Focusing on fear: attentional disengagement from emotional faces

Evidence suggests that anxiety is associated with a shift of visual attention toward threatening stimuli in the environment, such as facial expressions (Mogg & Bradley, 1999). More recent evidence, however, indicates that anxiety may be better characterized by a failure to rapidly disengage the visual attention system away from threat-related facial expressions (Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001). The present study further investigates this delayed disengagement hypothesis. Results show that high trait-anxious individuals, in contrast to low trait-anxious individuals, take longer to classify peripheral target letters when fearful facial expressions were presented at fixation relative to sad, happy, or neutral expressions. These findings demonstrate a specific tendency to dwell on fear-relevant stimuli, as opposed to negative information in general. These findings are considered from an evolutionary perspective and the possible role of delayed disengagement from threat in the maintenance of anxiety states is also discussed. © 2005 Psychology Press Ltd

Do TETRA (Airwave) base station signals have a short-term impact on health and well-being? A randomized double-blind provocation study

Background: "Airwave" is the new communication system currently being rolled out across the United Kingdom for the police and emergency services, based on the Terrestrial Trunked Radio Telecommunications System (TETRA). Some police officers have complained about skin rashes, nausea, headaches, and depression as a consequence of using their Airwave handsets. In addition, a small subgroup in the population self-report being sensitive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in general. Objectives: We conducted a randomized double-blind provocation study to establish whether short-term exposure to a TETRA base station signal has an impact on the health and well-being of individuals with self-reported "electrosensitivity" and of participants who served as controls.Methods: Fifty-one individuals with self-reported electrosensitivity and 132 age and sex-matched controls participated in an open provocation test; 48 sensitive and 132 control participants went on to complete double-blind tests in a fully screened semianechoic chamber. Heart rate, skin conductance, and blood pressure readings provided objective indices of short-term physiological response. Visual analog scales and symptom scales provided subjective indices of well-being.Results: We found no differences on any measure between TETRA and sham (no signal) under double-blind conditions for either controls or electrosensitive participants, and neither group could detect the presence of a TETRA signal at rates greater than chance (50%). When conditions were not double blind, however, the self-reported electrosensitive individuals did report feeling worse and experienced more severe symptoms during TETRA compared with sham.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the adverse symptoms experienced by electrosensitive individuals are due to the belief of harm from TETRA base stations rather than to the low-level EMF exposure itself

Does Short-Term Exposure to Mobile Phone Base Station Signals Increase Symptoms in Individuals Who Report Sensitivity to Electromagnetic Fields? A Double-Blind Randomized Provocation Study

BACKGROUND: Individuals with idiopathic environmental illness with attribution to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF) believe they suffer negative health effects when exposed to electromagnetic fields from everyday objects such as mobile phone base stations. OBJECTIVES: This study used both open provocation and double-blind tests to determine if sensitive and control individuals experience more negative health effects when exposed to base station-like signals compared with sham. METHODS: Fifty-six self-reported sensitive and 120 control participants were tested in an open provocation test. Of these, 12 sensitive and 6 controls withdrew after the first session. The remainder completed a series of double-blind tests. Subjective measures of well-being and symptoms as well as physiological measures of blood volume pulse, heart rate, and skin conductance were obtained. RESULTS: During the open provocation, sensitive individuals reported lower levels of well-being in both the global system for mobile communication (GSM) and universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) compared with sham exposure, whereas controls reported more symptoms during the UMTS exposure. During double-blind tests the GSM signal did not have any effect on either group. Sensitive participants did report elevated levels of arousal during the UMTS condition, whereas the number or severity of symptoms experienced did not increase. Physiological measures did not differ across the three exposure conditions for either group. CONCLUSIONS: Short-term exposure to a typical GSM base station-like signal did not affect well-being or physiological functions in sensitive or control individuals. Sensitive individuals reported elevated levels of arousal when exposed to a UMTS signal. Further analysis, however, indicated that this difference was likely to be due to the effect of order of exposure rather than the exposure itself

Parent–child closeness and acculturation in predicting racial preference in mate selection among Asian Americans.

This study examined the relationship between parent–child emotional closeness along with acculturation in terms of behaviors and values in predicting racial preference in mate selection among Asian Americans. An online questionnaire comprising the Parent Adolescent Communications Scale, Relational Closeness Inventory, Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale, Asian Values Scale–Revised, Self-Construal Scale, and a scale used to assess personal openness and general attitudes toward interracial relationships were completed by 154 Asian American young adults. Results indicated that behavioral acculturation and parent–child relational closeness significantly added to the prediction of racial preference in mate selection while values acculturation approached significance. Moreover, there were no significant moderating effects between parent–child relational closeness and values acculturation or behavioral acculturation on racial preference in mate selection. Results from this study suggested the importance of considering implicit ways the quality of parent–child relationships influences Asian Americans’ racial preference in mate selection and the possible values conflicts that may arise in working with interracial couples and Asian American young adults

Aggregated data from two double‐blind base station provocation studies comparing individuals with idiopathic environmental intolerance with attribution to electromagnetic fields and controls

Data from two previous studies were aggregated to provide a statistically powerful test of whether exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by telecommunication base stations negatively affects well‐being in individuals who report idiopathic environmental illness with attribution to electromagnetic fields (IEI‐EMF) and control participants. A total of 102 IEI‐EMF and 237 controls participated in open provocation trials and 88 IEI‐EMF and 231 controls went on to complete double‐blind trials in which they were exposed to EMFs from a base station emitting either a Global System for Mobile Communication and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System or a Terrestrial Trunked Radio Telecommunications System signal. Both experiments included a comparison sham condition. Visual analog and symptom scales measured subjective well‐being. Results showed that IEI‐EMF participants reported lower levels of well‐being during real compared to sham exposure during open provocation, but not during double‐blind trials. Additionally, participants reported lower levels of well‐being during high compared to low load trials and this did not interact with radiofrequency‐EMF exposure. These findings are consistent with a growing body of literature indicating there is no causal relationship between short‐term exposure to EMFs and subjective well‐being in members of the public whether or not they report perceived sensitivity to EMFs

Do TETRA (Airwave) Base Station Signals Have a Short-Term Impact on Health and Well-Being? A Randomized Double-Blind Provocation Study

Background: Airwave is the new communication system currently being rolled out across the United Kingdom for the police and emergency services, based on the Terrestrial Trunked Radio Telecommunications System (TETRA). Some police officers have complained about skin rashes, nausea, headaches, and depression as a consequence of using their Airwave handsets. In addition, a small subgroup in the population self-report being sensitive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) in general. Objectives: We conducted a randomized double-blind provocation study to establish whether short-term exposure to a TETRA base station signal has an impact on the health and well-being of individuals with self-reported electrosensitivity and of participants who served as controls. Methods: Fifty-one individuals with self-reported electrosensitivity and 132 age- and sex-matched controls participated in an open provocation test; 48 sensitive and 132 control participants went on to complete double-blind tests in a fully screened semianechoic chamber. Heart rate, skin conductance,and blood pressure readings provided objective indices of short-term physiological response. Visual analog scales and symptom scales provided subjective indices of well-being. Results: We found no differences on any measure between TETRA and sham (no signal) under double-blind conditions for either controls or electrosensitive participants, and neither group could detect the presence of a TETRA signal at rates greater than chance (50%). When conditions were not double blind, however, the self-reported electrosensitive individuals did report feeling worse and experienced more severe symptoms during TETRA compared with sham. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the adverse symptoms experienced by electrosensitive individuals are due to the belief of harm from TETRA base stations rather than to the low-level EMF exposure itself

Short‐term exposure to mobile phone base station signals does not affect cognitive functioning or physiological measures in individuals who report sensitivity to electromagnetic fields and controls

Individuals who report sensitivity to electromagnetic fields often report cognitive impairments that they believe are due to exposure to mobile phone technology. Previous research in this area has revealed mixed results, however, with the majority of research only testing control individuals. Two studies using control and self‐reported sensitive participants found inconsistent effects of mobile phone base stations on cognitive functioning. The aim of the present study was to clarify whether short‐term (50 min) exposure at 10 mW/m2 to typical Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) base station signals affects attention, memory, and physiological endpoints in sensitive and control participants. Data from 44 sensitive and 44 matched‐control participants who performed the digit symbol substitution task (DSST), digit span task (DS), and a mental arithmetic task (MA), while being exposed to GSM, UMTS, and sham signals under double‐blind conditions were analyzed. Overall, cognitive functioning was not affected by short‐term exposure to either GSM or UMTS signals in the current study. Nor did exposure affect the physiological measurements of blood volume pulse (BVP), heart rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC) that were taken while participants performed the cognitive tasks

Reducing Anxiety: Training Attentional Disengagement from Threat Using a Modified Spatial Cueing Task

It is well established that trait anxious individuals have an attentional bias for threatening information and stimuli, as demonstrated through both the dot probe and cueing paradigms. In recent efforts to reduce attentional biases and minimize anxiety symptomatology, variations of the dot probe task have been used to train attention away from threat. However, under this paradigm, it is uncertain what the underlying mechanism for attentional bias is. Is anxiety being perpetuated by a shift in attention to threat or does it result from one\u27s inhibited ability to disengage from threat once it is attended to? The purpose of the present study was to train attention away from threat using a cueing task, thus isolating attentional biases to difficulties in disengaging from threat. The goal of this task was to train attention by manipulating the contingency between the location of a target and a threatening or affectively neutral pictorial cue. Eighty-nine trait anxious college students participated in this study. It was hypothesized that participants in training groups would be able to disengage from threat faster and subsequently show a greater decrease in state anxiety when compared to controls. However, the data failed to support the primary hypotheses of this study. Interestingly, none of the groups showed an attentional threat bias at pretest, which makes it difficult to evaluate the efficacy of the training task. Future research should continue to focus on developing alternative training techniques that can target the mechanism(s) responsible for attentional biases in anxious individuals

Cultural Differences in Family Affection and Coping Abilities for Missionary Kids

While the current literature has indicated parental affection as a potential buffer to common stressors missionary kids experience, the majority of the literature is based on European American samples. However, the number of non-Western missionaries is rapidly increasing, and both ethnicity and cultural identification are thought to influence emotional development for missionary kids. In the current study, 77 Caucasian and 41 Asian missionary kids between the ages of 18–25 completed measures assessing perceived parental affection and coping abilities. Fifty-one individuals identified most with Asian culture and 51 individuals identified most with European or North American cultures. Although no significant differences were found between Caucasian and Asian samples, there were significant differences found between those who identified with non-Western and Western cultures on their measures of parental affection and coping. Those who identified with Asian cultures demonstrated greater coping abilities when they scored higher in affective orientation, perceived greater family communication, verbal affection from their mother, and greater affectionate communication from their father. These results were not seen in missionary kids who identified with Western cultures