Prospective mental imagery as its link with anxiety and depression in prisoners

Mental imagery is known to play a key role in the development and maintenance of depression and anxiety. Prisoners commonly experience psychological distress, but interventions to address this are currently lacking. We aimed to examine the link between prospective mental imagery and anxiety and depression among prisoners. One hundred twenty-three male prisoners from a Category C prison in southwest England participated in the study. They completed the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and the General Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) to measure whether they experience depression and/or anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, they completed additional questionnaires to evaluate their prospective mental imagery. Results showed that 67.5% of prisoners presented with more depression symptoms and 27.7% with more anxiety symptoms. Supporting earlier findings, our data revealed that some dimensions of prospective mental imagery were significantly related with increased anxiety and depression symptoms in prisoners. Namely, intrusive negative personally relevant imagery was a positive predictor and likelihood of positive events a negative predictor of both anxiety and depression symptoms. The perceived likelihood of negative events was a positive predictor of depression. Intrusive verbal thought was a positive predictor of anxiety. The obtained results suggest the need to develop interventions not only targeting the reduction of prospective negative imagery but also the enhancement of positive mental imagery

Eye movement attenuation of intrusive social anxiety imagery: A pilot study.

Background and objectives: A growing body of research has shown that negative, intrusive mental imagery plays a prevalent and causal role in social anxiety, and is qualitatively different to voluntarily generated imagery. Negative imagery can be reduced in vividness and emotional intensity through concurrent lateral eye movements (EMs) as per Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy. Despite EMDR being used for a range of disorders, previous laboratorybased experimental research typically uses voluntarily generated autobiographical memories rather than involuntarily experienced intrusive images. In a pilot study, we investigated the efficacy of eye movement attenuation of negative, intrusive, socialanxiety imagery. Methods: Twenty-seven participants (aged 18-29, 20 females) screened for social anxiety using the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale and who experienced intrusive imagery visualised their image while making eye movements or completing a control task. Self-report ratings of image vividness and emotionality were taken at baseline, immediately after the tasks, and following a post-test visualisation of their image. Results: Vividness reduced from baseline during the eye movements task, but not the control task, and vividness was lower at post-test in the EMs condition than in the control condition. This effect was not observed for emotionality. Limitations: As a pilot study, the sample size was small and so replication on a larger scale is warranted. Conclusions: EMs may prevent increases in vividness as a result of exposure to intrusive imagery. These findings tentatively suggest a promising extension of the topical eye movements paradigm to intrusive social anxiety images, and potential justification for EMDR intervention outside of PTSD

Undoing the past in order to lie in the present: Counterfactual thinking and deceptive communication

publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Undoing the past in order to lie in the present: Counterfactual thinking and deceptive communication journaltitle: Cognition articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.003 content_type: article copyright: © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Correction: Prospective mental imagery as its link with anxiety and depression in prisoners

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0191551.]

The evolution of Palaeolake Flixton and the environmental context of Star Carr:An oxygen and carbon isotopic record of environmental change for the early Holocene

This paper presents δ18O and δ13C values from three early Holocene lacustrine carbonate sequences from Palaeolake Flixton in northeastern England. The δ13C values are typical of carbonates precipitating in an open lake system with the exception of samples from the very uppermost parts of these sequences which have values more typical of palustrine or tufaceous carbonates and, therefore, indicate the progressive contraction and shrinkage of the lake system overtime. The δ18O values record an initial increase to an early peak at the onset of the Holocene but a subsequent decline in values of such a magnitude that by ca 8000 yrs B.P. the δ18O value of the precipitated carbonate is consistent with carbonates that precipitated at the end of the Loch Lomond Stadial. The early increase and peak in δ18O values is suggested to reflect the climatic amelioration at the onset of the Holocene, as temperatures progressively rose. The decline cannot be explained by any known temperature shifts, however, this “depletion trend” is seen in several other early Holocene lacustrine records from across the British Isles. This decline is suggested to reflect a shift in the seasonality of precipitation from a more seasonal precipitation regime typical of a “continental” climate, with strong seasonal contrasts in rainfall, to a more “maritime” climate which was characterised by consistent levels of rainfall occurring across the year. The relative timing of human activity at Star Carr suggests human occupation occurred after this isotopic decline under “maritime” rather than “continental” climates