Cultural modulations of space–time compatibility effects

The representation of elapsing time may require spatial attention. In certain circumstances, this spatial representation develops from left to right. This is suggested by a performance advantage in responding short with the left hand and long with the right hand (spatial–temporal association between response codes [STEARC]). The present study tests whether one possible determinant of the directionality of the STEARC effect is cultural. In particular, we investigated whether reading/writing habits can affect STEARC direction by administering a visual time judgment task to Italian participants, who were exposed to a left-to-right reading/writing system, and Israeli participants, who mainly used a right-to-left system. The Italian participants showed a left-to-right STEARC effect, while this effect was not present in the Israeli group. The study demonstrates that cultural habits can influence the way in which spatial attention supports the representation of time, similar to the pattern found in other nonspatial domains such as numbers.     

Tactile Short-term Memory Revisited

In spite of a large body of empirical research demonstrating the importance of multisensory integration in cognition, there is still little research about multimodal encoding and maintenance effects in working memory. In this study we investigated multimodal encoding in working memory by means of an immediate serial recall task with different modality and format conditions. In a first non-verbal condition participants were presented with sequences of non-verbal inputs representing familiar (concrete) objects, either in visual, auditory or audio-visual formats. In a second verbal condition participants were presented with written, spoken, or bimodally presented words denoting the same objects represented by pictures or sounds in the non-verbal condition. The effects of articulatory suppression were assessed in both conditions. We found a bimodal superiority effect on memory span with non-verbal material, and a larger span with auditory (or bimodal) versus visual presentation with verbal material, with a significant effect of articulatory suppression in the two conditions.     

Multisensory integration affects visuo-spatial working memory

In the present study, we investigate how spatial attention, driven by unisensory and multisensory cues, can bias the access of information into visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM). In a series of four experiments, we compared the effectiveness of spatially-nonpredictive visual, auditory, or audiovisual cues in capturing participants' spatial attention towards a location where to-be-remembered visual stimuli were or were not presented (cued/uncued trials, respectively). The results suggest that the effect of peripheral visual cues in biasing the access of information into VSWM depend on the size of the attentional focus, while auditory cues did not have direct effects in biasing VSWM. Finally, spatially congruent multisensory cues showed an enlarged attentional effect in VSWM as compared to unimodal visual cues, as a likely consequence of multisensory integration. This latter result sheds new light on the interplay between spatial attention and VSWM, pointing to the special role exerted by multisensory (audiovisual) cues.     

Time and defeasibility in FIPA ACL semantics

Inferences about speech acts are often conditional, non-monotonic, and involve the issue of time. Most agent communication languages, however, ignore these issues, due to the difficulty to combine them in a single formalism. This paper addresses such issues in defeasible logic, and shows how to express a semantics for ACLs in order to make non-monotonic inferences on the basis of speech acts.     

A global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness

Both the global workspace theory and Block’s distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness, are central in the current debates about consciousness and the neural correlates of consciousness. In this article, a unifying global workspace model for phenomenal and access consciousness is proposed. In the model, recurrent neural interactions take place in distinct yet interacting access and phenomenal brain loops. The effectiveness of feedback signaling onto sensory cortical maps is emphasized for the neural correlates of phenomenal consciousness. Two forms of top-down attention, attention for perception and attention for access, play differential roles for phenomenal and access consciousness. The model is implemented in a neural network form, with the simulation of single and multiple visual object processing, and of the attentional blink.     

Which reality in the psychoanalytic session?

The author discusses how the analyst's theory influences what happens in the psychoanalytic session, and, in particular, how it determines which of several possible realities become the focus of attention. An overview of Bionian thought and how it informs the author's way of working is provided. In elaborating his use of the narrative level in the session and other key concepts, the author presents three brief clinical vignettes.     

Toward a model of self pathology underlying personality disorders: narratives, metacognition, interpersonal cycles and decision-making processes

If we want to explain the links between the various and heterogeneous elements--symptoms, dysfunctional forms of behavior and poor social functioning--making up personality disorders, we need model a self pathology that portrays dysfunctions, the links among them, and how their interactions maintain disorders over time. In our view, the most likely elements of self pathology are: a. problematic contents (thoughts and emotions)--experienced subjectively as states of mind and organized in the form of narratives; b. shortfalls in the ability, termed meta-cognition, to reflect on mental states, both of oneself and of others; c. pathogenic interpersonal schemas; and d. maladaptive decision-making processes. These elements get altered in the various personality disorders and interact to form typical pathological organizations. This article seeks to describe a model of self pathology in personality disorders and discuss its current scientific status based on a literature review that spans several disciplines. The model is illustrated with an example of how the pathogenic elements can interact to form personality disorder. Lastly, the limitations and advantages of the model are discussed.     

Trauma, reverie, and the field

The author uses a clinical vignette to demonstrate complex concepts at work--concepts such as those derived from a productive grafting of Bion's thinking onto the concept of the psychoanalytic field. The underlying theory is narrated by the use of images, which the author finds to be the most appropriate way to demonstrate this theory at work--a theory of the mind based on the concept of digestibility of emotions, as well as the progressive introjection of instruments to render such an operation possible. Key points include the waking dream thought, the analyst's reverie, unsaturated interpretations, continual re-dreaming on the content of the session as permitted by the field, and the development of the ability to metabolize emotional contents.     

Marcella: the transition from explosive sensoriality to the ability to think

The author discusses an analytic case in which it was necessary to first address the patient's need for containment of her protoemotions--her sensoriality--before the analysis could proceed along more standard lines, with interpretation of the transference, work on displacement and aspects of her childhood history, and so forth. Prior to treatment, the patient had resorted to a sort of affective autism in order not to experience dangerously overwhelming emotions, and her emotional lethargy in sessions at first engendered similar feelings in the analyst, making progress impossible until a container was established for her projective identifications.