Risk factors in child maltreatment: A meta-analytic review of the literature

This review presents the results of a series of meta-analyses identifying the relative strength of various risk factors for child physical abuse and neglect. Data from 155 studies examining 39 different risk factors were included in the review. Large effect sizes were found between child physical abuse and three risk factors (parent anger/hyper-reactivity, family conflict and family cohesion). Large effect sizes were also found between child neglect and five risk factors (parent–child relationship, parent perceives child as problem, parent's level of stress, parent anger/hyper-reactivity, and parent self-esteem).     

Perceptual learning on inspection time and motion perception

Perceptual learning on simple perceptual tasks is interpreted as plasticity of neuronal populations in the sensory cortex (M. Fahle & T. Poggio, 2002). The authors examined individual differences on perceptual learning for 2 tasks-inspection time (IT) and a motion direction discrimination task that was instantiated as random dot kinematograms. The authors' main questions were whether individual differences in perceptual learning were consistent across the 2 tasks and whether perceptual learning correlated with cognitive abilities test scores. In all, 56 young adults completed 16 threshold estimations on 1 of 2 orthogonal versions of each task. Then, the authors made 2 further threshold estimations for the untrained, orthogonal version. Participants also completed a battery of 6 cognitive abilities tests that measured fluid ability (Gf) and perceptual speed (Gs). Perceptual learning was demonstrated for both tasks, but the degree of learning across tasks was not characteristic of the individual. Learning on IT correlated with Gs (r = .35), but learning on the motion direction discrimination task was unrelated to cognitive ability. Correlations of IT with cognitive measures were stable over the training period. IT was correlated with both the motion direction discrimination task (r = -.39) and an unmasked line length judgment task (r = -.31). The authors concluded that perceptual learning on IT correlates with cognitive abilities test scores, that correlations of IT with cognitive abilities test scores are stable as task performance improves with practice, and that the IT task is psychologically complex.     

Robert I Watson: Eminent contributor,and co-founder of the archives of the history of American psychology

In addition to his many other achievements, Robert I. Watson participated in the founding and continued operation of the Archives of the History of American Psychology. This article describes his efforts on behalf of the Archives, as co-founder, chairman and member of the National Board of Advisors of the Archives, and informal advisor.     

An electrophysiological study of school-aged children with a history of failure to thrive during infancy

Sixty-five subjects, ages 8 to 12, participated in a visual electrophysiological study. Twenty-two of the subjects had received a diagnosis of nonorganic failure-to-thrive (FTT) before the age of three. The remaining 43 subjects had no history of FTT and served as Controls. IQs were obtained with the abbreviated WISC-III, and the Controls were split into two groups, LO IQ and HI IQ, to provide a LO IQ Control group with an average IQ equivalent to the FTT group. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from five scalp locations during a cued continuous performance task (CPT). Subjects had to press a button every time they saw the letter “X” following the letter “A” (50 targets out of 400 stimuli). During the CPT, the FTT subjects made marginally more errors of omission to targets than the LO IQ Control group and significantly more errors of omission than the HI IQ Control subjects. The groups did not differ significantly on errors of commission (false alarms) or reaction times to targets. ERP averages revealed a group difference in amplitude in a late slow wave for the 50 non-X stimuli (false targets) that followed the letter A. This difference was greatest over frontal sites, where the FTT group had a more negative going slow wave than each control group. Late frontal negativity to No Go stimuli has been linked with post-decisional processing, notably in young children. Thus, the FTT subjects may have less efficient inhibitory processes, reflected by additional late frontal activation. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A31BB040 00006     

Is the Self other to the self? Why does the numinosum feel like another? The relevance of Matte Blanco to our understanding of the unconscious

Using Ignacio Matte Blanco’s approach to the unconscious, this paper attempts to explain why the experience of the Self or the unconscious, for example in dreams, is difficult for the ego to understand. Matte Blanco believes that the logic of the unconscious is radically different from the logic of consciousness. The unconscious uses processes that Matte Blanco refers to as symmetry and generalization. Symmetry means that the converse of any relationship is identical to it, so that asymmetrical relationships are treated as if they were symmetrical. Generalization means that the unconscious treats any object as belonging to a larger class of objects that is a subset of an even larger class which is in turn a subset of a wider class ad infinitum. Hence Matte Blanco’s idea of the unconscious as infinite sets. These unconscious mechanisms, combined with the possibility that the unconscious has more dimensions than consciousness, contribute to the difficulty of understanding dreams, and help to explain why the Self is experienced as other to the ego.