Pavel Goldstein

Targeting Biased Emotional Attention to Threat as a Dynamic Process in Time Attention Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT)

Recent findings suggest biases of emotional attention (BEA) may be expressed dynamically, fluctuating from moment to moment between overengagement and avoidance of emotional stimuli. We attempted to modify these temporal dynamics of BEA to threat among trait-anxious adults (N = 61) using Attention Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT). A-FACT is a novel intervention methodology that delivers real-time feedback to a person concurrent with her/his dynamic BEA expression. We found that relative to a placebo control condition, A-FACT led to significantly reduced BEA dynamics toward and away from threat, temporal variability in BEA, and emotional reactivity to an anxiogenic stressor. Findings illustrate that BEA may be optimally conceptualized and quantified as a dynamic process in time and that intervention methods sensitive to and capable of targeting BEA process dynamics in real time—as in A-FACT—represent a promising new direction for cognitive bias modification research.

Expertise in Musical Improvisation and Creativity: The Mediation of Idea Evaluation

The current study explored the influence of musical expertise, and specifically training in improvisation on creativity, using the framework of the twofold model, according to which creativity involves a process of idea generation and idea evaluation. Based on the hypothesis that a strict evaluation phase may have an inhibiting effect over the generation phase, we predicted that training in improvisation may have a “releasing effect” on the evaluation system, leading to greater creativity. To examine this hypothesis, we compared performance among three groups - musicians trained in improvisation, musicians not trained in improvisation, and non-musicians - on divergent thinking tasks and on their evaluation of creativity. The improvisation group scored higher on fluency and originality compared to the other two groups. Among the musicians, evaluation of creativity mediated how experience in improvisation was related to originality and fluency scores. It is concluded that deliberate practice of improvisation may have a “releasing effect” on creativity.

Dietary sodium, added salt, and serum sodium associations with growth and depression in the U.S. general population☆

It is not known why salt is so attractive to humans. Here, guided by hypotheses suggesting that the attraction of salt is conditioned by postingestive benefits, we sought to establish whether there are such benefits in a population by analyzing the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2008 database (n = ~ 10,000). We focus on two potential benefits supported by the literature, growth and moderation of depression, and examine their relationship to sodium, dietary, added at table, and serum. We find that during growth (<18 years), there is a specific increase in adjusted dietary sodium intake, independent of caloric or other electrolyte intakes. We find that adding salt and depression are related. In contrast, and in women only, dietary sodium and depression are inversely related. The relationships are correlational, but we speculate that this constellation may reflect self-medication for depression by adding salt, and that men may be protected by their higher dietary sodium intake. Additional findings are that women add more salt than men below age ~30, after which men add more, and below 40 years of age, serum sodium is lower in women than in men. It remains possible that small but beneficial effects of sodium could condition salt preference and thus contribute to population-wide sodium intake.

The role of touch in regulating inter-partner physiological coupling during empathy for pain

The human ability to synchronize with other individuals is critical for the development of social behavior. Recent research has shown that physiological inter-personal synchronization may underlie behavioral synchrony. Nevertheless, the factors that modulate physiological coupling are still largely unknown. Here we suggest that social touch and empathy for pain may enhance interpersonal physiological coupling. Twenty-two romantic couples were assigned the roles of target (pain receiver) and observer (pain observer) under pain/no-pain and touch/no-touch conditions, and their ECG and respiration rates were recorded. The results indicate that the partner touch increased interpersonal respiration coupling under both pain and no-pain conditions and increased heart rate coupling under pain conditions. In addition, physiological coupling was diminished by pain in the absence of the partner’s touch. Critically, we found that high partner’s empathy and high levels of analgesia enhanced coupling during the partner’s touch. Collectively, the evidence indicates that social touch increases interpersonal physiological coupling during pain. Furthermore, the effects of touch on cardio-respiratory inter-partner coupling may contribute to the analgesic effects of touch via the autonomic nervous system.

Face or body? Oxytocin improves perception of emotions from facial expressions in incongruent emotional body context

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has been repeatedly reported to play an essential role in the regulation of social cognition in humans in general, and specifically in enhancing the recognition of emotions from facial expressions. The later was assessed in different paradigms that rely primarily on isolated and decontextualized emotional faces. However, recent evidence has indicated that the perception of basic facial expressions is not context invariant and can be categorically altered by context, especially body context, at early perceptual levels. Body context has a strong effect on our perception of emotional expressions, especially when the actual target face and the contextually expected face are perceptually similar. To examine whether and how OT affects emotion recognition, we investigated the role of OT in categorizing facial expressions in incongruent body contexts. Our results show that in the combined process of deciphering emotions from facial expressions and from context, OT gives an advantage to the face. This advantage is most evident when the target face and the contextually expected face are perceptually similar.

Decentering in the process of cultivating mindfulness: An experience-sampling study in time and context.

Objective: Through intensive experience sampling, we studied the practice and development of mindfulness as a dynamic process in time and context. We focused on role(s) and salutary function(s) of mindfulness and decentering for emotional experience over the course of mindfulness practice and development. Method: Eighty-two meditation-naive adults from the general community, 52% women, Mage (SD) = 25.05 (3.26) years, participated in a 1-month, 6-session, Mahasi-based mindfulness-training intervention (Mahasi, 1978). We collected 52 digital experience samples of mindfulness, decentering, and emotional experience, in the context of daily living and meditative states, over the course of the program. Results: Data were analyzed via time-varying effects models (TVEMs) and mixed-linear models (MLMs) within a single-subject, multiple-baseline experimental design. First, over the course of the intervention, participants grew more mindful and decentered in daily living and meditative states. Second, the association between mindfulness and decentering was significant in daily living, although the magnitude of this association was stronger in meditative states. Third, we observed the same contextualized pattern of relations between mindfulness and emotional valence (happy > sad) as well as arousal (calm > nervous). Finally, whereas decentering mediated the effect of mindfulness on reduced emotional arousal in meditative states, it did not similarly mediate the effect of mindfulness on positive emotional valence. Conclusions: The present findings illustrate the insights that may be gained about mindfulness mechanisms broadly and decentering specifically through the study of mindfulness as a dynamic, contextualized developmental process over time.

Two-stage genome-wide search for epistasis with implementation to Recombinant Inbred Lines (RIL) populations

Objective and Methods This paper proposes an inegrative two-stage genome-wide search for pairwise epistasis on expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL). The traits are clustered into multi-trait complexes that account for correlations between them that may result from common epistasis effects. The search is done by first screening for epistatic regions and then using dense markers within the identified regions, resulting in substantial reduction in the number of tests for epistasis. The FDR is controlled using a hierarchical procedure that accounts for the search structure. Each combination of trait and marker-pair is tested using a model that accounts for both statistical and functional interpretations of epistasis and considers orthogonal effects, such that their contributions to heritability can be estimated individually. We examine the impact of using multi-trait complexes rather than single traits, and of using a hierarchical search for epistasis rather than skipping the initial screen for epistatic regions. We apply the proposed algorithm on Arabidopsis transcription data. Principal Findings Both epistasis detection power and heritability contributed by epistasis increased when using multi-trait complexes rather than single traits. Epistatic effects common to the eQTLs included in the complexes have higher chance of being identified by analysis of multi-trait complexes, particularly when epistatic effects on individual traits are small. Compared to direct testing for all potential epistatic effects, the hierarchical search was substantially more powerful in detecting epistasis, while controlling the FDR at the desired level. Association in functional roles within genomic regions was observed, supporting an initial screen for epistatic QTLs.

Meta-Awareness of Dysregulated Emotional Attention

We explore the human capacity for and the function(s) of meta-awareness for biased attentional processing of emotional information (MAB) subserving mental (ill) health. We do so by integrating probe-caught sampling methods, signal detection theory, and multilevel modeling of cognitive-experimental laboratory data among daily smokers (N = 75) known to exhibit biased attentional processing of reward-related (drug) cues in addiction. We found (a) evidence of the capacity for and individual differences in MAB; (b) that momentary MAB was most likely observed in the event of the most extreme micro-expressions of biased attentional processing; and (c) that momentary micro-expressions of biased attention without MAB were more likely followed by attentional dysregulation, whereas momentary micro-expressions of biased attention with MAB were more likely followed by more balanced attentional expression or greater attentional control. We discuss the implications for basic and clinical science of meta-awareness.