Adaptive control of event integration

Identifying 2 target stimuli in a rapid stream of visual symbols is much easier if the 2nd target appears immediately after the 1st target (i.e., at Lag 1) than if distractor stimuli intervene. As this phenomenon comes with a strong tendency to confuse the order of the targets, it seems to be due to the integration of both targets into the same attentional episode or object file. The authors investigated the degree to which people can control the temporal extension of their (episodic) integration windows by manipulating the expectations participants had with regard to the time available for target processing. As predicted, expecting more time to process increased the number of order confusions at Lag 1. This was true for between-subjects and within-subjects (trial-to-trial) manipulations, suggesting that integration windows can be adapted actively and rather quickly.     

Integrating faces, houses, motion, and action: spontaneous binding across ventral and dorsal processing streams

Perceiving an event requires the integration of its features across numerous brain maps and modules. Visual object perception is thought to be mediated by a ventral processing stream running from occipital to inferotemporal cortex, whereas most spatial processing and action control is attributed to the dorsal stream connecting occipital, parietal, and frontal cortex. Here we show that integration operates not only on ventral features and objects, such as faces and houses, but also across ventral and dorsal pathways, binding faces and houses to motion and manual action. Furthermore, these bindings seem to persist over time, as they influenced performance on future task-relevant visual stimuli. This is reflected by longer reaction times for repeating one, but alternating other features in a sequence, compared to complete repetition or alternation of features. Our findings are inconsistent with the notion that the dorsal stream is operating exclusively online and has no access to memory.     

Bewältigung des unerfüllten Kinderwunsches

The article reviews current research in relation to two aspects of involuntary childlessness; firstly, the extent to which involuntary childlessness can be considered a critical life-event and secondly, the short-term effects of childlessness on life-satisfaction and well-being. A study is reported in which 68 middle-aged women (45 to 65 years) who are long term childless because of infertility, are investigated. The study focuses on the extent to which unfilled desire for a child has long term effects on well-being and life-satisfaction. The control group comprised 68 women who did not suffer from fertility problems and became pregnant spontaneously. Life-satisfaction and well-being were assessed using the life-satisfaction questionaire (FLZ; Fahrenberg et al. 2000) and the SCL-90-R (Symptome-Checklist, Derogatis, the German version of Franke 1995). The study shows clearly that psychological well-being is significantly lower in childless middle-aged women compared to women of the same mean age, who have a child. No significant differences were found in social well-being and health. The results support the view that unwanted childlessness may become a chronic stressor. Unintentionally childless middle-aged women do not constitute a clinical group whose need for psychotherapy is urgent. However, the development of specific counselling for women who fail to conceive and those who remain childless in the long term is recommended.     

Bodily experience between selfhood and otherness

In opposition to traditional forms of dualism and monism, the author holds that our bodily self includes certain aspects of otherness. This is shown concerning the phenomenological issues of intentionality, of self-awareness and of intersubjectivity, by emphasizing the dimension of pathos. We are affected by what happens to us before being able to respond to it by acts or actions. Every sense, myself and others are born out of pathos. The original alienness of our own body, including neurological processes, creates shifting degrees of nearness and remoteness, and allows for pathological deviations such as depersonalisation, paranoia or trauma. Such a phenomenology of body crosses the borderlines of different disciplines.     

Gruppenentwicklung in zwei stationären intendiert dynamischen Gruppentherapien

Following the discussion of several methodological problems in the assessment of group development processes, a study is reported comparing the development in two inpatient groups (treated according to the intended dynamic model), measured on several levels, with a theoretical model of group development. Within the study, self experiences, group experiences and the group climate were assessed following each session. Data analysis was performed using a nonparametric procedure for the analysis of time series. The study indicated that group development can be studied economically. It further shows some indicators for differential group processes and individual reactions to the group process that can be used clinically.     

Die Psychotherapeutenausbildung aus Sicht der Teilnehmer

Background

A survey was performed to assess the current situation in education and to identify critical issues 10 years after the inception of the German law regulating the education of psychological psychotherapists and child and adolescent psychotherapists. The study reports the results of a nationwide survey of German psychological psychotherapists and child and adolescent psychotherapists currently in training. The aim of the survey was to evaluate the individual sections of training, desired alterations and structural and financial conditions.

Methods

All trainees were contacted via the training institutes and the umbrella organizations. A total of 3,223 trainees participated and answered questions mainly using an online questionnaire.

Results

Most respondents practiced their training part-time and in most cases the trainees thought that the training would last longer than initially expected. The practical training was rated most poorly, whereas practical education and individual supervision were rated as most useful. The survey revealed deficits concerning the evaluation of the quality of several components of the training.

Conclusions

From the perspective of the trainees there is a necessity to modify the financial conditions of the training. This result has been considered in the recommendations of a research expertise on psychotherapy training and should stimulate further research.     

Precise instructions determine participants’ memory search strategy in judgments of relative order in short lists

Memory often requires knowledge of the order of events. Previous findings about immediate judgments of relative order in short, subspan lists are variable regarding whether participants’ strategy is to search memory in the forward direction, starting from the first list item and progressing toward the end item, or in the backward direction, starting from the end item and progressing toward the start. We asked whether wording of the instructions influences participants’ search direction. Participants studied sequences of three to six consonants, and for an immediate, two-item probe of each list, judged which probe was presented earlier (“earlier” instruction) or later (“later” instruction) on the list. Forward and backward searches were supported for “earlier” and “later” instructions, respectively. Our findings suggest that participants have more than one effective strategy for order judgments in short lists, and that subtle instructional differences can bias memory search in either the forward or backward direction.     

Gendered Ways to Motivation Gains in Groups

Recent studies have demonstrated motivation gains of low performing group members even beyond the level of an individual work baseline (e.g., Weber and Hertel, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93:973–993, 2007). We expected that the underlying mechanisms of these motivation gains, i.e., social indispensability and social competition, are moderated by individuals’ gender. Moreover, these gender effects were assumed to be moderated by partner anonymity. Predictions were tested with mostly undergraduate German students (N?=?213) working in same-gender groups in a computer-supported environment. Results revealed that motivation gains due to social indispensability were more likely for women, whereas motivation gains due to social competition were more likely for men. Furthermore, women compared to men showed higher motivation gains in anonymous conditions compared to conditions with an acquainted partner.     

Lifespan development of stimulus-response conflict cost: similarities and differences between maturation and senescence

Age gradient of the mechanism of stimulus-response conflict cost was investigated in a population-based representative sample of 291 individuals, covering the age range from 6 to 89 years. Stimulus-response conflict cost, indicated by the amount of additional processing time required when there is a conflict between stimulus and response options, follows a U-shaped function across the lifespan. Lifespan age gradient of conflict cost parallels closely those of processing fluctuation and fluid intelligence. Individuals at both ends of the lifespan displayed a greater amount of processing fluctuation and at the same time a larger amount of conflict cost and a lower level of fluid intelligence. After controlling for chronological age and baseline processing speed, conflict cost continues to correlate significantly with fluid intelligence in adulthood and old age and with processing fluctuation in old age. The relation between processing fluctuation and conflict cost in old age lends further support for the neuromodulation of neuronal noise theory of cognitive aging as well as for theories of dopaminergic modulation of conflict monitoring.