Psychosoziale Belastungen von Bahnpendlern

The increasing number of commuters in our society raises the question of the consequences, in particular of psychiatric and somatic symptoms and the quality of life. A total of 407 commuters at the main railway stations in Stuttgart and Ulm (southern Germany) were included in a study in order to assess the psychiatric symptoms of commuters and if they are able to make use of psychosocial care despite the long periods of time spent commuting to work. An important result was that especially long-term commuters pay a high price: 31.3% of male and 37.3% of female commuters exceeded the cut-off point for psychiatric illness in the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2). The high prevalence of psychiatric disorders coincides with a high rate of unmet needs so that a high rate of false and under-treatment for commuters can be assumed.     

Adult Attachment Interview and Psychoanalytic Perspective: A Single Case Study

In this single case study we present a female patient diagnosed with a narcissistic personality disorder and a borderline organization. The interplay between attachment and psychoanalytic perspective will be focused. The analyst describes his impressions of the initial interview with the patient and essential steps during treatment. The patient was interviewed with the Adult Attachment Interview and classified as “insecure preoccupied” with an “unresolved state of mind” concerning loss and abuse. The analyst was asked to comment the AAI's essential characteristics of this patient. We discuss converging and diverging aspects of clinical and attachment interpretation in this single case.     

The role of competition in word learning via referent selection

Previous research suggests that competition among the objects present during referent selection influences young children’s ability to learn words in fast mapping tasks. The present study systematically explored this issue with 30‐month‐old children. Children first received referent selection trials with a target object and either two, three or four competitor objects. Then, after a short delay, children were tested on their ability to retain the newly fast‐mapped names. Overall, the number of competitors did not affect children’s ability to form the initial name–object mappings. However, only children who encountered few competitors during referent selection demonstrated significant levels of retention. Results and implications are discussed in terms of the role of competition in studies of children’s fast mapping. The relationship between referent selection and full word learning is also discussed.     

“Mindful helpers”: Experiential avoidance,meta-emotions,and emotion regulation in paramedics

Three facets of the mindfulness/acceptance spectrum have been investigated in 134 experienced paramedics exposed to a number of potentially traumatic events. The contribution of (1) experiential avoidance, (2) mindful awareness and (3) meta-emotions in psychological well-being and satisfaction with life was analysed. Changes in these variables due to experiencing highly stressful incidents were explored by comparing experts with 105 novices. With accumulating experience, experiential avoidance remained stable, mindful awareness markedly increased at first and declined thereafter. Both positive and negative meta-emotions decreased with the number of stressful incidents. Experiential avoidance and meta-emotions explained 62% of the variance in psychological well-being, and patterns indicate that non-acceptance of thoughts and emotions might not be generally detrimental in this sample. Being stern and contemptuous about one’s own feelings and having little self-compassion has been found to be beneficial for psychological well-being in these experts. Although this is contrary to contemporary theorizing it might perfectly reflect the role of paramedics and their need for control.     

Haptic curvature comparison of convex and concave shapes

A sculpture and the mould in which it was formed are typical examples of objects with an identical, but opponent, surface shape: each convex (ie outward pointing) surface part of a sculpture has a concave counterpart in the mould. The question arises whether the object features of opponent shapes can be compared by touch. Therefore, we investigated whether human observers were able to discriminate the curvatures of convex and concave shapes, irrespective of whether the shape was convex or concave. Using a 2AFC procedure, subjects had to compare the curvature of a convex shape to the curvature of a concave shape. In addition, results were also obtained for congruent shapes, when the curvature of either only convex shapes or only concave shapes had to be compared. Psychometric curves were fitted to the data to obtain threshold and bias results. When subjects explored the stimuli with a single index finger, significantly higher thresholds were obtained for the opponent shapes than for the congruent shapes. However, when the stimuli were touched by two index fingers, one finger per surface, we found similar thresholds. Systematic biases were found when the curvature of opponent shapes was compared: the curvature of a more curved convex surface was judged equal to the curvature of a less curved concave surface. We conclude that human observers had the ability to compare the curvature of shapes with an opposite direction, but that their performance decreased when they sensed the opponent surfaces with the same finger. Moreover, they systematically underestimated the curvature of convex shapes compared to the curvature of concave shapes.