White Privilege: Psychoanalytic Perspectives,by Neil Altman,Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2021, 80 pp.

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Context-dependent use of olfactory cues by foragers of Vespula germanica social wasps

Animal Cognition - Food search is guided by cues from different sensory modalities, such as olfactory and visual. In social wasps, olfaction plays a key role in locating new resources. However,...     

Longitudinal Associations Between Trauma Exposure and Executive Functions in Children: Findings from a Dutch Birth Cohort Study

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This study is the first to distinguish two possible predictive directions between trauma exposure and executive functioning in children in a...     

Functional recovery following brain damage: conceptual frameworks and biological mechanisms

Mammals are well known to manifest recovery over time of many functional impairments induced by brain lesions. A brief reveiw is provided of the different conceptual frameworks within which functional recovery has been examined in the literature, and of different neurobiological mechanisms that have been proposed to account for the phenomenon. We observe that these two levels of analysis have frequently been only loosely related. Finally, a newly identified biological mechanism—compensatory collateral sprouting—is described which appears to be closely related to functional recovery in animals with hippocampal lesions, and this is proposed as a powerful new model within which to investigate further the relationship between the phenomenon of functional recovery and its underlying mechanisms.     

Comprehensive psychological services at the secondary level utilizing student paraprofessionals

This article notes references in school psychology literature which focus on dissatisfaction with role, claiming that the field has remained reactive and narrow in scope in spite of major statements calling for more expansive roles during the past several decades. A broad, comprehensive paraprofessional training/supervisory model utilizing secondary level students is described; the model incorporates twelve paraprofessional involvement areas as part of a total high school psychological services delivery system. It is noted that individual client data and program evaluation have portrayed student improvement rates ranging from 50% to 90%, increased consumer satisfaction with psychological services, and increased visibility and knowledge of the psychologist's role among total school population. Suggestions for further research and evaluation are discussed.     

Do learning-disabled children exhibit peripheral deficits in selective attention? An analysis of eye movements during reading

It has been suggested that deficits in selective attention play a functional role in the learning and behavior problems of children diagnosed as learning- disabled. In the present study, peripheral and central aspects of selective attention were distinguished and peripheral aspects were examined. The attending eye movements during reading of 12 fifth-grade learning-disabled children who read at the third-grade level were compared with 12 fifth-grade children who read at the fifth-grade level (grade placement controls) and 12 third-grade children who read at the third-grade level (reading level controls). The learning-disabled children did not differ from their reading level controls on any of W measures but showed a pattern of eye movements that was generally slower and less smooth than their grade placement controls. While these patterns might be considered to be immature relative to normal readers of the same age, they are not indicative of peripheral deficits in selective attention. Males, however, did exhibit more variability in duration of fixations and made more regressive eye movements than did females.     

Interpreting idioms

Immediate comprehension processes involved in the interpretation of idiomatic expressions were investigate. Idioms like bury the hatchet were used in sentential contexts that (1) biased the listener toward a literal interpretation, (2) biased the listener toward a figurative interpretation, or (3) left the interpretation ambiguous between the literal and figurative readings. In control sentences, the final words of the idioms were used in nonidiomatic expressions. Listeners monitored the sentences for specified targets. In all cases, the target words were the final words of the idiomatic phrases. The listeners were instructed to detect words that were identical to cue words, that rhymed with the cue words, or that were members of semantic categories specified by cue words. Thus, hatchet was cued with either hatchet, ratchet, or a tool. Reaction-time latencies from the onset of the targets to the listeners' responses were obtained. Identity, Rhyme, and Category matches were detected more rapidly in all three idiomatic contexts than in the nonidiomatic controls. These results suggest that idioms are automatically processed as discrete lexical entries, and that previously observed reaction time advantages for figurative expressions may reflect integrative processes rather than retrieval of meaning.This research was supported by PHS Training Grant T32 MH 15134-02 from the National Institute of Mental Health. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1981.     

Effects of marital discord on the school behavior of children of schizophrenic,affectively disordered,and normal parents

An association between children's school behavior and two family variables, marital discord and parental psychopathology, has been consistently reported in the literature. However, the joint effects of each of these two familial factors has not been closely examined. The present report provides a further examination of the interrelationships among these three variables with particular emphasis on the effects of marital discord on children's school behavior in families with behaviorally disturbed parents. Marital discord was found to account for much of the association between having a parent with bipolar disorder or unipolar depression and problematic school behavior, but the same variable did not explain the relationship between having a schizophrenic parent and problems in school. The implications of these findings for interventions with the children of disturbed parents and for high-risk research are discussed.This research was supported by Grant MH21145 from the National Institute of Mental Health.     

Sex differences,sex-role orientation,and reward allocations

In study 1, 52 male and 52 female undergraduates allocated rewards to pairs of children for their performances in team and competitive situations. Males allocated rewards more equitably, especially when allocating to boys in competition, while females allocated rewards more equally. Boys, but not girls, who did more work received more rewards than their partner; and children with greater work inputs under competitive conditions received more rewards than children in team conditions. In study 2, the sex-role orientation of 60 college students was found to be related to their reward allocations. Males and females with a masculine sex-role orientation allocated rewards equitably, while individuals with a feminine sex-role orientation allocated rewards equally. Results indicated that sex and situational differences in reward allocations are affected by sex-role orientation and differential socialization practices by adults.Portions of study 1 were presented at the Midwestern Psychological Association Meeting, Chicago, May 1978.