Author
Moria J. Smoski
Other affiliations: Vanderbilt University
Bio: Moria J. Smoski is an academic researcher from Duke University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Mindfulness & Anhedonia. The author has an hindex of 32, co-authored 70 publications receiving 6106 citations. Previous affiliations of Moria J. Smoski include Vanderbilt University.
Papers published on a yearly basis
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TL;DR: It is concluded that mindfulness brings about various positive psychological effects, including increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and improved behavioral regulation.
1,902 citations
TL;DR: Autistic children and typically developing control children were tested on two visual tasks, one involving grouping of small line elements into a global figure and the other involving perception of human activity portrayed in point-light animations, and performance was equivalent on the figure task, but autistic children were significantly impaired on the biological motion task.
Abstract: Autistic children and typically developing control children were tested on two visual tasks, one involving grouping of small line elements into a global figure and the other involving perception of hu- man activity portrayed in point-light animations. Performance of the two groups was equivalent on the figure task, but autistic children were significantly impaired on the biological motion task. This latter deficit may be related to the impaired social skills characteristic of autism, and we speculate that this deficit may implicate abnormalities in brain areas mediating perception of human movement.
504 citations
TL;DR: Findings provide initial evidence that depression, and ruminative thinking in depression, are related to abnormal patterns of fluctuating communication among brain systems involved in regulating attention and self-referential thinking.
338 citations
TL;DR: Functional magnetic resonance imaging data indicated that the MDD group was characterized by reduced activation of striatal reward regions during reward selection, reward anticipation, and reward feedback, supporting previous data indicating hyporesponsivity of reward systems in MDD.
303 citations
TL;DR: Recording of naturally produced laugh bouts recorded from 97 young adults as they watched funny video clips revealed evident diversity in production modes, remarkable variability in fundamental frequency characteristics, and consistent lack of articulation effects in supralaryngeal filtering are of particular interest.
Abstract: Remarkably little is known about the acoustic features of laughter. Here, acoustic outcomes are reported for 1024 naturally produced laugh bouts recorded from 97 young adults as they watched funny video clips. Analyses focused on temporal features, production modes, source- and filter-related effects, and indexical cues to laugher sex and individual identity. Although a number of researchers have previously emphasized stereotypy in laughter, its acoustics were found now to be variable and complex. Among the variety of findings reported, evident diversity in production modes, remarkable variability in fundamental frequency characteristics, and consistent lack of articulation effects in supralaryngeal filtering are of particular interest. In addition, formant-related filtering effects were found to be disproportionately important as acoustic correlates of laugher sex and individual identity. These outcomes are examined in light of existing data concerning laugh acoustics, as well as a number of hypotheses and conjectures previously advanced about this species-typical vocal signal.
287 citations
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Journal Article•
5,680 citations
TL;DR: Recent research has provided clues as to why genetic or environmental insults that disinhibit stress signalling pathways can lead to symptoms of profound prefrontal cortical dysfunction in mental illness.
Abstract: Stress affects cognition and increases noradrenaline and dopamine levels in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Amy Arnsten discusses the intracellular signalling pathways that mediate the effects of these catecholamines on PFC function during acute and chronic stress, focusing on working memory. An interview with Amy Arnsten for Neuropod is available for
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. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) — the most evolved brain region — subserves our highest-order cognitive abilities. However, it is also the brain region that is most sensitive to the detrimental effects of stress exposure. Even quite mild acute uncontrollable stress can cause a rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities, and more prolonged stress exposure causes architectural changes in prefrontal dendrites. Recent research has begun to reveal the intracellular signalling pathways that mediate the effects of stress on the PFC. This research has provided clues as to why genetic or environmental insults that disinhibit stress signalling pathways can lead to symptoms of profound prefrontal cortical dysfunction in mental illness.
2,320 citations
TL;DR: A review of the current status and future prospects of the field of emotion regulation can be found in this paper, where the authors define emotion and emotion regulation and distinguish both from related constructs.
Abstract: One of the fastest growing areas within psychology is the field of emotion regulation. However, enthusiasm for this topic continues to outstrip conceptual clarity, and there remains considerable uncertainty as to what is even meant by “emotion regulation.” The goal of this review is to examine the current status and future prospects of this rapidly growing field. In the first section, I define emotion and emotion regulation and distinguish both from related constructs. In the second section, I use the process model of emotion regulation to selectively review evidence that different regulation strategies have different consequences. In the third section, I introduce the extended process model of emotion regulation; this model considers emotion regulation to be one type of valuation, and distinguishes three emotion regulation stages (identification, selection, implementation). In the final section, I consider five key growth points for the field of emotion regulation.
2,060 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that mindfulness brings about various positive psychological effects, including increased subjective well-being, reduced psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and improved behavioral regulation.
1,902 citations
TL;DR: An “Enhanced Perceptual Functioning” model encompassing the main differences between autistic and non-autistic social andnon-social perceptual processing is proposed, which may explain the autistic perceptual endophenotype.
Abstract: We propose an “Enhanced Perceptual Functioning” model encompassing the main differences between autistic and non-autistic social and non-social perceptual processing: locally oriented visual and auditory perception, enhanced low-level discrimination, use of a more posterior network in “complex” visual tasks, enhanced perception of first order static stimuli, diminished perception of complex movement, autonomy of low-level information processing toward higher-order operations, and differential relation between perception and general intelligence. Increased perceptual expertise may be implicated in the choice of special ability in savant autistics, and in the variability of apparent presentations within PDD (autism with and without typical speech, Asperger syndrome) in non-savant autistics. The overfunctioning of brain regions typically involved in primary perceptual functions may explain the autistic perceptual endophenotype.
1,572 citations