Der Fall Penelope

With their book Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Migration and Exile (1989) León and Rebeca Grinberg (1984) opened up a new clinical field, which had been neglected for a long time in the psychoanalytic community, although Freud’s plurilinguistic competence had greatly contributed to the creation of psychoanalysis. With their book The Babel of the Unconscious (1993; German edition in preparation) Jacqueline Amati Mehler, Simona Argentieri and Jorge Canestri could confirm the hypothesis that it is possible to help plurilingual patients to integrate the different aspects of their self which are bound to their mother tongue and to their foreign tongue(s) and to thus allow them to develop a new identity. The author, who works as a psychoanalyst in Munich since 1999, works every day with his Italian patients in this new clinical field, i.e., in their common mother tongue and at the two levels of their old Italian and their new German identity. Through the detailed presentation of a clinical case he furthermore shows how on the one hand migration creates a new space in which therapy actually becomes possible, and on the other hand how not only therapy but the kind of relationship developed by the patients to their “new country” plays a decisive role in the whole process. Such a frame proved to be particularly good for the emergence, revisitation and reelaboration of a transgenerational trauma, around which the case of Penelope is also centered. The author further assumes that the theme “migration and identity” is becoming more and more important in our globalized world with clinical consequences whose elaboration requires a specific cultural and technical preparation.     

Aesthetic phenomena as supernormal stimuli: the case of eye, lip, and lower-face size and roundness in artistic portraits

In the first study, eye and lip size and roundness, and lower-face roundness were compared between a control sample of 289 photographic portraits and an experimental sample of 776 artistic portraits covering the whole period of the history of art. Results showed that eye roundness, lip roundness, eye height, eye width, and lip height were significantly enhanced in artistic portraits compared to photographic ones. Lip width and lower-face roundness, on the contrary, were less prominent in artistic than in photographic portraits. In a second study, forty-two art academy students were requested to draw two self-portraits, one with a mirror and one without (from memory). Eye, lip, and lower-face roundness in artistic self-portraits was compared to the same features derived from photographic portraits of the participants. The results obtained confirmed those found in the first study. Eye and lip size and roundness were greater in artistic self-portraits, while lower-face roundness was significantly reduced. The same degree of modification was found also when a mirror was available to the subjects. In a third study the effect of lower-face roundness on the perception of attractiveness was assessed: fifty-three participants had to adjust the face width of 24 photographic portraits in order to achieve the highest level of attractiveness. Participants contracted the face width by a mean value of 5.26%, showing a preference for a reduced lower-face roundness. All results are discussed in terms of the importance of the 'supernormalisation' process as a means of assigning aesthetic value to perceptual stimuli.     

Neuropharmacological aspects of cognitive neurorehabilitation in epilepsy

The role of CNS neuromodulators in cognitive neurorehabilitation can be related to two main issues: 1) the negative impact on cognition of drug categories prescribed for different neurologic symptoms, such as spasticity, extrapyramidal symptoms, or epileptic seizures; 2) their possible role in neuroprotection and amelioration of the cognitive status of the patient, especially attention and memory. This paper reviews different pharmacological aspects of cognitive neurorehabilitation in epilepsy.     

Some tests of response membership in acquired equivalence classes

Pigeons were trained on many-to-one matching in which pairs of samples, each consisting of a visual stimulus and a distinctive pattern of center-key responding, occasioned the same reinforced comparison choice. Acquired equivalence between the visual and response samples then was evaluated by reinforcing new comparison choices to one set of samples, and examining generalization of these choices to the other samples. Three separate experiments found no evidence of such generalization, as indexed by performance on class-consistent versus class-inconsistent tests. Other tests showed that the pigeons' center-key response patterns during training had indeed served as a conditional cue for choice. These results do not support the hypothesis that different defined responses can become members of acquired equivalence classes.     

A data-driven approach to neuropsychological features in isolated REM behaviour disorder: A latent class analysis

Recent evidence demonstrated that neuropsychological assessment may be considered a valid marker of neurodegeneration in idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder (iRBD). However, little is known about the possible neuropsychological heterogeneity within the iRBD population. This retrospective study aimed to identify and describe different neuropsychological phenotypes in iRBD patients by means of a data-driven approach using latent class analysis. A total of 289 iRBD patients underwent a neuropsychological assessment evaluating cognitive domains: global cognition, language, short- and long-term memory, executive functions and visuospatial abilities. The presence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) was also assessed. Latent class analysis was carried out to identify iRBD subtypes according to neuropsychological scores. The most parsimonious model identified three latent classes. Groups were labelled as follows: Class 2 “severely impaired” (n = 83/289): mean pathological scores in different tests, a high percentage of MCI multiple-domain and impairment in all neuropsychological domains. Class 1 “moderately impaired” (n = 44/289): mean neuropsychological score within the normal value, a high percentage of MCI (high risk to phenoconversion) and great impairment in the visuospatial domain. Class 3 “slightly impaired” (n = 162/289): no deficit worthy of attention except for short- and long-term memory. Our results suggest three different clinical phenotypes within the iRBD population. These findings may be relevant in the future for predicting the clinical trajectories of phenoconversion in iRBD.     

The Effects of Information About AIDS Risk and Self-Efficacy on Women's Intentions to Engage in AIDS Preventive Behavior1

Female college students' perceived vulnerability to AIDS and their perceived self-efficacy regarding AIDS preventive behavior (APB), were manipulated in a 2 × 2 design. Consistent with protection motivation theory (e. g., Rogers. 1983), the results showed that intention to engage in APB was highest among subjects who received information that their risk of getting infected with HIV was high, and who experienced relatively high feelings of self-efficacy. These subjects also seemed least likely to engage in denial of their AIDS risk. The implications of these findings for AIDS education programs are discussed.     

Relative size perception at a distance is best at eye level

Relative size judgments were collected for two objects at 30.5 m and 23.8 m from the observer in order to assess how performance depends on the relationship between the size of the objects and the eye level of the observer. In three experiments in an indoor hallway and in one experiment outdoors, accuracy was higher for objects in the neighborhood of eye level. We consider these results in the light of two hypotheses. One proposes that observers localize the horizon as a reference for judging relative size, and the other proposes that observers perceive the general neighborhood of the horizon and then employ a height-in-visual-field heuristic. The finding that relative size judgments are best around the horizon implies that information that is independent of distance perception is used in perceiving size.     

A computational model of the Simon effect

Even though stimulus location is task irrelevant, reaction times are faster when the location of the stimulus corresponds with the location of the response than when it does not. This phenomenon is called the Simon effect. Most accounts of the Simon effect are based on the assumption that it arises from a conflict between the spatial code of the stimulus and that of the response. In this paper a computational model of this hypothesis is presented. It provides a computationally explicit mechanism of the Simon effect. Consistent with human performance, the model provides reaction times that indicate both an advantage for the ipsilateral, corresponding response (i.e., facilitation) and a disadvantage of the contralateral, noncorresponding response (i.e., inhibition). In addition, the model accounts for the fact that the size for the effect depends on task difficulty.