Affect, personality, and facial expressive characteristics of older people

This study explored the relationship between emotion-based personality traits and expressive patterns in older subjects. Specifically, the study sought to demonstrate (a) that individuals have emotion expression biases, as revealed by structural and dynamic properties of the face, and (b) that there is a link between facial characteristics (as indexed by the judgments of trained and naive raters) and personality traits. An encoding/decoding paradigm was used; 30 adult, naive judges rated five emotion-pose photographs for each of 14 older subjects who had also completed a personality trait measure. Results indicated that individuals vary in their ability to accurately encode emotion states and that these patterns are linked to personality traits in an affect-specific way. The results are discussed within the framework of Darwinian theory and Plutchik's model of personality.     

Exposure to ozone inhibits isolation-induced aggressive behavior of adult CD-1 male mice

Continuous exposure to ozone (O₃, 1.2 ppm) in adult CD-1 male mice for 20 consecutive days markedly influenced a number of items of aggressive behavior induced by 59 days of individual housing. The behavior of mice was videotaped on days 1, 3, and 5 of five consecutive daily encounters (10 min each; isolation days 55, 57, and 59). Ozone exposure caused an abatement of aggressive behavior and enhanced fear-associated displays shown by a significant decrease in the frequency of attacking and digging and an increase in freezing. Moreover, O₃ induced a decrease of time spent in attacking and exploration/activity. Nonexposed animals exhibited a day-dependent increase in self-grooming frequency which was not observed in O₃ mice; by contrast, freezing was higher in O₃ mice on day 5 of the test. Data suggest that O₃ exposure produces a remarkable reduction of mouse aggression, indirectly confirming previous findings on physical and neurobehavioral effects of O₃. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Smoking withdrawal dynamics: II. Improved tests of withdrawal-relapse relations

In this article, the authors assessed whether continuously scaled symptom parameters derived from growth models (T. M. Piasecki et al., 2003) are linked to smoking at long-term follow-up by using data from a large-scale clinical trial (N = 893). Results revealed that higher withdrawal intercepts, positive linear slopes, and greater volatility were all positively associated with relapse, and cigarette coefficients (indicating smoking-induced withdrawal reduction) were negatively related to relapse. In models keyed around the first lapse to smoking, those destined to lapse reported more severe withdrawal during abstinence, and withdrawal patterns discriminated groups defined according to lapse duration. The findings complement earlier heterogeneity studies in implicating the pattern of changing withdrawal symptoms over time as a factor strongly associated with smoking relapse.     

Manipulating smoking motivation: impact on an electrophysiological index of approach motivation.

A chief goal of this research was to determine whether stimuli and events known to enhance smoking motivation also influence a physiological variable with the potential to index approach motivation. Asymmetry of electroencephalographic (EEG) activity across the frontal regions of the 2 hemispheres (left minus right hemisphere activation) was used to index approach motivation. In theory, if EEG asymmetry sensitively indexes approach dispositions, it should be influenced by manipulations known to affect smoking motivation, that is, exposure to smoking cues and tobacco deprivation. Seventy-two smokers participated in this research and were selectively exposed to a smoking-anticipation condition (cigarettes plus expectation of imminent smoking) following either 24 hr of tobacco withdrawal or ad libitum smoking. Results indicated that EEG asymmetry was increased by smoking anticipation and that smoking itself reduced EEG asymmetry. Results also suggested that smoking anticipation increased overall (bihemispheric) EEG activation. Results were interpreted in terms of major theories of drug motivation.     

Age differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory updating: evidence from analysis of serial position curves

Memory updating is the ability to select and update relevant information and suppress no-longer-relevant data. The few studies in this area, targeting mainly the verbal domain, have investigated and confirmed an age-related decline in working memory updating ability (De Beni & Palladino, 2004; Van der Linden, Bredart, & Beerten, 1994). The present research examines the ability of younger and older adults to update information in verbal and visuo-spatial running memory tasks. Results showed that the participants' performance was higher in the verbal than in the visuo-spatial task. Nonetheless, independently of the task domain, an age-related decline in updating performance was found. Moreover, analysis of serial positions suggested that, in the updating procedure, the participants were not attempting to actively maintain items, preferring to adopt a low-effort, "recency-based" strategy. The use of this type of strategy is more evident in older participants, as shown in both the accuracy performance and the proportion of intrusion errors.     

Life before and after quitting smoking: an electronic diary study

This article describes a multidimensional, multivariate, and multilevel approach to the assessment of nicotine withdrawal. In this prospective study, 70 adult smokers assigned to an active or placebo nicotine patch condition completed multiple daily assessments using an electronic diary. Average and individual growth curves were estimated for affective and nonaffective withdrawal symptoms. All symptoms but hunger increased significantly on the quit day and remained elevated for three weeks. Variability in symptom experiences across individuals increased from pre- to post-quit. Relations between symptom reports (e.g., negative affect or craving) and episodic events (e.g., stressful events or seeing someone smoke) changed from pre-quit to post-quit. Pre-quit increases in negative affect and quit-day increases in craving were inversely related to abstinence three months after the quit day, suggesting that anticipatory and immediate reactions to quitting influence success.     

Application of Cognitive Load Theory to Develop a Measure of Team Cognitive Efficiency

Improving human systems integration through technologically advanced training and performance aids has become increasingly important to military transformation. Measures of improved cognitive and coordination processes arising from the employment of transformational tools are necessary to guide the refinement and future development of such technologies. In this article, we describe a cognitive load theory approach to developing a combinatory measure of individual workload and team performance following an experimental intervention involving training and a decision support system. We discuss how indicators of what we term team cognitive efficiency can improve assessing the effectiveness of transformational processes and technologies.     

Social support as a multifaceted concept: Examination of important dimensions for adjustment

Four commonly used operationalizations of the social support concept: network contact frequency, satisfaction with support (including nine dimensions), perceived availability of support, and use of support, were related to two measures of psychological adjustment (Beck Depression Inventory and Symptom Checklist-90) and to one measure of physical adjustment (Cornell Medical Index). Subjects were 68 45- to 85-year-old, highly stressed care-givers to spouses with Alzheimer's disease. Results indicate that of the four operationalizations, Satisfaction with Support was the only significant predictor of depression and general psychopathology. The set of four support variables showed the strongest relationship to depression level, next strongest to general psychopathology, and least to physical health. The satisfaction with nine social support dimensions related differentially to the types of adjustment. Results suggest the importance of specificity (sample, support operationalization, dimensions, adjustment measures) in social support research.     

Personality, event-related potential (ERP) and heart rate (HR): An investigation of Gray's theory

Following Gray's theory of personality, the aim of the study was to examine the role of the personality dimensions, behavioural inhibition and activation, in mediating event-related potentials (ERPs) and the level of anticipatory heart rate (HR) deceleration response during two visual-stimulus recognition tasks. In the first task ERPs and anticipatory HR changes were elicited by feedback words informing the subjects about the quality of their response (‘correct’, ‘incorrect’). In the second task ERPs and HR responses were elicited from 62 women by feedback words (‘losing’, ‘winning’) indicating losing or winning, of amounts of money. The Gray-Wilson Personality Questionnaire (GWPQ), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the I₇ questionnaire were used to measure variables which refer to the function of the activation and inhibition system. The N200, P300, N400, P650 and N800 peak amplitudes of the ERPs and the level of anticipatory HR deceleration response to the feedback signals were measured. Personality and physiological responses were first analysed by using a split-plot ANOVA design and second by examining multiple relationships with factor analysis. Separate ANOVAs were performed across Ss selected from the total group (n = 62) on the basis of extreme scores (high or low) on Approach (APPR), Passive Avoidance (PASS.AV), Extinction (EXTI), Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N) and Impulsiveness (I). In line with Gray's prediction, high APPR Ss exhibited larger P600 peak amplitudes to signals indicating winning and low APPR Ss exhibited larger P600 amplitudes to signals indicating losing. Neurotic Ss produced larger N800 peak amplitudes to stimuli indicating losing as compared with stimuli indicating winning. Stable Ss, in contrast, did not display differences between feedback stimuli. Heart-rate deceleration response to feedback signals was successful in distinguishing high and low N Ss as well as Introverts and Extraverts. Neurotic Ss, compared with Stable ones, showed a more pronounced anticipatory HR slowing for both of the feedback signals. Introverts displayed more pronounced HR decelerations for punishment compared with reward signals. Extraverts, in contrast, showed greater HR decelerations for reward compared with punishment signals. These results were all in line with predictions that can be derived from Gray's theory. However, in the opposite direction was the relationship between PASS.AV and N200 peak: High PASS.AV Ss displayed greater N200 peak amplitudes to winning signals compared with signals indicating a correct response. Results from factor analysis gave rise to a three-factor solution wherein personality dimensions sensitive to signals of reward and that sensitive to signals of punishment were loading together with different physiological factors.