Andy Cochrane

Publications (4) View all

• Article: Association between circadian rhythms, sleep and cognitive impairment in healthy older adults: an actigraphic study.

  Andy Cochrane, Ian H Robertson, Andrew N Coogan
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  ABSTRACT: There is increasing evidence for the relationship between circadian rhythm disturbance and cognitive decline in the older adult. This study measured circadian activity rhythms in a small group of healthy community-dwelling older adults (n = 26). Each participant completed a battery of neuropsychological tests and completed sleep diaries and 6 days of actigraphy. Ten participants were identified as having very early signs of cognitive decline as indicated by their performance on the memory tests. Results showed minimal differences on the sleep/activity and circadian parameters across the two groups (declined vs. intact), although there was a significant difference in the acrophase between the declined and intact groups. These findings, although exploratory, suggest that very subtle changes in circadian rhythm may be detected in older adults showing pre-clinical changes in cognitive performance.
  Acta Neurovegetativa 04/2012; 119(10):1233-9. · 2.73 Impact Factor
• Article: Acceptance versus distraction: brief instructions, metaphors and exercises in increasing tolerance for self-delivered electric shocks.

  Jenny McMullen, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Ian Stewart, Carmen Luciano, Andy Cochrane
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  ABSTRACT: The current study compared the effects of an acceptance versus distraction rationale on coping with experimentally induced pain. Eighty participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions: Full-Acceptance, Full-Distraction, Instruction-only-Acceptance, Instruction-only-Distraction and No-Instructions. Participants completed a simple matching task and were intermittently given the choice either to receive an electric shock and continue, or to avoid the shock and terminate the task. Only the Full-Acceptance strategy (that included experiential exercises and a metaphor) had a significant effect on task tolerance as measured by an increase in the number of shocks delivered post-intervention relative to baseline. In addition, the participants in both of the acceptance conditions showed lower levels of believability in that they were more likely to continue with the task even when reporting more pain. The results support the prediction that acceptance-based interventions work by undermining the behavioural-control functions of pain-related thoughts and feelings, and call for a systematic analysis of how metaphors and exercises work in analogue research.
  Behaviour Research and Therapy 02/2008; 46(1):122-9. · 3.30 Impact Factor
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  Available from: Andy Cochrane

  Article: The Perceived-Threat Behavioral Approach Test (PT-BAT): Measuring Avoidance in High-, Mid-, and Low-Spider-Fearful Participants

  Andy Cochrane, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne Barnes-Holmes
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  ABSTRACT: One hundred twenty female participants, with varying levels of spider fear were asked to complete an automated 8-step perceived-threat behavioral approach test (PT-BAT). The steps involved asking the participants if they were willing to put their hand into a number of opaque jars with an incrementally increas-ing risk of contact with a spider (none of the jars actually contained a spider). There was a negative correlation between the number of steps completed and self-reported spider fear as measured with the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ). Additionally, the task discriminated between high, mid, and low fear on 2 behavioral measures: (a) the number of steps completed and (b) reported will-ingness to return and repeat the task. The automated procedure provides a psychological challenge with a high level of experimental control. The behavioral approach test (BAT) is a commonly used behavioral assess-ment for specific phobias (Antony & Swinson, 2000) and a popular objective measure of clinical progress following treatment such as exposure therapy (Garcia-Palacios, Hoffman, Carlin, Furness, & Botella, 2002). BATs developed by individual research teams for particular studies tend to vary in terms of the number of steps and types of stimuli employed, and this variance can limit comparability among different sets of findings (Rose & McGlynn, 1997). Furthermore, access to and management of the appropriate stimulus can be time-consuming or difficult to arrange (Meng, Kirkby, Martin, Gilroy, & Daniels, 2004). There are some other potential difficulties associated with BATs in the context of both experimental and clinical work. For example, researchers or clinicians are usually required to be present during the BAT to give instruc-tions and to record anxiety levels, but even if blind to the experimental con-dition, they may unwittingly influence the performance of the participants. Additionally, it could be argued that in vivo exposure to the phobic stimuli during the BAT may function as a part of the therapeutic intervention, making it difficult to disentangle the processes of change from pre-to posttreatment.
  The Psychological record 01/2008; 58:585-596. · 0.96 Impact Factor
• Source

  Available from: Andy Cochrane

  Article: Experiential avoidance and aversive visual images: response delays and event-related potentials on a simple matching task.

  Andy Cochrane, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, Ian Stewart, Carmen Luciano
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  ABSTRACT: In Experiment 1, participants high (n=15) or low in avoidance (n=14), as measured by the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, completed a simple matching task that required them to choose whether or not to look at an aversive visual image. Only the high-avoidance participants took longer to emit a correct response that produced an aversive rather than a neutral picture. Additionally, the high-avoiders reported greater levels of anxiety following the experiment even though they rated the aversive images as less unpleasant and less emotionally arousing than their low-avoidant counterparts. In Experiment 2, three groups, representing high-, mid- and low-avoidance (n=6 in each) repeated the matching task with the additional recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). The findings of Experiment 1 were replicated in terms of reaction times and subjective ratings. The ERPs confirmed that the participants attended to the content of the images and differentiated between the aversive and neutral image types. The ERPs also showed significantly greater negativity for electrodes over the left hemisphere relative to the midline for only the high-experiential avoidance (EA) group. Given the left hemisphere dominance for language, the data suggest that the high-EA group engaged in verbal strategies to regulate their emotional responses.
  Behaviour Research and Therapy 07/2007; 45(6):1379-88. · 3.30 Impact Factor