Sibling rivalry,separation, and change in Austen's Sense and Sensibility

The paper explores a process of growth represented in the interplay of Jane Austen's characterizations of Marianne and Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, approaching the text through the lens of psychoanalytic theories on oedipal sibling rivalry, separation, and processes of change. A close reading of Sense and Sensibility tracks Marianne Dashwood's repudiation of any ‘second attachment’ as the surface of an unconscious fantasy, denying a rival for the mother's love. A psychoanalytic view contrasts Marianne's lack of separation from her mother, her use of denial and projection, and her near death after losing the man she loves, with her older sister Elinor Dashwood's capacities for depression, reflection, and greater acceptance of loss and separation. The narrative portrays Mrs. Dashwood's identification with and idealization of her daughter Marianne, which contribute to her oedipal sibling ‘victory’. In the language and structure of the novel, the projections, identifications, aggressions, and separations (conscious and unconscious) of the sisters in the vicissitudes of their adolescent loves and rivalries constitute a process of growth. Austen's novel brings to life, with the vividness and coherence of great literature, forces and fantasies in oedipal sibling rivalries, inspiring renewed attention to their subtle presence in the transference and countertransference of the psychoanalytic process.     

Action Interrupted: Movement and Breakpoints in the Processing of Motion Violations in Toddlers and Adults

From early in development, segmenting events unfolding in the world in meaningful ways renders input more manageable and facilitates interpretation and prediction. Yet, little is known about how children process action structure in events composed of multiple coarse-grained actions. More importantly, little is known about the time course of action processing in young children or about the specific features that recruit attention. This is particularly true when we consider action that pauses unexpectedly—as actions sometimes do—thereby violating the expectation of a continuous unfolding of motion. We assessed visual preference to intact and disrupted actions embedded within a multiaction event in toddlers and adults. In 1 condition, pauses were inserted at intact action boundaries, whereas in the other condition, they disrupted action. Attention in both groups was recruited to the disrupted relative to intact events. Time-course analyses, however, revealed developmental differences in sensitivity to the movement features (e.g., motion, pauses, and transitions) of disrupted events.     

The Use of Prospective Versus Retrospective Pretests with Child-Welfare Involved Families

The purpose of the current study is to examine the use of both a prospective and a retrospective pretest in evaluating the impact of the Strengthening Families Program on foster care involved families affected by parental substance abuse. Debate has existed in the literature for over 60 years regarding the use of retrospective pretests in assessing self-reported program impact, with key stakeholders often arguing strongly that, due to response-shift bias, sensitization, and the nature of many human service settings, retrospective pretesting may be more appropriate. However, program evaluators must also incorporate into the evaluation design funding mandates to collect data at specific points in time. In order to mitigate potential pretest-only biases and enhance the evaluation’s rigor, this study sought to address the pretest debate through the use of both a traditional, prospective pretest and a retrospective pretest. Using data provided by 411 caregivers, program effectiveness was measured in the areas of family, child and parent functioning. Statistical significance tests and effect sizes were analyzed to compare traditional prospective pretest to posttest scores and retrospective pretests to posttest scores. Findings indicate that overall, the Strengthening Families Program positively impacted family, child and parent functioning and that there were few differences between testing approaches when testing for statistical significance; however, relative differences between prospective pretests and retrospective pretests appeared more prominent in effect size computations. This research informs the longstanding debate, and suggests that program evaluators consider the advantages and disadvantages of using a retrospective pretest in design planning.     

Genetic Knowledge Among Participants in the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative

Genetic literacy is essential for the effective integration of genomic information into healthcare; yet few recent studies have been conducted to assess the current state of this knowledge base. Participants in the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative (CPMC), a prospective study assessing the impact of personalized genetic risk reports for complex diseases and drug response on behavior and health outcomes, completed genetic knowledge questionnaires and other surveys through an online portal. To assess the association between genetic knowledge and genetic education background, multivariate linear regression was performed. 4 062 participants completed a genetic knowledge and genetic education background questionnaire. Most were older (mean age: 50), Caucasian (90 %), female (59 %), highly educated (69 % bachelor’s or higher), with annual household income over $100 000 (49 %). Mean percent correct was 76 %. Controlling for demographics revealed that health care providers, participants previously exposed to genetics, and participants with ‘better than most’ self-rated knowledge were significantly more likely to have a higher knowledge score (p?<?0.001). Overall, genetic knowledge was high with previous genetic education experience predictive of higher genetic knowledge score. Education is likely to improve genetic literacy, an important component to expanded use of genomics in personalized medicine.     

Rhythmic entrainment: Why humans want to,fireflies can’t help it,pet birds try,and sea lions have to be bribed

Until recently, the literature on rhythmic ability took for granted that only humans are able to synchronize body movements to an external beat—to entrain. This assumption has been undercut by findings of beat-matching in various species of parrots and, more recently, in a sea lion, several species of primates, and possibly horses. This throws open the question of how widespread beat-matching ability is in the animal kingdom. Here we reassess the arguments and evidence for an absence of beat-matching in animals, and conclude that in fact no convincing case against beat-matching in animals has been made. Instead, such evidence as there is suggests that this capacity could be quite widespread. Furthermore, mutual entrainment of oscillations is a general principle of physical systems, both biological and nonbiological, suggesting that entrainment of motor systems by sensory systems may be a default rather than an oddity. The question then becomes, not why a few privileged species are able to beat-match, but why species do not always do so—why they vary in both spontaneous and learned beat-matching. We propose that when entrainment is not driven by fixed, mandatory connections between input and output (as in the case of, e.g., fireflies entraining to each others’ flashes), it depends on voluntary control over, and voluntary or learned coupling of, sensory and motor systems, which can paradoxically lead to apparent failures of entrainment. Among the factors that affect whether an animal will entrain are sufficient control over the motor behavior to be entrained, sufficient perceptual sophistication to extract the entraining beat from the overall sensory environment, and the current cognitive state of the animal, including attention and motivation. The extent of entrainment in the animal kingdom potentially has widespread implications, not only for understanding the roots of human dance, but also for understanding the neural and cognitive architectures of animals.     

THE HUMAN HEARTH AND THE DAWN OF MORALITY

Stunned by the implications of Colagè's analysis of the cultural activation of the brain's Visual Word Form Area and the potential role of cultural neural reuse in the evolution of biology and culture, the authors build on his work in proposing a context for the first rudimentary hominin moral systems. They cross‐reference six domains: neuroscience on sleep, creativity, plasticity, and the Left Hemisphere Interpreter; palaeobiology; cognitive science; philosophy; traditional archaeology; and cognitive archaeology's theories on sleep changes in Homo erectus and consequences for later humans. The authors hypothesize that the human genome, when analyzed with findings from neuroscience and cognitive science, will confirm the evolutionary timing of an internal running monologue and other neural components that constitute moral decision making. The authors rely on practical modern philosophers to identify continuities with earlier primates, and one major discontinuity—some bright white moral line that may have been crossed more than once during the long and successful tenure of Homo erectus on Earth.