Hide or Seek? Physiological Responses Reflect Both the Decision and the Attempt to Conceal Information
Nathalie Klein-Selle, Naama Agari & Gershon Ben-Shakhar
Psychological Science
The process of information concealment is more relevant than ever in this day and age. Using a modified concealed-information test (CIT), we aimed to unmask this process by investigating both the decision and the attempt to conceal information in 38 students. The attempt to conceal (vs. reveal) information induced a differential physiological response pattern within subjects—whereas skin conductance increased in both conditions, respiration and heart rate were suppressed only in the conceal condition—confirming the idea that these measures reflect different underlying mechanisms. The decision to conceal (vs. reveal) information induced enhanced anticipatory skin conductance responses. To our knowledge, this is the first study that observed such anticipatory responses in an information-concealment paradigm. Together, these findings imply that our physiological responses reflect, to some degree, both the decision and the attempt to conceal information. In addition to strengthening CIT theory, this knowledge sheds novel light on anticipatory responding in decision making.
Klein Selle, N., Agari, N., & Ben-Shakhar, G. (2019). Hide or Seek? Physiological Responses Reflect Both the Decision and the Attempt to Conceal Information. Psychological Science, 0956797619864598.
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Bidirectional Contextual Influence between Faces and Bodies in Emotion Perception
Maya Lecker, Ron Dotsch, Gijsbert Bijlstra & Hillel Aviezer
Emotion
Recent evidence shows that body context may alter the categorization of facial expressions. However, less is known about how facial expressions influence the categorization of emotional bodies. We hypothesized that context effects would be displayed bidirectionally, from bodies to faces and from faces to bodies. Participants viewed emotional face–body compounds and were required to categorize emotions of faces (Condition 1), bodies (Condition 2), or full persons (Condition 3). Results showed evidence for bidirectional context effects: faces were influenced by bodies, and bodies were influenced by faces. However, because the specific confusability patterns differ for faces and bodies (e.g., disgust and anger expressions are confusable in the face, but less so in the body) we found unique patterns of contextual influence in each expression channel. Together, the findings suggest that the emotional expressions of faces and bodies contextualize each other bidirectionally and that emotion categorization is sensitive to the perceptual focus determined by task instructions.
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Selflessness as a predictor of remission from an eating disorder: 1–4 year outcomes from an adolescent day-care unit
Uri Pinus, Laura Canetti, Omer Bonne, Eytan Bachar
Eating and Weight Disorders-Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity
Objective To assess the potential role of selflessness in predicting remission from an eating disorder (ED) following discharge from an adolescent day-care unit. Method Participants were 95 female patients (aged 13–19 years) with an ED diagnosis across the spectrum admitted to an adolescent day-care unit for EDs between 2008 and 2012. Forty-one of these participants completed the follow-up assessment, between 12 and 46 months following discharge. No significant differences were found in Time 1 variables between patients who participated in Time 2 and those who did not. At both time points, ED and psychiatric comorbidity diagnoses were made using standard structured interviews. Patients were also administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), The Eating Attitude Test (EAT-26), The Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-2) and the Selflessness Scale (SS)*. Results Only baseline Selflessness Scale was significant in predicting the continuous variable of ED symptomatology level in follow-up. When dividing EDI total score into its subscales at baseline, one of those, maturity fears, was found, together with the SS, significant in the prediction. In predicting remission (this time as a dichotomized variable) in follow-up, only the SS, maturity fears, EDI total, and EAT-26, at baseline, predicted remission at follow-up, but the strength of selflessness was the greatest. Conclusions Psychological features are not the main target of the important search for predictors of remission from ED. The findings of the present study add the psychological feature of selflessness to this search. Psychotherapy can be enriched by identifying psychological features such as selflessness as one of its foci. The present findings might also renew interest in maturity fears as an additional focus in psychotherapy. Level of evidence Level III, cohort study.
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Preserved Left and Upper Visual Field Advantages in Older Adults' Orienting of Attention
Hadas Erel, Tamar Ronen, Guy Freedman, Leon Y. Deouell, Daniel A.Levy
Experimental Gerontology
Lateralization of the distribution of attentional function in the brain is asserted to lead to asymmetry in attentional allocation. This is expressed in the phenomenon of pseudoneglect, in which line and object bisection judgments indicate left visual field (and presumably right hemisphere) dominance. Several studies indicate that this asymmetry is not found in old age, which is taken as an indication of decline in attentional function with aging. We examined this assertion using a more comprehensive assay of attentional asymmetry. We contrasted the spatial distribution of older and younger adults' visual attention using the Starry Night Task, a speeded visual search task in which targets must be located across a wide spatial distribution against a dynamic background of distracters. As expected, compared to younger adults, older adults' response times were longer overall. However, we found that older adults exhibited a graded left visual field advantage, even more distinctly than did younger adults. Additionally, older adults exhibited a graded upper visual field advantage equivalent to that of younger adults. These results indicate that aging may not necessarily compromise basic patterns of distribution of spatial attention. They do not support claims of aging-related loss of attentional lateralization.
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