Background: There is a debate among researchers and clinicians regarding whether the judicious use of safety behaviours (SBs) during exposure therapy is helpful or detrimental. Central to this debate is the premise that SBs may interfere with one’s ability to gather disconfirmatory evidence. Aims: No study to date has assessed how SB use may impact cognitive mechanisms implicated during an exposure-like task. We investigated multiple cognitive, emotional, psychophysiological and behavioural underpinnings of exposure with and without SBs. Method: Speech anxious participants (n = 111) were randomly assigned to deliver an evaluated speech with or without SBs. Self-reported anxiety ratings and psychophysiological arousal measures were recorded at baseline, in anticipation of the speech, and following the speech. Measures of working memory, ability to gather disconfirmatory evidence, speech duration, objective and subjective speech performance, and speech task acceptability were administered. Results: There were no differences between conditions on working memory, self-reported anxiety, psychophysiological arousal, ability to gather disconfirmatory evidence, speech duration, or objective and subjective speech performance. All participants were able to gather disconfirmatory evidence. However, condition did influence willingness to deliver future speeches. Our sample was largely female undergraduate students, and we offered only a small number of specific safety behaviours. Conclusions: Judicious SB use may not necessarily be detrimental, but clients may believe them to be more helpful than they actually are.

No abstract

Previous literature is largely inconsistent regarding how individuals with trait anxiety recognize emotional facial expressions, making this process poorly understood. For example, some research has found that individuals with high-trait anxiety demonstrate greater accuracy for the emotional facial expressions of fear while other studies have not observed such differences. Given more recent developments in the processing (i.e., featural and holistic) of emotional facial expressions, our goal for this study is to clarify the inconsistencies reported by previous research by examining featural and holistic processing during an emotion recognition task. The task involved 24 expressions of the 6 basic emotions (e.g., anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) presented in 5 conditions (mouth only, eyes/brows only, mouth hidden, eyes/brows hidden, and full face) which elucidate whether facial areas (e.g., mouth and eyes/brows) are necessary or sufficient. The results supported previous findings regarding the recognition the parttern of the six basic emotions. Interestingly, highly trait anxious people were found to be inferior at correctly recognizing all negative emotions. Furthermore, while viewing times did not reveal differences in processing as a function of trait anxiety, through more intricate analyses, individuals with high-trait anxiety were found to be less accurate when the mouth area was presented alone. These findings suggest that individuals with trait anxiety do deviate from the patterns of emotional facial processing typically found in the literature. Public Significance StatementAs anxiety is a common mental health issue, a better understanding of emotional processing and recognition in an individual with high anxiety is important. The current article reveals that individuals with high levels of anxiety have more difficulty recognizing negative emotions.

Infinitely-variable transmissions of high efficiency can be made using non-circular gears combined in function generators. The efficiency of a function generator depends on the gear parameters, the ratio of the differential, and the direction of power flow. The paper shows how the factors influence the total gear meshing losses and explain how efficiency is calculated. No-load losses are not included.

No abstract