Neural bases of binocular rivalry

During binocular rivalry, conflicting monocular images compete for access to consciousness in a stochastic, dynamical fashion. Recent human neuroimaging and psychophysical studies suggest that rivalry entails competitive interactions at multiple neural sites, including sites that retain eye-selective information. Rivalry greatly suppresses activity in the ventral pathway and attenuates visual adaptation to form and motion; nonetheless, some information about the suppressed stimulus reaches higher brain areas. Although rivalry depends on low-level inhibitory interactions, high-level excitatory influences promoting perceptual grouping and selective attention can extend the local dominance of a stimulus over space and time. Inhibitory and excitatory circuits considered within a hybrid model might account for the paradoxical properties of binocular rivalry and provide insights into the neural bases of visual awareness itself.     

Psychological management and body image issues in facial transplantation

Facial transplantation, although controversial, is proposed as a major advance in facial reconstructive surgery, with the first partial transplant having taken place in France in November 2005. Although the psychological impact of facial transplantation will not be understood until several procedures have been carried out, this article examines the psychological issues likely to arise with particular reference to body image. A detailed framework for anticipation and management of psychological change is proposed. Pre-operative preparation must include thorough psychological preparation for the patient and their family. The immediate post-operative period is likely to be challenging, and a detailed management plan is proposed emphasising early return to function; subsequent psychological issues including altered body image, anxiety, shame, depression, communication and behavioural avoidance are discussed and a management strategy based on cognitive behavioural principles is proposed for the first post-operative year. Previous discussion frames psychological outcome in terms of complication and risk, tending to downplay the potential advantages of a successful procedure; the focus of this paper is on ensuring psychological adjustment as an inevitable consequence of change.     

Evidence of mnemonic ability selectively affecting truthful and deceptive response dynamics

In the executive model of deception, the telling of a lie necessitates the inhibition of a veridical prepotent response (the truth), and such inhibition incurs a temporal penalty, manifest as a longer response time. If memory processes are engaged in generating such truths, then memory function should affect truthful and deceptive response times. To investigate this we examined the relationship between performance on a semantic knowledge deception task and a test of verbal memory in 40 college students. We found that verbal memory performance differentially affects the temporal parameters of truth and deception.     

Book reviews

John Christian Laursen (ed.). Religious Toleration: ‘The Variety of Rites’ from Cyrus to Defoe. New York, St Martin's Press, 1999. xx + 252 pp. $45.00. ISBN 0–312–22233–5.

Daniel Garber. Descartes Embodied: Reading Cartesian Philosophy through Cartesian Science Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, £40.00 hb; £14.95 pb. xii + 337 pp. ISBN 0–521–00337–7 pb. 0–521–80279–2 hb.

Olli Koistinen and John Biro (eds). Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002. x + 255 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0–19–512815‐X.

Paul Abela. Kant's Empirical Realism. Oxford and New York, Clarendon Press, 2002. vii + 303 pp. £40.00. ISBN 0–19–924274–7.

Bruce L. Kinzer. England's Disgrace? J. S. Mill and the Irish Question. Toronto, Buffalo, and London, University of Toronto Press, 2001. 292 pp. $60. ISBN 0–8020–4862–5.

Maria Dimova‐Cookson. T. H. Green's Moral and Political Philosophy: A Phenomenological Perspective. Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2001. £40.00. xiii + 175 pp. ISBN 0–333–9144–7.

Stephen Mulhall. Inheritance &; Originality. Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2001. £40.00. xii + 448 pp. ISBN 0–19–924390–5.

Paul Gorner. Twentieth‐Century German Philosophy. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. iii + 225 pp. £12.99. ISBN 0–19–289309–2.

Karen Green. Dummett: Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001. xi + 236 pp. £55.00 (hb), £14.99 (pb). ISBN 0–7456–2294–1 (hb) 0–7456–2295‐X (pb).     

Tailoring Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Binge Eating in Adolescent Girls

Whereas effective treatments exist for adults with recurrent binge eating, developmental factors specific to adolescents point to the need for a modified treatment approach for youth. We adapted an existing cognitive behavioral therapy treatment manual for adults with bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder (Fairburn, 2008) for use with adolescents. This paper presents a number of clinical case vignettes, drawn directly from interactions with teen participants, that illustrate some of the developmental factors common to adolescents—as well as the importance of our adaptations to address for these factors.     

Strategy Shifts and Expertise in Solving Transformation Rule Problems

The acquisition of expertise in formal problem solving has been assumed to involve either a shift from backwards to forwards inference, or a shift from unguided to guided forwards inference. In a longitudinal study, the acquisition of formal problem-solving expertise was investigated. Participants were tested as novices before undertaking controlled practice in the problem domain which involved transformation rule problems, and were finally tested as experts. The direction of inference in problem solutions was found to be inadequate to describe the strategic differences between novices and experts. Therefore, a new solution coding system was applied, based on atomic components of problem solution. Analysis of novice and expert solutions revealed no systematic strategy in the novice stage—solutions were confused and contained unproductive steps and backtracking. Several strategies were found in the expert solutions, but they did not agree with previously reported results. It was therefore proposed that the acquisition of expertise does not involve a change from one specific solution strategy to another, but rather the development of an efficient strategy, which can differ between participants.