Ottmar Lipp | Curtin University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ottmar Lipp

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the ‘womenare-wonderful’ effect— that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across forty-four cultures in Krys et al. (2016), and (1) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the ‘women-are-wonderful’ effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e., rating the personality of men and women presented in images), and (2) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than t...

International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie, Jan 14, 2017

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies-there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women-are-wonderful effect-that women are evaluated more positively than men overall-is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women-are-wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.

Emotion, 2014

and Neel (2011) proposed recommendations to avoid methodological confounds in visual search studi... more and Neel (2011) proposed recommendations to avoid methodological confounds in visual search studies using emotional photographic faces. These confounds were argued to cause the frequently observed Anger Superiority Effect (ASE), the faster detection of angry than happy expressions, and conceal a true Happiness Superiority Effect (HSE). In Experiment 1, we applied these recommendations (for the first time) to visual search among schematic faces that previously had consistently yielded a robust ASE. Contrary to the prevailing literature, but consistent with D.V. Becker et al. (2011), we observed a HSE with schematic faces. The HSE with schematic faces was replicated in Experiments 2 and 3 using a similar method in discrimination tasks rather than fixed target searches. Experiment 4 isolated background heterogeneity as the key determinant leading to the HSE.

Learning and Motivation, 2010

Evaluative learning is said to differ from Pavlovian associative learning in that it reflects sti... more Evaluative learning is said to differ from Pavlovian associative learning in that it reflects stimulus contiguity, not contingency. Thus, evaluative learning should not be subject to stimulus competition, a proposal tested in the current experiments. Participants were presented in elemental and compound training phases with pictures of shapes as CSs. Each shape/pair of shapes was followed by a picture of

Australian Journal …, 2011

... CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Provost, S, Martin, F, Hannan, G, Farrell, G, ... more ... CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Provost, S, Martin, F, Hannan, G, Farrell, G, Chalmers, D, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Bath, D, Dennis, K and Wilson, P (2005) CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Australian Journal of Psychology, 57 : 245-246. ...

… 39th Conference of …, 2007

Wilson, P, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Chalmers, D, Hannan, G, Martin, F, Farrell, G, Bath, D, & Provost, ... more Wilson, P, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Chalmers, D, Hannan, G, Martin, F, Farrell, G, Bath, D, & Provost, S 2007, 'The Australian Universities Teaching Committee project in learning outcomes and curriculum development in psychology', in S McCarthy, S Newstead, V Karandashev, C Prandini, C ...

Neuroscience Letters, 2006

Previous research has been interpreted to suggest that the startle reflex mediates the RT facilit... more Previous research has been interpreted to suggest that the startle reflex mediates the RT facilitation observed if intense, accessory acoustic stimuli are presented coinciding with the onset of a visual imperative stimulus in a forewarned simple RT task. The present research replicated this finding as well as the facilitation of startle observed during the imperative stimulus. It failed, however, to find any relationship between the size of the blink startle reflex elicited by the accessory acoustic stimuli, which differed in intensity and rise time, and RT or RT facilitation observed on trials with accessory acoustic stimuli. This finding suggests that the RT facilitation is not mediated by the startle reflex elicited by the accessory acoustic stimuli.

Learning and Motivation, 2001

The proposal that affective learning, the learning of likes and dislikes, can exist in the absenc... more The proposal that affective learning, the learning of likes and dislikes, can exist in the absence of contingency awareness, whereas signal learning, the learning of stimulus relationships, cannot, was investigated in a differential conditioning paradigm that was embedded in a visual masking task. Startle magnitude modulation and changes in verbal ratings served as measures of affective learning, whereas skin conductance was taken to reflect signal learning. Awareness was assessed online with an expectancy dial and in a postexperimental questionnaire. Both betweensubject comparisons of verbalizers and nonverbalizers and within-subject comparisons of verbalizers before and after verbalization failed to reveal any evidence for learning, whether affective or otherwise, in the absence of knowledge of the stimulus contingencies.

Journal of Psychophysiology, 2000

We used the startle eyeblink modification paradigm to investigate whether clinically anxious chil... more We used the startle eyeblink modification paradigm to investigate whether clinically anxious children, like high trait-anxious adults, display a bias in favour of threat words compared to neutral words. The present study included 16 clinically anxious children whose diagnostic status was determined using the parent version of a semistructured diagnostic interview as part of a larger childhood anxiety study. The children were presented with threat and neutral words for 6 s each. A startle-eliciting auditory stimulus - a 100 dBA burst of white noise of 50 ms duration - was presented during the words at lead intervals of 60, 120, 240, or 3500 ms and during intertrial intervals. The overall pattern of startle eyeblink modification indicated inhibition at the 120 and 240 ms lead intervals and facilitation at the 3500 ms lead interval. Startle-latency shortening during threat words at the 60 ms lead interval was larger than at other intervals, whereas there was no difference during neutra...

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2008

The present study investigated the relationship between blink startle and cardiac defense, two pr... more The present study investigated the relationship between blink startle and cardiac defense, two protective reflexes that are said to be elicited by the transient and the sustained components, respectively, of high intensity stimuli. Three groups of participants were presented with three intense long lasting noise stimuli (500ms) after habituation training with 12 brief (50ms) high intensity noise bursts (High group), low intensity noise bursts (Low group) or high intensity visual stimuli (Light group). The transition from habituation to defense stimuli resulted in increased blink startles in groups Low and Light, but not in group High. A cardiac defense reflex, characterised by a short and long delayed increase in heart rate, was observed in group Light, but not in groups Low and High. This pattern of results indicates that habituation to startle eliciting stimuli will impair defense reflexes elicited on subsequent test trials and suggests some interrelation between the two reflex systems.

Emotion, 2013

Previous research has provided inconsistent results regarding visual search for emotional faces, ... more Previous research has provided inconsistent results regarding visual search for emotional faces, yielding evidence for either anger superiority (i.e., more efficient search for angry faces) or happiness superiority effects (i.e., more efficient search for happy faces), suggesting that these results do not reflect on emotional expression, but on emotion (un-)related low-level perceptual features. The present study investigated possible factors mediating anger/happiness superiority effects; specifically search strategy (fixed vs. variable target search; Experiment 1), stimulus choice (Nimstim database vs. Ekman & Friesen database; Experiments 1 and 2), and emotional intensity (Experiment 3 and 3a). Angry faces were found faster than happy faces regardless of search strategy using faces from the Nimstim database (Experiment 1). By contrast, a happiness superiority effect was evident in Experiment 2 when using faces from the Ekman and Friesen database. Experiment 3 employed angry, happy, and exuberant expressions (Nimstim database) and yielded anger and happiness superiority effects, respectively, highlighting the importance of the choice of stimulus materials. Ratings of the stimulus materials collected in Experiment 3a indicate that differences in perceived emotional intensity, pleasantness, or arousal do not account for differences in search efficiency. Across three studies, the current investigation indicates that prior reports of anger or happiness superiority effects in visual search are likely to reflect on low-level visual features associated with the stimulus materials used, rather than on emotion.

Cognition and Emotion, 2013

Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visu... more Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visual search tasks. However, it remains unclear whether these facial cues interact in visual search. If both cues equally facilitate search, a symmetrical interaction would be predicted; anger cues should facilitate detection of other race faces and cues of other race membership should facilitate detection of anger. Past research investigating this race by emotional expression interaction in categorisation tasks revealed an asymmetrical interaction. This suggests that cues of other race membership may facilitate the detection of angry faces but not vice versa. Utilising the same stimuli and procedures across two search tasks, participants were asked to search for targets defined by either race or emotional expression. Contrary to the results revealed in the categorisation paradigm, cues of anger facilitated detection of other race faces whereas differences in race did not differentially influence detection of emotion targets.

Cognition & Emotion, 2009

Previous research has demonstrated differences in processing between fear-relevant stimuli, such ... more Previous research has demonstrated differences in processing between fear-relevant stimuli, such as snakes and spiders, and non-fear-relevant stimuli. The current research examined whether non-fear-relevant animal stimuli, such as dogs, birds and fish, were processed like fear-relevant stimuli following aversive learning. Pictures of a priori fear-relevant animals, snakes and spiders, were evaluated as negative in affective priming and ratings and were preferentially attended to in a visual search task. Pictures of dogs, birds and fish that had been trained as CS' in an aversive conditioning design were evaluated more negatively and facilitated dot probe detection relative to CS(pictures. The current studies demonstrated that stimuli viewed as positive prior to aversive learning were negative and were preferentially attended to after a brief learning episode. We propose that aversive learning may provide a mechanism for the acquisition of stimulus fear relevance. Fear relevance refers to the efficacy with which a stimulus is associated with fear. Phylogenetic, fear-relevant stimuli, such as snakes, spiders or heights, are more commonly associated with phobia than are other stimuli, and are often referred to as ''evolutionarily'' fear-relevant stimuli, referring to the notion that they are innately fear relevant. Ontogenetic, fear-relevant stimuli, such as guns, are evolutionarily recent stimuli that are proposed to have become fear relevant through learning. Both phylogenetic and ontogenetic fear-relevant stimuli display several consistent properties, such as selective associability with fear and access to preferential attentional processing. Mechanisms for phylogenetic fear relevance have been defined

Cognition & Emotion, 2011

It has been consistently demonstrated that fear-relevant images capture attention preferentially ... more It has been consistently demonstrated that fear-relevant images capture attention preferentially over fear-irrelevant images. Current theory suggests that this faster processing could be mediated by an evolved module that allows certain stimulus features to attract attention automatically, prior to the detailed processing of the image. The present research investigated whether simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli would produce interference with target detection in a visual search task. In Experiment 1, silhouettes and degraded silhouettes of fear-relevant animals produced more interference than did the fear-irrelevant images. Experiment 2, compared the effects of fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant distracters and confirmed that the interference produced by fear-relevant distracters was not an effect of novelty. Experiment 3 suggested that fear-relevant stimuli produced interference regardless of whether participants were instructed as to the content of the images. The three experiments indicate that even very simplistic images of fear-relevant animals can divert attention.

Biological Psychology, 2001

The present research investigated attentional blink startle modulation at lead intervals of 60, 2... more The present research investigated attentional blink startle modulation at lead intervals of 60, 240 and 3500 ms. Letters printed in Gothic or standard fonts, which differed in rated interest, but not valence, served as lead stimuli. Experiment 1 established that identifying letters as vowels/consonants took longer than reading the letters and that performance in both tasks was slower if letters were printed in Gothic font. In Experiment 2, acoustic blink eliciting stimuli were presented 60, 240 and 3500 ms after onset of the letters in Gothic and in standard font and during intertrial intervals. Half the participants (Group Task) were asked to identify the letters as vowels/consonants whereas the others (Group No-Task) did not perform a task. Relative to control responses, blinks during letters were facilitated at 60 and 3500 ms lead intervals and inhibited at the 240 ms lead interval for both conditions in Group Task. Differences in blink modulation across lead intervals were found in Group No-Task only during Gothic letters with blinks at the 3500 ms lead interval facilitated relative to control blinks. The present results confirm previous findings indicating that attentional processes can modulate startle at very short lead intervals.

Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2008

Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n = 23), ... more Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n = 23), at-risk for anxiety disorders (n = 15), and controls (n = 11). Participants underwent 16 trials of discriminative conditioning of two geometric figures, with (CS+) or without (CS−) an aversive tone (US), followed by 8 extinction trials (4 CS+, 4 CS−), and 8 extinction re-test trials averaging 2 weeks later. Skin conductance responses and verbal ratings of valence and arousal to the CS +/CS− stimuli were measured. Anxiety disordered children showed larger anticipatory and unconditional skin conductance responses across conditioning, and larger orienting and anticipatory skin conductance responses across extinction and extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS−, relative to controls. At-risk children showed larger unconditional responses during conditioning, larger orienting responses during the first block of extinction, and larger anticipatory responses during extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS−, relative to controls. Also, anxiety disordered children rated the CS+ as more unpleasant than the other groups. Elevated skin conductance responses to signals of threat (CS+) and signals of safety (CS−; CS+ during extinction) are discussed as features of manifestation of and risk for anxiety in children, compared to the specificity of valence judgments to the manifestation of anxiety.

Psychologist, 2004

The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curricu... more The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Psychology ... Greg Hannan, and Frances Martin, Gerry Farrell, University of Tasmania Denise Chalmers, Ottmar Lipp, and Deborah Terry, University of Queensland ...

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the ‘womenare-wonderful’ effect— that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across forty-four cultures in Krys et al. (2016), and (1) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the ‘women-are-wonderful’ effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e., rating the personality of men and women presented in images), and (2) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than t...

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the ‘womenare-wonderful’ effect— that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across forty-four cultures in Krys et al. (2016), and (1) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the ‘women-are-wonderful’ effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e., rating the personality of men and women presented in images), and (2) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than t...

International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie, Jan 14, 2017

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies-there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women-are-wonderful effect-that women are evaluated more positively than men overall-is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women-are-wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.

Emotion, 2014

and Neel (2011) proposed recommendations to avoid methodological confounds in visual search studi... more and Neel (2011) proposed recommendations to avoid methodological confounds in visual search studies using emotional photographic faces. These confounds were argued to cause the frequently observed Anger Superiority Effect (ASE), the faster detection of angry than happy expressions, and conceal a true Happiness Superiority Effect (HSE). In Experiment 1, we applied these recommendations (for the first time) to visual search among schematic faces that previously had consistently yielded a robust ASE. Contrary to the prevailing literature, but consistent with D.V. Becker et al. (2011), we observed a HSE with schematic faces. The HSE with schematic faces was replicated in Experiments 2 and 3 using a similar method in discrimination tasks rather than fixed target searches. Experiment 4 isolated background heterogeneity as the key determinant leading to the HSE.

Learning and Motivation, 2010

Evaluative learning is said to differ from Pavlovian associative learning in that it reflects sti... more Evaluative learning is said to differ from Pavlovian associative learning in that it reflects stimulus contiguity, not contingency. Thus, evaluative learning should not be subject to stimulus competition, a proposal tested in the current experiments. Participants were presented in elemental and compound training phases with pictures of shapes as CSs. Each shape/pair of shapes was followed by a picture of

Australian Journal …, 2011

... CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Provost, S, Martin, F, Hannan, G, Farrell, G, ... more ... CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Provost, S, Martin, F, Hannan, G, Farrell, G, Chalmers, D, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Bath, D, Dennis, K and Wilson, P (2005) CEQ and GDS outcomes in psychology, 1994-2003. Australian Journal of Psychology, 57 : 245-246. ...

… 39th Conference of …, 2007

Wilson, P, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Chalmers, D, Hannan, G, Martin, F, Farrell, G, Bath, D, & Provost, ... more Wilson, P, Lipp, O, Terry, D, Chalmers, D, Hannan, G, Martin, F, Farrell, G, Bath, D, & Provost, S 2007, 'The Australian Universities Teaching Committee project in learning outcomes and curriculum development in psychology', in S McCarthy, S Newstead, V Karandashev, C Prandini, C ...

Neuroscience Letters, 2006

Previous research has been interpreted to suggest that the startle reflex mediates the RT facilit... more Previous research has been interpreted to suggest that the startle reflex mediates the RT facilitation observed if intense, accessory acoustic stimuli are presented coinciding with the onset of a visual imperative stimulus in a forewarned simple RT task. The present research replicated this finding as well as the facilitation of startle observed during the imperative stimulus. It failed, however, to find any relationship between the size of the blink startle reflex elicited by the accessory acoustic stimuli, which differed in intensity and rise time, and RT or RT facilitation observed on trials with accessory acoustic stimuli. This finding suggests that the RT facilitation is not mediated by the startle reflex elicited by the accessory acoustic stimuli.

Learning and Motivation, 2001

The proposal that affective learning, the learning of likes and dislikes, can exist in the absenc... more The proposal that affective learning, the learning of likes and dislikes, can exist in the absence of contingency awareness, whereas signal learning, the learning of stimulus relationships, cannot, was investigated in a differential conditioning paradigm that was embedded in a visual masking task. Startle magnitude modulation and changes in verbal ratings served as measures of affective learning, whereas skin conductance was taken to reflect signal learning. Awareness was assessed online with an expectancy dial and in a postexperimental questionnaire. Both betweensubject comparisons of verbalizers and nonverbalizers and within-subject comparisons of verbalizers before and after verbalization failed to reveal any evidence for learning, whether affective or otherwise, in the absence of knowledge of the stimulus contingencies.

Journal of Psychophysiology, 2000

We used the startle eyeblink modification paradigm to investigate whether clinically anxious chil... more We used the startle eyeblink modification paradigm to investigate whether clinically anxious children, like high trait-anxious adults, display a bias in favour of threat words compared to neutral words. The present study included 16 clinically anxious children whose diagnostic status was determined using the parent version of a semistructured diagnostic interview as part of a larger childhood anxiety study. The children were presented with threat and neutral words for 6 s each. A startle-eliciting auditory stimulus - a 100 dBA burst of white noise of 50 ms duration - was presented during the words at lead intervals of 60, 120, 240, or 3500 ms and during intertrial intervals. The overall pattern of startle eyeblink modification indicated inhibition at the 120 and 240 ms lead intervals and facilitation at the 3500 ms lead interval. Startle-latency shortening during threat words at the 60 ms lead interval was larger than at other intervals, whereas there was no difference during neutra...

International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2008

The present study investigated the relationship between blink startle and cardiac defense, two pr... more The present study investigated the relationship between blink startle and cardiac defense, two protective reflexes that are said to be elicited by the transient and the sustained components, respectively, of high intensity stimuli. Three groups of participants were presented with three intense long lasting noise stimuli (500ms) after habituation training with 12 brief (50ms) high intensity noise bursts (High group), low intensity noise bursts (Low group) or high intensity visual stimuli (Light group). The transition from habituation to defense stimuli resulted in increased blink startles in groups Low and Light, but not in group High. A cardiac defense reflex, characterised by a short and long delayed increase in heart rate, was observed in group Light, but not in groups Low and High. This pattern of results indicates that habituation to startle eliciting stimuli will impair defense reflexes elicited on subsequent test trials and suggests some interrelation between the two reflex systems.

Emotion, 2013

Previous research has provided inconsistent results regarding visual search for emotional faces, ... more Previous research has provided inconsistent results regarding visual search for emotional faces, yielding evidence for either anger superiority (i.e., more efficient search for angry faces) or happiness superiority effects (i.e., more efficient search for happy faces), suggesting that these results do not reflect on emotional expression, but on emotion (un-)related low-level perceptual features. The present study investigated possible factors mediating anger/happiness superiority effects; specifically search strategy (fixed vs. variable target search; Experiment 1), stimulus choice (Nimstim database vs. Ekman & Friesen database; Experiments 1 and 2), and emotional intensity (Experiment 3 and 3a). Angry faces were found faster than happy faces regardless of search strategy using faces from the Nimstim database (Experiment 1). By contrast, a happiness superiority effect was evident in Experiment 2 when using faces from the Ekman and Friesen database. Experiment 3 employed angry, happy, and exuberant expressions (Nimstim database) and yielded anger and happiness superiority effects, respectively, highlighting the importance of the choice of stimulus materials. Ratings of the stimulus materials collected in Experiment 3a indicate that differences in perceived emotional intensity, pleasantness, or arousal do not account for differences in search efficiency. Across three studies, the current investigation indicates that prior reports of anger or happiness superiority effects in visual search are likely to reflect on low-level visual features associated with the stimulus materials used, rather than on emotion.

Cognition and Emotion, 2013

Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visu... more Facial cues of threat such as anger and other race membership are detected preferentially in visual search tasks. However, it remains unclear whether these facial cues interact in visual search. If both cues equally facilitate search, a symmetrical interaction would be predicted; anger cues should facilitate detection of other race faces and cues of other race membership should facilitate detection of anger. Past research investigating this race by emotional expression interaction in categorisation tasks revealed an asymmetrical interaction. This suggests that cues of other race membership may facilitate the detection of angry faces but not vice versa. Utilising the same stimuli and procedures across two search tasks, participants were asked to search for targets defined by either race or emotional expression. Contrary to the results revealed in the categorisation paradigm, cues of anger facilitated detection of other race faces whereas differences in race did not differentially influence detection of emotion targets.

Cognition & Emotion, 2009

Previous research has demonstrated differences in processing between fear-relevant stimuli, such ... more Previous research has demonstrated differences in processing between fear-relevant stimuli, such as snakes and spiders, and non-fear-relevant stimuli. The current research examined whether non-fear-relevant animal stimuli, such as dogs, birds and fish, were processed like fear-relevant stimuli following aversive learning. Pictures of a priori fear-relevant animals, snakes and spiders, were evaluated as negative in affective priming and ratings and were preferentially attended to in a visual search task. Pictures of dogs, birds and fish that had been trained as CS' in an aversive conditioning design were evaluated more negatively and facilitated dot probe detection relative to CS(pictures. The current studies demonstrated that stimuli viewed as positive prior to aversive learning were negative and were preferentially attended to after a brief learning episode. We propose that aversive learning may provide a mechanism for the acquisition of stimulus fear relevance. Fear relevance refers to the efficacy with which a stimulus is associated with fear. Phylogenetic, fear-relevant stimuli, such as snakes, spiders or heights, are more commonly associated with phobia than are other stimuli, and are often referred to as ''evolutionarily'' fear-relevant stimuli, referring to the notion that they are innately fear relevant. Ontogenetic, fear-relevant stimuli, such as guns, are evolutionarily recent stimuli that are proposed to have become fear relevant through learning. Both phylogenetic and ontogenetic fear-relevant stimuli display several consistent properties, such as selective associability with fear and access to preferential attentional processing. Mechanisms for phylogenetic fear relevance have been defined

Cognition & Emotion, 2011

It has been consistently demonstrated that fear-relevant images capture attention preferentially ... more It has been consistently demonstrated that fear-relevant images capture attention preferentially over fear-irrelevant images. Current theory suggests that this faster processing could be mediated by an evolved module that allows certain stimulus features to attract attention automatically, prior to the detailed processing of the image. The present research investigated whether simplified images of fear-relevant stimuli would produce interference with target detection in a visual search task. In Experiment 1, silhouettes and degraded silhouettes of fear-relevant animals produced more interference than did the fear-irrelevant images. Experiment 2, compared the effects of fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant distracters and confirmed that the interference produced by fear-relevant distracters was not an effect of novelty. Experiment 3 suggested that fear-relevant stimuli produced interference regardless of whether participants were instructed as to the content of the images. The three experiments indicate that even very simplistic images of fear-relevant animals can divert attention.

Biological Psychology, 2001

The present research investigated attentional blink startle modulation at lead intervals of 60, 2... more The present research investigated attentional blink startle modulation at lead intervals of 60, 240 and 3500 ms. Letters printed in Gothic or standard fonts, which differed in rated interest, but not valence, served as lead stimuli. Experiment 1 established that identifying letters as vowels/consonants took longer than reading the letters and that performance in both tasks was slower if letters were printed in Gothic font. In Experiment 2, acoustic blink eliciting stimuli were presented 60, 240 and 3500 ms after onset of the letters in Gothic and in standard font and during intertrial intervals. Half the participants (Group Task) were asked to identify the letters as vowels/consonants whereas the others (Group No-Task) did not perform a task. Relative to control responses, blinks during letters were facilitated at 60 and 3500 ms lead intervals and inhibited at the 240 ms lead interval for both conditions in Group Task. Differences in blink modulation across lead intervals were found in Group No-Task only during Gothic letters with blinks at the 3500 ms lead interval facilitated relative to control blinks. The present results confirm previous findings indicating that attentional processes can modulate startle at very short lead intervals.

Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2008

Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n = 23), ... more Aversive conditioning and extinction were evaluated in children with anxiety disorders (n = 23), at-risk for anxiety disorders (n = 15), and controls (n = 11). Participants underwent 16 trials of discriminative conditioning of two geometric figures, with (CS+) or without (CS−) an aversive tone (US), followed by 8 extinction trials (4 CS+, 4 CS−), and 8 extinction re-test trials averaging 2 weeks later. Skin conductance responses and verbal ratings of valence and arousal to the CS +/CS− stimuli were measured. Anxiety disordered children showed larger anticipatory and unconditional skin conductance responses across conditioning, and larger orienting and anticipatory skin conductance responses across extinction and extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS−, relative to controls. At-risk children showed larger unconditional responses during conditioning, larger orienting responses during the first block of extinction, and larger anticipatory responses during extinction re-test, all to the CS+ and CS−, relative to controls. Also, anxiety disordered children rated the CS+ as more unpleasant than the other groups. Elevated skin conductance responses to signals of threat (CS+) and signals of safety (CS−; CS+ during extinction) are discussed as features of manifestation of and risk for anxiety in children, compared to the specificity of valence judgments to the manifestation of anxiety.

Psychologist, 2004

The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curricu... more The role of the scientist-practitioner model in the teaching of ... Learning Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Psychology ... Greg Hannan, and Frances Martin, Gerry Farrell, University of Tasmania Denise Chalmers, Ottmar Lipp, and Deborah Terry, University of Queensland ...

Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that me... more Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the ‘womenare-wonderful’ effect— that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self-reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across forty-four cultures in Krys et al. (2016), and (1) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the ‘women-are-wonderful’ effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e., rating the personality of men and women presented in images), and (2) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than t...