Motor perseverative behavior in adult stutterers and nonstutterers

The performances of 22 adult stutterers and 22 adult nonstutterers on motor tasks requiring the graphic reproduction of a sequence of alternating figures following the production of a series of nonalternating figures were studied. The finding that there were no differences in the performance of the two groups on the alternating motor tasks was interpreted as challenging the validity of previous observations that motor perseverative behavior exists in stutterers and is indicative of a central neurological deficit in that population.     

Differences in the coding of spatial relations in face identification and basic-level object recognition

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if the relations among the primitives used in face identification and in basic-level object recognition are represented using coordinate or categorical relations. In 2 experiments the authors used photographs of famous people's faces as stimuli in which each face had been altered to have either 1 of its eyes moved up from its normal position or both of its eyes moved up. Participants performed either a face identification task or a basic-level object recognition task with these stimuli. In the face identification task, 1-eye-moved faces were easier to recognize than 2-eyes-moved faces, whereas the basic-level object recognition task showed the opposite pattern of results. Results suggest that face identification involves a coordinate shape representation in which the precise locations of visual primitives are specified, whereas basic-level object recognition uses categorically coded relations.     

On Visitations: The Appearance of Sustaining Thoughts When Processing the Therapist’s Illness with Patients

This paper describes clinical and personal challenges when the therapist had to disclose his illness to long-established patients as a clinical and ethical imperative. Uncertainty about duration of treatment was processed in ways unique to each dyad. Mutual efforts at affect regulation became potent avenues of repair in some cases, although unexpected conundrums arose at the interface of privacy and disclosure, recognizing the intrusiveness of illness and its highly personal meanings. Vivid clinical vignettes and key pieces of clinical reading appeared to the therapist like visitations, spanning his career, corresponding to sustaining thoughts, admonitions, and former self-states. In kinship with authors of fiction, the therapist looks for a way through, to rebuild a holding environment capable of containing and utilizing the unwelcome news, responding very differently to each patient’s expression of compassion and caretaking, with particular sensitivity to those he feared were reenacting their own suppression of need. These became pivotal elements to explore relationally in trying to broaden the field in which topics of illness and mortality could rise above pathos, guilt, pity, despair, and other forms of isolation. In each relationship, a different wilderness was navigated.     

You Say Oedipal,I Say Postoedipal A Consideration of Desire and Hostility in the Analytic Relationship

Using a case example, the author explores the complex and shifting boundary between aspects of oedipal regression and postoedipal phenomena. Particularly, during termination phases, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish among the hostility, frustration, and anger related to oedipal longings and scorn that is connected to realistic appraisals of the limits of erotic longings in the analytic situation. Scorn sometimes involves a kind of righteous indignation that results from the patient's awareness that analytic immersion in erotic longings toward unavailable others has aspects of erotic masochism. To some extent, the analytic situation itself contains aspects of erotic masochism that are important to try to reorganize during ending phases of analysis. The author argues that distinctions between oedipal and postoedipal are ever-shifting and difficult to make because the Oedipus complex is a lifelong process that is never resolved. Instead, we are always seeking new adaptations and new ways to organize our relationships against the background of a fluid boundary between oedipal and postoedipal phenomena.     

Buddhist Meditation and Countertransference: A Case Study

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Attention and the acquisition of new knowledge: their effects on older adults' associative memory deficit

Older adults experience a selective associative memory deficit by demonstrating intact item memory relative to impaired associative memory when compared with younger adults. Age-related deficits in associative memory have been suggested to arise from declines in attentional resources, and the role of attention during encoding and retrieval in associative memory for words and their spatial locations was investigated in the current experiment. Additionally, the tendency of younger and older adults to use knowledge acquired during encoding to improve their associative memory judgments through a strategic associative memory process was also investigated. Younger and older adults studied a list of words with each word belonging to one of four categories, which followed one of four mathematical probability structures for their presentation. Older adults exhibited intact item memory and impaired associative memory relative to full attention younger adults. In addition, both older and younger adults demonstrated an ability to engage in strategic associative memory, by learning and later using the probability structure introduced at study to guide their associative memory judgments. In contrast, dividing the attention of younger adults during encoding impaired item memory, associative memory and strategic associative memory, whereas dividing attention at retrieval did not result in similar deficits. These data add to a growing body of literature demonstrating older adults to exhibit a selective associative memory deficit that is not simulated by dividing the attention of younger adults at encoding or retrieval. Furthermore, younger and older adults maintain the ability to use new knowledge to guide their associative judgments.     

BUILDING CHARACTER: A LEADERSHIP ESSENTIAL

Character is an increasingly important topic of discourse and analysis, however, much of the research remains problematic and conceptual. Even less evidence exists of the nature of the relationship between character and leadership. This study examined self-reported character and associated demographic correlates among a sample of 238 Australian business leaders. Exploratory factor analysis identified three dimensions of character consistent with theory. These dimensions were examined in relation to demographic variables. After controlling for social desirability bias, few statistically significant demographic differences were found. Further research is recommended to validate the model of character developed in our paper.