Looking happy: The experimental manipulation of a positive visual attention bias.

Individuals with a positive visual attention bias may use their gaze to regulate their emotions while under stress. The current study experimentally trained differential biases in participants' (N = 55) attention toward positive or neutral information. In each training trial, one positive and one neutral word were presented and then a visual target appeared consistently in the location of the positive or neutral words. Participants were instructed to make a simple perceptual discrimination response to the target. Immediately before and after attentional training, participants were exposed to a stress task consisting of viewing a series of extremely negative images while having their eyes tracked. Visual fixation time to negative images, assessed with an eye tracker, served as an indicator of using gaze to successfully regulate emotion. Those participants experimentally trained to selectively attend to affectively positive information looked significantly less at the negative images in the visual stress task following the attentional training, thus demonstrating a learned aversion to negative stimuli. Participants trained toward neutral information did not show this biased gaze pattern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cover Picture: Improving Organic Thin‐Film Transistor Performance through Solvent‐Vapor Annealing of Solution‐Processable Triethylsilylethynyl Anthradithiophene (Adv. Mater. 13/2006)

In work reported by Loo and co‐workers on p. 1721, the current–voltage characteristics of triethylsilylethynyl anthradithiophene (TES ADT) thin‐film transistors are improved dramatically by a simple solvent‐vapor annealing process after device fabrication. Exposing the transistors to dichloroethane vapor induces structural rearrangement and crystallization of TES ADT, as shown on the cover (lower section, before annealing, upper section, after). The annealing results in drastic increases in on currents; the saturation mobility increases by two orders of magnitude and the current–voltage hysteresis is largely eliminated.     

Hypnotic dissociation, dichotic listening, and active versus passive modes of attention.

Describes 2 experiments with 75 high and low hypnotically susceptible Ss (Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility). Detecting left-channel targets interfered less with the shadowing of right-channel prose when performance of the former task was posthypnotically dissociated from consciousness. However, this superiority over an ordinary divided-attention condition was not due to unconscious target detection by Ss. Rather, the suggestions for posthypnotic responsiveness with amnesia apparently engendered a passive mode of attention to the left-channel task, such that Ss did not actively listen for targets in order to hear them. In Exp II, explicit instructions to adopt a strategy of attentional passivity to the target-detection task proved to be far more effective in producing the reduced-interference effect than the posthypnotic suggestions had been. The posthypnotic suggestions seemed to induce attentional passivity as an indirect effect of amnesia for the posthypnotic suggestions and for previously detected targets. Study findings are interpreted in terms of E. R. Hilgard's (1973) neodissociation theory. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New cubane MOCVD precursors for gallium sulphide and gallium selenide: Synthesis of [(Et2MeC)GaS]4 and [(Me2EtC)GaS]4: Structural determinations of [(Et2MeC)GaS]4 by X-ray diffraction and [(tBu)GaSe]4 by electron diffraction

The gallium sulphide cubane compounds [(Me₂EtC)GaS]₄ and [(Et₂MeC)GaS]₄, have been synthesised, and their potential as MOCVD precursors for GaS is discussed. The molecular structure of [(Et₂MeC)GaS]₄ has been determined by X-ray diffraction. In addition, the vapour phase structure of the GaSe precursor, [(^tBu)GaSe]₄ has been determined by gas phase electron diffraction and is compared with that previously determined in the solid state by X-ray diffraction.     

Reduction of proteolysis during ensilage of perennial ryegrass by protease inhibitors

Two experiments were carried out to assess the effectiveness of protease inhibitors in reducing proteolysis during ensilage. Perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) (279 g dry matter (DM) kg^?1, experiment 1 and 170 gDM kg^?1 experiment 2) was ensiled in laboratory silos for 82 and 50 days, respectively. With the exception of the application of formic acid (1.5 g kg^?1) plus formalin (3 g kg^?1) in experiment 1, all silages had pH values of less than 4.0 and lactic acid concentrations of greater than 100 g kg^?1 DM. Application of the cysteine endopeptidase inhibitor E-64 (1-trans-epoxysuccinyl-leucylamido(4-guanidino) butane, 22.5 mg kg^?1 reduced proteolysis during ensilage as measured by a reduction in the quantities of soluble non-protein N in silage to 0.76 and 0.91 of control values (528 and 643 g kg^?1 total N) in experiments 1 and 2, respectively. In experiment 2 increasing the application rate of E-64 from 22.5 to 45 mg kg^?1 further reduced the extent of proteolysis from 0.91 to 0.75 of control soluble non-protein N concentrations. Proteolysis was also reduced in experiment 2 by two other cysteine endopeptidase inhibitors, antipain (32 mg kg^?1, 0.81 of control) and cystain (1.2 mg kg^?1; 0.89 of control). Pepstatin A (300 mg kg^?1), an inhibitor of aspartic acid endopeptidases, did not reduce soluble non-protein N concentrations in experiment 1 but did do so in experiment 2 (0.81 of control). Treatment of grass at ensiling with Lactobacillus plantarum (10⁶ g^?1) reduced silage non-protein N concentrations to 0.83 of the control. The effects of E-64 and pepstatin A and of E-64 and L plantarum in experiment 2 were addive. Cysteine endopeptidases therefore play an important role in protein breakdown during ensilage.     

Potentiation of phototactic suppression in Hermissenda by a chemosensory stimulus during compound conditioning.

Modifications of Hermissenda's phototactic behavior by compound pairings of light, scallop extract, and rotation were assessed. In general, the scallop extract potentiated phototactic suppression. Potentiation was dependent on (a) conjunctive presentations of scallop and light, (b) number of conditioning trials, and (c) scallop extract concentration. In related experiments, no second-order conditioning or sensory preconditioning of phototactic suppression was observed, indicating that within-compound associations did not contribute appreciably to potentiation. These results represent the first detailed analysis of compound conditioning in a mollusk using discrete presentations of well-characterized conditioned stimuli from distinct sensory modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)