Motherhood in adolescent mothers: Maternal attachment,mother–infant styles of interaction and emotion regulation at three months

Early motherhood is considered a risk factor for an adequate relationship between mother and infant and for the subsequent development of the infant. The principal aim of the study is to analyze micro-analytically the effect of motherhood in adolescence on the quality of mother–infant interaction and emotion regulation at three months, considering at the same time the effect of maternal attachment on these variables. Participants were 30 adolescent mother–infant dyads compared to 30 adult mother–infant dyads. At infant 3 months, mother–infant interaction was video-recorded and coded with a modified version of the Infant Caregiver Engagement Phases and the Adult Attachment Interview was administered to the mother. Analysis showed that adolescent mothers (vs. adult mothers) spent more time in negative engagement and their infants spent less time in positive engagement and more time in negative engagement. Adolescent mothers are also less involved in play with their infants than adult mothers. Adolescent mother–infant dyads (vs. adult mother–infant dyads) showed a greater duration of negative matches and spent less time in positive matches. Insecure adolescent mother–infant dyads (vs. insecure adult mother–infant dyads) demonstrated less involvement in play with objects and spent less time in positive matches. To sum up adolescent mother–infant dyads adopt styles of emotion regulation and interaction with objects which are less adequate than those of dyads with adult mothers. Insecure maternal attachment in dyads with adolescent mothers (vs. adult mother infant dyads) is more influential as risk factor.     

Prose Reading in Neglect

Prose reading has been shown to be a very sensitive measure of Unilateral Spatial Neglect. However, little is known about the relationship between prose reading and other measures of neglect and its severity, or between prose reading and single word reading. Thirty participants with a first stroke in the right hemisphere and clear symptoms of spatial neglect in everyday life were assessed with tests of prose reading (text in one column book-like, and in two columns magazine-like), single words reading, and a battery of 13 tests investigating neglect. Seventy percent of these participants omitted words at the beginning of the text (left end), showing Prose Reading Neglect (PRN). The participants showing PRN differed from those not showing PRN only for the overall severity of neglect, and had a lesion centred on the insula, putamen and superior temporal gyrus. Double dissociations emerged between PRN and single word reading neglect, suggesting different cognitive requirements between the two tests: parallel processing in single word reading vs. serial analysis in text reading. Notably, the pattern of neglected text varied dramatically across participants presenting with PRN, including dissociations between reading performance of one and two columns text. Prose reading proved a complex and unique task which should be directly investigated to predict the effects of unilateral neglect. The outcome of this study should also inform clinical assessment and advises given to patients and care-givers.     

Prevalence and Significant Determinants of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in a Large Sample of Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Chronic and life-threatening neurodegenerative diseases may be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, the current study was an investigation of the prevalence of PTSD in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, and identification of significant determinants of PTSD. Two hundred thirty-two MS patients were consecutively recruited and screened for the presence of PTSD with the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, corroborated by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Furthermore, participants were administered the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the Fatigue Severity Scale. Twelve patients (12/232, i.e. 5.17 %) were diagnosed as suffering from PTSD. Levels of education, anxiety and depression were significant determinants of the presence of PTSD. The role played by the levels of education, anxiety and depression in determining the presence of PTSD has been discussed. Further research on the psychological features of neurodegenerative diseases is urgently needed in order to plan appropriate treatments and improve patients’ quality of life.     

The Semantics of Freedom in Agoraphobic Patients: An Empirical Study

This study aimed to empirically test the clinical theory, common to constructivist and constructionist psychotherapeutic approaches, that the semantics of freedom (i.e., bipolar constructs regarding the dimension of meaning “free/constrained”) are psychologically linked to agoraphobia. Repertory grid technique was used to elicit constructs from 30 agoraphobic patients and from a matched control group of patients suffering from other psychological disorders, and the two sets of constructs were compared in terms of their semantic content. Results confirm the hypothesis, suggesting that freedom semantics seem to be prevalent in agoraphobia in terms of both frequency and importance. These results and their limitations are discussed in relation to their clinical applications and in light of the methodological issues arising from the study.     

Intrapsychic and interpersonal guilt: a critical review of the recent literature

Various authors hold that some emotions (i.e., moral emotions) have the function of orienting people toward ethical actions. In addition to embarrassment, shame and pride, the moral emotion of guilt is believed to affect humans’ behavior when they carry out transgressions that violate social and cultural standards. Over the past century, many studies (including controversial ones) have been conducted on guilt. In this study, we analyzed and summarized mainly the most recent literature on this emotion. On one side, the destructiveness of guilt is emphasized. It inflicts punishment and pain on individuals for their errors and can lead to psychopathology (e.g., depression). On the other side, it is described as a “friendly” emotion that motivates behavior adapted to social and cultural rules. How can this asymmetry be explained? Different existing views on guilt are presented and discussed, together with recent proposals, supported by research data. Finally, we discussed some systematic models that try to incorporate these different views in a single framework that could facilitate future researches.     

Eye movements disrupt episodic future thinking

Remembering the past and imagining the future both rely on complex mental imagery. We considered the possibility that constructing a future scene might tap a component of mental imagery that is not as critical for remembering past scenes. Whereas visual imagery plays an important role in remembering the past, we predicted that spatial imagery plays a crucial role in imagining the future. For the purpose of teasing apart the different components underpinning scene construction in the two experiences of recalling episodic memories and shaping novel future events, we used a paradigm that might selectively affect one of these components (i.e., the spatial). Participants performed concurrent eye movements while remembering the past and imagining the future. These concurrent eye movements selectively interfere with spatial imagery, while sparing visual imagery. Eye movements prevented participants from imagining complex and detailed future scenes, but had no comparable effect on the recollection of past scenes. Similarities between remembering the past and imagining the future are coupled with some differences. The present findings uncover another fundamental divergence between the two processes.     

Just lying there,remembering: Improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment by minimising interference

The hallmark of amnesia is poor explicit long‐term memory along with normal short‐term memory. It is often stated that information encountered by amnesic patients is forgotten within 1 minute of presentation. However, previous work has not distinguished between forgetting as a function of time versus the interfering material occupying that time. We show that there is a marked benefit of reduced interference in amnesic patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that is characterised by anterograde amnesia in the absence of other neuropsychological deficits and carries an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. The result suggests that long‐term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference.     

Self-defeating personality and memories of parents' child-rearing behavior: a replication

A recent study of correlations of self-defeating personality and memories of parents' child-rearing behaviour has been replicated on a larger sample. Non-clinical volunteers (145 women and 114 men) were administered Schill's Self-defeating Personality Scale and a short version of the EMBU-Egna Minnen Betr?ffande Uppfostran (own memories of parental education) scale. Replicating previous findings, memories of rejecting or nonsupportive parents were significantly correlated with scores for the Self-defeating Personality Scale for both women (rejecting mother, r = 24; supportive mother, r = -.29; rejecting father, r = .23; supportive father, r = -.36) and men (rejecting mother, r = 40; rejecting father, r = .41; supportive father, r = -.28). Memories of an overinvolved parent were significantly correlated with self-defeating personality scores only among men (mother: r = .41; father: r = .36) as in the original study.     

Ames's window in proprioception

When holding a small-scale model of Ames's trapezoidal window with the arms fully extended, several observers experience a striking proprioceptive distortion (eg one hand appears farther from the other, or one arm appears longer than the other). However, data from a matching experiment suggest that the proprioceptive misalignment of the hands is, in fact, rather less than the apparent slant of the window when this is not held. This finding argues against a 'visual-capture' account, supports an explanation in terms of bimodal integrative processes, and underscores the importance of supplementing phenomenological observations with objective measures.