Symposium for Boston-Area Graduate Students in Psychology May 2, 2012

Symposium for Boston-Area
Graduate Students in
Psychology
May 2, 2012
Boston, Massachusetts
Hosted by
the Department of Psychology at
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People
Symposium Committee/Hosts (Please ask us, if you need assistance.)
Amy DiBattista
Krista Hill
Allison Seitchik
Psychology Department Area Representatives
Martha Caffrey
Cole Eidson
Jeff Nador
Erika Seigel
Psychology Department Graduate Student Organization Representatives
Mollie Ruben
Stefanie Tignor
This event was funded by the Northeastern University Graduate Student Organization.
Many thanks to everyone here today for attending and
participating!
Information
Locations
Poster session and refreshments are located inside the Curry Ballroom.
Fun and close-by places for post-symposium drinks are located inbound on Huntington
Avenue: Look for Conor Larkin’s and Our House.
WiFi
The network is called “NUwave–guest.” No password is needed.
Contacts (Comments and suggestions are welcome.)
Amy DiBattista — [email protected]
Krista Hill — [email protected]
Allison Seitchik — [email protected]
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Table of Contents: Abstracts
Section I: Behavioral Neuroscience
Section II: Clinical
………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………
Pages 4–8
Pages 9–11
Section III: Cognition and Language ………………………………………………
Pages 12–24
Section IV: Developmental
………………………………………………
Pages 25–27
Section V: Sensation and Perception ………………………………………………
Pages 28–30
Section VI: Social, Personality, and Emotion ………………………………………
Pages 31–40
Within each section of the program, abstracts appear in alphabetical order by first author.
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Behavioral Neuroscience
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Pup Presence Modulates BOLD fMRI Responsiveness of the Maternal Brain to
a Drug-Paired Cue
Martha Caffreya and Marcelo Febob
aNortheastern University, bUniversity of Florida
Presentation of a cocaine-paired cue elicits reinstatement of drug seeking in virgin rodents, even
after prolonged drug abstinence; however, it is unknown how the maternal brain will respond
to such drug cues.
In order to test the hypothesis that pup presence will alter maternal brain response to a drugpaired cue, virgin female Long Evans rats were administered IP cocaine or saline for 10 days
each paired with an olfactory cue. After a drug wash-out period the animals were bred, and in
the early postpartum period imaged awake for their response to the drug-paired and salinepaired olfactory cues in the presence and absence of their pups. When the pups were absent,
significant BOLD increases were observed within the orbital, infralimbic and prelimbic regions,
and the anterior nucleus of the thalamus. In the presence of pups, however, there were no
significant differences in activation within these regions.
In the absence of pups the maternal brain responds to the drug-paired cue much like a virgin
brain; however, in the presence of pups she does not show increased activity in response to the
drug cue, indicating that the presence of the pups modulates the maternal brain responsiveness
to the olfactory drug-paired cue.
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Chronic Stress is Associated with Cortisol and Interleukin-6 Adaptation to
Repeated Acute Stress
Xuejie Chen, Myriam V. Thoma, Emily Farver, Nia Fogelman, and Nicolas Rohleder
Brandeis University
Chronic social stress is statistically related to disease, but pathophysiological mechanisms are
not completely understood. Habituation in response to repeated stress is considered an
adaptive response, and non-habituation is thought to have adverse health implications.
Previous studies showed influence of chronic stress on acute stress responses, but less is known
about how this influence acts in repeated stress situations.
We recruited n=23 healthy individuals (10 women, 13 men; mean age=22.4 yrs.; mean BMI=23.6
kg/m2) and exposed them to Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) twice. Plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6)
and salivary cortisol were measured repeatedly until 2 hours after stress.Chronic stress at
different episodes during the life span was assessed by self report, using the Trier Inventory for
Chronic Stress(TICS)and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). Life stress questionnaire
(LSQ) was also applied, but since participants were young and most of them were not in stable
long-term relationships, we only used the subscales asking about parents and self.
Participants showed increases of cortisol and IL-6 (both p’s < 0.01)in response to first-time stress
exposure. After second exposure, cortisol responses habituated (p=0.009) while IL-6 responses
showed sensitization (p=0.047). Chronic stress (TICS subscales “work overload”, “excessive
demands at work”, “performance pressure at work”) was associated with less efficient
habituation of the HPA axis (r=-0.474, p=0.026; r=-0.466, p=0.025; r=-0.442, p=0.034,resp.). Total
TICS score correlated significantly with IL-6 response on day 2 (r=0.461, p=0.035). LSQ subscale
"parents" correlated significantly with cortisol increase on day 2 (r=0.387; p=0.046).LSQ subscale
of “self” and CTQ showed no significant relationship with cortisol and IL-6 response.
In summary, our results show that chronic stress is related to maladaptive acute stress response
patterns of the HPA axis and peripheral inflammation, which is in line with the assumption of
higher disease susceptibility in chronically stressed individuals. LSQ self scale was not
significantly correlated with acute stress response,but the sub-scale tested about major stress
events, which were seldom encountered by our participants. Similarly, early life trauma was not
found associated with acute stress response patterns, but exposure to early trauma was low in
this sample.
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Sex, Stress, and Cocaine: Enhanced Behavioral and Dopaminergic CrossSensitization and Prolonged Cocaine Binge in Socially Stressed Females
Elizabeth N. Holly, Akiko Shimamoto, Joseph F. DeBold, and Klaus A. Miczek
Tufts University
Brief episodes of social stress can result in cross-sensitization to cocaine in male rats,
characterized by augmented locomotor activation, dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens
(NAc), and cocaine taking during a 24 hour “binge”. However, females are more vulnerable
than males at each phase of cocaine addiction, and while these sex differences have been
replicated in rats, the role of social stress in females remains largely neglected.
Rats were subjected to four episodes, 72 hours apart, of social defeat by a same-sex aggressive
rat and assessed ten days later for (1)behavioral sensitization to cocaine as determined by
locomotor activity, (2)dopaminergic sensitization to cocaine as measured by in vivo
microdialysis of the NAc, or (3)intravenous self-administration of cocaine in an unlimited access
“binge”.
All stressed rats showed locomotor and neurochemical cross-sensitization to cocaine, but the
effect was more pronounced and longer lasting in females. For self-administration, while
stressed males and both groups of females had similar cocaine intake during the first 24 hours,
stressed females had a significantly longer “binge”.
These data suggest stressed females exhibit a more robust and longer lasting behavioral crosssensitization, as well as more disregulated cocaine taking, possibly due to alterations in the NAc
dopaminergic response.
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Characterization of the Basolateral Amygdala Pathways to the Medial
Prefrontal Cortex and Lateral Hypothalamus in Rats
C. J. Reppucci and G. D. Petrovich
Boston College
Our previous work has led to the emergence of a forebrain network critical to environmental
contributions in the control of feeding behavior. We use a model of cue-induced feeding in sated
states, where environmental cues acquire motivational properties and later stimulate feeding.
Within this model we have shown that the basolateral area of the amygdala (BLA-area), ventral
medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and their connections with the lateral hypothalamus (LHA)
are critical. We propose that cue-induced feeding involves BLA-area communication with the
LHA through a direct pathway, as well as an indirect pathway through the vmPFC.
In this study we aim to characterize these pathways through the use of neuroanatomical tracing
methods to determine whether the pathways for BLA-area communication with the vmPFC and
LHA originate in the same or different neurons. Two tracers (Fluoro-Gold, Cholera Toxin B
Subunit) were iontophoretically deposited; one into the vmPFC, and the other into the LHA.
After recovery, rats were sacrificed and their brains sectioned and immunohistochemically
stained for the tracers. Confirmation of injection site placement and an analysis of back-labeled
neurons in the BLA were then completed.
Our results suggest that the BLA-area pathways to the LHA and vmPFC originate in separate
neuronal populations.
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Clinical Psychology
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Preliminary Findings in the Effects of Neurofeedback Therapy on Depression
in Adolescents
Rachel Friedmana, Laurence Hirshbergb, Devon Harrisona, Ann Jankiea, Kristen Nearinga,
Matthew Nockc, and Emma van der Weerda
aTufts University, bBrown University, cHarvard University
Adolescent depression has been shown to have a significantly adverse impact on health,
development, and well-being, often persisting into adulthood. Neurofeedback, a drug-free
brainwave training therapy, provides immediate feedback that reinforces positive neural
circuitry, with the aim of reducing depressive symptoms and increasing self regulation.
Neurofeedback has been effective in treating depression in adults and in treating ADHD in
children and adolescents. As such, it holds promising potential to alleviate depressive
symptoms in adolescents. By promoting the brain’s plasticity, this study frames neurofeedback
as a way of learning how to improve brain functioning. Relieved of depressive symptoms,
adolescents will likely improve in cognitive, socio-emotional, behavioral, and academic
domains.
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Visual Inhibition in Depression
Daniel Nortona,b and Yue Chenb
aBoston University, bMcLean Hospital
Progress in understanding the functional changes in depressed brains has been hampered by
the fact that depressive symptoms are poorly understood at a neural level. Therefore, an
attractive method for understanding how the brain is functionally altered in depression is to
study processes which are altered in depression, but whose neural underpinnings are better
understood. One such process is center-surround suppression (CS) in the visual system, where
the perceptual and neural responses for a neural unit that encodes a central region in space are
suppressed in the presence of visual stimulation of a surrounding visual area.
The present study uses psychophysical methods to characterize CS in a series of visual domains,
and relates it to depressive symptomatology. Preliminary results trended as follows: depressed
patients tended to have increased center surround suppression early in the visual system (at the
levels of contrast and local motion), and less suppression at higher levels (motion integration).
Comparison of clinical symptoms with visual performance is not yet possible due to the small
sample size. When the sample size is expanded, a firmer conclusion about this visual process in
depression can be drawn and the relation between symptoms and abnormal CS suppression can
be evaluated.
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Cognition and Language
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How Control Beliefs Influence Older Adults' Gist-Based False Recognition
Margeaux Auslander and Angela Gutchess
Brandeis University
Older adults are more prone than younger adults to gist-based false recognition, which occurs
when people extract the gist, or general information about thematic content, but fail to encode
or retrieve item-specific distinguishing details. Memory errors seem to be driven by the amount
of related information, such that as the number of related studied items increases, the
percentage of items falsely recognized also increases. While older adults tend to rely on gist
information, control beliefs (perceptions about one’s abilities or competence and the extent to
which one can influence performance outcomes) may particularly contribute to their memory
performance.
We manipulated the strength of gist-based representations with different category sizes and
assessed level of control for both young and older adults. While control beliefs did not
influence errors for young adults, older adults with high control beliefs made more errors as
category size increased than those with low control beliefs.
These findings are contrary to our expectations, which may have to do with the confidence that
individuals with high control beliefs are likely to have regarding their memory. It may be that
they have become overconfident in their abilities, and are thus prone to making more errors.
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Quantifying Human Memory Capacity for Face Photographs
Wilma Alice Bainbridge, Phillip Isola, Idan Blank, and Aude Oliva
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Contemporary visual environments bombard us with hundreds of face images every day, and
this places a non-trivial demand on long-term memory. However, little is known about our
capacity to store face images, and it is unclear to what degree their memorability reliably varies.
To examine these issues, we assembled a database of 10,000 face photographs from online
sources, spanning diverse face and image characteristics. Workers on Amazon's Mechanical
Turk were asked to identify repetitions within a stream of these stimuli.
Average hit rate was 53.6%, demonstrating a remarkable capacity of long-term visual memory.
Variations in image memorability (hit rates, false alarm rates, and their interactions) were fairly
reliable across participants, suggesting that some face images are intrinsically more (or less)
memorable. We discuss future directions in modeling these results and potential scientific and
commercial applications.
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Effects of Sleep and Time of Day on Emotional Memory Retrieval: Evidence
from fMRI
Kelly A. Benniona, Elizabeth A. Kensingera, and Jessica D. Payneb
aBoston College, bThe University of Notre Dame
With sleep research, it is important to investigate circadian effects on memory to determine if
these contribute to differences in activity and memory performance after a delay spent asleep or
awake. The present study examines neural engagement on emotional memory retrieval as a
function of the time of testing (morning, evening) and study-test delay length (20-min, 12-hrs).
Participants viewed 124 scenes consisting of a negative or neutral object on a neutral
background, prior to a recognition test during fMRI. Sleep participants studied the images in
the evening, prior to sleep, while Wake participants studied in the morning and were tested in
the evening (~12-hour delay for both groups). Circadian control participants were tested in
either the morning or evening (~20-min delay).
Keeping time-of-testing constant, activity in the anterior PFC, OFC, and inferior temporal gyrus
increased as a function of delay length only when the delay interval included time awake.
Additionally, activity in the anterior PFC, dlPFC, and OFC differed as a function of time-oftesting after a short delay, with greater activity in Circadian-AM compared to Circadian-PM
participants. This effect is dampened with a long study-test delay, suggesting that circadian
effects may contribute to changes in the memory retrieval network.
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The Effect of Morphological Structure on Phonetic Processes
Naomi K. Berlove, Michael A. Caselli, and Ariel M. Cohen-Goldberg
Tufts University
A number of studies have suggested that morphological structure influences the phonetic
duration of multimorphemic words. Specifically, it has been suggested that suffixed words have
longer rhyme duration than homophonic monomorphemic words (e.g., [pes] is longer in
PACED than PASTE; Sugahara & Turk, 2009) and that suffix phonemes are longer in duration
than non-morphemic phonemes (e.g., [t] is longer in PACED than PASTE; Losiewicz 1995,
Walsh & Parker 1983). While these studies are convincing, they suffer from a variety of
drawbacks including small numbers of subjects and items and an experimental procedure that
may encourage participants to artificially introduce a contrast between mono- and
multimorphemic stimuli.
We conducted an analysis of a corpus of spontaneous speech collected from 40 speakers. Mixedeffects regressions were used to control for factors known to affect duration. Results and
theories of how morphological structure can influence phonetic processes will be discussed.
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Valence Evaluations Override Innate Salience of High-Arousal Words: The
Late Positivity as a Dynamic Measure of Emotional Relevance
Nathaniel Delaney-Buscha, Gianna Wilkiea, Ju Hyung Kima, Ann Yacoubiana, and Gina
Kuperberga,b,c
aTufts University, bMartinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, cMassachusetts General Hospital
We used event-related potentials to investigate the processing of pleasant, unpleasant, and
neutral words that were either high or low in arousal. In a previous study, we demonstrated
that when emotion is not task relevant, a late positive component (thought to reflect sustained
evaluations of emotional stimuli) is modulated by arousal, but not by valence: its amplitude
was larger to high than low arousal words, regardless of whether they were pleasant,
unpleasant, or neutral. But when arousal was matched, its amplitude was the same across the
three valence conditions.These findings suggest that, when emotion was irrelevant, sustained
evaluations were triggered by the inherent arousing properties of the words, rather than their
emotional valence.
We asked whether this was also true when participants overtly attended to valence. We
presented the same 468 single words to 22 new participants as they rated each word as pleasant,
unpleasant, or neutral. Word groups were carefully matched on concreteness, frequency, word
length, and other lexical properties.
In contrast to the previous study, the late positivity showed no difference between the high and
low arousal words. Instead, it showed a robust effect of valence, with pleasant and unpleasant
words eliciting a larger positivity than the neutral words. Taken together, our two studies
demonstrate that the late positivity is a dynamic indicator of immediate emotional relevance,
and is not directly connected to either valence or arousal.
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Effects of Semantic, Conceptual, and Structural Properties on the Production
of Complex Noun Phrases
Amy DiBattista and Neal J. Pearlmutter
Northeastern University
A set of picture-description experiments investigated the effects of semantic integration
(Solomon & Pearlmutter, 2004), description preference (Pearlmutter & Solomon, 2007), and
structural similarity on grammatical encoding processes in language production, by examining
ordering errors and production latencies. The goals were to determine the levels of processing
(Bock & Levelt, 1994) affected by integration; to examine the effects of syntactic properties on
exchange error production; and to explore incrementality versus competition in production.
Integration affected phrase- and word-ordering errors, suggesting functional- and positionallevel integration effects. Structural similarity increased the likelihood of phrase and word errors,
suggesting effects of syntactic similarity on errors previously seen only in corpora (Garrett,
1975). Integration and preference interacted in latencies and suggested generally incremental
processing for unintegrated stimuli and a more complex pattern for integrated stimuli.
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Reassessing the Development of Psychological Essentialism in the Social
Category of Gender
R. Cole Eidson and John D. Coley
Northeastern University
The theory of essentialism states that members of a particular category, such as gender, share a
core set of innate properties. The goal of the present study is to better understand the ways in
which people think about other people. Of particular interest is whether or not knowing
someone’s gender helps to make meaningful inferences about their traits, behaviors, or physical
appearance.
Subjects were presented with the Switched at Birth Task to determine whether implicit beliefs
about either gender or environmental factors contribute to predictions made about target
characters. To determine whether subjects made decisions based on implicit gender beliefs or
perceived social norms regarding gender, they completed tasks with or without time pressure.
The hypothesis is that adults will display essentialist biases when reasoning about gender.
Results showed that more participants exhibited consistent individual patterns of essentialist
reasoning under time pressure than under delay. This suggests that when given time to plan a
response, adults are more likely to inhibit their automatic essentialist thoughts about gender.
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Inhibition of Return is Independent of Simultaneous Endogenous Orienting
Quan Leia,b and Yan Baoa
aNortheastern University, bPeking University
The synergy between endogenous and exogenous attention is a fundamental aspect of human
information selection. Previous studies in which both exogenous cues and endogenous cues
were combined in a sequential manner have provided conflicting data with respect to whether
the inhibitory effect (in particular the inhibition of return, IOR effect) produced by exogenous
cues is affected by endogenous orienting.
In the present study we investigated this question by simultaneously presenting an informative
central arrow cue and a non-informative peripheral onset cue in a detection task with both short
and long cue-target intervals. Our results showed that IOR could be observed at both
endogenously cued and uncued locations, indicating a robust IOR effect independent of
simultaneous endogenous orienting.
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Source Localization of EEG Signals Generated during Sequence Learning and
Expectation Monitoring
Abigail Noyce and Robert Sekuler
Brandeis University
To characterize the neural responses that reflect subjects’ (i) sequence learning, and (ii) detection
of events that deviate from a familiar sequence, we asked subjects to learn novel visuomotor
sequences. In our task, subjects viewed a disk that traversed a quasi-random path comprising
five linear motion segments, and then tried to reproduce the disk’s trajectory from memory. The
fidelity of subjects’ imitations improved over four presentations of each such sequence.
A high-density EEG system recorded scalp electrical activity while subjects observed the disk’s
movements. ERPs to disk motion offset (at the pauses between trajectory segments) showed a
large decrease in amplitude from the first presentation to later repetitions; ERPs to motion onset
of each segment showed a smaller decrease. Using sLORETA and a realistic head model, the
EEG signal sources associated with these changes in ERP amplitude were localized to leftlateralized fronto-temporal areas, despite the visuospatial nature of our task.
During the final presentation of a sequence, we occasionally changed the direction of one
trajectory segment, disconfirming subjects’ expectations about the disk’s movement. When we
compared neural responses to standard versus deviant sequence items, we found a late,
positive-going ERP component that localized to the cingulate cortex. As this component’s
timing and localization matches those produced by response errors to discrete motor tasks, we
propose that the mechanisms that monitor the validity of sensory expectations are similar to
those that monitor response correctness.
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General Versus Specific Trait Memory Across Ages
Chad Nussinow and Angela Gutchess
Brandeis University
While some evidence suggests that age differences in memory can be ameliorated for
socioemotional information, it is unknown whether these effects extend to memory for specific
details (rather than general information) and across different aspects of socioemotional
information. The present study examined the ability of older and younger adults to remember
both specific traits and the general valence of those traits (positive or negative) for people they
encountered.
41 younger adults and 27 older adults viewed a set of 24 faces on a computer monitor, each
paired with a social trait describing the person as honest, liar, compassionate, or inconsiderate.
In a surprise memory task, participants selected which trait had been presented with each face.
It was hypothesized that while younger adults would show superior memory to older adults on
average, this would be particularly true for memory of specific traits rather than memory for
general valence (e.g., whether the trait was good or bad). Results indicated no age differences
for either specific trait or general valence memory. However, it was found that both age groups
showed increased memory for negative over positive traits.This supports prior research
showing this effect in younger adults and extends it to older adults.
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Causal Explanations and Perceptions of Children's Behaviors
Jennelle E. Yopchick and Nancy S. Kim
Northeastern University
Children with psychological problems are not always recognized as such, often do not receive
necessary treatment at critical developmental periods, and subsequently suffer more serious
dysfunction as adults (e.g., Garland et al., 2001). Why are children’s early warning-sign
behaviors overlooked? In the current work, we asked whether parents and non-parents
generate their own explanations for children’s potentially problematic behaviors, and how selfgenerated explanations affect judgments about the problematic nature of the behaviors.
In this study, parents and non-parents read vignettes depicting ambiguous child behaviors (i.e.,
not clearly problematic) and were asked either to generate their own explanation for the
behaviors, or only to read the vignettes. Participants then judged the problematic nature of the
behaviors by assessing four factors: psychological normality/health, statistical likelihood, sociocultural effects, and intervention need. Both parents and non-parents who generated
explanations rated the behaviors as more psychologically normal/healthy, more statistically
likely, having more positive socio-cultural effects, and being less in need of intervention than
did those who did not generate explanations.
These findings suggest that regardless of experience, judgments of the problematic nature of
ambiguous child behaviors can be influenced by self-generated explanations, providing one
potential reason why adults do not recognize psychological problems.
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Are Markedness Constraints Universal? Evidence from Mandarin Chinese
Speakers
Xu Zhao and Iris Berent
Northeastern University
How do speakers acquire the sound structure of their language? Optimality theory asserts that
all grammars share a set of well-formedness conditions called markedness constraints. To the
extent that these constraints are (a) universal and (b) active in early development, they could
further guide language acquisition. Our research examines this possibility.
The present case study concerns the constraints on onset clusters. Across languages, certain
onsets are preferred (e.g., more frequent) to others (preference: bl≻bn≻bd≻lb). We investigate
whether this full hierarchy is active in the grammar of Mandarin—a language that arguably
bans onset clusters and strictly constrains clusters elsewhere.
Results from an AX identity task showed a nearly-full effect of markedness, which remained
significant even after controlling for phonetic factors. We conclude that markedness constraints
might be universally active in adult grammars. These findings converge with evidence from
English-learning children to suggest that markedness constraints may guide language
acquisition.
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Developmental
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Relation of Parent Beliefs About Aggression to Changes in Children's Beliefs
and Actual Aggression Over Time
Erin Bishop and Malcolm Watson
Brandeis University
The goal of the present study is to analyze whether parent beliefs about aggression predict
change over time in children's beliefs about aggression and acts of aggression. We interviewed
333 mothers and their children four times over a seven year period. Questionnaires measured
parent beliefs about their children's aggression, children's beliefs about their aggression, and
parent reports of children's aggression.
Children's beliefs in the legitimate use of aggression increased over time, and these beliefs
increased at a faster rate for those with parents who were low on the aggressive beliefs scale
versus parents who were high on the scale. Also, parent beliefs predicted children’s actual
aggression and there was a time by parent beliefs interaction. Parents with highly favorable
attitudes about aggression had children who were more aggressive than average, and this
aggression increased over time. Parents low on the approval of aggression scale had children
who were less aggressive than average, and this aggression decreased over time.
Results indicate the in the long run, parents' beliefs about aggression make little difference in
their children's attitudes about aggression, but may have a large impact in children's actual acts
of aggression.
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The Interaction Effects of Timing of Bullying, Age and Family Relationships
on Delinquency and Aggression
Yoona Lee, Malcolm W. Watson, and Xiaodong Liu
Brandeis University
The first goal of this study was to investigate the effect of timing of bullying (i.e., occurring in
either childhood or adolescence) on developmental trajectories of externalizing problems.
Specifically, we examined (1) preceding experience of bullying exclusively in childhood and the
subsequent externalizing behaviors in adolescence (the Childhood-limited bullies’ Primacy risk)
and (2) experience of bullying exclusively in adolescence and their concurrent externalizing
behaviors in adolescence (the Adolescence-limited bullies’ Recency risk). Secondly, we assessed
whether positive family relationships, as a moderator, interact with the bully status groups over
time on subsequent risk behaviors.
The Childhood-limited bullies showed gradually reduced aggression (No Primacy risk,
significantly different trajectory from childhood to adolescence and intercept in adolescent from
Both-periods group), but still have risk of delinquency in adolescence (Primacy risk, similar to
the trajectory and intercept of Both-periods group). The Adolescence-limited bullies showed
trajectories and intercepts of delinquency and aggression similar to the Both Period group
(Recency risks). Only in aggression, the interaction effect of family relationships and bully status
groups over age was supported. Contrasted to the Both-periods bullies, the Adolescence-limited
bullies showed lesser impact of positive family relationships on aggression at their later ages
compared to that at their early ages.
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Sensation and Perception
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Change Detection as Probabilistic Inference under Variable Precision
Shaiyan Keshvaria, Ronald van den Bergb, and Wei Ji Mab
aMassachusetts Institute of Technology, bBaylor College of Medicine
Change detection, a leading paradigm for studying visual short-term memory (VSTM), is
generally believed to provide evidence for a fixed, discrete VSTM capacity of about four items.
Here, we introduce a very different conceptualization of change detection, namely as a form of
probabilistic inference under variable, continuous precision.
In the new model, the observer computes on each trial the probability of a change from the
noisy internal representations of the items. The precision of the representations is determined by
a continuous quantity that we identify with neural population gain. This precision decreases on
average inversely proportionally to set size, but is itself variable across items and trials. We
found that the model accurately describes human performance and outperforms previous
models in a formal model comparison.
In order to further test the specific claim that observers take into account knowledge of
encoding precision in order to perform optimally, we used a similar second change detection
experiment in which trial-to-trial and item-to-item reliability was varied unpredictably. We
determined again that precision fluctuates internally. We find that human subjects are able to
take into account on a trial-to-trial and item-to-item basis both external and internal variations
in precision during the task.
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Diminished V6 Activation in Response to Optic Flow Stimuli in Parkinson's
Disease: An fMRI Investigation
D. Putcha, R. S. Ross, M. L. Rosen, A. Cronin-Golomb, D. C. Somers, and C. E. Stern
Boston University
Evidence from recent studies suggest that Parkinson’s disease patients (PD) exhibit
impairments in perception, cognition, and gait that may be related to changes in parietal lobe
function. Altered perception of optic flow stimuli in PD as compared to age-matched controls
(MC) may underlie behavioral deficits including altered heading direction and veering, and
impaired navigational abilities (Davidsdottir et al., 2008; Young et al., 2010). In healthy young
adults, area V6 is located in the parieto-occipital region, and has been described as being highly
selective for encoding optic flow motion contrasted with random object motion. V6 has also
been suggested to be important for object and self-motion (Pitzalis et al., 2010). The objective of
this study was to determine if PD patients demonstrate altered BOLD activity in area V6 in
response to flow field stimulation compared to age-matched controls.
Preliminary analysis suggests that MC participants demonstrate a greater magnitude of
activation than PD participants in area V6 during both “flow motion” and “random motion”
conditions. Overall, MC participants also showed a greater magnitude of activation during the
contrast of flow motion vs. random motion.
These findings support the hypothesis that PD participants may demonstrate altered BOLD
activity in V6, a brain area thought to subserve object and self-motion processing. Data
collection is ongoing and future analysis linking these findings to other aspects of visuospatial
cognition will be explored.
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Social, Personality, and Emotion
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Emotion and Threat Detection: Expecting Guns Where There Are None
Jolie Baumann and David DeSteno
Northeastern University
Preliminary research has demonstrated the influential role of emotion in assessments of threat,
including even very rapid assessments that occur at the automatic level. It appears that
applicable emotions, emotions that provide information about the relative costs or opportunities
of acting in a given environment, introduce a bias that is characterized by increased vigilance
for relevant threats.
The current research explores potential mechanisms underlying an anger-based bias in gun
detection. In particular, we investigate whether anger could be increasing an individual’s
perceived likelihood of encountering certain classes of threat in the immediate environment, in
essence setting the priors for threats the mind “expects” to encounter.
Results suggest that the emotion-based bias in rapid assessments of threat occurs as a result of
executive failure, or an inability to control for biased expectancies.
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Is compassion a pleasant or unpleasant emotion?
Paul Condona and Lisa Feldman Barretta,b
aNortheastern University, ,bHarvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital
Two studies examined whether compassion feels pleasant or unpleasant. Participants
completed two tasks: first, after a neutral or compassion induction, they rated the similarity of
several different emotion-related adjectives; second, participants rated their own affective state
according to various emotion words. This data produced a cognitive representation of all
emotions in relation to each other, as well as self-reported ratings of all emotions in response to
different stimuli. We found that compassion is rated as similar to pleasant emotions in
participants’ cognitive representations, but self-reported compassion co-occurred with either
negative or positive emotions, depending on the stimulus presented.
33
Purity vs. Pain: Distinct Moral Concerns for Self vs. Other
James Dungana, Alek Chakroffb, and Liane Younga
aBoston College, bHarvard University
Recent efforts to partition the space of morality have focused on the descriptive content of
distinct moral domains (e.g., harm versus purity). Here, we introduce a novel dimension that
interacts with domain content to determine our intuitive moral judgments: whether the action
targets the self or another. Three studies demonstrate that when evaluating harmful actions (e.g.
burning someone’s hand) versus impure actions (e.g., contact with a taboo substance), people
judge morally worse (and less preferable) to harm versus defile another person, but morally
worse to defile versus harm the self. These behavioral patterns indicate distinct functions for
harm versus purity norms – purity norms protect us from our own actions and possible
contamination, whereas harm norms regulate (and limit) our negative impact on each other. The
findings suggest that a complete account of moral psychology must accommodate both the
content and target of moral actions.
34
Living with an Other-Race Roommate Shapes Whites’ Behavior in Subsequent
Diverse Settings
Sarah E. Gaither and Samuel R. Sommers
Tufts University
This study followed 95 same-race (White/White) and 45 interracial (White/non-White)
roommate pairings. Participants were tracked across three research phases during their first
year of college: two online survey phases and a third phase involving an in-lab interracial
interaction with a Black stranger. This design allowed us to evaluate the cognitive and
behavioral effects of previous interactions with either a same-race or other-race roommate.
After four months, results demonstrate positive effects stemming from having an other-race
roommate such as having a more diverse set of friends, thinking diversity is more important,
and learning more about oneself. After six months, positive effects were also seen through
participants’ self-reports, interaction partner ratings, and nonverbal behavior which revealed
that Whites with an other-race roommate were less anxious, more pleasant, and more physically
engaged during a novel interracial interaction with a Black stranger.
These results show that despite past research highlighting negative outcomes of having an
interracial roommate, residential contact with other-race individuals can affect race-related
attitudes, reduce interracial anxiety and positively affect behavior in subsequent diverse
settings, highlighting one pathway toward improving intergroup relations.
35
Dancers and the Deliberate Duchenne Smile
Sarah D. Gunnery & Judith A. Hall
Northeastern University
Recent research suggests that the Duchenne smile (thought to be an expression of genuine
enjoyment) can be made deliberately. This study investigated if participants who had previous
experience in different performance domains were more likely to deliberately make the
expression.
Participants acted out expressions of genuine happiness and posed happiness, and self reported
how many years they participated in different performance domains (dance, drama, etc.).
Duchenne smiling was measured using the Facial Action Coding System. Findings provide
further evidence that the Duchenne smile can be made deliberately (participants Duchenne
smiled 65% of the time). The performance variables that correlated with deliberate Duchenne
smiling (when controlling for gender) were number of years a person participated in dance
classes (r(105) = .33, p =.001) and dance recitals (r(105) = .31, p = .001).
This finding provides preliminary evidence for individual differences between people who
deliberately Duchenne smile and those who do not.
36
Blind Spots in Narcissists’ Self-Perceptions
Sun W. Park and C. Randall Colvin
Northeastern University
Narcissism is a characteristic of individuals who have excessive self-love and self-admiration.
Narcissists have overly positive self-images, and become aggressive and hostile when reality
does not confirm their self-images; they use other people as a means to boost their selfadmiration, which eventually leads to failed interpersonal relationships (Morf & Rhodewalt,
2001). It has been documented that younger generations are more narcissistic than older
generations (Twenge et al., 2008), casting concerns about younger generations’ psychological
well-being. The present study examined how narcissists are perceived by self and friends.
Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988). Each
participant and two close friends rated the participant’s personality characteristics on the 100item California Adult Q-Sort (CAQ; Block, 2008). The CAQ assesses a wide range of behavioral,
cognitive, and emotional characteristics. Narcissism scores were related to CAQ ratings by self
and friends.
The results indicated that narcissists, as expected, perceived themselves very favorably. They
described themselves as being “personally charming” and “interesting and colorful.” In
contrast, friends perceived narcissists such as being “subtly negativistic” and “self-defensive.”
Participants’ and friends’ ratings of narcissists showed overlap only on relatively neutral
characteristics (e.g., talkative). These findings highlight the discrepancy between self and
friends’ perceptions of narcissists.
37
Cognition and Emotion in Children’s Moral Acquisition
J. Rottman and D. Kelemen
Boston University
What are the independent and joint roles of emotion and cognition in acquiring purity-based
morals? To address this question, 64 seven-year-olds were shown pictures of anthropomorphic
aliens engaged in unfamiliar activities, and they were asked to judge whether these actions were
wrong or OK.
Relative to a control condition matched for informational complexity, children made elevated
wrongness judgments in a “disgust only” condition, in which they were tested in a room filled
with a disgusting ambient smell and were told that the aliens’ behaviors were gross. The
response pattern was similar in a “norm only” condition, in which only half of the aliens were
engaged in each action and participants were told that the behaviors were unnatural. However,
it was only in a condition that included both disgusting and normatively relevant information
that children showed robust tendencies to judge the actions as wrong.
This study therefore demonstrates that emotion and cognition work in concert such that moral
acquisition occurs most readily when both factors are involved.
38
A Lens Model Approach to Understanding Acute Pain
Mollie A. Ruben & Judith A. Hall
Northeastern University
The purpose of this research was to examine the expression of pain, nonverbal cues related to
the experience of pain and the detection of pain utilizing the lens model approach.
Through a series of three studies participants were asked to show a genuine pain expression
during an acute laboratory pain stressor. We examined what nonverbal cues of pain were
related to the pain experience as well as judgments of pain. The cues that led to accurate
detection of pain were also examined. Encoders in more pain showed more open cues such as
opening their mouth more and widening their eyes. Decoders often used the wrong cues to
infer the amount of pain the encoders were experiencing which negatively affected their
accuracy.
These results contribute to the existing literature on pain expression and detection and highlight
the potential for training, practice, or feedback that may improve accurate pain detection in
future investigation.
39
Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message? Exploring Reactions to Racial
Bias
Jennifer Schultz and Keith Maddox
Tufts University
Two experiments examined aspects of the communicator, message, and audience in producing
evaluative backlash toward minorities who make claims of racial discrimination.
In Experiment 1, participants evaluated a White or Black confederate who gave a speech
expressing no claim, a weak claim, or a strong claim of racial bias. Results indicated a racespecific evaluative backlash: participants more negatively rated Black compared to White
communicators, but only when the claim was strong. Experiment 2 found that participants
more negatively rated Black (vs. White) communicators when they used low quality arguments;
but, this backlash was eliminated when Black communicators used high quality arguments.
Furthermore, participants who held stronger meritocracy beliefs and who heard low quality
arguments were the source of evaluative backlash.
Overall, these findings clarify the conditions under which people from advantaged groups are
most likely to recognize legitimate claims of discrimination and to respond favorably to the
communicator.
40
The effects of achievement goals and difficult, specific goals on complex
Remote Associate Task performance
Allison E. Seitchik and Steven G. Harkins
Northeastern University
Past research suggests that performance-approach goals lead to better performance than
performance-avoidance goals (e.g., Elliot et al., 2005), and that difficult, specific goals lead to
better performance than do-your-best goals (e.g., Locke & Latham, 2006). However, these
research traditions have used what appear to be simple tasks.
In the current research, after receiving an achievement goal (mastery, performance-approach, or
performance-avoidance) and either no specific goal or a difficult, specific goal (i.e., strive to
solve 10 correct), participants attempted to solve 20 difficult Remote Associate items.
Consistent with past research, without the specific goal, performance-approach participants
outperformed performance-avoidance participants. However, with the specific goal, this
relationship was reversed: performance-approach participants performed worse than
performance-avoidance participants. Mastery goal participants were not influenced by the
specific goal. These findings demonstrate the benefit of integrating these two traditions in an
account that also considers the role of task difficulty.
41