Units of visual individuation in rhesus macaques: objects or unbound features?

Vision begins with the processing of unbound visual features, which must eventually be bound together into object representations. Such feature binding is required for coherent visual perception, and accordingly has received a considerable amount of study in several domains. Neurophysiological work, often in monkeys, has revealed the details of how and where feature binding occurs in the brain, but methodological limitations have not allowed this research to elucidate just how feature binding operates spontaneously in real-world situations. In contrast, behavioral work with human infants has demonstrated how we use simpler unbound features to individuate and identify objects over time and occlusion in many types of events, but this work has not typically been able to isolate the role of feature binding in such processing. Here we provide a method for assessing the spontaneity and fidelity of feature binding in non-human primates, as this process is utilized in real-world situations, including simple foraging behaviors. Using both looking-time and manual-search measures in a natural environment, we show that free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) spontaneously bind features in order to individuate objects across time and occlusion in dynamic events. This pattern of results demonstrates that feature binding is used in subtle ways to guide ecologically relevant behavior in a non-human animal, spontaneously and reliably, in its natural environment.     

Introduction to Michotte's heritage in perception and cognition research

Several decades after Michotte's work was published, it continues to inspire current research in perception, cognition, and beyond. In this special issue we pay tribute to this heritage with a collection of empirical and theoretical papers on amodal completion and the perception of causality, two areas of research within which Michotte's work and ideas have had a lasting influence. As a background to better understand the remaining papers, we briefly sketch Michotte's life and work and the scope (in breadth and in depth) of his impact. We then review Michotte's seminal contributions to the areas covered in this special issue, some of the major research discoveries and themes in the intervening decades, and the major open questions and challenges we are still facing. We also include a sneak preview of the papers in this special issue, noting how they relate to Michotte's work and to each other. This review shows both how much influence Michotte has had on contemporary perception and cognition research, and how much important work remains to be done. We hope that the papers in this special issue will serve both to celebrate Michotte's heritage in this respect, and to inspire other investigators to continue the projects he began.     

Sabina Spielrein: out from the shadow of Jung and Freud

Abstract: Since the 1982 publication of Aldo Carotenuto's book, A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Spielrein Between Jung and Freud, there has been renewed interest in the life and work of Sabina Spielrein. She was Jung's first psychoanalytic case at the Burghölzli Hospital in 1904, and was referred to several times in The Freud/Jung Letters. Spielrein recovered, enrolled in medical school, and went on to become a Freudian analyst. Her most famous paper, published in 1912, ‘Destruction as a cause of coming into being’, was referred to by Freud in 1920 in relation to his Death Instinct theory. In the few Freudian publications on this controversial theory since 1920, Spielrein's contribution is consistently omitted. Jung also neglected to refer to her ‘Destruction’ paper in his early 1912 version of ‘Symbols of transformation’, even though he had edited her paper and had promised to acknowledge her contribution. He did refer extensively to Spielrein's first paper, her medical thesis, ‘On the psychological content of a case of schizophrenia’, published in 1911, as yet unpublished in English. In her paper Spielrein sought to understand the psychotic delusions of Frau M, a patient at the Burghölzli, much in the style of Jung's ‘Psychology of dementia praecox’ (1907). The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent Spielrein's Frau M paper, and its companion ‘Destruction’ paper, make an original contribution to both Jung and Freud's emerging theories on the possible creative versus destructive outcomes of neurotic or psychotic introversion, culminating in Jung's concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ (1916) and Freud's concept of a ‘Death instinct’ (1920).     

Establishing the feasibility of direct observation in the assessment of tics in children with chronic tic disorders

Behavior analysis has been at the forefront in establishing effective treatments for children and adults with chronic tic disorders. As is customary in behavior analysis, the efficacy of these treatments has been established using direct-observation assessment methods. Although behavior-analytic treatments have enjoyed acceptance and integration into mainstream health care practices for tic disorders (e.g., psychiatry and neurology), the use of direct observation as a primary assessment tool has been neglected in favor of less objective methods. Hesitation to use direct observation appears to stem largely from concerns about the generalizability of clinic observations to other settings (e.g., home) and a lack of consensus regarding the most appropriate and feasible techniques for conducting and scoring direct observation. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate and establish a reliable, valid, and feasible direct-observation protocol capable of being transported to research and clinical settings. A total of 43 children with tic disorders, collected from two outpatient specialty clinics, were assessed using direct (videotape samples) and indirect (Yale Global Tic Severity Scale; YGTSS) methods. Videotaped observation samples were collected across 3 consecutive weeks and two different settings (clinic and home), were scored using both exact frequency counts and partial-interval coding, and were compared to data from a common indirect measure of tic severity (the YGTSS). In addition, various lengths of videotaped segments were scored to determine the optimal observation length. Results show that (a) clinic-based observations correspond well to home-based observations, (b) brief direct-observation segments scored with time-sampling methods reliably quantified tics, and (c) indirect methods did not consistently correspond with the direct methods.     

Outcome of patients rehabilitated through a New Zealand forensic psychiatry service: A 7.5 year retrospective study

This paper describes a 7.5 year retrospective study of all patients discharged from inpatient forensic services to forensic community team (FCT) follow-up from the Auckland Regional Forensic Psychiatry Service. Patients' files were studied for clinical, criminal, and risk data, type of service delivered, and final level of function achieved in the community. Rearrest, re-hospitalization, and reimprisonment data were obtained from clinical, court, and prison records.105 patients were included. The most common diagnosis was a psychotic disorder, and index offending behaviour was typically violent. The median period of inpatient stay was 36 months and mean subsequent FCT follow-up 21.7 months (SD 17.8). The majority of patients were from Maori and Pacific Island ethnic groups. At the end of the study, half were in independent living, half were in some form of employment, and 19% were readmitted to a forensic hospital.One patient was rearrested but not reimprisoned whilst under forensic community team care. However, 9 of the 48 who were discharged to general mental health services were rearrested and 5 reimprisoned. Only two offences were as serious as the original index offence.Broad based assertive, mandated, and committed forensic rehabilitation can achieve high quality outcomes. These levels of function may not be sustained under less assertive care.     

Supervisory guidance and behavioral integrity: relationships with employee citizenship and deviant behavior

The authors examined the effects of supervisory guidance (providing instruction to employees) and behavioral integrity (a pattern of word-deed alignment) on employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and deviant behavior. Results revealed a pattern of Supervisory Guidance x Behavioral Integrity interaction effects, such that relationships between guidance and outcome variables were dependent on the level of behavioral integrity exhibited by supervisors. The interactions suggest a positive relationship between supervisory guidance and OCBs when behavioral integrity is high but also a positive relationship between guidance and deviant behavior when behavioral integrity is low. These results were consistent across 2 independent field samples: 1 assessing individual employee perceptions of supervisory behavior and the other assessing aggregate perceptions of supervisory behavior among employees in bank branches.     

Trait and social processes in the link between social support and affect: an experimental, laboratory investigation

This study investigated the extent to which the link between perceived social support and affect reflected support recipients' trait perceived support as well as three distinct social processes: the objective supportiveness of providers, the unique relationships among recipients and providers that were stable over occasions, as well as the unique relationships that varied across occasions. Ten recipients interacted with each of the same four providers on five separate occasions, for a total of 200 interactions. Recipients and independent observers rated recipient affect and provider support. Greater perceived support was related to greater positive affect for recipients' trait perceived support, as well as for relationships that were stable over occasions and relationships that varied across occasions. No social support effects were found for negative affect. Perceived similarity was a consistent predictor of recipients' support perceptions. Implications for social support models and interventions were discussed.     

Stability of pigeon body weight under free-feeding conditions

Increases in regulatory oversight of animal research require verification of effects of standard practices. There are no formal guidelines for establishing free-feeding weights in adult pigeons. In the present study, pigeons were obtained from a commercial supplier, weighed upon arrival, and then held in quarantine for 7 days with free access to food. Subsequently, still with continuous access to food, they were weighed daily for 30 days. No significant changes in weights occurred over the 30-day period for male pigeons, indicating that seven days is sufficient for establishing a baseline body weight. A secondary finding of higher day-to-day variability in the weights of female pigeons may serve as a method of sexing pigeons.     

Cerebrovascular risk factors, activity limitations, and depressed mood in African American older adults

This study investigated the association between cerebrovascular risk factors (CVRFs), physical activity limitations, and depressed mood. The 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) was administered to 1,034 urban African American older adults. A chi-square analysis demonstrated that the prevalence of depressed mood among those with high CVRF burden (13.4%) was significantly higher than among those with low vascular burden (7.6%). Physical activity limitations also predicted depressed mood, but this relationship did not mediate the relationship between cerebrovascular burden and depression. These findings highlight the relationships among cerebrovascular burden, physical activity limitations, and depressed mood among African American older adults.