The effect of gaze information associated with the search items on contextual cueing effect.

Previous research on the mechanisms of contextual cueing effect has been inconsistent, with some researchers showing that the contextual benefit was derived from the attentional guidance whereas others argued that the former theory was not the source of contextual cueing effect. We brought the "stare-in-the-crowd" effect that used pictures of gaze with different orientations as stimuli into a traditional contextual cueing effect paradigm to investigate whether attentional guidance plays a part in this effect. We embedded the letters used in a traditional contextual cueing effect paradigm into the gaze pictures with direct and averted orientation. In Experiment 1, we found that there was a weak interaction between the contextual cueing effect and the "stare-in-the-crowd" effect. In Experiments 2 and 3, we found that the contextual cueing effect was influenced differently when the direct gaze was combined with the target or distractors. These results suggested that attentional guidance played an important role in the generation of a contextual cueing effect and the direct gaze had a special impact on visual search. To summarize the three findings, the direct gaze on target location facilitates the contextual cueing effect, and such an effect is even greater when we compared condition with the direct gaze on target location with condition with the direct gaze on distractor location (Experiments 2 and 3). Such an effect of gaze on a contextual cueing effect is manifested even when the effect of gaze ("stare-in-the-crowd" effect) was absent in the New configurations (search trials without learning).

Childhood experiences of threat and deprivation predict distinct depressive symptoms: A parallel latent growth curve model.

BACKGROUND/AIM: There is growing awareness that specific childhood trauma (CT) may confer to the unique risk of depression, but little is known about this. The present study seeks to provide insight into how CT subtypes may impact distinct depressive symptoms over time based on the dimensional model of adversity (DMA). METHODS: A total of 3535 college freshmen participated in a 2-year, four waves longitudinal tracking study. A conditional parallel latent growth curve model (LGCM) was constructed to examine the impacts of different types of CT (threat and deprivation) on the development of depressed mood and anhedonia, and whether these relationships vary across gender. RESULTS: Our findings revealed that threat and deprivation could differentially relate to depressed mood and anhedonia. Both threat and deprivation predicted initial depressed mood levels (ß = 0.309, p < 0.001; ß = 0.175, p < 0.001, respectively) and its trajectory (ß = -0.139, p = 0.068; ß = -0.168, p < 0.05, respectively). Only deprivation predicted anhedonia levels (ß = 0.318, p < 0.001) and trajectory (ß = -0.218, p < 0.001). This pattern of relationships between CT and depressive symptoms varied across gender. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight specific pathways and symptomatic manifestations of the impacts of different CT subtypes on depression and are consistent with the hypothesis of DMA. Threat and deprivation predicted more severe depressed mood, whereas deprivation uniquely conferred to the risk of depression via elevated anhedonia. Meanwhile, the deleterious effects of CT would persist during early adulthood. Gender differences were also discussed.

Decreased functional coupling within default mode network in major depressive disorder with childhood trauma.

OBJECTIVE: Childhood trauma (CT) has been supported to be a high-risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD), but the neural mechanism linking CT and depression remains unclear. The aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of this issue by establishing the neuroimaging correlations between CT and depression. METHODS: A sample of 123 MDD patients (91 with moderate-to-severe CT and 32 with no or low CT) and 79 healthy controls (HC, 33 with moderate-to-severe CT and 46 with no or low CT) participated. All participants completed assessments of depression level, anxiety, recent perceived stress, and resting-state functional MRI scan. RESULTS: Participants with moderate-to-severe CT showed elevated depression level and trait anxiety, and reduced spontaneous neural activity in left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). Abnormalities of seed-based functional connectivity (FC) of left ITG - bilateral precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), left medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), and bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)/anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were observed. CT was associated with decreased FCs in MDD, but with increased FCs in HC. The total altered FCs of left ITG - bilateral precuneus/PCC and left mOFC mediated relationship between CT and depression in MDD, and total altered FCs and trait anxiety have a significant chain mediation effect in the association between CT and depression in HC. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the changes of default mode network (DMN) functions and trait anxiety as targets of CT. The decreased functional coupling within DMN may be involved in the mechanism of MDD following CT.

The abnormal implicit memory to positive and negative stimuli in patients with current and remitted major depressive disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: In patients with current major depressive disorder (cMDD) a general abnormal implicit memory has been reported. However, the elaborate function of implicit memory when processing stimuli with different emotions (i.e., positive, neutral, and negative) in current and remitted (rMDD) patients is unclear. The present review examines implicit memory's general and elaborate in cMDD and rMDD patients. Methods: We conducted meta-analyses based on published studies meeting criteria in Web of Science, PubMed, and EMBASE databases between 1990 and July 2022. The full sample patients included cMDD = 601 and rMDD = 143. Results: Initial analysis of cMDD patients revealed a general implicit memory deficit. Subsequent subgroup analyses showed that the implicit memory performance to neutral stimuli is poorer in cMDD patients than controls, but recovered in rMDD patients; the deficient implicit memory to positive stimuli existed in cMDD and rMDD patients; the implicit memory performance to negative stimuli in cMDD patients is similar to controls but poorer in rMDD patients. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the negative bias in cMDD patients might compensate for the general implicit memory deficit. Together, the implicit memory to neutral stimuli could recover with remission, whereas still abnormal in processing positive and negative stimuli. These results suggested that the abnormal implicit memory to positive and negative information might be relevant to depression pathogenesis. Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero, identifier CRD42020205003.

Factor Structure and Gender Invariance of Chinese Version State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y) in University Students.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety can be classified as state anxiety and trait anxiety which present the current level of anxiety and the generalized anxiety tendencies of individuals, respectively. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory form Y (STAI-Y) is a reliable instrument used to test both the levels of state and trait anxiety across various countries. However, the optimal factor structure of STAI-Y in different populations is not consistent and is not clear in Chinese university students. In addition, the gender invariance is the premise for comparing the scores of STAI-Y between men and women which also need to be verified. Therefore, this study explored the optimal factor structure of STAI-Y and examined whether the optimal factor structure satisfied measurement invariance across gender in Chinese university students. METHOD: A sample of 2117 Chinese university students participated in this study including 748 men and 1369 women. The optimal factor structure was decided by singer group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM). Furthermore, the configural invariance, metric invariance, scalar invariance, and strict invariance models were administrated in multigroup CFA to detect the measurement equivalence of STAI-Y across gender in Chinese university students. The reliability of STAI-Y was tested by Cronbach's alpha coefficient and McDonald's omega coefficients. RESULTS: The optimal factor structure of STAI-Y was four-factor model and reached strict gender invariance in Chinese university students. Moreover, the STAI-Y also had adequate reliability in Chinese university students. CONCLUSION: This study explored the factor structure and gender invariance of STAI-Y in Chinese university students. In sum, the four-factor structure of STAI-Y obtained the best goodness-of-fit and satisfied gender invariance which deepened the understanding of STAI-Y in Chinese university students.

Executive working memory involved in the learning of contextual cueing effect.

Implicit learning of spatial layouts occurs when target-distractor configurations repeat during a visual search task [contextual cueing; Chun and Jiang in Cogn Psychol 36(1): 28-17, 1998]. This study addressed the extent to which contextual cueing depends on executive working memory (WM). In three experiments, participants performed a contextual cueing visual search task concurrently with a WM task. The WM task was either executive (subtract 3 from each digit in WM) or non-executive (hold digits in WM), and was either low load (Experiment 1) or high load (Experiment 2). Contextual cueing was attenuated in the high-load executive WM condition. Experiment 3 replicated our findings using a within-subjects design, and confirmed the interpretation that executive functions of WM are required in contextual learning.

How Attentional Guidance and Response Selection Boost Contextual Learning: Evidence from Eye Movement.

The contextual cueing effect (CCE) refers to the learned association between predictive configuration and target location, speeding up response times for targets. Previous studies have examined the underlying processes (initial perceptual process, attentional guidance, and response selection) of CCE but have not reached a general consensus on their contributions to CCE. In the present study, we used eye tracking to address this question by analyzing the oculomotor correlates of context-guided learning in visual search and eliminating indefinite response factors during response priming. The results show that both attentional guidance and response selection contribute to contextual learning.

The effect of anxiety on emotional recognition: evidence from an ERP study.

Anxiety-related bias in the recognition memory based on trait anxiety has induced some studies. Their results, however, were conflicting. In fact, anxious differences not only differed from personality traits but also from different anxiety mood levels. We explored the emotional memory bias in both trait and state anxiety individuals, the high trait and high state anxiety group, the high trait and low state anxiety group, the low trait and high state anxiety group, and the low trait and low state anxiety group, on classic recognition paradigm using event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioral results showed high state anxiety levels increased the d' of negative words, regardless of the trait anxiety of participant is high or low, and a lower d' of recognition memory for negative words than for neutral and positive words in all participants. Moreover, Electrophysiological results supported the findings of behavior, showing an earlier N400 (250-500 ms) latency elicited for new-negative words in high state level than in low state levels in right parietal region. These results suggested that the memory bias to negative events resides in state anxiety, but not in trait anxiety.