The influence of prematurity,maternal anxiety,and infants' neurobiological risk on mother–infant interactions

In this study, we investigated how the birth of a very low birth weight preterm (VLBW) infant influences the mother–infant interaction at 3 months. We also focused on the impact of the infant's neurobiological risk and maternal anxiety, and their interaction. The comparison of the VLBW preterm sample (n = 79) with an external full‐term sample (n = 35) showed mother–infant interactions of the families with the preterm infant to be more vocally responsive during the interaction, but less facially responsive during the interaction. Additionally, higher levels of maternal anxiety were associated with preterm infants being less facially responsive in interaction with their mother. While neurobiological risk of the infant played a part in this association, with higher risk infants also being less facially responsive, the relationship with maternal anxiety and the mother–child interaction was stronger. How these findings may influence therapeutic interventions is discussed.     

Two observations about human reason

The first observation is that existential reason has two principal strata. While the function of lower reason is primarily reasoning or logic, upper reason ponders emotions, the meaning of existence, the transcendent. Those whose understanding of reason is confined to lower reason are handicapped in coping with emotional and spiritual suffering. Upper reason is a necessary intellectual facility in the resolution of such suffering. The second observation is of thedialectical nature of reason, with which clinicians and theologians trade when pondering reality and in dealing with those they counsel. Yet, many people, especially Americans, are oblivious to the “both-and” reality of existence. Consequently they are not realistic about life nor are they skillful in dealing with their resulting existential conflicts. They are lost when psychological problems cannot be satisfactorily resolved by lower reason; for only upper reason can perceive and creatively integrate the dialectical tensions of existential problems.     

What moderates implicit—explicit consistency?

Implicit and explicit indicators of attitudes or personality traits are positively, and variably, related. This review places the question of implicit ‐ explicit consistency into the tradition of attitude/trait ‐ behaviour consistency (e.g., Wicker, 1969). Drawing on dual-process models, such as the recent distinction between associative and propositional representations (Strack & Deutsch, 2004), we identify a working model of implicit ‐ explicit consistency that organises the empirical evidence on implicit ‐ explicit moderation into five factors: translation between implicit and explicit representations (e.g., representational strength, awareness), additional information integration for explicit representations (e.g., need for cognition), properties of explicit assessment (e.g., social desirability concerns), properties of implicit assessment (e.g., situational malleability), and research design factors (e.g., sampling bias, measurement correspondence).     

Acute psycho-social stress does not disrupt item-method directed forgetting, emotional stimulus content does

It has been shown that stress affects episodic memory in general, but knowledge about stress effects on memory control processes such as directed forgetting is sparse. Whereas in previous studies item-method directed forgetting was found to be altered in post-traumatic stress disorder patients and abolished for highly arousing negative pictorial stimuli in students, no study so far has investigated the effects of experimentally induced psycho-social stress on this task or examined the role of positive picture stimuli. In the present study, 41 participants performed an item-method directed forgetting experiment while being exposed either to a psychosocial laboratory stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), or a cognitively challenging but non-stressful control condition. Neutral and positive pictures were presented as stimuli. As predicted, salivary cortisol level as a biological marker of the human stress response increased only in the TSST group. Still, both groups showed directed forgetting. However, emotional content of the employed stimuli affected memory control: Directed forgetting was intact for neutral pictures whereas it was attenuated for positive ones. This attenuation was primarily due to selective rehearsal improving discrimination accuracy for neutral, but not positive, to-be-remembered items. Results suggest that acute experimentally induced stress does not alter item-method directed forgetting while emotional stimulus content does.     

How Implicit–Explicit Consistency of the Intelligence Self‐Concept Moderates Reactions to Performance Feedback

At present, it is not well understood which individual characteristics determine whether individuals will benefit or suffer from feedback about suboptimal performance. Three separate studies tested the idea that individuals' reactions to (neutral versus negative; positive versus negative) feedback as either improving or deteriorating performance in intelligence tests depended on their explicit and implicit self‐concept of intelligence (eSCI and iSCI). In all studies (Study 1, N = 177; Study 2, N = 165; Study 3, N = 132), persons with low eSCI/high iSCI showed a boost in performance after negative feedback, whereas persons with any other combination showed a decline in performance. The studies also provide an explanation for these effects in terms of mediating mechanisms. Whereas the performance boost of individuals with low eSCI/high iSCI can be best explained by achievement‐related reactance (Studies 2 and 3) and decrease in ruminative thinking (Study 3), the performance declines in the other configurations were mediated by decreased achievement motivation, increased frustration and increased outrage (Study 3). All these mediating mechanisms proved independent and incremental in a bootstrapping‐based moderated meditation analysis. The results are discussed in light of the construct validity of our Implicit Association Test (IAT) and IATs in general. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gray seal's (Halichoerus grypus) responses to experimenter-given pointing and directional cues

A gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) was trained to touch a target on its left or right by responding to pointing signals. The authors then tested whether the seal would be able to generalize spontaneously to altered signals. It responded correctly to center pointing and head turning, center upper body turning, and off-center pointing but not to head turning and eye movements alone. The seal also responded correctly to brief ipsilateral and contralateral points from center and lateral positions. Pointing gestures did not cause the seal to select an object placed centrally behind it. Like many animals in similar studies, this gray seal probably did not understand the referential character of these gestures but rather used signal generalization and experience from initial operant conditioning to solve these tasks.     

Die Artistik der Psychoanalyse

Zusammenfasssung  Die Psychoanalyse wird im Rückgriff auf die Praxis Freuds als artistisches Handwerk begriffen, das der Phantasie als Erkenntnismittel und -zweck die entscheidende Bedeutung zuweist. Sie ist eine Imaginationslehre und der Phantasieschlüssel, die produktive Einbildungskraft eines Therapeuten, der Zentralbegriff für dessen Güte: Gegen das Klischee des Standardsettings werden die Fähigkeit und das Ausmaß phantastischer Induktion durch den Therapeuten gestellt, gegen die Fiktion von rekonstruktiver Arbeit der produktive Konstruktivismus der Psychoanalyse. Die antizipatorische Kompetenz des Therapeuten erweist sich als Quelle der Heilkraft, die dem Patienten eine sinnvolle Benennung für seine unerklärlichen und fremden Erfahrungen der Symptome gibt. Der Analytiker ist, wie der Künstler, ein Experte phantasierenden Umdenkens und Umgestaltens der vorfindlichen Wahrnehmungsrealität. Seine kompositorischen Fähigkeiten sind die Bedingung, dem Patienten das Noch-Nicht-Bekannte, Nichterfahrene aus dem Fundus seines Phantasievermögens hinzuzufügen. In diesem hermeneutischen Ergänzungsprinzip der Psychoanalyse, ihrem gestaltschaffenden Entdeckungsprinzip, liegt die Hauptquelle der therapeutischen Wirksamkeit. Die von uns entwickelte Technik der korrigierenden kognitiven Erfahrung ist eine Methode zur produktiven Sinnbestimmung der Symptome und wird in ihrer klinischen Bedeutung für alle Strukturen dargestellt. Die Wahrheit der psychoanalytischen Methode offenbart sich gleichwie das Wahre in der Kunst durch eine andere und neue Selbst- und Weltanschauung des Patienten.

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The artistic quality of psychoanalysisIngeniousity and the corrective cognitive experience

Taking up the practice of Freud, psychoanalysis is regarded here as an artistic skill attaching central importance to phantasy as a means and also goal of insight. Psychoanalysis is a science of imagination. The key, the productive imaginative ability of the therapist is the central concept for its quality. The clichee of the standard setting is contrasted with the ability and the extent of phantasy induction by the therapist, as well as the fiction of reconstructive work with the productive contructivism of psychoanalysis. The anticipatory competence of the therapist is the source of the healing force offering a meaningful designation to the patients inexplicable and strange experiences and symptoms. The psychoanalyst is in the same way as an artist an expert of imaginative rethinking and reshaping of the given perceptional reality. His compositional abilities are the pre-condition for amplifying out of his imaginative resources the patients experience by still unknown and new experiences. The main source of therapeutic effectivity is this hermeneutic completion principle of psychoanalysis by which it creates through discovery new Gestalts. Our technique of the corrective cognitive experience is a method of productive sense-giving to the symptoms and is presented in its importance for all structures. The truth of the psychoanalytic method reveals itself just as the truth of arts in the patients new and different view of the self and the world.

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Prof. Dr. Manfred Pohlen ist emeritierter Direktor der Klinik für Psychotherapie der Philipps-Universität, Marburg.* Der vorliegende Exkurs über die Artistik der Psychoanalyse folgt den umfassenderen Ausführungen zu diesem Thema in der von M. Polen und M. Bautz-Holzherr vorgelegten Monographie: Eine andere Psychodynamik - Psychotherapie als Programm zur Selbstbemächtigung des Subjekts (Huber 2001), in der wir eine psychodynamische Praxistheorie unter der Perspektive der Selbstbemächtigung des therapeutischen Subjekts veröffentlicht haben.

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Learning to tell apples from oranges

Recognizing images requires sorting them into the correct perceptual categories. Without categories, apples could not be discriminated from oranges. A fundamental question is whether categories are innate or learned, and if learned, how well such discriminations generalize. A recent finding by Notman et al. demonstrates that certain categorical discriminations are learned fast but vanish for slightly rotated stimuli. Rather than higher "cognitive" learning, this indicates involvement of "early" mechanisms, which cannot generalize across different stimulus orientations.     

Application testing of a new three-dimensional acceleration measuring system with wireless data transfer (WAS) for behavior analysis

A wireless acceleration measurement system was applied to free-moving cows and horses. Sensors were available as a collar and a flat box for measuring leg or trunk movements. Results were transmitted simultaneously by radio or stored in an 8-MB internal memory. As analytical procedures, frequency distributions with standard deviations, spectral analyses, and fractal analyses were applied. By means of the collar sensor, basic behavior patterns (standing, grazing, walking, ruminating, drinking, and hay uptake) could be identified in cows. Lameness could be detected in cows and horses by means of the leg sensor. The portion of basic and harmonic spectral components was reduced; the fractal dimension was reduced. The system can be used for the detection and analysis of even small movements of free-moving humans or animals over several hours. It is convenient for the analysis of basic behaviors, emotional reactions, or events causing flight or fright or for comparing different housing elements, such as floors or fences.