Parents’ differential susceptibility to the effects of marital quality on sensitivity across the first year

The current investigation examined the differential susceptibility of parents to the effects of marital quality on changes in parenting. We predicted that parents who were high on the personality constructs Negative Affect and Constraint would be more susceptible to the effects of marital quality on their level of sensitivity. Sensitivity was assessed at 3.5 and 13 months for both mothers and fathers during a triadic interaction. Consistent with the differential susceptibility theory, results suggested that when mothers were high on Negative Affect and when fathers were high on Constraint, their marital quality was associated with changes in sensitivity. This investigation suggests that personality factors may create “vulnerabilities” in parents that make them differentially susceptible to the effects of the family environment on parenting.     

Female anatomy and hysterical duality

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis - This article attempts to add another layer to our understanding of the phenomenon of hysterical duality. The author postulates that hysterical duality can...     

The effects of different instructions for preparatory muscle tension on simple reaction time

The effects of preparatory weak muscular contraction (pre-tension) have been investigated in a number of previous studies using tasks with either simple or choice responses to measure the reaction time (RT). These studies suggested that optimal pre-tension performed prior to a motor response tends to shorten the RTs. Using a simple RT task in which participants performed a grip response to a visual stimulus, the present study compared the RTs between two pre-tension conditions (self-selection and constraint) to investigate the effects of different instructions for pre-tension. Under the self-selection condition, participants were asked to determine their optimal pre-tension levels while attempting to give responses as fast as possible. Under the constraint condition, the participants developed a pre-tension at a target force determined by the experimenter. The target force was set at the same level as the pre-tension level maintained under the self-selection. Despite the fact that the pre-tension level manipulated was the same for both conditions, the RTs were significantly shorter under self-selection than under constraint. Moreover, the present study showed a positive correlation coefficient between the proportion of shortening in RT and the variation of pre-tension level. This indicated a performance trade-off between the stability of pre-tension and RTs. The result suggests that shorter RTs that occur under self-selection are primarily mediated by mental factors, such as attention allocation, rather than by the effects of peripheral muscular preparation.     

Modification of depth and distance perception caused by long-term wearing of left-right reversing spectacles

For 35 to 39 days, four observers wore continuously left-right reversing spectacles which pseudoscopically reverse the order of binocular disparity and direction of convergence. In three tests, we investigated how the visual system copes with the transformation of depth and distance information due to the reversing spectacles. In stereogram observation, after a few days of wearing the spectacles. the observers sometimes perceived a depth order which was opposite to the depth order that they had perceived in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. Monocular depth cues contributed more to depth perception in the spectacle-wearing period than they did in the pre-spectacle-wearing period. While the perceived distance significantly decreased during the spectacle-wearing period, we found no evidence of adaptive change in distance perception. The results indicate that the visual system adapts itself to the transformed situation by not only changing the processing of disparity but also by changing the relative efficiency of each cue in determining apparent depth.     

When a Seawall Is Visible: Infrastructure and Obstruction in Post-tsunami Reconstruction in Japan

The triple disaster of March 11, 2011 posed a formidable challenge for Japanese society in general, and for affected coastal communities in particular. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, there was widespread support for the construction of high seawalls to protect communities. However, many communities began questioning this approach. In Maehama, the question of land reconstruction and protection gave rise to a set of complex responses. The government aimed to put in place even higher seawalls; however, the local community proposed instead to mark the boundary of high water with trees and stakes. These solutions instantiate different ways of infrastructuring the post-tsunami environment for safety; they carry different assumptions about infrastructure itself. Whereas the seawall solution was technical and quantitative, centering on the question of height, the boundary markers embedded qualitatively different assumptions about what makes a workable infrastructure. In particular, this difference centered on issue of visibility. On the one hand, the seawall was meant to slowly become unremarkable, whereas the boundary markers were specifically intended to maintain community memory. On the other hand, the seawall would make the sea itself invisible, whereas keeping the sea in sight is very important to villagers. However, the opposition between these forms of infrastructuring the environment was not total. A solution was gradually negotiated in which the sea wall and the boundary markers could complement each another. This situation highlights the intricate, transformable relation between visible and invisible forms of infrastructure.     

Behavioral modulation induced by food odor aversive conditioning and its influence on the olfactory responses of an oscillatory brain network in the slug Limax marginatus

We compared behaviorally and physiologically the olfactory responses of slugs (Limax marginatus) that had been subjected to aversive, appetitive, or unpaired training with food odors (carrot or cucumber). In the aversive training, the slugs were exposed to the food odor as a conditioned stimulus (CS), and then quinidine sulfate solution as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was immediately applied to the lip of the slugs. This training caused a decrease in preference level for the CS. The unpaired training, in which the CS and the UCS were presented to the slugs with a 5-min interval, induced no change in the preference level for the CS. In the appetitive training, the slugs were allowed to eat the CS odor source without UCS application. When we used nonstarved slugs, it was found that the preference level for the CS increased upon the appetitive training. These results indicate that each training changed the preference for the odors in a characteristic manner. In the physiological experiments, we used brain-inferior tentacular nose preparations isolated from slugs and investigated the olfactory responses of the oscillations in the local field potential (LFP) of the procerebral (PC) lobe. We found that odor presentation induced various types of changes in the LFP oscillation frequency, although the rate of occurrence of the frequency modulation differed between odors used in the aversive and the unpaired training (aversive-conditioned and unpaired odors). The aversive-conditioned odors induced a decrease in the oscillatory frequency. Unpaired odors did not change it. Moreover, odors used in the appetitive training (appetitive-conditioned odors) induced an increase in the frequency. Thus, it was considered that those modulations of PC lobe oscillatory activity were independent of odor and reflected learned preference for odors.     

Effects of self-motion on attention in real 3D space

Human behavioral space is three-dimensional (3D), and when moving through 3D space individuals selectively allocate their attention to acquire necessary information. This study aimed to examine the characteristics of attention in real 3D space when observers were moving forward. In static and self-motion situations, relative and absolute cues were used. Results indicated that internal representation for allocation of attention in 3D space is in depth-aware mode whether in static or moving condition. Moreover, near superior asymmetrical switching of attention is more strongly manifested under moving than under static conditions. Our findings indicate that focusing of attention by relative and absolute cues is maintained in self-motion, and that allocation of attention during movement is more viewer-centered than when observers are static.     

Fukushima ETHOS: Post-Disaster Risk Communication,Affect, and Shifting Risks

ETHOS Fukushima is a risk communication (RC) program organized after the Fukushima nuclear accident by the International Commission on Radiological Protection and other international organizations supported by the Japanese government. ETHOS has been hailed as a model RC that is participatory and dialogue-based. Yet the critical and feminist literature has shown the need for analyzing the power relations in participatory projects, and for analyzing affect as a target of management by neoliberal governmentality. The affective work of ETHOS is characterized by narratives of self-responsibility, hope and anticipation, and transnational solidarity with Chernobyl victims. These resonate with the affective regime under neoliberalism that privileges self-responsibility, anticipation, maximization of emotional potential, and cosmopolitan empathy. This particular regime of affect has been integral in shifting risk from the nuclear industry and the government to individual citizens. ETHOS Fukushima has supported continued residence in contaminated areas. It has helped portray the reduction of government/industry responsibility as morally defensible, and the decision to stay in Fukushima as a free choice made by hopeful and determined citizens. At the same time, ETHOS has helped characterize the state’s and the nuclear industry’s roles in cleaning up and compensating the victims as restricting individual freedom and demoralizing the local people. The recent RC literature increasingly argues for a positive assessment of emotion, but this argument warrants careful analysis, as emotion is socially regulated and entangled in power relations. Moreover, deploying affective tropes is a crucial technique of neoliberal governmentality, especially because of affect’s seemingly oppositional and external relationship to neoliberalism.