Investigation of psycho-physiological interactions between patient and therapist during a psychodynamic therapy and their relation to speech using in terms of entropy analysis using a neural network approach

In the present contribution we investigate in an exemplary single-case study the behavior of psycho-physiological variables in psychotherapy sessions. The values are measured continously during a single session at the same time for both patient and therapist. The analysis of the data is done using an artificial neural network approach for non-linear principal component analysis and faithful data representation/visualization and compression required for subsequent process analysis. The used network (growing self-organizing map, GSOM) thereby uses a kernel smoothing for improved data density estimation. In this way, we are able to generate an entropy model of psycho-physiological variability detecting emotionally instable phases during the therapy process. We relate our finding to results obtained by speech analysis of the therapy sessions according to the cycle model invented by Mergenthaler. Thus, we get preliminary suggestions how psycho-physiological reactions are related to the therapeutic process.     

Non-transient luminance changes do not capture attention

The processing of luminance change is a ubiquitous feature of the human visual system and provides the basis for the rapid orienting of attention to potentially important events (e.g., motion onset, object onset). However, despite its importance for attentional capture, it is not known whether a luminance change attracts attention solely because of its status as a sensory transient or can attract attention at a relatively high cognitive level. In a series of six experiments, we presented visual displays in which a single object underwent a luminance change that was either visible or obscured by a mask. A target then appeared either at the change location or elsewhere. The results showed that the luminance change attracted attention only in the visible condition. This was even observed with the largest change we could generate (> 75 cd/m(2)). These data suggest that the importance of a luminance change is only in its status as a low-level sensory transient.     

The Norwegian version of the five factor narcissism inventory for vulnerable narcissism and the grandiose narcissism subscale of indifference: Psychometric properties of the long‐ and short‐form versions

In recent years, narcissism has been reconceptualized as a multi‐dimensional feature of human psychology. The Five Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI) has been proposed as a measure for two distinguishable dimensions of narcissism: Vulnerable and Grandiose (Glover, Miller, Lynam, Crego & Widiger, 2012). To investigate the role that some of these factors may have in moderating responses to cues of social exclusion, implemented in a connected laboratory experiment, we translated the subscales for Vulnerable Narcissism and the Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference from English into Norwegian and included them in an online survey that was used to recruit and pre‐screen participants for the laboratory experiment. In this paper, we test the psychometric properties of these translated self‐report measures, in what amounted to be a diverse sample of the Norwegian population. We perform reliability tests and confirmatory factor analysis on the long‐ and short‐form versions of FFNI Vulnerable Narcissism and the Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference. We further test the criterion validity of these measures by way of correlational analyses with other theoretically relevant measures. We conclude that the Norwegian short‐form versions of FFNI Vulnerable Narcissism and Grandiose Narcissism subscale of Indifference exhibit good psychometric properties in our data and propose that the translated scales can now be used to explore these constructs in clinical and non‐clinical populations in Norway, and can be easily adapted for use in other Scandinavian countries.     

Effects of stress hormones on traumatic memory formation and the development of posttraumatic stress disorder in critically ill patients

A majority of patients after intensive care treatment report traumatic memories from their stay in the intensive care unit (ICU). Traumatic memories can be associated with the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a subpopulation of these patients. In contrast to other patient populations at risk for PTSD, patients in the ICU often receive exogenously administered stress hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or cortisol for medical reasons and are extensively monitored. ICU patients therefore represent a suitable population for studying the relationship between stress hormones, traumatic memories, and the development of PTSD. Studies in long-term survivors of ICU treatment demonstrated a clear and vivid recall of different categories of traumatic memory such as nightmares, anxiety, respiratory distress, or pain with little or no recall of factual events. The number of categories of traumatic memory recalled increased with the total administered dosages of stress hormones (both catecholamines and cortisol), and the evaluation of these categories at different time points after discharge from the ICU showed better memory consolidation with higher dosages of stress hormones administered. However, the administration of stress doses of cortisol to critically ill patients resulted in more complex findings as it caused a significant reduction in PTSD symptoms measured after recovery. This effect can possibly be explained by a differential influence of cortisol on memory. Increased serum cortisol levels not only result in consolidation of emotional memory but are also known to cause a temporary impairment in memory retrieval which appears to be independent of glucocorticoid effects on memory formation. Disrupting retrieval mechanisms with glucocorticoids during critical illness may therefore act protectively against the development of PTSD by preventing recall of traumatic memories. Our findings indicate that stress hormones influence the development of PTSD through complex and simultaneous interactions on memory formation and retrieval. Our studies also demonstrate that animal models of aversive learning are useful in analyzing and predicting clinical findings in critically ill humans.     

Neural substrates of successful working memory and long-term memory formation in a relational spatial memory task

Working memory (WM) tasks may involve brain activation actually implicated in long-term memory (LTM). In order to disentangle these two memory systems, we employed a combined WM/LTM task, using a spatial relational (object-location) memory paradigm and analyzed which brain areas were associated with successful performance for either task using fMRI. Critically, we corrected for the performance on the respective memory task when analyzing subsequent memory effects. The WM task consisted of a delayed-match-to-sample task assessed in an MRI scanner. Each trial consisted of an indoor or outdoor scene in which the exact configuration of four objects had to be remembered. After a short delay (7–13 s), the scene was presented from a different angle and spatial recognition for two objects was tested. After scanning, participants received an unexpected subsequent recognition memory (LTM) task, where the two previously unprobed objects were tested. Brain activity during encoding, delay phase and probe phase was analyzed based on WM and LTM performance. Results showed that successful WM performance, when corrected for LTM performance, was associated with greater activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and left fusiform gyrus during the early stage of the maintenance phase. A correct decision during the WM probe was accompanied by greater activation in a wide network, including bilateral hippocampus, right superior parietal gyrus and bilateral insula. No voxels exhibited supra-threshold activity during the encoding phase, and we did not find any differential activity for correct versus incorrect trials in the WM task when comparing LTM correct versus LTM incorrect trials.     

Tactile perception of thermal diffusivity

The thermal diffusivity of an object is a parameter that controls the rate at which heat is extracted from the hand when it touches that object. It is an important feature for distinguishing materials by means of touch. In order to quantitatively describe the ability of human observers to discriminate between materials on the basis of heat extraction rate, we conducted an experiment in which this heat extraction was performed in a controlled way. In different conditions, subjects were repeatedly asked to select from two stimuli the one that cooled faster. The discrimination threshold was around 43% of the extraction rate. A rate that was twice as slow also yielded twice the absolute threshold. When we halved the temperature difference between the beginning and end of the stimulus, the threshold did not change as much. In separate experiments, we investigated the different cues that were available in the stimulus: initial cooling rate and end temperature. Both cues were used for discrimination, but cooling rate seemed to be the most important.