Pain-avoidance versus reward-seeking: an experimental investigation

According to fear-avoidance models, a catastrophic interpretation of a painful experience may give rise to pain-related fear and avoidance, leading to the development and maintenance of chronic pain problems in the long term. However, little is known about how exactly motivation and goal prioritization play a role in the development of pain-related fear. This study investigates these processes in healthy volunteers using an experimental context with multiple, competing goals. In a differential human fear-conditioning paradigm, 57 participants performed joystick movements. In the control condition, one movement (conditioned stimulus; CS+) was followed by a painful electrocutaneous unconditioned stimulus (pain-US) in 50% of the trials, whereas another movement (nonreinforced conditioned stimulus; CS-) was not. In the experimental condition, a reward in the form of lottery tickets (reward-US) accompanied the presentation of the pain-US. Participants were classified into 3 groups, as a function of the goal, they reported to be the most important: (1) pain-avoidance, (2) reward-seeking, and (3) both goals being equally important. Results indicated that neither the reward co-occurring with pain nor the prioritized goal modulated pain-related fear. However, during subsequent choice trials, participants selected the painful movement more often when the reward was presented compared with the context in which the reward was absent. The latter effect was dependent on goal prioritization, with more frequent selections in the reward-seeking group, and the least selections in the pain-avoidance group. Taken together, these results underscore the importance of competing goals and goal prioritization in the attenuation of avoidance behavior

The relative generosity of the EU-15 member states’ child policies

The main purpose of this project is to analyse the influence of labour market conditions and social policies on the fertility decisions of young people in order to contribute to the design of better policies at European and national levels to facilitate combination of parenthood and work. Chapter I presents a broader picture on women’s current labour force participation according to motherhood status in the 15 countries of the former EU. The chapter also discusses related European Union policies. More in particular, the chapter examines the influence of the presence of children on labour force participation of women in comparison with that of men. It further explains how men and women allocate differently their time between paid and unpaid work, for example, housework and childcare activities. The chapter finally looks at the influence of the presence of children on wages of men and women. The most important policy-relevant finding is that labour market policies should be aimed to encourage women’s participation by reducing the costs of working, while social policies should help women to better reconcile work and motherhood. In particular European countries where less women work need more flexible labour markets (with more part-time and self-employment opportunities, without wage penalty), more husbands sharing responsibilities in domestic tasks, especially when there are children and public policies to increase childcare services, the length and co-division with the partner of parental leaves. Chapter II shows a summary of the detailed and in-depth analyses of those state interventions that are likely to affect women’s fertility decisions and the opportunities for women with children to work in the market. Particularly, the chapter explains the indicators that measure each EU-15 member state’s generosity in each of the three fields of family friendly policies, namely public childcare, care leaves (maternity and paternity leaves) and child tax and cash benefits. The chapter also gives a brief overview on existing welfare states and gender regime typologies and evaluates our contribution to the discussion on this field. It is found that the methodology of looking into a very wide range of different elements that are likely to affect parenthood choices and summarising this information into synthetic indicators as well as the fact that we essentially use very precise quantitative data or quantify qualitative information produces results that are considerably more subtle than those put forward by less targeted and less detailed studies that risk giving a false picture of the real-life situation of working mothers throughout Europe. A robust country classification is established based on these synthetic indicators. A whole list of policy recommendations is set forward regarding childcare systems (universal coverage in high-quality public childcare facilities that operate long hours and at low cost), child cash and tax benefits (generous universal cash rather than tax benefits that are granted independently of parents’ work status and income level and that are conceived as an individual right of each child, encourage women to have a first and maybe a second child while they pursue their professional career., individualization of the tax and social security system), maternity leave schemes (18-weeks compensated at a 100%, short qualification period, maternity leave should be clearly distinguished from any system of parental leave, employment should be protected guaranteeing the return to one’s previous job and to identical employment conditions, paternity leaves should be extended within similar framework conditions and should also immediately follow childbirth), and parental leaves (this leave should be short and part-time take-up should be possible to safeguard employability, it should be compulsory for parents to share the leave between them). After presenting some crucial figures on recent fertility trends, Chapter III summarises micro-econometric analyses on motherhood choices in various countries. The main policy-relevant results that came out from these studies were that an increase in the upper family income level and a widening of opening hours of public childcare in Italy are bound to increase female labour supply, while decreasing the price of public childcare will only make families switch from private to public childcare. Moreover, long labour force interruptions for mothers advocated by traditionalists are damaging to overall labour force participation. The negative wage effect differes considerably across countries. Finally, institutions are shown to matter because although education postpones motherhood in all the countries studied, the size of the effect differs between the countries. In order for there to be an effect from education on postponement of maternity there has to be a labour market that demands skilled female labour and skills have to make a difference for the sort of career a woman can expect. Both past incomes and savings, labour market career in the past, current and expected future situation matter for both the woman and for the man, for their decisions on when to form a couple and have a child. The conclusion to the final report establishes links between the three previous chapters. How is women’s labour market attachment interacting with their fertility choices and how do public policies intervene? A substitution effect and an income effect play in opposite directions for women. The income effect is generally found to determine men’s, and more particularly fathers’, choices whereas for women, it is much less clear to what extent both effects interact in their employment and fertility decisions. An outline and discussion is presented of the different types of employment costs induced by motherhood. A general description of adjustment mechanisms regarding fertility and labour market activity in relation to public policies folows, a framework which is then applied to the set of countries studied. On the basis of this work, a country typology is established to reflect diffrences in the generosity of public policies towards dual-earner families with children throughout the former EU-15

Hypervigilance for innocuous tactile stimuli in patients with fibromyalgia: an experimental approach

Background: Hypervigilance, i.e., excessive attention, is often invoked as a potential explanation for the observation that many individuals with fibromyalgia show a heightened sensitivity to stimulation in various sensory modalities, such as touch and hearing. Compelling evidence for this assumption is, however, lacking. The aim of the present study was to investigate the presence of somatosensory hypervigilance in patients with fibromyalgia. Methods: Fibromyalgia patients (n=41) and a matched control group (n=40) performed a tactile change detection task in which they had to detect whether there was a change between two consecutively presented patterns of tactile stimuli presented to various body locations. The task was performed under two conditions: in the unpredictable condition, tactile changes occurred equally often at all possible body locations; in the predictable condition, the majority of tactile changes occurred at one specific body location. Results: It was hypothesized that the fibromyalgia group would show better tactile change detection in the unpredictable condition and when changes ocurred at unexpected locations in the predictable condition. The results did not support this hypothesis. In neither condition was the fibromyalgia group better than the control group in detecting tactile changes. Conclusions: No evidence was found to support the claim that patients with fibromyalgia display somatosensory hypervigilance. This finding challenges the idea of hypervigilance as a static feature of fibromyalgia and urges for a more dynamic view in which hypervigilance emerges in situations when bodily threat is experienced

An R Package for Probabilistic Latent Feature Analysis of Two-Way Two-Mode Frequencies

A common strategy for the analysis of object-attribute associations is to derive a low- dimensional spatial representation of objects and attributes which involves a compensatory model (e.g., principal components analysis) to explain the strength of object-attribute associations. As an alternative, probabilistic latent feature models assume that objects and attributes can be represented as a set of binary latent features and that the strength of object-attribute associations can be explained as a non-compensatory (e.g., disjunctive or conjunctive) mapping of latent features. In this paper, we describe the R package plfm which comprises functions for conducting both classical and Bayesian probabilistic latent feature analysis with disjunctive or a conjunctive mapping rules. Print and summary functions are included to summarize results on parameter estimation, model selection and the goodness of fit of the models. As an example the functions of plfm are used to analyze product-attribute data on the perception of car models, and situation-behavior associations on the situational determinants of anger-related behavior

Can experimentally induced positive affect attenuate generalization of fear of movement-related pain?

Recent experimental data show that associative learning processes are involved not only in the acquisition but also the spreading of pain-related fear. Clinical studies suggest involvement of positive affect in resilience against chronic pain. Surprisingly, the role of positive affect in associative learning in general and in fear generalization in particular has received scant attention. In a voluntary movement paradigm, in which one arm movement (CS+) was followed by a painful stimulus and another was not (CS-), we tested generalization of fear to five novel but related generalization movements (GSs; within-subjects) after either a positive affect induction or a control exercise (Group = between-subjects) in healthy participants (N = 50). The GSs' similarity with the original CS+ movement and CS- movement varied. Fear learning was assessed via verbal ratings. Results indicated that there was an interaction between the increase in positive affect and the linear generalization gradient. Stronger increases in positive affect were associated with steeper generalization curves due to relatively lower pain-US expectancy and less fear to stimuli more similar to the CS-. There was no Group by Stimulus interaction. Results thus suggest that positive affect may enhance safety learning through promoting generalization from known safe movements to novel yet related movements. Improved safety learning may be a central mechanism underlying the association between positive affect and increased resilience against chronic pain. PERSPECTIVE: We investigated to which extent positive affect influences the generalization (i.e., spreading) of pain-related fear to situations similar to the original, pain-eliciting situation. Results suggest that increasing positive affect in the acute pain stage may limit the spreading of pain-related fear, thereby potentially inhibiting transgression to chronic pain conditions

Hermann von Helmholtz's empirico-transcendentalism reconsidered: construction and constitution in Helmholtz's psychology of the object

This paper aims at contributing to the ongoing efforts to get a firmer grasp of the systematic significance of the entanglement of idealism and empiricism in Helmholtz's work. Contrary to existing analyses, however, the focal point of the present exposition is Helmholtz's attempt to articulate a psychological account of objectification. Helmholtz's motive, as well as his solution to the problem of the object are outlined, and interpreted against the background of his scientific practice on the one hand, and that of empiricist and (transcendental) idealist analyses of experience on the other. The specifically psychological angle taken, not only prompts us to consider figures who have hitherto been treated as having only minor import for Helmholtz interpretation (most importantly J.S. Mill and J.G. Fichte), it furthermore sheds new light on some central tenets of the latter's psychological stance that have hitherto remained underappreciated. For one thing, this analysis reveals an explicit voluntarist tendency in Helmholtz's psychological theory. In conclusion, it is argued that the systematic significance of Helmholtz's empirico-transcendentalism with respect to questions of the mind is best understood as an attempt to found his empirical theory of perception in a second order, normative account of epistemic subjectivity