Brief time course of trait anxiety-related attentional bias to fearconditioned stimuli: evidence from the dual-RSVP task

Yazar tarafından 48 ay ambargo konmuştur.Background and objectives Attentional bias to threat is a much-studied feature of anxiety; it is typically assessed using response time (RT) tasks such as the dot probe. Findings regarding the time course of attentional bias have been inconsistent, possibly because RT tasks are sensitive to processes downstream of attention. Methods Attentional bias was assessed using an accuracy-based task in which participants detected a single digit in two simultaneous rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams of letters. Before the target, two coloured shapes were presented simultaneously, one in each RSVP stream; one shape had previously been associated with threat through Pavlovian fear conditioning. Attentional bias was indicated wherever participants identified targets in the threat’s RSVP stream more accurately than targets in the other RSVP stream. Results In 87 unselected undergraduates, trait anxiety only predicted attentional bias when the target was presented immediately following the shapes, i.e. 160 ms later; by 320 ms the bias had disappeared. This suggests attentional bias in anxiety can be extremely brief and transitory. Limitations This initial study utilised an analogue sample, and was unable to physiologically verify the efficacy of the conditioning. The next steps will be to verify these results in a sample of diagnosed anxious patients, and to use alternative threat stimuli. Conclusions The results of studies using response time to assess the time course of attentional bias may partially reflect later processes such as decision making and response preparation. This may limit the efficacy of therapies aiming to retrain attentional biases using response time tasks.WOS:000389555300009Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072PMID: 27393891Social Sciences Citation IndexQ2 - Q3ArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılmayan - HAYIRMart2017YÖK - 2016-1

Two reasons why epistemic reasons are not object-given reasons

In this paper I discuss two claims; the first is the claim that state-given reasons for belief are of a radically different kind to object-given reasons for belief. The second is that, where this last claim is true, epistemic reasons are object-given reasons for belief (EOG). I argue that EOG has two implausible consequences: (i) that suspension of judgement can never be epistemically justified, and (ii) that the reason that epistemically justifies a belief that p can never be the reason for which one believes that p

Working memory load elicits attentional bias to threat

Anxious individuals tend to show attentional bias to threats and dangers; this is usually in-terpreted as a specific bias in threat-processing. However, they also tend to show general working memory and cognitive control impairments. We hypothesised that the lack of work-ing memory resources might contribute to attentional bias, by limiting anxious individuals’ ability to regulate their responses to emotional stimuli. If this is true, then loading working memory should elicit attentional bias to threat, even in non-anxious participants. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments, with participants unselected for anxiety. In Experiment 1, a phonological working memory load (remembering a string of digits) elicited an attentional bias to fear-conditioned Japanese words. In Experiment 2, a visuo-spatial working memory load (remembering a series of locations in a matrix of squares) elicited an attentional bias to emotional schematic faces. Results suggest that working memory and cognitive control may moderate the attentional bias to threat commonly observed in anxiety

Why responsible belief is blameless belief

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Merleau-Ponty, Correlationism, and Alterity

A common commitment amongst speculative realists holds that phenomenology is irredeemably hostile to nonhuman alterity because phenomenology is correlationist. Since phenomenologists deny unmediated access to the modality of the in-itself, their correlationism purportedly consists in subsuming the more-than-human world into one’s own (narrowly anthropocentric) intentional horizon, a move that promises correspondingly disastrous environmental implications. Merleau-Pontian phenomenology appears to be especially guilty in this regard since Merleau-Ponty argues that taking our situated embodiment sufficiently seriously entails that any other entity encountered must always take the form of an “in-itself-for-us.” In this paper, I argue that the charge of correlationism against Merleau-Pontian phenomenology can be disarmed because it is either false or insubstantial. In either case, I argue, if we are to remain sufficiently open to more-than-human alterity to evade the dangerous sort of anthropocentrism that anticorrelationists rightly speak against, we would do well to retain the very subject-object ambiguity that motivates the correlationist charge against Merleau-Pontian phenomenology in the first place.</jats:p

Modeling the Formation of Tetrahydropyranyl Radicals via Hydrogen Abstraction

A computational analysis was performed on the reaction between tetrahydropyran (THP) and atomic bromine in order to gain a better understanding of the energetics of the addition-elimination mechanism as compared to similar chemical reactions. Prior to the reaction energetics study, a separate analysis was performed on substituted tetrahydropyran derivatives in order to optimize the computational methods being used, to understand the extent of the anomeric effect in tetrahydropyran, and to understand solvent contributions to the energies of the tetrahydropyran derivatives. Trial calculations were performed using Hartree-Fock (HF) theory, Density Functional theory (DFT), and second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation (MP2) theory, and it was found that Density Functional theory including Hartree-Fock exchange through the B3LYP hybrid density functional consistently yielded the best results for any given basis set used. It was determined that all calculations would be performed at the B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. A literature search yielded a similar computational analysis of the reaction between 1,4-dioxane and atomic bromine. Using the B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ combination corrected for dispersion, geometry optimizations and transition state calculations verified by intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC) calculations were performed to construct two dioxane-like reaction profiles for the reaction between THP and bromine. It was found that the free energies of activation were very similar for these two pathways, at ΔG1 = 9.01 kcal/mol, and ΔG2 = 9.64 kcal/mol. In 1,4-dioxane, the respective activation energies are ΔGdioxane(1) = 10.88 kcal/mol and ΔGdioxane(2) = 11.26 kcal/mol. Experimental data shows that the temperature-dependent rate constant for the THP + Br reaction is 1-2 orders of magnitude greater than the rate constant of the 1,4-dioxane + Br reaction, so the calculated activation energies are sensible, but need to be verified at a higher level of theory and determined for temperatures other than 298 K. An extended potential energy surface (PES) search resulted in a third viable energetic pathway which has not been studied for 1,4-dioxane. It was determined that this pathway is more energetically favorable than the two dioxane-like pathways with ΔG3 = 8.15 kcal/mol. ΔG rxn = 5.68 kcal/mol for all three pathways, since the reactants and products were held constant

Reduced stroop interference under stress: decreased cue utilisation, not increased executive control

Since the 1960s, researchers have been reporting that stress reduces Stroop interference. This is puzzling, as stress and anxiety typically have deleterious effects on cognitive control and performance. The traditional explanation is that stress reduces cue utilisation: It withdraws attentional resources from less relevant stimuli (including the distracter word), meaning that the target colour is left with a stronger influence over response selection. However, it could also be that stress somehow boosts distracter inhibition, or some other aspect of executive control. To test these two accounts, 59 students completed a Stroop task featuring occasional startlingly loud sounds (high stress) or the same sounds at a lower, comfortable volume (low stress). Alongside standard Stroop interference, two measures of executive controlnegative priming and conflict adaptationwere calculated from the Stroop data. Stress produced a clear reduction of Stroop interference, but it did not influence negative priming, and no conflict adaptation effects were detected at all. These findings support the cue utilisation account. Furthermore, for the first time, stress was shown to reduce Stroop interference in a task with no congruent trials, showing that the effect does not result from stress's modulating any strategy changes participants might make in response to congruent trials

Risk Based Urban Watershed Management Under Conflicting Objectives

Ecological impairment and flooding caused by urbanization can be expressed numerically by calculating the risks throughout the watershed (floodplain) and along the main stems of the streams. The risks can be evaluated in terms of the present and/or future. This article describes the methodologies for ascertaining the risks in the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) environment. The objectives of urban flood controls and ecological preservation/restoration of urban waters are often conflicting and, in the past, the sole emphasis on flood control led to destruction of habitat and deterioration of water quality. An optimal solution to these two problems may be achieved by linking the risks to the concepts of risk communication, risk perception, and public willingness to pay for projects leading to ecological restoration and ecologically sustainable flood control. This method is appropriate because, in each case, public funds are used and the projects require approval and backing of policy makers and stakeholders. This article briefly describes a research project that attempts to resolve the conflict between the flood protection and stream ecological preservation and restoration and suggests alternative ways of expressing benefits of urban stream flood control and restoration projects