Infant responsiveness and maternal confidence in the neonatal period

Responsiveness in prematurely and term-born infants was studied cross-sectionally in relation to maternal confidence. Orientation and arousal were measured in 140 prematurely (mean BW 1,398 g, GA 30.1 weeks) and 75 term-born infants (mean BW 3,613 g, GA 39.3 weeks) with the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scales. Mothers filled out the Maternal Confidence Questionnaire and a modified version of the Parenting Stress Index. Prematurely born infants had a significantly lower level of arousal than term-born neonates. Responsiveness was not associated with maternal confidence. Lower confidence was associated with primiparity in both groups of mothers. Multiparous mothers of prematurely born infants had significantly lower levels of confidence than multiparous mothers of term-born infants. Confidence was significantly associated with stress for mothers of prematurely and term-born infants, and may be focused in follow-up after giving birth. Prematurely born infants should be examined more thoroughly in aspects of arousal at the time of discharge.     

Tracking the mind during reading via eye movements: comments on Kliegl, Nuthmann, and Engbert (2006)

R. Kliegl, A. Nuthmann, and R. Engbert reported an impressive set of data analyses dealing with the influence of the prior, present, and next word on the duration of the current eye fixation during reading. They argued that outcomes of their regression analyses indicate that lexical processing is distributed across a number of words during reading. The authors of this comment question their conclusions and address 4 different issues: (a) whether there is evidence for distributed lexical processing, (b) whether so-called parafoveal-on-foveal effects are widespread, (c) the role of correlational analyses in reading research, and (d) problems in their analyses because they use only cases in which words are fixated exactly once.     

The role of spatial and nonspatial information in visual selection

Even though it is undisputed that prior information regarding the location of a target affects visual selection, the issue of whether information regarding nonspatial features, such as color and shape, has similar effects has been a matter of debate since the early 1980s. In the study described in this article, measures derived from signal detection theory were used to show that perceptual sensitivity is affected by a top-down set for spatial information but not by a top-down set for nonspatial information. This indicates that knowing where the target singleton is affects perceptual selectivity but that knowing what it is does not help selectivity. Furthermore, perceptual sensitivity can be enhanced by nonspatial features, but only through a process related to bottom-up priming. These findings have important implications for models of visual selection.     

Displayed emotions and witness credibility: a comparison of judgements by individuals and mock juries

Mock juries of 5–7 jurors viewed one of three video‐recorded versions of a rape victim's testimony, role‐played by a professional actress. The statement was given in a free‐recall manner with one of three kinds of emotions displayed, termed congruent, neutral and incongruent emotional expressions. The juries were requested to reach a decision on items in a short questionnaire, probing the perceived credibility of the witness and judgements of the probability of a guilty verdict. The jurors were then asked to complete the questionnaire a second time, individually and anonymously. A control group filled out the questionnaire individually without preceding jury deliberations. When participants judged credibility and guilt independently, without a preceding jury discussion, the displayed emotions strongly influenced the judgements. However, discussions in the context of the jury strongly attenuated the effect of displayed emotion, with judgements converging on the credibility of a neutral emotional expression as judged by independent participants, and the attenuating effect outlasted the jury‐situation. The results are consistent with research within social psychology showing that social stereotypes and prejudices are often neutralised by group discussions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Agentic and communal bias in socially desirable responding

This research was designed to investigate Paulhus' communion management (CM) and self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE), socially desirable responding (SDR) scales as measures of general SDR, communal bias and agentic bias. The CM and SDE scales, as well as the Schwartz values survey (SVS), were administered to four samples drawn from different cultures and subcultures (N = 900). Participants completed the questionnaires in ‘honest’ and ‘fake good’ conditions. Although conceptions of which values were desirable varied strongly between samples and instructional sets, the CM scale was consistently related to general SDR and to communal bias. In contrast, the SDE scale was only related to general SDR. Contrary to expectations, neither scale could identify participants who ‘faked good’ under normal instructions. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mothers' attachment status as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview predicts their 6-year-olds' reunion responses: a study conducted in Japan

Following a 1986 study reporting a predominance of ambivalent attachment among insecure Sapporo infants, the generalizability of attachment theory and methodologies to Japanese samples has been questioned. In this 2nd study of Sapporo mother-child dyads (N=43), the authors examined attachment distributions for both (a) child, based on M. Main and J. Cassidy's (1988) 6th-year reunion, and (b) adult, via the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In contrast to the previous Sapporo study, children's 3-way or "organized" distribution did not differ from the global distribution. However, when the disorganized-controlling (D) and cannot classify (CC) categories were applied to the analyses, a high proportion of D/CC children was found. Comparable analyses for Japanese mothers, including the unresolved/disorganized (U) and CC categories, were found to deviate slightly from the global norm. However, turning from global distributions to mothers' AAI classification as related to their child's reunion classification, all matches were surprisingly close to those established worldwide. When, as is customary, mothers' U and CC classifications were combined (U/CC) and compared with the child's D and CC classifications (also customarily combined as D/CC), mothers' U/CC status strongly predicted child D/CC status (r=.60, d=1.50). Additionally, mothers' AAI subclassifications predicted child subclassifications.     

‘What’s in a name?’ ‘No more than when it's mine own’. Evidence from auditory oddball distraction

Research of the distractor value of hearing the own name has shown that this self-referring stimulus captures attention in an involuntary fashion and create distraction. The behavioral studies are few and the outcomes are not always clear cut. In this study the distraction by own name compared to a control name was investigated by using a cross-modal oddball task in two experiments. In the first experiment, thirty-nine participants were conducting a computerized categorization task while exposed to, to-be ignored own and matched control names (controlling for familiarity, gender and number of syllables) as unexpected auditory deviant stimulus (12.5% trials for each name category) and a sine wave tone as a standard stimulus (75% of the trials). In the second experiment, another group of thirty-nine participants completed the same task but with the additional deviant stimulus of an irrelevant word added (10% trials for each deviant type and 70% trials with the standard stimulus). Results showed deviant distraction by exposure to both the irrelevant word, own and the control name compared to the standard tone but no differences were found showing that the own name captured attention and distracted the participants more than an irrelevant word or a control name. The results elucidate the role of the own name as a potent auditory distractor and possible limitations with its theoretical significance for general theories of attention are discussed.     

Contemporary Directions in Theories and Psychotherapeutic Strategies in Treatment of Personality Disorders: Relation to Level of Personality Functioning

In this commentary on treatment strategies for personality disorders, we analyze each of the cases and the problem of low motivation in terms of how they fit with the Level of Personality Functioning scale. We then show how patients vary in terms of both level and breadth of pathology. Three of the articles describe patients who are severely impaired and strategies suggested are understood in terms of working with differentiation. The additional three articles present cases where patients have a higher level of personality functioning, and strategies are seen as interventions aimed at integration and improved adaptation. Based on this finding, we argue that the Level of Personality Functioning could be a useful assessment method for improving treatment selection. Finally, we raise questions and offer considerations regarding the understanding of empathy, low motivation and autobiographical memory in the cases presented.