Is David Lykken's theory of crime likely?

Lykken proposed a model of antisocial behaviour based on the criminal's temperamental difficulties. Personality traits stressed by this model are impulsivity, fearlessness, and sensation seeking. The present study compares one sample taken from the general population with a sample of prison inmates on these traits. The results indicate that prison inmates score higher than the general population on sensation seeking and fearlessness, whereas their scores on impulsivity are lower. Some implications are discussed.     

On the control of visual spatial attention: evidence from human electrophysiology

We used electrophysiological methods to track the deployment of visual spatial attention while observers were engaged in concurrent central attentional processing, using a variant of the attentional blink paradigm. Two visual targets (T₁, T₂) were presented at a stimulus onset asynchrony of either 200 ms or 800 ms. T₁ was a white digit among white letters presented on a dark background using rapid serial visual presentation at fixation. T₂ was another digit that was presented to the left or right of fixation simultaneously with a distractor digit in the opposite visual field, each followed by a pattern mask. In each T₂ display, one digit was red and one was green. Half of the subjects reported the red digit and ignored the green one, whereas the other half reported the green digit and ignored the red one. T₁ and T₂ were reported in one block of trials, and only T₂ in another block (order counterbalanced across subjects). Accuracy of report of T₂ was lower at short SOA than at long SOA when both T₁ and T₂ were reported, but was similar across SOA when only T₂ was reported. The electrophysiological results focused on the N2pc component, which was used as an index of the locus of spatial attention. N2pc was reduced in amplitude when subjects reported T₁, and particularly so at the short SOA. The results suggest that attention to T₁ interfered with the deployment of visual spatial attention to T₂.     

Three-Mode Component Analysis with Crisp or Fuzzy Partition of Units

A new methodology is proposed for the simultaneous reduction of units, variables, and occasions of a three-mode data set. Units are partitioned into a reduced number of classes, while, simultaneously, components for variables and occasions accounting for the largest common information for the classification are identified. The model is a constrained three-mode factor analysis and it can be seen as a generalization of the REDKM model proposed by De Soete and Carroll for two-mode data. The least squares fitting problem is mathematically formalized as a constrained problem in continuous and discrete variables. An iterative alternating least squares algorithm is proposed to give an efficient solution to this minimization problem in the crisp and fuzzy classification context. The performances of the proposed methodology are investigated by a simulation study comparing our model with other competing methodologies. Different procedures for starting the proposed algorithm have also been tested. A discussion of some interesting differences in the results follows. Finally, an application to real data illustrates the ability of the proposed model to provide substantive insights into the data complexities.     

Attentional blink differences between adolescent dyslexic and normal readers

The goal of this study was to evaluate the possibility that dyslexic individuals require more working memory resources than normal readers to shift attention from stimulus to stimulus. To test this hypothesis, normal and dyslexic adolescents participated in a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation experiment (Raymond, Shapiro, & Arnell, 1992). Surprisingly, the result showed that the participants with dyslexia produced a shallower attentional blink than normal controls. This result may be interpreted as showing differences in the way the two groups encode information in episodic memory. They also fit in a cascade-effect perspective of developmental dyslexia.     

Mass suicide: historical and psychodynamic considerations

Mass suicide can be defined as the simultaneous suicide of all the members of a social group and is closely linked to the human dimension of existence, although the social and cultural context may vary. In fact, the term mass suicide can also be used to describe situations in which a particular population has reacted to oppression by denying all normal activities of sustenance, with the intention of bringing about a traumatic metamorphosis in a cultural context (colonization, exploitation by other populations), thus transforming a catastrophe in which a passive role is played into one constructed actively. Therefore, mass suicides can be subdivided into two categories: (a) hetero-induced, typical of defeated and colonized populations forced to escape from a reality that does not acknowledge their human dignity and (b) self-induced, in which the motivation is related to a distorted evaluation of reality, without there being either an intolerable situation or a real risk of death. The mass suicides that have taken place in the last 20 years are all related to the establishment of religious sects; the mystic delirium created within the sect leads to the self-destruction of the group as being interpreted as an act of self-assertiveness.     

Effects of pretraining intrastriatal administration of p-chloroamphetamine on inhibitory avoidance

Pretraining systemic administration of p-chloroamphetamine (PCA) consistently produces retention deficits of inhibitory avoidance. This drug causes a widespread acute release of serotonin from cerebral neuronal terminals, but it is not known where in the brain PCA exerts its disruptive cognitive effects. The present experiment was aimed at determining whether the striatum is a site of action of this drug. PCA (5 microg) was infused, bilaterally, into the striatum of rats at 30, 15, or 5 min before training of inhibitory avoidance, and retention of the task was measured 24 h later. An inversely related time-dependent deficit was found. Together with the results from appropriate control groups, this result strongly suggest that systemic PCA produces its reported cognitive effects, at least in part, through its pharmacological action within the striatum.     

Tracking fear in snake and spider fearful participants during visual search: A multi-response domain study

In visual search tasks snake or spider fearful participants showed shorter reaction times (RTs) to respond to their feared animal (e.g., snake) than to the nonfeared animal (i.e., spider) (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). Here, we used this paradigm with heart rate (HR), RTs, and event-related potential (ERP) measures, to investigate the nature of the responses to the feared animal, a nonfeared (but fear-relevant) animal, and fear-irrelevant target stimuli with snake fearful, spider fearful, and nonfearful participants. Fearful participants showed shorter RTs and evoked larger amplitudes on a late positive potential (LPP; 500–700 ms) for their feared compared to the nonfeared and the fear-irrelevant targets. No relevant significant differences were found on early ERP components and HR measures. These findings do not support an involvement of early information processing in the detection of the feared animal in fearful participants, they favour instead a more elaborated analysis of these complex stimuli to achieve the detection.     

Emotion understanding,pictorial representations of friendship and reciprocity in school-aged children

This study examined the relationship between emotional understanding, friendship representation and reciprocity in school-aged children. Two hundred and fifty-one Caucasian 6-year-old children (111 males and 140 females) took part in the study. The Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC) and the Pictorial Assessment of Interpersonal Relationships (PAIR) were used. Children having a reciprocal friendship and children having a unilateral friendship with a child named as their “best friend” were compared on the emotional understanding task and on their pictorial representations of friendship. Multilevel analyses indicated that friendship status effects were not influenced by classroom-level differences. Results showed that children with reciprocal friendships drew themselves as more similar to and more cohesive with their best friends, and they showed better understanding of emotions, than children having a unilateral friendship. Finally, the implications of these findings for theoretical and empirical research development on friendship are discussed.     

Attachment as an informative relationship

Levels of awareness, a personal construct concept that explains varying levels of "consciousness" while respecting the felt experience of the client, has not been systematically explored within the personal construct literature. Six processes associated with varying levels of awareness are discussed in this article: (1) ways the client's meaning system may preclude possibilities experienced by the therapist, (2) implications of the system that have not been elaborated, (3) terror associated with exploring the contrast poles to meanings, (4) framing assumptions that limit our awareness of issues, (5) suspended events and the shutting down of meaning-making, and (6) nonverbal construing. These processes have implications for how the clinician will connect with and engage the creativity of the client.