The duration discrimination respiratory task: A new test to measure respiratory interoceptive accuracy.

Interoception, which refers to the perception of body's internal state, is implicated in emotional processes and psychopathological disorders. Over the last decades, different tools have been developed to measure interoceptive accuracy, or the ability to accurately perceive physiological signals. Most of these tools have focused on cardiac interoception, but respiratory interoception has been less investigated due to the more complex and less portable equipment required.

Stress response and experiential avoidance among firefighters: Preliminary insights from network analyses.

Firefighters are at increased risk of developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to exposure to potentially traumatic events during their careers. However, little is known about the prevalence of PTSD among this population, particularly when taking moderating variables into account. Using Gaussian Graphical Models and Directed Acyclic Graphs, we conducted network analyses to examine the interactions between clusters of PTSD symptoms, perceived stress, hardiness, and experiential avoidance among 187 firefighters.

Physiological reactivity at rest and in response to social or emotional stimuli after a traumatic brain injury: A systematic review.

Unlabelled: Numerous studies have shown that alterations in physiological reactivity (PR) after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are possibly associated with emotional deficits. We conducted a systematic review of these studies that evaluated PR in adults with moderate-to-severe TBI, either at rest or in response to emotional, stressful, or social stimuli. We focused on the most common measures of physiological response, including heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), electrodermal activity (EDA), salivary cortisol, facial electromyography (EMG), and blink reflex.

Cognitive flexibility and attentional patterns among trauma survivors: preliminary evidence from an eye-tracking study.

Background: Executive functioning has been linked to both the development of post-traumatic symptoms and the efficiency of therapy. Specifically, flexibility processes seem to play a major role in the use of efficient coping strategies after a traumatic event. However, only a few studies have focused on the links between flexibility, resilience, and concrete behaviours displayed by individuals.

French Adaptation of the Brief Irritability Test: Factor Structure, Psychometric Properties, and Relationship with Depressive Symptoms.

The Brief Irritability Test (BITe, Holtzman et al., 2014) is a brief, reliable, and valid self-report measure of irritability. Despite the growing interest to understand the underlying causes and consequences of irritability, this questionnaire has not been developed and validated for a French-speaking population yet.

Neural responses associated with attentional engagement and disengagement from threat in high socially anxious children: Evidence from temporal-spatial PCA.

Background: Cognitive models indicated that social anxiety disorder (SAD) would be caused and maintained by a biased attentional processing of threatening information. This study investigates whether socially anxious children may present impaired attentional engagement and disengagement from negative emotional faces, as well as their underlying event-related potential responses.

Methods And Findings: Fifteen children with high levels of social anxiety (HSA; 9 boys; mean age = 9.

Influence of acute stress on attentional bias toward threat: How a previous trauma exposure disrupts threat apprehension.

While previous trauma exposure is known to be a risk factor for the development and maintenance of many psychological disorders, it remains unclear how it increases individual risk for prospective psychopathology in the aftermath of a new trauma exposure. The aim of this study was to investigate how a prior exposure to trauma affects attentional processing of threat before and after an acute stress task. Specifically, we assessed attentional biases to threat before and after a cold pressor task in 17 individuals who have been exposed to trauma (TE) compared to 18 individuals without trauma exposure (NTE).

The Role of Iconic Gestures in Speech Comprehension: An Overview of Various Methodologies.

Iconic gesture-speech integration is a relatively recent field of investigation with numerous researchers studying its various aspects. The results obtained are just as diverse. The definition of iconic gestures is often overlooked in the interpretations of results.

Eye-tracking exploration of inhibitory control in post-traumatic stress disorder: an emotional antisaccade paradigm.

: Cognitive-behavioural studies among individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have highlighted attentional biases towards threats as a key factor in the maintenance of the disorder. Anxiety-related studies have hypothesized that attentional biases were due to attentional control difficulties in inhibition and flexibility of threatening information. : Because it remains unclear how this theory could be applied to PTSD, this study aims to evaluate the inhibitory control and flexibility abilities of negative and threatening information in this population, using eye-tracking technology.

Affective Ratings of Pictures Related to Interpersonal Situations.

Many studies require standardized and replicable protocols composed of emotional stimuli. To this aim, several databases of emotional pictures are available. However, there are only few images directly depicting interpersonal violence, which is a specific emotion evocative stimulus for research on aggressive behavior or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Decision-making of patients with major depressive disorder in the framework of action control.

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) experience dysfunctional emotional states and cognitive impairments, leading to behavioural, social, and functional issues. Neurocognitive theory proposes that the initiation and maintenance of MDD is primarily the result of a deficit of action control which in turn would lead to decision-making impairments. We assessed 27 medicated outpatients with MDD who were demographically matched with 16 healthy participants on decision-making (DM) processes (Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Reversal Learning Task (RLT)), clinical variables (depressive symptoms and self-efficacy), and volition (Lille Apathy Rating Scale).

Examining the Hierarchical Influences of the Big-Five Dimensions and Anxiety Sensitivity on Anxiety Symptoms in Children.

Anxiety sensitivity (AS), namely the fear of anxiety symptoms, has been described as a precursor of sub-threshold anxiety levels. Sexton et al. (2003) posited that increased AS would arise from an elevated neuroticism and that both would act as vulnerability factors for panic disorder (PD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms.

Towards interpretable machine learning models for diagnosis aid: A case study on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that has heavy consequences on a child's wellbeing, especially in the academic, psychological and relational planes. The current evaluation of the disorder is supported by clinical assessment and written tests. A definitive diagnosis is usually made based on the DSM-V criteria.

Thinking About One's Feelings: Association Between Alexithymia and Cognitive Styles in a Nonclinical Population.

Alexithymia is described as a disturbance in the cognitive and affective processing of emotions. Little is known about the cognitive styles associated with this personality trait. In this article, we examine to what extent alexithymia is linked with poorer rational cognitive style.

[Physiological reactivity and interoceptive awareness in pediatric anxiety disorders: A conceptual and empirical review].

Objectives This review aims to summarize the data relative to objective and subjective measures of body responses in children and adolescents with anxiety.Methods We reviewed 24 studies measuring (1) cardiac responses and (2) interoceptive processes in children and adolescents with anxiety.Results Anxious children and adolescents generally do not differ from their non-anxious peers on their cardiac parameters and objective physiological reactivity to stressful events but some results suggest a reduced autonomic flexibility in pediatric anxiety related to chronic anxiety.

Emotional Processing and Attention Control Impairments in Children with Anxiety: An Integrative Review of Event-Related Potentials Findings.

Anxiety disorders in adults have been associated with biased processing of emotional information which may be due to a deficit in attentional control. This deficit leads to an hypervigilance and a selective attention toward threatening information. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to study this topic in anxious adults.

Is there an all-embracing construct of emotion reactivity? Adaptation and validation of the emotion reactivity scale among a French-speaking community sample.

Background: Emotion reactivity is defined as the extent to which an individual experiences emotions in response to a wide array of stimuli, intensely, and for a prolonged period. This construct is a key psychological factor in the development and maintenance of psychopathological disorders. The aim of the current study was to develop and validate a French version of the Emotion Reactivity Scale (ERS), which gauges three aspects of emotion reactivity: (1) emotional sensitivity, (2) emotional intensity, and (3) emotional persistence.

Reduced processing of facial and postural cues in social anxiety: insights from electrophysiology.

Social anxiety is characterized by fear of evaluative interpersonal situations. Many studies have investigated the perception of emotional faces in socially anxious individuals and have reported biases in the processing of threatening faces. However, faces are not the only stimuli carrying an interpersonal evaluative load.

Fear of negative evaluation and attentional bias for facial expressions: an event-related study.

Numerous studies have shown an exacerbation of attentional bias towards threat in anxiety states. However, the cognitive mechanisms responsible for these attentional biases remain largely unknown. Further, the authors outline the need to consider the nature of the attentional processes in operation (hypervigilance, avoidance, or disengagement).

The impact of the stimulus features and task instructions on facial processing in social anxiety: an ERP investigation.

Social anxiety has been characterized by an attentional bias towards threatening faces. Electrophysiological studies have demonstrated modulations of cognitive processing from 100 ms after stimulus presentation. However, the impact of the stimulus features and task instructions on facial processing remains unclear.

Enhanced perceptual responses during visual processing of facial stimuli in young socially anxious individuals.

The present study investigated whether social anxiety modulates the processing of facial expressions. Event-related potentials were recorded during an oddball task in young adults reporting high or low levels of social anxiety as evaluated by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale. Repeated pictures of faces with a neutral expression were infrequently replaced by pictures of the same face displaying happiness, anger, fear or disgust.

Electrophysiological correlates of enhanced perceptual processes and attentional capture by emotional faces in social anxiety.

Behavioural studies have used spatial cueing designs extensively to investigate emotional biases in individuals exhibiting clinical and sub-clinical anxiety. However, the neural processes underlying the generation of these biases remain largely unknown. In this study, people who scored unusually high or low on scales of social anxiety performed a spatial cueing task.