Visual category-selectivity for faces, places and objects emerges along different developmental trajectories

The organization of category-selective regions in ventral visual cortex is well characterized in human adults. We investigated a crucial, previously unaddressed, question about how this organization emerges developmentally. We contrasted the developmental trajectories for face-, object-, and place-selective activation in the ventral visual cortex in children, adolescents, and adults. Although children demonstrated adult-like organization in object- and place-related cortex, as a group they failed to show consistent face-selective activation in classical face regions. The lack of a consistent neural signature for faces was attributable to (1) reduced face-selectivity and extent of activation within the regions that will become the FFA, OFA, and STS in adults, and (2) smaller volumes and considerable variability in the locus of face-selective activation in individual children. In contrast, adolescents showed an adult-like pattern of face-selective activation, although it was more right-lateralized. These findings reveal critical age-related differences in the emergence of category-specific functional organization in the visual cortex and support a model of brain development in which specialization emerges from interactions between experience-dependent learning and the maturing brain.     

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.     

Perceived punishment and reward values of supervisor actions

The study investigated employee perceptions about the reward or punishment values inherent in a variety of supervisor actions. Actions viewed as most rewarding were generally actions that possessed (a) public visibility, (b) tangibility, (c) implied esteem, and (d) long-term implications. Actions viewed as punishing or aversive involved similar characteristics. Visibility appeared to be most strongly related to perceived severity. In contrast with suggestions in the literature (cf. León, 1981), substantial levels of agreement among raters were found for aversive as well as rewarding actions. Also reviewed are characteristics of leader actions that received mixed ratings from respondents.     

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.