Opposite ERP effects for conscious and unconscious semantic processing under continuous flash suppression

We examined whether semantic processing occurs without awareness using continuous flash suppression (CFS). In two priming tasks, participants were required to judge whether a target was a word or a non-word, and to report whether the masked prime was visible. Experiment 1 manipulated the lexical congruency between the prime-target pairs and Experiment 2 manipulated their semantic relatedness. Despite the absence of behavioral priming effects (Experiment 1), the ERP results revealed that an N4 component was sensitive to the prime-target lexical congruency (Experiment 1) and semantic relatedness (Experiment 2) when the prime was rendered invisible under CFS. However, these results were reversed with respect to those that emerged when the stimuli were perceived consciously. Our findings suggest that some form of lexical and semantic processing can occur during CFS-induced unawareness, but are associated with different electrophysiological outcomes.     

Introspection during visual search

Recent advances in the field of metacognition have shown that human participants are introspectively aware of many different cognitive states, such as confidence in a decision. Here we set out to expand the range of experimental introspection by asking whether participants could access, through pure mental monitoring, the nature of the cognitive processes that underlie two visual search tasks: an effortless “pop-out” search, and a difficult, effortful, conjunction search. To this aim, in addition to traditional first order performance measures, we instructed participants to give, on a trial-by-trial basis, an estimate of the number of items scanned before a decision was reached. By controlling response times and eye movements, we assessed the contribution of self-observation of behavior in these subjective estimates. Results showed that introspection is a flexible mechanism and that pure mental monitoring of cognitive processes is possible in elementary tasks.     

Emotion Regulation and Empathy: Which Relation with Social Conduct?

A shared consensus among researchers deals with the positive association between the ability to effectively regulate and manage one's emotion and the engagement in empathic behavior and morally desirable actions. This study was designed to investigate how dispositional reliance on suppression and reappraisal differently impacted on the cognitive and affective components of empathy and on social conduct, distinguishing among prosocial, internalizing, and externalizing behaviors. Two hundred nineteen middle adolescents were enrolled and fulfilled self-reports assessing emotion regulation strategies, empathy, and social behaviors. The results suggest that there are important distinctions among the emotion regulation strategies and the components of empathy as they relate to one another and to prosocial behavior and problem conduct. Specifically, cognitive reappraisal was related to prosocial behavior through empathic concern. While internalizing behavior was associated with emotion regulation strategies, externalizing behavior was only related to perspective-taking ability. Delimitations and practical implications were discussed.     

Direct Perceptual Access to Other Minds

It is sometimes claimed that we perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features. This paper clarifies the claim by contrasting two possible readings, depending on whether expression is conceived relationally or non-relationally. A crucial difference between both readings is that only a non-relational conception of expression ensures direct access to other minds. The paper offers an argument for a non-relational conception of expression, and therefore for the view that we directly perceive people’s mental states in their expressive features.     

Addressing Weight Suppression to Improve Treatment Outcome for Bulimia Nervosa

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is regarded as the gold-standard treatment for bulimia nervosa (BN), yet despite impressive empirical support for its effectiveness, over 50% of patients fail to achieve abstinence from binge eating and purging by the end of treatment. One factor that may contribute to reduced efficacy rates in CBT is weight suppression (WS; the difference between a person's highest weight ever at their adult height and current weight). A growing body of research indicates that WS in patients with BN may have a clinically significant effect on symptomatology and prognosis. However, the current cognitive behavioral framework for BN does not explicitly acknowledge the role of WS in the onset or maintenance of BN symptoms and does not provide guidance for clinicians on how to address WS during treatment. The relationship between WS, biological pressure to regain lost weight, and the maintenance of BN symptoms suggest that current cognitive behavioral models of BN may be improved by considering the role of WS and exploring needed treatment modifications. Indeed, a reconceptualization of existing models may offer insight into potential strategies that can be used to reduce the susceptibility to treatment dropout, nonresponse, and relapse. It is therefore necessary to consider whether, and how, clinicians' consideration of WS during case conceptualization and treatment planning could serve to improve CBT outcomes. The current review explores ways in which high WS could contribute to poor CBT outcomes, provides preliminary clinical recommendations for incorporating WS into existing cognitive behavioral treatments based on extant data and clinical wisdom, and proposes suggestions for future research needed in this domain.     

Improving Identity Matching of Newly Encountered Faces: Effects of Multi-image Training

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Immediate and long-term priming effects are independent of prime awareness

Subliminal primes are assumed to produce weaker and short-lived effects on subsequent behavior compared to clearly visible primes. However, this difference in priming effect may be due to differences in signal strength, rather than level of awareness. In the present study we manipulated prime discriminability by using metacontrast masks and pseudomasks, while keeping the prime strength equal. This manipulation resulted in large differences in discriminability of the primes. However, both immediate response priming and long-term response priming (measured with conflict adaptation) was equal for the poorly discriminable and well discriminable primes, and equal for groups that differed markedly in terms of how well they could discriminate the primes. Our findings imply that discriminability of information is independent of both the immediate and long-term effects that information can have on behavior.     

对恐怖情绪的调节：认知重评优于表达抑制 ——一样ERP研究

摘要 本研究采用事件相关电位（ERP）技术,通过测量由视觉诱发的脑电成分晚正波（LPP）来比较情绪调节策略在生理电特征上的差异,进一步探讨认知重评和表达抑制的优劣。实验结果表明：（1）从波幅的角度来比较：在400-600ms时间窗口内,认知重评条件下恐怖图片诱发的LPP波幅显著小于在自由观看条件下的波幅,而表达抑制和自由观看组所诱发的LPP波幅差异较小。（2）从时间进程的角度来比较：认知重评与自由观看组的差异发生在400ms并持续到600ms,甚至以后;而表达抑制和自由观看之间的差异发生在450ms但是只持续到550ms。这表明认知重评相较于表达抑制,对负性情绪起调节作用开始较早,并且持续时间较长。这为认知重评优于表达抑制策略提供了神经生理学上的证据。     

Verb aspect and perceptual simulations

Two experiments investigate the influence of verb aspect on situation representations. The results demonstrate that comprehenders use verb aspect as a cue to regulate the activation of ongoing simulations of situations over time. Experiment 1 measured word-by-word reading as well as sensibility judgements on sentences in which a target object word had been replaced by a picture. For the past imperfective sentences, participants were faster to process the picture, the two words following the picture, and the sensibility judgements when objects were pictured in use rather than not in use. However, this in-use facilitation was limited to processing of the picture for the past perfect sentences. Experiment 2 served as a control to ensure that the use effect and its interaction with verb aspect were a result of contextual manipulations rather than surface features of the pictures themselves. The results are interpreted within the framework of perceptual simulations during language comprehension.