A psychoanalytically informed hospitalization‐based treatment of personality disorders

This study presents a model of psychic change in personality disorders focusing on three dimensions: felt safety, mentalization and self‐object relations. Based upon this model a hospitalization‐based therapy program was created. Four scales to measure these three dimensions on the Object Relation Interview are discussed: the Felt Safety Scale, the Reflective Functioning Scale and the Bion Grid Scale and the Differentiation‐Relatedness Scale. A naturalistic symptom outcome study of the program showed a large effect on both symptoms and personality functioning. Furthermore, trajectory based on pre‐treatment patient characteristics (i.e., anaclitic versus introjective personality styles). Importantly, we also found a relation between symptomatic and personality change and change in felt safety and object relations. At 5‐year follow‐up, patients showed sustained improvement in symptomatic distress and further improvement in terms of personality and interpersonal functioning.     

Syllabic priming effects in picture naming in French: lost in the sea!

Ferrand, Segui, and Grainger (1996) found robust syllable priming effects in picture naming latencies: Pictures primed with their initial syllable (e.g., ba for baleine [whale]) were processed faster than pictures primed with a string of letters shorter or longer than their initial syllable (e.g., bal for baleine). However, in several studies, these priming effects have not been replicated in word naming or in picture naming either in Dutch or in English (Schiller, 1998, 1999, 2000). The present study was aimed at replicating syllable priming effects in picture naming in French using a masked priming paradigm. The study employed a larger number of participants and items than were used in the Ferrand et al. (1996) study. The syllable priming effect in picture naming latencies was not replicated. Subsampling procedures were then used to examine the stability of the Ferrand et al. (1996) pattern of results in picture naming in greater detail. The syllabic priming effect in picture naming turned out to be an extremely rare event.     

Shared representations in body perception

The ability to understand events that happen to other people is a characteristic feature of the human mind. Here, we investigate whether the links between mental representation of one's own body and the bodies of other people could form the basis of human social representations. We studied interpersonal body representation (IBR) in a series of behavioural cueing experiments. Subjects responded to tactile events on their own body after a visual event was presented in either the corresponding anatomical location on a model's body, or in a non-corresponding location. We found that reactions were faster when the visual cue was in register with the tactile stimulation. This effect was absent when identical visual events were presented on a non-body control stimulus, suggesting a body specific mechanism for interpersonal registration of purely sensory events. Similar interpersonal systems have been demonstrated previously for the coding of action and emotion, but we believe that our results provide the first behavioural evidence for interpersonal body representation at the purely sensory level. We show that a sensory processing mechanism specific for bodies is automatically activated when viewing another person. Interpersonal body representation may be an important precursor to empathy and theory of mind. In our social world, we understand the percepts of others by registering them against the representations used to perceive our own body, and this mechanism involves an interpersonal somatotopic map.     

Immobility and supination in garter snakes (Thamnophis elegans) following handling by human predators

A common response of animals to physical restraint is tonic immobility. The authors observed the behavior of garter snakes, Thamnophis elegans, in the field to determine the frequency of immobility as a response to handling. Most snakes fled after release, but the remainder remained immobile, sometimes on their backs (supination), for up to 10 min. Immobility was seen most often in pregnant snakes, which also were more likely than other snakes not to have moved before capture. Failure to move, either before or after capture, might be a consequence of the limited locomotory ability of gravid snakes. However, the lack of observations of interactions between snakes and their natural predators impedes researchers' understanding of the antipredator value, if any, of tonic immobility.