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Living systems at any given moment enact a very constrained set of end‐directed and contextually appropriate actions that are self‐initiated from among innumerable possible alternatives. However, these constrained actions are not necessarily because the system has reduced its sensitivities to themselves and their surroundings. Quite the contrary, living systems are continually open to novel and unanticipated stimulations that require a physiology of coordination. To address these competing demands, this paper offers a novel heuristic model informed by neuroscience, systems theory, biology and sign study to explain how organisms situated in diverse, complex and ever‐changing environments might draw upon the sparse order made available by 'relevant noise'. This emergent order facilitates coordination, habituation and, ultimately, understanding of the world and its relevant affordances. Inspired by the burgeoning field of coordination dynamics and physiologist Denis Noble's concept of 'biological relativity', this model proposes a view of coordination on the neuronal level that is neither sequential nor stochastic, but instead implements a causal logic of phasic alignment, such that an organism's learned and inherited sets of diverse biological affinities and sympathies can be resolved into a continuous and complex range of patterns that will implement the kind of novel orientations and radical generativity required of such organisms to adaptively explore their environments and to learn from their experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information on the research papers to be presented at the "22nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research" to be held at the Sheraton-Ritz Hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from October 21 to October 24, 1982. The majority of the research reports will be given and discussed informally at three Science Fairs. In addition, research reports will be presented at two traditional paper sessions, and specific problem areas will be addressed by several participants in each of four Symposia. Some of the papers are as follows: Artistry and artifact in facial EMG/emotion Studies: Methodology, miscellany, and the multivariate Imperative; Topographical analysis of the Integrated EMG; and Methodological considerations in facial EMG recording.

The Society for Psychophysiological Research and accompanying journal, Psychophysiology, have increasingly incorporated diversity and inclusion into their posted values, conference programming, and science. Much of this focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion work has occurred since 2010. The current review content analyzed the articles published in Psychophysiology from 2010 through 2020 to determine if SPR and Psychophysiology's commitment to diversity and inclusion has resulted in changes to reporting and analysis of participant demographics. Demographic reporting practices were compared to APA reporting standards and the use of demographic variables assessed according to the guidance proffered in the introduction to Psychophysiology's 2016 Special Issue on Diversity and Representation. Results of the content analysis indicated near perfect reporting of biological sex and frequent reporting of average age. Age range and educational attainment were reported in over half of studies, while race or ethnicity were reported in only 17%. Socioeconomic status, income, gender identity, and sexual orientation were almost never reported. In over 60% of studies at least one major demographic variable was reported, but was not used in preliminary, main, or supplementary analyses as a covariate, moderator, or otherwise. SPR and Psychophysiology should continue advocating for increased reporting of major demographic variables and ethical analysis of demographic modulation of various psychophysiological mechanisms. We provide a preliminary template of reporting standards and call for the inclusion of more open science practices by psychophysiologists. Content analyses can help a field understand the impact of its policies or stated values. This paper outlines the reporting and use of demographic variables in articles published in Psychophysiology to trace the impact of SPR's commitment to DEI. Results indicate continued efforts are needed to diversify samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of papers to be presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research. The meeting will be held in Rottach-Egem, Germany. The meeting will be from October 27-31, 1993. The majority of the research reports will be given and discussed informally at three poster sessions. The panel discussion will be on sensory memory and mismatch negativity. The mismatch negativity obtained with event-related potentials and magnetoencephalographic recordings, is dependent on a transient, acoustic memory that has been hypothesized to be what cognitive psychologists call sensory memory.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on endurance performance, as well as possible effect-modifying factors. Searches were done in Pubmed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus on 12 July 2022. We additionally searched the bibliographic references and citations on Google Scholar of the papers whose full text was analyzed. Eligible studies were randomized and non-randomized controlled trials that compared sleep deprivation and habitual-sleep night effects on endurance performance in healthy humans. The studies' quality was examined by the Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool. We calculated the pooled standardized mean differences (pooled SMD) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI) by a random-effects model. A mixed-effects model analyzed subgroups. Thirty-one studies were analyzed (n = 478), generating 38 effect sizes in full. The overall risk of bias was low in 8% of the studies, unclear in 74%, and high in 18%. Sleep deprivation in general had a moderate negative effect on endurance performance (polled SMD [95%CI] = −0.52 [−0.67; −0.38]). Training status, sleep deprivation magnitude, assessment time, exercise mode, and endpoint type did not influence the sleep deprivation effect, whereas longer exercises (>30 min) were more affected by sleep deprivation than shorter ones (P = 0.035). Therefore, the available evidence supports that sleep deprivation's deleterious effect on endurance performance is of moderate size and depends on exercise duration. This information can be useful to estimate the performance decrement of endurance exercise practitioners under sleep deprivation in training routines and competitions. PROSPERO registration number CRD42021229717. Sleep deprivation causes a moderate deleterious effect on endurance performance. Sleep deprivation similarly impairs endurance performance in untrained, recreationally-trained, and trained people, but its effect on well-trained and professional endurance athletes is unknown. One or more nights of partial sleep deprivation or one night of total sleep deprivation similarly compromise endurance performance. Uncertainties about the effect of more than one night of total sleep deprivation warrant more studies. Sleep deprivation impairs walking, running, and cycling endurance performance regardless of the exercise endpoint being unknown (i.e. incremental or constant load tests) or known (i.e. time trial tests) and assessment time. However, sleep deprivation causes a more deleterious effect on endurance performance in exercises lasting more than 30 min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a paper by C. Miele and colleagues on sexual cravings. Topics mentioned include the similarities between sexual craving and substance craving, the definition of the term egodystonic, the difference between egodystonic and egosyntonic sexual cravings, the impact of self concept of every individual on sexual desires, and the use of psychophysiological measures and functional magnetic resonance imaging to understand the nature of behavior cravings.

The COVID‐19 pandemic has significantly disrupted research activities globally. Researchers need safe and creative procedures to resume data collection, particularly for projects evaluating infant mental health interventions. Remote research is uniquely challenging for psychophysiological data collection, which typically requires close contact between researchers and participants as well as technical equipment frequently located in laboratory settings. In accordance with public health guidance, we adapted procedures and developed novel protocols for a "virtual assessment" in which women and infants provided behavioral and psychophysiological data from their own homes while researchers coordinated remotely. Data collected at virtual visits included video‐recorded parent–child interactions and autonomic nervous system data. Adaptations were designed to optimize safety and data quality while minimizing participant burden. In the current paper, we describe these adaptations and present data evaluating their success across two sites in the United States (University of Delaware and University of Utah), focusing specifically on autonomic nervous system data collected during the well‐validated Still‐Face Paradigm (SFP). We also discuss advantages and challenges of translating traditional lab procedures into the virtual assessment model. Ultimately, we hope that disseminating these procedures will help other researchers resume safe data collection related to infant mental health during the COVID‐19 pandemic and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: As the growing weight stigma literature has developed, one critically relevant and vulnerable population has received little consideration—pregnant and postpartum women. Because weight fluctuations are inherent to this life phase, and rates of prepregnancy overweight and obesity are already high, this gap is problematic. More recently, however, there has been a rising interest in pregnancy‐related weight stigma and its consequences. This paper therefore sought to (a) review the emerging research on pregnancy‐related weight stigma phenomenology and (b) integrate this existing evidence to present a novel theoretical framework for studying pregnancy‐related weight stigma. The Weight gain, Obesity, Maternal‐child Biobehavioral pathways, and Stigma (WOMBS) Framework proposes psychophysiological mechanisms linking pregnancy‐related weight stigmatization to increased risk of weight gain and, in turn, downstream childhood obesity risk. This WOMBS Framework highlights pregnant and postpartum women as a theoretically unique at‐risk population for whom this social stigma engages maternal physiology and transfers obesity risk to the child via social and physiological mechanisms. The WOMBS Framework provides a novel and useful tool to guide the emerging pregnancy‐related weight stigma research and, ultimately, support stigma‐reduction efforts in this critical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia on October 24 to 29, 2006.

Provides information on the Forty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research which will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from September 21-24, 2005. Members of the Program Committee 2005; Activities included in the event; Topics to be discussed.

The purpose of this paper was to replicate previous research on preference displacement with edible and leisure stimuli. In the present study, the experimenters evaluated preference displacement in 25 children with autism spectrum disorder using combined multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessments that consisted of highly preferred edible and leisure stimuli. In addition, the experimenters used a block randomization procedure to evaluate if assessment order influenced displacement outcomes. The experimenters observed patterns of complete displacement by edible stimuli for four participants and complete displacement by leisure stimuli for two participants; assessment order did not influence outcomes. The results and implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their letter to the editor, Craig and colleagues discuss a paper that we recently published (McGarity-Shipley et al., [1]) in which we found that shame, a specific form of psychosocial stress, negatively impacted endothelial function but surprisingly did not elevate cortisol or the pro-inflammatory marker soluble tumour necrosis factor- receptor 2 (sTNF RII). Therefore, it is likely that for us to understand the full picture of how stress alters human physiology and health, the effects of different kinds of stress and stress-inducing protocols need to be appreciated and explored. We agree with Craig and colleagues that our shame protocol likely increased sympathetic nervous system activity since there was an increase in mean arterial pressure after the shame protocol compared with the control protocol. [Extracted from the article]

The Neurovisceral Integration Model (NIM) is one of the most influential psychophysiological models addressing the interplay between the autonomic (ANS) and central nervous system (CNS). In their groundbreaking conceptual work, integrating autonomic, attentional, and affective systems into a functional and structural network, Thayer & Lane laid the foundation for empirical research in the past two decades. The present paper provides a principal outline aiming to reflect and further elaborate on the model from a dynamic developmental perspective. The central question at hand is, how does neurovisceral integration develop (early in life)? By reviewing the existing evidence, it is illustrated that key components of the model, both, on a physiological and psychological level, undergo extensive change early in the course of life. This sensitive period of human development seems key for our understanding of the integrated action of the ANS and CNS in emotion across the lifespan. Early life events may interfere with the fine‐tuned interplay of this shared neural circuitry resulting in long‐term dysfunction and psychiatric illness. In the absence of longitudinal data covering the entire co‐development of the ANS and CNS from early childhood to adolescence into early adulthood, it is suggested, that vagal activity and its normative increase in adolescence is a key premise for normative brain development on a structural and functional level, subsequent psychological functioning and adaptive regulation. Implications from this dynamic perspective and suggestions for future research in the field of developmental psychophysiology are discussed. In an attempt to further elaborate on the Neurovisceral Integration Model, potential developmental trajectories underlying dynamic CNS‐ANS co‐regulation are presented. In brief, it is suggested that neurovisceral integration is shaped during sensitive periods of human development, whereby the normative increase in vagal activity during adolescence is critical for brain development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Placebo and nocebo effects are a factor in sports performance. However, the majority of published studies in sport science are descriptive and speculative regarding mechanisms. It is therefore not unreasonable for the sceptic to argue that placebo and nocebo effects in sport are illusory, and might be better explained by variations in phenomena such as motivation. It is likely that, in sport at least, placebo and nocebo effects will remain in this empirical grey area until researchers provide stronger mechanistic evidence. Recent research in neuroscience has identified a number of consistent, discrete and interacting neurobiological and physiological pathways associated with placebo and nocebo effects, with many studies reporting data of potential interest to sport scientists, for example relating to pain, fatigue and motor control. Findings suggest that placebos and nocebos result in activity of the opioid, endocannabinoid and dopamine neurotransmitter systems, brain regions including the motor cortex and striatum, and measureable effects on the autonomic nervous system. Many studies have demonstrated that placebo and nocebo effects associated with a treatment, for example an inert treatment presented as an analgesic or stimulant, exhibit mechanisms similar or identical to the verum or true treatment. Such findings suggest the possibility of a wide range of distinct placebo and nocebo mechanisms that might influence sports performance. In the present paper, we present some of the findings from neuroscience. Focussing on fatigue as an outcome and caffeine as vehicle, we propose three approaches that researchers in sport might incorporate in their studies in order to better elucidate mechanisms of placebo/nocebo effects on performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a great tradition of looking at health and illness from a systems perspective. For clinicians and people with illnesses a lot can be gained by mapping the interface of different sectors to understand the nature of conditions. This paper aims to use Sturmberg et als. paper as a stepping off point to present a sociological approach to understanding multimorbidities and gain insights into the illness experience of these people in the greater social system of health and illness. Parsons' sick role provides a useful systems concept through which we can understand the role of doctors and the experience of illness as social, beyond the personal. We also use Bourdieu's concept of habitas and of structure and agency to make sense of multimorbidities being social, economic and a broader part of experiencing social systems. We posit that one option for people coping with multiple conditions is to change identity. We also examine the doctor and patient encounter for mutlimorbidities as being problematic as it forces attention on competence and responsibility in that continuing encounter [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Humans evolved within the mammalian line as a highly social species. Indeed, sociality has been a major driver of human social intelligence. From birth, social relationships have emotional and self‐regulating properties and operate through different body systems. This paper will explore how heart rate variability (HRV), an index of the vagal regulation of the heart and a central element of the physiological underpinnings of sociality, is related to mental health problems, with important implications for psychotherapy. Methods: We conducted a narrative review of the literature on the bi‐directional links between prosocial motivations, HRV, and psychophysiological functioning. Results: HRV is associated not only with the ability to downregulate physiological arousal, but also with a variety of psychological and behavioural variables which are usually the target of psychotherapeutic interventions. A modern neurovisceral integration model can be employed to explain the complex intercorrelation between HRV and psychophysiological functioning. In particular, the link between HRV, the experience of inter‐ and intrapersonal safeness, and the inhibitory function of the prefrontal cortex will be explored in the context of prosocial motives, such as compassion, that alleviate and help prevent mental health difficulties. Conclusions: Our knowledge of the social brain and its physiological underpinnings might influence important elements of a therapeutic intervention, from the initial assessment of patient's difficulties to the evaluation of therapy outcomes. Practitioner points: Social relationships have emotional and self‐regulating properties.The experience of inter‐ and intrapersonal safeness is connected to prosocial motives, such as compassion, and the inhibitory function of the prefrontal cortex.Social relationships and compassion influence different body systems, such as the vagus nerve.Many forms of psychopathology represent the activation of evolved, defensive strategies especially in contexts where there are few stimuli indicating safeness and social support.Heart rate variability predicts psychotherapy outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexander Bain (1818–1903) is well known for his two influential textbooks, The senses and the intellect (1855) and The emotions and the will (1859). In comparison, Bain's Mind and body: The theories of their relation (1872) has been of limited interest to historians, and it is here where he presents one of the first neural network models. This paper addresses the historical foundations of Bain's neural network model and explores some of his primary influences. Additionally, this study addresses some of the reasons Bain's Mind and Body did not receive the historical notice his earlier works garnered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative of the National Institute of Mental Health shows great promise in providing guidance for research on mental illness but has prompted considerable controversy. Papers by Yancey, Venables, and Patrick and Kozak and Cuthbert illustrate and clarify a number of important features of RDoC. The present commentary evaluates the former paper in light of the latter paper and addresses several common misunderstandings about RDoC. The concept of endophenotypes and diverse psychophysiological approaches will likely be central in RDoC-inspired research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure-based psychological interventions currently represent the empirically best established first line form of cognitive-behavioural therapy for all types of anxiety disorders. Although shown to be highly effective in both randomized clinical and other studies, there are important deficits: (1) the core mechanisms of action are still under debate, (2) it is not known whether such treatments work equally well in all forms of anxiety disorders, including comorbid diagnoses like depression, (3) it is not known whether an intensified treatment with more frequent sessions in a shorter period of time provides better outcome than distributed sessions over longer time intervals. This paper reports the methods and design of a large-scale multicentre randomized clinical trial (RCT) involving up to 700 patients designed to answer these questions. Based on substantial advances in basic research we regard extinction as the putative core candidate model to explain the mechanism of action of exposure-based treatments. The RCT is flanked by four add-on projects that apply experimental neurophysiological and psychophysiological, (epi)genetic and ecological momentary assessment methods to examine extinction and its potential moderators. Beyond the focus on extinction we also involve stakeholders and routine psychotherapists in preparation for more effective dissemination into clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the sensitive issue of male circumcision and its psychological ramifications, so seldom mentioned in conversation or addressed in the literature. It explores the emotional significance of circumcision from the standpoint of body psychotherapy. Using a single case study, the author discusses the paradox inherent in circumcision which, on the one hand, claims to be an act of devotion and surrender, but, on the other, implants mistrust in the newborn baby. Finally, the author examines the implications of a lack of dialogue about circumcision and considers how therapists might deal with the issue in their work. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper 1 is about the psychotherapy of a woman who passed from what Waddell (1998) would term ‘older age’ to ‘later life’, by which latter I mean the inevitable decline into dying and death. However unwelcome these developments may be to the individual, they are none the less activities of the soma, and therefore activities of the self—deintegrates. Much of the work of the psychotherapy centred around the task of enabling the patient to relate to and accept the bodily and emotional correlates of this process, which she tended to want to disown and deny by means of a split between mind and body along the lines of a long-standing internal depressive relationship. Permitting her contact with herself allowed her a much greater sense of internal company and peace, and arguably facilitated an easier process of dying, involving a self reconciled with itself rather than one at odds. Technically, the approach involved a greater concentration on the intrapsychic relationship rather than on the relationship between patient and analyst, and this is briefly discussed in terms of the work of Armando Ferrari who had himself died, shortly before the paper was first presented, and to whom therefore it is in part a homage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first-response time (henceforth FRT) of economics journals has increased over the last four decades from 2 months to 3-6 months. The optimal FRT, however, is not zero because a longer FRT deters submissions of mediocre papers to good journals and consequently saves valuable time of referees and editors. Interestingly, the change in the actual FRT is in the same direction as the change in the optimal FRT The latter has increased because of the availability of research on the Internet prior to publication and because papers became longer and more mathematical, increasing the costs of refereeing a paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Blip’ analysis, fast wavelet transformations (FWT) and correlation analysis have all been used to actigraphically assess the impact one person is having on another's sleep, yet no review exists as to the differences between, and applicability of, these methods for investigating couples’ sleep. Using actigraphy data and audio sleep diaries collected from 18 couples, this paper provides such a review. This paper constructs and assesses two novel, analytical methods: Lotjonen's sleep/wake algorithm, and the partner impact on sleep wake analysis (PISWA). Both ‘blip’ analysis and correlation suggest that the strongest relationship between bed partners occurs on an epoch-to-epoch basis. However, ‘blips’ deal strictly with onset of movement and fail to incorporate strength and duration of movement. Conversely, correlation analysis incorporates some elements of strength and duration of movement but makes identification of onset problematic. FWT offer useful ‘relativistic’ pattern recognition, identifying onset, strength and duration of movement, but are difficult to quantify. Although audio diary data support the potential of Lotjonen's sleep/wake algorithm to identify sleep non-movement, sleep movement, wake non-movement (or quiet wakefulness) and wake movement, the problem remains that this method also relies on visualization. Of most promise, we argue, is the PISWA, which examines ‘impact’ of bed partners through incorporating elements of ‘blip’ analysis and the sleep/wake algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Unusual responses to sensory stimuli are seen in many children with autism. Their presence was highlighted both in early accounts of autism and in more recent first-person descriptions. There is a widespread belief that sensory symptoms characterize autism and differentiate it from other disorders. This paper examines the empirical evidence for this assumption. Method: All controlled experimental laboratory investigations published since 1960 were identified through systematic searches using Medline/PubMed and PsycInfo search engines. A total of 48 empirical papers and 27 theoretical or conceptual papers were reviewed. Results: Sensory symptoms are more frequent and prominent in children with autism than in typically developing children, but there is not good evidence that these symptoms differentiate autism from other developmental disorders. Certain groups, including children with fragile X syndrome and those who are deaf-blind, appear to demonstrate higher rates of sensory symptoms than children with autism. In reviewing the evidence relevant to two theories of sensory dysfunction in autism, over- and under-arousal theory, we find that there is very little support for hyper-arousal and failure of habituation in autism. There is more evidence that children with autism, as a group, are hypo-responsive to sensory stimuli, but there are also multiple failures to replicate findings and studies that demonstrate lack of group differences. Conclusions: The use of different methods, the study of different sensory modalities, and the changing scientific standards across decades complicate interpretation of this body of work. We close with suggestions for future research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various definitions of arousals have been used in infants. An international group of experts has worked on a consensus for the scoring of arousals in healthy infants, aged between 1 and 6 months. This opinion paper summarizes the consensus statement on the scoring of arousal. The paper reviews recommended techniques for the recording of arousal in infants. Scoring includes the differentiation between subcortical activation, with no visible change n the electroencephalograph (EEG) recording, and cortical arousals associated with EEG changes. The arousals are further scored as spontaneous or induced, according to environmental conditions. Potential limitations to the method are discussed, with the hope that this document could contribute to promote further progresses in the scoring of infants arousals from sleep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims Dysfunction of physiological regulation systems may underlie the disrupted emotional and self-regulatory processes among people with substance use disorder (SUD). This paper reviews evidence as to whether or not respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), as a psychophysiological index of emotional regulation, could provide useful information in treatment-outcome research to provide insights into recovery processes. Methods We reviewed the use of RSA in clinical research and studies on SUD treatment. Search terms for the review of RSA in clinical research included respiratory sinus arrhythmia, heart rate variability, vagal, cardiac vagal control, psychophysiology, intervention, treatment, mindfulness, mind-body, mental health, substance use, chemical dependence, regulation and emotion regulation. For the review of RSA in intervention studies, we included only those that provided adequate description of psychophysiological methods, and examined RSA in the context of an intervention study. Results RSA appears to be able to provide an index of self-regulatory capacity; however, it has been little used in either intervention or treatment research. Of the four intervention studies included in this review, all were mindfulness-based interventions. Two studies were with substance using samples, and both showed pre-post increases in RSA and related improved substance use outcomes. Two of the three studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), and both showed significant increases in RSA in the experimental compared to comparison condition. Conclusion Respiratory sinus arrhythmiamay be a useful index of emotional regulation in people with substance use disorder, and a potential measure of underlying mechanisms for SUD treatment studies, particularly mindfulness-based interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we provide a commentary on Kozak and Cuthbert ()'s theoretical paper discussing the NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative and on Latzman et al. (2016)'s empirical investigation of the RDoC negative valence systems domain in chimpanzees, conducted with experimental procedures across genetic, neurobiological, and behavioral levels of analysis. We discuss the pros and cons of the RDoC approach to research on mental illness as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation of this approach in the chimpanzee study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the effects of rational-emotive therapy on psychophysiology and reports measures of test anxiety arousal. Researchers of the study state that most studies define and evaluate test anxiety and treatment effectiveness on the basis of responses obtained from paper-and-pencil tests, self-report or simple behavioral observations. According to the researchers of the study, psychophysiological measures of anxiety arousal have limitations, but they avoid many problems, including subjective evaluation, intentional misrepresentation, defensiveness and scale validity. They add that studies that have employed Rational Emotive Therapy in the treatment of test anxiety have also used paper and pencil or behavioral measures.

The rapidly increasing use of automatic devices for the measurement of blood pressure has made it increasingly important to identify artifactual readings. This paper describes an objective technique for Slating a small but adjustable percentage of the readings that are likely artifacts. The validity of these readings requires the subjective judgment of the clinician. The proposed methodology substantially reduces the number of readings to be manually examined by not only taking into account the level of systolic and diastolic blood pressure per se, but also the relationship between the two and how they vary according to differential covariate information. The method can be applied to homogeneous populations, or as illustrated in this paper, to heterogeneous populations after adjustment for known or suspected sources of variability. Thus the technique it applicable to protocols which examine blood pressure, or for that matter any two (or more) related variables, during a variety of experimental procedures including psychophysiological reactivity tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wilson (1967, 1974) indicated that when successive measurements are obtained in psychophysiologicai investigations, analysis of the data with repeated measures F tests will very likely result in positively biased tests of the repeated factor null hypothesis. The present paper demonstrates how the Greenhouse and Geisser (1959) three-step approach to significance testing, a procedure intended to control the probability of a false positive, can be applied to experimental designs containing any number of repeated measures variables. In addition, the paper contains a short computer program for obtaining a numerical solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heart rate is a dependent variable used widely in psychological and psychophysiological research. Several statistical problems arise in the analysis of heart rate data, many of them specific to infancy research. The present paper discusses the problems of a statistically appropriate cardiac measure, the Law of Initial Values, the problem of differential variability in heart rate scores, and the use of multivariate statistical methods in analyzing heart rate data. Special attention is given to those problems and solutions which have potential application to the analysis of infant heart rate data. A flowchart is presented which may guide the researcher in the appropriate use of the several statistical techniques reviewed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans display a trait-like response to sleep loss. However, it is not known whether this trait-like response can be captured by a mathematical model from only one sleep-loss condition to facilitate neurobehavioural performance prediction of the same individual during a different sleep-loss condition. In this paper, we investigated the extent to which the recently developed unified mathematical model of performance ( UMP) captured such trait-like features for different sleep-loss conditions. We used the UMP to develop two sets of individual-specific models for 15 healthy adults who underwent two different sleep-loss challenges (order counterbalanced; separated by 2-4 weeks): (i) 64 h of total sleep deprivation ( TSD) and (ii) chronic sleep restriction ( CSR) of 7 days of 3 h nightly time in bed. We then quantified the extent to which models developed using psychomotor vigilance task data under TSD predicted performance data under CSR, and vice versa. The results showed that the models customized to an individual under one sleep-loss condition accurately predicted performance of the same individual under the other condition, yielding, on average, up to 50% improvement over non-individualized, group-average model predictions. This finding supports the notion that the UMP captures an individual's trait-like response to different sleep-loss conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the analysis of psychological and psychophysiological data, the relationship between two variables is often assumed to be a straight line. This may be due to the prevalence of the general linear model in data analysis in these fields, which makes this assumption implicitly. However, there are many problems for which this assumption does not hold. In this paper, we show that, in the analysis of event-related potential ( ERP) data, the assumption of linearity comes at a cost and may significantly affect the inferences drawn from the data. We demonstrate why the assumption of linearity should be relaxed and how to model nonlinear relationships between ERP amplitudes and predictor variables within the familiar framework of generalized linear models, using regression splines and mixed-effects modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives This article reviews evidence regarding effects of psychotherapy on overall cancer survival time. Special emphasis is given to research on adverse effects of depression on cancer survival, breast cancer, and mediating psychophysiological pathways linking psychosocial support to longer survival. Design It reviews all published clinical trials addressing effects of psychotherapy on cancer survival, emphasizing depression, breast cancer, and psychophysiological evidence linking stress, depression, and support to cancer survival. Methods Systematic literature review and synthesis. Results Eight of 15 published trials indicate that psychotherapy enhances cancer survival time. No studies show an adverse effect of psychotherapy on cancer survival. Potential psychophysiological mechanisms linking stress to shorter survival include dysregulation of diurnal cortisol, increased pro-inflammatory cytokines, reduced natural killer cell activity, shorter telomeres and lower telomerase activity, glucocorticoid-mediated suppression of p53 and Br CA1 gene expression, and sympathetic nervous system activation of vascular endothelial growth factor. Conclusions Stress and support affect the course of cancer progression. Statement of contribution What is known? Stress and support have been thought to be related to cancer risk and progression, but evidence has been mixed., Depression is a natural co-morbid condition with cancer., It has not been clear how stress and support could physiologically affect the rate of cancer progression., Immune function was not thought to have much relevance to cancer progression., Few other physiological mechanisms linking stress to cancer progression were known., What does this paper add? There is evidence from 15 RCTs indicating that effective psychosocial support improves quantity as well as quality of life with cancer., There is evidence that chronic depression predicts poorer prognosis with cancer., Dysregulated circadian cortisol patterns predict more rapid cancer progression., Inflammatory processes affect cancer growth and progression., Sympathetic nervous system activity, telomere length, telomerase activity, and oncogene expression are affected by stress and can affect cancer growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers have made significant progress in the investigation of how physiological measures can inform the study of adolescent peer functioning, including peer processes involving antisocial behavior, victimization, and peer social status. This paper highlights how the inclusion of physiological processes in research studies can address several critical questions regarding adolescent peer relations, with a particular emphasis on (1) developmental processes; (2) subtypes of adolescent peer relations; (3) gender differences; (4) biosocial interactions; and (5) the role of within-person variability. In addition, several important directions for future research, including longitudinal studies assessing bidirectional effects and the incorporation of additional indices of peer functioning and additional psychophysiological systems, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the earliest documented manual and postural asymmetries, in the fetus and during the first months of life. I attempt to analyze which genetic and/or environmental factors are likely to trigger each one, as well as its consequences for the other ones. I conclude that right-handedness is prevalent in all cultures because an intrinsic tendency toward right-handedness has many occasions to be reinforced, from the uterine to the perinatal environment and from the familial to the cultural environment. Finally, the combination of potential genetic factors-direct (motoric) or indirect (postural)-with varied biological and cultural environmental influences over various periods during development may explain the high variability of handedness in typical populations (as long as hand preference is not equated with the hand used for writing). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The new paradigm that the brain is able change itself (neuroplasticity) is acknowledged and teased out in terms of the ramifications for mental illnesses. Parallel studies in pain (central sensitization) and mirror neurones are examined to conceptually clarify these ramifications in relation to mental health, and to expand our understanding of empathy and social inclusion beyond good ideas to being a part of our nature. The paper then focuses on making clear what the concepts, challenges, and opportunities for mental health nursing might be; even advancing possibilities for recovery through better understanding the third space or intersubjective. What ramifications this has for mental health nursing is reviewed in terms of a paradigm change and the necessity for conceptual clarity, as it relates to the uniqueness of the person right before our very eyes. The author contends that to embrace this new paradigm is not only necessary but ethically obligatory, as it opens up new possibilities for understanding ourselves and this changeable person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intergroup anxiety has become important in understanding the success or failure of intergroup contact. In this paper, we suggest that intergroup anxiety is made up from two constructs: self-anxiety (anxiety over thinking or doing something that is prejudiced) and other-anxiety (anxiety that the other might do something to you). Over four studies, we show how these two dimensions have different correlates and independently predict psychophysiological reactivity to an intergroup interaction. Other-anxiety was associated with negative intergroup attitudes and negative affect. In contrast, self-anxiety had no simple relationship with conventional measures of intergroup attitudes but was associated with a flattening of responses that were indicative of freezing (Study 3) and simultaneous approach and avoidance (Study 4). We suggest that whereas other-anxiety is associated with negative affect and avoidance, self-anxiety is associated with 'freezing' responses to intergroup interaction. Thus, the distinction between these two constructs has important repercussions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This paper aims to provide an overview of the ethical issues that have been raised by The Longitudinal Youth at Risk Study, which is being led by the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore as part of a multi-centre and multinational study in translational and clinical research in psychosis. This project is designed to identify the biomarkers of the trajectory to psychosis. As well as providing insights into the psychopathology and psychophysiology of the disease, the study will prospectively identify those in the Singaporean population with an ultra-high risk of developing psychosis. The project will collect both observational and clinically relevant data from an at-risk group: adolescents and young adults. Methods: A normative analysis was used to consider the ethical issues that arise as a result of this study, its methods, sample population and clinical management policy. Results: The project was found to raise particular and sensitive ethical and legal issues relating to the conduct of research with vulnerable populations who may be entering the prodromal phase of psychosis. Issues raised included notions of consent, privacy, confidentiality, stigmatization, duty of care and therapeutic misconception. Conclusion: Whereas some of the issues raised by this study present with manageable solutions, others may be justifiable within the cultural context of Singapore and warrant further discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an author response to two commentaries on 'Defining Synaesthesia' (Simner, 2012) by David M. Eagleman ('Synesthesia in its protean guises', 2012), and Roi Cohen Kadosh and Devin B. Terhune ('Redefining synaesthesia?', 2012). Together with these authors, I seek to more closely examine existing criteria on which definitions of synaesthesia have been based. In particular, I focus on the fact (a) that existing definitions paint synaesthesia as an overly homogenous condition, (b) synaesthesia may have multiple neurological causes, and (c) synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes may lie on a continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a thought-provoking paper, highlights and criticizes a number of assumptions concerning synaesthesia. She specifically takes issue with the following assumptions: (1) synaesthesia is strictly a sensory-perceptual phenomenon; (2) consistency of inducer-concurrent pairs is the gold standard for establishing the authenticity of an individual's synaesthesia; and (3) synaesthesia is not heterogeneous. In the wake of this critique, Simner advances a working definition of synaesthesia as a neurological hyper-association that aims to be more inclusive of its variants. We are very sympathetic to Simner's approach and believe that it raises important points that will advance our understanding of synaesthesia. Here we supplement, and sometimes challenge, some of these ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the hypothesis that the degree of psycho-physiological development is related to performance level in world-class athletes. We compared physiological and psychological patterns of 33 Norwegian world-class athletes to patterns in 33 average performing athletes. The subjects were matched for gender, age, and type of sport. Electroencephalography activity was recorded to measure brain integration; skin conductance was recorded to measure habituation to a loud stimulus; and paper-and-pencil tests were given to assess self-development, moral development, and frequency of peak experiences. A factor analysis (varimax rotation) reduced the eight variables to three factors that together accounted for 65.3% of the total variance: (1) physiological integration - brain integration and habituation rates, (2) self- and moral development, and (3) peak experiences. A MANOVA conducted on the factor scores showed a significant main effect for the experimental group collapsing across the three factors ( P<0.0001). Individual ANOVAs showed significantly higher values for development ( P=0.021) and physiological integration ( P<0.0001) factor scores for the world-class athletes. The above measures can be seen as different expressions of an underlying dimension - human development. These data support the concept that higher psycho-physiological growth underlies higher performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weber’s law is one of the basic laws in psychophysics, but the link between this psychophysical behavior and the neuronal response has not yet been established. In this paper, we carried out an analysis on the spike train statistics when Weber’s law holds, and found that the efferent spike train of a single neuron is less variable than a Poisson process. For population neurons, Weber’s law is satisfied only when the population size is small (< 10 neurons). However, if the population neurons share a weak correlation in their discharges and individual neuronal spike train is more regular than a Poisson process, Weber’s law is true without any restriction on the population size. Biased competition attractor network also demonstrates that the coefficient of variation of interspike interval in the winning pool should be less than one for the validity of Weber’s law. Our work links Weber’s law with neural firing property quantitatively, shedding light on the relation between psychophysical behavior and neuronal responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vision research has made very substantial progress towards understanding how we see. It is one area of psychology where the three-way thrust of behavioural measurements (psychophysics), brain imaging, and computational studies have been combined quite routinely for some years. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a relatively unusual form of computational modelling that we characterise as involving image descriptions. Image descriptions are statements about structures in images and relationships between structures. Most modelling in vision is either conceived in fairly abstract terms, or is done at the level of images. Neither is entirely satisfactory, and image descriptions are a simple formulation of age-old ideas about a Vocabulary of image features that are detected and parameterized from actual digital images. For our example, we use the domain of the visual perception of printed text. This is an area that has been characterized by thorough, robust psychophysical experiments. The fundamental requirements of visual processing in this domain are: grouping of some parts if the image into words; at the same time segmenting words from each other. We show how these are readily understood in terms of our model of image descriptions, and show quantitatively that typographical practice, refined over centuries, is about optimum for the visual system at least as represented by our model. In addition, we show that the same notion of image descriptions could, in principle, support word recognition in certain circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper examined children’s fearful, sad, and angry reactivity to interparental conflict as mediators of associations between their exposure to interparental aggression and physiological functioning. Methods: Participants included 200 toddlers and their mothers. Assessments of interparental aggression and children’s emotional reactivity were derived from maternal surveys and a semi-structured interview. Cortisol levels and cardiac indices of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity were used to assess toddler physiological functioning. Results: Results indicated that toddler exposure to interparental aggression was associated with greater cortisol levels and PNS activity and diminished SNS activity. Toddler angry emotional reactivity mediated associations between interparental aggression and cortisol and PNS functioning. Fearful emotional reactivity was a mediator of the link between interparental aggression and SNS functioning. Conclusions: The results are interpreted within conceptualizations of how exposure and reactivity to family risk organize individual differences in physiological functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper draws upon the psychological, psycho-physiological, and numerical cognition literature(s) to suggest that numerical difference perceptions may be influenced by the physical distance between two prices. In the context of four experiments, we find that a greater horizontal separation of prices leads to greater difference (and hence price-discount) perceptions. The greater price-discount perceptions are linked to a higher perceived value and increased purchase likelihood. The effect is not observed for prices separated by large versus small vertical distances. The processing mechanisms driving our results involve the automatic and non-conscious encoding of “magnitude representations” (i.e., judgments of relative size) related to both relevant (numerical difference) and non-relevant (physical distance) dimensions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Whereas the contextual basis of psychophysical responding is well founded, the compound influence of sensory and perceptual frames of reference constitutes a challenging issue in comparative one- and multidimensional psychophysics (e.g., Sarris, 2004, 2006 ). We refer to previous investigations, which tested the assumption that the chicken's relational choice in the one-dimensional case is systematically altered by context conditions similar to the findings stemming from human participants. In this paper mainly the context-dependent stimulus coding was investigated for the important, but largely neglected, two-dimensional case in humans and chickens. Three strategies were predicted for the generalization of size discriminations, which had been learned in a different color context. In two experiments, which varied in the testing procedure, both species demonstrated profound contextual effects in psychophysics; they differed, however, in the way the information from either dimension was used: Chickens throughout used color as a cue to separate the respective size discriminations and generalizations. Whereas humans predominantly generalized according to size information only or according to absolute stimulus properties, the chickens showed some important species-specific differences. Common and heterogeneous findings of this line of comparative research in multidimensional psychophysics are presented and discussed in various ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of a new 139-item behavioral questionnaire (PAL) assessing the frequency and enjoyability of pleasant activities occurring in the natural environment of patients with substance use disorders. The sample consisted of 265 patients with mainly substance use disorders and 272 healthy controls. Group comparisons indicated that patients reported lower frequency, enjoyability, and cross-product activity scores than controls. This study confirms previous findings that addiction is associated with a decreased level of engagement in pleasant activities. The PAL seems to be a standardized, feasible, and valid instrument to sample non-substance-related rewarding activities in patients' everyday lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web site visibility has become important because of the rapid dissemination of the World Wide Web, and combinations of foreground and background colors are crucial in providing high visibility. In our previous studies, the visibilities of several web-safe color combinations were examined using a psychological method. In those studies, simple stimuli were used because of experimental restriction. In this paper, legibility of sentences on web sites was examined using a psychophysiological method, point-of-regard measurement, to obtain other practical data. Ten people with normal color sensations ranging from ages 21 to 29 were recruited. The number of characters per line in each page was arranged in the same number, and the four representative achromatic web-safe colors, that is, #000000, #666666, #999999, and #CCCCCC, were examined. The reading time per character and the gaze time per line were obtained from point-of-regard measurement, and the normalized with the reading time and the gaze time of the three colors were calculated and compared. It was found that the time of reading and gaze become long at the same ratio when the contrast decreases by point-of-regard measurement. Therefore, it was indicated that the legibility of color combinations could be estimated by point-of-regard measurement. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(4): 35–42, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20612 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of sleep loss on reaction time (RT) performance varies as a function of age, with RTs of older subjects typically showing less decrement (relative to rested baseline) than those of younger subjects. In the current paper, we examined the nature of this relationship in a 7-day sleep restriction study. The number of repeated measures made it possible to model both intra-individual trajectories over days and individual differences in these trajectories. Results revealed (a) consistent individual differences in RT patterns over time after controlling for experimental design effects; (b) less cumulative RT decline among older individuals regardless of the degree of sleep restriction; and (c) consistent individual variability in performance patterns even after accounting for the effects of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]