Couples’ Negative Interaction Behaviors and Borderline Personality Disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental health problem predisposing to dysfunctional interaction behaviors and negative couple outcomes. This study aimed to assess, through direct observation, the quality of relationships of couples in which women were diagnosed with BPD. The sample consisted of 28 couples in which the woman had BPD, and 82 community couples. Couples’ interactions were coded using three scales—withdrawal/ avoidance, dominance, and criticism/attack/conflict—from the Global Couple Interaction Coding System. Couples in which the women had BPD evidenced significantly more negative behaviors, particularly dominance behaviors, than community couples. Moreover, in BPD couples, women adopted Criticism/Attack/Conflict behaviors more frequently than men.     

Procesos deductivos e implicaturas conversacionales: Una aproximación experimental

Resumen

Sperber y Wilson (1986, 1987) ban propuesto un modelo psicológico que incorpora las implicaturas en los procesos pragmáticos de comprensión del lenguaje.

Los objetivos del trabajo eran: 1) Determinar empíricamente la realidad psicológica de las implicaturas conversacionales mediante un paradigma experimental nuevo; 2) Contrastar la hipótesis de Sperber y Wilson de que intervienen procesos lógicos en la comprensión no natural de interacciones lingüísticas.

A 120 sujetos se les presentaron dos conjuntos de estímulos lingüísticos: 32 interacciones conversacionales de pregunta-respuesta indirecta y 32 implicaturas que correspondían a las proposiciones lógicas a las que, supuestamente, deberían acceder para comprender las interacciones. Se medía el tiempo (en centésimas de segundo) que empleaban los sujetos en dar una respuesta de aceptación/rechazo a las interacciones y en verificar la veracidad o falsedad de las implicaturas.

Los resultados son favorables a la hipótesis de la realidad psicológica de las implicaturas conversacionales en la comprensión de las interacciones lingüísticas de carácter indirecto. Además, son compatibles con la hipótesis de que en tales procesos se efectúan funciones cognitivas de verificación, lo que constituye un apoyo empírico favorable al modelo de Sperber y Wilson (1986, 1987).     

Entrevista con Pierre Oléron

RESUMEN

Pierre Olerón es uno de los clásicos de la psicología francesa, sus aportaciones al estudio de los procesos cognitivos y el lenguaje han hecho de él, un precursor comprometido con la psicología de finales de siglo. En esta entrevista desarrolla con precisión sus recuerdos de formación, el análisis de sus relaciones con otro grande de la psicología, Jean Piaget, sus ideas sobre la función del lenguaje y el desarrollo cognitivo en sordos. De esta forma, establece un recorrido completo por la psicología en el lenguaje, hasta llegar a los enfoques cognitivos actuales.     

La naturaleza de los esquemas cognitivos

Resumen

La teoría de esquemas presenta frente al conductismo un axioma respecto al conocimiento humano que supone su carácter holista o molar, no reducible a una composición de elementos simples. De este carácter molar se deducen características de los esquemas, la más importante la de la existencia de una estructura previa al conocimiento (por contrapartida a la psicología de la simulación en computadora). De todas formas, el carácter ontológico de los esquemas está por esclarecer. Brewer y Nakamura apuntan dos posibilidades: o se trata de estructuras fisiológicas, o bien de conocimientos empíricos anteriores. Sin embargo, parece plausible una naturaleza ontológica combinada, según modelos parecidos a los utilizados por la lingüística chomskiana: estructuras fisiológicas inmaduras que deben ser completadas a través de la adquisición de conocimientos empíricos.     

False belief and emotion understanding in monozygotic twins,dizygotic twins and non-twin children

This study investigated the understanding of false belief and emotion in monozygotic (MZ) and same-sex dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs compared to non-twin children. Aged 3;9 to 5;1 years, the children (N=123) were administered three false belief and three emotion understanding tasks. Age, family socioeconomic status, mother's level of education and language abilities were controlled. Results showed no difference between the three groups in false belief understanding. On emotion tasks, non-twin children and DZ twins did not differ from each other, but they both performed better than MZ twins. Results are discussed in terms of the Peterson's (2000) variety hypothesis and suggest that the affective closeness experienced by MZ twins might interfere with their understanding of others’ emotions.     

Passion at work and burnout: A two-study test of the mediating role of flow experiences

Vallerand et al. (2003) developed a Dualistic Model of Passion where two types of passion are proposed: harmonious and obsessive passion. They generally predict adaptive and less adaptive outcomes, respectively. We hypothesized that the type of passion one holds towards his/her work should influence one's experience of burnout symptoms. We hypothesized that a harmonious passion for work would lead to low levels of burnout through its facilitation of frequent flow experiences, whereas an obsessive passion would directly lead to high levels of burnout. Two studies (one cross-sectional and one prospective) were conducted and results of structural equation modelling analyses supported the hypotheses.     

Letter and Category Fluency in Normal Elderly Participants: a Population-Based Study

We studied variables influencing category and letter fluency in a large population-based sample of elderly participants. Letter and category fluency tasks were administered to 1133 unselected non-demented elderly participants in the Paquid cohort on normal and pathological aging. Age, education, principal lifetime occupation and depressive symptomatology independently influenced both category and letter fluency, while gender influenced only category fluency. A conceptualization measure (similarities) was found to influence fluency results mostly through education and prior occupation.     

Is the impaired N170 print tuning specific to developmental dyslexia? A matched reading-level study with poor readers and dyslexics

Left N170 print tuning has been associated with visual expertise for print and has been reported to be impaired in dyslexics, using age matched designs. This is the first time N170 print tuning has been compared in adult dyslexics and adult poor readers, matched in reading level. Participants performed a lexical decision task using both word-like stimuli and symbol strings. In contrast to dyslexics, poor readers displayed similar N170 tuning to control expert readers, suggesting that impaired N170 specialization is a hallmark of developmental dyslexia. Our findings provide electrophysiological support for dyslexia being the result of abnormal specialization of the left occipito-temporal areas involved in the expert processing of print. Furthermore, as shown by correlations data and in accordance with the phonological mapping deficit theory, the impaired visual expertise for print described in dyslexics may have been caused by their core phonological deficits.     

The benefits of autonomy support for adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral problems

The benefits of autonomy support in the domain of education have been well established within the general population, but have yet to be demonstrated within clinical populations. The present study investigated the benefits of an autonomy-supportive interpersonal style on teenage girls’ internalization of a tedious clinical workshop and their subjective experience during this task. Participants were female teenagers placed in a social rehabilitation center for their severe emotional and behavioral problems (n = 29). An experimental design allowed comparing the impact of learning a tedious, but important workshop with or without autonomy support on internalization and experiential outcomes. Results demonstrate that autonomy support leads to higher perceived task’s value, task liking as well as less negative affect compared to a condition without autonomy-support. Participants in the autonomy-supportive condition also perceived the instructor as more competent. By uncovering benefits of autonomy support to a clinical population of adolescents, the present study supports self-determination theory’s tenet that the benefits of autonomy support are universal.