Hemispheric differences in the effects of context on vowel perception

Listeners perceive speech sounds relative to context. Contextual influences might differ over hemispheres if different types of auditory processing are lateralized. Hemispheric differences in contextual influences on vowel perception were investigated by presenting speech targets and both speech and non-speech contexts to listeners’ right or left ears (contexts and targets either to the same or to opposite ears). Listeners performed a discrimination task. Vowel perception was influenced by acoustic properties of the context signals. The strength of this influence depended on laterality of target presentation, and on the speech/non-speech status of the context signal. We conclude that contrastive contextual influences on vowel perception are stronger when targets are processed predominately by the right hemisphere. In the left hemisphere, contrastive effects are smaller and largely restricted to speech contexts.     

Human sensitivity to the magnitude and probability of a continuous causal relation in a video game

Continuous causation, in which incremental changes in one variable cause incremental changes in another, has received little attention in the causal judgment literature. A video game was adapted for the study of continuous causality in order to examine the novel cues to causality that are present in these paradigms. The spatial proximity of an object to an "enemy detector" produced auditory responses as a function of the object's proximity. Participants' behavior was a function of the range of the effect's auditory sensitivity and the moment-to-moment likelihood of detection. This new paradigm provides a rich platform for examining the cues to causation encountered in the learning of continuous causal relations.     

The role of contextual associations in producing the partial reinforcement acquisition deficit

Three conditioned suppression experiments with rats as subjects assessed the contributions of the conditioned stimulus (CS)-context and context-unconditioned stimulus (US) associations to the degraded stimulus control by the CS that is observed following partial reinforcement relative to continuous reinforcement training. In Experiment 1, posttraining associative deflation (i.e., extinction) of the training context after partial reinforcement restored responding to a level comparable to the one produced by continuous reinforcement. In Experiment 2, posttraining associative inflation of the context (achieved by administering unsignaled outcome presentations in the context) enhanced the detrimental effect of partial reinforcement. Experiment 3 found that the training context must be an effective competitor to produce the partial reinforcement acquisition deficit. When the context was down-modulated, the target regained behavioral control thereby demonstrating higher-order retrospective revaluation. The results are discussed in terms of retrospective revaluation, and are used to contrast the predictions of a performance-focused model with those of an acquisition-focused model.     

Instruction-in-Interaction: The Teaching and Learning of a Manual Skill

This study takes an interest in instructions and instructed actions in the context of manual skills. The analysis focuses on a video recorded episode where a teacher demonstrates how to crochet chain stitches, requests a group of students to reproduce her actions, and then repeatedly corrects the attempts of one of the students. The initial request, and the students’ responses to it, could be seen as preliminary to the series of corrective sequences that come next: the request and the following attempts make it possible for the teacher to launch instructional sequences specifically designed and addressed to the students who need further guidance. In the interaction between the teacher and the novice student, the reasoned character of the instructed actions is not explained so much as installed and tuned. The materiality of the project makes it possible for the two parties to methodically and meticulously adjust their actions in accordance with each other, and towards the gradual realization of the aimed-for results. In connection to this, a number of issues pertaining to the reproducibility and recognizability of manual skills are raised: how instructions-in-interaction orient towards the progression of the skill rather than the interaction itself; how attempts by and mistakes of the instructed party provide grounds for further instruction; and, consequently, how instructions in the form of corrections build on the instructor’s continuous assessments of the instructed actions.     

Richard Lynn’s contributions to personality and intelligence

An evaluation is presented of Lynn’s work on national differences in personality, race differences in intelligence, national IQs & economic development, correlates of national IQs, the Flynn effect, sex differences, eugenics and dysgenics, race differences in psychopathic personality, and intelligence of the Jews.     

Metacognitive therapy in treatment-resistant depression: a platform trial

Patients with treatment-resistant depression received up to 8 sessions of metacognitive therapy (MCT) targeting attentional control, rumination, worry, and metacognitive beliefs. A baseline period was followed by weekly sessions with follow-up assessments at 6 and 12 months post treatment. Large and statistically significant improvements occurred in all symptom measures at post treatment and were maintained over follow-up. Two out of 3 process measures significantly improved at post treatment and all of these measures were improved at follow-up. Treatment was associated with similar response rates on the BDI and Hamilton rating scale. Using liberal criteria 80% of completers were classified as recovered at post treatment and 70% at follow-up on the BDI. In the intention to treat sample 66.6% were recovered at post treatment and 58.3% at follow-up. More stringent criteria showed 60% recovery rates at post treatment and at 12 m. The results suggest that MCT could be a brief and effective treatment and they provide a precedent for more definitive randomized controlled trials.     

The role of negative affectivity and negative reactivity to emotions in predicting outcomes in the unified protocol for the transdiagnostic treatment of emotional disorders

The present study aimed to understand the contributions of both the trait tendency to experience negative emotions and how one relates to such experience in predicting symptom change during participation in the Unified Protocol (UP), a transdiagnostic treatment for emotional disorders. Data were derived from a randomized controlled trial comparing the UP to a waitlist control/delayed-treatment condition. First, effect sizes of pre- to post-treatment change for frequency of negative emotions and several variables measuring reactivity to emotional experience (emotional awareness and acceptance, fear of emotions, and anxiety sensitivity) were examined. Second, the relative contributions of change in negative emotions and emotional reactivity in predicting symptom (clinician-rated anxiety, depression, and severity of principal diagnosis) reductions were investigated. Results suggested that decreases in the frequency of negative emotions and reactivity to emotions following participation in the UP were both large in magnitude. Further, two emotional reactivity variables (fear of emotions and anxiety sensitivity) remained significantly related to symptom outcomes when controlling for negative emotions, and accounted for significant incremental variance in their prediction. These findings lend support to the notion that psychological health depends less on the frequency of negative emotions and more on how one relates to these emotions when they occur.     

Rankian Will

Otto Rank (1884–1939) served as Freud's closest partner in the psychoanalytic movement from 1906 to 1926. From 1923 on, Rank, initially with Ferenczi, focused on making analysis more therapeutic, emphasizing current experience in the session over historical exploration and interpretation. Rank settled on will as a missing factor, and wrote extensively about it after the break with Freud in 1926, when he moved to Paris. He emphasized the here-and-now, redefined “resistance” as a positive aspect of counter-will, and suggested a time limit for analysis. Ousted from analytic circles in 1930, he eventually moved to New York, continuing to treat patients and teach until his unexpected death at 55 in 1939. After decades of obscurity, Rank has gained readers and therapists whose orientation is interpersonal, client-centered, relational, humanistic, or existential. His influence on post-Freudian ego-psychology is finally being acknowledged as are his ideas about creativity, will, life-fear and death-fear, guilt, and ethics.