Attention, distraction, and cold-pressor pain.

Compared the effects of distracting oneself from, vs attending to, the sensations produced by cold-pressor stimulation. Exp I (35 undergraduates) revealed that distraction was a better coping strategy than attention to sensations when Ss were asked to report pain threshold and tolerance. Exps II and III (75 Ss) examined the hypothesis that distraction is effective because persons hold a commonsense belief in the benefits of distraction as a coping device. Neither experiment supported the commonsense hypothesis as an explanation for Exp I's results. In Exp IV, 39 male Ss were assigned to either distraction, attention, or no-instruction conditions and asked to report their distress during a 4-min cold-pressor trial. Distraction reduced distress early in the trial, but attention to sensations was a superior strategy for the last 2 min. It is proposed that distraction and attention to sensations may be differentially effective depending on the duration of the painful stimulus. Possible mediating processes underlying the 2 strategies are discussed. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of visual imprinting in the emergence of specific filial attachments in ducklings.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 36 1-11 day old Khaki Campbell ducklings, to assess the suppression of distress vocalization by 2 distinctive stimuli before and after Ss were imprinted to 1 of the stimuli. In Exp. I, both stimuli strongly suppressed distress calls initially. At 5 days of age, however, only the stimulus involved in imprinting suppressed the calls. Results suggest that the loss of control by the nonimprinted stimulus was age-related and represented the development of fear to insufficiently-familiar stimuli. In Exp. II, 5-11 day old Ss were permitted lengthy exposure to a novel imprinting-type stimulus. Under these circumstances, distress vocalization eventually came under stimulus control. The overall pattern of results suggests that through imprinting, stimuli that innately evoke filial behavior become familiar and thus are prevented from later evoking novelty-induced fear. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Type of information, familiarity, and the reduction of crowding stress.

Two studies (108 college students) focused on the effectiveness of various types of information in different contexts. Two informational foci (i.e., external and internal) were employed, and Ss were either familiar or unfamiliar with a potentially stressful setting. It was assumed that one's degree of familiarity with the context would render different types of concerns more salient and that these would more effectively be met by one type of information than by the other. Exp I found that situational information was more effective than emotional information for unfamiliar Ss, whose primary concerns in the setting were external. In contrast, emotional information was effective in reducing stress and facilitating performance for familiar Ss, whose concerns were primarily internal; but situational information was also effective for these individuals. Results of Exp II indicate that situational information, if accurate, not only can serve a reinforcing "consensual validation" function that addresses people's general concerns about the "reasonableness" of their responses, but can also reduce distress. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information, choice, and reactions to stress: A field experiment in a blood bank with laboratory analogue.

Two experiments examined the effects of various operations of personal control on reactions to stress. Exp I with 40 17–50 yr old blood donors incorporated 2 features into the blood-drawing procedure at a blood bank: providing donors with accurate information and allowing donors to choose the arm to be used. Measurement of nurses' actions to prevent donors from fainting and self-reports of discomfort indicated that the combination of choice and information was somewhat effective in reducing distress. However, providing either information or choice alone was more effective. In Exp II, using a cold pressor stimulus as stressor, 44 undergraduates given a choice (the option to terminate the aversive stimulus and choice of hand used) showed a reduction of aftereffects on a measure of attention to detail. Ss given information but not choice also showed this reduction. Combining information and choice was no different from either treatment alone. Results of both studies indicate that moderate levels of choice and information are optimal for coping with stress. An explanation is suggested, based on a contextually determined relationship among choice, information, and perceived control. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Overt and covert attention and vibrotactile reaction times: Gaze direction, spatial compatibility and hemispatial asymmetry.

Performed 2 vibrotactile reaction time (RT) experiments, using 32 strongly dextral undergraduates to determine if (1) Ss attention toward/away from the operating hand effected RT and (2) there was an interaction with hand-hemispace and spatial compatibility. In Exp I, 16 Ss were administered a 250 Hz vibratory stimulus to the forefinger of a hand and were required to depress a switch as soon as the stimulus was felt. Hemispace of the stimulated hand was varied and head turns were recorded. In Exp II, 16 Ss were presented with stimuli to the left and the right hand and Ss looked at 1 hand for a block of trials. Results suggest that vibrotactile asymmetries may stem from differences in ability to hold covert attention in a number of spatial locations. It is suggested that overt and covert attention play different mediating roles in performance asymmetries, both at the hemispatial level and in classical anatomical connectivity paradigms of visual field and ear of entry. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood as input: People have to interpret the motivational implications of their moods.

It was hypothesized that moods have few, if any, motivational or processing implications, but are input to other processes that determine their motivational implications. In Exp 1, Ss read a series of behaviors in forming an impression. When told to read the behaviors until they felt they had enough information, those in positive moods (PMs) stopped sooner than did those in negative moods (NMs). When told to stop when they no longer enjoyed reading the behaviors, NMs stopped sooner than PMs. In Exp 2, Ss generated a list of birds from memory. When told to stop when either they thought it was a good time to stop or they simply felt like stopping, PMs stopped sooner than NMs. When told to stop when they no longer enjoyed the task, NMs stopped sooner than PMs. The findings extend work by others (e.g., D. M. Mackie and L. T. Worth, 1991; N. Murray et al, 1990; N. Schwarz and H. Bless, 1991; R. C. Sinclair and M. M. Mark, 1992). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive strategies, experimenter modeling, and expectation in the attenuation of pain.

Obtained verbal reports of pain from 120 female undergraduates during a base-level pretest and also during a posttest conducted under 1 of several experimental treatments. The pain stimulus was a heavy weight applied to a finger for 2 min. During the posttest, Ss who had been asked to utilize cognitive strategies for reducing pain (i.e., to imagine pleasant events or to imagine the finger as insensitive) showed a reduction in pain as compared to uninstructed control Ss. Ss led to expect a reduction in pain, but not provided with cognitive strategies, also showed reduced pain during the posttest compared to controls, but the reduction was smaller than for Ss using cognitive strategies. An E modeling procedure, used with half of the Ss under each experimental treatment, was effective in reducing verbal reports of pain only for Ss with high pretest levels who were asked to imagine pleasant events. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do the same stimulus-response relations influence choice reactions initially and after practice?

A 2-choice reaction task was used to evaluate changes in stimulus–response translation with practice. In Exp 1, 4 groups of Ss practiced with either a direct or indirect mapping of left–right stimuli to left–right responses and either a crossed or uncrossed hand placement and transferred to 1 of the 4 Mapping?×?Placement conditions. Stimulus–response location and response location effector relations affected performance initially and after practice. In Exps 2 and 3, Ss switched every 42 trials between conditions for which only the stimulus location–effector (Exp 2) or stimulus–response location relation (Exp 3) remained constant. Switching produced interference in Exp 2 but not in Exp 3, corroborating the influence of the stimulus–response location relation on performance. Mediation based on spatial codes continues to be a factor in the performance of practiced Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responsiveness to affective stimuli by obese and normal individuals.

Conducted 2 experiments to test the hypothesis that the obese are more responsive than normals to both positive and negative affective stimuli. In Exp I, obese and normal high school males (N = 46) gave ratings of positively and negatively arousing slides. In Exp II, the behavior of obese and normal children 1 mo-6 yrs old (N = 79) in a positively and a negatively arousing situation was observed. Obese Ss in both experiments responded more strongly than normals to the positive affective stimuli; obese Ss in Exp I responded more strongly than normals to the negative emotional stimulus. A possible reason for the failure of obese Ss in Exp II to respond more strongly than normals to the negative affective stimulus is discussed. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delayed costs of suppressed pain.

Demonstrates that the rebound effect of thought suppression (D. M. Wegner, 1989) has an analog in the experience of somatic discomfort. During a cold-pressor pain induction, 63 Ss were instructed either to concentrate on their room at home (distraction), to pay close attention to their hand sensations (monitoring), or to remove awareness of those sensations from mind (suppression). Two minutes of postpressor pain ratings showed that monitoring produced the most rapid recovery from the pain and that suppression produced the slowest. Suppression also contaminated the interpretation of a subsequent somatic stimulation; later in the experimental hour, Ss who had suppressed their cold-pressor discomfort rated an innocuous vibration as more unpleasant than did other Ss. The strategies are discussed for their necessarily distinct processes of goal evaluation and their possibly differential drain on perceived coping capacities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of interactional behavior in a psychotherapy analogue.

Ss discussed topics with an interviewer (I) whose comments were controlled by a motor response made by S. In Exp. I, there was less increase in silence over trials, more negative attitude toward the I, and longer delay after I responses when these were interpretations rather than reflections. With a choice between interpretation and reflection, several personality differences were found between Ss preferring one rather than the other of the two classes of I response. Ss in Exp. 1 requested an I response less frequently when he disagreed with them, but only under conditions in which Ss were told the I would try to influence them. Under influence instructions there was a positive correlation between frequency of I responses and negative attitude toward him. In Exp. 3, frequency of I response was maintained over trials only for Ss high on the Social Desirability Scale. The attitude of high SD Ss was more negative when emotional, rather than neutral, topics were discussed. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extinction and retention of a classically conditioned flexor nerve response in acute spinal cat.

Conditioned adult male and female cats by pairing a mild electrical stimulus to the superficial peroneal sensory nerve (CS) with a stronger electrical stimulus to the ankle skin (UCS) of the same leg. Subsequent extinction was produced by presenting CS-alone trials. In Exp I (42 Ss), Ss given massed extinction trials showed response decrements to base levels, but Ss that received distributed extinction trials showed no decrements. In Exp II, .5-, 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-hr intervals between acquisition and extinction produced no significant differences in the extinction data. In Exp III (20 Ss), Ss received extinction trials immediately or 30 min after acquisition trials, followed by 20 additional extinction trials 30 min later. Data indicated significant acquisition and extinction in the 10- and 20-acquisition trial groups. As in Exp II (35 Ss), varying the interval between acquisition and extinction did not produce any group differences in the extinction data. These results demonstrate that response increases produced by paired trials in the spinal preparation do not decay spontaneously over time and are not caused by sensitization effects. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear behavior, fear imagery, and the psychophysiology of emotion: The problem of affective response integration.

Exp I compared the psychophysiological reactions of 25 Ss with 2 fears, focal phobia and social-performance anxiety. Ss were determined by questionnaire (e.g., Differential Personality Questionnaire, Fenz-Epstein Anxiety Scale) and interview to be at the high extreme of their respective fear reference groups. Each group was exposed to both its own and the other group's primary fear stress (i.e., a snake-exposure test and a public speaking performance). These same Ss were also instructed to imagine both types of fear situations as well as control scenes. Results indicate a different psychophysiological response for the 2 fear groups across the 2 fear contents. Thus, snake-phobic Ss showed greater arousal when exposed to a live snake than did socially anxious Ss. Despite significantly greater verbal reports of fear and arousal by socially anxious Ss, both fear groups showed a similar marked increase in physiological arousal during speech performance. Neither group generated a significant physiological reaction to either fear content during imagery assessment. Exp II examined emotional imagery with 40 undergraduates from the same 2 fear populations. An imagery pretraining program, based on the reinforcement of verbal report of somatic response content in imagery, led to a significant visceral arousal response during fear imagery. Response-trained Ss showed a pattern of heart rate change during imagery that varied between Ss and fear contents. Response-trained Ss also showed relatively greater concordance between verbal and visceral measures than did untrained Ss. (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pavlovian second-order conditioned analgesia.

Three experiments, with 118 Sprague-Dawley rats, assessed conditioned analgesia in a Pavlovian 2nd-order conditioning procedure by using inhibition of responding to thermal stimulation as an index of pain sensitivity. In Exp I, Ss receiving 2nd-order conditioning showed longer response latencies during a test of pain sensitivity in the presence of the 2nd-order conditioned stimulus (CS) than Ss receiving appropriate control procedures. Exp II found that extinction of the 1st-order CS had no effect on established 2nd-order conditioned analgesia. Exp III evaluated the effects of post 2nd-order conditioning pairings of subcutaneous morphine sulfate (10–20 mg/kg) and the shock unconditioned stimulus/stimuli (UCS). Ss receiving paired morphine–shock presentations showed significantly shorter response latencies during a hot-plate test of pain sensitivity in the presence of the 2nd-order CS than did Ss receiving various control procedures; 2nd-order analgesia was attenuated. Data extend the associative account of conditioned analgesia to 2nd-order conditioning situations and are discussed in terms of the mediation of both 1st- and 2nd-order analgesia by an association between the CS and a representation or expectancy of the UCS, which may directly activate endogenous pain inhibition systems. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioned suppression of distress calls in imprinted ducklings.

Exposed 20 Peking and 6 Khaki Campbell newly hatched ducklings to imprinting procedures. The subsequent filial reactions were studied using a classical conditioning paradigm. Exp. I revealed that a previously neutral stimulus can become a conditioned suppressor of distress calling as a consequence of pairing it with the imprinted stimulus. If the presentation of the imprinted stimulus was, however, omitted or delayed, or if it preceded rather than followed the presentation of the neutral stimulus, the effect was not obtained. Exp. II utilized a differential conditioning procedure to investigate the capacity of imprinted Ss to come under discriminative control. 2 differently colored lights were used as stimuli; 1 was consistently followed by presentation of the imprinted stimulus, while the other was never followed by its presentation. Only the former stimulus came to suppress distress calling. The importance of the apparent interaction between classical conditioning and imprinting is noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assimilation and contrast as a function of people's willingness and ability to expend effort in forming an impression.

Set/reset (L. L. Martin; see record 1987-01092-001) hypothesis that contrast demands more cognitive effort than does assimilation was examined. In Exp. 1, the impressions of distracted Ss showed assimilation toward blatantly primed concepts, whereas the impressions of nondistracted Ss showed contrast. In Exp. 2, Ss told that their ratings would be lumped into a group average showed assimilation, whereas Ss told that their ratings would be examined individually showed contrast. In Exp. 3, the impressions of Ss low in need for cognition showed assimilation, whereas the impressions of Ss high in need for cognition showed contrast. Exp. 1 also showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the target information, and Exp. 3 showed that the results were not due to differences in recall of the priming stimuli. Together, the results suggest that the processes involved in contrast demand more cognitive effort than do the processes involved in assimilation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unsolicited interpretation and recall of interpersonal events.

Conducted 4 experiments with a total of 246 undergraduates to examine the variables that influence interpretations and cued recall of interpersonal events. In Exp I, Ss were given a set to empathize with or to be detached from a couple who were shown having an intimate discussion on videotape. The discussion culminated in either a seriously or a moderately negative outcome (SO or MO). A greater amount of attribution (AT) and more accurate recall were found for the empathy set vs the detached set. Greater AT was also found for SO vs MO conditions. In Exp II with a different videotaped event, an SO version and a set to remember the event led to more AT than did an MO version or no set, respectively. Memory-set Ss showed greater recall than no-memory set Ss. In Exp III, Ss given a set to anticipate interaction with 1 of the stimulus persons showed more AT and more accurate recall (R) than did Ss given no such set and an SO led to more AT than did an MO. In Exp IV, Ss given a set about the emotional condition of a stimulus person before observing the event exhibited greater AT and more accurate recall than did Ss given the same set after observing the event or Ss given no set at all. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imagery and paired-associate learning.

In Exp. I with 20 undergraduates, the rate of paired-associate learning varied with the type of stimulus, from fastest to slowest: pictures (P), object names (ON), and category names (CN). The stimulus materials did not differ in meaningfulness, and ON had shorter imaginal latencies than CN. The ON-CN difference was replicated in Exp. II with 15 Ss, but presentation of the appropriate P together with an ON or CN on the 1st study trial did not facilitate acquisition of either list. Exp. III with 20 Ss involved the short-term retention of pairs. Using a measure of conditional recall (of responses, given stimulus recall), forgetting occurred over 18 sec., primarily in the 1st 3 sec., but was unaffected by the type of stimulus. The data led to a reevaluation of the conceptual peg hypothesis. (French summary) (17 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awareness of prior success or failure: A critical factor in task performance.

Exp I, with 36 undergraduates, determined the effects of 2 levels of history of success (high or low) and the presence or absence of an audience on task performance. Results show that after prior failure, alone Ss performed significantly better than audience Ss, although after prior success, the performance of alone and audience Ss did not differ. These results counter K. J. Good's (1973) results, since his experiment produced a social facilitation effect after prior success, not after prior failure. Performance differences were probably due to differences in audience awareness. In the present experiment, the audience was presumably unaware; whereas in Good's experiment, the audience was presumably aware of S's prior performance level. Exp II (60 Ss) tested the merits of this explanation. Ss with a history of success or failure performed either alone or in 1 of 2 audience manipulations. Ss were told that the audience was either aware or unaware of their prior performance level. Results support the hypothesis. It is argued than an audience can affect the type of standard that an S uses to evaluate performance and that the quality of an S's performance is a function not only of the criterion but also of S's expectation of meeting the criterion (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)