Unimodal and crossmodal effects of endogenous attention to visual and auditory motion

Three experiments were conducted examining unimodal and crossmodal effects of attention to motion. Horizontally moving sounds and dot patterns were presented and participants’ task was to discriminate their motion speed or whether they were presented with a brief gap. In Experiments 1 and 2, stimuli of one modality and of one direction were presented with a higher probability ( p = .7) than other stimuli. Sounds and dot patterns moving in the expected direction were discriminated faster than stimuli moving in the unexpected direction. In Experiment 3, participants had to respond only to stimuli moving in one direction within the primary modality, but to all stimuli regardless of their direction within the rarer secondary modality. Stimuli of the secondary modality moving in the attended direction were discriminated faster than were oppositely moving stimuli. Results suggest that attending to the direction of motion affects perception within vision and audition, but also across modalities.     

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Current Views

Obsessive-compulsive disorder has been of central interest to psychoanalysis since Freud's early papers, most particularly in the “Rat Man” case. This early literature spelled out with great clarity the presumed development, psychodynamics, and meaning of obsessional and compulsive symptoms. Unfortunately, since Anna Freud's 1969 review of the subject, virtually nothing has appeared in the psychoanalytic literature that has added to our understanding of the disorder or enhanced the very limited therapeutic influence of psychoanalysis in such cases. Meanwhile, there has been an avalanche of contributions from biological psychiatry and behavioral psychology that have propounded different theories of pathogenesis and have laid claim to significant therapeutic effectiveness. If psychoanalysis is to have credibility in this field, it will have to enlist itself in multidisciplinary research efforts directed toward enriching our knowledge about the psychodynamics and the biological substrate of this illness (more common than once believed) and the efficacy of our efforts to treat it.     

The Atonement of the Alleged Perpetrator's Daughter: Understanding of Model Scenes and Space Attachment in Analytical Dance Therapy

In this rich paper the analysand Annabelle is sent by her analyst to the dance therapist who reports in great detail how Annabelle manages to throw off and—to a certain extent—integrate not only her own life-long misunderstanding but also those of her parents. The reason for Annabelle's referral was straightforward: the analysis had ground to a halt. Words no longer reached her. The reader is reminded of the emotive-relational-motor clusters described in Chazan's and Shahar-Levy's papers. Body image distortions and space misperceptions curtailed this patient's ability to function. When she began to bring her distress to her analytic dance therapy sessions, she could not associate verbally but made use of props her therapist had in store. As she slowly progressed toward true symbolization and expression, her therapist found herself embroiled countertransferentially. The patient's long-suffering mother was remembered as someone who would, or could, only give partial information about the family's history. The father had been a Nazi and was now blamed for all the suffering the family had lo endure. This fact resonated both with Annabelle's analyst and the dance therapist who managed to take a long look at their own family's records during that troubled time.     

Trait emotional intelligence profiles of students from different university faculties

This study investigated the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self‐efficacy) profiles of 512 students from five university faculties: technical studies, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, it was hypothesised that (a) social sciences would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (b) arts would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (c) arts would score lower than technical studies in Self‐control, and (d) there would be an interaction between gender and faculty, whereby female students would score higher than male students within the social sciences only. Several other exploratory comparisons were also performed. Results supported hypotheses (a), (b), and (d), but not hypothesis (c), although the differences were in the predicted direction.     

Balance between volunteer work and family roles: Testing a theoretical model of work‐family conflict in the volunteer emergency services

Trends indicate overall declines in numbers of volunteer emergency service workers and suggest negative organisational factors impacting adversely on volunteers and organisations. Conflict between emergency service work and family is implicated in falling volunteer numbers, and there is thus a need for research on difficulties experienced in balancing volunteer work and family. The current study tested an adaptation of the work‐family conflict (WFC) model originally proposed by Frone, Russell, and Cooper, in a sample of 102 couples in which one partner was an Australian emergency service volunteer. Results supported a model in which volunteer work‐related antecedents, including time invested in on‐call emergency activities and post‐traumatic stress symptoms, had indirect links with outcomes, including volunteer burnout and their partners' support for the volunteer work role, through the effects of WFC. These results add to research using theoretical models of paid work processes to better understand the problems faced by volunteer workers, and identify specific antecedents and outcomes of WFC in the volunteer emergency services. Implications for future research and organisations reliant on volunteer workers are discussed.     

Curiosity and exploratory behaviour towards possible and impossible events in children and adults

In four experiments with 4‐, 6‐, and 9‐year‐old children and adults, the hypothesis was tested that, all other conditions being equal, a novel and unusual event elicits stronger curiosity and exploratory behaviour if its suggested explanation involves an element of the supernatural than if it does not (the impossible over possible effect – the I/P effect). Participants were shown an unusual phenomenon (a spontaneous disintegration of a physical object in an apparently empty box) framed in the context of either a magical (the impossible event) or scientific (the possible event) explanation. In the verbal trial, participants showed a clear understanding of the difference between the effect of genuine magic and the effect of a trick. In the behavioural trial, both children and adults showed the I/P effect. They were more likely to run the risk of losing their valuable objects in order to explore the impossible event than the possible event. Follow‐up experiments showed that the I/P effect couldn't be explained as an artifact of the different degrees of cost of exploratory behaviour in the possible and impossible conditions or as a result of misinterpreting magic as tricks. The I/P effect emerged when the cost of exploratory behaviour was moderate and disappeared when the cost was perceived as too high or too low.     

Die Hysterie im neuen Gewand und im Wandel der Zeit

Classical symptoms of hysteria – especially symptoms of hysterical neurosis (conversion type) – are not commonly seen any more. On the one hand, general knowledge about the function of hysterical has led to suppression of the underlying hidden conflicts, possibly up to resomatization. On the other hand, those affected may have rather subtle symptoms, e.g., vague pain, circulatory disorders, or fatigue. Overall, the hysterical phenomena have not become less common but have become “contemporary” and, therefore, more difficult to identify. Reliable epidemiological data, however, are difficult to obtain. Rough estimates indicate that 2–6?% of all people have dissociative disorders (ICD-10 definition). Histrionic personality disorder is estimated to occur with a frequency of 2–3?%. In 75?% of cases, the disease manifests relatively early, between the ages of 17 and 32 years and with a 3:1 female to male ratio. An average of 7 years elapses between first manifestation and the start of psychiatric–psychotherapeutic treatment.