Multisensory self‐motion encoding in parietal cortex

Navigation through the environment requires the brain to process a number of incoming sensory signals, such as visual optical flow on the retina and motion information originating from the vestibular organs. In addition, tactile as well as auditory signals can help to disambiguate the continuous stream of incoming information and determining the signals resulting from one's own set of motion. In this review I will focus on the cortical processing of motion information in one subregion of the posterior parietal cortex, i.e., the ventral intraparietal area (VIP). I will review (1) electrophysiological data from single cell recordings in the awake macaque showing how self‐motion signals across different sensory modalities are represented within this area and (2) data from fMRI recordings in normal human subjects providing evidence for the existence of a functionally equivalent area of macaque area VIP in the human cortex.     

Intimate partner violence: A narrative review of the biological and psychological explanations for its causation

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major social and public health problem that affects men and women across the globe regardless of their culture, religion and other demographic characteristics. During the last 100 years many different theories have been proposed to explain the phenomenon of IPV. Much research is been conducted using these theories as a guiding or underlying framework. However, it is difficult to find a single account that provides a succinct and up-to-date overview of these theories. As a result considerable effort is required to identify and retrieve relevant papers to understand the various theories which attempt to explain IPV. This article attempts to provide a succinct and up-to-date integrative review of the biological and psychological explanations of IPV. Both perspectives have been critically evaluated in the light of the available literature and an attempt has been made to discuss the strengths and limitations of each perspective in shedding light on the causation of IPV.     

Shared representations between self and other: a social cognitive neuroscience view

The abilities to identify with others and to distinguish between self and other play a pivotal role in intersubjective transactions. Here, we marshall evidence from developmental science, social psychology and neuroscience (including clinical neuropsychology) that support the view of a common representation network (both at the computational and neural levels) between self and other. However, sharedness does not mean identicality, otherwise representations of self and others would completely overlap, and lead to confusion. We argue that self-awareness and agency are integral components for navigating within these shared representations. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in interpersonal awareness.     

HOMOSEXUALITY OR HOMOEROTICISM?: ‘NARCISSISTIC EROTICISM’

It may be dangerous for a psychoanalyst to let him/herself be influenced by the social and media pressure that proposes the use of the term 'homosexual' to describe the affective functioning of a homophile, for this assumes—from the outset—that it is of a truly sexual nature. However, following certain Freudian writings and the works of Férenczi in 1911, we know the different mechanisms of the narcissistic register that come into play in the quite particular relational behaviour that should more relevantly be called 'homoeroticism'. On the other hand, our diagnostic and therapeutic approach will benefit from not considering, at the outset, all the economically and psychogenetically very different varieties of homoeroticism, male or female, latent or manifest, in too global a fashion, with reference also to the Freudian concept of psychic bisexuality. The French psychoanalytical research team working with the author has focused on these important issues for a number of years now. This article aims to give a fairly brief account of its work, with the objective of opening up a discussion amongst psychoanalysts, within the framework of Freudian thought.     

Organizational Politics and Work Identity as Predictors of Organizational Commitment

Building on the organizational-politics (Kaemar & Baron, 1999) and social-identity (Hogg & Terry, 2000) literatures, we examined the moderating effect of work identity on the organizational-politics/organizational-commitment relationship. Data collected from 500 employees of a data-reporting organization and 943 employees of a customer-service organization indicate that employees who identified primarily with their occupations were less affected by the level of perceived politics in the organization in the consideration of their commitment than were employees who identified primarily with their employing organizations or one of its units. Implications for research and management practice are discussed.     

Volunteer Mentoring Relationships With Minority Youth: An Analysis of Same‐ Versus Cross‐Race Matches1

Despite the growth of youth mentoring programs in recent years, key questions remain regarding the relative importance of making matches on the basis of shared racial background. Both sides of the argument regarding racial matching are presented, followed by a comparison of the effects of same‐ vs. cross‐race matches involving minority youth (N= 476). Minority adolescents were less likely to report initiating alcohol when placed in cross‐race matches. In addition, minority boys in same‐race matches reported smaller decrements in scholastic competence and self‐worth than did minority boys in cross‐race matches. Minority girls in same‐race matches reported smaller decrements in school value and self‐worth than did minority girls in cross‐race matches. Youth, parent, and caseworker impressions of the 2 relationship types largely converged, but the few impressions that differed tended to favor cross‐race matches. The methodological limitations and implications of this study are discussed.     

Respective contributions of inhibition and knowledge levels in class inclusion development: a negative priming study

Dempster ( Dempster, 1995 ; Dempster & Corkill, 1999 ) proposed that developmental changes in performance on Piagetian tasks could be related to changes in inhibitory efficiency more than to logical development. In this study, the negative priming paradigm was adapted to the class inclusion task in order to investigate the role of inhibition and knowledge levels in the development of class inclusion. Participants were pre‐tested on two inclusion tasks, the standard Piagetian task and Markman's modification task, and assigned to different knowledge levels: empirical, and logical necessity. Children were then tested on a priming version of the class inclusion task. Results showed a negative priming effect, indicating that the irrelevant ‘subclass comparison strategy’ was actively inhibited during the processing of the class inclusion task. This effect was found to vary as a function of knowledge levels, indicating that the need for inhibition was reduced when children had attained logical necessity.     

Trieb und Instinkt

To say that human beings also have a self-preservation instinct just as animals is only meaningful in the sense of attachment and affection mediated by mutual communication. It is from the beginning covered up by the truly human sexual phenomena of seduction and narcissistic reciprocity. Beside that we have a sexual drive which has a more important, not to say, decisive role from birth until puberty. This latter is the subject of psychoanalysis because it is anchored in the unconscious. Finally, we also have an (innate, endogenic) sexual instinct which appears in puberty persisting the whole adult life and meets at its appearance the infantile sexual drive which was existing all the time. It is very difficult to give an epistemological definition of the (innate) sexual instinct because it does not manifest itself in a pure form, but only in unclear transactions with infantile sexuality dominating the unconscious. The subject of psychoanalysis is the unconscious and the unconscious is itself the sexuality sensu Freud, the pre-, para- or genital infantile sexuality. The sexual has its origins in the phantasy which is naturally anchored in our body.     

Interference in Visual Working Memory

This paper uses the theoretical distinction that has recently developed between the passive visual store and the active spatial rehearsal mechanism of the visuo-spatial component of working memory (VSSP). It examines the circumstances under which visual fields gain functional access to the passive visual store and seeks to cast light on the circumstances under which irrelevant visual fields interfere with concurrent visual processing. Experiment 1 contrasts a dynamic visual noise field with a static noise field and shows that the static field, in contrast to the dynamic noise field, causes no interference when presented concurrently with a visual task. Experiment 2 investigates the reason for this contrast and concludes that the static field is susceptible to decay and so fails to cause interference. Experiment 3 investigates further the circumstances under which dynamic visual noise causes interference and shows that manipulation of the number of changes within the noise field is also of importance in causing interference. The results allow further consideration of the characteristics of the VSSP.