AVTA: a device for automatic vocal transaction analysis

The Automatic Vocal Transaction Analyzer was designed to recognize the pattern of certain variables in spontaneous vocal transactions. In addition, it records these variables directly in a machine-readable form and preserves their sequential relationships. This permits the immediate extraction of data by a digital computer. The AVTA system reliability has been shown to be equal to or better than that of a trained human operator in uncomplicated interaction. The superiority of the machine was demonstrated in complex interactions which tax the information processing abilities of the human observer.     

Measuring racial essentialism in the genomic era: The genetic essentialism scale for race (GESR)

Current Psychology - Racial essentialism is the belief that races are biologically distinct groups with defining core “essences,” a notion associated with increased social distance and...     

Countertransference, supervised analysis, and psychoanalytic training requirements.

Because psychoanalysts have an ever expanding appreciation for the many factors that contribute to the psychoanalytic treatment process, they no longer view themselves simply as the receiver of the patient's transferences. When patient and analyst meet in the consulting room, they bring along with them a blend of intrapsychic and external ingredients--including countertransference--that make up the analytic soup. Candidates in psychoanalytic training must contend with even more sources of indirect countertransference reactions (Racker 1968) than experienced graduate analysts, due to aspects of the training experience itself. The author contends that minimum graduation requirements for supervised analyses are one such source of indirect countertransference. Four clinical examples of control analyses demonstrate this form of indirect countertransference during the assessment, opening, middle, and termination phases. These examples are followed by implications and recommendations for didactic psychoanalytic training curricula, countertransference awareness, supervision of control cases, institute governance policies and procedures, publication of clinical material, and future research.     

The selected response procedure: a variation on Appelbaum's altered atmosphere procedure for the Rorschach

This article introduces the Selected Response Procedure, which is a supplementary technique for expanding the scope of the Rorschach test. The procedure is conducted as follows: After the standard administration of the Rorschach test, patients are asked to look through all of the cards a second time and select one more response from any card of their choice. A rationale for this procedure is developed through a comparison to another supplementary Rorschach technique, the Altered Atmosphere Procedure. The importance of understanding the selected response within a theoretical framework, as well as the clinical context of each selected response, is highlighted by a clinical example using object relations theory. Finally, a number of didactic questions are offered as potential ways to query the possible meaning of selected responses.     

Vocal congruence in mother-infant play

Turn-taking is the fundamental temporal structure of adult dialogue. This structure defines two types of joint silence: intrapersonal pause (silence bounded by the vocalizations of a single speaker) and switching pause (silence bounded by the vocalizations of different speakers). Switching pauses mark the boundaries of the turn exchange. In adult conversation the mean durations of both types of pause are characteristically matched between partners. This matching, termed vocal congruence, occurs developmentally earlier in the case of switching pauses. We hypothesized and confirmed that mothers and infants match switching pauses but not intrapersonal pauses at 4 months, even though the infants' vocalizations are prelinguistic. Second, since there are known affective correlates of vocal congruence in adult conversation, we hypothesized a similar affective correlate for mother-infant vocal congruence. We found, for the intrapersonal pause only, that the degree of matching within a dyad correlated with infant affective engagement. We conclude, from switching pause congruence, that a turntaking dialogic structure is being regulated in the mother-infant pair at 4 months in the same way as seen in adult conversation. Thus, both the temporal structure of adult dialogue and its affective correlate are prelinguistic.Supported in part by NIMH grant No. 41675.