Perceptual and Response Bias in Unilateral Neglect: Two Modified Versions of the Milner Landmark Task

Perceptual and response bias in estimating the proportion of the two segments of prebisected lines were disambiguated in a group of 121 patients suffering from left neglect by means of two variants of the Milner Landmark task (Milner et al., 1993). The first variant, LANDMARK-V, required a verbal response; the second variant, LANDMARK-M, required manual pointing. The paper reports and discusses the results obtained on each task and their correlations, as well as the relationships between either kind of bias and the intrahemispheric location of the lesion. It is argued that besides their usefulness as a diagnostic tool the proposed variants of the Milner Landmark task provide results that are worth further investigation in their own right.     

The Efficacy of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Major Depression in Women

The effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for major depression was examined in 38 women, randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. Specific treatment involved acupuncture treatments for symptoms of depression; nonspecific treatment involved acupuncture for symptoms that were not clearly part of depression; a wait-list condition involved waiting without treatment for 8 weeks. The nonspecific and wait-list conditions were followed by specific treatment. Five women terminated treatment prematurely, 4 prior to the completion of the first 8 weeks. Following treatments specifically designed to address depression, 64% of the women (n = 33) experienced full remission. A comparison of the acute effect of the three 8-week treatment conditions (n = 34) showed that patients receiving specific acupuncture treatments improved significantly more than those receiving the placebo-like nonspecific acupuncture treatments, and marginally more than those in the wait-list condition. Results from this small sample suggest that acupuncture can provide significant symptom relief in depression, at rates comparable to those of psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. Acupuncture may hold sufficient promise to warrant a larger scale clinical trial.     

Understanding Extreme Violent Behavior in Ultra Firms: Exploring Identity Fusion from a Dialogical Perspective

This paper explores a dialogical operationalization of identity fusion in the context of football firms. An in-depth life story interview with a longstanding member of a football firm involved in several violent episodes was qualitatively analyzed. The variety of positions of the self (I-positions) as well as the dialogical relations established by such positions were examined under themes associated with identity fusion, in an attempt to understand pro-group radical violent behavior. Results suggest that a core coalition of internal I-positions and external We-positions favoring extreme ultra violence appeared to dominate the participant’s self-system. This coalition seemed to have soft boundaries among the positions compounding it and, at the same time, rigid boundaries with other positions of the self-system, operating as an I-prison, preventing alternative counter-violence voices to be heard and promoter or meta-positions to emerge. Considering that functionally equivalent forms of identity fusion have been identified in radical football violence and terrorism, this knowledge can contribute to tackle the pathways for engaging in extreme violence in favor of a group/organization. Moreover, it can be used to develop more effective programs to promote individuals’ de-fusion from different groups, whenever group adherence proves dysfunctional and risky for themselves and/or others.     

Individual differences in approach and avoidance movements: how the avoidance motive influences response force

The present research is based on the assumption that people differ in their responsiveness to incentives and threats. In two experiments we examined whether the trait corresponding to the responsiveness to threats (avoidance motive) and the trait corresponding to the responsiveness to incentives (approach motive) influence voluntary motor behavior toward or away from stimuli. In Experiment 1, stimuli consisted of positive and negative words within a lexical decision task. Participants moved their arms backward in order to withdraw from the stimuli or forward in order to approach them. In Experiment 2, participants responded with forward or backward arm movements to neutral sounds coming from behind or in front of them. The main dependent variable was the strength of the approach and avoidance movements. In both experiments this variable was related to participants' avoidance-motive disposition but not to their approach-motive disposition. Avoidance-motivated individuals generally showed more forceful avoidance movements than approach movements. There was no effect of stimulus valence on the strength of the movements in Experiment 1. Furthermore, the results of Experiment 2 suggest that it is not the physical direction (forward or backward) but rather the movement's effect of distance reduction (approach) or distance increase (avoidance) in regard to the stimulus that defines a movement as an approach or an avoidance movement.     

Rudimental numerical competence in 5-day-old domestic chicks (Gallus gallus): identification of ordinal position

Numerical competencies were investigated for the 1st time in very young nonhuman animals. Chicks (Gallus gallus) learned to identify the 3rd, 4th, or 6th positions in a series of 10 identical positions (Experiment 1). Use of spatial information (i.e., distances) was ruled out in Experiment 2 (chicks generalized the reinforced response to an array of stimuli rotated by 90 degrees as compared with training) and Experiment 3 (chicks generalized their response to a series in which distances between the single positions had been manipulated). Chicks found the correct position even when both identity and distance of each position changed from trial to trial (Experiment 4). Overall, young chicks seemed to use ordinality when required to identify a target by its numerical serial position.     

Educating for Autonomy: Liberalism and Autonomy in the Capabilities Approach

Martha Nussbaum grounds her version of the capabilities approach in political liberalism. In this paper, we argue that the capabilities approach, insofar as it genuinely values the things that persons can actually do and be, must be grounded in a hybrid account of liberalism: in order to show respect for adults, its justification must be political; in order to show respect for children, however, its implementation must include a commitment to comprehensive autonomy, one that ensures that children develop the skills necessary to make meaningful choices about whether or not to exercise their basic capabilities. Importantly, in order to show respect for parents who do not necessarily recognize autonomy as a value, we argue that the liberal state, via its system of public education, should take on the role of ensuring that all children within the state develop a sufficient degree of comprehensive autonomy.     

The perfectionism of Nussbaum's adaptive preferences

Although the problem of adaptiveness plays an important motivating role in her work on human capabilities, Martha Nussbaum never gives a clear account of the controversial concept of adaptive preferences on which she relies. In this paper, I aim both to reconstruct the most plausible account of the concept that may be attributed to Nussbaum and to provide a critical appraisal of that account. Although her broader work on the capabilities approach moves progressively towards political liberalism as time passes, I aim to show that her account of adaptive preferences continues to maintain her earlier commitment to perfectionism about the good. I then distinguish between two obligatory kinds of respect for persons, which I call, respectively, primary and secondary recognition respect. This distinction allows us to see that her perfectionist account of adaptive preferences allows her to show persons primary but not secondary recognition respect. Ultimately, I claim that an acceptable account of adaptive preferences must succeed in showing persons both types of respect. I conclude with some preliminary remarks on what such an account might look like.     

Reliability Generalization Study of the Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale for Children and Adolescents

The Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale for children and adolescents (CY–BOCS) is a frequently applied test to assess obsessive–compulsive symptoms. We conducted a reliability generalization meta-analysis on the CY–BOCS to estimate the average reliability, search for reliability moderators, and propose a predictive model that researchers and clinicians can use to estimate the expected reliability of the CY–BOCS scores. A total of 47 studies reporting a reliability coefficient with the data at hand were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed good reliability and a large variability associated to the standard deviation of total scores and sample size.     

Perceiving emotions: Cueing social categorization processes and attentional control through facial expressions

Individuals spontaneously categorise other people on the basis of their gender, ethnicity and age. But what about the emotions they express? In two studies we tested the hypothesis that facial expressions are similar to other social categories in that they can function as contextual cues to control attention. In Experiment 1 we associated expressions of anger and happiness with specific proportions of congruent/incongruent flanker trials. We also created consistent and inconsistent category members within each of these two general contexts. The results demonstrated that participants exhibited a larger congruency effect when presented with faces in the emotional group associated with a high proportion of congruent trials. Notably, this effect transferred to inconsistent members of the group. In Experiment 2 we replicated the effects with faces depicting true and false smiles. Together these findings provide consistent evidence that individuals spontaneously utilise emotions to categorise others and that such categories determine the allocation of attentional control.