Happiness takes you right: The effect of emotional stimuli on line bisection

Emotion recognition is mediated by a complex network of cortical and subcortical areas, with the two hemispheres likely being differently involved in processing positive and negative emotions. As results on valence-dependent hemispheric specialisation are quite inconsistent, we carried out three experiments with emotional stimuli with a task being sensitive to measure specific hemispheric processing. Participants were required to bisect visual lines that were delimited by emotional face flankers, or to haptically bisect rods while concurrently listening to emotional vocal expressions. We found that prolonged (but not transient) exposition to concurrent happy stimuli significantly shifted the bisection bias to the right compared to both sad and neutral stimuli, indexing a greater involvement of the left hemisphere in processing of positively connoted stimuli. No differences between sad and neutral stimuli were observed across the experiments. In sum, our data provide consistent evidence in favour of a greater involvement of the left hemisphere in processing positive emotions and suggest that (prolonged) exposure to stimuli expressing happiness significantly affects allocation of (spatial) attentional resources, regardless of the sensory (visual/auditory) modality in which the emotion is perceived and space is explored (visual/haptic).     

Solving the problems of duality: the third and self-consciousness

Locating the concept of the third in the debate about countertransference that began in the 1950s, the authors maintain that it originated to solve problems stemming from the recognition that the analytic encounter takes place between two individual subjects. This recognition can lead to discomfort for the analyst, once objective criteria to interpret reality have been lost due to adhesion to a dialectical constructionist perspective; it also implies a deeper involvement arising from the abandonment of neutrality. The concept of the third is often invoked to help avoid these risks. However, the authors maintain that only the human subject itself can grasp the self reflexively; this view has a referent in the Hegelian concept of self-consciousness and is also supported by the findings of infant research.     

Psychosocial risk assessment among families receiving assistance from the social services

This study analyses the psychosocial risk profiles that better discriminate between three levels of risk: low, middle and high. We also examine to what extent the assessments of the level of risk made by professionals of social services are consistent with their decision of initiate a "risk declaration" expedient. For this purpose, 468 cases of families (245 two-parents and 223 one-parent) were examined through the Psychosocial Risk Profile of the Family. Discriminant analysis showed that social exclusion and family violence profiles discriminate between high and middle-low levels of risk in two-parent families. Negligence and family violence plus maternal inadequacy and children maladjustment discriminate between high and middle-low levels of risk in one-parent families. There is a high consistence between the assessment of psychosocial risk and the decision to initate a procedure of a "risk declaration" in both families, with a tendency to overestimate the middle risk in one-parent families.     

An overview on Primary Progressive Aphasia and its variants

We present a review of the literature on Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) together with the analysis of neuropschychological and neuroradiologic profiles of 42 PPA patients. Mesulam originally defined PPA as a progressive degenerative disorder characterized by isolated language impairment for at least two years. The most common variants of PPA are: 1) Progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), 2) semantic dementia (SD), 3) logopenic progressive aphasia (LPA). PNFA is characterized by labored speech, agrammatism in production, and/or comprehension. In some cases the syndrome begins with isolated deficits in speech. SD patients typically present with loss of word and object meaning and surface dyslexia. LPA patients have word-finding difficulties, syntactically simple but accurate language output and impaired sentence comprehension. The neuropsychological data demonstrated that SD patients show the most characteristic pattern of impairment, while PNFA and LPA overlap within many cognitive domains. The neuroimaging analysis showed left perisylvian region involvement. A comprehensive cognitive, neuroimaging and pathological approach is necessary to identify the clinical and pathogenetic features of different PPA variants.     

On Conflicts and Differences Among Women

Jana Sawicki uses the work and methods of Foucault to explore the possibility of a politics of difference. I argue that Foucault may help us overcome some forms of dogmatism inherited from men's political philosophy of the past, but Foucault is otherwise useless, or worse: misleading. Because Sawicki presents a politics of diversity among women regardless of, and independent from, a politics of sexual difference, I believe Foucault is misleading.     

Prevalence of suicide programs in schools and roadblocks to implementation

We surveyed all school districts in Washington State for information on the prevalence of suicide programs and on major roadblocks to implementing programs. With 163 districts responding (62%), we found that the majority did not have suicide programs or policies and procedures. The largest perceived roadblock was insufficient staff and the greatest perceived need was more information. Although establishing policies and procedures is considered by many as a necessary first step to establishing suicide programs, we did not find schools choosing this option as often as others. This raises questions as to what are effective ways to have schools start suicide programs. We analyzed the data by school district size and by the title of the staff member making the report. We discuss the implications of these findings as well as the need for further efforts to develop appropriate programs for schools.     

Self-monitoring and the prediction of one's own and others' personality test scores

This study had two aims. Firstly, it examined the similarity between subjects' ratings of themselves and others and their scores on various personality tests. A group of 264 undergraduates in psychology completed Snyder's (1974) Self-Monitoring Scale and the Neuroticism and Extraversion Scales from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck and Eysenck, 1975; 1986). Then, they estimated both their own score and that of a peer on those questionnaires. The results showed that subjects (i) were fairly good at estimating their own and others' extraversion and neuroticism scores, (ii) were less accurate at estimating self-monitoring scores, (iii) were better at predicting their own scores than those of others, and (iv) erroneously believed themselves to be significantly similar to the chosen peer. Secondly, individual differences in the accuracy of personality estimation were studied. According to Synder's (1974) self-monitoring construct, people high in self-monitoring would be especially adept at reading others' expressive behaviours; therefore, any differences in the accuracy of perceiving the personality of others might be associated with differences in self-monitoring. High self-monitors were more accurate than low self-monitors at estimating neuroticism scores for others. Another implication of the self-monitoring theory is that, taking high and low self-monitors as targets of others' estimations, there should be greater discrepancy between actual scores and peer estimations for high self-monitors. The results here supported this prediction, but only in self-monitoring estimation.     

Virtual reality therapy versus cognitive behavior therapy for social phobia: a preliminary controlled study.

Social phobia is one of the most frequent mental disorders and is accessible to two forms of scientifically validated treatments: anti-depressant drugs and cognitive behavior therapies (CBT). In this last case, graded exposure to feared social situations is one of the fundamental therapeutic ingredients. Virtual reality technologies are an interesting alternative to the standard exposure in social phobia, especially since studies have shown its usefulness for the fear of public speaking. This paper reports a preliminary study in which a virtual reality therapy (VRT), based on exposure to virtual environments, was used to treat social phobia. The sample consisted of 36 participants diagnosed with social phobia assigned to either VRT or a group-CBT (control condition). The virtual environments used in the treatment recreate four situations dealing with social anxiety: performance, intimacy, scrutiny, and assertiveness. With the help of the therapist, the patient learns adapted cognitions and behaviors in order to reduce anxiety in the corresponding real situations. Both treatments lasted 12 weeks, and sessions were delivered according to a treatment manual. Results showed statistically and clinically significant improvement in both conditions. The effect-sizes comparing the efficacy of VRT to the control traditional group-CBT revealed that the differences between the two treatments are trivial.