Attachment-related strategies during thought suppression: ironic rebounds and vulnerable self-representations

The authors conducted 2 studies of attachment-related variations in thought suppression. Participants were asked, or not asked, to suppress thoughts about a relationship breakup and then to perform a Stroop task under high or low cognitive load. The dependent variables were the rebound, of previously suppressed separation-related thoughts (Study 1) and the accessibility of self-traits (Study 2). Under low cognitive load, avoidant individuals did not show any rebound of separation-related thoughts and activated positive self-representations. Under high cognitive load, avoidant participants failed to suppress thoughts of separation and were more likely to activate negative self-representations. Attachment anxiety was associated with high activation of negative self-representations and unremitting separation-related thoughts. The results are discussed in terms of the hidden vulnerabilities of avoidant individuals.     

Genes and memory: the neuroanatomical correlates of emotional memory in monozygotic twin discordant for schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: Brain morphology and physiological measures in schizophrenia have yielded inconsistent results. This may be due in part to difficulties in ascertaining precisely to what degree each measure deviates from its genetically and environmentally determined potential level. We attempted to surmount this problem in a paradigm involving monozygotic twin pair discordant for schizophrenia. In this paradigm, the difference score and reaction time between the unaffected member and affected member of a twin pair should represent the degree of pathologic involvement irrespective of actual level. METHOD: We investigated, using fMRI, the neural substrate underlying encoding and retrieval of aversive and neutral IAPS pictures. RESULTS: An ANOVA on reaction time (RT) between schizophrenia patient (J) and normal sister (D) significant difference, (F = 5.2, p < or = .02) for J had less RT than D. Conversely, the ANOVA for the correct pictures retrieved was insignificant (F = 1.8, p < or = .2). When the brain activity associated with the encoding and retrieval of the aversive pictures was subtracted (J-D and D-J) from that associated with the neutral ones, significant loci of activation were found. During encoding: for J-D the right fusiform gyrus was significantly activated (p < .0001) and for D-J the orbitofrontal cortex was significantly activated (p < .05). During retrieval: for J-D the right anterior cingulate (p < .0001) was activated and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (p < .002). For D-J only the cerebellum showed activation (p < .0001). CONCLUSION: Results indicated subtle attenuations in some aspects of memory, thus providing another evidence for cognitive markers of a genetic component in schizophrenia. New approaches in neuropsychiatry-based on genetic methodologies should further define the cerebral physiology responsible for schizophrenia.     

Index of Subjects

Subject Index

Index of Subjects     

Anandamide and memory in CD1 mice: effects of immobilization stress and of prior experience

Five sets of experiments were carried out with CD1 mice tested in a one-trial inhibitory avoidance task. In a first set, immediately posttraining administrations of the endogenous ligand for the cannabinoid CB1 receptor anandamide (arachidonylethanolamide) (3 or 6 mg/kg) dose-dependently impaired memory consolidation in mice. A lower dose (1.5 mg/kg) was ineffective. In a second set of experiments, which was carried out at the same time of the first set, preexposure of the animals to the testing apparatus decreased the effect of the drug, as compared with non-preexposed mice. In a third set of experiments, administration of anandamide (3 or 6 mg/kg) prior to the retention test did not affect the retention performance of mice given posttraining injections of either saline or anandamide. These findings indicate that the memory-impairing effects of posttraining administration of anandamide are not state-dependent. In the fourth and fifth series of experiments, carried out with non-preexposed mice, an otherwise ineffective immobilization stress (15 min) enhanced the memory-impairing effect of anandamide, and an otherwise ineffective dose of naltrexone (0.1 mg/kg) completely antagonized the effect. The results are discussed in terms of attenuation of emotionality, resulting in impaired retention, following anandamide administration, and of involvement of opioid system in the effect of this drug.     

Evidence for a double dissociation between spatial-simultaneous and spatial-sequential working memory in visuospatial (nonverbal) learning disabled children

The paper describes the performance of three children with specific visuospatial working memory (VSWM) impairments (Study 1) and three children with visuospatial (nonverbal) learning disabilities (Study 2) assessed with a battery of working memory (WM) tests and with a number of school achievement tasks. Overall, performance on WM tests provides evidence of a double dissociation between spatial-simultaneous processes, underpinning the memorization item positioning in a spatial configuration, and spatial-sequential processes, which allow memorization of the presentation order. In both groups of children of the two studies, a selective impairment either on spatial-sequential or on spatial-simultaneous working memory tasks was observed. These data support the existence of -simultaneous and -sequential modality-dependent processes in visuospatial working memory and confirm the importance of distinguishing between different subtypes of visuospatial (nonverbal) learning-disabled children.     

Frequency effects with visual words and syllables in a dyslexic reader

The present study investigated the nature of the inhibitory syllable frequency effect, recently reported for normal readers, in a German-speaking dyslexic patient. The reading impairment was characterized as a severe deficit in naming single letters or words in the presence of spared lexical processing of visual word forms. Three visual lexical decision experiments were conducted with the dyslexic patient, an unimpaired control person matched to the patient and a control group: Experiment 1 manipulated the frequency of words and word-initial syllables and demonstrated systematic effects of both factors in normal readers and in the dyslexic patient. The syllable frequency effect was replicated in a second experiment with a more strictly controlled stimulus set. Experiment 3 confirmed the patient's deficit in activating phonological forms from written words by demonstrating that a pseudohomophone effect as observed in the unimpaired control participants was absent in the dyslexic patient.     

Attachment style, excessive reassurance seeking, relationship processes, and depression

The authors examined the association between excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) in couple relationships and depression, hypothesizing that this association can be explained by attachment anxiety. In Study 1, 72 couples completed questionnaires about ERS, depression, attachment style, and relationship quality. In Study 2, 61 couples completed the same measures in addition to completing daily diary assessments for 14 days. In both studies, ERS was related to depression, but only because of its association with attachment anxiety. The association between attachment anxiety and depression was not mediated by either partner's relationship quality, even though partners noticed each other's ERS. Instead, relationship quality was related primarily to avoidant attachment. These findings were replicated at a daily level of analysis, where interesting details of the underlying processes were revealed. At least in young unmarried couples, depression is associated with attachment anxiety--and one of its facets, ERS--mostly for intrapsychic reasons.     

A program for the semantics of science

Concluding remarks Our program is ambitious, as is any attempt to match life (in our case real science) with virtue (e.g., exactness). We want our semantics to be not only simia mathematicae but also ancilla scientiae: built more geometrico and at the same time relevant, nay useful, to live science. The goal of exactness may sound arrogant but is actually modest, for the more we rigorize the more we are forced to leave out of consideration, at least for the time being. As to the service intention: we should try to be of some help to science because the latter faces semantic problems but has no tools of its own for solving them. If it had such tools scientists would not engage in spirited polemics over matters of sense and reference, as they often do. Witness the debates on whether the relativistic and quantum theories are concerned with sentient observers, whether population genetics refers to populations taken as wholes, whether psychology is actually concerned with the brain, and whether the sense of a theory is excreted by its mathematical formalism or is determined by the way the theory is tested.A semantics of science should help settle these and similar issues. Moreover it should give sound advice as to how to formulate scientific theories so as to avoid such imprecisions and ambiguities as may give rise to debates of the kind. Constructing such a semantics, both exact and relevant to science, should be more rewarding than either manufacturing neat but irrelevant theories or pursuing erratic polemics on meaning and meaning changes.

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The Syzygy,Reformulation and New Perspectives: Dreams,Anima-Animus and Gender1

The main objective of this qualitative and quantitative research paper is to explore the occurrences and relations of the anima, animus and androgynous in dreams, with particular emphasis on the consideration of the androgynous in the human psyche. The sample consists of 9 series of dreams (141 dreams in total), from 9 dreamers, 7 women (female sex/gender) and 2 men (male sex/gender), aged 25–57, heterosexual, undergoing Jungian psychotherapy, and presenting couple-related themes. Statistical results and qualitative analysis offer new input for the re-vision of the classical anima-animus model, and the addition of in-depth explorations into the androgynous, paving the way for a new model of psychopathology and psychotherapeutic clinical work, in transition.