Disinhibition

The rise of cyberspace and technological advancement has created new opportunities for deviant behavior. The purpose of this study was to investigate online and offline deviant behavior in a sample of high school students, as well as compare a number of theoretical frameworks for predicting deviance. Employing structural equation modeling, the findings of the study indicated that one’s normative beliefs or psychological factors are more important than social factors when it comes to deviant behavior. Attitudes toward violence, low self-control, and peer attachment were positively associated with offline deviance, while parental attachment and neighborhood attachment had negative associations. For online deviance, toxic online disinhibition and attitudes toward violence were positive predictors, while parental attachment had a negative association.

Objective: A 65-year-old divorced man who presented with a 4-year history of personality and behavioural changes with inappropriate sexual behaviour was studied. Result: Cognitive impairment was indicated by low scores in MMSE and RUDAS. Neuropsychological assessment showed poor melokinetic ability, delayed response, personality change and, poor visual learning and memory signifying frontal lobe with predominantly right temporal deficits. CT brain showed multifocal cerebellar infarction and old right occipital infarct. However, brain MRI was not done as the patient could not afford it. Conclusion: A patient with bvFTD and hypersexuality is at risk of zoophilia if they also have the traditional risk factors of zoophilia such as low education, residing in a rural area and lack of opportunities to have sex with human partners.

Conversational agents are attributed humanlike characteristics; in particular, they are often given a gender. There is evidence that gender sets up expectations that have an impact on user experiences with the agent. The objective of this paper was to explore gender affordances of conversational agents. Our examination takes a holistic approach to the analysis of the application of gender stereotypes to nine chatterbots: six embodied (three male and three female), two disembodied (male and female), and a robot embodiment. Building on social psychology research, our objective was to test the persistence of gender stereotypes in the selection of conversation topics and in the elicitation of disinhibition and verbal abuse. Our study is based on quantitative textual analysis of interaction logs. A dictionary of English sexual slang and derogatory terms was developed for this study. Results show that gender stereotypes tend to affect interaction more at the relational (style) level then at the referential (content) level of conversation. People attribute negative stereotypes to female-presenting chatterbots more often than they do to male-presenting chatterbots, and female-presenting chatterbots are more often the objects of implicit and explicit sexual attention and swear words. We conclude by calling for a more informed analysis of user interactions that considers the full range of user interactions.

PURPOSE:
Impaired GABAergic inhibition has been implicated in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. The possibility of a paradoxical excitatory effect of GABA in epilepsy has been suggested, but has not been investigated in vivo. We investigated pre- and post-synaptic GABAergic mechanisms in patients with idiopathic generalised epilepsy (IGE).
METHOD:
In 10 patients and 12 control subjects we explored short- and long-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI, LICI; post-synaptic GABAA and GABAB-mediated respectively) and long-interval intracortical facilitation (LICF; pre-synaptic disinhibition) using transcranial magnetic stimulation.

RESULTS:
While post-synaptic GABAB-mediated inhibition was unchanged in IGE (p=0.09), LICF was reduced compared to controls (controls: 141±17% of baseline; untreated patients: 107±12%, p=0.2; treated patients: 79±10%, p=0.003). GABAA-mediated inhibition was reduced in untreated patients (response amplitude 56±4% of baseline vs. 26±6% in controls, p=0.004) and normalised with treatment (37±12%, p=0.5 vs. controls). When measured during LICI, GABAA-mediated inhibition became excitatory in untreated IGE (response amplitude 120±10% of baseline, p=0.017), but not in treated patients.

CONCLUSION:
Pre- and post-synaptic GABA-mediated inhibitory mechanisms are altered in IGE. The findings lend in vivo support to evidence from experimental models and in vitro studies of human epileptic brain tissue that GABA may have a paradoxical excitatory role in ictogenesis.

Copyright © 2015 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Studies examining the influences of alcohol intoxication have reported mixed findings on whether it impairs eyewitness memory. Although the studies in this Special Issue investigated different questions and tested different variables, the findings of these studies collectively provide insight into mechanisms and methodological issues that may explain the ambiguous findings of alcohol intoxication and eyewitness memory. In this commentary, we first describe the experimental studies of this Special Issue. We then discuss four mechanisms that could underlie those mixed findings (alcohol myopia, disinhibition, hypervigilance, meta-cognitive processes at retrieval). Last, we address methodological issues that may have contributed to those ambiguous findings (i.e., alcohol intoxication levels, automatic processing of stimuli, sensitivity of dependent variables, and possible interactions with arousal), and provide suggestions for future research to address these issues.

The aim of this paper is to bring theoretical concepts from other areas of scholarly research to bear on synchronous online education in a cross-disciplinary effort to shed light on what is going on. The liminality and associated communitas which are found in synchronous online learning environments are examined for their possible consequences for learning in general and language learning in particular. Like computer-mediated communication, liminality has been associated with disinhibitory effects. Lack of excessive inhibition has been shown to have positive effects on second language production. The position of the online learner as “neither here nor there” or perhaps simultaneously both here and there is investigated and discussed.

The externalizing spectrum describes a range of heterogeneous personality traits and behavioral patterns, primarily characterized by antisocial behavior, disinhibition, and substance (mis)use. In psychopathology, abnormalities in neural threat, reward responses and the impulse-control system may be responsible for these externalizing symptoms. Within the non-clinical range, mechanisms remain still unclear. In this fMRI-study, 61 healthy participants (31 men) from the higher versus lower range of the non-clinical variation in externalization (31 participants with high externalization) as assessed by the subscales disinhibition and meanness of the Triarchic-Psychopathy-Measure (TriPM) performed a monetary modified Taylor-Aggression-Paradigm (mTAP). This paradigm consisted of a mock competitive-reaction-time-task played against a fictional opponent with preprogrammed win- and lose-trials. In lose-trials, participants were provoked by subtraction of an amount of money between 0 and 90 c...

The triarchic model of psychopathy replaces a syndromal view of this pathological personality condition with a tripartite trait-based conception, positing three distinct phenotypic dispositions as building blocks for what theorists have traditionally termed psychopathy. The Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM) offers an efficient means for measuring the three dimensions to facilitate research on the model’s validity. We tested the reliability of the TriPM as well as its convergent and discriminant validity with respect to differing models of personality and other criterion variables reflecting social-emotional adjustment and mental health in an undergraduate participant sample (n = 120). The TriPM evidenced excellent internal consistencies, good test-retest reliability, and strong validity consistent with the triarchic model. We discuss the results with respect to prior research and offer suggestions for future research on the validity of the TriPM and the triarchic model.