key pecking was required in both multiple components; and (d) when key pecking was required on one schedule and lever pressing was required on the concurrently-available schedule. Only the absolute level of responding was changed by different response requirements. Analyzed by the generalized matching law, performance under different response requirements resulted in a bias toward key pecking, and the measured response bias was the same in multiple and concurrent schedule arrangements. The bias in time measures obtained from concurrent schedule performance was reliably smaller than the obtained response biases. The sensitivity to reinforcement-rate changes was ordered: concurrent key-lever; multiple key-key; multiple lever-key; and, the least sensitive, multiple lever-lever. The results confirm that requirements of different topographical responses can be handled by the generalized matching law mainly in the bias parameter, but problems for this type of analysis may be caused by the changing sensitivity to reinforcement in multiple schedule performance as response requirements are changed.     

Thought-shape fusion in anorexia nervosa: an experimental investigation

Cognitive biases and cognitive distortions have been implicated as important factors in the development and maintenance of many disorders. The concept of thought-shape fusion (TSF) in eating disorders was developed by Shafran, Teachman, Kerry, and Rachman (British Journal of Clinical Psychology 38 (1999) 167) as a variant of thought-action fusion, described by Shafran, Thordarson and Rachman (Journal of Anxiety Disorders 10 (1996) 379). TSF occurs when thinking about eating certain types of food increases a person's estimate of their shape and/or weight, elicits a perception of moral wrongdoing, and/or makes the person feel fat. Shafran et al. (1999) examined both the psychometric and experimental properties of TSF in an undergraduate sample. This paper reports an extension of this work to a clinical group (N=20) of patients with anorexia nervosa. After completing a set of relevant questionnaires, participants were asked to think about a food which they considered extremely fattening. They were then asked to write out the sentence, "I am eating--.", inserting the name of the fattening food in the blank. After being asked to rate their anxiety, guilt, feelings about their weight, morality, etc., participants were given the opportunity to neutralize their statement in any way they chose. The majority of the participants neutralized in ways consistent with the findings of Shafran et al. (1999). The results are discussed in terms of cognitive-behavioural formulations of eating disorders, and of the influence of cognitive biases and cognitive distortions on the processing of information relevant to food, weight and shape in anorexia nervosa.