Manual assisted cognitive treatment for deliberate self-harm in borderline personality disorder patients

This study examines the efficacy of a short-term individual therapy, Manual Assisted Cognitive Treatment (MACT), which was developed to treat parasuicidal (suicidal or self-harming) patients. In this trial, MACT was modified to focus on deliberate self-harm (DSH) in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Thirty BPD patients who were engaged in DSH while in ongoing treatments, i.e., treatment-as-usual (TAU), were randomly assigned to receive MACT (N = 15) or not. DSH and level of suicide ideation were assessed at the baseline, at completion of the MACT intervention, and six months later. Results indicated that MACT was associated with significantly less frequent DSH upon completion of the intervention and with significantly decreased DSH frequency and severity at the six months follow-up. Moreover, MACT's contribution to reducing DSH frequency and severity was greater than the contribution by the amount of concurrent treatments. In contrast, MACT did not affect the level of suicide ideation and time-to-repeat of DSH. In conclusion, MACT seems to be a promising intervention for DSH in patients with BPD. More definitive studies are needed.     

The solitaire illusion: An illusion of numerosity

A new illusion in which the apparent number of elements of two kinds is determined by their spatial arrangement is described. The illusion is such that one large cluster appears to contain more elements than several small clusters, clustering being determined by Gestalt principles. The illusion was found both in adults and in children of 8 years.     

The suppression model remains unsound: A reply to Deutsch

In the present issue, we critically review the influentialsuppression model of the octave illusion (Chambers, Mattingley, & Moss, 2004). In a rejoinder to our article, Deutsch (2004b) defends the utility of the suppression model. Here, we respond to Deutsch’s arguments, many of which are based on criticisms of our recent experimental report (Chambers, Mattingley, & Moss, 2002). We argue that Deutsch’s criticisms of this previous investigation are unfounded and that her defense of the suppression model fails to account for the most important weaknesses of this theory. We conclude that the suppression model remains inadequate as an explanation of the octave illusion.     

Nonlinear,near photo-realistic caricatures using a parametric facial appearance model

A mathematical model previously developed for use in computer vision applications is presented as an empirical model for face space. The term appearance space is used to distinguish this from previous models. Appearance space is a linear vector space that is dimensionally optimal, enables us to model and describe any human facial appearance, and possesses characteristics that are plausible for the representation of psychological face space. Randomly sampling from a multivariate distribution for a location in appearance space produces entirely plausible faces, and manipulation of a small set of defining parameters enables the automatic generation of photo-realistic caricatures. The appearance space model leads us to the new concept of nonlinear caricatures, and we show that the accepted linear method for caricature is only a special case of a more general paradigm. Nonlinear methods are also viable, and we present examples of photographic quality caricatures, using a number of different transformation functions. Results of a simple experiment are presented that suggest that nonlinear transformations can accurately capture key aspects of the caricature effect. Finally, we discuss the relationship between appearance space, caricature, and facial distinctiveness. On the basis of our new theoretical framework, we suggest an experimental approach that can yield new evidence for the plausibility of face space and its ability to explain processes of recognition.     

CONSCIOUSNESS IN EXTREMITY: DISCOURSE ON MADNESS AMONG THE TABWA OF ZAIRE

The madman makes it possible for us to grasp the radical potential of consciousness at its limits. He contradicts the other person's discursive thinking towards the virtually inarticulable or unthought self. The Lakeside Tabwa of Shaba, Zaire, apprehend madness in three rather different, discursive domains. There is, firstly, wazimu, or its ‘mature’, incurable form, kizenzezia, considered as a fact of social life. It is seen as inverting the norms or functions of personhood and undoing those of mentality. It breaks down reciprocity, it is the negative function of ‘Death’. Secondly, it is in the prodromal illness, mubulibuli, and certain related emotion states, that madness appears as the artefact of another's malicious and intrusive ‘Desire’: the madman is said to have ‘closed anger’ in his heart alienating him from ongoing experience and interaction. Finally, in the diviner, the ‘otherness’ of gaze and speech is transformed into the normative power of clairvoyance bringing about its own logic and historicity. Here, the inversion of personhood becomes an emblem of insight and ‘Law’, but at the risk of insanity. The ethnographic encounter with the very otherness of the thinking of madness and of another culture toward the unthought itself is, in a sense, epistemogenic.     

Who Cares What She Thinks, What Does He Say? Links between Masculinity, In-Group Bonding and Gender Harassment

Previous research has linked threats to masculinity and gender harassment, the most pervasive form of sexual harassment. Using a computer harassment paradigm, an ingroup bonding explanation of this link was directly examined. The study was conducted with heterosexual male undergraduate students from an inner city Australian university. Participants received a threat to masculinity before being exposed to an ostensible gender ingroup member whose reaction to sexist jokes was manipulated. Data from 74 participants revealed that men high on conformity to masculine norms altered their behavior to correspond with feedback from the gender ingroup member after a masculinity threat, whereas men low on conformity to masculine norms rejected gender ingroup feedback after a masculinity threat. A variable examining reported liking of the gender ingroup member produced a similar pattern, while no changes were observed in reported liking of a gender outgroup member These results suggest that the perceived response of other members of the gender ingroup, but not members of the gender outgroup, influence men’s proclivity to enact gender harassing behaviors.     

How and to What Extent Do Two Cover, Copy, and Compare Spelling Interventions Contribute to Spelling, Word Recognition, and Vocabulary Development?

We used an adapted alternating treatments design to evaluate and compare the effects of 2 spelling interventions on spelling acquisition and maintenance, word reading, and vocabulary in three first-grade students. The first intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC), involved having participants look at a word, cover it, write it, then compare the written response with the original stimulus. For the second intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare + Sentence Definition (CCC + SD), CCC was supplemented with the experimenter reading a sentence containing the word and a brief definition of the word. Results showed that both interventions increased participants’ spelling at an equivalent rate, which was greater than a control condition. All participants showed greater gains in word reading in the 2 interventions than the control condition, and only 1 participant was better able to define words learned in the CCC + SD condition relative to the CCC condition.     

Revaluating the evidence for the General Factor of Personality in the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire: Concerns about Rushton and Irwing (2009)

We evaluated whether the Big Five-based hierarchical model for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) reported by Rushton and Irwing (2009) would replicate in a second sample of 733 participants. We were unable to confirm their hierarchical model and detected problems with the reporting of the original results. Exploratory factor analytic investigations generally supported the canonical three factor solution for the MPQ described in the existing literature. This was the case for both the present dataset and for the correlation matrix analyzed by Rushton and Irwing.     

Choking under pressure: The role of fear of negative evaluation

Objective

Conceptual models and predictors of choking under pressure (i.e., choking) have been proposed, but the role of fear of negative evaluation remains largely unknown. The purpose of the current study was to determine the degree to which fear of negative evaluation (FNE) may predispose athletes to choking.

Design and method

138 Experienced basketball players participated in a pre-selection stage, which involved completing a set of questionnaires that included the Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation-II (BFNE-II) questionnaire. Based on the scores from the BFNE-II, 34 athletes, categorized as either low- or high-FNE, were selected to perform basketball shots from five different areas of the court under low- and high-pressure phases. Shooting performance was evaluated based on the total number of successful shots out of 50 attempts.

Results

Results indicated that the high-FNE athletes displayed a significant increase in anxiety and a significant decrease in performance from low- to high-pressure phases. The low-FNE group exhibited only minimal changes in anxiety throughout the study and was able to maintain performance under pressure. Further mediation analysis investigating significant difference in performance between FNE groups within the high-pressure phase indicated that that cognitive anxiety was a partial mediator between FNE group and performance, but somatic anxiety was not.

Conclusions

Findings extend the existing choking literature by providing empirical support for the role of FNE in the context of the self-presentation model of choking.     

Lewis Carroll and psychoanalysis: why nothing adds up in wonderland

Each generation of psychoanalyst has found different things to value and sometimes to censure in Lewis Carroll’s remarkable fiction and flights of fancy. But what does Carroll’s almost ‘surrealist’ perspective in the Alice stories tell us about the rituals and symbols that govern life beyond Wonderland and Looking‐Glass World? Arguing that Carroll’s strong interest in meaning and nonsense in these and later works helps make the world strange to readers, the better to show it off‐kilter, this essay focuses on Jacques Lacan’s Carroll – the writer–logician who stressed, as Lacan did, the difficulty and price of adapting to the symbolic order. By reconsidering Lacan’s 1966 homage to the eccentric Victorian, I argue that Carroll’s insight into meaning and interpretation remains of key interest to psychoanalysts intent on hearing all that he had to say about psychic life.