Deontological morality can be experimentally enhanced by increasing disgust. A transcranial direct current stimulation study

Previous studies empirically support the existence of a distinctive association between deontological (but not altruistic) guilt and both disgust and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. Given that the neural substrate underlying deontological guilt comprises brain regions strictly implicated in the emotion of disgust (i.e. the insula), the present study aimed to test the hypothesis that indirect stimulation of the insula via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) would enhance disgust and morality in the deontological domain. A randomized, sham-controlled, within-subject design was used. Thirty-seven healthy individuals (25 women) underwent 15-min anodal and sham tDCS over T3 in two different days, while their heart rate (HR) was recorded to derive measures of parasympathetic nervous system activity (HR variability; HRV). After the first 10-min of sham or active tDCS stimulation, participants were asked to 1) complete a series of 6-item words that could be completed with either a disgust-related word (cleaning/dirtiness) or neutral alternatives; 2) rate how much a series of vignettes, each depicting a behavior that violated a specific moral foundation, were morally wrong. Levels of trait anxiety, depression, disgust sensitivity, scrupulosity, and altruism as well as pre- and post- stimulation momentary emotional states were assessed. Compared to the sham condition, after active stimulation of T3 a) HRV significantly increased and participants b) completed more words in terms of cleaning/dirtiness and c) reported greater subjective levels of disgust, all suggesting the elicitation of the emotion of disgust. Although the results are only marginally significant, they point to the absence of difference between the two experimental conditions for moral vignettes in the altruistic domain (i.e., animal care, emotional and physical human care), but not in the deontological domain (i.e., authority, fairness, liberty, and sacrality), where vignettes were judged as more morally wrong in the active compared to the sham condition. Moreover, scores on the OCI-R correlated with how much vignettes were evaluated as morally wrong in the deontological domain only. Results preliminarily support the association between disgust and morality in the deontological domain, with important implications for OC disorder (OCD). Future studies should explore the possibility of decreasing both disgust and morality in patients with OCD by the use of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques

Non-Fully Strategic Information Transmission

Building on Crawford and Sobel's (1982) general communication model, this paper introduces the possibility that players are non-strategic. The sender might be honest, truthfully reporting private information, or the receiver might be naive, blindly implementing the sender's recommendations . In contrast to the predictions of the fully-strategic model, we show that equilibrium communication is inflated but detailed, and that the equilibrium outcome is biased in an ex-ante sense. Our findings are relevant to understanding communication by financial analysts and academic evaluators.communication, bounded rationality, financial advice, grade inflation

Low Rank Vector Bundles on the Grassmannian G(1,4)

Here we define the concept of $L$-regularity for coherent sheaves on the Grassmannian G(1,4) as a generalization of Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity on ${\bf{P}^n}$. In this setting we prove analogs of some classical properties. We use our notion of $L$-regularity in order to prove a splitting criterion for rank 2 vector bundles with only a finite number of vanishing conditions. In the second part we give the classification of rank 2 and rank 3 vector bundles without "inner" cohomology (i.e. H^i_*(E)=H^i(E\otimes\Q)=0 for any $i=2,3,4$) on G(1,4) by studying the associated monads.Comment: 11 pages, no figure

Association between attention and heart rate fluctuations in pathological worriers

Recent data suggests that several psychopathological conditions are associated with alterations in the variability of behavioral and physiological responses. Pathological worry, defined as the cognitive representation of a potential threat, has been associated with reduced variability of heart beat oscillations (i.e., decreased heart rate variability; HRV) and lapses of attention indexed by reaction times (RTs). Clinical populations with attention deficit show RTs oscillation around 0.05 and 0.01 Hz when performing a sustained attention task. We tested the hypothesis that people who are prone to worry do it in a predictable oscillating pattern revealed through recurrent lapses in attention and concomitant oscillating HRV. Sixty healthy young adults (50% women) were recruited: 30 exceeded the clinical cut-off on the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ; High-Worry, HW); the remaining 30 constituted the Low-Worry (LW) group. After a diagnostic assessment, participants performed two 15-min sustained attention tasks, interspersed by a standardized worry-induction procedure. RTs, HRV and moods were assessed. The analyses of the frequency spectrum showed that the HW group presents a significant higher and constant peak of RTs oscillation around 0.01 Hz (period 100 s) after the induction of worry, in comparison with their baseline and with the LW group that was not responsive to the induction procedure. Physiologically, the induction significantly reduced high-frequency HRV and such reduction was associated with levels of self-reported worry. Results are coherent with the oscillatory nature of the default mode network (DMN) and further confirm an association between cognitive rigidity and autonomic nervous system inflexibility

Reducing the meta-emotional problem decreases physiological fear response during exposure in phobics

Anxiety disorders may not only be characterized by specific symptomatology (e.g., tachycardia) in response to the fearful stimulus (primary problem or first-level emotion) but also by the tendency to negatively evaluate oneself for having those symptoms (secondary problem or negative meta-emotion). An exploratory study was conducted driven by the hypothesis that reducing the secondary or meta-emotional problem would also diminish the fear response to the phobic stimulus. Thirty-three phobic participants were exposed to the phobic target before and after undergoing a psychotherapeutic intervention addressed to reduce the meta-emotional problem or a control condition. The electrocardiogram was continuously recorded to derive heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) and affect ratings were obtained. Addressing the meta-emotional problem had the effect of reducing the physiological but not the subjective symptoms of anxiety after phobic exposure. Preliminary findings support the role of the metaemotional problem in the maintenance of response to the fearful stimulus (primary problem)

Polarization qubit phase gate in driven atomic media

We present here an all--optical scheme for the experimental realization of a quantum phase gate. It is based on the polarization degree of freedom of two travelling single photon wave-packets and exploits giant Kerr nonlinearities that can be attained in coherently driven ultracold atomic media.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, in press on PR

Genetic diversity of Arcobacter isolated from bivalves of Adriatic and their interactions with Mytilus galloprovincialis hemocytes

The human food-borne pathogens Arcobacter butzleri and A. cryaerophilus have been frequently isolated from the intestinal tracts and fecal samples of different farm animals and, after excretion, these microorganisms can contaminate the environment, including the aquatic one. In this regard, A. butzleri and A. cryaerophilus have been detected in seawater and bivalves of coastal areas which are affected by fecal contamination. The capability of bivalve hemocytes to interact with bacteria has been proposed as the main factor inversely conditioning their persistence in the bivalve. In this study, 12 strains of Arcobacter spp. were isolated between January and May 2013 from bivalves of Central Adriatic Sea of Italy in order to examine their genetic diversity as well as in vitro interactions with bivalve components of the immune response, such as hemocytes. Of these, seven isolates were A. butzleri and five A. cryaerophilus, and were genetically different. All strains showed ability to induce spreading and respiratory burst of Mytilus galloprovincialis hemocytes. Overall, our data demonstrate the high genetic diversity of these microorganisms circulating in the marine study area. Moreover, the Arcobacter–bivalve interaction suggests that they do not have a potential to persist in the tissues of M. galloprovincialis

Cohomological Characterization of Vector Bundles on Grassmannians of Lines

We introduce a notion of regularity for coherent sheaves on Grassmannians of lines. We use this notion to prove some extension of Evans-Griffith criterion to characterize direct sums of line bundles. We also give a cohomological characterization of exterior and symmetric powers of the universal bundles of the Grassmannian.Comment: 10 pages, no figure