The effects of risk on initial trust formation

This paper seeks to expand our understanding of initial trust by looking at how variation in risk influences the nature of trust and the process of initial trust formation. Four hypotheses were tested in two experiments involving participants with and without work experience. A first hypothesis suggested a positive relationship between a general propensity to trust and initial trust; a second hypothesis, a negative relationship between risk and initial trust; whereas a third hypothesis posited that risk would increase the importance participants place on benevolence and integrity. A fourth hypothesis suggested that risk would have a positive and moderating influence on the effect of out‐of‐role behavior when presented after role‐conformant in‐role behavior. Findings are presented and discussed and practical implications suggested.     

Trauma and the transference‐countertransference: working with the bad object and the wounded self

This paper focuses on the transference‐countertransference dynamics that manifest in work with those individuals who experienced severe early relational trauma and, in particular, childhood sexual abuse. The literature is surveyed from Davies and Frawley's (1992a) seminal paper through to more current trauma‐related and sensorimotor approaches, which deepen our understanding greatly. The rapidly shifting, powerful, conflicting and kaleidoscopic transference‐countertransference dynamics are explored in the light of these views and in relation to a lengthy clinical example. The author elucidates the dual‐aspect of the traumatic complex, whereby the abuser figure, which is disavowed by the patient, becomes manifest in prosecuting the analyst for the ‘wounds’ that the analysis evokes. The paper also explores the particular nature of the splitting processes, whereby pressure is put on the analyst to adopt an idealized role, in particular to act as a self‐object, in order to enable the patient to safely express and ‘be’ themselves in an attempt to make up for what was not possible in childhood; the analyst will necessarily fail in this task. In the context of powerful masochisto‐sadistic dynamics, the analyst's masochism is likely to be called up in the spirit of caring ‘humanity’ (another inevitable enactment), which can impede the progress of the analysis if not addressed. The extreme woundedness, intense affect and moral outrage associated with these dynamics are characteristic and compelling. Issues relating to disclosure, enactment and analytic attitude are also discussed.     

Explaining the theory of mind deficit in autism spectrum disorder

The theory of mind (ToM) deficit associated with autism has been a central topic in the debate about the modularity of the mind. Most involved in the debate about the explanation of the ToM deficit have failed to notice that autism’s status as a spectrum disorder has implications about which explanation is more plausible. In this paper, I argue that the shift from viewing autism as a unified syndrome to a spectrum disorder increases the plausibility of the explanation of the ToM deficit that appeals to a domain-specific, higher-level ToM module. First, I discuss what it means to consider autism as a spectrum rather than as a unified disorder. Second, I argue for the plausibility of the modular explanation on the basis that autism is better considered as a spectrum disorder. Third, I respond to a potential challenge to my account from Philip Gerrans and Valerie Stone’s recent work (Gerrans, Biol Philos 17:305–321, 2002; Stone and Gerrans, Trends Cogn Sci 10:3–4, 2006a; Soc Neurosci 1:309–319, 2006b; Gerrans and Stone, Br J Philos Sci 59:121–141, 2008).     

A brief assessment of concerns associated with genetic testing for cancer: the Multidimensional Impact of Cancer Risk Assessment (MICRA) questionnaire.

The Multidimensional Impact of Cancer Risk Assessment (MICRA) is a new tool to measure the specific impact of result disclosure after genetic testing. The authors compared its performance with that of questionnaires measuring general and cancer-specific distress. Participants (158 women) responded 1 month after they received genetic test results. The women were divided into 4 standard clinical test result groups: BRCA1/2 positive, BRCA1/2 negative, panel negative, and true negative. Factor analysis supported the formation of 3 subscales: Distress (6 items, alpha = .86), Uncertainty (9 items, alpha = .77), and Positive Experiences (4 items, alpha = .75). All 3 MICRA subscales differentiated participants who were BRCA1/2 positive from the other 3 groups. MICRA thus helps identify subgroups of vulnerable genetic testing participants.     

What Are You Waiting For? Real‐Time Integration of Cues for Fricatives Suggests Encapsulated Auditory Memory

Speech unfolds over time, and the cues for even a single phoneme are rarely available simultaneously. Consequently, to recognize a single phoneme, listeners must integrate material over several hundred milliseconds. Prior work contrasts two accounts: (a) a memory buffer account in which listeners accumulate auditory information in memory and only access higher level representations (i.e., lexical representations) when sufficient information has arrived; and (b) an immediate integration scheme in which lexical representations can be partially activated on the basis of early cues and then updated when more information arises. These studies have uniformly shown evidence for immediate integration for a variety of phonetic distinctions. We attempted to extend this to fricatives, a class of speech sounds which requires not only temporal integration of asynchronous cues (the frication, followed by the formant transitions 150–350 ms later), but also integration across different frequency bands and compensation for contextual factors like coarticulation. Eye movements in the visual world paradigm showed clear evidence for a memory buffer. Results were replicated in five experiments, ruling out methodological factors and tying the release of the buffer to the onset of the vowel. These findings support a general auditory account for speech by suggesting that the acoustic nature of particular speech sounds may have large effects on how they are processed. It also has major implications for theories of auditory and speech perception by raising the possibility of an encapsulated memory buffer in early auditory processing.     

Pseudohomophone Naming and the Word Frequency Effect

An experiment by McCann and Besner (1987) suggested that non-words that are homophonic with a high-frequency word (e.g. “keap”) are named in the same amount of time as non-words that are homophonic with a low-frequency word (e.g. “fome”), despite such pseudohomophones being faster to name than non-pseudohomophones (e.g. “feap”, “yome”). Such a result is a challenge to any model of lexical processing that places the word-frequency effect at the stage when the word is being selected from amongst all lexical entries. McCann and Besner propose a complex alternative account where frequency effects arise at a later stage of processing, a stage that is not involved in the naming of pseudohomophones. The purpose of the present study is to look for a frequency effect in the naming of pseudohomophones, controlling for orthographic factors that McCann and Besner ignored. The first experiment, using a homophone decision task, establishes a set of items that produce a clear frequency effect. These items are then used in a naming experiment which also reveals a clear frequency effect for those subjects who make use of a lexical route when pronouncing pseudohomophones. It is concluded from this that the complex model developed by McCann and Besner is unnecessary.     

Rumination and worrying as possible mediators in the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety in clinically depressed individuals

Rumination and worrying are considered possible mediating variables that may explain the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety. The current study sought to examine the mediational effects of rumination and worry in the relationships between neuroticism and symptoms of depression and anxiety in a sample of clinically depressed individuals (N = 198). All patients completed a battery of questionnaires including measures of neuroticism, rumination, worrying, depression, and anxiety. Results showed that in subsequent analyses, rumination and worrying both mediated the relation between neuroticism and depression and anxiety. When rumination and worrying were simultaneously entered in the mediation analysis, only rumination was found to mediate the relation between neuroticism and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Two components of rumination (i.e., brooding and reflection) were also analyzed in the mediational analysis. Both reflection and brooding were significant mediators with respect to depressive symptoms, whereas brooding was the only significant mediator in relation to anxiety symptoms. The results are discussed in the light of current theories, previous research, and recent treatment developments. Clinical implications and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Speed limits: orientation and semantic context interactions constrain natural scene discrimination dynamics

The visual system rapidly extracts information about objects from the cluttered natural environment. In 5 experiments, the authors quantified the influence of orientation and semantics on the classification speed of objects in natural scenes, particularly with regard to object-context interactions. Natural scene photographs were presented in an object-discrimination task and pattern masked with various scene-to-mask stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs). Full psychometric functions and reaction times (RTs) were measured. The authors found that (a) rotating the full scenes increased threshold SOA at intermediate rotation angles but not for inversion; (b) rotating object or context degraded classification performance in a similar manner; (c) semantically congruent contexts had negligible facilitatory effects on object classification compared with meaningless baseline contexts with a matching contrast structure, but incongruent contexts severely degraded performance; (d) any object-context incongruence (orientation or semantic) increased RTs at longer SOAs, indicating dependent processing of object and context; and (e) facilitatory effects of context emerged only when the context shortly preceded the object. The authors conclude that the effects of natural scene context on object classification are primarily inhibitory and discuss possible reasons.