The ability to notice and reflect on distressing internal experiences from an objective perspective, often called psychological decentering, has been posited to be protective against mental health difficulties. However, little is known about how this skill relates to age across adolescence, its relationship with mental health, and how it may impact key domains such as affective executive control and social cognition. This study analysed a pre-existing dataset including mental health measures and cognitive tasks, administered to adolescents in Greater London and (...) Cambridge (mean age (SD) = 14.4 (1.77) years, N = 553). A self-report index of decentering based on available questionnaire items in the dataset was developed. Multiple linear regression was used to examine associations between decentering and mental health, affective executive control (measured using an affective Stroop Task, affective Working Memory Task, and affective Sustained Attention to Response Task) and social cognition. Higher decentering was significantly associated with lower depression and anxiety scores and higher psychological wellbeing. Results did not indicate significant relationships between decentering, affective executive control and social cognition. Further research is needed to discover cognitive mechanisms associated with this process, which could allow for optimisation of existing psychological therapy and reveal new avenues of intervention. (shrink)

Recent data indicate that under a specific posthypnotic suggestion to circumvent reading, highly suggestible subjects successfully eliminated the Stroop interference effect. The present study examined whether an optical explanation could account for this finding. Using cyclopentolate hydrochloride eye drops to pharmacologically prevent visual accommodation in all subjects, behavioral Stroop data were collected from six highly hypnotizables and six less suggestibles using an optical setup that guaranteed either sharply focused or blurred vision. The highly suggestibles performed the Stroop (...) task when naturally vigilant, under posthypnotic suggestion not to read, and while visually blurred; the less suggestibles ran naturally vigilant, while looking away, and while visually blurred. Although visual accommodation was precluded for all subjects, posthypnotic suggestion effectively eliminated Stroop interference and was comparable to looking away in controls. These data strengthen the view that Stroop interference is neither robust nor inevitable and support the hypothesis that posthypnotic suggestion may exert a top-down influence on neural processing. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect (delayed response due to interference) elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

This collection of eight articles of uneven quality examines ethical and moral considerations surrounding "euthanasia." They all concentrate more on philosophic issues such as decision-making, principles and theories of action and accountability, and definitions than on medical dilemmas which bring such questions to prominence. Except for Ladd’s they seem unfamiliar with current law on the issues, and most, we suspect, took shape before Saikewicz, if not before the appellate decision on Quinlan. There are four principal themes. The alleged distinction, rejected (...) by all but P. Foot, between active and passive euthanasia. The nature and origin of certain concepts such as "right", "death," and "person." The problem of whether rights can be located elsewhere than in persons. Special problems such as Down’s Syndrome infants and infanticide in general. (shrink)