Aaron R. Duley

Emotion and Motor Control: Movement Attributes Following Affective Picture Processing

The authors investigated the impact of emotion on the performance of a square-tracing task after participants (N = 40) were exposed to pleasant (P), unpleasant (U), and neutral (N) pictures. Physiological and self-report measures indexed affective valence and arousal. In Experiment 1, greater error followed exposure to 4 consecutive U images than exposure to 4 consecutive P images. Speed of performance did not vary as a function of valence. In Experiment 2, participants viewed 1 slide per trial within a modified exposure protocol. Speed of performance varied as a function of valence; faster performance followed U relative to P stimuli. Accuracy of performance did not vary between conditions. Corresponding self-report and physiological measures generally corroborated previous evidence. Findings collectively indicated that the length of exposure to affective stimuli mediates speed and accuracy of motor performance; compared with P stimuli, U stimuli led to either increased error (short exposure) or increased speed (multiple exposures). The authors conclude that brief and extended exposures to affective pictures have direct behavioral consequences, and they discuss the implications of that finding.

Coupled bilateral movements and active neuromuscular stimulation: Intralimb transfer evidence during bimanual aiming

Motor improvements in chronic stroke recovery accrue from coupled protocols of bilateral movements and active neuromuscular stimulation. This experiment investigated coupled protocols and within-limb transfer between distal and proximal joint combinations. The leading question focused on within-limb transfer of coupled protocols on distal joints to a bimanual aiming task that involved proximal joints. Twenty-six volunteers completed one of three motor recovery protocols according to group assignments: (1) coupled bilateral involved concurrent wrist/finger movements on the unimpaired limb coupled with active stimulation on the impaired limb; (2) unilateral/active stimulation involved neuromuscular electromyogram-triggered stimulation on the impaired wrist/fingers; and (3) no protocol (control group). During the pretest and posttest, subjects performed transverse plane target aiming movements (29 cm) with vision available. The coupled bilateral group showed positive intralimb transfer post-treatment when both arms moved simultaneously. During the posttest, the coupled bilateral group displayed improved movement time, higher peak limb velocity, less variability in peak velocity, and less percentage of total movement time in the deceleration phase than during the pretest. The evidence confirms that within-limb transfer from distal joint training to proximal joint combinations is viable and generalizable in chronic stroke rehabilitation. Moreover, these intralimb transfer findings extend the evidence favoring motor improvements for coupled bilateral protocols during chronic stroke.

Effects of abstinence from habitual involvement in regular exercise on feeling states: An ecological momentary assessment study

Regular exercise was experimentally reduced to determine its effects on positive feeling states. Using ecological momentary assessments, 40 participants maintained their regular exercise routine on 3 days and were deprived of their scheduled exercise on 3 other days. They recorded their feeling states, using the Exercise-Induced Feeling Inventory, four times daily as well as prior to and following exercise. Multi-level modelling analyses controlling for diurnal variations in feeling states revealed that positive feeling states were elevated on days when exercise deprivation occurred compared with non-exercise days and when no deprivation manipulation occurred. People with lower exercise dependence symptoms felt better on days when they were deprived from exercise compared with non-exercise days, whereas people with higher exercise dependence symptoms felt about the same when they were deprived from exercise compared with non-exercise days. These findings demonstrate that positive feeling states occur following an acute bout of exercise and that exercise deprivation had a positive impact on feeling states, with the level of exercise dependence symptoms moderating this effect.

The time course of attentional allocation while women high and low in body dissatisfaction view self and model physiques.

The purpose of this study was to examine trait levels of dissatisfaction with specific bodily regions and attentional characteristics associated with those regions among women high (HBD, n = 15) and low (LBD, n = 14) in body dissatisfaction. Separate laboratory visits were completed, during, which eye movements were recorded as participants viewed slides of self-physiques or model-physiques. Comparisons of search tendencies were made across the entire 5 s of slide presentation, and then within each of the ten 500 ms epochs that comprised the 5 s viewing period. The HBD group made initial fixations to the pelvis region proportionately more than the LBD group, and avoided looking at their own bodies relative to the LBD group. They also viewed the models legs significantly longer than the LBD group. When considering the time course of attentional allocation, the HBD group preferentially viewed areas typical of dissatisfaction during the latter viewing periods, regardless of whether they were looking at themselves or the model. Results are discussed in the context of an integrated social cognitive view with regard to the formation of a negative body schema that both results from and then perpetuates the negative affective consequences that characterize individuals who are symptomatic for eating disorders.

An open-source LabVIEW application toolkit for phasic heart rate analysis in psychophysiological research.

The cardiovascular system has been extensively measured in a variety of research and clinical domains. Despite technological and methodological advances in cardiovascular science, the analysis and evaluation of phasic changes in heart rate persists as a way to assess numerous psychological concomitants. Some researchers, however, have pointed to constraints on data analysis when evaluating cardiac activity indexed by heart rate or heart period. Thus, an off-line application toolkit for heart rate analysis is presented. The program, written with National Instruments’ LabVIEW, incorporates a variety of tools for off-line extraction and analysis of heart rate data. Current methods and issues concerning heart rate analysis are highlighted, and how the toolkit provides a flexible environment to ameliorate common problems that typically lead to trial rejection is discussed. Source code for this program may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive atwww.psychonomic.org/archive/.