Cued visual attention does not distinguish between occluded and occluding objects

Does visual attention spread from the cued end of an occluded object to locations occupied by inferred portions of that object? We investigated this question by using a probe detection paradigm with two-dimensional (2-D) displays of occluded objects. Probes could appear in occluded or nonoccluded locations on either a cued or noncued object. Participants responded faster to probes appearing within the region of space occupied by the cued object. This was true not only when the probe appeared in positions separated from the cued location by an occluder (as demonstrated by Moore, Yantis, & Vaughan, 1998), but also when it appeared in positions on the occluder itself. Thus, results suggest that cued facilitation spreads to regions of noncued occluding objects that overlap cued occluded objects in 2-D space.     

PHYSICAL AND PSYCHIATRIC CORRELATES OF GENDER DISCRIMINATION

We tested the model that sexist discrimination, measured by the Schedule of Sexist Events (SSE), would account for additional variance in women's physical and psychiatric symptoms, above and beyond that accounted for by generic stressors. A series of hierarchical regression analyses, predicting symptoms on 10 different symptom outcome measures from generic stress and sexist stress (discrimination) were conducted, with the generic stressors entered on the first step and sexist discrimination on the second. Results revealed that sexist discrimination contributed significantly to the variance in women's symptoms, accounting for additional variance in those symptoms. Furthermore, sexist discrimination accounted for more of the variance than did generic stressors in premenstrual, depressive, obsessive-compulsive, somatic, and total psychiatric and physical symptoms. These findings varied with the age and ethnicity of the women and with the symptom measure used, but nonetheless suggest that sexist discrimination plays a significant role in women's most prevalent symptoms.     

Dependence: A means or an impediment to growth?

Dependence is generally viewed negatively, and in therapeutic situations it is often considered to be 'unhealthy'. In object relations theory and attachment theory, however, it is acknowledged that dependent or care-seeking behaviour is activated even in 'healthy' adults in times of distress. This suggests that dependency is likely to be an issue for all professionals whose work involves a counselling element. In order to investigate views of dependency in the therapeutic relationship, an exploratory qualitative study was conducted with three focus groups. The resulting data indicate considerable concern relating to issues of dependency, and a need for more rigorous research into the management of client dependency.     

BOOK REVIEW

Book reviewed in this article: The Family Therapy of Drug Abuse and Addiction M. Duncan Stanton, Thomas C. Todd, and Associates New York: Guilford Press, 1982.     

Hemispheric specialization for the perception of speech sounds: The influence of intonation and structure

The present report investigates the effect of various cues to phrase structure upon the hemispherically lateralized processing of phonetic structure. Meaningless sequences were paired for dichotic presentation and were delivered under two different conditions termed structured and semistructured. The dichotic sequences in the two conditions contained the same nonsense syllable stems, English bound morphemes, and English function words. Also each of the sequences in both conditions were grammatically ordered in the sense that if the nonsense stems were replaced by English stems, a grammatical sentence would result. The conditions differed with respect to prosody, however: the structured sequences were characterized by the acoustic correlates of constituent structure; the semistructured sequences were delivered in a monotone. A significant right-ear superiority was observed in the structured condition, but not in the semistructured condition. These perceptual laterality differences are discussed in relation to cerebral dominance for language and in relation to speech processing generally.     

Conditioned fear-induced opiate analgesia on the Formalin test: Evidence for two aversive motivational systems

Fear, conditioned to apparatus cues associated with electric shock, was measured by recording freezing. Pain reactivity was simultaneously measured by recording the paw-licking and paw-lifting response to Formalin injected into a paw. Stimuli associated with shock produced freezing and inhibited the responses to Formalin; whereas various control stimuli did neither. These results indicate that one of the responses to fear is analgesia. The opiate antagonist naltrexone reversed this analgesia, suggesting that the analgesia has an opiate nature. The results were interpreted in terms of a two-aversive-motivational-systems model. One system, the pain system, is instigated by tissue-damaging stimuli and produces recuperative behavior that functions to promote healing. The other system, the fear system, is triggered by conditioned fear stimuli. It produces species-specific defensive reactions and also inhibits the pain system via analgesia.     

Assessment as Intervention: A Pilot Study of Short-Term Dyadic Treatment

Assessment, as an intervention, is a hallmark of infant mental health that has not been evaluated for treatment effectiveness. A comprehensive assessment framework was standardized as a short-term intervention model and evaluated for treatment effects based on dynamic systems theory of change. The transdisciplinary interaction-based assessment model embeds nondidactic developmental guidance interpretations in the context of eliciting child functional capacities while engaging the caregiver in direct co-observation and reflection to challenge inflexibility in parents’ representations. The findings of this pilot project, with a community sample of Spanish- and English-speaking families, suggest this assessment as intervention model has the potential to promote an active process of change in parents’ representations toward a “disorderly,” or unstable state, possibly both in perceptions of self as caregiver and in representations of the child. Clinically, this disorderly state would be seen as an opportunity that could perpetuate the change process, recognizing disorderliness of representation as an opening, as emerging permeability of representations. Results indicate that this caregiver-clinician collaborative process is associated with caregiver reports of decreased distress, increased empathy for child’s difficulties, and changes in caregiver representations. A subset of families, caregivers who hold immutable views of their children, are less responsive to the developmental guidance approach and may require different or more long-term treatment.