Conversation analysis at work: detection of conflict in competitive discussions through semi-automatic turn-organization analysis

This study proposes a semi-automatic approach aimed at detecting conflict in conversations. The approach is based on statistical techniques capable of identifying turn-organization regularities associated with conflict. The only manual step of the process is the segmentation of the conversations into turns (time intervals during which only one person talks) and overlapping speech segments (time intervals during which several persons talk at the same time). The rest of the process takes place automatically and the results show that conflictual exchanges can be detected with Precision and Recall around 70% (the experiments have been performed over 6 h of political debates). The approach brings two main benefits: the first is the possibility of analyzing potentially large amounts of conversational data with a limited effort, the second is that the model parameters provide indications on what turn-regularities are most likely to account for the presence of conflict.     

The Fortunes of the Relational Model in Italy: Notes on Publishing,Teaching, and Training

The beginning of the Italian “relational turn” dates back to the translation, in 1986, of Greenberg and Mitchell’s Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory. The authors illustrate how the Italian psychodynamic world received this book and the following contributions from the relational colleagues from the United States. In particular, they review the last three decades of Italian psychoanalytic publications (both journals and books) and training programs (both private and public schools), showing the increasing presence of relational elements and the specific ways in which they appear, sometime facing hostility and devaluation. Nowadays, thanks to the pioneering work of a determinate and passionate group of psychoanalysts and editorial consultants, we can say that the relational turn in Italy is a “matter of fact” and the relational approach one of the most influential voices in the Italian psychoanalytic and psychodynamic community.     

Mirror Neurons,Embodied Simulation,and the Neural Basis of Social Identification

The shared intersubjective space in which we live since birth enables and bootstraps the constitution of the sense of identity we normally entertain with others. Social identification incorporates the domains of action, sensations, affect, and emotions and is underpinned by the activation of shared neural circuits. A common underlying functional mechanism—embodied simulation—mediates our capacity to share the meaning of actions, intentions, feelings, and emotions with others, thus grounding our identification with and connectedness to others. Social identification, empathy, and “we-ness” are the basic ground of our development and being. Embodied simulation provides a model of potential interest not only for our understanding of how interpersonal relations work or might be pathologically disturbed but also for psychoanalysis. The hypothesis is that embodied simulation is at work within the psychoanalytic setting between patient and analyst. The notions of projective identification and the interpersonal dynamic related to transference and countertransference can be viewed as instantiations of the implicit and prelinguistic mechanisms of the embodied simulation-driven mirroring mechanisms here reviewed.     

What are the Causes of the Attention Deficits Observed in Children with Dyslexia?

Dyslexic children often show attention problems at school, but it is not clear the nature of their impairments. The aim of this study was to analyze whether verbal processing artefacts could mediate attention deficits. Forty-seven children (22 dyslexics and 25 controls), aged between 7 to 12, were assessed through an ADHD rating scale and a battery of tasks tapping different attentional processes (selective, sustained, executive, and orienting). Phonological measures were used as covariates. Children with dyslexia showed attentional impairments (using both rating scales and neuropsychological tasks); however their performance was significantly affected by phonological performance. In conclusion, dyslexics may be inattentive at school because they are slow processors, in particular when they are presented with verbal stimuli.     

Use or misuse of the selection task? Rejoinder to Fiddick,Cosmides, and Tooby

Sperber, Cara, and Girotto (Cognition 52 (1995) 3) argued that, in Wason's selection task, relevance-guided comprehension processes tend to determine participants' performance and pre-empt the use of other inferential capacities. Because of this, the value of the selection task as a tool for studying human inference has been grossly overestimated. Fiddick, Cosmides, and Tooby (Cognition 77 (2000) 1) argued against Sperber et al. that specialized inferential mechanisms, in particular the "social contract algorithm" hypothesized by Cosmides (Cognition 31 (1989) 187), pre-empt more general comprehension abilities, making the selection task a useful tool after all. We rebut this argument. We argue and illustrate with two new experiments, that Fiddick et al. mix the true Wason selection task with a trivially simple categorization task superficially similar to the Wason task, yielding methodologically flawed evidence. We conclude that the extensive use of various kinds of selection tasks in the psychology of reasoning has been quite counter-productive and should be discontinued.     

On the use of microwave radar devices in chronobiology studies: An application with<Emphasis Type="Italic">Periplaneta americana</Emphasis>

Modified motion detectors can be used to monitor locomotor activity and measure endogenous rhythms. Although these devices can help monitor insects in their home cages, the small size of the animals requires a very short wavelength detector. We modified a commercial microwave-based detection device, connected the detector’s output to the digital input of a computer, and validated the device by recording circadian and ultradian rhythms.Periplaneta americana were housed in individual cages, and their activity was monitored at 18°C and subsequently at 28°C in constant darkness. Time series were analyzed by a discrete Fourier transform and a chi-square periodogram. Q₁₀ values and the circadian free-running period confirmed the data reported in the literature, validating the apparatus. Moreover, the spectral analysis and periodogram revealed the presence of ultradian rhythmicity in the range of 1–8 h.     

Embodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience

The same neural structures involved in the unconscious modeling of our acting body in space also contribute to our awareness of the lived body and of the objects that the world contains. Neuroscientific research also shows that there are neural mechanisms mediating between the multi-level personal experience we entertain of our lived body, and the implicit certainties we simultaneously hold about others. Such personal and body-related experiential knowledge enables us to understand the actions performed by others, and to directly decode the emotions and sensations they experience. A common functional mechanism is at the basis of both body awareness and basic forms of social understanding: embodied simulation. It will be shown that the present proposal is consistent with some of the perspectives offered by phenomenology.     

Indicators of aggression: The dissipation-rumination scale

Discussion on results of recent studies on Irritability and Emotional Susceptibility scales introduces the presentation of a new scale to study individual differences related to aggressive behavior. The new Dissipation-Rumination Scale results from examining the influence of the interval of time between the instigation and the opportunity to aggress and is related to the inclination to overcome and abandon more or less rapidly feelings of distress and wishes of retaliation associated with the experience of insults suffered. While principal-components analysis confirms the unifactorial structure of the scale with respect to groups of Ss of different language and nationality, results of experimental studies clarify its construct validity.