A new model of sensorimotor coupling in the development of speech

We present a computational model that learns a coupling between motor parameters and their sensory consequences in vocal production during a babbling phase. Based on the coupling, preferred motor parameters and prototypically perceived sounds develop concurrently. Exposure to an ambient language modifies perception to coincide with the sounds from the language. The model develops motor mirror neurons that are active when an external sound is perceived. An extension to visual mirror neurons for oral gestures is suggested.     

Does word frequency affect lexical selection in speech production?

We evaluated whether lexical selection in speech production is affected by word frequency by means of two experiments. In Experiment 1 participants named pictures using utterances with the structure “pronoun + verb + adjective”. In Experiment 2 participants had to perform a gender decision task on the same pictures. Access to the noun's grammatical gender is needed in both tasks, and therefore lexical selection (lemma retrieval) is required. However, retrieval of the phonological properties (lexeme retrieval) of the referent noun is not needed to perform the tasks. In both experiments we observed faster latencies for high-frequency pictures than for low-frequency pictures. This frequency effect was stable over four repetitions of the stimuli. Our results suggest that lexical selection (lemma retrieval) is sensitive to word frequency. This interpretation runs against the hypothesis that a word's frequency exerts its effects only at the level at which the phonological properties of words are retrieved.     

Reading and Writing: Psychoanalytical Treatment in a Case of Paranoia

Difficulties encountered in clinical work with psychoses require psychoanalytical approaches different from those used for treating neurosis. The authors use a clinical case of a paranoiac patient to highlight the role played by writing, drawing, and painting in the psychoanalytical treatment of psychosis. They also discuss the role of the reader-analyst in this patient’s transferential process, which led to the emergence of a new subjectivity.     

Flechsig and Freud: late 19th-century neurology and the emergence of psychoanalysis

The author analyzes the potential influences of Paul Flechsig's work on early Freudian theory, particularly on Sigmund Freud's 1966b/1895 Project for a Scientific Psychology. Gehirn und Seele, a discourse authored by Flechsig in 1894, is the focus of this analysis. The author believes that the links between the intellectual production of both German-speaking neurologists have been underrated to this day and attempts to establish that the early Freudian approach to many key issues in the history of psychoanalysis--dreams, unconscious processing, and drives, to name a few--was not unique but shared with some distinguished colleagues in neuropathology and psychiatry. Thus, he attempts to shed additional light on the transition from state-of-art neurology in the last decade of the 19th century to the creation of psychoanalysis as a discipline on its own.     

Bridging the gap between laboratory and applied research on response-independent schedules

In 1948, Skinner described the behavior of pigeons under response-independent schedules as “superstitious,” and proposed that the responses were reinforced by contiguous, adventitious food deliveries. Subsequently, response-independent schedules have been of interest to both basic and applied researchers, first to understand the mechanisms involved, and later, as “noncontingent reinforcement” (NCR) to reduce undesirable behavior. However, the potential superstitious effects produced by these schedules have been challenged, with some researchers arguing that antecedent variables play a significant role. This paper examines the evidence for adventitious reinforcement from both laboratory and applied research, the results of which suggest that antecedent, nonoperant functions may be important in fully understanding the effects of NCR. We propose an applied-basic research synthesis, in which attention to potential nonoperant functions could provide a more complete understanding of response-independent schedules. We conclude with a summary of the applied implications of the nonoperant functions of NCR schedules.     

Mediation of the stigma in the influence of negative symptomatology over recovery in psychosis

Background/Objective: The interest in recovery processes in psychotic disorders has boosted the necessity of knowledge about the factors that could influence in such recovery. Negative symptomatology and the stigma have been negatively linked to the recovery process in psychosis. The aim of this investigation is to improve the understanding of how the recovery process is affected by negative symptomatology based on the analysis of the mediating effects of the internalized stigma. Method: The sample was composed of 114 people that had experienced, at some point in their life, at least one clinically relevant psychotic episode. CAPE-42, STORI and ISMI were used for the evaluation. The macro PROCESS for SPSS was used. The indirect effect was calculated using 10.000 samples of bootstrap for the bootstrap confidence intervals (IC) corrected for bias. Results: The results show that the influence of negative symptomatology predicts the stigmatization of the person regarding his disorder. This predicts a negative influence in the recovery process of the psychosis. Conclusions: These results back the importance of adding the reduction of the stigma as a specific strategy to improve the recovery process in psychotic disorders.