Early life stress has shown to be related to an increased preference for smaller, more quickly acquired rewards over larger, delayed rewards—or an inability to delay gratification—a fundamental component of impulsivity. Beyond this, impulsivity is also characterized by difficulty concentrating and exercising self-control and has been found to significantly impact learning and memory. Specifically, in children, higher impulsivity is associated with greater learning difficulties, such as with reading. Previous research has also shown that adults with higher levels of inflammation portray higher impulsivity. The current study aims to investigate the relationship between impulsivity, inflammation, and childhood environmental conditions within children between the ages of 3-17. Saliva samples were collected from 248 children visiting the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History in order to measure current levels of proinflammatory cytokines, which indicate immune activation. Children then participated in a series of tasks that measured their ability to concentrate, learn to inhibit their responses, and delay gratification, while background and demographic information was collected from their parents. Results will reveal whether children growing up in stressful environments also have higher levels of inflammation and impulsivity.

Attitude Representation Theory (Lord & Lepper, 1999) asserts that individuals evaluate attitudes based on a subset of associations. As this subset of associations varies, attitudes can vary as well. Previous research demonstrated that people can mistake self-generated information for provided information, through source monitoring errors (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993), after extrapolating beyond the information given (Lu, 2015). We sought to apply ART and cognitive tasks (e.g., extrapolation, embellishment, and validity) by having participants judge the actions of fictitious groups. Although these groups are fictitious, they allude to current political viewpoints. We tested the effects of extrapolation (thinking about additional attributes of a target group; Experiment 1), embellishment (convincing a friend not to join the target group; Experiment 2), and biased assimilation (testing truth and validity of sources; Experiment 3) on polarization of moral judgments. Compared to a control group, embellishment polarized negative attitudes toward the group. The current set of studies could shed some insight about how people view issues, self-radicalize judgments, and understand thoughts of lone-wolf terrorists.

There are many benefits for children to receive music education. Research shows that note reading and music playing skills are positively correlated with cognitive development, motor proficiency, and self-esteem (Bilhartz, Bruhn, & Olson, 1999; Costa-Giomi, 2004; Schellenberg, 2004). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of equivalence-based instruction (EBI) to teach elements of music to children who have no music background in the age range of 4-7 years. The children first learned to relate the name of a note (e.g. “quarter”, “half”) to the length of the note as well as a picture of the note. They were also taught to name the lengths and names of sequences of notes (e.g. “quarter, quarter, half”). In the second part of this study, the children learned letter names of notes (e.g., “A”), keyboard placement, and what finger (e.g. thumb) goes with each letter name and piano key. Finally, we tested for emergent relations from part one and part two. Date collection in progress, but we predict to see emergence of relations between what was taught in part one and what was taught in part two. For example, when told “play this sequence on A,” participants will be able to use the correct finger on the correct piano key to play the notes in the sequence at the correct lengths.

Will work for alcohol! Reward value of alcohol in rats.
Joanna B. Thompson and Mauricio R. Papini

Abstract

The misuse of alcohol is a prevalent problem in the United States, contributing to an array of public health, social, and economic issues. It is estimated that over 16 million Americans each year receive a diagnosis of an alcohol use disorder (AUD) which contributes to an economic burden upwards of $249 billion (NIAAA, 2017). Previous research has shown that alcohol has rewarding properties which motivate organisms to engage in voluntary, oral consumption (Jupp et al., 2011). Although studies have provided evidence for decreased alcohol consumption in rodents, no studies to date have examined high concentration alcohol (upwards of 60%). We used a mixed Pavlovian-instrumental paradigm to train rats to self-administer solutions of 0, 2, 10, and 66% alcohol. Once oral self-administration was established, rats were switched to a progressive-ratio schedule of reinforcement where a greater response effort was required to gain access to each of the alcohol solutions. Solution presentation was switched between rats each day. Higher levels of behavioral responding to an empty sipper to gain access to the alcohol solution was indicative of the reward value of that particular solution. Rats exhibited similar breakpoints for each alcohol solution, though expended less effort for 0% (water). Future directions will involve antagonizing the orexin-1 receptor, which has demonstrated to decrease alcohol consumption (Anderson et al., 2014). A non-peptide selective orexin-1 receptor antagonist, SB-334867, will be administered prior to sessions of progressive-ratio alcohol self-administration to determine the effective dose (0, 1, 5, or 10 mg/kg) at decreasing self-administration of alcohol. These findings are relevant for developing an animal model of alcohol intoxication aimed at a potential clinical drug therapy for alcohol abuse.

Anderson, R., Becker, H., Adams, B., Jesudason, C., & Rrick-Kehn, L. (2014). Orexin-1 and orexin-2 receptor antagonists reduce alcohol self-administration in high-drinking rodent models. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 8, 33.
Jupp, B., Krivdic, B., Krstew, E., & Lawrence, A.J. (2011). The orexin-1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 dissociates the motivational properties of alcohol and sucrose in rats. Brain Research, 1291(1), 54-59.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. (2017). Alcohol use disorder. Retrieved February 2019 from https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-use-disorders

Since the 1920s, it has been recognized that nonhuman animals are capable of forming expectations about rewards and exhibit emotional responses when those expectations are violated—when obtained rewards have lower value than expected rewards. Our lab utilizes a rodent model for coping with unexpected reward loss with a specific interest in furthering our understanding of the underlying neural correlates. Frustration effects in rats are commonly and reliably produced using the consummatory successive negative contrast (cSNC) procedure, where rats are given access to a highly preferred 32% sucrose solution followed by an unexpected downshifted to 4% sucrose. Such surprising nonreward leads to a suppression of behavior compared to a control group that always received the less-preferred, 4% sucrose solution. Studies involving neurological manipulation indicate that permanent lesion or reversible deactivation of the central amygdala (CeA) and the basolateral amygdala (BLA) eliminate the cSNC effect. While these studies are important for identifying key structures, they provide little information about the underlying circuitry. The present research examined the role of the neural pathway between the BLA and CeA in the cSNC task using a chemogenetic approach known as Designer Receptor Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs (DREADDs). Inhibitory DREADDs are intracranially infused into the key structures and later activated by intraperitoneal injections of clozapine N-oxide (CNO). Both groups of rats received unilateral inactivation of the BLA and CeA. The experimental (contralateral) group has one functioning area in each hemisphere, a procedure that disrupts communication between the two areas. The control (ipsilateral) group has one hemisphere disrupted while the other is left intact. Preliminary results indicate a disconnecting the BLA-CeA pathway reduces the cSNC effect in contralateral rats compared to ipsilateral rats. The BLA-CeA pathway is necessary to respond to surprising nonreward. These results add to the hypothesized model of circuity underlying unexpected reward loss in mammals. Because the amygdala circuitry is highly conserved across species, these results inform us about the neural circuitry engaged by similar instances of frustrative nonreward in the human brain.

According to Terror Management Theory, religious people are motivated to cling to their religious beliefs when reminded of their death. Quest motivated religious people, however, value doubt in their beliefs and are uncertain about the validity of their religion. The purpose of the present work was to examine medical decision making among individuals who actively question their religious beliefs when death concerns are salient. Specifically, we found that individuals who are quest motivated reject traditional faith healing in favor of more scientific medical practices. These effects were exacerbated by death awareness. These findings support previous research suggesting that quest individuals are motivated to embrace their religious doubts in when faced with existential concerns.

Terror Management Theory suggests that individuals rely on worldview defenses to contend with mortality concerns. Similarly, religious individuals bolster their specific beliefs in order to defend against the awareness of death. Five studies examined the intersection between quest religiosity (e.g., individuals whose religious worldviews are to doubt and question), worldview defense, and existential anxieties. We hypothesized that quest individuals have weakened religious beliefs causing greater death thought accessibility. Additionally, quest individuals should display heightened secular worldview striving following mortality salience and less certainty in their own religiosity.

The current research examined childhood environmental factors driving the development of an unpredictability schema (a mindset about the world and people in it as unpredictable) and how maintaining such a cognitive schema impacts body awareness and eating in the absence of hunger. In Study 1, low childhood SES, parenting inconsistency, and poor childhood neighborhood quality predicted development of an unpredictability schema, which predicted lower body awareness. In Study 2, participants with an unpredictability schema had lower body awareness, less mindful eating, and more self-reported eating in the absence of hunger. In Study 3, this pattern was conceptually replicated in a laboratory eating task demonstrating that participants with an unpredictability schema had lower body awareness, which predicted more eating in the absence of hunger. Together, these results suggest that development of an unpredictability schema may be an important predictor of low body awareness and eating in the absence of hunger. Although these outcomes may have historically promoted survival in unpredictable environments, they may contribute to obesity in contemporary food-rich environments.

Alternative seating is being used in classrooms around the nation, but its efficacy, especially for children that are not typically developing, has not been well-studied. This study looks at the effects of four different types of alternative seating on focus, problem solving, and feelings of calm and attentiveness as compared to a control condition. A chair was designed specifically for this study, in an attempt to better serve the needs of children with postural disorders and learning disabilities, as past research has shown that these children do not perform as well on therapy balls (Bagatell, Mirigliani, Patterson, Reyes, and Test, 2010). Two versions of this new chair were included in the study, as well as a normal chair with a weighted blanket, and a therapy ball. The participants were between five and nine years old and were asked to complete some executive functioning (EF) tasks and answer some questions about how they felt, while being videotaped so that observational data on their on-task behavior could be coded later. Meanwhile, their parents completed a questionnaire about their child, including some questions about any diagnoses the child might have. The data has not been fully analyzed yet, but I hypothesize that children with learning disabilities and postural issues will do much better on the EF tasks in the new chairs or with the weighted blanket than in the therapy ball or control condition. I anticipate that typically developing children will do better in all of the alternative seating options than in the control. Furthermore, I do not anticipate that one alternative seating option will be significantly better for every child. Rather, I hypothesize that results will vary from child to child, suggesting that each classroom should have a variety of alternative seating options, so that children can find the one that works best for them.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease currently affecting 5.5 million Americans. Moreover, the disease prevalence is expected to rise to 16 million by 2050. Characteristic AD pathology includes neurofibrillary tangles of tau protein and amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques, which correspond with a deterioration of memory and cognition in patients afflicted with AD. Aβ is a peptide resulting from cleavage of amyloid precursor protein (APP) primarily present within neuronal cell membranes. The Aβ peptide aggregates into Aβ plaques throughout the AD brain, but a brain structure impacted heavily and early on in the disease progression is the hippocampus. As mice do not naturally form plaques, our lab utilizes the 5xFAD transgenic mouse, a model of familial AD, wherein genetic mutations result in plaques and allow us to study this human AD pathology in mice. Previous research from our lab has shown that 5xFAD mice that are chronically stressed through social isolation, as opposed to typical group housing, have an increased number of hippocampal Aβ plaques. The goal of the current project was to determine whether the stress-induced increase in Aβ plaques could be prevented through exposure to physical exercise alone, or to exercise and an enriched environment throughout the period of isolation. Two-month-old mice were housed in isolation, housed in isolation with an exercise wheel, or housed in isolation with an exercise wheel and an enriched environment. After 3 months, cognition was assessed through contextual fear conditioning, and brains were collected for hippocampal Aβ plaque counts.

Terror management research has shown that, following mortality salience (MS), death-thought accessibility (DTA) and distal worldview defenses appear after a delay. However, to date, delay times for DTA and worldview defense activation have differed, with longer periods being better. While the time course is theoretically understood (Arndt, Greenberg, & Cook, 2002), the optimal time to assess DTA and worldview defense seem to differ between studies. Two experiments varied the time following MS to see when DTA (Study 1) and worldview defense (Study 2) should ideally be assessed. Participants, in both studies, were assigned to either an MS or control prime and then to one of four delay conditions (0 min, 5 min, 10 min, & 15 min). In Study 1, DTA was assessed with a lexical decision task and demonstrated strongest DTA effects at 10 min. In Study 2, worldview defense was assessed using the Moral Transgression Scale, which demonstrated that worldview defense was strongest after at 15 min. The current research is important for better understanding how to appropriately conduct TMT research, as well as clarifying potential errors with other studies.

How do people judge the morality of groups who do negative behaviors for an admirable cause? For example, some participants responded to groups of people who disrupt abortion clinics, in order to save unborn children. In the current study, we tried to answer this question through the lens of Attitude Representation Theory (Lord & Lepper, 1999) and audience tuning (Higgins & Rholes, 1978). Previous research (Lu, 2015) has also shown that using an ART approach, self-radicalization can occur, such that participants can persuade themselves to adopt more extreme moral judgments than before. In this study, participants were presented with a fictitious scenario and then told to either write a letter to their best friend about why their friend should not join that group (embellishment) or about campus architecture (control group). Based on previous research, we hypothesized that those who write to their best friend will later rate the actions of a group as more immoral and want to see the group be punished more. The results provided support for both of our hypotheses since participants writing to their best friend demonstrated self-radicalization. The results suggest that moral judgments can be malleable based on context and circumstance. Broader implications will also be discussed.

Title:
The moderation of terror management effects in Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) individuals

Authors:
Paulina Mozo, Kathryn England, Elidia Avelar, Caroline Pope, Nathania Davis, Arielle Cenin, & Cathy R. Cox

Abstract:
The Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP; Hurley, Losh, Parlier, Reznick, & Piven, 2007) describes individuals who show characteristics similar to those with autism spectrum disorder. For example, BAP individuals show aloof personality (e.g., a lack of interest in social interaction), rigid personality (e.g., little interest in change or difficulty with change) and pragmatic language problems (e.g., inability to engage in fluid, reciprocal conversation). According to terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) people are motivated to mitigate the potential for anxiety inherent in the awareness of death so that these concerns do not bloom into debilitating terror. Individuals may do so through the use of three psychological defense mechanisms that together create an anxiety-buffering system: (a) cultural worldviews, (b) self-esteem, and (c) close relationships. Additionally, individuals show a greater accessibility of death-related thoughts following disruptions to their anxiety-buffering defense system (i.e., the DTA hypothesis; Hayes, Schimel, Arndt, & Faucher, 2010). Prior research has shown that individuals high in BAP rigidity demonstrate heightened death concerns and greater defensiveness following a mortality salience (MS) manipulation (Arrowood, Cox, & Ekas, 2016). Following this line of work, the current research aimed to examine the moderating effects of a sense of control on death-thought accessibility (DTA) in BAP individuals. To test this, participants were first asked to complete the BAPQ (Hurley et al., 2007) to assess the traits of aloofness, rigidity, and pragmatic language problems. Following previous research (e.g., Landau et al., 2011; Maxfield et al., 2007; Schimel, Greenberg, & Martens, 2003), participants completed a word search puzzle as the mortality salience (MS) manipulation. Specifically, in the death condition, seven death-related words (i.e., death, dead, decay, die, funeral, burial, & corpse) were embedded as they searched for neutral target words. Then, participants were randomly assigned to a control-prime writing task (i.e., full control, no control, vs. neutral). Finally, all participants completed the word-fragment completion task to measure DTA (Greenberg et al., 1986). The task presented 25 word fragments, 6 of which could be completed with a neutral or death-related word (e.g., COFF_ _ could be completed as either COFFIN or COFFEE), and DTA score was calculated as the total number of death-related word completions. A hierarchical multiple regression was performed to examine the effects of mortality salience, control, and BAP on death-thought accessibility. The results showed a significant three-way interaction between MS, control, and BAP rigidity on DTA scores. Specifically, this study provided evidence that priming individuals high in BAP rigidity with a sense of control buffered the effects of mortality salience. Given that parents of children with ASD experience greater accessibility of death-related thoughts, as compared to parents of typically developing children (Cox, Eaton, Ekas, & Van Enkevort, 2015), the current work provides a potential solution to buffer the effects of mortality salience in this population.

Human speech production and grammatical organization of language is controlled primarily by the left hemisphere of the brain. Broca’s area is a specialized area in the left frontal cortex that is responsible for our ability to construct grammatically correct sentences. Songbirds are studied as an animal model for understanding human language production. Our research sought to explore whether the neural control of birdsong syntax of the Bengalese finch is also lateralized; if so, the Bengalese finch would provide a good animal model to further study syntax generation in humans. To investigate this question, we recorded the birdsongs of 10 different Bengalese finches; then, the HVC (letters used as proper name) brain region, an area thought to control birdsong syntax, was lesioned in either the right hemisphere or the left hemisphere for each bird. Birdsong was then recorded for five months following the surgery. Song syllables were coded and analyzed to measure the syntactic structure of the song. The birdsongs were grouped into a right lesion group and a left lesion group, and they were compared based on three measures of song syntax; sequence stereotypy, sequence consistency, and sequence linearity were measured at each time point. HVC lesion initially disrupted song syntax, but song syntax recovered. There was no significant difference between the left and right lesion groups. When looking at individual time points, the right lesion group seemed to initially lose more syntactic control four days after surgery, but the group differences were non-significant. Overall, the two groups follow a similar trend of recovery. Our results suggest that the HVC control of Bengalese finch song syntax is not lateralized as it is in human speech. The recovery of song syntax following brain injury suggests that other areas of the brain contribute to the generation of syntactic structure of the Bengalese finch song.

Introduction: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience high levels of stress and face numerous challenges. They also report more mental health problems than parents with typically developing children (Falk, Norris, & Quinn, 2014). In families with children with ASD, differences are found between well-being in mothers as compared to fathers. A recent review found that mothers of children with developmental disabilities, including ASD, reported a higher number of positive experiences than fathers (Kayfitz, Gragg, & Orr, 2010). A possible explanation for this is that fathers may underestimate the influence of outside factors that lead to positive experiences with their child. This could negatively impact the father’s well-being. As research on the fathers in families with children with ASD has expanded within recent years, it is crucial to understand the factors that influence the father’s well-being. The purpose of the current study is to examine child versus parent characteristics as predictors of depressive symptoms in fathers of children with ASD.

Method: Thirty-one fathers of a child with ASD completed an online survey. They completed measures of depressive symptoms (CESD), the broad autism phenotype (BAPQ), adult attachment anxiety and avoidance (ECR-R), child symptom severity (SCQ), child behavior problems (SDQ), work-family conflict, and attitudes about the role of fathers (ROFQ).

Results: To examine the impact of child and parent characteristics on depressive symptoms in fathers of children with ASD a series of correlations were first computed. The results revealed no significant relationship between depressive symptoms and work-family conflict or the child’s symptom severity, ps ≥ .055. However, there was a significant relationship between depressive symptoms in fathers and attachment anxiety, children’s behavior problems, BAP symptoms in the father, and the role of the father, ps ≤ .040. However, when followed up with a multiple regression model, only attachment anxiety, b = 7.89 (SE = 1.87), t = 4.22, p ≤ .001, and the role of the father, b = -.51 (SE = .22), t = 2.35, p = .028, were significant predictors of depressive symptoms.

Discussion: This study helps to identify predictors of well-being in fathers of children with ASD. Specifically, the more attachment anxiety a father reports, the higher his depressive symptoms. It may be necessary to re-frame his attachment representations in order to promote more positive psychological functioning. Fathers who reported that their role is critical to their child’s development reported less depressive symptoms. Fathers are generally less involved in their child with ASD’s treatment (Johnson & Simpson, 2013) and many parent-mediated interventions focus on mothers (Braunstein et al., 2013). Our findings suggest that emphasizing the importance of fathers as an active caregiver may help improve father well-being.

Introduction: Research suggests that when reminded of death, individuals cling to their beliefs to cope with the terror associated their inevitable mortality. According to other studies, intrinsic religiousness buffers against existential terror and reduces the need for other terror management defenses as these persons are able to rely on their internalized religious beliefs as a shield and their overall relationship with their divine figurehead (Vail et al., 2012). Other work suggests that a relationship with God can be described as an attachment bond, specifically that an anxious attachment to God is strongly correlated with an extrinsic religious orientation (Rowatt & Kirkpatrick, 2002). The purpose of this study is to examine the association between intrinsic religiosity and attachment to God. Specifically, we hypothesized that low intrinsic individuals would experience a more avoidant attachment to God following mortality salience. High intrinsic persons, however, would display the opposite trend.

Method: Participants consisted of 158 Christians recruited from a medium, private university. Participants were first given the intrinsic religiosity scale (Allport, 1967). In order to manipulate mortality salience, participants completed a neutral or death-related crossword puzzle (Landau, Kosloff, & Schmeichel, 2011). Finally, participants completed the attachment to God inventory to assess for anxious or avoidant attachments to God (Beck & McDonald, 2004).

Results: A moderated regression analysis found a significant interaction between mortality salience and intrinsic religiosity on avoidant attachment to God. More specifically, in the mortality salience condition, individuals with a low intrinsic orientation displayed a more avoidant attachment to God than high intrinsic persons. Additionally, low intrinsic individuals displayed a more avoidant attachment in the mortality salient condition than the control condition. No significant effects emerged for the anxious attachment variable.

Conclusion: The present results suggest that low intrinsic people are unable to rely on their religious beliefs following mortality salience. Specifically, because these individuals do not internalize their beliefs, they become a source of contention instead of an anxiety buffer following mortality salience. Additionally, these results build upon those by Jonas and Fischer (2006) by suggesting that high intrinsic persons are able to fully shield against mortality salience because they have a strong attachment to God.

Most adults learned to read as children with relative ease and can briefly skim a paragraph and quickly grasp its meaning. However, anecdotal evidence both from educated individuals as well as illiterate adults in underprivileged countries suggests that it is impossible to achieve this same fluency as an adult. Adults learning to read in a new orthography are ‘stuck’ in a struggling state. They never achieve the ability to skim a paragraph and instead, must read every word letter-by-letter. Since this has never been tested in a lab setting, we do not know if this inability to read fluently in a new orthography is due to a change in learning capability with age, or if this has to do with how the new orthography is taught. In the current study, we trained TCU students to recognize letter-to-sound correspondences in Hebrew using either an in-person tutor or a pre-recorded program. We compared letter recognition and fluency over the course of training. We recruited nine individuals in the tutoring group and nine in the automated training program. We evaluated whether there was a difference between the tutored group and automated training program in terms of letter recognition and fluency. We will present our results and discuss pros and cons of in-person vs. automated instruction in reading acquisition as well as implications for future research.

Nearly 70% of persons in the United States are overweight or obese. Being overweight puts people at risk for a variety of health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and heart attacks. In light of previous research demonstrating that increased meaning in life (MIL) is associated with greater well-being, the present work examined whether heightened trait and state MIL increased exercise behavior. To do this, Study 1 participants were asked to complete the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (Steger et al., 2006) to assess for individual differences in MIL; whereas, Study 2 persons were randomly assigned to a meaning manipulation (i.e., writing about an meaningful event) versus a control prompt (i.e., writing about a daily activity). Persons, in both studies, wore Fitbit activity trackers to assess steps taken over the course of 1-2 weeks. The results revealed that greater instances of MIL (either as a trait or state) were associated with a heightened engagement in Fitbit activities. The current research is thus important in identifying a low cost intervention (e.g., writing) to increase health and well-being.

Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Visual Discrimination Learning with Rats
Sarah Jones, Lauren Cleland, Cheyenne Elliott, Sydney Wilson, & Kenneth Leising
Environmental enrichment has been shown to increase cortical thickness in the brain and exploratory behaviors in rats. In the present study, 16 rats were placed for two hours a day in an enriched environment consisting of a large play cage with two ramps and several toys. Rats in the control condition were handled each day but then immediately returned to their home cage. Following 30 days of enrichment, rats were tested for anxiety and exploration behavior by placing them on a plus maze. The plus maze includes two open arms and two closed arms (i.e., with walls enclosing the arm). Rats were then trained on a visual discrimination task in an iPad-equipped operant box. In the task, rats were reinforced for a touch to one of two response locations after the presentation of a visual stimulus (e.g., clip art of clouds or a star). Half of the stimuli were reinforced when the rat responded to the right response location, and the other stimuli after a touch to the left response location. The rats were further divided into those receiving differential outcomes and a control condition. Rats in the differential outcome procedure received one outcome (e.g., pellets) after a left response and a different outcome (e.g., sucrose) after a right response. Rats in the control condition received the same outcome following both responses. Acquisition of the discrimination was compared across the enriched and control groups to examine the effect of environmental enrichment on learning of a visual discrimination.

Introduction:  Interparental conflict is characterized by threats, hostility, and withdrawal, and is related to higher levels of negative emotions in children (Cummings et al., 2003). Although destructive interparental conflict has been shown to correlate with more negative emotionality in children, depressive symptoms have been less of a focus, specifically in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children with ASD have more social and behavioral difficulties than their typically developing (TD) counterparts (Ashwood et al., 2015). They often have other comorbid disorders, with depression being one of the most common (Ghaziuddin et al., 2002). Thus, destructive marital conflict may be associated with higher rates of depressive symptoms in children with ASD. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of interparental conflict on depressive symptoms in children with ASD versus TD children.

Method: Families with high functioning children with ASD (n = 21) and families with TD children (n = 29) participated in this study. The children completed the child depression inventory (CDI), and also reported on the level of interparental conflict in their home using the Security in the Interparental Subsystem scale (SIS).

Results: A moderated regression was performed on depressive symptoms as a function of diagnosis (ASD vs. TD) and destructive family representations. A main effect of diagnosis on depressive symptoms was found with children with ASD reporting higher depressive symptoms than TD children, b = -3.27 (SE = .56), t = 2.86, p ≤ .01. Also, as scores on the destructive family representations subscale increased, so did the child’s report of their depressive symptoms, b = .53 (SE = .19), t = 2.73, p ≤ .01. There was not a significant difference between slopes of the interaction of diagnosis and scores on the destructive family representation subscale, b = -.08 (SE = .41), t = .22, p = .82.

Discussion: Consistent with previous research (Ghaziuddin et al., 2002), this study shows that children with ASD report higher levels of depressive symptoms than their TD counterparts. Regardless of diagnosis, an increase in destructive family representations was associated with more depressive symptoms. For children with and without an ASD, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to reduce depression symptoms (McGillivray & Evert, 2014). It would be beneficial for both TD and ASD children who report high destructive family representations to partake in CBT to help lower depression symptoms. Future research should incorporate more measures of conflict, including parental and child reports as a predictor of child depressive symptoms.

References/Citations:
• Ashwood, Karen & Tye, Charlotte & Azadi, Bahare & Cartwright, Sally & Asherson, Philip & Bolton, Patrick. (2015). Brief report: Adaptive functioning in children with ASD, ADHD and ASD+ADHD. Journal of autism and developmental disorders. 45. doi: 10.1007/s10803-014-2352-y.
• Cummings, E. M., Goeke-Morey, M. C., & Papp, L. M. (2003). Children's responses to everyday marital conflict tactics in the home. Child Development, 74, 1918−1929.
• Ghaziuddin M, Ghaziuddin N, Greden J. (2002). Depression in persons with autism: Implications for research and clinical care. Journal of Autism Developmental Disorders, 32, 299 –306.
• McGillivray, J. A., & Evert, H. T. (2014). Group cognitive behavioral therapy program shows potential in reducing symptoms of depression and stress among young people with ASD. Journal Of Autism And Developmental Disorders, 44(8), 2041-2051. doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2087-9

People all over the world value facial attractiveness when selecting a romantic partner. An evolutionary explanation for this is that facial attractiveness could be a signal of good health. While many researchers have argued that facial attractiveness is, in fact, a reliable cue of good health, previous studies have found mixed results when investigating this relationship. These results have raised the question in our field as to the reliability of certain physical cues as honest indicators of genetic quality, which comprises health, immunocompetence, reproductive success, and longevity. To clarify the nature of the relationship between facial attractiveness and good health, a large dataset (N= 160) has been utilized from a previous study which contains photographs of participants, personal and family sickness history, as well as actual biological health markers of immunocompetence (e.g., NK cell killing % and mitogen induced proliferation). Participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk were recruited to rate the target photographs for facial attractiveness and perceived health. By comparing these ratings to the actual measures of health history and immunocompetence obtained in the previous study, results provide insight as to the true nature of the relationship between facial attractiveness, perceived, and actual health.

Attitude representation theory thus implies that people can change their attitudes through biased assimilation of new information about a group, even when the new information they receive is objectively balanced, some of it positive and some of it negative, because people give more weight to new information that confirms rather than disconfirms their initial attitudes. With all the studies that have followed up on the original Lord, Ross, & Lepper 1979 biased assimilation article, though, not one of them has investigated whether two pieces of new information, one positive and one negative, might polarize initially negative attitudes toward a group. The present study tests this prediction. By using MTurk workers as participants, we tested for interactions with factors like age and education, and are able to examine attitude polarization in a more general sample. In the different versions of this study, we had participants with pre-established negative attitudes or positions about either Muslims, Republicans and Democrats, or PETA members read two articles about the target group, one negative and one positive, and measured attitude change. Results are examined and implications for attitude polarization are discussed.

When communicating with others, individuals spend about half of the time listening to what the other person has to say (Dobkin & Pace, 2010). Actively attending to stimuli in our environment is a crucial part of being able to respond to a given task or command. For example, if a child is instructed to choose a red ball on the playground, it is important for the child to listen, interpret, and respond to that task by picking the red ball. The child must discriminate between both the spoken words (auditory stimuli) and the visual stimulus (the red ball versus other colored balls or objects). This study is intended to examine how the order of stimulus presentation influences one’s ability to learn these types of word-object relationships. In previous research, it has been found that the learning process is more effective when the auditory stimulus is presented to the learner prior to the visual stimuli (Petursdottir & Aguilar, 2015). Although there has been research related to presenting auditory before visual stimuli (sample-first) and presenting visual stimuli before auditory (comparison-first), there has been little research into the presentation of the visual (comparison) and audio (sample) simultaneously or into the repetition of the auditory with the visual stimuli. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of children’s acquisition of new word-object relations in auditory-visual identification tasks when simultaneously presenting the visual stimuli and auditory stimulus and when presenting the auditory stimulus first and then presenting the auditory stimulus again when the visual stimulus appears, in comparison to the previously studied sample-first method. Effects of the three presentation arrangement on acquisition rate are assessed in a single-case multi-element design. Data collection is currently in progress.

Children learn new vocabulary in many different ways that include temporally contiguous presentation of words and visual stimuli. The Naming Hypothesis (Horne and Lowe, 1996) suggests that during contiguous presentation it is necessary for the learner to make an overt or covert echoic response to the word stimuli in order for the word to be adequately learned and retained when there is no immediate requirement for recall. This hypothesis has been incorporated into early language interventions for children with autism, but in the absence of sufficient empirical evidence to support the role of echoic responses in vocabulary acquisition. This study extends prior research on the effects of echoic responding in a receptive task on subsequent recall of new verbal labels, by including a control condition intended to interfere with coert echoic responding. The participants were four-year old children who learned to receptively identify national flags in three different conditions. One condition requires an echoic response in each trial while pointing to the correct flag, one requires vocally labeling the background color of the flag while pointing, and the third requires no response. Effects of the three condition on verbal recall of flag labels are compared in an adapted alternating-treatments single-case design. Data collection is in progress; two participants have been enrolled and are currently undergoing instruction in all three

Attitude Representation Theory holds that people evaluate attitude objects by reference to the subset of associations that comes to mind at the time. Previous research on “audience tuning” has shown that people tend to slant their communications toward what they believe the audience wants to be told, and in the process convince themselves to hold more of that new attitude. Audience tuning effects on attitudes have been well documented, but all demonstrations of this phenomenon have involved communicating to an audience with a known opinion on one side or the other. We examined what happens when people who have a negative attitude of their own (based on limited information) communicate their views and the reasons behind their views, to an audience that knows nothing about the topic. Compared to a control group who just wrote about the weather, we predicted that those who talked about a target group to two friends would later be more likely to (falsely) recognize their own persuasive embellishments regarding the target group as being part of the information they were originally given about the target group. The experimental group will also report more negative attitudes toward the target group. We discuss the results of this experiment and the implications for future research on attitude polarization and audience tuning.