Parental coping socialization is associated with healthy and anxious early‐adolescents’ neural and real‐world response to threat

The ways parents socialize their adolescents to cope with anxiety (i.e., coping socialization) may be instrumental in the development of threat processing and coping responses. Coping socialization may be important for anxious adolescents, as they show altered neural threat processing and over reliance on disengaged coping (e.g., avoidance and distraction), which can maintain anxiety. We investigated whether coping socialization was associated with anxious and healthy adolescents’ neural response to threat, and whether neural activation was associated with disengaged coping. Healthy and clinically anxious early adolescents (N = 120; M = 11.46 years; 71 girls) and a parent engaged in interactions designed to elicit adolescents’ anxiety and parents’ response to adolescents’ anxiety. Parents’ use of reframing and problem solving statements was coded to measure coping socialization. In a subsequent visit, we assessed adolescents’ neural response to threat words during a neuroimaging task. Adolescents’ disengaged coping was measured using ecological momentary assessment. Greater coping socialization was associated with lower anterior insula and perigenual cingulate activation in healthy adolescents and higher activation in anxious adolescents. Coping socialization was indirectly associated with less disengaged coping for anxious adolescents through neural activation. Findings suggest that associations between coping socialization and early adolescents’ neural response to threat differ depending on clinical status and have implications for anxious adolescents’ coping.     

Do attentional capacities and processing speed mediate the effect of age on executive functioning?

The executive processes are well known to decline with age, and similar data also exists for attentional capacities and processing speed. Therefore, we investigated whether these two last nonexecutive variables would mediate the effect of age on executive functions (inhibition, shifting, updating, and dual-task coordination). We administered a large battery of executive, attentional and processing speed tasks to 104 young and 71 older people, and we performed mediation analyses with variables showing a significant age effect. All executive and processing speed measures showed age-related effects while only the visual scanning task performance (selective attention) was explained by age when controlled for gender and educational level. Regarding mediation analyses, visual scanning partially mediated the age effect on updating while processing speed partially mediated the age effect on shifting, updating and dual-task coordination. In a more exploratory way, inhibition was also found to partially mediate the effect of age on the three other executive functions. Attention did not greatly influence executive functioning in aging while, in agreement with the literature, processing speed seems to be a major mediator of the age effect on these processes. Interestingly, the global pattern of results seems also to indicate an influence of inhibition but further studies are needed to confirm the role of that variable as a mediator and its relative importance by comparison with processing speed.     

Examining HPA-axis functioning as a mediator of the relationship between depression and cognition across the adult lifespan

Altered HPA-axis functioning is a hypothesized mechanism for worsened cognition in depression. The current study examines the indirect effects of depression on processing speed, executive functioning, and memory as a function of the HPA-axis. 38 individuals with a depression diagnosis and 50 healthy controls (HCs) aged 18–86 underwent neuropsychological testing and at-home diurnal salivary cortisol collection. Depression was assessed via structured clinical interviews and rating scales. Cognitive composite scores were derived from factor analysis. Daytime cortisol exposure was estimated using area under the curve (AUC). Depression was associated with higher cortisol levels and slower processing speed . A significant suppression effect of AUC was present on the relationship between depression and processing speed. Limitations include the cross-sectional design and limited sample heterogeneity. Though poorly modulated HPA-axis is one proposed mechanism of cognitive alterations in depression, our results did not support this conclusion for processing speed. Alternative mechanisms should be considered to inform interventions to target cognitive alterations in depression.     

A performance comparison between shallow and deeper neural networks supervised classification of tomosynthesis breast lesions images

Computer Aided Decision (CAD) systems, based on 3D tomosynthesis imaging, could support radiologists in classifying different kinds of breast lesions and then improve the diagnosis of breast cancer (BC) with a lower X-ray dose than in Computer Tomography (CT) systems.In previous work, several Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architectures were evaluated to discriminate four different classes of lesions considering high-resolution images automatically segmented: (a) irregular opacity lesions, (b) regular opacity lesions, (c) stellar opacity lesions and (d) no-lesions. In this paper, instead, we use the same previously extracted relevant Regions of Interest (ROIs) containing the lesions, but we propose and evaluate two different approaches to better discriminate among the four classes.In this work, we evaluate and compare the performance of two different frameworks both considering supervised classifiers topologies. The first framework is feature-based, and consider morphological and textural hand-crafted features, extracted from each ROI, as input to optimised Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classifiers. The second framework, instead, considers non-neural classifiers based on automatically computed features evaluating the classification performance extracting several sets of features using different Convolutional Neural Network models.Final results show that the second framework, based on features computed automatically by CNN architectures performs better than the first approach, in terms of accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity.     

Sensorimotor coordination generates extended agency

When we synchronize finger tapping with a visual metronome, we experience a strikingly robust phenomenon of extended agency known as Spizzo’s effect. This effect is the compelling sense that we are controlling the metronome. The effect arises even though the agent knows that the metronome operates autonomously. We propose that the extended agency here established over metronome pulses results from sensorimotor coordination. To test this hypothesis, we operationalize sensorimotor coordination in terms of the correlation structures in series of asynchronies or reaction times from two finger-tapping tasks. Analyses reveal that, whereas correlation structures vary across individuals and show a systematic drift towards nonstationarity with increasing metronome frequency conditions, the presence of correlation structure is co-extensive with Spizzo’s effect. We interpret this result as supporting the view that extended agency relies on sensorimotor coordination. Sensorimotor coordination, we suggest, may induce the effect by integrating the perception of visual pulses and the agency over tapping into a synesthetic experience.     

Is Detecting a Target in a Compound Geometric Shape Influenced by Stimulus Density? A Developmental Study

We studied the pattern of performance in elementary school children and adults detecting a target in compound geometric shapes. The target was randomly presented at the global, local, or neither level of compound shapes with different elemental density. A significant difference between the pattern of performance in children and adults emerged when the geometric shape was constructed with fewer constituent parts. That is, children showed difficulties in recognizing the global level while adults could efficiently process it. We suggest that global processing continues to develop as children grow older. Also, integration ability could benefit from increasing familiarity with the geometric concepts.     

Super‐recognizers: From the lab to the world and back again

The recent discovery of individuals with superior face processing ability has sparked considerable interest amongst cognitive scientists and practitioners alike. These ‘Super‐recognizers’ (SRs) offer clues to the underlying processes responsible for high levels of face processing ability. It has been claimed that they can help make societies safer and fairer by improving accuracy of facial identity processing in real‐world tasks, for example when identifying suspects from Closed Circuit Television or performing security‐critical identity verification tasks. Here, we argue that the current understanding of superior face processing does not justify widespread interest in SR deployment: There are relatively few studies of SRs and no evidence that high accuracy on laboratory‐based tests translates directly to operational deployment. Using simulated data, we show that modest accuracy benefits can be expected from deploying SRs on the basis of ideally calibrated laboratory tests. Attaining more substantial benefits will require greater levels of communication and collaboration between psychologists and practitioners. We propose that translational and reverse‐translational approaches to knowledge development are critical to advance current understanding and to enable optimal deployment of SRs in society. Finally, we outline knowledge gaps that this approach can help address.     

Behavioral assessment of auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia: Literature review and suggestions for future research

During the last decades, a considerable number of studies about auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia have been published, some of them using the term of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). Due to heterogeneous methodology and inconsistent results concrete conclusions may not be straightforward. We focused on studies that used at least one behavioral test for the assessment of auditory processing in schizophrenia, in order to identify new evidence on auditory processing deficits in schizophrenia, and to consider fields for future research. 28 studies met inclusion criteria and are presented in this review. The articles were divided into three groups, those that implemented a test battery approach, those that used only Dichotic Listening (DL), those that used DL along with imaging or electrophysiology techniques. Most of the studies that implemented a test battery showed significant performance differences between patients and controls. This indicates APD presence. Due to the limited number of studies implementing a test battery, this is not conclusive. The majority of all studies that used a DL task showed that patients' performance or laterality was significantly lower than that of controls. Age, duration of illness, total and specific positive symptoms seem to affect significantly DL performance and auditory laterality. The results support the existence of various schizophrenia subgroups that differ in their auditory processing performance, and also have structural and functional specificities. Further research in the field is needed, especially studies that implement a test battery, and studies that examine possible correlations between clinical variables and auditory processing deficits.     

Linguistic Complexity,Information Processing,and Public Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions

Scholars suggest that judges have an incentive to use complex language to increase support for their decisions. Research on the effects of processing fluency, however, points towards a different set of expectations. Using a survey experiment, we manipulate the complexity of the language conveying two Court decisions and two types of source cue. For the less polarizing of the two decisions, we find that by decreasing processing fluency, complex decision language can both decrease acceptance of the decision and diminish the importance of source cues in arriving at this judgment. Legalistic terminology, however, increases acceptance.     

Does attitude acquisition in evaluative conditioning without explicit CS-US memory reflect implicit misattribution of affect?

Research that dissociates different types of processes within a given task using a processing tree approach suggests that attitudes may be acquired through evaluative conditioning in the absence of explicit encoding of CS-US pairings in memory. This research distinguishes explicit memory for the CS-US pairings from CS-liking acquired without encoding of CS-US pairs in explicit memory. It has been suggested that the latter effect may be due to an implicit misattribution process that is assumed to operate when US evocativeness is low. In the present research, the latter assumption was supported neither by two high-powered experiments nor by complementary meta-analytic evidence, whereas evocativeness exerted an influence on explicit memory. This pattern of findings is inconsistent with the view that CS-liking acquired without encoding of CS-US pairs in explicit memory reflects an implicit misattribution process at learning. Hence, the underlying learning process is awaiting further empirical scrutiny.