(Non)words, (non)words, (non)words: evidence for a protolexicon during the first year of life

Previous research with artificial language learning paradigms has shown that infants are sensitive to statistical cues to word boundaries (Saffran, Aslin & Newport, 1996) and that they can use these cues to extract word‐like units (Saffran, 2001). However, it is unknown whether infants use statistical information to construct a receptive lexicon when acquiring their native language. In order to investigate this issue, we rely on the fact that besides real words a statistical algorithm extracts sound sequences that are highly frequent in infant‐directed speech but constitute nonwords. In three experiments, we use a preferential listening paradigm to test French‐learning 11‐month‐old infants' recognition of highly frequent disyllabic sequences from their native language. In Experiments 1 and 2, we use nonword stimuli and find that infants listen longer to high‐frequency than to low‐frequency sequences. In Experiment 3, we compare high‐frequency nonwords to real words in the same frequency range, and find that infants show no preference. Thus, at 11 months, French‐learning infants recognize highly frequent sound sequences from their native language and fail to differentiate between words and nonwords among these sequences. These results are evidence that they have used statistical information to extract word candidates from their input and stored them in a ‘protolexicon’, containing both words and nonwords.     

Towards a better use of psychoanalytic concepts: A model illustrated using the concept of enactment

It is well known that there is a lack of consensus about how to decide between competing and sometimes mutually contradictory theories, and how to integrate divergent concepts and theories. In view of this situation the IPA Project Committee on Conceptual Integration developed a method that allows comparison between different versions of concepts, their underlying theories and basic assumptions. Only when placed in a frame of reference can similarities and differences be seen in a methodically comprehensible and reproducible way. We used “enactment” to study the problems of comparing concepts systematically. Almost all psychoanalytic schools have developed a conceptualization of it. We made a sort of provisional canon of relevant papers we have chosen from the different schools. The five steps of our method for analyzing the concept of enactment will be presented. The first step is the history of the concept; the second the phenomenology; the third a methodological analysis of the construction of the concept. In order to compare different conceptualizations we must know the main dimensions of the meaning space of the concept, this is the fourth step. Finally, in step five we discuss if and to what extent an integration of the different versions of enactment is possible.     

Effects of task relevance and stimulus-driven salience in feature-search mode

Attentional allocation in feature-search mode (W. F. Bacon & H. E. Egeth, 1994) is thought to be solely determined by top-down factors, with no role for stimulus-driven salience. The authors reassessed this conclusion using variants of the spatial cuing and rapid serial visual presentation paradigms developed by C. L. Folk and colleagues (C. L. Folk, R. W. Remington, & J. C. Johnston, 1992; C. L. Folk, A. B. Leber, & H. E. Egeth, 2002). They found that (a) a nonsingleton distractor that possesses the target feature produces attentional capture, (b) such capture is modulated by bottom-up salience, and (c) resistance to capture by irrelevant singletons is mediated by inhibitory processes. These results extend the role of top-down factors in search for a nonsingleton target while arguing against the notion that effects of bottom-up salience and top-down factors on attentional priority are strictly encapsulated within distinct search modes.     

A matter of time: actual time and the production of the past

In psychoanalytic theory, space metaphors are frequently used to describe the psychic apparatus. As for time, it is traditionally invoked under the heading of timelessness of the unconscious, more aptly described as the resistance of the repressed to wearing away with time. This paper examines how the insertion of time into psychic events and structural differentiation form a single process. After looking into the parallelism between phenomenological and psychoanalytic views of time and differentiation, the author draws a distinction between two time categories: chronological versus actual. A clinical example is presented.     

Some personality correlates of using eBay

The use of eBay by 102 American undergraduate students was not associated with competitiveness, locus of control scores, or money attitude scores.     

Assessing secure base behavior in adulthood: development of a measure,links to adult attachment representations,and relations to couples' communication and reports of relationships

A focus on the secure base phenomenon creates a framework for exploring the function of the attachment system in adulthood. Engaged couples (N = 157) were videotaped in a problem-solving interaction and assessed using the Secure Base Scoring System (SBSS), a system based on Ainsworth's analyses of infant-parent secure base use and support. Study 1 showed behavior was significantly related to representations assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview (M. Main & R. Goldwyn, 1994). In Study 2, the interactions were independently scored with the Rapid Marital Interaction Coding System (RMICS; R. E. Heyman & D. Vivian, 1993), a communication-based system. The SBSS predicted relationship variables beyond the RMICS, especially for women. Results indicate that the secure base phenomenon provides a cogent perspective on adult attachment behavior.     

Stability of attachment representations: the transition to marriage

This study examined the stability of adult attachment representations across the transition to marriage. One hundred fifty-seven couples were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985), the Current Relationship Interview (J. A. Crowell & G. Owens, 1996), and measures describing relationship functioning and life events 3 months prior to their weddings and 18 months into their marriages. The authors tested the hypotheses that attachment classifications are stable and that change is related to experiences in the relationship and/or life events; 78% of the sample received the same primary AAI classification (secure, preoccupied, and dismissing) at both times. Change was toward increased security and was associated with feelings and cognitions about the relationship. Only 46% of participants initially classified as unresolved retained the classification. Stability of the unresolved classification was associated with stressful life events and relationship aggression.     

Neural substrates of impaired categorical perception of phonemes in adult dyslexics: an fMRI study

Phonological developmental dyslexics remain impaired in phonetic categorical perception (CP) even in adulthood. We studied the brain correlates of CP in dyslexics and controls using a block design fMRI protocol and stimuli from an phonetic continuum between natural /Pa/ and /Ta/ syllables. Subjects performed a pseudo-passive listening task which does not imply voluntary categorical judgment. In the control group, categorical deviant stimuli elicited specific activations in the left angular gyrus, the right inferior frontal gyrus and the right superior cingulate cortex. These regions were not activated in the dyslexic group in which activation was observed for acoustic but not phonetic changes in stimuli. Failures to activate key regions for language perception and auditory attention in dyslexic might account for persistent deficits in phonological awareness and reading tasks.     

Strategy planning in cats (Felis catus) in a progressive elimination task

Domestic cats (Felis cans) were administered a progressive elimination task in which they had to visit and deplete 3 baited sites. Cats were brought back to the starting point after each visit to any site whether the visit represented a correct or an incorrect choice. The results revealed that cats organized search as a function of the least distance principle whether they had to assess starting point to target distances (Experiment 1, n = 12) or adjacent bowl distances (Experiment 2, n = 12). The results also revealed that the starting point to target distance factor was the most influential in determining the initial choice (Experiment 3, n = 6) and in producing errors. Errors were also linked to the antero-posterior bodily axis of the cat. Results are discussed in terms of the predatory behavior of the cat.