Psychological and autonomic effects of art making in college-aged students

Background and objectives: Anxiety disorders comprise the most common category of mental illness among US young adults. Art making might be one method to help reduce anxiety, but the few studies investigating this have used only subjective measures of anxiety. Design: This study employed both subjective (self-reported state anxiety from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and objective (heart rate variability) measures to assess whether 30-minute periods of art making reduced anxiety in 47 first-year college students prior to their final examinations. Methods: Students participated in free-form painting, mandala coloring, clay modeling, and control sessions. Results: Repeated-measures ANOVA with post hoc analysis revealed significantly greater pre- to post-session reductions in anxiety for all three types of art-making sessions than for the control session, as measured objectively. Measured subjectively, only free-form painting yielded a significant decrease in anxiety compared to the control session. Conclusions: Given the health benefits of anxiety reduction, further study is warranted to determine the duration of art making's anxiety-reducing effect.     

Prenatal origins of temperament: Fetal cardiac development & infant surgency,negative affectivity,and regulation/orienting

Temperament, i.e. individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation, emerges early in infancy; might temperament originate during fetal development? Mixed findings and methodological issues in the literature examining this consideration limit our understanding of the continuity between these fetal indices and infant temperament. The primary aims of the current study were to improve on published studies by (a) using standardized and well-accepted fetal cardiac (actocardiograph) and infant temperament measures (the Infant Behavior Questionnaire—Revised; IBQ-R) (b) expanding fetal assessments to include coupling (the cross correlation of heart rate with movement), and (c) examining a diverse sample to determine if findings of associations between fetal neurobehavior and infant temperament generalize beyond cohorts that are demographically well-resourced and predominantly white. Building on theory and empirical findings, we hypothesized that (1) FHR would be positively associated with Surgency and Negative Affectivity, (2) FHRV would be positively associated with Surgency, and Regulation/Orienting and inversely associated with Negative Affectivity, and (3) fetal coupling would be positively associated with Regulation/Orienting and Surgency and inversely associated with Negative Affectivity. We collected 20 min of fetal data (m gestational age = 34.42 weeks) and mothers completed the IBQ-R (n = 90 women; 60 % non-Caucasian race; 63 % Latina ethnicity). We found that FHR was positively associated with Negative Affectivity but not associated with Surgency (or Regulation/Orienting). FHRV was inversely associated with Surgency but not associated with Negative Affectivity or Regulation/Orienting. Coupling was positively associated with Regulation/Orienting and Surgency but not associated with Negative Affectivity. Our findings, from a more diverse sample and with established measures, provide further evidence that individual differences in reactivity and regulation can be identified in the in-utero period and show theory-based continuity to specific infant temperament constructs.     

Stressing the feedback: attention and cardiac vagal tone during a cognitive stress task

Objectives: The present study examined relationships among gaze behaviour and cardiac vagal tone using a novel stress-inducing task.

Methods: Participants’ (N?=?40) eye movements and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured during an unsolvable computer-based task randomly presenting feedback of “Right” and “Wrong” answers distinctly onscreen after each trial. Subgroups were created on the basis of more frequent eye movements to the right (“Correct”-Attenders; n?=?23) or wrong (“Incorrect”-Attenders; n?=?17) areas onscreen.

Results: Correct-Attenders maintained HRV from baseline to the stress task. In contrast, Incorrect-Attenders spent significantly more time viewing “Wrong” feedback, exhibited a reduction in HRV during the stress condition (p?Conclusions: Results demonstrate that pervasive attention to negative feedback (“Wrong”) elicits perseverative stress and negative self-evaluations among university students. This study highlights the potential for studying attentional biases and emotional distress through combined measures of gaze behaviour and cardiac vagal tone.     

Response strength in extreme multiple schedules

Four pigeons were trained in a series of two-component multiple schedules. Reinforcers were scheduled with random-interval schedules. The ratio of arranged reinforcer rates in the two components was varied over 4 log units, a much wider range than previously studied. When performance appeared stable, prefeeding tests were conducted to assess resistance to change. Contrary to the generalized matching law, logarithms of response ratios in the two components were not a linear function of log reinforcer ratios, implying a failure of parameter invariance. Over a 2 log unit range, the function appeared linear and indicated undermatching, but in conditions with more extreme reinforcer ratios, approximate matching was observed. A model suggested by McLean (1991), originally for local contrast, predicts these changes in sensitivity to reinforcer ratios somewhat better than models by Herrnstein (1970) and by Williams and Wixted (1986). Prefeeding tests of resistance to change were conducted at each reinforcer ratio, and relative resistance to change was also a nonlinear function of log reinforcer ratios, again contrary to conclusions from previous work. Instead, the function suggests that resistance to change in a component may be determined partly by the rate of reinforcement and partly by the ratio of reinforcers to responses.     

Seeing is believing: Priors,trust, and base rate neglect

Kahneman and Tversky (1973) described an effect they called ‘insensitivity to prior probability of outcomes’, later dubbed base rate neglect, which describes people’s tendency to underweight prior information in favor of new data. As probability theory requires that prior probabilities be taken into account, via Bayes’ theorem, the fact that most people fail to do so has been taken as evidence of human irrationality and, by others, of a mismatch between our cognitive processes and the questions being asked (Cosmides & Tooby, 1996). In contrast to both views, we suggest that simplistic Bayesian updating using base rates is not necessarily rational. To that end, we present experiments in which base rate neglect is often the right strategy, and show that people’s base rate usage varies systematically as a function of the extent to which the data that make up a base rate are perceived as trustworthy.     

Temporal pattern of pre-shooting psycho-physiological states in elite athletes: A probabilistic approach

Objective

The IZOF-based probabilistic approach provides a methodology to study within-individual patterns of a performer's states. So far, the time course of physiological data before performance have not been investigated within the probabilistic methodology framework. The purpose of this study was to examine the value of the probabilistic approach in the assessment of the time course of physiological indicators of arousal/activation and vigilance during the period preceding the shot, in comparison with the performance-based method.

Design

Longitudinal assessment of psycho-physiological data and performance outcomes was conducted on eight elite pistol shooters in a controlled setting.

Methods

Each participant performed 60 air-pistol shots in 2 sessions. Skin conductance level and cardiac activity were recorded. Affective states intensity was evaluated on a modified 11-point Borg scale. Affect, HR and SC level were evaluated with a Performance-based approach and a Probabilistic method, and results compared at an individual level.

Results

Findings showed the higher effectiveness of the probabilistic method to analyse physiological parameters (skin conductance and heart rate) and to describe the physiological mechanisms associated with shooters’ performance.

Conclusions

The probabilistic method better discerned the contribution of arousal/activation and vigilance to optimal and non-optimal performance in elite shooters, thereby providing a sharper representation of the temporal pattern of performers' states before shooting. From an applied perspective, we believe that the probabilistic approach can help athletes become aware of the subtle variations occurring in their psychophysical states during the preparatory period preceding the shot and not only at the moment of shot release.     

Context affects the interpretation of low but not high numerical probabilities: A hypothesis testing account of subjective probability

Low numerical probabilities tend to be directionally ambiguous, meaning they can be interpreted either positively, suggesting the occurrence of the target event, or negatively, suggesting its non-occurrence. High numerical probabilities, however, are typically interpreted positively. We argue that the greater directional ambiguity of low numerical probabilities may make them more susceptible than high probabilities to contextual influences. Results from five experiments supported this premise, with perceived base rate affecting the interpretation of an event’s numerical posterior probability more when it was low than high. The effect is consistent with a confirmatory hypothesis testing process, with the relevant perceived base rate suggesting the directional hypothesis which people then test in a confirmatory manner.     

Determination of glass-forming ability of Ge1− x Sn x Se2.5 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) alloys using differential scanning calorimetry

The glass-forming ability of Ge_{1? x} Sn _x Se_2.5 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) alloys was studied using differential scanning calorimetry. Samples were scanned at different heating rates under non-isothermal conditions. Various simple quantitative methods were employed to assess the stability of the glassy materials in the above-mentioned system. All of these methods are based on characteristic temperatures, such as the glass-transition temperature, T _g, the onset-of-crystallization temperature, T _c, and the peak crystallization temperature, T _p. A crystallization rate factor, K, has also been used as a measure of the thermal stability of the glasses. It was found that Ge_0.7Sn_0.3Se_2.5 was the least stable among all the samples.     

Temperature dependence of nucleation rate in a binary solid solution

The influence of regression (partial dissolution) effects on the temperature dependence of nucleation rate in a binary solid solution has been studied theoretically. The results of the analysis are compared with the predictions of the simplest Volmer–Weber theory. Regression effects are shown to have a strong influence on the shape of the curve of nucleation rate versus temperature. The temperature T_M at which the maximum rate of nucleation occurs is found to be lowered, particularly for low interfacial energy (coherent precipitation) and high-mobility species (e.g. interstitial atoms).     

Influence of the restored work-hardening rate on ductility studied by X-ray computed tomography

Abstract

Void growth and coalescence in a model material containing an artificial three-dimensional void array (the estimated local void volume fraction was 1.1%) were investigated by X-ray computed tomography (=XCT). The initially tapered cylindrical voids became elongated along the principal straining direction by some amount of tensile plastic deformation, and then the work-hardening capacity in the intervoid matrix was restored by an intermediate annealing. The annealed model material was pulled in tension all the way up to fracture to see if the existing void coalescence models can predict the void coalescence strain.