Juan I. Capafóns

A reattributional training program as a therapeutic strategy for fear of flying

In this study the results for the validation of a reattributional training program applied to the fear of flying are presented. The program is made up of 13 (+/- 1) sessions and consists of three phases: Information; reattributional training; and the elaboration and application of the treatment designed by the patient with the help of the therapist. The program was applied to 24 patients while 24 other patients made up the waiting control group. The therapeutic success was evaluated by means of self-report scales, and by recording psychophysiological variables in a situation in which subjects viewed a video tape of a flight. Significant differences were obtained from the ANOVAs between experimental and control groups in all of the self-reported variables (p < 0.001) and in some of the psychophysiological variables (p < 0.05). The results support the effectiveness of the program.

The Assessment of Fear of Flying: Elaboration and Validation of a Videotape as an Analogous Situation of a Flight1

The results are presented for the validation of a videotape as an analogous situation for a flight. The video includes the most significant elements of a flight by air: confirmation of the flight, packing, going to the airport, checking-in, going through the metal-detector, departure lounge, boarding the plane, demonstration of the personal safety drills, interiors and exteriors during the flight and landing. Two physiological measures are used for validation (heart rate and temperature) and a subjective measure (situational anxiety, SA). The results (both t-tests and the discriminant analysis) indicate that the videotape is able to discriminate between phobics and non-phobics of flying in the three variables considered. With respect to sensitivity in detecting change produced by various treatments in clients with phobia of flying, the results are also satisfactory. A greater differentiation is produced between the pre-post treatment measures, both in subjective and in the physiological measures.

Adaptive attunement of selective covert attention to evolutionary-relevant emotional visual scenes

We investigated selective attention to emotional scenes in peripheral vision, as a function of adaptive relevance of scene affective content for male and female observers. Pairs of emotional-neutral images appeared peripherally-with perceptual stimulus differences controlled-while viewers were fixating on a different stimulus in central vision. Early selective orienting was assessed by the probability of directing the first fixation towards either scene, and the time until first fixation. Emotional scenes selectively captured covert attention even when they were task-irrelevant, thus revealing involuntary, automatic processing. Sex of observers and specific emotional scene content (e.g., male-to-female-aggression, families and babies, etc.) interactively modulated covert attention, depending on adaptive priorities and goals for each sex, both for pleasant and unpleasant content. The attentional system exhibits domain-specific and sex-specific biases and attunements, probably rooted in evolutionary pressures to enhance reproductive and protective success. Emotional cues selectively capture covert attention based on their bio-social significance.