Using latent variable models to make gaming-the-system detection robust to context variations.

Gaming the system, a behavior in which learners exploit a system's properties to make progress while avoiding learning, has frequently been shown to be associated with lower learning. However, when we applied a previously validated gaming detector across conditions in experiments with an algebra tutor, the detected gaming was not associated with reduced learning, challenging its validity in our study context. Our exploratory data analysis suggested that varying contextual factors across and within conditions contributed to this lack of association. We present a new approach, latent variable-based gaming detection (LV-GD), that controls for contextual factors and more robustly estimates student-level latent gaming tendencies. In LV-GD, a student is estimated as having a high gaming tendency if the student is detected to game more than the expected level of the population given the context. LV-GD applies a statistical model on top of an existing action-level gaming detector developed based on a typical human labeling process, without additional labeling effort. Across three datasets, we find that LV-GD consistently outperformed the original detector in validity measured by association between gaming and learning as well as reliability. LV-GD also afforded high practical utility: it more accurately revealed intervention effects on gaming, revealed a correlation between gaming and perceived competence in math and helped understand productive detected gaming behaviors. Our approach is not only useful for others wanting a cost-effective way to adapt a gaming detector to their context but is also generally applicable in creating robust behavioral measures.

Mapping social reward and punishment processing in the human brain: A voxel-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging findings using the social incentive delay task.

Social rewards or punishments motivate human learning and behaviour, and alterations in the brain circuits involved in the processing of these stimuli have been linked with several neuropsychiatric disorders. However, questions still remain about the exact neural substrates implicated in social reward and punishment processing. Here, we conducted four Anisotropic Effect Size Signed Differential Mapping voxel-based meta-analyses of fMRI studies investigating the neural correlates of the anticipation and receipt of social rewards and punishments using the Social Incentive Delay task. We found that the anticipation of both social rewards and social punishment avoidance recruits a wide network of areas including the basal ganglia, the midbrain, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, the supplementary motor area, the anterior insula, the occipital gyrus and other frontal, temporal, parietal and cerebellar regions not captured in previous coordinate-based meta-analysis. We identified decreases in the BOLD signal during the anticipation of both social reward and punishment avoidance in regions of the default-mode network that were missed in individual studies likely due to a lack of power. Receipt of social rewards engaged a robust network of brain regions including the ventromedial frontal and orbitofrontal cortices, the anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, the hippocampus, the occipital cortex and the brainstem, but not the basal ganglia. Receipt of social punishments increased the BOLD signal in the orbitofrontal cortex, superior and inferior frontal gyri, lateral occipital cortex and the insula. In contrast to the receipt of social rewards, we also observed a decrease in the BOLD signal in the basal ganglia in response to the receipt of social punishments. Our results provide a better understanding of the brain circuitry involved in the processing of social rewards and punishment. Furthermore, they can inform hypotheses regarding brain areas where disruption in activity may be associated with dysfunctional social incentive processing during disease.

Measuring change in facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review.

LAY ABSTRACT: Children and adults with autism spectrum disorder show difficulty recognizing facial emotions in others, which makes social interaction challenging. While there are many treatments developed to improve facial emotion recognition, there is no agreement on the best way to measure such abilities in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this review is to examine studies that were published between January 1998 and November 2019 and have measured change in facial emotion recognition to evaluate the effectiveness of different treatments. Our search yielded 65 studies, and within these studies, 36 different measures were used to evaluate facial emotion recognition in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Only six of these measures, however, were used in different studies and by different investigators. In this review, we summarize the different measures and outcomes of the studies, in order to identify promising assessment tools and inform future research.

Identifying Factors Predicting Response to Endoscopic Management of Chronic Pancreatitis Secondary to Pancreas Divisum.

INTRODUCTION: Appropriately selecting patients with chronic pancreatitis associated with pancreas divisum (PD) for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)-based therapy versus surgery remains difficult. The objective of this study was to identify factors that predict success or failure of ERCP for treatment of chronic pancreatitis in PD. METHODS: Patients undergoing ERCP for a diagnosis of PD and pancreatitis between 2008 and 2016 were identified and grouped according to whether they required one or two ERCPs or three or more ERCPs. Groups were compared along demographic, diagnostic, laboratory, ERCP-related, and outcome variables. RESULTS: Patients requiring 1-2 ERCPs were less likely to have back pain on initial presentation (4 vs. 24%, p = 0.02) and less likely to have a dilated bile duct on imaging prior to their first ERCP (8 vs. 30%, p = 0.04) than those requiring 3+ ERCPs. Patients requiring 1-2 ERCPs were also less likely to eventually require operative intervention for treatment of their chronic pancreatitis than those requiring 3+ ERCPs (24 vs. 44%, p = 0.047). On multivariable analysis, a dilated bile duct (odds ratio (OR) = 6.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.01-36.0, p = 0.048) was independently associated with requiring 3+ ERCPs. Back pain (OR = 6.3, 95% CI = 0.73-54.2, p = 0.09) trended toward but did not reach statistical significance for being independently associated with requiring 3+ ERCPs. CONCLUSIONS: The success of endoscopic treatment of chronic pancreatitis in patients with PD is dependent on proper patient selection. Patients with a dilated bile duct and back pain upon presentation may not respond well to endoscopic treatment alone and are more likely to eventually require operative intervention. Consideration should be given to early operative intervention in these patients.

Collaboration facilitates abstract category learning.

We examined the effects of collaboration (dyads vs. individuals) and category structure (coherent vs. incoherent) on learning and transfer. Working in dyads or individually, participants classified examples from either an abstract coherent category, the features of which are not fixed but relate in a meaningful way, or an incoherent category, the features of which do not relate meaningfully. All participants were then tested individually. We hypothesized that dyads would benefit more from classifying the coherent category structure because past work has shown that collaboration is more beneficial for tasks that build on shared prior knowledge and provide opportunities for explanation and abstraction. Results showed that dyads improved more than individuals during the classification task regardless of category coherence, but learning in a dyad improved inference-test performance only for participants who learned coherent categories. Although participants in the coherent categories performed better on a transfer test, there was no effect of collaboration.

Attentional control mediates fearful responding to an ecologically valid stressor.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Attentional control (AC) is defined as the ability to voluntarily shift and disengage attention and is thought to moderate the relationship between preexisting risk factors for fear and the actual experience of fear. DESIGN: This longitudinal study elaborates on current models of AC by examining whether AC moderates or mediates effects of an ecologically valid stressor (a college examination) and also whether AC is predictive of state-like fear over longer timescales than previously reported. METHODS: Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that AC would moderate the relationship between trait anxiety and affective distress in response to the examination stressor. We also tested a competing mediational model based on AC theory. These models were tested in two separate samples (sample 1, N = 219; sample 2, N = 129; Total N = 348) at two time points, at the beginning of a college semester in a large undergraduate class and 5 minutes prior to a college examination. RESULTS: Mediation but not moderation of anxiety by AC was supported in both samples using multiple dependent measures. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that AC may be useful in predicting affective distress in naturalistic settings, particularly in cases where anxiety is anticipatory.

The Role of Perspective-Taking on Ability to Recognize Fear.

Impairment in the ability to detect certain emotions, such as fear, is linked to multiple disorders and follows a pattern of inter-individual variability and intra-individual stability over time. Deficits in fear recognition are often related to social and interpersonal difficulties but the mechanisms by which this processing deficit might occur are not well understood. One potential mechanism through which impaired fear detection may influence social competency is through diminished perspective-taking, the ability to perceive and consider the point of view of another individual. In the current study, we hypothesized that intra-individual variability in the accuracy of facial emotion recognition is linked to perspective-taking abilities in a well-characterized, non-clinical adult sample. Results indicated that the ability to accurately detect fear in the faces of others was positively correlated with perspective-taking, consistent with initial hypotheses. This relationship appeared to be unique to recognition of fear, as perspective-taking was not significantly associated with recognition of the other basic emotions. Results from this study represent an initial step towards establishing a potential mechanism between some processes of FER and perspective-taking difficulties. It is important to establish the relationship between these processes in a non-clinical adult sample so that we can consider the possibility of a developmental or pathological influence of impoverished perspective-taking on fear perception.

Validation of the NIMH-ChEFS adolescent face stimulus set in an adolescent, parent, and health professional sample.

Attention to faces is a fundamental psychological process in humans, with atypical attention to faces noted across several clinical disorders. Although many clinical disorders onset in adolescence, there is a lack of well-validated stimulus sets containing adolescent faces available for experimental use. Further, the images comprising most available sets are not controlled for high- and low-level visual properties. Here, we present a cross-site validation of the National Institute of Mental Health Child Emotional Faces Picture Set (NIMH-ChEFS), comprised of 257 photographs of adolescent faces displaying angry, fearful, happy, sad, and neutral expressions. All of the direct facial images from the NIMH-ChEFS set were adjusted in terms of location of facial features and standardized for luminance, size, and smoothness. Although overall agreement between raters in this study and the original development-site raters was high (89.52%), this differed by group such that agreement was lower for adolescents relative to mental health professionals in the current study. These results suggest that future research using this face set or others of adolescent/child faces should base comparisons on similarly-aged validation data. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Hemoglobin-mediated synthesis of PEDOT:PSS: enhancing conductivity through biological oxidants.

Hemoglobin- and catalase-polymerized PEDOT: PSS were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, visible and near-IR spectroscopy, FTIR, and ESR. Hemoglobin-polymerized PEDOT: PSS possesses bipolarons, while catalase-polymerized PEDOT: PSS is dominated by polarons. Use of heme-bound iron as an oxidant yields PEDOT: PSS with conductivity of 19.5 S cm(-1) in a single-step aqueous reaction.

Neural Mechanisms of Emotion Regulation in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by high rates of comorbid internalizing and externalizing disorders. One mechanistic account of these comorbidities is that ASD is characterized by impaired emotion regulation (ER) that results in deficits modulating emotional responses. We assessed neural activation during cognitive reappraisal of faces in high functioning adults with ASD. Groups did not differ in looking time, pupilometry, or subjective ratings of faces during reappraisal. However, instructions to increase positive and negative emotional responses resulted in less increase in nucleus accumbens and amygdala activations (respectively) in the ASD group, and both regulation instructions resulted in less change in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation in the ASD group. Results suggest a potential mechanistic account of impaired ER in ASD.

Is the link from working memory to analogy causal? No analogy improvements following working memory training gains.

Analogical reasoning has been hypothesized to critically depend upon working memory through correlational data, but less work has tested this relationship through experimental manipulation. An opportunity for examining the connection between working memory and analogical reasoning has emerged from the growing, although somewhat controversial, body of literature suggests complex working memory training can sometimes lead to working memory improvements that transfer to novel working memory tasks. This study investigated whether working memory improvements, if replicated, would increase analogical reasoning ability. We assessed participants' performance on verbal and visual analogy tasks after a complex working memory training program incorporating verbal and spatial tasks. Participants' improvements on the working memory training tasks transferred to other short-term and working memory tasks, supporting the possibility of broad effects of working memory training. However, we found no effects on analogical reasoning. We propose several possible explanations for the lack of an impact of working memory improvements on analogical reasoning.

Attentional control moderates fearful responding to a 35% CO(2) challenge.

Attentional control (AC) is an individual difference variable indexing the ability to voluntarily focus attention and shift attention when desired. AC is thought to impact the experience of fear by facilitating the disengagement of attention from threat and promoting the deployment of attentional resources toward regulatory or coping strategies. Whereas previous research has focused on visual threat cues, in the current study we examined whether this model also applies to interoceptive threat by evaluating the extent to which individual differences in AC moderated the relationship between trait anxiety and self-reported fear in response to a single vital capacity inhalation of a 35% CO(2), 65% balanced O(2) gas mixture. The sample comprised a large nonclinical group of young adults (N=128). Results indicated that AC moderated the relationship between trait anxiety and fearful responding to the challenge. Findings suggest that AC plays a significant and clinically important role in modulating self-reported fear.

Reward circuitry function in autism during face anticipation and outcomes.

The aim of this study was to investigate reward circuitry responses in autism during reward anticipation and outcomes for monetary and social rewards. During monetary anticipation, participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) showed hypoactivation in right nucleus accumbens and hyperactivation in right hippocampus, whereas during monetary outcomes, participants with ASDs showed hyperactivation in left midfrontal and anterior cingulate gyrus. Groups did not differ in nucleus accumbens responses to faces. The ASD group demonstrated hyperactivation in bilateral amygdala during face anticipation that predicted social symptom severity and in bilateral insular cortex during face outcomes. These results add to the growing body of evidence that autism is characterized by altered functioning of reward circuitry. Additionally, atypical amygdala activation during the processing of social rewards may contribute to the development or expression of autistic features.

The latent structure of dietary restraint, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness: a series of taxometric analyses.

Although the latent structure of various eating disorders has been explored in previous studies, no published studies have examined the latent structure of theoretically relevant variables that have been shown to cut across eating disorder diagnoses. The current study examined 3 such variables (dietary restraint, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness) among undergraduate women using the taxometric method. The 5 items from the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire's Dietary Restraint subscale were used as dietary restraint indicators, whereas items from the Eating Disorders Inventory Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness subscales were used as indicators of body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness, respectively. As hypothesized, MAXCOV (maximum covariance) and MAMBAC (mean above minus below a cut) analyses suggested that all 3 variables are dimensional; therefore, individuals with high levels of reported dietary restraint, body dissatisfaction, and drive for thinness appear to differ in degree, but not in kind, from those with lower levels. Implications for prevention, assessment, classification, and treatment are discussed.

A cross-ethnic comparison of lifetime prevalence rates of anxiety disorders.

To examine race-ethnic differences in the lifetime prevalence rates of common anxiety disorders, we examined data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Studies. The samples included 6870 White Americans, 4598 African Americans, 3615 Hispanic Americans, and 1628 Asian Americans. White Americans were more likely to be diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder than African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. African Americans more frequently met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than White Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. Asian Americans were also less likely to meet the diagnoses for generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD than Hispanic Americans, and were less likely to receive social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and PTSD diagnoses than White Americans. The results suggest that race and ethnicity need to be considered when assigning an anxiety disorder diagnosis. Possible reasons for the observed differences in prevalence rates between racial groups are discussed.

Temporal and structural dynamics of anxiety sensitivity in predicting fearful responding to a 35% CO2 challenge.

The current study assessed the incremental prediction of anxiety sensitivity (AS) in both taxonic (categorical) and dimensional representations at various time points before and after a single vital capacity inhalation of a 35% CO(2), 65% balanced O(2) gas mixture. Participants were 128 young adults screened for a history of panic attacks. By controlling for traitwise factors including state anxiety and testing both categorical and continuous conceptualizations of the AS construct at various timepoints, the present report was able to evaluate the temporal and structural dynamics of AS in relation to fearful responding to the challenge. Relevant variables were evaluated in a hierarchical linear regression framework, and it was found that a continuous conceptualization of AS provided incremental predictive validity above and beyond trait anxiety immediately post-challenge, while a categorical representation of AS was equivalent to a continuous model of AS at post-challenge but outperformed a continuous model at follow-up. These data provide basic but important evidence suggesting that AS is uniquely associated with anxious responding to a 35% CO(2) challenge, and that categorical representations of AS should be considered in biological challenge studies.

The latent structure of child depression: a taxometric analysis.

BACKGROUND: The current study examined the categorical versus continuous nature of child and adolescent depression among three samples of children and adolescents ranging from 5 to 19 years. METHODS: Depression was measured using the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Indicators derived from the CDI were based on factor analytic research on the CDI and included indices of: 1) social withdrawal, 2) anhedonia, 3) incompetence/maladjustment and 4) negative self-esteem. RESULTS: Taxometric procedures provided convergent support for the existence of a latent taxon across three independent samples. Internal and external consistency tests as well as Monte Carlo simulations supported the validity of the results. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple nonredundant procedures and samples were all consistently indicative of taxonicity in child depression.

When social anxiety disorder co-exists with risk-prone, approach behavior: investigating a neglected, meaningful subset of people in the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication.

Little is known about people with social anxiety disorder (SAD) who are not behaviorally inhibited. To advance knowledge on phenomenology, functional impairment, and treatment seeking, we investigated whether engaging in risk-prone behaviors accounts for heterogeneous outcomes in people with SAD. Using the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication (NCS-R) dataset, our analyses focused on people with current (N = 679) or lifetime (N = 1143) SAD diagnoses. Using latent class analysis on NCS-R risk-prone behavior items, results supported two SAD classes: (1) a pattern of behavioral inhibition and risk aversion and (2) an atypical pattern of high anger and aggression, and moderate/high sexual impulsivity and substance use problems. An atypical pattern of risk-prone behaviors was associated with greater functional impairment, less education and income, younger age, and particular psychiatric comorbidities. Results could not be subsumed by the severity, type, or number of social fears, or comorbid anxiety or mood disorders. Conclusions about the nature, course, and treatment of SAD may be compromised by not attending to heterogeneity in behavior patterns.

Attention training for generalized social anxiety disorder.

Attentional bias toward negative social cues is thought to serve an etiological and/or maintaining role in social anxiety disorder (SAD). The current study tested whether training patients to disengage from negative social cues may ameliorate social anxiety in patients (N = 36) with a primary diagnosis of generalized SAD. Patients were randomly assigned to either an attention training condition (n = 18), in which patients completed a modified dot-probe task designed to facilitate attentional disengagement from disgusted faces, or a control dot-probe task condition (n = 18). As predicted, patients in the attention training condition exhibited significantly greater reductions in social anxiety and trait anxiety, compared with patients in the control condition. At termination, 72% of patients in the active treatment condition, relative to 11% of patients in the control condition, no longer met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for SAD. At 4-month follow-up, patients in the attention training condition continued to maintain their clinical improvement, and diagnostic differences across conditions were also maintained. Results support attention-based models of anxiety and suggest that attention training is a promising alternative or complementary intervention.

Exploration of anxiety sensitivity and distress tolerance as vulnerability factors for hoarding behaviors.

BACKGROUND: The phenomenon of compulsive hoarding, characterized by the acquisition of and failure to discard a large number of possessions, is increasingly recognized as a significant public health burden. Despite the magnitude of the impairment associated with this condition, empirical research is still in the nascent stages and many facets of the phenomenology, underlying vulnerability and risk factors for hoarding, are as of yet unknown. METHOD: The overall aim of the current investigation was to examine the association between hoarding behaviors and two potential vulnerability factors-anxiety sensitivity (AS) and distress tolerance (DT). In addition, we investigated the robustness of these associations as well as the interaction between the two hypothesized risk factors. Three studies (total N=745) involving independent nonclinical samples assessed hoarding, AS, DT, and relevant covariates using a range of measures. Resutlts: Findings revealed that AS and hoarding are significantly and robustly associated with one another beyond general depressive, anxiety, and nonhoarding obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Hoarding was also found to be associated with low DT. Consistent with prediction, AS and DT interacted such that DT may play a less important role among individuals with low AS. By contrast, low DT appears to increase vulnerability to hoarding symptoms among individuals high in AS. Results are discussed with regard to future research and treatment implications. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. Published 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.