scholarly journals Desperately Seeking Support: Negative Reinforcement Schedules in the Formation of Adult Attachment Associations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lane Beckes

Much is unknown about adult attachment style formation. We investigate whether negative reinforcement schedules promote hallmark features of secure and anxious attachment styles in a shock-threat support-seeking paradigm. Participants ostensibly asked for help from another participant seated in another room. Each time a shock threat signal appeared they were to press a button to indicate their need for help. The supporter could then stop the imminent shock. The reliability of the supporters was varied such that some supporters were consistent (continuous reinforcement) whereas others were inconsistent (variable-ratio reinforcement). Results indicated that inconsistently responsive others, reinforcing on a variable-ratio schedule, led to heightened approach related attentional biases toward the supporter, measured by event related potentials, increased positive attachment associations with the supporter, implicitly measured via a lexical decision task, and more negative explicit evaluations of the supporter.

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 229-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lane Beckes ◽  
Kailey Simons ◽  
Danielle Lewis ◽  
Anthony Le ◽  
Weston Edwards

Much is unknown about adult attachment style formation. We investigate whether negative reinforcement schedules promote hallmark features of secure and anxious attachment styles in a shock threat support-seeking paradigm. Participants ostensibly asked for help from another participant seated in another room. Each time a shock threat signal appeared they were to press a button to indicate their need for help. The supporter could then stop the imminent shock. The reliability of the supporters was varied such that some supporters were consistent (continuous reinforcement) whereas others were inconsistent (variable ratio reinforcement). Results indicated that inconsistently responsive others, reinforcing on a variable ratio schedule, led to heightened approach-related attentional biases toward the supporter, measured by event-related potentials, increased positive attachment associations with the supporter, implicitly measured via a lexical decision task, and more negative explicit evaluations of the supporter.


2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wagner ◽  
Lioba Baving ◽  
Patrick Berg ◽  
Rudolf Cohen ◽  
Brigitte Rockstroh

The processing of attended and nonattended stimuli in schizophrenic patients was examined with event-related potentials (ERPs) in a lexical decision task. In positive semantic and repetition priming the N400 amplitude did not differ between a group of 17 medicated schizophrenic patients and a group of 20 matched healthy controls. However, negative priming affected the N400 only in controls. Reaction time effects were dissociated from these ERP effects, with patients showing stronger positive priming than controls but identical negative priming. The semantic processes related to the N400 appear to be intact in schizophrenic patients, but patients seem to incorporate less context information (about the nonattended prime) in their episodic memory traces. A stronger increase of the posterior late positive complex in parallel to the stronger positive priming in schizophrenic patients may reflect relatively stronger automatic memory retrieval processes in patients.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
Kelsey Cnudde ◽  
Sophia van Hees ◽  
Sage Brown ◽  
Gwen van der Wijk ◽  
Penny M. Pexman ◽  
...  

Visual word recognition is a relatively effortless process, but recent research suggests the system involved is malleable, with evidence of increases in behavioural efficiency after prolonged lexical decision task (LDT) performance. However, the extent of neural changes has yet to be characterized in this context. The neural changes that occur could be related to a shift from initially effortful performance that is supported by control-related processing, to efficient task performance that is supported by domain-specific processing. To investigate this, we replicated the British Lexicon Project, and had participants complete 16 h of LDT over several days. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) at three intervals to track neural change during LDT performance and assessed event-related potentials and brain signal complexity. We found that response times decreased during LDT performance, and there was evidence of neural change through N170, P200, N400, and late positive component (LPC) amplitudes across the EEG sessions, which suggested a shift from control-related to domain-specific processing. We also found widespread complexity decreases alongside localized increases, suggesting that processing became more efficient with specific increases in processing flexibility. Together, these findings suggest that neural processing becomes more efficient and optimized to support prolonged LDT performance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 694-711
Author(s):  
Tiziana Lanciano ◽  
Vanda Lucia Zammuner

Integrating theories of adult attachment and well-being at the workplace, the present study tested the role of attachment style in predicting work-related well-being in terms of job satisfaction and job involvement, over and above dispositional trait measures (emotional traits and work-related traits). A sample of workers took part in a correlational study that explored the relationships among a) adult attachment, b) emotional traits, c) work-related traits, and d) work-related well-being indices. The results showed that both secure and anxious attachment style explained workers’ job involvement, whereas the secure and avoidant attachment styles explained workers’ job satisfaction. The current findings thus confirm and expand the literature's emphasis on studying the variables and processes that underlie people's mental health in the work setting, and have implications for assessing and promoting well-being in the workplace.


2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Dumay ◽  
Abdelrhani Benraïss ◽  
Brian Barriol ◽  
Cécile Colin ◽  
Monique Radeau ◽  
...  

Phonological priming between bisyllabic (CV.CVC) spoken items was examined using both behavioral (reaction times, RTs) and electrophysiological (event-related potentials, ERPs) measures. Word and pseudoword targets were preceded by pseudoword primes. Different types of final phonological overlap between prime and target were compared. Critical pairs shared the last syllable, the rime or the coda, while unrelated pairs were used as controls. Participants performed a target shadowing task in Experiment 1 and a delayed lexical decision task in Experiment 2. RTs were measured in the first experiment and ERPs were recorded in the second experiment. The RT experiment was carried out under two presentation conditions. In Condition 1 both primes and targets were presented auditorily, while in Condition 2 the primes were presented visually and the targets auditorily. Priming effects were found in the unimodal condition only. RTs were fastest for syllable overlap, intermediate for rime overlap, and slowest for coda overlap and controls that did not differ from one another. ERPs were recorded under unimodal auditory presentation. ERP results showed that the amplitude of the auditory N400 component was smallest for syllable overlap, intermediate for rime overlap, and largest for coda overlap and controls that did not differ from one another. In both experiments, the priming effects were larger for word than for pseudoword targets. These results are best explained by the combined influences of nonlexical and lexical processes, and a comparison of the reported effects with those found in monosyllables suggests the involvement of rime and syllable representations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S162-S162
Author(s):  
F. De Riso ◽  
R. Giugliano ◽  
A.M. Monteleone ◽  
M. Nigro ◽  
F. Pellegrino ◽  
...  

IntroductionEarly life experiences can influence hypotalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation and adult attachment styles. Furthermore, several studies showed that in patients with eating disorders (EDs) there is a prevalence of insecure attachment. However, the relationship between adult attachment style, HPA axis functioning and onset of EDs is largely unknown.Objectives and aimsIn order to evaluate possible associations between attachment styles and HPA axis functioning in EDs, we investigated Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) in ED patients with different attachment styles.MethodsTwenty adult patients with EDs were classified in three groups, according to the Experience in Close Relationship questionnaire (6 with secure attachment, 6 with anxious attachment and 8 with avoidant attachment). Saliva samples were collected at awakening and 15, 30 and 60 minutes after.ResultsThere was a significant difference among the groups in both awakening and post-awakening cortisol concentrations. In particular, compared to secure and avoidant groups, the anxious group exhibited lower cortisol concentrations at awakening and post-awakening with a preservation of the timing of the CAR.DiscussionPresent findings demonstrate that anxious attachment style is linked to flattened CAR in EDs. This pattern has been associated with other psychiatric disorders. Therefore, attachment style could influence the HPA functioning and it could play, although not specifically, a role in pathophysiology of EDs.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.


1994 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Praamstra ◽  
Antje S. Meyer ◽  
Willem J. M. Levelt

Two experiments examined phonological priming effects on reaction times, error rates, and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures in an auditory lexical decision task. In Experiment 1 related prime-target pairs rhymed, and in Experiment 2 they alliterated (i.e., shared the consonantal onset and vowel). Event-related potentials were recorded in a delayed response task. Reaction times and error rates were obtained both for the delayed and an immediate response task. The behavioral data of Experiment 1 provided evidence for phonological facilitation of word, but not of nonword decisions. The brain potentials were more negative to unrelated than to rhyming word-word pairs between 450 and 700 rnsec after target onset. This negative enhancement was not present for word-nonword pairs. Thus, the ERP results match the behavioral data. The behavioral data of Experiment 2 provided no evidence for phonological Facilitation. However, between 250 and 450 msec after target onset, i.e., considerably earlier than in Experiment 1, brain potentials were more negative for unrelated than for alliterating Word-word and word-nonword pairs. It is argued that the ERP effects in the two experiments could be modulations of the same underlying component, possibly the N400. The difference in the timing of the effects is likely to be due to the fact that the shared segments in related stimulus pairs appeared in different word positions in the two experiments.


2001 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen R. A. de Bruijn ◽  
Ton Dijkstra ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla ◽  
Herbert J. Schriefers

Dutch–English bilinguals performed a generalized lexical decision task on triplets of items, responding with “yes” if all three items were correct Dutch and/or English words, and with “no” if one or more of the items was not a word in either language. Sometimes the second item in a triplet was an interlingual homograph whose English meaning was semantically related to the third item of the triplet (e.g., HOUSE – ANGEL – HEAVEN, where ANGEL means “sting” in Dutch). In such cases, the first item was either an exclusively English (HOUSE) or an exclusively Dutch (ZAAK) word. Semantic priming effects were found in on-line response times. Event-related potentials that were recorded simultaneously showed N400 priming effects thought to reflect semantic integration processes. The response time and N400 priming effects were not affected by the language of the first item in the triplets, providing evidence in support of a strong bottom-up role with respect to bilingual word recognition. The results are interpreted in terms of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model, a language nonselective access model assuming bottom-up priority.


2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (10) ◽  
pp. 1341-1351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tonggui Li ◽  
Jia Li ◽  
Qiyan Dai

This study investigated the relationship between adult attachment, social support, and depression of post-stroke patients. A total of 100 post-stroke patients were recruited to complete 4 questionnaires, which include 2 widely used measurements of adult attachment – the Relationship Questionnaire (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) and the Experiences of Close Relationships Inventory (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998) – to measure patients' attachment style, the Social Support Inventory (Xiao, 1994) measuring four aspects of social support, and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1967) measuring their depression level. The results suggested that patients differ in adult attachment styles and varied significantly in all indices of social support and depression. Secure subjects got higher scores in social support and lower scores of depression. Their depression level had significant positive correlations with attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety, and was negatively correlated to all indices of social support. Furthermore, both attachment-anxiety and subjective social support can predicate the depression level of poststroke patients.


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