How general is ensemble perception?

People can summarize features of groups of objects (e.g., the mean size of apples). Claims of dissociations or common mechanisms supporting such ensemble perception (EP) judgments have generally been made on the basis of correlations between pairs of tasks. These correlations can be inflated because they use the same stimuli, summary statistics and/or task format. Performance on EP tasks also correlates with that on object recognition (OR) tasks. Here, we seek evidence for a general EP ability that is also distinct from OR ability. Two-hundred participants completed three tasks that did not overlap in stimuli, summary statistic or task format. Participants performed a diversity comparison for arrays of nonsense blobs, a mean identity judgment with ensembles of Transformer toys, and the novel object memory task with novel objects (NOMT-Greeble). We hypothesized that EP contributes to the first two of these tasks, while OR contributes only to the last two. Performance on the two tasks suggested to tap an EP ability were correlated after controlling for the third task. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test our predictions without the confound of measurement error. Correlations between factors assumed to share influence from EP or from OR were higher than that between the factors that we expect did not share these influences. The results provide the first clear evidence for a domain-general EP ability distinct from OR. We argue that understanding such a general ability will require a change in designs and analytical approaches in the study if individual differences in EP.

Pavlovian Disgust Conditioning and Generalization: Specificity and Associations With Individual Differences.

Although studies have identified differences between fear and disgust conditioning, much less is known about the generalization of conditioned disgust. This is an important gap in the literature given that overgeneralization of conditioned disgust to neutral stimuli may have clinical implications. To address this knowledge gap, female participants (n = 80) completed a Pavlovian conditioning procedure in which one neutral food item (conditioned stimulus; CS+) was followed by disgusting videos of individuals vomiting (unconditioned stimulus; US) and another neutral food item (CS-) was not reinforced with the disgusting video. Following this acquisition phase, there was an extinction phase in which both CSs were presented unreinforced. Importantly, participants also evaluated generalization stimuli (GS+, GS-) that resembled, but were distinct from, the CS after each conditioning phase. As predicted, the CS+ was rated as significantly more disgusting and fear inducing than the CS- after acquisition and this pattern persisted after extinction. However, disgust ratings of the CS+ after acquisition were significantly larger than fear ratings. Participants also rated the GS+ as significantly more disgusting, but not fear inducing, than the GS- after acquisition. However, this effect was not observed after extinction. Disgust proneness did predict a greater increase in disgust and fear ratings of the CS+ relative to the CS- after acquisition and extinction. In contrast, trait anxiety predicted only higher fear ratings to the CS+ relative to the CS- after acquisition and extinction. Disgust proneness nor trait anxiety predicted the greater increase in disgust to the GS+ relative to the GS- after acquisition. These findings suggest that while conditioned disgust can generalize, individual difference variables that predict generalization remain unclear. The implications of these findings for disorders of disgust are discussed.

Novel and familiar object recognition rely on the same ability.

There is recent evidence for a domain-general object recognition ability, called O, which is distinct from general intelligence and other cognitive and personality constructs. We extend the study of O by characterizing how it generalizes to the ability to recognize familiar objects and to the ability to make judgments of the average identity of ensembles of objects. We applied latent variable modeling to data collected from a sample of adults (N = 284) in three different tasks and for six different object domains (three novel and three familiar). The results replicated prior work in finding that on average 88% of the variance of lower-order factors could be accounted by O for novel objects. The latent constructs recruited by the higher-order factor for novel objects and for familiar objects were almost perfectly correlated and therefore functionally identical. A latent factor for ensemble perception shared about 42% of the variance with O, suggesting at least strong overlap between abilities supporting judgments about individual objects and ensemble of objects. This work extends the theoretical reach of O by showing generalization across two dimensions (familiar vs. novel objects; individual vs. ensemble object perception). With respect to the structure of individual differences in high-level vision, researchers would benefit from accounting for the contribution of O when seeking to understand various domain-specific abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of repeated exposure to fearful and disgusting stimuli on fear renewal in blood-injection-injury phobia.

Although exposure is effective for blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia, fear often returns after treatment. While disgust has been implicated in BII phobia, its effects on fear renewal are unclear. To address this knowledge gap, the present study examined the effect of repeated video exposure to fearful and disgusting stimuli in multiple contexts on fear renewal in BII phobia. Individuals with BII phobia (N = 57) were randomized to Disgust-Specific Exposure (DSE) which included exposure to disgusting but threat-irrelevant stimuli (i.e., vomit), Fear-Specific Exposure (FSE) which included exposure to threat-relevant stimuli (i.e., injections), or General Negative Exposure (GNE) which included exposure designed to elicit negative affect (i.e., tornado) without being disgusting or threat-relevant. During session one, participants watched a pre- and post-exposure assessment injection video ("pre/post assessment"), and a novel injection video after exposure to assess renewal effects ("novel 1"). Participants came in one week later to rate the same videos, and a new injection video ("novel 2"). For week one outcomes, comparisons of covariate adjusted means indicated the fear-specific group reported significantly lower levels of anxiety than the general-negative group to the post-exposure and novel 1 stimulus. When presented with the post-exposure stimuli during week two, the disgust-specific and fear-specific groups reported significantly lower levels of anxiety than the general negative group. The fear-specific group also reported significantly lower levels of anxiety than the disgust-specific and general-negative groups when presented with novel 1 and novel 2 stimuli at week two. These findings suggest that repeated exposure to threat-relevant cues in multiple contexts does reduce the return of anxiety. However, repeated exposure to disgusting but threat irrelevant stimuli may also produce some therapeutic effects. The implications of the integration of disgust-relevant processes into exposure-based treatment of BII phobia are discussed.

Thickness of Deep Layers in the Fusiform Face Area Predicts Face Recognition.

People with superior face recognition have relatively thin cortex in face-selective brain areas, whereas those with superior vehicle recognition have relatively thick cortex in the same areas. We suggest that these opposite correlations reflect distinct mechanisms influencing cortical thickness (CT) as abilities are acquired at different points in development. We explore a new prediction regarding the specificity of these effects through the depth of the cortex: that face recognition selectively and negatively correlates with thickness of the deepest laminar subdivision in face-selective areas. With ultrahigh resolution MRI at 7T, we estimated the thickness of three laminar subdivisions, which we term "MR layers," in the right fusiform face area (FFA) in 14 adult male humans. Face recognition was negatively associated with the thickness of deep MR layers, whereas vehicle recognition was positively related to the thickness of all layers. Regression model comparisons provided overwhelming support for a model specifying that the magnitude of the association between face recognition and CT differs across MR layers (deep vs. superficial/middle) whereas the magnitude of the association between vehicle recognition and CT is invariant across layers. The total CT of right FFA accounted for 69% of the variance in face recognition, and thickness of the deep layer alone accounted for 84% of this variance. Our findings demonstrate the functional validity of MR laminar estimates in FFA. Studying the structural basis of individual differences for multiple abilities in the same cortical area can reveal effects of distinct mechanisms that are not apparent when studying average variation or development.

Individual differences in continuous flash suppression: Potency and linkages to binocular rivalry dynamics.

Binocular rivalry (BR) and continuous flash suppression (CFS) are compelling psychophysical phenomena involving interocular suppression. Using an individual differences approach we assessed whether interocular suppression induced by CFS is predictable in potency from characteristics of BR that are plausibly governed by interocular inhibition. We found large individual differences in BR dynamics and, in addition, in the strength of CFS as gauged by the incidence and durations of breakthroughs in CFS during an extended viewing periods. CFS's potency waned with repeated trials, but stable individual differences persisted despite these mean shifts. We also discovered large individual differences in the strength of the post-CFS shift in BR dominance produced by interocular suppression. While CFS breakthroughs were significantly negatively correlated with shifts in BR dominance after CFS, there were no significant associations between individual differences in alternation rate during pre-CFS binocular rivalry and either breakthroughs during CFS or post-CFS dominance shifts. Bayesian hypothesis tests and highest posterior density intervals confirmed the weak association between these two forms of interocular suppression. Thus, our findings suggest that the substantial individual differences in BR dynamics and CFS effectiveness are modestly related but not entirely mediated by one common neural substrate.

Social and nonsocial reward moderate the relation between autism symptoms and loneliness in adults with ASD, depression, and controls.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) report high levels of co-occurring mood disorders. Previous work suggests that people with ASD also experience aberrant responses to social reward compared to typically developing (TD) peers. In the TD population, aberrant reward processing has been linked to anhedonia (i.e., loss of pleasure), which is a hallmark feature of depression. This study examined the interplay between self-reported pleasure from social and nonsocial rewards, autism symptom severity, loneliness, and depressive symptoms across adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; N = 49), TD currently depressed adults (TD-dep; N = 30), and TD never depressed controls (TD-con; N = 28). The ASD cohort reported levels of social and nonsocial anhedonia that were greater than TD-con but not significantly different from TD-dep. Across cohorts, both social and nonsocial hedonic capacity moderated the relationship between autism symptoms and loneliness: individuals with low capacity for pleasure experienced elevated loneliness regardless of autism symptom severity, while those with intact capacity for pleasure (i.e., less anhedonia) experienced greater loneliness as a function of increased autism symptoms. Loneliness was the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms across clinical cohorts. Our findings suggest a putative pathway from trait-like anhedonia in ASD to depression via elevated loneliness and indicate that variability in hedonic capacity within the autism spectrum may differentially confer risk for depression in adults with ASD. Results underscore potential mental health benefits of social skills interventions and community inclusion programs for adults with ASD. Autism Res 2019, 12: 884-896. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: The relationship between autism symptoms and loneliness depended on one's ability to experience both social and nonsocial pleasure. Adults who experienced less pleasure reported high levels of loneliness that did not depend autism severity, while adults with high capacity for pleasure were especially lonely if they also had many autism symptoms. Loneliness was the strongest predictor of depressive symptoms, compared to capacity for social and nonsocial pleasure and autism symptoms.

Individual differences in object recognition.

There is substantial evidence for individual differences in personality and cognitive abilities, but we lack clear intuitions about individual differences in visual abilities. Previous work on this topic has typically compared performance with only 2 categories, each measured with only 1 task. This approach is insufficient for demonstration of domain-general effects. Most previous work has used familiar object categories, for which experience may vary between participants and categories, thereby reducing correlations that would stem from a common factor. In Study 1, we adopted a latent variable approach to test for the first time whether there is a domain-general object recognition ability, o. We assessed whether shared variance between latent factors representing performance for each of 5 novel object categories could be accounted for by a single higher-order factor. On average, 89% of the variance of lower-order factors denoting performance on novel object categories could be accounted for by a higher-order factor, providing strong evidence for o. Moreover, o also accounted for a moderate proportion of variance in tests of familiar object recognition. In Study 2, we assessed whether the strong association across categories in object recognition is due to third-variable influences. We find that o has weak to moderate associations with a host of cognitive, perceptual, and personality constructs and that a clear majority of the variance in and covariance between performance on different categories is independent of fluid intelligence. This work provides the first demonstration of a reliable, specific, and domain-general object recognition ability, and suggest a rich framework for future work in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

How faces (and cars) may become special.

Recent reports have shown that individuals from small hometowns show relatively poor face recognition ability as measured by the Cambridge Face Memory Test or CFMT (Balas & Saville, 2015, 2017), suggesting that the number of faces present in an individual's visual environment relates to that individual's face recognition ability. We replicate this finding in a sample from a different region (Nebraska) and with more variable age distribution. We extend the study by using another test of face recognition ability that does not require learning over trials, and with non-face object recognition tests that share the learning format with the CFMT. We find no hometown effect in these other tests, although more power would be required to show the CFMT effect is significantly larger. We use the same dataset to explore whether experience with more faces and cars in larger hometowns leads to specialization of these abilities. We find strong and substantial support for the hypothesis that the recognition abilities for faces and for cars are more independent from general object recognition in people from larger hometowns. This suggests that experience may be critical to the specialization of these abilities.

Pupil response to social-emotional material is associated with rumination and depressive symptoms in adults with autism spectrum disorder.

BACKGROUND: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is marked by repetitive thinking and high rates of depression. Understanding the extent to which repetitive negative thinking in ASD reflects autistic stereotypy versus general depressive thinking patterns (e.g., rumination) could help guide treatment research to improve emotional health in ASD. We compared associations between rumination, depressive symptoms, and pupil response to social-emotional material in adults with ASD and typically developing (TD) adults with and without depression. METHODS: N = 53 verbally fluent young adults were recruited to three cohorts: ASD, n = 21; TD-depressed, n = 13; never-depressed TD-controls, n = 19. Participants completed Ruminative Response Scale and Beck Depression Inventory self-reports and a passive-viewing task employing emotionally-expressive faces, during which pupillary motility was assessed to quantify cognitive-affective load. Main and interactive effects of cohort, emotion condition, and time on pupil amplitude were tested via a linear mixed effects analysis of variance using restricted maximum likelihood estimation. Similar procedures were used to test for effects of rumination and depressive symptoms on pupil amplitude over time within ASD. RESULTS: Responsive pupil dilation in the ASD cohort tended to be significantly lower than TD-depressed initially but increased to comparable levels by trial end. When viewing sad faces, individuals with ASD who had higher depression scores resembled TD-depressed participants' faster, larger, and sustained pupil response. Within ASD, depressive symptoms uniquely predicted early pupil response to sad faces, while rumination and depression scores each independently predicted sustained pupil response. CONCLUSIONS: People with elevated depressive symptoms appear to have faster and greater increases in pupil-indexed neural activation following sad stimuli, regardless of ASD status, suggesting the utility of conceptualizing rumination as depression-like in treatment. Ruminative processes may increase more slowly in ASD, suggesting the potential utility of interventions that decrease reactions before they are uncontrollable. Findings also reinforce the importance of testing for effects of internalizing variables in broader ASD research.

Effects of exposure in single and multiple contexts on fear renewal: The moderating role of threat-specific and nonspecific emotionality.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The current study examines effects of exposure in multiple contexts on fear reduction and renewal and the moderating effect of baseline threat-specific and nonspecific emotionality. METHODS: Snake-fearful participants received a negative or neutral emotion induction and were randomized to video exposure to a snake in a single context, multiple context, or a no exposure control group. RESULTS: Anxiety in response to video presentations of a snake was significantly reduced in the two exposure groups compared to the control group, especially among those with heightened baseline threat-specific emotionality as indicated by snake anxiety ratings at baseline. Although the two exposure groups did not differ in responding when confronted with a novel snake, both exposure groups reported significantly lower snake anxiety and arousal than the control group. Subsequent analysis did show that compared to controls, the single context group demonstrated greater increase in anxiety and arousal from post-exposure to exposure to the novel snake among those with heightened snake anxiety at baseline. Furthermore, the multiple context group was less avoidant and less fearful than the single context group on a post-exposure behavioral test. LIMITATIONS: The study used an analogue exposure paradigm with an analogue sample and findings may not be generalizable to a clinical population. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that baseline threat-specific emotionality influences fear reduction and renewal. The benefits of exposure in multiple contexts are discussed in relation to a distinct pattern of symptom change that is in line with an inhibitory learning approach.

The time course of binocular rivalry during the phases of the menstrual cycle.

Binocular rivalry occurs when markedly different inputs to the two eyes initiate alternations in perceptual dominance between the two eyes' views. A link between individual differences in perceptual dynamics of rivalry and concentrations of GABA, a prominent inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, has highlighted binocular rivalry as a potential tool to investigate inhibitory processes in the brain. The present experiment investigated whether previously reported fluctuations of GABA concentrations in a healthy menstrual cycle (Epperson et al., 2002) also are associated with measurable changes in rivalry dynamics within individuals. We obtained longitudinal measures of alternation rate, dominance, and mixture durations in 300 rivalry tracking blocks measured over 5 weeks from healthy female participants who monitored the start of the follicular and luteal phases of their cycle. Although we demonstrate robust and stable individual differences in rivalry dynamics, across analytic approaches and dependent measures, we found no significant change or even trends across menstrual phases in the temporal dynamics of dominance percepts. We found only sparse between-phase differences in skew and kurtosis on mixture percepts when data were pooled across sessions and blocks. These results suggest a complex dynamic between hormonal steroids, binocular rivalry, and GABAeric signaling in the brain and thus implicate the need to consider a systemic perspective when linking GABA with perceptual alternations in binocular rivalry.

The Incremental Utility of Emotion Regulation But Not Emotion Reactivity in Nonsuicidal Self-Injury.

This study assessed the incremental utility of emotion reactivity and emotion regulation in relation to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Participants included 379 college students aged 18-22 who completed self-report measures of emotion regulation, emotion reactivity, and NSSI. Emotion regulation was significantly related to NSSI both ignoring and controlling for reactivity, but the reverse was not true. Participants' use of NSSI for affect regulation appeared to moderate this relation. Findings support emotion regulation deficits as a target for intervention over and above heightened emotion reactivity, especially in those who use NSSI to regulate negative affect.

Temporal patterns, heterogeneity, and stability of diurnal cortisol rhythms in children with autism spectrum disorder.

The current study used a multifaceted approach to assess whether children with ASD have a distinctive diurnal rhythm of cortisol that differentiates them from typically developing (TD) peers and whether sub-groups of ASD children can be identified with unique diurnal profiles. Salivary cortisol was sampled at four time points during the day (waking, 30-min post-waking, afternoon, and evening) across three days in a sample of 36 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 27 typically developing (TD) peers. Between-group comparisons on both mean levels and featural components of diurnal cortisol indicated elevated evening cortisol and a dampened linear decline across the day in the ASD group. No differences were evident on the cortisol awakening response (CAR). Group-based trajectory modeling indicated that a subgroup (25%) of ASD children demonstrated an attenuated linear decline while the cortisol trajectory of the second subgroup was indistinguishable from that of the TD group. Intraclass correlations indicated that, when aggregated across days, cortisol measures were generally stable over the interval assessed. There were few significant relations between cortisol measures or sub-groups and measures of stress, temperament, and symptoms. Results encourage follow-up studies to investigate the functional significance, heterogeneity and longer-term stability of diurnal cortisol profiles in children with ASD.

Individual differences in the perception of biological motion and fragmented figures are not correlated.

WE LIVE IN A CLUTTERED, DYNAMIC VISUAL ENVIRONMENT THAT POSES A CHALLENGE FOR THE VISUAL SYSTEM: for objects, including those that move about, to be perceived, information specifying those objects must be integrated over space and over time. Does a single, omnibus mechanism perform this grouping operation, or does grouping depend on separate processes specialized for different feature aspects of the object? To address this question, we tested a large group of healthy young adults on their abilities to perceive static fragmented figures embedded in noise and to perceive dynamic point-light biological motion figures embedded in dynamic noise. There were indeed substantial individual differences in performance on both tasks, but none of the statistical tests we applied to this data set uncovered a significant correlation between those performance measures. These results suggest that the two tasks, despite their superficial similarity, require different segmentation and grouping processes that are largely unrelated to one another. Whether those processes are embodied in distinct neural mechanisms remains an open question.

Disgust propensity potentiates evaluative learning of aversion.

Although disgust propensity (DP) has been implicated in the development of some anxiety disorders, the mechanism that may account for this association has not been fully elucidated. The present study examined the extent to which the potentiation of learned aversion might be one such mechanism. Participants (n = 103) were randomized to one of two evaluative conditioning (EC) paradigms consisting of 12 reinforced conditioned stimulus (CS+) pairings of the word "part" (condition one) or "some" (condition two) with 12 aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) images, and 12 pairings of the CS- word "cylinder" with 12 neutral images. Participants then completed measures of DP and trait anxiety and provided subjective affective ratings for the aversive US. The findings revealed that participants experienced significantly more disgust, anxiety, anger, sadness, and less happiness toward their respective CS+. In contrast, participants experienced significantly more happiness toward the CS-. Examination of the magnitude of evaluative change to the CS+ revealed the strongest effect for disgust. DP, but not trait anxiety, also predicted a greater increase in disgust, anger, and anxiety in response to the CS+ relative to the CS-. Furthermore, the association between DP and greater disgust, anger, and anxiety in response to the CS+ was mediated by more intense negative affective responding to the US among those higher in DP. The implication of these findings for better understanding how DP may confer risk for anxiety-related psychopathology is discussed.

Diurnal cortisol profile in Williams syndrome in novel and familiar settings.

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder associated with high rates of anxiety and social issues. We examined diurnal cortisol, a biomarker of the stress response, in adults with WS in novel and familiar settings, and compared these profiles to typically developing (TD) adults. WS and TD participants had similar profiles in a familiar setting, while participants with WS had elevated cortisol late in the day in the novel setting when social demands were higher. The cortisol awakening response in WS was associated with parent-reported levels of somatic complaints and social difficulties. Results suggest that adults with WS have a typical diurnal cortisol profile that may be sensitive to social and activity transitions throughout the day.

The moderating effects of contamination sensitivity on state affect and information processing: examination of disgust specificity.

Although contamination sensitivity has been implicated in several disorders, there is a paucity of research examining the influence of this trait on various outcomes. Accordingly, the present study examined the extent to which individual differences in contamination sensitivity moderated state affect in response to a mood induction and subsequent information processing biases, as assessed by a lexical decision task (LDT). It was hypothesised that the moderating effects of contamination sensitivity would be specific to disgust responding to a negative but not positive mood induction, and to reaction times to disgust and fear compared to happy words on the LDT. The findings were largely consistent with this hypothesis, as contamination sensitivity predicted increased disgust and arousal to the negative mood induction. Contamination sensitivity was also a better predictor of reaction times to disgust and fear words than happy words. However, the moderating effect of contamination sensitivity on reaction times on the LDT was not mediated by its effects on response to the negative mood induction. Implications of these findings for conceptualising the role of contamination sensitivity and its association with disgust in specific disorders are discussed.

The effects of safety behaviors on health anxiety: an experimental investigation.

The present study examined the extent to which safety behaviors exacerbate symptoms of hypochondriasis (severe health anxiety). Participants were randomized into a safety behavior (n=30) or control condition (n=30). After a baseline period, participants in the safety behavior condition spent one week actively engaging in a clinically representative array of health-related safety behaviors on a daily basis, followed by a second week-long baseline period. Participants in the control condition monitored their normal use of safety behaviors. Compared to control participants, those in the safety behavior condition reported significantly greater increases in health anxiety, hypochondriacal beliefs, contamination fear, and avoidant responses to health-related behavioral tasks after the safety behavior manipulation. In contrast, general anxiety symptoms did not significantly differ between the two groups as a function of the manipulation. Mediational analyses were consistent with the hypothesis that changes in the frequency of health-related thoughts mediated the effects of the experimental manipulation on health anxiety. These findings suggest that safety behaviors are associated with increases in health anxiety, perhaps by fostering catastrophic thoughts about health. The implications of these findings for the conceptualization of hypochondriasis as an anxiety disorder are discussed.

Cross-sensory modulation of primary sensory cortex is developmentally regulated by early sensory experience.

The presence of cross-sensory influences on neuronal responses in primary sensory cortex has been observed previously using several different methods. To test this idea in rat S1 barrel cortex, we hypothesized that auditory stimuli combined with whisker stimulation ("cross-sensory" stimuli) may modify response levels to whisker stimulation. Since the brain has been shown to have a remarkable capacity to be modified by early postnatal sensory activity, manipulating postnatal sensory experiences would be predicted to alter the degree of cross-sensory interactions. To test these ideas, we raised rats with or without whisker deprivation and with or without postnatal exposure to repeated auditory clicks. We recorded extracellular responses under urethane anesthesia from barrel cortex neurons in response to principal whisker stimulation alone, to auditory click stimulation alone, or to a cross-sensory stimulus. The responses were compared statistically across different stimulus conditions and across different rearing groups. Barrel neurons did not generate action potentials in response to auditory click stimuli alone in any rearing group. However, in cross-sensory stimulus conditions the response magnitude was facilitated in the 0-15 ms post-whisker-stimulus epoch in all rearing conditions, whereas modulation of response magnitude in a later 15-30 ms post-whisker-stimulus epoch was significantly different in each rearing condition. The most significant cross-sensory effect occurred in rats that were simultaneously whisker deprived and click reared. We conclude that there is a modulatory type of cross-sensory auditory influence on normal S1 barrel cortex, which can be enhanced by early postnatal experiences.