Boys' Experimentation and Persistence in Developmental Pathways Toward Serious Delinquency

We expand on earlier work documenting developmental pathways in disruptive child behavior towards serious forms of delinquency in boys. Three pathways we hypothesized in our previous work: (a) An Authority Conflict Pathway prior to the age of 12, that starts with stubborn behavior, and has defiance as a second stage, and authority avoidance as a third stage; (b) A Covert Pathway that starts with minor convert acts, has property damage as a second stage, and moderate to serious delinquency as a third stage; and (c) An Overt Pathway that starts with minor aggression, has physical fighting as a second stage, and violence as a third stage. We now refine this work by distinguishing between boys who experiment and those who persist in disruptive behavior. Data are presented showing that the fit for the three pathways is better for persisters than for experimenters. Also, the proportion of persisters that enter each pathway at the first stage (rather than at later stages) is higher than that for experimenters. Penetration in each pathway was more common among boys who received a diagnosis of Attention-Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. Boys' rate of offending increased with penetration into pathways and with persistence on more than one pathway. Boys' persistence and advancement in the Overt or the Covert Pathway was almost invariably accompanied by their advancement in the Authority Conflict Pathway. The classification of boys according to persistence and pathways accounted for the majority of high rate offenders, according to both self-report and court adjudicated offenses.     

When does grouping happen?

Recent research on perceptual grouping is described with particular emphasis on identifying the level(s) at which grouping factors operate. Contrary to the classical view of grouping as an early, two-dimensional, image-based process, recent experimental results show that it is strongly influenced by phenomena related to perceptual constancy, such as binocular depth perception, lightness constancy, amodal completion, and illusory contours. These findings imply that at least some grouping processes operate at the level of phenomenal perception rather than at the level of the retinal image. Preliminary evidence is reported showing that grouping can affect perceptual constancy, suggesting that grouping processes must also operate at an early, preconstancy level. If so, grouping may be a ubiquitous, ongoing aspect of visual organization that occurs for each level of representation rather than as a single stage that can be definitively localized relative to other perceptual processes.     

Are There Stable Factors in Preadolescent Girls’ Externalizing Behaviors?

Relatively little is known about the factor structure of disruptive behavior among preadolescent girls. The present study reports on exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of disruptive girl behavior over four successive data waves as rated by parents and teachers in a large, representative community sample of girls (N = 2,451). Five factors were identified from parent ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems, inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, relational aggression, and callous-unemotional behaviors), and four factors were identified derived from teacher ratings (oppositional behavior/conduct problems/callous-unemotional behaviors, inattention, hyperactivityimpulsivity, and relational aggression). There was a high degree of consistency of items loading on equivalent factors across parent and teacher ratings. Year-to-year stability of factors between ages five and 12 was high for parent ratings (ICC = 0.70 to 0.88), and slightly lower for teacher ratings (ICC = 0.56 to 0.83). These findings are discussed in terms of possible adjustment to the criteria for children's disruptive behavior disorders found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders.

---

Dynamic adjustment of temporal preparation: Shifting warning signal modality attenuates the sequential foreperiod effect

We examined sequential effects in the variable foreperiod (FP) paradigm, which refer to the finding that responses to an imperative signal (IS) are fast when a short FP trial is repeated but slow when it is preceded by a long FP trial. The effect has been attributed to a trace-conditioning mechanism in which individuals learn the temporal relationship between a warning signal (WS) and the IS in a trial-by-trial manner. An important assumption is that the WS in a current trial (i.e., trial FP_n) acts as a conditioned stimulus, such that it automatically triggers the conditioned response at the exact critical moment that was imperative in the previous trial (i.e., trial FP_n−1). According to this assumption, a shift from one WS modality in trial FP_n−1 to another modality in trial FP_n is expected to eliminate or at least reduce the sequential FP effect. This prediction was tested in three experiments that included a random variation of WS modality and FP length within blocks of trials. In agreement with the prediction, a shift in WS modality attenuated the asymmetry of the sequential FP effect.     

Einige Erfahrungen mit hoch- und niederfrequenten Settings

In this very private account about my psychoanalytic career I draw some consequences concerning the long and widely discussed questions of the setting. Especially, I refer to my many years of experience I was able to gain in the framework of focal conferences.