Rumination and Rebound from Failure: Investigating How Trait and State Forms of Ruminative Thought Influence Attention to Errors and the Ability to Correct Them in a Challenging Academic Environment

Rumination is a recurrent and repetitive manner of thinking that can be triggered by blockage of personally-relevant goals, creating a temporary state of abstract and evaluative self-focus that can also become a chronic trait-like style of responding to personal challenges. Despite claims that rumination helps down-regulate unwanted emotion, cope with problems, and lead to goal attainment, it often increases negative affect, interferes with problem solving, and exacerbates goal-state discrepancies, particularly for women. Given the pervasiveness of rumination and its potential impact on cognitive processes and emotional states, one important yet untested question is how it might impact individuals’ ability to remediate goal-state discrepancies caused by negative outcomes in an academically-relevant context. In this research program, we examine both trait and state rumination effects in a challenging verbal general knowledge test-feedback-retest paradigm, where first-test failures accrue (65%), but attention must be paid to corrective feedback in order to learn and later rebound from those failures at a surprise retest. Based on prominent cognitive models of rumination, such as the attentional scope model (Whitmer & Gotlib, 2013) and impaired disengagement hypothesis (Koster et al., 2011), individuals who ruminate exhibit a narrowed focus of attention on and impaired disengagement from negative self-referent information. Thus, we tested whether rumination would heighten and maintain focus on negative performance feedback (Aim 1) and therefore interfere with the ability to deploy attention toward learning opportunities that might facilitate remedial behavior (Aim 2). To assess attention processes, we employed both event-related potential (ERP; Study 1) and eye tracking (Study 3) techniques as covert and overt measures, respectively. To assess potential similarities and differences in trait and state rumination (Aim 3), we employed both an individual differences approach, utilizing a well-known self-report measure of trait rumination to predict measures of attention and learning (Studies 1-3), as well as an experimental approach, utilizing two different state rumination induction techniques, one from the clinical realm (Study 2) and the other from the social-cognitive realm (Study 3). Using state rumination induction methods not only afforded a more direct assessment of the causal relationship between rumination and the ability to learn and rebound from failure, but with each method rooted in a different area of research, such methods also permitted testing whether the effectiveness of a state rumination induction may depend on how well it overlaps with the domain of concerns related to the general knowledge task (i.e., academic). We also took participants’ gender into account, as rumination been linked with a host of ill effects on cognition and emotion particularly among women. In response to negative performance feedback, a maladaptive trait Brooding style of rumination sustained covert (i.e., internally-focused) attention to errors, as measured by the Late Positive Potential (LPP; Foti & Hajcak, 2010), but not overt (i.e., externally-oriented) attention, as indexed by gaze fixation duration metrics (e.g., Owens & Gibb, 2017). In response to corrective feedback, however, overt attention was impacted, with a brooding-like state of rumination attenuating visual fixation on learning-relevant information, but no apparent differences were found in covert measures of learning feedback (i.e., ERPs). Despite these effects on feedback processing, surprisingly, state and trait forms of Brooding rumination did not hinder error correction, though they worsened first-test memory performance. Trait Reflection, on the other hand, was found to consistently improve memory performance at first-test, with more mixed results at retest. Rumination effects among women were generally as predicted, while men exhibited null or unexpected effects. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to how existing models of rumination might be updated to account for differences in internally-focused and externally-oriented attention in applied contexts

Forecasting using relative entropy

The paper describes a relative entropy procedure for imposing moment restrictions on simulated forecast distributions from a variety of models. Starting from an empirical forecast distribution for some variables of interest, the technique generates a new empirical distribution that satisfies a set of moment restrictions. The new distribution is chosen to be as close as possible to the original in the sense of minimizing the associated Kullback-Leibler Information Criterion, or relative entropy. The authors illustrate the technique by using several examples that show how restrictions from other forecasts and from economic theory may be introduced into a model's forecasts.Forecasting

IFN-gamma regulation of ICAM-1 receptors in bronchial epithelial cells: soluble ICAM–1 release inhibits human rhinovirus infection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is a critical target-docking molecule on epithelial cells for 90% of human rhinovirus (HRV) serotypes. Two forms of ICAM-1 exist, membranous (mICAM-1) and soluble (sICAM-1), both expressed by bronchial epithelial cells. Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), a crucial Th-1 immuno-regulatory mediator, can modulate mICAM-1 expression; however its simultaneous effects on mICAM-1: sICAM-1 levels and their consequent outcome on cell infectivity have not been previously explored.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Primary normal human bronchial epithelial cells were pre-stimulated with IFN-γ (1 ng/ml for 24 h) and subsequently inoculated with HRV-14 or HRV-1b (TCID₅₀10 ^2.5). Epithelial surface ICAM-1 expression and soluble ICAM-1 release were measured at the protein and gene level by immunofluorescence and ELISA respectively; mRNA levels were semi-quantified using RT-PCR. Molecular mechanisms regulating ICAM-1 isoform expression and effects on epithelial cell infectivity were explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In IFN-γ-biased cells infected with HRV-14, but not HRV-1b, mICAM-1 expression is down-regulated, with simultaneous induction of sICAM-1 release. This differential effect on HRV-14 receptor isoforms appears to be related to a combination of decreased IFN-γ-induced JAK-STAT signalling and proteolytic receptor cleavage of the membranous form in IFN-γ-biased HRV-14 infected cells. The observed changes in relative mICAM-1: sICAM-1 expression levels are associated with reduced HRV-14 viral titres.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings support the hypothesis that in epithelial cells conditioned to IFN-γ and subsequently exposed to HRV-14 infection, differential modulation in the ratio of ICAM-1 receptors prevails in favour of an anti-viral milieu, appearing to limit further target cell viral attachment and propagation.</p

Material parameter estimation and hypothesis testing on a 1D viscoelastic stenosis model: Methodology

This is the post-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH.Non-invasive detection, localization and characterization of an arterial stenosis (a blockage or partial blockage in the artery) continues to be an important problem in medicine. Partial blockage stenoses are known to generate disturbances in blood flow which generate shear waves in the chest cavity. We examine a one-dimensional viscoelastic model that incorporates Kelvin–Voigt damping and internal variables, and develop a proof-of-concept methodology using simulated data. We first develop an estimation procedure for the material parameters. We use this procedure to determine confidence intervals for the estimated parameters, which indicates the efficacy of finding parameter estimates in practice. Confidence intervals are computed using asymptotic error theory as well as bootstrapping. We then develop a model comparison test to be used in determining if a particular data set came from a low input amplitude or a high input amplitude; this we anticipate will aid in determining when stenosis is present. These two thrusts together will serve as the methodological basis for our continuing analysis using experimental data currently being collected.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Department of Education, and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

High-order space-time finite element schemes for acoustic and viscodynamic wave equations with temporal decoupling

Copyright @ 2014 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.We revisit a method originally introduced by Werder et al. (in Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., 190:6685–6708, 2001) for temporally discontinuous Galerkin FEMs applied to a parabolic partial differential equation. In that approach, block systems arise because of the coupling of the spatial systems through inner products of the temporal basis functions. If the spatial finite element space is of dimension D and polynomials of degree r are used in time, the block system has dimension (r + 1)D and is usually regarded as being too large when r > 1. Werder et al. found that the space-time coupling matrices are diagonalizable over inline image for r ⩽100, and this means that the time-coupled computations within a time step can actually be decoupled. By using either continuous Galerkin or spectral element methods in space, we apply this DG-in-time methodology, for the first time, to second-order wave equations including elastodynamics with and without Kelvin–Voigt and Maxwell–Zener viscoelasticity. An example set of numerical results is given to demonstrate the favourable effect on error and computational work of the moderately high-order (up to degree 7) temporal and spatio-temporal approximations, and we also touch on an application of this method to an ambitious problem related to the diagnosis of coronary artery disease

Components of infrared net radiation in a mountain valley

Includes bibliographical references (page 67).October 1977.The infrared components of the surface radiation budget in a mountain valley have been investigated theoretically. Calculations were based on a set of winter and summer atmospheric soundings specifying temperature and moisture content and for two valley models including a linear valley model and a circularly symmetric valley model. Radiance and irradiance calculations are compared with similar calculations for flat terrain. Downward irradiances at the valley center were shown to be higher than for flat terrain and were due to radiation from the valley sidewalls. The largest effect was obtained for a dry winter atmosphere with the sidewalls warmer than the valley bottom. Downward irradiance was increased by 16% over the flat terrain case and the net irradiance at the valley center was decreased by 24% which would lead to a decreased surface cooling. Calculations were made for five spectral intervals including the 6.5 micron water band (4.4 - 7 .8μ), the water vapor continuum or atmospheric window (7. 8 - 13. 4μ), the 15 micron carbon dioxide band (13. 4 - 16. 3μ), a small window (16. 3 - 20. 2μ), and the rotational water bands (20. 2 - 48. 8μ). Only the two bands described as windows contribute significantly to the changes in downward irradiance. The remaining three spectral intervals are nearly opaque to transmission of radiation from the valley sidewalls to the valley center.Sponsored by Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station - 16-629-CA