Interpersonal subtypes within generalized anxiety disorder

In this study, we addressed the heterogeneity in interpersonal problems across patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). We assessed interpersonal problems by the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-C; Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, & Pincus, 2000) in a sample of 78 GAD patients. We used IIP-C profiles describing interpersonal characteristics of the total GAD sample as well as clustered GAD interpersonal subtypes. Although the overall sample was located in the friendly submissive quadrant of the circumplex model, this was true only for the Exploitable cluster, which includes more than 50% of the patients. Importantly, clusters of GAD patients with other locations reporting predominantly Cold, Nonassertive, or Intrusive interpersonal problems were also identified. The 4 clusters did not differ in terms of gender, comorbid disorders, or the severity of depression or anxiety. Thus, the assessment of interpersonal problems provides additional diagnostic information covering the heterogeneity of GAD patients. This information could be used for differential indication and individual case formulation in GAD.     

Eye movements and picture processing during recognition

Eye movements were monitored during a recognition memory test of previously studied pictures of full-color scenes. The test scenes were identical to the originals, had an object deleted from them, or included a new object substituted for an original object. In contrast to a prior report (Parker, 1978), we found no evidence that object deletions or substitutions could be recognized on the basis of information acquired from the visual periphery. Deletions were difficult to recognize peripherally, and the eyes were not attracted to them. Overall, the amplitude of the average saccade to the critical object during the memory test was less than 4.5 degrees of visual angle in all conditions and averaged 4.1 degrees across conditions. We conclude that information about object presence and identity in a scene is limited to a relatively small region around the current fixation point.     

Zur Psychotherapie der Depression

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Resistance,reactance, and consultation

A review of techniques for dealing with consultee resistance is presented, with the limitations of these techniques. The social psychological theory of reactance is offered as a useful conceptual framework for considering resistance in consultation. Examples of the application of reactance theory to both minimizing consultee resistance and to utilizing consultee resistance for beneficial change are provided. Variables that predict the likely effectiveness of a reactance utilization intervention are described. Finally, ethical issues involved in the application of reactance techniques are discussed.     

“Proactive” in many ways: Developmental evidence for a dynamic pluralistic approach to prediction

The anticipation of the forthcoming behaviour of social interaction partners is a useful ability supporting interaction and communication between social partners. Associations and prediction based on the production system (in line with views that listeners use the production system covertly to anticipate what the other person might be likely to say) are two potential factors, which have been proposed to be involved in anticipatory language processing. We examined the influence of both factors on the degree to which listeners predict upcoming linguistic input. Are listeners more likely to predict book as an appropriate continuation of the sentence “The boy reads a”, based on the strength of the association between the words read and book (strong association) and read and letter (weak association)? Do more proficient producers predict more? What is the interplay of these two influences on prediction? The results suggest that associations influence language-mediated anticipatory eye gaze in two-year-olds and adults only when two thematically appropriate target objects compete for overt attention but not when these objects are presented separately. Furthermore, children's prediction abilities are strongly related to their language production skills when appropriate target objects are presented separately but not when presented together. Both influences on prediction in language processing thus appear to be context dependent. We conclude that multiple factors simultaneously influence listeners’ anticipation of upcoming linguistic input and that only such a dynamic approach to prediction can capture listeners’ prowess at predictive language processing.     

Contextualizing Falk's Identity-Related Visitor Motivation Model

ABSTRACT

This article represents a companion to an article critiquing Falk's identity-related visitor motivations model. Provided here are a summary of the theory and assumptions that underlie the identity-related visitor motivations model and the empirical approaches that were used to develop the model. Particular attention is directed to clarifying the ways in which the identity-related visitor motivations model has and can be used as a segmentation tool, and the growing body of data from a wide range of institutions that support the basic validity and reliability of using the model for this purpose. The paradigmatic foundation of the model, pragmatism, is described. Pragmatism is an approach that emphasizes that knowledge is best gained through, and directed toward action; an approach that gives preference to practicality over theoretical discourses. Finally, thoughts on both the strengths and limitations of the identity-related visitor motivations model as a mechanism for better understanding museum visitors are presented.     

Visual-shape competition during language-mediated attention is based on lexical input and not modulated by contextual appropriateness

Visual attention can be directed immediately, as a spoken word unfolds, towards conceptually related but nonassociated objects, even if they mismatch on other dimensions that would normally determine which objects in the scene were appropriate referents for the unfolding word (Huettig & Altmann, 2005 Huettig, F. and Altmann, G. T. M. 2005. Word meaning and the control of eye fixation: Semantic competitor effects and the visual world paradigm. Cognition, 96: B23–B32. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Here we demonstrate that the mapping between language and concurrent visual objects can also be mediated by visual-shape relations. On hearing “snake”, participants directed overt attention immediately, within a visual display depicting four objects, to a picture of an electric cable, although participants had viewed the visual display with four objects for approximately 5 s before hearing the target word—sufficient time to recognize the objects for what they were. The time spent fixating the cable correlated significantly with ratings of the visual similarity between snakes in general and this particular cable. Importantly, with sentences contextually biased towards the concept snake, participants looked at the snake well before the onset of “snake”, but they did not look at the visually similar cable until hearing “snake”. Finally, we demonstrate that such activation can, under certain circumstances (e.g., during the processing of dominant meanings of homonyms), constrain the direction of visual attention even when it is clearly contextually inappropriate. We conclude that language-mediated attention can be guided by a visual match between spoken words and visual objects, but that such a match is based on lexical input and may not be modulated by contextual appropriateness.