The Confusion of Fear and Surprise: A Developmental Study of the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis Using Eye Movements

The goal of the present study was to test the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis in children and adults by manipulating the distinctiveness between expressions and recording eye movements. Children 3–5 and 9–11 years old as well as adults were presented pairs of expressions and required to identify a target emotion. Children 3–5 years old were less accurate than those 9–11 years old and adults. All children viewed pictures longer than adults but did not spend more time attending to the relevant cues. For all participants, accuracy for the recognition of fear was lower than for surprise when the distinctive cue was in the brow only. They also took longer and spent more time in both the mouth and brow zones than when a cue was in the mouth or both areas. Adults and children 9–11 years old made more comparisons between the expressions when fear comprised a single distinctive cue in the brow than when the distinctive cue was in the mouth only or when both cues were present. Children 3–5 years old made more comparisons for brow only than both. The results of the present study extend on the Perceptual-Attentional Limitation Hypothesis showing an importance of both decoder and stimuli, and an interaction between decoder and stimuli characteristics.     

Haptic and Visual Influences on Grasp Point Selection

When using precision grip to pick up objects, there are many possible pairs of grasp points that permit the thumb and index finger to exert opposed forces for secure grip. Previously, it was shown that individuals select grasp points so that the line between them (grasp axis) passes through or near the center of mass (CoM), thus minimizing the torque around the grasp axis during lifting. The accuracy of grasp axis selection depended on object spatial symmetry, indicating the importance of vision. The authors investigated how grasp point selection is influenced by haptic as well as visual information. Ten participants lifted cuboids whose CoM was located either symmetrically in the geometric center or asymmetrically toward one end. Results for the asymmetric cuboid revealed that grasp points migrated toward the asymmetric CoM from the geometric center. This was more pronounced in the presence of visual cues that reliably indicated the location of CoM. The results suggest that grasp point selection is influenced by a multimodal representation of CoM.     

Profiling a Profession: A Victorian Survey Assessing Lay Attitudes Toward and Knowledge of Counselling Psychologists

The current study employed a mixed‐methods approach to examine perceptions towards and knowledge of counselling psychologists, including perceived differences between counselling and clinical psychologists. One hundred and fourteen adult members of the Victorian general public participated in the study and completed a 65‐item questionnaire, the Counselling Psychology Status Survey. As predicted, results from quantitative analysis showed that counselling psychologists were reported to be highly needed, valued, and respected by the current sample of Victorian residents. Respondents also reported a high level of confidence in counselling psychologists to treat various mental illnesses. Thematic analysis of qualitative textual data derived from written responses to an open‐ended question revealed that compared with clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists were understood to be less qualified, less skilled, and to work with less severe or complex client presentations. Taken together, results from this study suggest that although counselling psychology appears to occupy a positive public image, the importance of public promotion and awareness‐raising of the specialist profession of counselling psychology, and the continuing need for public education into the nature of psychological services and the qualifications, skills, and competencies of practitioners of psychological service provision, particularly compared with clinical psychology, cannot be underestimated.     

Empathy is a beautiful thing: Empathy predicts imitation only for attractive others

Research shows that we spontaneously imitate people. Moreover, empathy predicts the degree of this non‐conscious imitation. Little is known, however, if or how this expression of empathy is influenced by stable physical characteristics of our interaction‐partners. In two studies, we tested whether attractiveness of others moderated the relation between empathy and imitation. While seeing a woman performing joystick movements, participants either imitated, or non‐imitated these movements. Results showed that the higher participants empathy score, the faster they imitated an attractive person. The level of empathy did not predict the degree of imitation of unattractive targets. The findings demonstrate that the expression of empathy through imitation can be moderated by attractiveness, thereby introducing a new dimension to the conditionality of empathy.     

Do temporal processes underlie left hemisphere dominance in speech perception?

It is not unusual to find it stated as a fact that the left hemisphere is specialized for the processing of rapid, or temporal aspects of sound, and that the dominance of the left hemisphere in the perception of speech can be a consequence of this specialization. In this review we explore the history of this claim and assess the weight of this assumption. We will demonstrate that instead of a supposed sensitivity of the left temporal lobe for the acoustic properties of speech, it is the right temporal lobe which shows a marked preference for certain properties of sounds, for example longer durations, or variations in pitch. We finish by outlining some alternative factors that contribute to the left lateralization of speech perception.     

The Father-Daughter Relationship in Sigrid Undset's Writings

In every psychoanalysis, there is a contradiction between an eternal and a limited time perspective as regards the analytic task. This corresponds to the contradictory relationship existing between the unconscious, which is timeless, and the linear time of external reality. On the basis of these conditions, this paper describes how the experience of time in different ways is significant for analytical understanding and how it influences the analytic work. Various phenomena related to time and the perception of time are illustrated by clinical vignettes. The difficulties in handling the time limit are discussed from both a theoretical and a practical point of view. At the termination of a psychoanalysis, the two time perspectives meet. This presents opportunities for insight and change as well as a special challenge to both the analysand and the analyst.     

Interpreting President Barack Obama's Facial Displays of Emotion: Revisiting the Dartmouth Group

Charismatic presidents like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and now Barack Obama have been able to overcome stereotype‐based barriers to political power by connecting emotionally with viewers, particularly through their nonverbal skills. In this study we focus on the facial displays of emotion by President Obama and how participants interpret them. This study builds upon the pioneering research of the Dartmouth Group concerning response to displays of happiness‐reassurance by political leaders. It will first replicate and extend upon existing research by using Ekman and Friesen's Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to characterize facial displays by President Obama, specifically three neutral displays and three different types of smiles. Second, this study replicates research carried out over two decades ago concerning individual differences in sex, ethnicity, and age cohort on response to political candidates culturally defined as Black. Video focusing on the head and torso were FACS coded and presented in a web‐based experiment to 79 participants working at a southern institution of higher education. The participants identified the emotions felt by President Obama on a scale ranging from “not at all” to “extremely” focusing on the basic emotion terms of: “Happy” and “Playful” (happiness‐reassurance) and “Angry” and “Disgusted” (anger‐threat). Findings suggest participants differentiate between subtle facial‐display differences and that there are differences based upon ethnicity and support for President Obama when they interpret his facial displays of emotion.     

Near-term fetal response to maternal spoken voice

Knowledge about prenatal learning has been largely predicated on the observation that newborns appear to recognize the maternal voice. Few studies have examined the process underlying this phenomenon; that is, whether and how the fetus responds to maternal voice in situ. Fetal heart rate and motor activity were recorded at 36 weeks gestation (n = 69) while pregnant women read aloud from a neutral passage. Compared to a baseline period, fetuses responded with a decrease in motor activity in the 10 s following onset of maternal speech and a trend level decelerative heart rate response, consistent with an orienting response. Subsequent analyses revealed that the fetal response was modified by both maternal and fetal factors. Fetuses of women who were previously awake and talking (n = 40) showed an orienting response to onset of maternal reading aloud, while fetuses of mothers who had previously been resting and silent (n = 29) responded with elevated heart rate and increased movement. The magnitude of the fetal response was further dependent on baseline fetal heart rate variability such that largest response was demonstrated by fetuses with low variability of mothers who were previously resting and silent. Results indicate that fetal responsivity is affected by both maternal and fetal state and have implications for understanding fetal learning of the maternal voice under naturalistic conditions.     

Perceptual Integration of Timing and Intensity Variations in the Perception of Musical Accents

The author investigated the detection of timing and intensity variations in tone sequences within the framework of perceptual independence or integration. The participants listened to sequences of tones that contained variations in timing, intensity, or both. Each participant tried to detect variations in the dimension that was declared relevant, which was either timing or intensity. The irrelevant dimension was held constant, or varied in a manner uncorrelated with the relevant dimension, or varied in a correlated manner. When the variations in the 2 dimensions were correlated, the correlation could be either positive (i.e., timing and intensity created accents in the same sequences) or negative (i.e., timing and intensity created accents in different sequences). Uncorrelated variation in the irrelevant dimension interfered with the detection of variations in the relevant dimension. In the case of a positive correlation between the 2 dimensions, the detection of variations was better than it was with the absence of variation in the irrelevant dimension only for participants who attended to timing. In the case of a negative correlation, the effect was the opposite. The results showed that timing and intensity accents were not processed by completely independent channels. Rather, information from the 2 dimensions combined at a late stage of processing.     

Individual Interpretation Of Psychoneurotic Inventory Items

The usual finding of greater resistance to extinction (Rn) following partial reinforcement (PR) as compared to continuous reinforcement (CR) has not been well documented with the use of human S s in instrumental conditioning. One hundred twenty male and female college students practiced discrete trials on the pursuit rotor. Resistance was measured by the number of trial S was willing to continue under instructions that S would terminate the experiment. Those S s receiving knowledge of results during 25%, 50%, or 75% of the first 24 trials showed greater Rn (p < .01) than Ss receiving knowledge of results on all 24 trials.