The Index of Intrusion Control (IIC): Capturing individual variability in intentional intrusion control in the laboratory.

Intrusive memories can be downregulated using intentional memory control, as measured via the Think/No-Think paradigm. In this task, participants retrieve or suppress memories in response to an associated reminder cue. After each suppression trial, participants rate whether the association intruded into awareness. Previous research has found that repeatedly exerting intentional control over memory intrusions reduces their frequency. This decrease is often summarised with a linear index, which may miss more complex patterns characterising the temporal dynamics of intrusion control. The goal of this paper is to propose a novel metric of intrusion control that captures those dynamic changes over time as a single index. Results from a mega-analysis of published datasets revealed that the change in intrusion frequencies across time is not purely linear, but also includes non-linear dynamics that seem best captured by a log function of the number of suppression attempts. To capture those linear and non-linear dynamics, we propose the Index of Intrusion Control (IIC), which relies on the integral of intrusion changes across suppression attempts. Simulations revealed that the IIC best captured the linear and non-linear dynamics of intrusion suppression when compared with other linear or non-linear indexes of control, such as the regression slope or Spearman correlation, respectively. Our findings demonstrate how the IIC may therefore act as a more reliable metric to capture individual differences in intrusion control, and examine the role of non-linear dynamics characterizing the conscious access to unwanted memories.

Dairy Product Consumption and Incident Prediabetes in the Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle Study With 12 Years of Follow-Up.

BACKGROUND: Investigating modifiable risk factors for the early stages of the development of type 2 diabetes is essential for effective prevention. Some studies show protective associations between dairy and prediabetes; however, associations are heterogeneous by the type and fat content of dairy foods. OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between the consumption of dairy, including different types of dairy products and risk of prediabetes. METHODS: The study included 4891 participants with normal glucose tolerance (aged 49.0 ± 12.3 y, 57% female) of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study, a longitudinal population-based study. Dairy intake was measured at baseline using a food frequency questionnaire. Prediabetes at the 5-y and 12-y follow-ups was defined according to the WHO criteria as fasting plasma glucose levels of 110-125 mg/dL or 2-h plasma glucose levels of 140-199 mg/dL. Associations were analyzed using Poisson regression, adjusted for social demographics, lifestyle behaviors, a family history of diabetes, and food group intake. RESULTS: In total, 765 (15.6%) incident cases of prediabetes were observed. The mean intake of dairy foods was 2.4 ± 1.2 servings/d, mostly consisting of low-fat milk (0.70 ± 0.78 servings/d) and high-fat milk (0.47 ± 0.72 servings/d). A higher intake of high-fat dairy (RRservings/d: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.85, 1.00), high-fat milk (0.89; 95% CI: 0.80, 0.99), and total cheese (0.74; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.96) was associated with a lower risk of prediabetes. Low-fat milk intake was associated nonlinearly with prediabetes risk. Low-fat dairy foods, total milk, yogurt, low-fat cheese, and ice cream were not associated with prediabetes risk. CONCLUSION: In this large Australian cohort, protective associations were found for high-fat dairy types, whereas neutral associations were seen for low-fat dairy types. Studies with more detail on sugar content of types of dairy foods and products eaten with dairy foods (e.g., cereals or jam), and studies into potential causal mechanisms of the health effects of dairy intake are required.

Patient-centered development of Embrace Pain: an online acceptance and commitment therapy intervention for cancer survivors with chronic painful chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.

BACKGROUND: Around 30% of cancer survivors suffer from chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) ≥6 months after completion of chemotherapy, which comes with limitations in daily functioning and worsened quality of life(QoL). Treatment options are scarce. Our aim was to develop an online self-help intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to reduce pain interference in cancer survivors experiencing painful chronic CIPN. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This article applied a patient-centered design process using the Center for eHealth Research (CeHRes) roadmap. User needs were examined using online semi-structured interviews with patients and experts (N = 23). Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. Personas were created based on interviews. Intervention content was based on identified user needs and ACT. Content and design were finalized using low-fidelity prototype testing (N = 5), and high-fidelity prototype testing (N = 7). RESULTS: Patients appreciated and agreed with the elements of ACT, had varying guidance needs, and wanted to have autonomy (e.g., moment and duration of use). Additionally, it was important to be aware that patients have had a life-threatening disease which directly relates to the symptoms they experience. Patients reported to prefer a user-friendly and accessible intervention. Similar points also emerged in the expert interviews. The final intervention, named Embrace Pain, includes six sessions. Session content is based on psychoeducation and all ACT processes. Further interpretation of the intervention (such as quotes, guidance, and multimedia choices) is based on the interviews. CONCLUSION: This development demonstrated how a patient-centered design process from a theoretical framework can be applied. Theory-driven content was used as the basis of the intervention. Findings show an online ACT intervention designed for cancer survivors with painful chronic CIPN.

Examining the effect of stress on the flexible updating of avoidance responses.

Acute stress has been found to impair the flexible updating of stimulus - outcome associations. However, there is a lack of studies investigating the effect of acute stress on the flexible updating of stimulus-response associations, like active avoidance responses. The current study used an avoidance reversal learning paradigm to address this question. Sixty-one participants learned that a red dot was associated with an aversive sound, whereas a green dot was not (Pavlovian Acquisition phase). Next, they were trained to avoid the aversive stimulus by selectively pressing a button in response to the red, but not the green, dot (Avoidance Acquisition phase). Subsequently, participants either underwent a stress induction task or a no-stress control task. The flexible updating of expectancies of the US and avoidance responses were assessed after reversal of the original contingencies (Reversal Test). Acute stress did not impair the flexible updating of avoidance responses during the Reversal Test. In contrast, results showed that in the stress group the expectancies of the aversive sound were more in accordance with the reversed contingencies compared to the ratings of control participants. Additionally, cortisol responders avoided less often in comparison to cortisol non-responders. Increased noradrenergic activity in stressed participants was related to impairments in the flexible updating of avoidance responses after contingency reversal, while this association was absent in the control participants. In conclusion, our results suggest that the autonomic response might account for shifting the balance toward inflexible updating of stimulus-outcome awareness while stress does not impair flexible updating of avoidance responses.

Dairy product consumption and incident prediabetes in Dutch middle-aged adults: the Hoorn Studies prospective cohort.

PURPOSE: Our aim was to investigate prospective associations of consumption of total dairy and dairy types with incident prediabetes in a Dutch population-based study. METHODS: Two enrolment waves of the Hoorn Studies were harmonized, resulting in an analytic sample of 2262 participants without (pre-) diabetes at enrolment (mean age 56 ± 7.3 years; 50% male). Baseline dietary intake was assessed by validated food frequency questionnaires. Relative risks (RRs) were calculated between dairy, fermented dairy, milk, yogurt (all total/high/low fat), cream and ice cream and prediabetes. Additionally, substituting one serving/day of dairy types associated with prediabetes with alternative dairy types was analysed. RESULTS: During a mean 6.4 ± 0.7 years of follow-up, 810 participants (35.9%) developed prediabetes. High fat fermented dairy, cheese and high fat cheese were associated with a 17% (RR 0.83, 95% CI 0.69-0.99, ptrend = 0.04), 14% (RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.73-1.02, ptrend = 0.04) and 21% (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.66-0.94, ptrend = 0.01) lower risk of incident prediabetes, respectively, in top compared to bottom quartiles, after adjustment for confounders. High fat cheese consumption was continuously associated with lower prediabetes risk (RRservings/day 0.94, 95% CI 0.88-1.00, p = 0.04). Total dairy and other dairy types were not associated with prediabetes risk in adjusted models, irrespective of fat content (RR ~ 1). Replacing high fat cheese with alternative dairy types was not associated with prediabetes risk. CONCLUSION: The highest intake of high fat fermented dairy, cheese and high fat cheese were associated with a lower risk of prediabetes, whereas other dairy types were not associated. Cheese seems to be inversely associated with type 2 diabetes risk, despite high levels of saturated fatty acids and sodium.

Acute stress - but not aversive scene content - impairs spatial configuration learning.

Contextual learning pervades our perception and cognition and plays a critical role in adjusting to aversive and stressful events. Our ability to memorise spatial context has been studied extensively with the contextual cueing paradigm, in which participants search for targets among simple distractor cues and show search advantages for distractor configurations that repeat across trials. Mixed evidence suggests that confrontation with adversity can enhance as well as impair the contextual cueing effect. We aimed to investigate this relationship more systematically by devising a contextual cueing task that tests spatial configuration learning within complex visual scenes that were emotionally neutral or negative (Study 1) and was preceded by the Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST) or a no-stress control condition (Study 2). We demonstrate a robust contextual cueing effect that was comparable across negative and neutral scenes (Study 1). In Study 2, acute stress disrupted spatial configuration learning irrespective of scene valence and endogenous cortisol reactivity to stress. Together with the emerging evidence in the literature, our findings suggest that spatial configuration learning may be subject to complex regulation as a function of spatial or temporal proximity to a stressor, with potential implications for the development of stress-related psychopathology.

Manipulating memory associations changes decision-making preferences in a preconditioning task.

Memories of past experiences can guide our decisions. Thus, if memories are undermined or distorted, decision making should be affected. Nevertheless, little empirical research has been done to examine the role of memory in reinforcement decision-making. We hypothesized that if memories guide choices in a conditioning decision-making task, then manipulating these memories would result in a change of decision preferences to gain reward. We manipulated participants' memories by providing false feedback that their memory associations were wrong before they made decisions that could lead them to win money. Participants' memory ratings decreased significantly after receiving false feedback. More importantly, we found that false feedback led participants' decision bias to disappear after their memory associations were undermined. Our results suggest that reinforcement decision-making can be altered by false feedback on memories. The results are discussed using memory mechanisms such as spreading activation theories.

The impact of lying about a traumatic virtual reality experience on memory.

The goal of the present experiment was to examine the effect of certain (deceptive) strategies (e.g., false denial) on memory. Specifically, participants were shown a traumatic virtual reality (VR) video of an airplane crash. Following this, participants (N= 94) received questions concerning details from the VR scene in a baseline memory task. Then, participants could choose from 3 options how to cope in response to having experienced the VR scene: tell the truth, falsely deny, or fabricate. The majority opted to tell the truth (n = 81). A subsample of truth tellers were instructed to falsely deny having seen certain details. One week later, all participants received a source monitoring task in which they were asked (1) whether they remembered talking about these details during an interview, and (2) whether they remembered seeing certain details during the VR experience the week before. Participants had to tell the truth during this task. Participants who were instructed to falsely deny showed impaired memory for presented details that had previously been discussed (i.e., denial-induced forgetting) and seen in the VR scene. Also, the presentation of certain details in the baseline memory task seemed to inoculate participants who were instructed to falsely deny from experiencing memory impairment. The current experiment suggests that false denials can have adverse ramifications for memory for what is discussed and seen.

Undermining belief in false memories leads to less efficient problem-solving behaviour.

Memories of events for which the belief in the occurrence of those events is undermined, but recollection is retained, are called nonbelieved memories (NBMs). The present experiments examined the effects of NBMs on subsequent problem-solving behaviour. In Experiment 1, we challenged participants' beliefs in their memories and examined whether NBMs affected subsequent solution rates on insight-based problems. True and false memories were elicited using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Then participants' belief in true and false memories was challenged by telling them the item had not been presented. We found that when the challenge led to undermining belief in false memories, fewer problems were solved than when belief was not challenged. In Experiment 2, a similar procedure was used except that some participants solved the problems one week rather than immediately after the feedback. Again, our results showed that undermining belief in false memories resulted in lower problem solution rates. These findings suggest that for false memories, belief is an important agent in whether memories serve as effective primes for immediate and delayed problem-solving.

Stress and emotional valence effects on children's versus adolescents' true and false memory.

Despite considerable interest in understanding how stress influences memory accuracy and errors, particularly in children, methodological limitations have made it difficult to examine the effects of stress independent of the effects of the emotional valence of to-be-remembered information in developmental populations. In this study, we manipulated stress levels in 7-8- and 12-14-year-olds and then exposed them to negative, neutral, and positive word lists. Shortly afterward, we tested their recognition memory for the words and false memory for non-presented but related words. Adolescents in the high-stress condition were more accurate than those in the low-stress condition, while children's accuracy did not differ across stress conditions. Also, among adolescents, accuracy and errors were higher for the negative than positive words, while in children, word valence was unrelated to accuracy. Finally, increases in children's and adolescents' cortisol responses, especially in the high-stress condition, were related to greater accuracy but not false memories and only for positive emotional words. Findings suggest that stress at encoding, as well as the emotional content of to-be-remembered information, may influence memory in different ways across development, highlighting the need for greater complexity in existing models of true and false memory formation.

Stress, stress-induced cortisol responses, and eyewitness identification performance.

In the eyewitness identification literature, stress and arousal at the time of encoding are considered to adversely influence identification performance. This assumption is in contrast with findings from the neurobiology field of learning and memory, showing that stress and stress hormones are critically involved in forming enduring memories. This discrepancy may be related to methodological differences between the two fields of research, such as the tendency for immediate testing or the use of very short (1-2 hours) retention intervals in eyewitness research, while neurobiology studies insert at least 24 hours. Other differences refer to the extent to which stress-responsive systems (i.e., the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) are stimulated effectively under laboratory conditions. The aim of the current study was to conduct an experiment that accounts for the contemporary state of knowledge in both fields. In all, 123 participants witnessed a live staged theft while being exposed to a laboratory stressor that reliably elicits autonomic and glucocorticoid stress responses or while performing a control task. Salivary cortisol levels were measured to control for the effectiveness of the stress induction. One week later, participants attempted to identify the thief from target-present and target-absent line-ups. According to regression and receiver operating characteristic analyses, stress did not have robust detrimental effects on identification performance. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. © 2016 The Authors Behavioral Sciences & the Law Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Flashbacks, intrusions, mind-wandering - Instances of an involuntary memory spectrum: A commentary on Takarangi, Strange, and Lindsay (2014).

In their paper, Takarangi, Strange, and Lindsay (2014) showed in two experiments that participants who had witnessed a shocking film frequently "mind-wandered without awareness" about the content of the film. More importantly, they equated this effect with the occurrence of traumatic intrusions. In this commentary, we argue that the authors adhered to conceptually ambiguous terms, and thereby unintentionally contribute to an already existing conceptual blur in the trauma-memory field. We postulate that clear definitions are urgently needed for phenomena such as intrusions, flashbacks, and mind-wandering, when using them in the context of trauma memory. Furthermore, our proposal is that these phenomena can fall under a spectrum of different involuntary memory instances. We propose that by adopting stricter definitions and viewing them as separate, but interrelated phenomena, different lines of trauma-memory research can be reconciled, which would considerably advance the field.

Adaptive memory: identifying the proximate roots of the survival processing advantage.

The current study examined the role of item-specific, relational, and elaborative processing on adaptive memory. Younger and older adults received the standard survival processing, a survival-short, or a pleasantness processing instruction. The survival-short condition was specifically included to lead to fewer possibilities to engage in elaborative processing. Furthermore, half of the presented words were categorized words to boost relational processing. Younger adults demonstrated the typical survival recall advantage in that standard survival processing instructions resulted in superior free recall performance than that of the survival-short and the pleasantness processing groups. Among older adults, no mnemonic benefit of standard survival processing relative to the survival-short or pleasantness processing groups was found. Furthermore, reducing the probability of elaborative processing (i.e., through the survival-short processing instructions) abolished the survival recall advantage. Our results thus provide further evidence for the role of item-specific, relational, and elaborative processing in the survival processing advantage.

The production of spontaneous false memories across childhood.

We found evidence that the usual developmental trends in children's spontaneous false memories were eliminated using novel stimuli containing obvious themes. That is, children created more false memories than adults when scenes needed to be remembered. In Experiment 1, 7- and 8-year-olds had higher false memory rates than adults when using visual scenes. Experiment 2 showed that gist cuing could not account for this effect. In Experiment 3, children and adults received visual scenes and story contexts in which these scenes were embedded. For both types of stimuli, we found that children had the highest false memory rates. Our results indicate that the underlying theme of these scenes is easily identified, resulting in our developmental false memory trend.

The longevity of adaptive memory: evidence for mnemonic advantages of survival processing 24 and 48 hours later.

Prior studies have convincingly demonstrated that survival-related processing of information enhances its subsequent retention. This phenomenon, known as the survival recall advantage, generalises to other stimuli, memory domains, and research populations, thereby underscoring its reliability. As previous studies used only short retention intervals between survival processing and the memory test, an important yet hitherto unanswered issue is whether this effect persists over time. The present experiment therefore examined whether survival processing also produces mnemonic benefits when retention is tested after longer delay periods. Participants (N =81) rated the relevance of words according to a survival and a moving scenario, and were then randomly assigned to the typical immediate (3-minute delay) retention test condition or conditions that included a 24- or 48-hour interval between survival processing and memory testing. In each of these conditions survival processing led to higher surprise free recall and recognition rates than processing words according to the moving scenario. Thus this study provides evidence that illustrates the longevity of survival processing advantages on memory performance.

Developmental trends in adaptive memory.

Recent studies have revealed that memory is enhanced when information is processed for fitness-related purposes. The main objective of the current experiments was to test developmental trends in the evolutionary foundation of memory using different types of stimuli and paradigms. In Experiment 1, 11-year-olds and adults were presented with neutral, negative, and survival-related DRM word lists. We found a memory benefit for the survival-related words and showed that false memories were more likely to be elicited for the survival-related word lists than for the other lists. Experiment 2 examined developmental trends in the survival processing paradigm using neutral, negative, and survival-related pictures. A survival processing advantage was found for survival-related pictures in adults, for negative pictures in 11/12-year-olds, and for neutral pictures in 7/8-year-olds. In Experiment 3, 11/12-year-olds and adults had to imagine the standard survival scenario or an adapted survival condition (or pleasantness condition) that was designed to reduce the possibilities for elaborative processing. We found superior memory retention for both survival scenarios in children and adults. Collectively, our results evidently show that the survival processing advantage is developmentally invariant and that certain proximate mechanisms (elaboration and distinctiveness) underlie these developmental trends.

Aversive conditioning is impaired in impulsive individuals: A study on learning asymmetries.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Appetitive and aversive conditioning are thought to be involved in the development and maintenance of mental disorders including anxiety, mood, eating, and substance use disorders. However, few studies measure the relative strength of appetitive and aversive associations, and their relevance to the risk of mental disorders. This study aims to address this gap. METHODS: We tested how readily healthy volunteers acquire appetitive vs. aversive associations. 150 participants associated complex 3D objects with either gain or loss and made decisions to gain or avoid losing points. We investigated the relationship of a learning asymmetry with neuroticism, impulsivity, and anhedonia, to test the hypothesis that a stronger learning asymmetry corresponds to more extreme scores on these traits. RESULTS: Impulsivity was positively associated with the learning asymmetry (R2 = .10). This resulted from an inverse relation with the strength of aversive associations, indicating that impulsive individuals are worse at aversive learning. However, appetitive associations did not differ significantly. No correlations with neuroticism or anhedonia were found. LIMITATIONS: Conditioning studies typically use primary reinforcers and a CS-. Lacking these may make these results less comparable to other studies. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate that the learning asymmetry can measure individual differences linked to personality traits, and that impulsivity, normally linked with appetitive learning, also influences aversive learning. These results enable additional studies of learning asymmetry in relation to mental disorders, which could include measurements of mental health symptoms to provide further insight into how appetitive and aversive learning interacts with mental disorders.

Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the problem areas in diabetes (PAID) survey: Results from diabetes MILES - Turkey.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To 1) assess the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID), PAID-5 and PAID-1 survey among Turkish adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, 2) estimate the level of elevated diabetes-specific distress (DD), and 3) determine the demographic and clinical correlates of DD-symptom severity. METHODS AND RESULTS: From 2017-2019, 252 adults with type 1(n = 80) (T1DM) or type 2 diabetes (n = 172) (T2DM) self-reported demographic factors, DD(PAID) and related psychological and clinical questionnaires. We examined PAID internal consistency, structural and convergent validity. Associations of measures with DD were explored with hierarchical linear regression analysis. PCA yielded a 3-factor solution for PAID-20 and a 2-factor solution for PAID-5. Cronbach's α for PAID/PAID-5 subscales ranged from 0.63-0.90. All PAID versions correlated most strongly to BIPQ and HFS. The prevalence of elevated distress (PAID-20 ≥33) was 40% in T1DM and 15% in T2DM. DD severity was significantly positively associated (p < 0.01) with more negative diabetes perceptions (BIPQ) and type 1 diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: The Turkish translation of the PAID and its short forms appeared to have satisfactory psychometric properties. Elevated diabetes distress was more common in T1DM.

Individual differences in spatial configuration learning predict the occurrence of intrusive memories.

The dual-representation model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; Brewin, Gregory, Lipton, & Burgess, Psychological Review, 117, 210-232 2010) argues that intrusions occur when people fail to construct context-based representations during adverse experiences. The present study tested a specific prediction flowing from this model. In particular, we investigated whether the efficiency of temporal-lobe-based spatial configuration learning would account for individual differences in intrusive experiences and physiological reactivity in the laboratory. Participants (N = 82) completed the contextual cuing paradigm, which assesses spatial configuration learning that is believed to depend on associative encoding in the parahippocampus. They were then shown a trauma film. Afterward, startle responses were quantified during presentation of trauma reminder pictures versus unrelated neutral and emotional pictures. PTSD symptoms were recorded in the week following participation. Better configuration learning performance was associated with fewer perceptual intrusions, r = -.33, p < .01, but was unrelated to physiological responses to trauma reminder images (ps > .46) and had no direct effect on intrusion-related distress and overall PTSD symptoms, rs > -.12, ps > .29. However, configuration learning performance tended to be associated with reduced physiological responses to unrelated negative images, r = -.20, p = .07. Thus, while spatial configuration learning appears to be unrelated to affective responding to trauma reminders, our overall findings support the idea that the context-based memory system helps to reduce intrusions.

Delayed memory effects after intense stress in Special Forces candidates: exploring path processes between cortisol secretion and memory recall.

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it explores delayed effects of high endogenously evoked cortisol concentrations on visuo-spatial declarative memory. Subsequently, it applies multiple mediation (MM) analyses to reveal path processes between stress and cognitive performance in a sample of 24 male Special Forces (SF) candidates (mean age = 27.0 years, SD = 4.1). The SF candidates were randomly assigned to a control (n = 12) or an intense stress group (n = 12), and cortisol secretion for the intense stress condition was triggered by a brusque 60 min prisoner of war exercise. Stress exposure provoked robust increases in cortisol concentrations and a significant decline in immediate recall performance, measured with the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (ROCF). The relative retrieval differences in regard to the ROCF persisted even after a recovery period of 24 h, as both groups showed similar levels of memory decline over 24 h. Next, the study applied a MM design that involved distribution-independent asymptotic and resampling strategies to extend traditional bivariate analyses. MM results showed that ROCF performance was mediated by increases in cortisol concentrations. Considering the studied variables, the current analysis was the first to provide statistical support for the generally accepted thesis that cortisol secretion in itself, rather than subjective strain or the experimental treatment, affects cognitive performance. The revelation of such path processes is important because it establishes process identification and may refine existing paradigms.