Illusory conjunctions and the cerebral hemispheres

Two visual half-field experiments tested Moscovitch’s (1979) proposition that cerebral asymmetry does not concern the earliest perceptual stages but only later processing. Subjects were briefly shown displays that included one (Experiment 1) or two (Experiment 2) types of forms differing in size and which, according to previous evidence, might lead to opposite laterality effects. Laterality effects were assessed for correct detections and for illusory conjunctions, both in terms of raw detection scores and in terms of perceptual discriminability (dr scores). In Experiment 1, displays included either rectangles or triangles. In the first case, the target was a cross; in the second case, it was a Star of David. A hemifield x size interaction was observed both on correct detections and on associated discriminability. Yet, no such interaction was obtained for illusory conjunctions or for associated d’ scores. In Experiment 2, the two types of forms were presented simultaneously, with the small ones either inside or outside the large ones. No laterality effects were observed. Some implications of these data for both hemispheric asymmetry and feature integration issues are discussed. The results suggest that early preattentive processes of feature extraction are not lateralized, whereas some integrative mechanisms, such as Treisman’s (1988) focal attention, may operate differently in the two hemispheres.     

Disordered Communication and Grieving in Deaf Member Families

When a deaf child is born to hearing parents, a grieving process is initiated in the parents. Unresolved grieving over their child's deafness often makes it difficult for hearing parents to accept the importance of signing, thus increasing the child's problems — further source of grief for these parents. Clinical illustrations are provided of (1) the reciprocal relationship between disruption of the mourning process and disturbance of communication between family members, and (2) the transmission of the dysfunctional relationship between hearing parents and deaf children to the subsequent relationship between the deaf children, when they reach adulthood, and their hearing children.     

Transitional phenomena as evidenced in prayer

In this paper, we demonstrate that the study of prayer facilitates understanding of the deeply personal object related nature of religious experience. Within prayer, individuals enter the transitional sphere and meet their God representation. Both conscious and unconscious aspects of prayer can be made available through the use of a projective test developed by the authors, known as STARR: Spiritual Themes and Religious Responses test. The data obtained suggest the usefulness of Winnicottian concepts of transitional phenomena, playing, communicating, and capacity to be alone as a contemporary psychoanalytic framework for interpreting religious experience.     

What is a difficult mental health case? An empirical study of relationships among domain variables

A difficult case in psychotherapy can be defined in many ways. This study proposes a model for that definition, in which three domains (patient characteristics, case characteristics, and therapist characteristics) are considered to impact on that definition. A total of 264 professionals received a questionnaire to assess the relative importance of a series of variables within and across these domains. Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks tests indicated that patient characteristics were considered more important than therapist or case characteristics in defining a difficult case. Case characteristics were considered more important than therapist characteristics. Pearson correlations, however, suggested that the three domains in the model are related. Correlations (for years of experience) and Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA for ranks (for professions) also indicated that participants were able to identify variables within domains as important in that definition regardless of years of experience or professions. Across domains, the most important variables included the motivation of the client (a patient characteristic), dropout/attrition and multiple diagnoses (case characteristics), and the degree of therapist-client racial similarity (a therapist characteristic).     

Genetic and Environmental Effects on Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness: An Adoption/Twin Study

ABSTRACT Previous research has indicated that extraversion and neuroticism are substantially affected both by genotype and environment. This study assesses genetic and environmental influences on the other three components of the five-factor model of personality: Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. An abbreviated version of the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) was administered to 82 pairs of identical twins and 171 pairs of fraternal twins reared apart and 132 pairs of identical twins and 167 pairs of fraternal twins reared together. Estimates of genetic and environmental effects for Openness and Conscientiousness were similar to those found in other studies of personality: Genetic influence was substantial and there was little evidence of shared rearing environment. Results for Agreeableness were different: Genetic influence accounted for only 12% of the variance and shared rearing environment accounted for 21% of the variance. Few significant gender or age differences for genetic and environmental parameters were found in model-fitting analyses.     

The use of subtle items in detecting deception

When subjects attempt to fake psychopathology on the MMPI, scores on subtle subscales tend to be lower than those of nonfaking subjects. Our study hypothesized that this paradox comes about because the subtle subscales have no predictive validity, but their face validity for psychopathology is the opposite of the keyed direction for psychopathology. Subjects who attempt to fake psychopathology do so on the basis of item content and thus achieve lower rather than higher scores. Three groups of 80 undergraduates took the MMPI under regular, faking-good, or faking-bad instructions. As expected, faking-bad subjects scored significantly lower than regular subjects on the 100 most subtle items, and this was due to their responses to those. 73 of the items whose face validity was misleading. The results are consistent with other work showing valid uses of subtle items in detecting deception.     

EFFECTS OF MEMORY AIDS ON THE DYADIC CONVERSATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS WITH DEMENTIA

The effects of a prosthetic memory aid on the conversational content and social skills of dyads with dementia were evaluated. Six individuals with moderate to severe dementia served as either subject or partner in dyads during 5-min conversational probes conducted three times per week in daycare and nursing-home settings. During phases when a memory aid, consisting of personally relevant picture and sentence stimuli, was available, most subjects used their own aid to improve the quality of conversations by increasing the frequency of on-topic statements, diminishing nonproductive utterances, lengthening their conversational turn, and/or increasing the frequency of turns taken. Most partners demonstrated awareness of social discourse conventions by appropriately relinquishing conversational dominance, decreasing both content and nonproductive utterances, and increasing acknowledging or affirmative comments when subjects used memory aids. Naive judges' ratings of aided and unaided conversational samples on seven conversational dimensions reflected differences in perceptions of significant improvement as a function of the conversational discourse style of each dyad.     

TEMPORAL CONTROL ON INTERVAL SCHEDULES: WHAT DETERMINES THE POSTREINFORCEMENT PAUSE?

On fixed-interval or response-initiated delay schedules of reinforcement, the average pause following food presentation is proportional to the interfood interval. Moreover, when a number of intervals of different durations occur in a programmed cyclic series, postreinforcement pauses track the changes in interval value. What controls the duration of postreinforcement pauses under these conditions? Staddon, Wynne, and Higa (1991), in their linear waiting model, propose control by the preceding interfood interval. Another possibility is that delay to reinforcement, signaled by a key peck and/or stimulus change, determines the subsequent pause. The experiments reported here examined the role of these two possible time markers by studying the performance of pigeons under a chained cyclic fixed-interval procedure. The data support the linear waiting model, but suggest that more than the immediately preceding interfood interval plays a role in temporal control.