Heart rate variability and drawing impairment in hypoxemic COPD

We studied 54 patients with hypoxemic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The Mini Mental State Examination and the Mental Deterioration Battery were used for neuropsychological assessment. Heart rate variability (HRV) was assessed based on 24-h Holter ECG recording. Mann–Whitney test was used to compare HRV parameters of patients performing normally or abnormally on individual neuropsychological tasks. Spearman’s rho was used to investigate the correlations between HRV parameters and neuropsychological scores, indexes of health status or COPD severity. Patients with defective performance at copying drawings with landmarks (CDL) test (N = 23) had lower very low frequency (VLF) power with respect to patients with normal performance (N = 31) (24 h: median 213; interquartile range 120–282 vs. 309; 188–431 ms², p = 0.043; daytime: 202; 111–292 vs. 342; 194–397 ms², p = 0.039). The CDL score correlated with the VLF power (24 h: ρ = 0.27, p = 0.049; daytime: ρ = 0.30, p = 0.028), and the normalized low frequency/high frequency (LF/HF) ratio (24 h: ρ = 0.27, p = 0.05; daytime: ρ = 0.33, p = 0.015). Sympathetic modulation decreased for increasing severity of COPD. In conclusion, drawing impairment correlates with depressed sympathetic modulation in patients with COPD, and both might be indexes of COPD severity.     

Intentional control over prejudice: when the choice of the measure matters

We tested the idea that the correlation between implicit and explicit measures of prejudice depends on whether or not groups are normatively protected against discrimination. A pilot study (N=31) showed that 13 categories varied widely in the degree to which it is acceptable to express negative opinions about them. The main study involving 89 Catholic subjects found that explicit (reward allocation, liking ratings) and implicit measures (linguistic intergroup bias) of prejudice were correlated for the outgroup that is not normatively protected against discrimination (Islamic Fundamentalists) but uncorrelated for the outgroup that is protected (Jews). Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Event-related potentials to overlapping shapes: Effects of saliency and interference

Visual perception is often challenged by various difficulties that act concomitantly and whose respective impacts may therefore be hard to distinguish. We used event-related potentials to dissociate the impact of target saliency, generated by occlusion, from that of interference produced by incongruent nontargets. In one block, the target (a square) partially occluded another square tilted by 45°. This nontarget square interfered only to a small extent with target perception. In another block, the target was the occluded stimulus, and interference from the nontarget was substantial. Blocks including two kinds of overlapping shapes (a cross and a square) were added to control for the interference effect. Block comparisons revealed that occlusion modulated an occipital N250 and reaction times. In contrast, interference modulated a parietal N380 but not reaction times.     

“Coming from Afar” and “Temporarily Becoming the Patient Without Knowing it”: Two Necessary Analytic Conditions According to Ferenczi’s Later Thought

In this paper the author discusses two points regarding Ferenczi’s views of psychoanalysis. The first concerns the fact that analysts, like their patients, “come from afar” (a concept of Borgogno, 2011). The second, closely linked to the first, has to do with Ferenczi’s belief that psychoanalytical knowledge is not intellectual but visceral, seeing that if analysts are to truly understand their patients they must first “take on” their suffering in such a way as to “become the patient.” The author follows Ferenczi’s progression along these two points through his whole oeuvre, from his first psychoanalytical writings to the Clinical Diary (1932a) of the last year of his life.