Mother‐child relationships and creativity

The present study focused on the relationship between young children's level of differentiation and creative potential as assessed by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The mothers of high and low creative children were interviewed in order to establish the degree to which they encouraged differentiation in their children. Their level of involvement with their children was also evaluated using the Family Relations Test (FRT). Mothers of high creative children were less emotionally involved with their children than other mothers, less likely to be perceived as overprotective, and less likely to deny their feelings of hostility towards them. They were more self‐confident and self‐realized in their homes and had higher occupational levels than other mothers. The present study also assessed the level of differentiation in both creative and uncreative children with the Draw‐a‐Person and Kinetic Family Drawing Tests. Results indicated that highly creative children were more differentiated than uncreative children.     

Introduction

This symposium addresses a psychoanalytic lacuna: race. The papers it comprises, drawn from both clinical and academic precincts, pick up the thread of social commentary that runs through the psychoanalytic fabric. Here Psychoanalytic Dialogues joins other like-minded efforts to position the psychic and the social, the clinical and the cultural, in the same discourse, and to consider the painfulness of political inequity amid therapeutic intimacy. These essays demonstrate the clinical and intellectual benefits of the engagement with the disciplines characteristic of psychoanalysis in the previous generation. They also reveal how the evolution of psychoanalytic practice itself potentiates recognition of psychoanalytically marginalized dimensions of society and culture that constitute subjectivity and inform everyday clinical life.     

An Introduction to "The Neuroscience of Perceptual Integration"

An important goal in the study of object, word, and face perception is to understand how the brain integrates various visual features- the binding process. Along with the progress of knowledge of the neurophysiological properties of integration processes in cortical areas, a number of psychophysical, neuropsychological, and computational studies have provided information about how and in what conditions the visual system combines different signals across time and space, the factors that modulate integration processes, the local processes that control larger scale integration, and how the mechanisms can be implemented physiologically. This special issue is aimed at summarizing recent data about integration processes based on investigations ranging from the neurochemical substrate of integration processes, the role of attention in integrating characteristics, the spatial and temporal integration of local signals into coherentpercepts, the integration of visual information during the programming of saccade, and what remains when integration fails in neurologically impaired patients.     

Implicit and explicit object recognition at very large visual eccentricities: No improvement after loss of central vision

Little is known about the ability of human observers to process objects in the far periphery of their visual field and nothing about its evolution in case of central vision loss. We investigated implicit and explicit recognition at two large visual eccentricities. Pictures of objects were centred at 30° or 50° eccentricity. Implicit recognition was tested through a priming paradigm. Participants (normally sighted observers and people with 10–20 years of central vision loss) categorized pictures as animal/transport both in a study phase (Block 1) and in a test phase (Block 2). In explicit recognition participants decided for each picture presented in Block 2 whether it had been displayed in Block 1 (“yes”/“no”). Both visual (identical) and conceptual/lexical (same-name) priming occurred at 30° and at 50°. Explicit recognition was observed only at 30°. In people with central vision loss testing was only performed at 50° eccentricity. The pattern of results was similar to that of normally sighted observers but global performance was lower. The results suggest that vision, at large eccentricity, is mainly based on nonconscious coarse representations. Moreover, after 10–20 years of central vision loss, no evidence was found for an increased ability to use peripheral information in object recognition.     

Improving methodological and technological analyses of adaptive switch use of individuals with profound multiple impairments

Basic response–event relations can be difficult to demonstrate with individuals with profound multiple impairments who participate in adaptive switch programs. Numerous variables that impede learning and contribute to performance variability present challenges to assessment methods. As switch use may be the only operant under stimulus control with some individuals, however, improvement in assessment methods and measurement technology is important. In three case studies, response–event relations were examined in individuals who were provided with an adaptive switch that could activate an electronic leisure device. With two individuals, evidence of learning was assessed in a novel alternating‐treatments design. Switch use was compared under conditions in which switch closures produced activation and conditions in which closures deactivated the device. With the remaining individual, the effects of momentary activation by switch closure were compared to timed activation. Data were collected with a combination of data collection technologies. Whole‐session rate and response‐duration data provided some evidence of learning in all participants. Data also were converted into within‐session cumulative graphs, which aided data interpretation. The results demonstrate advances in assessment of learning in people with profound multiple impairments. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.