Unconscious Responses to Threatening Pictures: Interactive Effect of Trait Anxiety and Social Desirability on Skin Conductance Responses

The purpose of the present study was to examine the role of trait anxiety and social desirability on skin conductance responses (SCRs) following exposure to masked and unmasked pictures in a non‐clinical sample. The most prominent results were found with regard to masked pictures (i.e. subliminal). Higher levels of social desirability were associated with a decrease in SCRs to masked threat pictures (relative to neutral), whereas elevated levels of trait anxiety were associated with an increase in SCRs. This latter effect, however, was mainly seen among participants who simultaneously scored low on social desirability. These results were discussed in terms of trait anxiety (combined with lower social desirability scores) being associated with (i) enhanced autonomic responses to threatening information most evident at a pre‐attentive level, that (ii) may potentially be a vulnerability marker for anxiety disturbances.     

视觉词汇加工的动态神经网络及其形成

揭示大脑加工的神经网络机制成为认知神经科学研究的最新取向.本研究以视觉词汇加工脑区(VWFA)的神经功能作为切入点,探讨视觉词汇加工神经网络的动态机制及其形成.研究一考察VWFA在刺激驱动和任务调节下的动态激活,及其与语音、语义脑区所组成神经网络的动态机制.研究二通过跨文化对比以及儿童阅读发展研究,阐明语言经验对视觉词汇加工网络的塑造作用.研究三对比功能网络、静息网络以及白质纤维束联结,探讨视觉词汇加工网络的动态联结及其形成.研究结果有助于建构视觉词汇加工的神经生理模型,为基于脑科学的阅读教学和阅读障碍矫治奠定理论基础,为认知神经科学研究提供了新的思路.     

杏仁核对感觉刺激的情绪性加工:自动化过程和注意调控过程的整合

利用有限的认知资源应对多变的环境刺激,选择性注意和情绪加工一个重要的共同机制是优先化关键信息的加工。尽管情绪性刺激(特别是威胁刺激)能够影响注意资源的分配,但一些关键脑区(如杏仁核)的对情绪性刺激的加工是自动化过程还是受到注意调节一直是个有争议的问题。最新的结合高时间分辨率和高空间分辨率的神经生理记录研究表明,情绪加工的重要核团,杏仁核,对情绪性刺激的加工包含早期快速的不依赖于注意资源和认知加工负荷的自动化加工成分和晚期受到额-顶叶皮层自上而下的注意调控成分,这种功能整合证实杏仁核情绪性加工存在并行的皮层下和皮层通路。     

Self‐regulatory strength amplification through selective information processing

We propose and demonstrate that although depletion of self-regulatory strength is common, it is not inevitable. Four experiments show that under certain conditions, consumers can amplify their self-regulatory strength and, as a result, increase their ability to control their behavior. Experiments 1–3 examine the depleting effects of information processing by exposing dieters and nondieters to either cost or pleasure information about chocolate. The results of experiments 1–3 show that when dieters have the ability to monitor the costs of consumption, they are motivated to mobilize additional strength and increase their ability to self-regulate. In experiment 4 we show the practical implications of our work and show that dieters are better able to control their eating because they choose to focus more on the cost (versus pleasure) of consumption.     

Depth of processing and recall of threat material in fearful and nonfearful individuals

Abstract

Although many studies have examined the nature of memory distortions in anxious individuals, few have considered biases in specific memory processes, such as encoding or retrieval. To investigate whether the presentation of threat material facilitates encoding biases, spider fearful (n=63), blood fearful (n=73), and nonfearful (n=75) participants encoded spider related, blood related, and neutral words as a function of three levels of processing (i.e., structural, semantic, and self referent). Participants subsequently completed either a free recall or a recognition task. All participants demonstrated a partial depth of processing effect, such that they recalled more words encoded in the self referent condition than in the other two conditions, but groups did not differ in their recall of stimuli as a function of word type. Relative to participants in the other groups, spider fearful participants had fewer spider related intrusions in the recall condition, and they made fewer errors in responding to structural and semantic encoding questions when spider related words were presented. These results contribute to an increasingly large body of literature suggesting that anxious individuals are not characterized by a memory bias toward threat, and they raise the possibility that individuals with spider fears process threat-relevant information differently than individuals with blood fears.     

A Controlled Pilot-Outcome Study of Sensory Integration (SI) in the Treatment of Complex Adaptation to Traumatic Stress

This study tested whether sensory integration (SI) treatment combined with psychotherapy would improve symptom outcome over psychotherapy alone in the treatment of complex posttraumatic stress, as measured by the Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS) clinical construct in a group of 10 adult patients with histories of childhood abuse. DESNOS symptoms were assessed at three time periods (T1, baseline; T2, after experimental group SI treatment; and T3, after wait-list control group SI treatment) using the Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress (SIDES). The Sensory Learning Program? (SLP), developed by the Sensory Learning Institute of Boulder, Colorado, was used as the SI treatment modality. Results indicated significant differential improvement for the group treated with SLP in SIDES Total Score (T1/T2 and T2/T3), Self Perception (T1/T2 and T2/T3), Affect Regulation (T2/T3), and Alterations in Meaning (T1/T2).     

Relational and Social Aggression and Reflective Processing in a University Sample

This study examined whether the dimension of reflective processing (e.g., deep and elaborative processing) was connected to the use of relational aggressions, social aggression, or both. A convenience sample of 629 college students (66% female, 91.6% White) was surveyed to ascertain the relation between self-reported relational and social aggression and deep and elaborative processing. The overall multivariate regression model was significant, Wilks’s λ = .12, F(4, 2162) = 1010.80, p < .001. Univariate results were used to show that the two predictors (relational and social aggression) significantly and strongly positively predicted the use of deep processing, R² = .81, p < .001, as well as the use of elaborative processing, R² = .87, p < .001. In summary, higher levels of social and relational aggression were related to higher levels of deep and elaborative processing. Implications for these findings are presented.     

Strategies for spatial organization in adults and children

People have a tendency to organize space by extracting meaningful shapes from the configuration of elements. However, research on spatial correspondence in children suggests that when configural processing is difficult, individuation of elements may be critical. To begin to address the distinction between the use of configurations and individuation, and changes associated with age, we relied upon perceptual grouping and manipulated the colour of the displays—promoting either extraction of configural information (monochromatic) or individuation of elements (multicoloured). In a layout reproduction task (Experiments 1 and 2), children showed a robust advantage for multicoloured arrays, whereas adults showed an attenuated advantage for monochromatic displays. Visual discrimination in adults (Experiment 3) revealed that the influence of the display type occurs at the level of perception. Taken together, these results suggest that there are (at least) two routes to establishing spatial correspondence in arrays of elements, with differential dependence over development.     

Normal face-based judgements of social characteristics despite severely impaired holistic face processing

Initial evidence indicates that face-based judgements of socially relevant characteristics such as people's trustworthiness or attractiveness are linked to the configural/holistic processing of facial cues. What remains a matter of debate, however, is whether such processing is actually necessary for normal social judgements to occur and whether it resembles the type of integrative processing as required for facial identification. To address these issues, we asked a well-characterized case of acquired prosopagnosia (PS) with a marked deficit in holistic processing for face identity to rate a series of faces on several dimensions of social relevance. PS provided ratings within the normal range for most of the social characteristics probed (i.e., aggression, attractiveness, confidence, intelligence, sociability, trustworthiness). Her evaluations deviated from those of healthy controls only when facial dominance was concerned. Taken together, these data demonstrate that the inability to integrate facial information during face individuation does not necessarily translate into a generalized deficit to evaluate faces on social dimensions.     

Face gender recognition in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence for holistic processing and use of configural information

Face identification deficits in developmental prosopagnosics (DPs) have been thought to be due to general difficulties with processing configural face information and integrating configural and parts information into a coherent whole (holistic processing). Gender recognition provides a further opportunity to more fully examine this issue as this ability may be intact in DPs and it has been shown to depend on processing configural information and holistic processing in neurotypical individuals. In the present study we first determined that, indeed, gender discrimination performance was similar in DPs and controls. Second, we found that inversion and scrambling (which we propose measures holistic processing and sensitivity to configural information, respectively) produced comparable deficits in DPs and controls, suggesting that both groups use holistic processing and configural information to recognize gender. This indicates that holistic processing and using configural face information are not general impairments in DP and may be more specific to face identity.