Affectivity in Its Relation to Memory

It seems obvious that various feelings (various kinds of affectivity) are memorized, forgotten, and recollected to various degrees. Some of them are forgotten. Some of those forgotten can be recollected, while others are lost forever. For example, short and long-lasting feelings and shallow and deep feelings are memorized and remembered in different ways. In this paper I analyse from a conceptual point of view several categories of memory-of-feelings and offer a comprehensive map of them. In the end, the richness of categories in the realm of memory is interpreted as a proof of the intricacy of affectivity.     

Reviews: Books, Art

POLITICS ON THE COUCH: CITIZENSHIP AND THE INTERNAL LIFE. By Andrew Samuels, 235 pp. New York: Karnac (Other Press). $16.00. MARTHA, MARTHA: HOW CHRISTIANS WORRY. By Elaine Leong Eng, M.D. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, Inc., 2000. $14.95. SPILT MILK: PERINATAL LOSS AND BREAKDOWN. Edited by Joan Raphael-Leff. 100 pp. London: Institute of Psychoanalysis, 2000. MOTHERHOOD AND SEXUALITY. By Marie Langer, 305 pp. New York: Other Press, 2000. $30.00. BRANCHING STREAMS FLOW IN THE DARKNESS: ZEN TALKS ON THE SANDOKAI. By S. Suzuki. Eds: M. Weitsman and M. Wegner. 193 pp. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. $22.50. RESTORED HARMONY: AN EVIDENCE BASED APPROACH FOR INTEGRATING TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE INTO COMPLEMENTARY CANCER CARE. By Stephen Sagar, MD. xviii + 134 pp. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: Dreaming Dragonfly Communications, 2001. $19.95 (US); $29.95 (Can.), paperback. (ISBN: 0-9689488-0-4). CHIYO-NI, WOMAN HAIKU MASTER. By Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, 184 pp. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998. $16.95. THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB: A STORY OF IDEAS IN AMERICA. By Louis Menand, 442 pp. New York: Farrrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. $27.00. BUDDHISM WITHOUT BELIEFS: A CONTEMPORARY GUIDE TO AWAKENING. By Stephen Bachelor, 127 pp. Riverhead Books, 1997. $21.95. Video Art is Dead, Long Live Video Art     

Cultural Identity and Groups of Belonging

Research into the cultural foundations of psychic structure must take place simultaneously at the individual, group, and psychosocial level of analysis. Identity, as both an individual and a collective phenomenon, and the primacy of the group dimension become manifest in the imaginary space created by groups, in Bion's protomental system. Cultural incorporates function like somatic processes and establish the synchrony of all cultural interactions. Individuation would thus emerge from the shared common base, which in turn is related to the individual's internalization of his group of belonging. A distinction is drawn between primary groups of belonging, which are extensions of family structure and supply the group's cultural identity, and secondary belonging groups, which are instituted by the society. The relationship between transcultural experiences, aiming at achieving unity, and intercultural experiences, which recognize limits and differences, is a source of tension for the individual and the group. Examples are given of the function of excitation screens within instituted groups and of the cultural dimension of the analytic setting.     

Action-based and vision-based selection of input: Two sources of control

In the first part of this paper we review evidence suggesting that there exists a mechanism that selects input on the basis of its similarity to the required action. This response-based input selection differs from the more established space- and object-based input selection in that it is not constrained by the structure of the input. Our evidence suggests that the two-choice Stroop effect is caused by this response-based selection mechanism. By contrast, it is known that the flanker effect is determined by the space- and object- based selection mechanisms. We explore whether the conflict resolution of the Stroop and flanker tasks is different as well by embedding these two tasks in a PRP (Psychological Refractory Period) paradigm. We show that the Stroop and the PRP effects are additive whereas the flanker and the PRP effects are underadditive, suggesting that the processes in charge of the conflict resolution in the Stroop and the flanker tasks are indeed different. We discuss possible reasons for this difference, and discuss possible ways in which the response-based mechanism can be implemented in information processing models.