Meaning and importance of weeping

Most animals can cry but only humans have psychoemotional shedding of tears, also known as “weeping”. The aim of this review is to analyze and discuss the available data on the function and significance of weeping. It emerged that weeping is a behavior distinct from crying. Crying is the immediate reaction to pain or anger, it is not always associated with shedding tears, and indicates a peculiar and shocking change in behavior. Weeping is a more complex phenomenon: it is a behavior that induces empathy perhaps with the mediation of the mirror neurons network, and influences the mood through the release of hormones elicited by the massage effect made by the tears on the cheeks, or through the relief of the sobbing rhythm. It also emerged from the present review that weeping is not a “mild” or “weak” response to stress, but that it is a strong behavior with positive effects on health and social interaction.     

Organization of the amygdala with special reference to various pathological syndromes

Our understanding of the functional organization of the amygdaloid complex has considerably increased in the last 10 years. Thus the abundance of previously unsuspected neocortical and thalamic afferents to the amygdala as well as the direct projections from the central amygdala to pontine structures involved in the coordination of autonomic and motor functions, present a challenge to the previous view that the function of the complex is largely related to that better known of the hypothalamus. In this context the possible significance of the abundant opoid systems in the central amygdala will be discussed with special reference to the morphine withdrawal syndrome. The role of the amygdala in the manifestation of limbic motor signs during seizures will be reevaluated in this context.     

Counselling students' views and concerns about weeping with clients: A pilot study

This study examines counselling students' concerns and views about a phenomenon that has received little attention in the counselling literature: the counsellor weeping during a session with a client. Over 20 per cent of the counselling students who were surveyed reported being concerned about weeping in session with clients. However, the majority of students believed, to varying degrees, that weeping with clients could facilitate the therapeutic process. This paper sheds light on this unexplored dimension of countertransference, and has implications for those involved in providing counsellor training.     

A cognitive model of pathological worry

We present an evidence-based model of pathological worry in which worry arises from an interaction between involuntary (bottom-up) processes, such as habitual biases in attention and interpretation favouring threat content, and voluntary (top-down) processes, such as attentional control. At a pre-conscious level, these processes influence the competition between mental representations when some correspond to the intended focus of attention and others to threat distracters. Processing biases influence the probability of threat representations initially intruding into awareness as negative thoughts. Worry in predominantly verbal form then develops, influenced by conscious processes such as attempts to resolve the perceived threat and the redirection of attentional control resources to worry content, as well as the continuing influence of habitual processing biases. After describing this model, we present evidence for each component process and for their causal role in pathological worry, together with implications for new directions in the treatment of pathological worry.     

Quasi-varieties: A special access

Quasi-equational logic concerns with a completeness theorem, i. e. a list of general syntactical rules such that, being given a set of graded quasi-equations Q, the closure Cl Q = Qeq Fun Q can be derived from by the given rules. Those rules do exist, because our consideration could be embedded into the logic of first order language. But, we look for special (quasi-equational) rules. Suitable rules were already established for the (non-functorial) case of partial algebras in Definition 3.1.2 of [27], p. 108, and [28], p. 102. (For the case of total algebras, see [35].) So, one has to translate these rules to the (functorial) language of partial theories .Surprisingly enough, partial theories can be replaced up to isomorphisms by partial Dale monoids (cf. Section 3), which, in the total case are ordinary monoids.Special issue of Studia Logica: Algebraic Theory of Quasivarieties Presented by M. E. Adams, K. V. Adaricheva, W. Dziobiak, and A. V. Kravchenko     

A case report of pathological rule-governed syllable intrusion

A detailed analysis of a unique speech disturbance, marked by the frequent appearance in the speech stream of a meaningless intrusive syllable, is presented. Following a lengthy thoracic surgery, an American English speaking patient began to speak with non-English prosodic patterns, which evolved to a conspicuous intrusion in his speech of the syllable /sis/. This syllable and its variants were attached to words in a manner which conformed to the regular phonological rules in English (for formation of plural, possessive, and third person singular morphemes). The distribution and frequency of the intrusive syllable are described, and possible explanations for the abnormal occurrence of this particular syllable are discussed.     

Summa psychologiae: A special review

In the first section of the review, the general features of this large reference work are described as well as the manner in which “eminence” has been defined. The principles of the selection of the references for the two volumes are noted and the potential uses of the bibliography are discussed. The second section is devoted to a critique of some stylistic matters (diacritical signs, symbols, and abbreviations) and of certain practices (choice of the edition of books, treatment of the secondary references published in several journals, translations) regarded as open to debate. The review closes with considerations of problems of professional identification of the eminent contributors, and the correctness and relevance of some of the entries. The bibliography is regarded by the reviewer as a sine qua non reference work indispensable to students, teachers, and scholars in or out of psychology.     

Face perception: A very special issue

The perception of a face allows us to recognize the person, infer his or her emotional state, better understand what the person is saying, and derive general information, such as age and gender. This unique visual stimulus has generated a wealth of research, and subsequently theoretical and methodological debate. This special issue brings together 16 original papers that show the extraordinary diversity and fruitfulness of the approaches now being pursued. They are aimed at understanding different aspects of face perception in populations ranging from healthy children to adults with brain lesions and with techniques covering the entire spectrum from paper‐and‐pencil tests to functional brain imaging. Together, these contributions provide an insightful overview of the current state of research on face perception and exemplify the questions that dominate the field. To one such question, whether ‘face perception’ is a special issue in the broad field of the cognitive neurosciences, the answer is clearly yes!