Assessing the automaticity of intramodal and crossmodal spatial attentional orienting

Clark and Chalmers (1998) have argued that mental states can be extended outside an organism's skin. In response to some worries about the availability, reliability and portability of such extended resources, Clark (2005) offers a set of rough criteria that non-biological objects must fulfil to legitimately ground mental states. One such criterion is that the information retrieved from these non-biological sources be (more or less) automatically endorsed. But Sterelny (2003, 2005) has persuasively argued that the extended sphere is epistemologically opaque: a domain of contested truth and deliberate deception. As such, retrieving information from this domain requires the deployment of social guards for the information to remain reliable. But deploying such guards would seem to endanger endorsability by increasing cognitive load. Here I demonstrate that deploying social guards does not increase cognitive load if the guards are implemented in a highly distributed connectionist economy or off-loaded to the external environment.     

Working memory deficits in retinoid X receptor gamma-deficient mice

Retinoid signaling has been recently shown to be required for mnemonic functions in rodents. To dissect the behavioral and molecular mechanisms involved in this requirement, we have analyzed the spatial and recognition working memory in mice carrying null mutations of retinoid receptors RARbeta and RXRgamma. Double mutants appeared deficient in spatial working memory as tested in spontaneous alternation in the Y-maze and delayed nonmatch to place (DNMTP) test in the T-maze. These mutant mice did acquire, however, spatial place reference or right/left discrimination tasks in the T-maze set-up, indicating that basic sensorimotor functions, spatial orientation, and motivational factors are unlikely to account for deficits in working memory-sensitive tasks. Double-mutant mice were also deficient in novel object recognition at intermediate, but not short delays. RXRgamma appeared to be the functionally predominant receptor in modulation of the working memory, as RXRgamma, but not RARbeta single null mutant mice exhibited deficits similar to those observed in the double mutants. The mechanism of this modulation is potentially related to functions of RXRgamma in frontal and perirhinal cortex, structures in which we detected RXRgamma expression and which are functionally implicated in working memory processes.     

A program for assessing body image disturbance using adjustable partial image distortion

Body image disturbance has been one of the most widely studied areas in the literature on eating disorders. Some of the tasks designed to assess it have been used to estimate the sizes of specific parts of the body, whereas others have served to make estimations of overall body size. In recent years, the introduction of innovative computing procedures has allowed the two approaches to be combined and has made their application more straightforward. The program we describe here (Body Image Assessment Software, or BIAS) evaluates body image distortions and body dissatisfaction via the on-screen presentation of a scale image, the different components of which can be modified by the patient. The program was developed using Microsoft Access 2000 and Visual Basic for applications. It can be run on any computer with Windows and Microsoft Access 2000 or Microsoft Access 2000 RunTime, which makes it particularly easy to use and enables direct analysis of the recorded data through the use of applications such as SPSS.     

Updating in working memory: a comparison of good and poor comprehenders

In this research, we examined the relation between reading comprehension and success in a working memory updating task. We tested the hypotheses that poor comprehenders' deficiencies are associated with a specific difficulty in the working memory updating process, particularly in controlling for information that is no longer relevant. In the first experiment, groups of poor and good comprehenders, ages 8-11 years, were administered a working memory updating task. In the second experiment a year later, a subgroup of participants involved in the first experiment was tested with a different updating task. In both experiments, poor comprehenders had less accurate recall performance and made more intrusion errors than did good comprehenders. Moreover, distinguishing intrusion errors on the basis of their permanence in memory, we found that poor comprehenders were more likely to intrude items that were maintained longer in memory than were good comprehenders. This type of error predicted reading comprehension abilities better than did working memory recall. This suggests that the relation between reading comprehension and working memory is mediated by the ability to control for irrelevant information.     

Right hemisphere sensitivity to word- and sentence-level context: evidence from event-related brain potentials

Researchers using lateralized stimuli have suggested that the left hemisphere is sensitive to sentence-level context, whereas the right hemisphere (RH) primarily processes word-level meaning. The authors investigated this message-blind RH model by measuring associative priming with event-related brain potentials (ERPs). For word pairs in isolation, associated words elicited more positive ERPs than unassociated words with similar magnitudes and onset latencies in both visual fields. Embedded in sentences, these same pairs showed large sentential context effects in both fields. Small effects of association were observed, confined to incongruous sentences after right visual hemifield presentation but present for both congruous and incongruous sentences after left visual hemifield presentation. Results do not support the message-blind RH model but do suggest hemispheric asymmetries in the use of word and sentence context during real-time processing.     

Electrophysiological evidence reveals affective evaluation deficits early in stimulus processing in patients with panic disorder

Cognitive and neurobiological accounts of clinical anxiety and depression were examined via event-related brain potentials (ERPs) recorded from patients with panic disorder and healthy controls as they performed an old/new recognition memory task with emotionally negative and neutral words. The emotive connotation of words systematically influenced control subjects' - but not patients' - ERP effects at prefrontal sites in a latency range (to approximately 300-500 ms) generally assumed to reflect greater contribution of automatic than controlled memory processes. This provides evidence for dysfunctional inhibitory modulation of affective information processing in panic disorder. The ERP effects after 700 ms, however, suggest that some patients may adopt conscious strategies to minimize the impact of these early processing abnormalities on overt behaviors.     

A physically handicapped teenager is helped to own her body

In this paper I am presenting my work with a 15-year-old girl, Nina, who was born premature with congenital feet deformities. Her twin had died at birth, and Nina spent eight weeks in a Special Care Baby unit. She had also suffered from bronchial asthma, which was under control during the months she was in therapy with me.

An attempt to overdose, and a letter she had written to a teacher, brought Nina to our services and to individual psychotherapy. The weekly sessions gave Nina the opportunity to elaborate her mourning for the dead twin and to face her physical problems more realistically. She had coped with these by idealising a beautiful body and giving it, in her phantasy, to her dead sister for whose death she felt responsible. Her identification with characters from horror stories, of which she was an avid reader, was a key to understanding how she felt trapped in her deformed body, to which she would refer in the phrase ‘It doesn't bother me.’ The working through of her feelings of guilt, anger, and envy enabled her to lessen the split and to own her body.     

Mirror image arm used in monocular, binocular, and blindfolded pointing

Observers were instructed to point with their right arm to a mirror image of their left shoulder. Instead of pointing to the target with their real arm, they occluded the target with their mirror-imaged finger, and their real finger pointed off to the left side of the target, facts that came as a surprise to them in debriefing. The occlusion by a mirror image finger was not done to avoid double images, since it occurred in monocular conditions. That it is due to planning before pointing can be inferred from the fact that it occurred in blindfolded conditions.     

Identity Construction as a Mother: A Comparative Study Between Adopted and Nonadopted Women

From a constructivist perspective we studied the experience of motherhood in a comparative study with 15 adopted women and 15 nonadopted women, all of them also biological mothers. We used the social self grid, and it was analyzed by means of the program RECORD 5.0 and also through content analysis. Results show similarities and differences between the two groups in the construction of identity as a mother. Although in both samples the self as a mother is constructed similarly to the self in their couple relationship, this is more evident in the case of adoptive daughters, and the difference is statistically significant. The meanings attributed to their own motherhood are similar in both samples and have to do with enjoying motherhood. Nonetheless, in the adoptive sample there are more constructs related to control and doing things right, and in the biological sample there are more constructs referring to naturalness and devotion. Moreover, in the adoptive sample there appears a higher presence of cognitive conflicts and lower self-esteem, and both results tend to significance.