The perseverance of numerical distance effect in attentional blink

In a number comparison task, it is easier to respond faster when the two numbers are further apart than when they are close. This inverse relationship between the size difference and the time to judge such difference is called the numerical distance effect (NDE). In this study we investigated whether attention plays a critical role in the surfacing of NDE and the way we process Arabic numbers. In experiments 1 and 2, with an attentional blink paradigm that was designed to modulate attention, we tested whether a limited or unlimited pool of attentional resources would have an impact on the performance and trend of NDE. The results showed a dissociable effect of attention that changed the overall accuracy but not the trend of NDE. In experiment 3 we examined whether the number priming effect, another phenomenon associated with the distance-related effect, would be affected during the attentional blink period. We found the pattern of number priming effect was not affected by attentional blink. An explanation of the role of attention in number distance processing, as well as how it interacts with Arabic number representation, is discussed.     

Intersectional Identities and the Politics of Altruistic Care in a Low-Income, Urban Community

The literatures on the ways in which social identity and social position (e.g., gender, class, race) inform altruism have developed orthogonally. In this community-based qualitative study we use intersectionality theory to explore the complex ways in which social identity and social structures jointly influence altruism among African American adults (n?=?40) in an urban, economically distressed housing community in New York City. Content analysis of participants’ narratives reveals the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, and urbanicity work in tandem to create differential patterns of vulnerability, differential needs, differential commitments to caring for particular subgroups, and informs how altruists are perceived by others. The implications of this work for future research on altruism are highlighted.     

Ferenczi and Winnicott: Searching for a “Missing Link” (of the Soul)

The aim of this paper is to present the close link between Ferenczi's and Winnicott's theoretical, clinical and therapeutic thought, indicating how this link has become something of a “missing link” in the history of psychoanalytic ideas, an implication which we retain, in part, to this day. In the first part entitled “Who's speaking to whom?”, I aim to explore the contents of the most essential parts of their messages, stressing the similarities and differences between them, and citing the most important authors whom they address (Freud for Ferenczi, Klein for Winnicott). In the second part, I aim to tackle the general direction underlying both their work and their lives, concentrating specifically on “the maternal”, and examining the repercussions of this aspect on psychoanalytic technique and practice. In the third part, as a kind of “Parting”, I will present further brief conclusions on the relevance and significance of their thoughts in modern day psychoanalysis, defining Ferenczi and Winnicott as “founders of future discursiveness”.     

The conjunction fallacy and interference effects

In the present article we consider the conjunction fallacy, a well known cognitive fallacy experimentally tested in cognitive science, which occurs for intuitive judgments. We show that the quantum formalism can be used to describe, in a very simple way, this fallacy, in terms of interference effect. We provide evidence that the quantum formalism leads quite naturally to violations of the joint probability rule of classic probability when considering the estimated probability of the conjunction of two events. By defining the concept of maximal conjunction error, we find a good agreement with experimental results. Thus we suggest that in cognitive science the formalism of quantum mechanics can be used to describe a quantum regime, where the cognitive fallacies and heuristics are valid.     

Mental number line disruption in a right-neglect patient after a left-hemisphere stroke

A right-neglect patient with focal left-hemisphere damage to the posterior superior parietal lobe was assessed for numerical knowledge and tested on the bisection of numerical intervals and visual lines. The semantic and verbal knowledge of numbers was preserved, whereas the performance in numerical tasks that strongly emphasize the visuo-spatial layout of numbers (e.g. number bisection) was impaired. The behavioral pattern of error in the two bisection tasks mirrored the one previously described in left-neglect patients. In other words, our patient misplaced the subjective midpoint (numerical or visual) to the left as function of the interval size. These data, paired with the patient's lesion site are strictly consistent with the tripartite organization of number-related processes in the parietal lobes as proposed by Dehaene and colleagues. According to these authors, the posterior superior parietal lobe on both hemispheres underpins the attentional orientation on the putative mental number line, the horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus is bilaterally related to the semantic of the numerical domain, whereas the left angular gyrus subserves the verbal knowledge of numbers. In summary, our results suggest that the processes involved in the navigation along the mental number line, which are related to the parietal mechanisms for spatial attention, and the processes involved in the semantic and verbal knowledge of numbers, are dissociable.     

Elasticity of Technique: The Psychoanalytic Project and the Trajectory of Ferenczi's Life

The object of this paper is the Elasticity of Psychoanalytic Technique in the work of Sándor Ferenczi. The author sustains that this can be considered neither as an ultimate arrival point nor as a particular stage of Ferenczi's clinical–theoretical body of work, but rather as an ensemble of affective qualities, attitudes and values, which he gradually developed through experience, signalling a paradigm shift in the history of psychoanalysis. The following areas will be explored: the new sensitivity demonstrated by Ferenczi concerning the relational and communicative factors present in the analytic session, his subtle and acute attention to the participation of the analyst's own subjectivity in the therapeutic process, and how these enduring elements of Ferenczi's technique anticipate several significant future developments in psychoanalysis.     

Divergence between community psychologists in academic and nonacademic settings: A closer look at the implications

The ecological principle of interdependence has been a guiding theme in our research and conceptualization. For the development of community psychology, academic and applied interest and networks must be integrated in ways which value the views and resources of both groups. This is the focus of Kelly's (1984) remarks. The dynamic interplay of ideas, data, and practices is likely to facilitate the collaboration between researchers and setting inhabitants which Trickett (1984) describes as the distinctive quality of community psychology. Common pathways of information exchange, joint responsibility for training future members of the field, and mutually enhancing role relationships are needed. Current channels of communication provide little ease of access or incentives for participation by psychologists in nonacademic settings. It thus becomes the reponsibility of all concerned community psychologists to use their organizational skills to redress this harmful imbalance (Kelly, 1984). For this to occur, however, we must take the initial steps of frankly recognizing differences in our folkways and organizational constraints, while also emphasizing our common values and assets. The largest threat to the field is external constraints from university and clinical service settings on the work that represents community psychology (Elias et al., 1984). If we are dividedor uninformed in the face of these environmental presses, we will never create the adaptive niche that community psychology needs to survive.