Twelve- and 16-month-old infants recognize properties of mentioned absent things

Absent reference comprehension is a critical achievement of early development, yet little is known about its emergence. In the current study, 12- and 16-month-old infants' recognition of properties of mentioned absent things was used as an index of absent reference comprehension. Infants were presented with displays matching the color and prior spatial location of a mentioned absent object and displays matching the color and prior spatial location of a non-mentioned absent object. Infants could reveal their comprehension of absent reference by directing more looking and gesturing at the display matching the mentioned absent object than at the display matching the non-mentioned absent object. Infants at both ages revealed some tendency to do so, but infants at 16 months revealed more advanced understanding--infants at 16 months, but not at 12 months, coordinated their attention to the display matching properties of the mentioned absent thing with looks to the speaker. Implications for the infants' understanding of communicative intentions are discussed.     

The absent psychotherapist

This paper explores the effects in psychotherapy of the therapist's sudden and unexplained twelve-week absence, caused by a pregnancy that was threatened and ultimately miscarried. The anxieties of the patients stirred up by the absence and the therapist's own countertransference difficulties are considered.     

Excitatory and inhibitory learning with absent stimuli

Three experiments showed that 2 associatively activated stimulus representations may engage in excitatory or inhibitory learning, depending on their temporal relationship. Experiment 1a suggested that simultaneously activated stimulus representations show evidence of inhibitory learning in an acquisition test. Experiment 1b showed similar evidence of inhibition in a summation test. Experiment 2 found that activation of 2 stimulus representations in a serial compound resulted in excitatory learning between the antecedent and the subsequent (forward) and inhibitory learning between the subsequent and the antecedent (backward). The results show the dynamic influence of temporal contiguity on mediated learning.     

Formation of excitatory and inhibitory associations between absent events

Considerable evidence indicates that associations may be formed between two events even when one or both of them is absent at the time of learning. Previously, some researchers asserted that excitatory associations are formed when associatively activated representations for two events are paired, whereas others claimed that inhibitory associations are formed. In three experiments, the authors investigated the nature of tone-sucrose learning when associatively activated representations of those events were paired in the absence of either of the events themselves. Experiment 1 found substantial excitatory learning when the tone surrogate preceded the sucrose surrogate in training. Experiment 2 evaluated other accounts for the results of Experiment 1, and Experiment 3 found evidence for inhibitory tone-sucrose learning when the tone and sucrose surrogates were presented in simultaneous or backward order. The results indicated that the nature of representation-mediated learning is influenced by some of the same variables as more standard associative learning.     

Age-related associative deficits are absent with nonwords

Words and nonwords were used as stimuli to assess item and associative recognition memory performance in young and older adults. Participants were presented with pairs of items and then tested on both item memory (old/new items) and associative memory (intact/recombined pairs). For words, older participants performed worse than young participants on item and associative tests but to a greater extent on the latter. In contrast, for nonwords, older participants performed equally worse than young participants on item and associative tests. This is the first study to demonstrate that a manipulation of stimulus novelty can alter age-related associative deficits.     

Target absent trials in configural contextual cuing

In contextual cuing (CC), reaction times for finding targets are faster in repeated displays than in displays that have never been seen before. This has been demonstrated using target-distractor configurations, global background colors, naturalistic scenes, and covariation of targets with distractors. The majority of CC studies have used displays in which the target is always present. This study investigated what happens when the target is sometimes absent. Experiment 1 showed that, although configural CC occurs in displays when the target is always present, there is no CC when the target is always absent. Experiment 2 showed that there is no CC when the same spatial layout can be both target present and target absent on different trials. The presence of distractors in locations that had contained targets on other trials appeared to interfere with CC, and even disrupted the expression of CC in previously learned contexts (Exps. 3-5). These results show that target-distractor associations are the important element in producing CC and that, consistent with a response selection account, changing the response type from an orientation task to a detection task removes the CC effect.     

Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects

The current studies investigated 2 skills involved in 14- to 20- month-olds' ability to interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects: tracking others' experiences (Study 1) and representing links between speakers and object features across present and absent reference episodes (Study 2). In the basic task, 2 experimenters played separately with a different ball. The balls were placed in opaque containers. One experimenter asked infants to retrieve her ball using an ambiguous request ("Where's the ball?"). In Study 1, infants used the experimenter's prior verbal and physical contact with the ball to interpret the request. A control condition demonstrated that infants were interpreting the request and not responding to the mere presence of the experimenter. Study 2 revealed that only infants who were given stable cues to the ball's spatial location appropriately interpreted the request: When spatial information was put in conflict with a color cue, infants did not select the correct ball. Links to infants' spatial memory skills and emerging pragmatic understanding are discussed.     

Apes communicate about absent and displaced objects: methodology matters

Displaced reference is the ability to refer to an item that has been moved (displaced) in space and/or time, and has been called one of the true hallmarks of referential communication. Several studies suggest that nonhuman primates have this capability, but a recent experiment concluded that in a specific situation (absent entities), human infants display displaced reference but chimpanzees do not. Here, we show that chimpanzees and bonobos of diverse rearing histories are capable of displaced reference to absent and displaced objects. It is likely that some of the conflicting findings from animal cognition studies are due to relatively minor methodological differences, but are compounded by interpretation errors. Comparative studies are of great importance in elucidating the evolution of human cognition; however, greater care must be taken with methodology and interpretation for these studies to accurately reflect species differences.     

Absent minds and absent agents: Attention-lapse induced alienation of agency

We report a novel task designed to elicit transient attention-lapse induced alienation (ALIA) of agency experiences in normal participants. When attention-related action slips occur during the task, participants reported substantially decreased self control as well as a high degree of perceived agency attributed to the errant hand. In addition, participants reported being surprised by, and annoyed with, the actions of the errant hand. We argue that ALIA experiences occur because of constraints imposed by the close and precise temporal relations between intention formation and a contrary action employed in this paradigm. We note similarities between ALIA experiences and anarchic hand sign (AHS) and argue that, despite important differences, both ALIA experiences and AHS phenomenology reflect failures of executive control to intervene and cancel contrary affordance-driven habitual motor plans.     

The absent body in psychiatric diagnosis,treatment, and research

Synthese - Discussions of psychiatric nosology focus on a few popular examples of disorders, and on the validity of diagnostic criteria. Looking at Anorexia Nervosa, an example rarely mentioned in...     

Experiences of young adult women with emotionally absent fathers

This study explored the experiences of young adult women (n = 11) who grew up with emotionally absent fathers. The women (White: Afrikaans) were between the ages of 20 and 31 (5 were married, 1 was engaged, 1 was in a relationship, and 4 were single). The participants completed in-depth interviews regarding their retrospective perceptions of emotionally absent father experiences and the related effects on them. Data were thematically analyzed. Findings indicated that the participants experienced difficulty in sharing emotions with their fathers and fathers did not show affection or express their love. The participants perceived their fathers to have shown no interest, approval or acknowledgement of them, and viewed them as untrustworthy. They also believed that relationship qualities with their fathers influenced how they related to men in general. Father emotional absence negatively impacts on daughter's emotional well-being.     

Normal body scheme and absent phantom limb experience in amputees while dreaming

While dreaming amputees often experience a normal body image and the phantom limb may not be present. However, dreaming experiences in amputees have mainly been collected by questionnaires. We analysed the dream reports of amputated patients with phantom limb collected after awakening from REM sleep during overnight videopolysomnography (VPSG). Six amputated patients underwent overnight VPSG study. Patients were awakened during REM sleep and asked to report their dreams. Three patients were able to deliver an account of a dream. In all dreaming recalls, patients reported that the amputated limbs were intact and completely functional and they no longer experienced phantom limb sensations. Phantom limb experiences, that during wake result from a conflict between a pre-existing body scheme and the sensory information on the missing limb, were suppressed during sleep in our patients in favour of the image of an intact body accessed during dream.     

Retrieval-induced forgetting in recognition is absent under time pressure

We examined retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) in recognition from a dual-process perspective, which suggests that recognition depends on the outputs of a fast familiarity process and a slower recollection process. In order to determine the locus of the RIF effect, we manipulated the availability of recollection at retrieval via response deadlines. The standard RIF effect was observed in a self-paced test but was absent in a speeded test, in which judgments presumably depended on familiarity more than recollection. The findings suggested that RIF specifically affects recollection. This may be consistent with a context-specific view of retrieval inhibition.