Digital Commons Network^™

Metacognition Is Prior, Justin J. Couchman, Mariana V.C. Coutinho, Michael J. Beran, J. David Smith

Language Research Center

We agree with Carruthers that evidence for metacognition in species lacking mindreading provides dramatic evidence in favor of the metacognition-is-prior account and against the mindreading-is-prior account. We discuss this existing evidence and explain why an evolutionary perspective favors the former account and poses serious problems for the latter account.

The Curious Incident Of The Capuchins, J. David Smith, Michael J. Beran, Justin J. Couchman, Marianna V.C. Coutinho, Joseph B. Boomer

Language Research Center

No abstract provided.

Animal Metacognition: Problems And Prospects, J. David Smith, Michael J. Beran, Justin J. Couchman, Mariana V.C. Coutinho, Joseph B. Boomer

Language Research Center

Researchers have begun to evaluate whether nonhuman animals share humans’ capacity for metacognitive monitoring and self-regulation. Using perception, memory, numerical, and foraging paradigms, they have tested apes, capuchins, a dolphin, macaques, pigeons, and rats. However, recent theoretical and formal-modeling work has confirmed that some paradigms allow the criticism that low-level associative mechanisms could create the appearance of uncertainty monitoring in animals. This possibility has become a central issue as researchers reflect on existing phenomena and pause to evaluate the area’s current status. The present authors discuss the associative question and offer our evaluation of the field. Associative mechanisms explain poorly …

School Counselor Educators As Educational Leaders Promoting Systemic Change, H. George Mcmahon, Erin Mason, Pamela O. Paisley

Counseling and Psychological Services Faculty Publications

If the full impact of the transformation of the school counseling profession is to be enacted, it is incumbent upon school counselor educators to model the same skills and professional mindset that are expected of practicing school counselors. Specifically, school counselor educators can serve as leaders within their educational communities in order to promote systemic change that will remove barriers to student success. The notion of school counselor educators as educational leaders represents a philosophical and behavioral congruence that churns the professional ecosystem, from the professor to the practitioner to the P-12 student. This article outlines the role that school …

Leadership Practices Of School Counselors, Erin Mason, H. George Mcmahon

Counseling and Psychological Services Faculty Publications

Leadership is a vital skill called for by the school counseling profession. However, limited research has been done to examine how leadership is characterized by practicing school counselors. The purpose of the exploratory study in this article was to assess leadership practices of school counselors, and to analyze the relationships among demographics, experience, training, work setting, and leadership practices. Results presented are part of a larger study. Findings revealed that age, experience, size of school population, and professional licensure predicted leadership practices of school counselors.

A Randomized Controlled Trial Of The Shotblocker® For Children’S Immunization Distress, Jean E. Cobb, Lindsey L. Cohen

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objectives: Vaccinations protect children against deadly diseases and approximately 30 immunizations are recommended for children by 6 years of age. However, immunization injections cause negative short- and long-term consequences for children. The Gate Control Theory of Pain suggests that physical interventions (e.g., rubbing the site) may be helpful, but they are not well validated for children’s acute pain. This randomized trial examined the effectiveness of the ShotBlocker®, a physical intervention designed to decrease children’s injection pain.

Methods: Participants included 89 4- to 12-year-old children receiving immunizations at a pediatric practice. Participants were randomized to ShotBlocker®, placebo control, or typical care …

A Randomized Clinical Trial Of Vapocoolant For Pediatric Immunization Pain Relief, Lindsey L. Cohen, Jill E. Maclaren, Melissa Demore, Beverly Fortson, Abby Friedman, Crystal S. Lim, Balram Gangaram

Psychology Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of vapocoolant for preschoolers’ immunization injection pain relief.

STUDY DESIGN: 57 4- to 6-year-old children were randomized to vapocoolant alone or typical care conditions. Pain was measured at baseline and at injection via self-report, caregiver-report, nurse-report, and an observational scale.

RESULTS: Self-report suggested that children in the vapocoolant alone condition demonstrated stronger increases in pain from baseline to injection than typical care. All other measures showed significant increases in pain from baseline to injection, but none indicted treatment effects.

CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with prior studies, vapocoolant might not be …

Behavioral Approaches For Infant Pain Relief, Naomi E. Joffe, Lindsey L. Cohen, Donald J. Bearden, Josie S. Welkom

Psychology Faculty Publications

Infants experience a host of painful medical procedures including heel sticks, venipuncture, and immunizations. Historically, little attention was given to infant pain management due to misconceived myths and beliefs about the experience and long-term effects of pain in infants. Recent data suggest that there are both short- and long-term negative repercussions associated with unmanaged infant pain. In response, a number of non-pharmacological approaches have been developed to provide infants with pain relief associated with medical events. This paper will review these behavioral approaches including positioning, parent training, distraction, sucrose, and skin-to-skin contact. Recommendations for best practices will be provided and …

Assessment Of Acute Pediatric Pain, Don J. Bearden, Lindsey L. Cohen, Josie Welkom, Naomi Joffe

Psychology Faculty Publications

Accurate assessment of acute pediatric pain can help dispel myths that children’s experience of pain is less severe than that of adults, aid medical staff and clinicians in accurately diagnosing and treating children’s pain, and allow researchers to investigate pain and its correlates. A range of measures have been developed to quantify children’s acute pain. In general, these assessment tools are either self-report, behavioral observation, or physiological. Although there are a number of psychometrically sound instruments in each of these areas, there continues to be room for improvement.

The Role Of Psychological Flexibility In Mental Health Stigma And Psychological Distress For The Stigmatizer, Akihiko Masuda, Matthew Price, Page L. Anderson, Stefan K. Schmertz, Martha R. Calamaras

Psychology Faculty Publications

Although the negative consequences of stigmatization on those with psychological disorders have been well-documented, little is known about the impact of stigmatization on individuals who report having such stigmatizing attitudes. The present set of studies first investigated whether there was a link between stigmatizing attitudes toward people with psychological disorders and one’s own level of psychological distress. In addition, psychological flexibility was explored as a possible facet of this relation. As predicted, results revealed that there was a significant positive correlation between mental health stigma and psychological distress. Furthermore, the results suggested that psychological flexibility may be a shared feature …

Psychological Approaches To Acute Pediatric Pain Management, Josie S. Welkon, Lindsey L. Cohen, Naomi E. Joffe, Donald J. Bearden

Psychology Faculty Publications

Children endure numerous acute painful events, most of which occur within the medical arena. For instance, by the time a child reaches the age of 6, the child will have experienced approximately 30 immunization injections (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2008). Grounded in the Gate Control Theory (Melzack & Wall, 1965), psychological methods of pain management have focused on anxiety and pain management via behavioral means. In addition, ample research has been devoted to how best to prepare children and their parents for upcoming painful or distress-provoking procedures (e.g., surgery, hospitalization, injection). This paper will review the preparation literature, …

Cebus Apella Tolerate Intermittent Unreliability In Human Experimenters, Sarah F. Brosnan, Frans B.M. De Waal

Psychology Faculty Publications

Monkeys form expectations for outcomes based on interactions with human experimenters. Not only do they anticipate receiving rewards which the experimenter indicates, but capuchin monkeys, a cooperative new world monkey species, apparently anticipate rewards based on what the experimenter has given to their partner. However, this could be due to subjects responding to either outcomes or experimenters. Here we examine whether capuchin monkeys will continue to interact with human experimenters who are occasionally unreliable. We tested ten monkeys with a series of familiar human experimenters using an exchange task. The experimenters had never before participated in exchange studies with these …

Trading Behavior Between Conspecifics In Chimpanzees, Pan Troglodytes, Sarah F. Brosnan, Michael J. Beran

Psychology Faculty Publications

Bartering of commodities between individuals is a hallmark of human behavior that is not commonly seen in other species. This is difficult to explain because barter is mutually beneficial, and appears to be within the cognitive capabilities of many species. It may be that other species do not recognize the gains of trade, or that they do not experience conditions (e.g., low risk) in which barter is most beneficial. To answer these questions, we instituted a systematic study of chimpanzees’ ability to barter with each other when doing so materially benefits them. Using tokens derived from symbols they have used …

Animal Behavior: The Right Tool For The Job, Sarah F. Brosnan

Psychology Faculty Publications

A recent discovery that wild capuchins choose a functionally appropriate tool from a set of apparently similar tools casts new light on our understanding of how animals understand complex tasks.

Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes) Do Not Develop Contingent Reciprocity In An Experimental Task, Sarah F. Brosnan, Joan B. Silk, Joseph Henrich, Mary C. Mareno, Susan P. Lambeth, Steven J. Shapiro

Psychology Faculty Publications

Chimpanzees provide help to unrelated individuals in a broad range of situations. The pattern of helping within pairs suggests that contingent reciprocity may have been an important mechanism in the evolution of altruism in chimpanzees. However, correlational analyses of the cumulative pattern of interactions over time do not demonstrate that helping is contingent upon previous acts of altruism, as required by the theory of reciprocal altruism. Experimental studies provide a controlled approach to examine the importance of contingency in helping interactions. In this study, we evaluated whether chimpanzees would be more likely to provide food to a social partner from …

A Melding Of The Minds: When Primatology Meets Personality And Social Psychology, Sarah F. Brosnan, Nicholas E. Newton-Fisher, Mark Van Vugt

Psychology Faculty Publications

Social/personality psychology and behavioral primatology both enjoy long histories of research aimed at uncovering the proximate and ultimate determinants of primate--human and nonhuman--social behavior. Although they share research themes, methodologies and theories, and their studied species are closely related, there is currently very little interaction between the fields. This separation means that researchers in these disciplines miss out on opportunities to advance understanding by combining insights from both fields. Social/personality psychologists additionally miss the opportunity for a phylogenetic analysis. The time has come to integrate perspectives on primate social psychology. Here we provide a historical background and document the main …

Does Language About Similarity Play A Role In Fostering Similarity Comparison In Children?, Seyda Özçalışkan, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Dedre Gentner, Carolyn Mylander

Psychology Faculty Publications

Commenting on perceptual similarities between objects stands out as an important linguistic achievement, one that may pave the way towards noticing and commenting on more abstract relational commonalities between objects. To explore whether having a conventional linguistic system is necessary for children to comment on different types of similarity comparisons, we observed four children who had not been exposed to usable linguistic input – deaf children whose hearing losses prevented them from learning spoken language and whose hearing parents had not exposed them to sign language. These children developed gesture systems that have language-like structure at many different levels. Here …

Using Acceptance And Commitment Therapy During Methadone Dose Reduction: Rationale, Treatment Description, And A Case Report, A. L. Stotts, Akihiko Masuda, K. Wilson

Psychology Faculty Publications

Many clients who undergo methadone maintenance (MM) treatment for heroin and other opiate dependence prefer abstinence from methadone. Attempts at methadone detoxification are often unsuccessful, however, due to distressing physical as well as psychological symptoms. Outcomes from a MM client who voluntarily participated in an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) – based methadone detoxification program are presented. The program consisted of a 1-month stabilization and 5-month gradual methadone dose reduction period, combined with weekly individual ACT sessions. Urine samples were collected twice weekly to assess for use of illicit drugs. The participant successfully completed the program and had favorable drug …

A Parametric Study Of Cognitive Defusion And The Believability And Discomfort Of Negative Self-Relevant Thoughts, Akihiko Masuda, S. C. Hayes, J. Lillis, Y. Washio, M. P. Twohig, C. Drossel

Psychology Faculty Publications

A previous time series study showed that rapidly repeating a single word version of a negative self-referential thought reduced the discomfort and the believability associated with that thought. The present parametric study examined whether durations of word repetition were differentially effective in altering the discomfort and believability of negative self-referential thought. In two studies, both discomfort and believability varied systematically with the duration of word repetition. The effects of rapid repetition on emotional discomfort bottomed out after 3 to 10 seconds of rapid repetition, while the effects on believability did so after 20 to 30 seconds of repetition. This study …

The Relation Between Psychological Flexibility And Mental Health Stigma In Acceptance And Commitment Therapy: A Preliminary Process Investigation., Akihiko Masuda, S. C. Hayes, J. Lillis, K. Bunting, S. A. Herbst, L. B. Fletcher

Psychology Faculty Publications

The present study examined the relation between changes in psychological flexibility and changes in mental health stigma in the context of a 2.5-hour long Acceptance and Commitment Therapy group workshop for reducing mental health stigma. Of 27 college undergraduates who attended the workshop, 22 completed one-month follow-up assessments, and their data were used for analyses. Results revealed that mental health stigma reduced significantly at post-treatment, and these reductions were maintained at one-month follow-up. The degree of improvement in psychological flexibility from pre to follow-up was found to be significantly correlated with the degree of reduction in mental health stigma from …

Behavioral And Neural Representation Of Emotional Facial Expressions Across The Lifespan, Leah Somerville, Fani Negar, Erin Tone

Psychology Faculty Publications

Humans’ experience of emotion and comprehension of affective cues varies substantially across the lifespan. Work in cognitive and affective neuroscience has begun to characterize behavioral and neural responses to emotional cues that systematically change with age. This review examines work to date characterizing the maturation of facial expression comprehension, and dynamic changes in amygdala recruitment from early childhood through late adulthood while viewing facial expressions of emotion. Recent neuroimaging work has tested amygdala and prefrontal engagement in experimental paradigms mimicking real aspects of social interactions, which we highlight briefly, along with considerations for future research.

Specificity Of Facial Expression Labeling Deficits In Childhood Psychopathology, Amanda E. Guyer, Erin B. Mcclure, Abby D. Adler, Melissa A. Brotman, Brendan A. Rich, Alane S. Kimes, Daniel S. Pine, Monique Ernst, Ellen Leibenluft

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: We examined whether face-emotion labeling deficits are illness-specific or an epiphenomenon of generalized impairment in pediatric psychiatric disorders involving mood and behavioral dysregulation. Method: Two hundred fifty-two youths (7-18 years old) completed child and adult facial expression recognition subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA) instrument. Forty-two participants had bipolar disorder (BD), 39 had severe mood dysregulation (SMD; i.e., chronic irritability, hyperarousal without manic episodes), 44 had anxiety and/or major depressive disorders (ANX/MDD), 35 had attention-deficit/hyperactivity and/or conduct disorder (ADHD/CD), and 92 were controls. Dependent measures were number of errors labeling happy, angry, sad, or fearful emotions. …

Probing The Neural Correlates Of Anticipated Peer Evaluation In Adolescence, Amanda E. Guyer, Erin Tone, Nina D. Shiffrin, Daniel S. Pine, Eric E. Nelson

Psychology Faculty Publications

Neural correlates of social cognition were assessed in 9-to-17-year-olds using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants appraised how unfamiliar peers they had previously identified as being of high or low interest would evaluate them for an anticipated online chat session. Differential age- and sex-related activation patterns emerged in several regions previously implicated in affective processing. These included the ventral striatum, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and insula. In general, activation patterns shifted with age in older relative to younger females, but showed no association with age in males. Relating these neural response patterns to changes in adolescent social-cognition enriches theories of adolescent social …

Socio-Emotional Functioning In Bipolar Disorder Versus Typical Development: Behavioral And Neural Differences, Erin B. Tone

Psychology Faculty Publications

Socio-emotional dysfunction is a core feature of bipolar disorder (BD) across the lifespan. Recent evidence indicates associations between this atypical functioning and the presence of neurally-based anomalies. This article critically reviews the literature on two types of core socioemotional skills that may represent endophenotypes for BD, with a focus on differences between individuals with BD, both youth and adults, and their typically developing peers. First, it examines studies of social cue perception and interpretation, with an emphasis on behavioral and neural studies of facial expression processing. Second, it shifts to examine behavioral and neural differences in cognitive and behavioral flexibility. …

Confirmation Of A Four-Factor Structure Of The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire Among Undergraduate Students, Michael T. Compton, Sandra M. Goulding, Roger Bakeman, Erin B. Mcclure-Tone

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective Although several exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses have supported the initially proposed factor structure of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in which its nine subscales are grouped into cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized domains, others have revealed different latent structures. This study determined the best-fitting factor structure from among five models that have been proposed in the literature, as well as five additional hierarchically related models. Method Undergraduate college students (n=825) completed the SPQ as well as the Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS) and the Revised Social Anhedonia Scale (SAS). Confirmatory factor analyses involving the nine SPQ subscales were conducted using …

An Examination Of The Factorial Structure Of The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire–Brief (Spq-B) Among Undergraduate Students, Michael T. Compton, Sandra M. Goulding, Roger Bakeman, Erin B. Mcclure-Tone

Psychology Faculty Publications

Cognitive-perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized subscales of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire–Brief (SPQ-B), reflecting the three commonly used subscales of the full-version SPQ, have been used in a number of studies. However, the factorial validity of SPQB subscales remains to be clarified. Utilizing data from 825 undergraduate students, confirmatory factor analyses involving the 22 items of the SPQ-B were conducted. A significant χ2 difference test favored the 3-factor over the 1-factor model and fit indices for the 3-factor model were generally satisfactory. However, several of the items may index more than one of the hypothesized factors, so the item-factor separation is not …

Common And Specific Amygdala-Function Perturbations In 2 Depressed Versus Anxious Adolescents, Katja Beesdo, Jennifer Lau, Erin Tone, Amanda E. Guyer, Christopher S. Monk, Eric E. Nelson, Stephen J. Fromm, Michelle A. Goldwin, Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, Ellen Leibenluft, Monique Ernst, Daniel S. Pine

Psychology Faculty Publications

Context: Few studies directly compare amygdala function in depressive and anxiety disorders. 43 Data from longitudinal research emphasize the need for such studies in adolescents. 44 Objective: To compare amygdala response to varying attention and emotion conditions among 45 adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) or anxiety disorders, relative to adolescents 46 with no psychopathology. 47 Design: Case-Control-Study. 48 Setting: Government Clinical Research Institute. 49 Participants: Eighty-seven adolescents matched on age, gender, intelligence, and social class: 26 50 with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; 14 with and 12 without anxiety disorders), 16 with 51 anxiety disorders but no depression, and 45 …

Schizotypy And Nicotine, Alcohol, And Cannabis Use In A Non-Psychiatric Sample, Michael L. Esterberg, Sandra M. Goulding, Erin B. Mcclure-Tone, Michael T. Compton

Psychology Faculty Publications

Schizotypy is a multidimensional personality construct that is characterized by perceptual abnormalities, social withdrawal, mild suspiciousness, and odd thinking patterns. This study examined the relationship between four dimensions of self-reported schizotypy and substance use involving nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis, in undergraduate students. Results showed that higher levels of disorganized schizotypy, or odd thinking and behavior, were associated with greater indices of use of all three substances. Furthermore, higher cognitive-perceptual schizotypy was selectively associated with cannabis use. Results confirm findings of recent research that has discovered associations among schizotypy and substance use, highlighting links between behavioral traits and use of nicotine, …

Associations Between Multiple Dimensions Of Schizotypy And Sociodemographic Variables In A Non-Psychiatric Sample Of Young Adults, Sandra M. Goulding, Erin Tone, Michael T. Compton

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.