Anxiety and Threat Perception Abnormalities in Normal Children

The current study examined the relationship between childhood anxiety and threat perception abnormalities. Children (N = 105) were exposed to stories reflecting three types of anxiety: social anxiety, separation anxiety, and generalized anxiety. From children's reactions to the stories, a number of threat perception indices were derived. Children's level of anxiety was assessed by means of questionnaires and a structured diagnostic interview. Results indicated that high levels of anxiety, as measured by questionnaires and interview, were accompanied by a high frequency of threat perception, high ratings of threat, a high frequency of threatening interpretations, high levels of negative feelings and cognitions, and an early detection of threat. Furthermore, results seemed to suggest that threat perception abnormalities were mediated by children's general level of anxiety rather than by levels of specific anxiety symptoms.     

The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits

This paper re‐examines the commonly observed inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit. We propose that this relationship occurs because people rely on affect when judging the risk and benefit of specific hazards. Evidence supporting this proposal is obtained in two experimental studies. Study 1 investigated the inverse relationship between risk and benefit judgments under a time‐pressure condition designed to limit the use of analytic thought and enhance the reliance on affect. As expected, the inverse relationship was strengthened when time pressure was introduced. Study 2 tested and confirmed the hypothesis that providing information designed to alter the favorability of one's overall affective evaluation of an item (say nuclear power) would systematically change the risk and benefit judgments for that item. Both studies suggest that people seem prone to using an ‘affect heuristic’ which improves judgmental efficiency by deriving both risk and benefit evaluations from a common source—affective reactions to the stimulus item. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spectral information in nonspeech contexts influences children’s categorization of ambiguous speech sounds

For both adults and children, acoustic context plays an important role in speech perception. For adults, both speech and nonspeech acoustic contexts influence perception of subsequent speech items, consistent with the argument that effects of context are due to domain-general auditory processes. However, prior research examining the effects of context on children’s speech perception have focused on speech contexts; nonspeech contexts have not been explored previously. To better understand the developmental progression of children’s use of contexts in speech perception and the mechanisms underlying that development, we created a novel experimental paradigm testing 5-year-old children’s speech perception in several acoustic contexts. The results demonstrated that nonspeech context influences children’s speech perception, consistent with claims that context effects arise from general auditory system properties rather than speech-specific mechanisms. This supports theoretical accounts of language development suggesting that domain-general processes play a role across the lifespan.     

Us versus them: Understanding the process of race perception with event-related brain potentials

Race is powerful social signal, imbued with a great deal of meaning and capable of affecting a wide range of behaviours and judgements. This review focuses on the use of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to better understand the process and implications of race perception. Research to date repeatedly demonstrates the speed and automaticity with which racial category membership is encoded. The quick and relatively obligatory encoding of racial ingroup and outgroup distinctions in turn affects a variety of subsequent racially biased behaviours. Such findings not only speak to the close link between social categorization and behaviour, but also have been used to understand how the effects of race perception can be moderated.     

The Influence of Reduced Visual Acuity on Age-Related Decline in Spatial Working Memory: An Investigation

ABSTRACT

To investigate the relationship between visual acuity and cognitive function with aging, we compared low-vision and normally-sighted young and elderly individuals on a spatial working memory (WM) task. The task required subjects to memorise target locations on different matrices after perceiving them visually or haptically. The haptic modality was included as a control to look at the effect of aging on memory without the confounding effect of visual deficit. Overall, age and visual status did not interact to affect WM accuracy, suggesting that age does not exaggerate the effects of visual deprivation. Young participants performed better than the elderly only when the task required more operational processes (i.e., integration of information). Sighted participants outperformed the visually impaired regardless of testing modality suggesting that the effect of the visual deficit is not confined to only the most peripheral levels of information processing. These findings suggest that vision, being the primary sensory modality, tends to shape the general supramodal mechanisms of memory.     

Perceptions of Age and Creativity in the Workforce

As the workforce ages it becomes important to examine if there is misperception of creativity and age in work contexts. A laboratory experiment examined perceptions of the creativity of a team with both young and old workers and of a team composed entirely of young workers. Scripted videos portrayed such teams engaged in designing an outdoor advertising campaign. Altogether, 220 participants were randomly assigned to watch one of the video clips and complete a structured questionnaire. No significant differences were observed in the perceptions of the two teams' performance or of the quality of the resulting advertising proposal. In general, there was also no significant difference in the individual characteristics attributed to the four characters on the teams. However, participants aged 35 or above evaluated both teams and all four characters more favorably than participants aged 20–34.     

Prospective and concurrent correlates of emotion perception in psychotic disorders: A naturalistic,longitudinal study of neurocognition,affective blunting and avolition

This naturalistic study investigated longitudinal and cross‐sectional symptomatic and neurocognitive correlates of social cognition indexed by emotion perception. Participants were 31 persons admitted to a psychiatric emergency ward due to acute psychosis. Positive and negative (i.e., affective blunting and avolition) symptoms were assessed at baseline and 12‐month follow‐up using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Participants completed neuropsychological assessments with alternative versions of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status at baseline and at 12‐month follow‐up. Emotion perception was measured using the Face/Voice Emotion Test at 12‐month follow‐up. Correlational analyses (Spearman's rho) revealed strong and statistically significant associations between neurocognition and emotion perception (baseline r = 0.58, follow‐up r = 0.43). Associations between positive symptoms and emotion perception were weak or non‐existent (baseline r = 0.13, follow‐up r  =  –0.01). Emotion perception was moderately, but not significantly, associated with affective blunting at follow‐up (r = 0.33), but not at baseline (r = 0.21). The association with avolition was non‐existent (baseline r  =  –0.05, follow‐up r = 0.01). This study supports the notion that emotion perception has neurocognitive correlates. The cross‐sectional trend level association with affective blunting suggests that the ability to perceive emotions might be related to, but dissociable from the ability to express emotions.     

场景知觉及其研究范式

场景知觉关注的是人如何知觉和加工复杂的真实环境信息。场景包括物体和背景两个重要的组成部分,根据复杂性与真实性程度,场景刺激材料可以分为三种不同的类型。已有研究主要从自上而下和自下而上两种方式来解释场景知觉中信息的提取和加工,也有研究试图从二者交互的角度来进行解释。此外,基于不同的实验目的和技术,研究者分别采用了眼动、背景提示、物体觉察、变化觉察和点线索追随几种不同的研究范式来探讨场景信息的知觉问题。场景知觉研究在场景的定义、不同范式间的整合、研究内部效度和不同加工阶段的加工方式四个方面还需要进一步深入和探讨     

父母心理控制对流动儿童道德推脱的影响:学校道德氛围感知的中介作用和性别的调节作用

以345名12～17岁初中阶段流动儿童为被试,采用问卷法考察学校道德氛围感知在流动儿童父母心理控制与道德推脱关系中的中介作用,以及性别的调节作用。结果表明:(1)父母心理控制正向预测流动儿童道德推脱;(2)学校道德氛围感知在父母心理控制和流动儿童道德推脱之间起到部分中介作用。(3)性别在父母心理控制与学校道德氛围感知间起调节作用,性别调节了中介模型的前半路径,具体而言,与男孩相较,女孩的学校道德氛围感知受到父母心理控制的影响作用更加显著。     

An online hazard perception training course reduces heavy braking,speeding, and over-revving rates during everyday driving

In essence, driver training involves learning the skills required to drive safely and avoid dangerous events. However, in traditional on-road driver instruction, drivers virtually never accrue experience of the most significant types of events that they are learning to avoid: crashes. One means of providing this experience safely is to present novice drivers with video clips of real crashes, as part of structured learning exercises. A six-week automated online hazard perception training course for drivers, incorporating evidence-based training methods and over a hundred crash clips, was previously found to improve novice drivers’ hazard perception skill, which is known to be an important attribute for avoiding crashes. However, since hazard perception was measured using computer-based methods, the possibility remained that the training effect might not transfer to actual driving. We report a randomized control trial in which novice drivers were recruited to assess everyday driving behaviour objectively, using g-force triggered dashcams and GPS trackers installed in their vehicles. On-road data were collected for a one-month baseline period, and for a further two months after half of the sample completed the hazard perception training course. Drivers who completed the course significantly reduced their rate of heavy-braking events, their speeding behaviour, and their rate of over-revving events. These findings support the proposal that a relatively inexpensive and highly scalable hazard perception training intervention can improve on-road driving behaviour, with the clear potential to impact real-world driver safety.