Smoking onset in adolescence: a person-centered analysis with time-varying predictors.

Predictions from smoking-specific versus contextual models of smoking onset were tested with data from a 4-wave sample with 1,364 adolescents. Predictor variables were derived from stress-coping theory, social influence theory, and problem-behavior theory. In addition to groups of abstainers and experimenters, cluster analysis of smoking data indicated 3 groups who showed onset either in 7th grade (early onset), 9th grade (intermediate onset), or 10th grade (late onset). Almost all study variables discriminated the smoking groups from the abstainers. The onset groups were discriminated by Group X Time interactions showing differential changes in predictors (increases in risk factors and declines in protective factors), which occurred just prior to onset. The results generally support a contextual model of the onset process.     

Hemispheric lateralization of bilaterally presented homologous visual and auditory stimuli in normal adults, normal children, and children with central auditory dysfunction

Two experiments were conducted to examine the performance of normal adults, normal children, and children diagnosed with central auditory dysfunction presumed to involve the interhemispheric pathways on a dichotic digits test in common clinical use for the diagnosis of central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) and its corresponding visual analog. Results of the first experiment revealed a significant right ear advantage (REA) for the dichotic listening task and a left-visual-field advantage (LVFA) for the corresponding visual analog in normal adults and children. In the second experiment, results revealed a significantly larger REA in the children with CAPD as compared to the normal children. Results also revealed a reversed cerebral asymmetry (RVFA) for the children with CAPD on the visual task. Significant cross-modal correlations suggest that the two tasks may reflect, at least in part, similar interhemispheric processing mechanisms in children. Findings are discussed in relation to differential diagnosis and modality-specificity of CAPD.     

My Enfant Terrible is Twenty: A Discussion of Slavin's and Gentile's Retrospective Reconsideration of “Love in the Afternoon”

The following is a response to papers by Jonathan H. Slavin, Ph.D., ABPP, and Jill Gentile, Ph.D., which both discuss my 1994 paper “Love in the Afternoon: A Relational Reconsideration of Desire and Dread in the Countertransference,” almost twenty years after its original publication in Psychoanalytic Dialogues. I begin with some retrospective thoughts of my own about this controversial paper, and then respond to interpretations of the paper offered by Slavin and Gentile. I conclude with my own thoughts about their original ideas and elaborations on the subject of erotic countertransference.     

In the beginning was the familiar voice: personally familiar voices in the evolutionary and contemporary biology of communication

The human voice is described in dialogic linguistics as an embodiment of self in a social context, contributing to expression, perception and mutual exchange of self, consciousness, inner life, and personhood. While these approaches are subjective and arise from phenomenological perspectives, scientific facts about personal vocal identity, and its role in biological development, support these views. It is our purpose to review studies of the biology of personal vocal identity—the familiar voice pattern—as providing an empirical foundation for the view that the human voice is an embodiment of self in the social context. Recent developments in the biology and evolution of communication are concordant with these notions, revealing that familiar voice recognition (also known as vocal identity recognition or individual vocal recognition) has contributed to survival in the earliest vocalizing species. Contemporary ethology documents the crucial role of familiar voices across animal species in signaling and perceiving internal states and personal identities. Neuropsychological studies of voice reveal multimodal cerebral associations arising across brain structures involved in memory, emotion, attention, and arousal in vocal perception and production, such that the voice represents the whole person. Although its roots are in evolutionary biology, human competence for processing layered social and personal meanings in the voice, as well as personal identity in a large repertory of familiar voice patterns, has achieved an immense sophistication.     

Gender and Intimate Partner Violence in the United States: Confronting the Controversies

This paper comments on the Langhinrichsen-Rohling article (2010), which reviews five major controversies present in the field of partner violence research and in which the author describes a new typology of mutually-violent couples. Strengths of the original article are discussed, including the author’s incorporation of existing data into a new typology, her focus on context in examining relationship violence, and her reasoned argument for studying the behavior of both male and female aggressors. Limitations associated with the scope and explicit predictions of Langhinrichsen-Rohling’s new typology are also covered in this commentary. Finally, the need for improved treatments for partner violence is discussed.     

Evaluating information for truthfulness: The effects of logical subordination

Research has shown that many individuals do not routinely evaluate new information for consistency with respect to what they already know. One factor that may affect the likelihood of critical evaluation is whether or not the information is the central focus of the message. Two experiments tested this possibility by establishing differential emphasis of false information within complex sentences. Half of the target sentences contained a false fact in the main clause and half contained a false fact in the subordinate clause. In Experiment 1 subjects verified 64 sentences presented orally as either true or false. In Experiment 2 subjects read and evaluated 20 paragraphs for the presence of false information. As expected, subjects were less likely to report the false information when it was conveyed as logically subordinate rather than central. The results suggest one explanation for deficits in comprehension monitoring and have implications for understanding susceptibility to persuasive communications.     

Truth and Consequence: Alternative Facts and Discordant Realities

The following is an essay in applied psychoanalysis delivered to the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in June 2018.* In this essay I attempt to apply what we know about the psychological sequelae of childhood abuse and what we know about the conditions necessary for secure attachment to our current political situation.