On the Functional Role of Implicit Visual Memory for the Adaptive Deployment of Attention Across Scenes

Although very little visual information is explicitly retained across views, some continuity of processing is afforded by implicit visual memory traces of previous views. These memory traces interact with attentional mechanisms to guide eye movements, cognition, and action. Two different memory mechanisms are described here. First, the deployments of focal attention and eye movements are facilitated towards recently attended features and locations (priming of popout). Second, attention is guided by implicit memory traces of specific visual contexts experienced in the past (contextual cueing). Compared to the visual memory tapped by change blindness tasks, the implicit memory mechanisms of priming of popout and contextual cueing do not require conscious intervention and may exhibit greater memory capacity, longer durability, and higher discriminability. Thus, these implicit traces of past views guide attention and eye movements to allow for effective access (indexing) to a scene's details, hence providing context and continuity to ongoing interactions with the perceptual world.     

Representing socio-technical systems options in the development of new forms of work organization

Abstract

It is widely accepted that effective implementation of new technology into work organizations needs an integrative approach in which developments in both technical and social systems are considered. Furthermore, success depends upon the effective participation of significant stakeholders in this process. This article reviews the methods available for this purpose and concludes that a particular weakness is the methods that can be used to generate and review socio-technical system opportunities early in the development process. Whilst methods exist to support stakeholder participation at this stage, they need to represent future socio-technical opportunities if they are to make an effective contribution. This article presents the ORDIT (Organizational Requirements Definition for Information Technology Systems) methodology, which uses responsibility modelling as a basis for constructing socio-technical systems opportunities. The application of telemedicine in health care is presented as a case study to demonstrate how this method can be used to construct and evaluate socio-technical scenarios.     

Cracking In: The Psychotherapeutic Action of Comedy

The relational reach and psychotherapeutic action of comedy are examined in the opening phase of treatment with a man who had an early history of neglect and consequent neurotic isolation. Through the examination of a series of comedic enactments that cracked into the beginning phase of this treatment, comedy's animating force to defy neurotic gravity and aid in the reanimation of primal density is considered. The ways in which laughter opened into a maternal erotic transference—countertransference is further detailed, in conjunction with reflection aimed at the aggression of this comedic bond, including countertransference hate.     

Boyhood Femininity,Gender Identity Disorder,Masculine Presuppositions,and the Anxiety of Regulation

This paper details the diagnostic discourse that has accumulated around feminine boys, including the traditional presuppositions of Gender Identity Disorder (GID). The GID discourse is examined for the ways in which it is built upon unquestioned beliefs about masculinity. Distinct from most modern considerations of gender, no effort has been made to critically theorize gender when thinking about feminine boys; masculinity is as masculinity was. Consequently, we are left with modes of diagnosis and treatment that are out of synch with modern social life, and a set of ideas that do not proceed from an adequate understanding of the range that is masculinity. New sustaining ideals are in play, and in accord with these ideals an argument is made for a new mode of psychotherapeutic address. The traditional individual trauma explanation for GID is questioned. Particular emphasis is given to the ways in which this traditional GID discourse fails to reckon with how masculinity is held in place by the strong arm of regulatory anxiety. A new position that incorporates a greater appreciation for the role of social trauma and melancholia is offered. It is argued that a theory that offers insight into the workings of melancholia as it builds the feminine boy affords a more robust set of ideas through which to contemplate the boy. In turn, we come upon a better avenue of psychotherapeutic action—one that does not employ behavioral strategies that reinforce social exclusion.     

Sample Size Planning for the Squared Multiple Correlation Coefficient: Accuracy in Parameter Estimation via Narrow Confidence Intervals

Methods of sample size planning are developed from the accuracy in parameter approach in the multiple regression context in order to obtain a sufficiently narrow confidence interval for the population squared multiple correlation coefficient when regressors are random. Approximate and exact methods are developed that provide necessary sample size so that the expected width of the confidence interval will be sufficiently narrow. Modifications of these methods are then developed so that necessary sample size will lead to sufficiently narrow confidence intervals with no less than some desired degree of assurance. Computer routines have been developed and are included within the MBESS R package so that the methods discussed in the article can be implemented. The methods and computer routines are demonstrated using an empirical example linking innovation in the health services industry with previous innovation, personality factors, and group climate characteristics.     

Investigating Hypervigilance for Social Threat of Lonely Children

The hypothesis that lonely children show hypervigilance for social threat was examined in a series of three studies that employed different methods including advanced eye-tracking technology. Hypervigilance for social threat was operationalized as hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion in a variation of the hostile attribution paradigm (Study 1), scores on the Children’s Rejection-Sensitivity Questionnaire (Study 2), and visual attention to socially rejecting stimuli (Study 3). The participants were 185 children (11 years-7 months to 12 years-6 months), 248 children (9 years-4 months to 11 years-8 months) and 140 children (8 years-10 months to 12 years-10 months) in the three studies, respectively. Regression analyses showed that, with depressive symptoms covaried, there were quadratic relations between loneliness and these different measures of hypervigilance to social threat. As hypothesized, only children in the upper range of loneliness demonstrated elevated hostility to ambiguously motivated social exclusion, higher scores on the rejection sensitivity questionnaire, and disengagement difficulties when viewing socially rejecting stimuli. We found that very lonely children are hypersensitive to social threat.     

The Interim Service Preferences of Parents Waiting for Children’s Mental Health Treatment: A Discrete Choice Conjoint Experiment

Parents seeking help for children with mental health problems are often assigned to a waiting list. We used a discrete choice conjoint experiment to model preferences for interim services that might be used while waiting for the formal assessment and treatment process to begin. A sample of 1,059 parents (92 % mothers) seeking mental health services for 4 to 16 year olds chose between hypothetical interim services composed by experimentally varying combinations of the levels of 13 interim service attributes. Latent Class analysis yielded a four–segment solution. All segments preferred interim options helping them understand how agencies work, enhancing their parenting knowledge and skill, and providing an opportunity to understand or begin dealing with their own difficulties. The Group Contact segment (35.1 %) preferred interim services in meetings with other parents, supported by phone contacts, frequent checkup calls, and wait–time updates. Virtual Contact parents (29.2 %) preferred to meet other parents in small internet chat groups supported by e–mail contact. Membership in this segment was linked to higher education and computer skills. Frequent Contact parents (24.4 %) preferred face–to–face interim services supported by weekly progress checks and wait time updates. Limited Contact parents (11.3 %) were less intent on using interim services. They preferred to pursue interim services alone, with contacts by phone, supported by fewer check–up calls and less frequent wait time updates. All segments were more likely to enroll in interim services involving their child.     

“Do You Trust Him?” Children’s Trust Beliefs and Developmental Trajectories of Aggressive Behavior in an Ethnically Diverse Sample

This study investigated the role of trust beliefs (i.e., trustworthiness, trustfulness) on aggression trajectories in a four-wave longitudinal study using an ethnically diverse sample of 8- to 11-year-old children (N?=?1,028), as well as the risk profiles of low trust beliefs and low socioeconomic status on aggression trajectories. At Time 1 to Time 4, teachers provided ratings of overt aggressive behavior. At Time 1, children’s trust beliefs were assessed by a sociometric peer nomination instrument and derived using social relations analysis. Latent growth curve analysis revealed five trajectories of aggressive behavior: high-stable, medium-stable, low-stable, increasing, and decreasing. As hypothesized, children in the high-stable trajectory were perceived as less trustworthy than children in the low-stable, medium-stable, and increasing trajectories. Children in the high-stable trajectory were less trustful than children in the low-stable trajectory and had a significantly higher risk profile (i.e., low trust beliefs and low SES) compared to children in the low-stable trajectory. Our findings indicate that the developmental course of aggression during middle childhood is predicted by children’s trustworthiness and trustfulness. A risk profile of low trust and low socioeconomic status contributes to high-stable aggression trajectories.     

Where cognitive development and aging meet: face learning ability peaks after age 30

Research on age-related cognitive change traditionally focuses on either development or aging, where development ends with adulthood and aging begins around 55 years. This approach ignores age-related changes during the 35 years in-between, implying that this period is uninformative. Here we investigated face recognition as an ability that may mature late relative to other abilities. Using data from over 60,000 participants, we traced the ability to learn new faces from pre-adolescence through middle age. In three separate experiments, we show that face learning ability improves until just after age 30 – even though other putatively related abilities (inverted face recognition and name recognition) stop showing age-related improvements years earlier. Our data provide the first behavioral evidence for late maturation of face processing and the dissociation of face recognition from other abilities over time demonstrates that studies on adult age development can provide insight into the organization and development of cognitive systems.