Chronic cannabis use and attentional bias: Extended attentional capture to cannabis cues.

Introduction: A significant proportion of chronic cannabis users experience occupational, social, and psychological problems thought to reflect, in part, cannabis-related cognitive and emotional attentional biases. The emotional attentional blink (EAB) is a unique test of attentional bias that assesses automatic responses, cue-detection failures, and rapid and temporally extended biases. Using the EAB, we tested users' and non-users' attentional biases and how cannabis exposure correlates with these attentional biases.

The neural basis of humour comprehension and humour appreciation: The roles of the temporoparietal junction and superior frontal gyrus.

Psychological well-being and social acumen benefit from the recognition of humourous intent and its enjoyment. The enjoyment of humour requires recognition, but humour recognition is not necessarily accompanied by humour enjoyment. Humour recognition is crucial during social interactions, while the associated enjoyment is less critical.

Alexithymia tendencies and mere exposure alter social approachability judgments.

People have a fundamental motivation for social connection and social engagement, but how do they decide whom to approach in ambiguous social situations? Subjective feelings often influence such decisions, but people vary in awareness of their feelings. We evaluated two opposing hypotheses based on visual familiarity effects and emotional awareness on social approachability judgments. These hypotheses differ in their interpretation of the familiarity or mere exposure effect with either an affective or cognitive interpretation.

Diminished humour perception in schizophrenia: relationship to social and cognitive functioning.

This study attempted to confirm that humour recognition deficits previously found in schizophrenia are specific to the condition and not attributable to other parameters such as depression or anxiety. Secondarily, we explored any possible cognitive or social functioning correlates to humour recognition deficits. A total of 60 participants (20 outpatients with schizophrenia, 20 psychiatric control participants and 20 control participants) underwent a 64-question humour task in addition to a battery of standard cognitive tests and Social Functioning Scales.

Time-varying amygdala response to emotional faces in generalized social phobia.

Background: Individuals with social phobia (SP) have altered behavioral and neural responses to emotional faces and are hypothesized to have deficits in inhibiting emotion-related amygdala responses. We tested for such amygdala deficits to emotional faces in a sample of individuals with SP.

Method: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural substrates of emotional face processing in 14 generalized SP (gSP) and 14 healthy comparison (HC) participants.

Striatal function in generalized social phobia: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Background: Although evidence suggests the involvement of the amygdala in generalized social phobia (GSP), few studies have examined other neural regions. Clinical, preclinical, and dopamine receptor imaging studies demonstrating altered dopaminergic functioning in GSP suggest an association with striatal dysfunction. This is the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to use a cognitive task known to involve the striatum to examine the neural correlates of GSP.

Deficit in schizophrenia to recruit the striatum in implicit learning: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation.

In schizophrenia, explicit learning deficits have been well established although it is less clear whether these patients have deficits in implicit learning (IL). IL is thought to depend on intact striatal functioning. This study examined the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients show deficient recruitment of striatal activation during an IL paradigm, relative to performance-matched healthy comparison subjects.

The role of the striatum in implicit learning: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Previous research has posited striatal involvement in implicit learning. However, imaging studies have not directly compared learners with non-learners. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging with 15 study participants, we used an implicit learning task previously associated with striatal recruitment.

A longitudinal analysis of discrete negative emotions and health-services use in elderly individuals.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that everyday, discrete negative emotions-anger, frustration, sadness, and fear-relate to health-service use in later life.

Method: Community-dwelling adults (n = 345) ages 72 to 99 were interviewed about the frequency of recently experienced emotions. Physician visits and hospital admissions in the subsequent 2 years were outcomes.

Stability in perceived control: implications for health among very old community-dwelling adults.

Objective: Our purpose was to examine how stability/variability in perceptions of control (PC) relate to a variety of health-related variables.

Design: PC stability/variability across multiple domains was assessed in a longitudinal design including 318 adults, 72 to 99 years of age.

Method: PC and health-related measures were obtained during in-person interviews conducted approximately 3 months apart.