On the dynamics of implicit emotion regulation: Counter-regulation after remembering events of high but not of low emotional intensity

Valence biases in attention allocation were assessed after remembering positive or negative personal events that were either still emotionally hot or to which the person had already adapted psychologically. Differences regarding the current state of psychological adjustment were manipulated experimentally by instructing participants to recall distant vs. recent events (Experiment 1) or affectively hot events vs. events to which the person had accommodated already (Experiment 2). Valence biases in affective processing were measured with a valence search task. Processes of emotional counter-regulation (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of opposite valence to the emotional event) were elicited by remembering affectively hot events, whereas congruency effects (i.e., attention allocation to stimuli of the same valence as the emotional event) were obtained for events for which a final appraisal had already been established. The results of our study help to resolve conflicting findings from the literature regarding congruent vs. incongruent effects of remembering emotional events on affective processing. We discuss implications of our findings for the conception of emotions and for the dynamics of emotion regulation processes.     

Effects of long-term meditation practice on attentional biases towards emotional faces: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases towards affective stimuli reflect an individual balance of appetitive and aversive motivational systems. Vigilance in relation to threatening information reflects emotional imbalance, associated with affective and somatic problems. It is known that meditation practice significantly improves control of attention, which is considered to be a tool for adaptive emotional regulation. In this regard, the main aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of meditation on attentional bias towards neutral and emotional facial expressions. Eyes were tracked while 21 healthy controls and 23 experienced meditators (all males) viewed displays consisting of four facial expressions (neutral, angry, fearful and happy) for 10 s. Measures of biases in initial orienting and maintenance of attention were assessed. No effects were found for initial orienting biases. Meditators spent significantly less time viewing angry and fearful faces than control subjects. Furthermore, meditators selectively attended to happy faces whereas control subjects showed attentional biases towards both angry and happy faces. In sum we can conclude that long-term meditation practice adaptively affects attentional biases towards motivationally significant stimuli and that these biases reflect positive mood and predominance of appetitive motivation.     

Attentional bias to violent images in survivors of dating violence

This study investigated the time-course characteristics of attentional bias, such as vigilance and maintenance, towards violent stimuli in dating violence (DV) survivors. DV survivors with PTSD symptoms (DV-PTSD group; n=14), DV survivors without PTSD symptoms (Trauma Control group; n=14), and individuals who were never exposed to dating violence (NDV group; n=15) viewed slides that presented four categories of images (violent, dysphoric, positive, and neutral) per slide, for ten seconds. Our results revealed that the DV-PTSD group spent more time on violent stimuli than did the Trauma Control or NDV groups. The DV survivors, both with and without PTSD symptoms, spent more time on dysphoric stimuli and less time on happy stimuli than did the NDV group. In addition to the effects of PTSD, researchers should also be considering the effects of simple traumatic exposure.     

Emotional reactivity,self-control and children's hostile attributions over middle childhood

Hostile attribution bias, a child's tendency to interpret ambiguous social information as threatening or hostile, has been discussed as an important point in which social, emotional and cognitive information intersect. This study explores the natural changes that occur in children's hostile attributions across three grades during middle childhood and examines how emotional reactivity and self-control at third, fourth and fifth grade independently and interactively relate to these trajectories. Participants included 919 children whose mothers reported on their emotional reactivity, whose teachers reported on their self-control and who completed an attribution bias interview, all at grades 3, 4 and 5. Results revealed that among children with a greater tendency to make hostile attributions at third grade, lower self-control at third grade was associated with greater initial hostile attribution bias and less decline in biases over time. Additionally, greater emotional reactivity at fourth grade was associated with declines in these children's hostile attributions, but only when self-control was also higher at fourth grade.     

The effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases for threatening stimuli have been implicated in the development of anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the relative influences of trait and state anxiety on attentional biases. This study examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images. Low, mid, and high trait anxious participants completed two trial blocks of an eye-tracking task. Participants viewed image pairs consisting of one emotional (threatening or positive) and one neutral image while their eye movements were recorded. Between trial blocks, participants underwent an anxiety induction. Primary analyses examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on the proportion of viewing time on emotional versus neutral images. State anxiety was associated with increased attention to threatening images for participants, regardless of trait anxiety. Furthermore, when in a state of anxiety, relative to a baseline condition, durations of initial gaze and average fixation were longer on threat versus neutral images. These findings were specific to the threatening images; no anxiety-related differences in attention were found with the positive images. The implications of these results for future research, models of anxiety-related information processing, and clinical interventions for anxiety are discussed.     

Lashing Out after Stewing over Public Insults: The Effects of Public Provocation,Provocation Intensity,and Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression

Four studies present the first evidence showing that public (vs. private) provocation augments triggered displaced aggression by increasing the perceived intensity of the provocation. This effect is shown to be independent of face‐saving motivation. Following a public or private provocation, Study 1 participants were induced to ruminate or were distracted for 20 min. They then had an opportunity to aggress against another person who either acted in a neutral or mildly annoying fashion (viz. triggering event). As expected, the magnitude of the greater displaced aggression of those who ruminated before the triggering event compared with those distracted was greater under public than private provocation. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 and confirmed that public provocations are experienced as more intense. Studies 3 and 4 both manipulated provocation intensity directly to show that it mediated the moderating effect of public/private provocation found in Study 1. The greater intensity of a public provocation increases reactivity to a subsequent trigger, which in turn, augments triggered displaced aggression. Aggr. Behav. 39:13‐29, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

对信息源的正向跟随倾向对决策效果的影响*

采用实验研究的方法,检验了二元选择情形下高准确率信息源(准确率x >50%)和低准确率信息源(准确率为1?x)对决策者预测效果的影响。尽管从逻辑上二者从准确率层面具有完全相等的信息价值,然而研究结果显示,决策者更倾向于采用正向跟随而非逆向跟随的方式处理来自信息源的信息。这导致低准确信息源的价值未能得以充分利用。学习和信息源的规范性对该信息处理倾向起到调节作用。     

Approach bias for food cues in obese individuals

This study aimed to investigate the existence of an approach bias for food cues in obese individuals. A community sample of 56 obese women and 56 normal weight controls completed an approach–avoidance variant of the implicit association task. The obese participants were faster to respond to trials that paired food words with approach words, and trials that paired non-food words with avoid words, than the converse pairings, thus, demonstrating an approach bias for food. This bias was evident for both high caloric and low caloric food words, and was not attributable to a state of deprivation or feelings of hunger. By contrast, the normal weight controls did not show any such bias. The results are consistent with recent neurocognitive perspectives of obesity. At a practical level, approach biases for food may present a potential target for modifying (excessive) food intake.     

When the risks are low: the impact of absolute and comparative information on disturbance and understanding in US and UK samples

When Klein, W. M. gave participants absolute and comparative risk information (crossed experimentally) they were more disturbed by being above than below average, but not by being at higher rather than lower risk. The current experiment tests whether Klein's findings extend to situations involving lower risk figures more typical of genuine health risks, assesses participants’ understanding of the information, and directly compares responses of US and UK samples. Participants were presented with hypothetical information about comparative and absolute risks of deep vein thrombosis. There was a main effect of absolute risk information on disturbance and precaution intentions in the US sample, but no effects of comparative information on these measures in either sample. Understanding was poor among participants receiving both pieces of risk information. Future studies should include measures of understanding to establish whether people are failing to understand what they are told or failing to respond systematically to what they understand. Practically, the findings caution against providing comparative risk information when communicating low risk figures.     

General analytical solution for stress intensity factor of a hypocycloid hole with many cusps in an infinite plate

In this article, the problem for the determination of the displacement functions and the stress intensity factors (SIFs) around a boundary of a hypocycloid hole with cusps in an infinite elastic plate subject to normal and shear stresses are presented. A hole with cusps (hypocycloid) is mapped onto a unit circle and the modified complex potential is used for solving the relevant boundary value problems. An analytical solution for the SIF of a hypocycloid hole is obtained. For a special case, our results agree with others.