Does the Vigilance-Avoidance Gazing Behavior of Children with Separation Anxiety Disorder Change after Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy?

Cognitive biases are of interest in understanding the development of anxiety disorders. They also play a significant role during psychotherapy, where cognitive biases are modified in order to break the vicious cycle responsible for maintaining anxiety disorders. In a previous study, the vigilance-avoidance pattern was shown in children with separation anxiety disorder (In-Albon et al. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 38:225-235, 2010). The exhibited avoidance pattern may be essential for the maintenance of the anxiety disorder. Therefore, in the present study we used eye tracking methodology presenting disorder specific pictures to examine possible changes in the vigilance-avoidance pattern in 18 children with separation anxiety disorder after cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT) and 13 healthy controls. Results indicated that following treatment, the vigilance pattern of children with separation anxiety disorder reduced significantly. Thus, the vigilance-avoidance pattern can be modified by CBT.     

Perfectionism: The good,the bad,and the creative

The influence of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism on creativity was examined. Initially, six measures of creativity were administered, including creative self-perceptions, behavior, and performance measures. Adaptive perfectionism was weakly positively related to creativity, whereas maladaptive perfectionism was unrelated to creativity across five of the six measures. A follow-up study assessed whether initial findings could be generalized to an everyday problem-solving task. Results indicated that adaptive perfectionism was related to higher quality but not originality of solutions. Further, a curvilinear relationship in the shape of an inverted “U” occurred between adaptive perfectionism and four of eight creativity measures. Overall, adaptive perfectionism was consistently, albeit weakly, related to creativity across various types of measures, whereas maladaptive perfectionism was not related to creativity.     

The attentional blink is not affected by backward masking of T2, T2-mask SOA, or level of T2 impoverishment

Identification of the second of two targets (T2) is impaired when presented shortly after the first (T1). This attentional blink (AB) is thought to arise from a delay in T2 processing during which T2 is vulnerable to masking. Conventional studies have measured T2 accuracy which is constrained by the 100% ceiling. We avoided this problem by using a dynamic threshold-tracking procedure that is inherently free from ceiling constraints. In two experiments we examined how AB magnitude is affected by three masking-related factors: (a) presence/absence of T2 mask, (b) T2-mask stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), and (c) level of T2 impoverishment (signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]). In Experiment 1, overall accuracy decreased with T2-mask SOA. The magnitude of the AB, however, was invariant with SOA and with mask presence/absence. Experiment 2 further showed that the AB was invariant with T2 SNR. The relationship among mask presence/absence, SOA, and T2 SNR and the AB is encompassed in a qualitative model.     

Priming the mental time line

Growing experimental evidence suggests that temporal events are represented on a mental time line, spatially oriented from left to right. Support for the spatial representation of time comes mostly from studies that have used spatially organized responses. Moreover, many of these studies did not avoid possible confounds attributable to target stimuli that simultaneously convey both spatial and temporal dimensions. Here we show that task-irrelevant, lateralized visuospatial primes affect auditory duration judgments. Responses to short durations were faster when the auditory target was paired with left- than with right-sided primes, whereas responses to long durations were faster when paired with right- than with left-sided primes. Thus, when the representations of physical space and time are concurrently activated, physical space may influence time even when a lateralized, spatially encoded response is not required by the task. The time-space interaction reported here cannot be ascribed to any Spatial-Temporal Association of Response Codes effect. It supports the hypothesis that the representation of time is spatially organized, with short durations represented on the left space and longer ones on the right.     

Selective exposure in decided and undecided individuals: differential relations to automatic associations and conscious beliefs

People often show a preference for information that confirms their attitudes and beliefs, and this tendency is reduced for opinions that are not held with conviction. The present study shows that both decided and undecided individuals show a tendency to selectively expose themselves to confirmatory information, albeit with different antecedents and consequences. Whereas selective exposure in decided participants was predicted by conscious beliefs and not by automatic associations, selective exposure in undecided participants was predicted by automatic associations and not by conscious beliefs. Moreover, selective exposure led undecided participants to adopt conscious beliefs that were in line with their preexisting automatic associations. Conversely, for decided participants, selective exposure shifted automatic associations in a direction that was in line with their preexisting conscious beliefs. Implications for decision making and mutual influences of automatic associations and conscious beliefs in attitude change are discussed.     

Sándor Ferenczi: From Clinical Turmoil to Theoretical Articulations

The article deals with concepts proposed by Sándor Ferenczi: confusion of tongues, disavowal and progressive trauma, illustrated by a clinical example, in which excessive life experiences deeply determined the psychic construction, compromising the integrity of the self-image and the potentiality of egoic capacities. We attempt to understand the uniqueness of the patient's history, and the ethical practice of deep analytic listening.     

No More Away: Techno-Attachments and the Relational Future

This paper speculates about the impact of techno-connectedness on our children, ourselves, our grandchildren. Triggered by recollections from Victorian novels that describe European summers “away” from home, a concern about loss of opportunity, the “space” for self-discovery in this young generation will be explored in a relational context. Brought about by pervasive dependence upon computer technology, is self-experience fragmented and attachment changed by the ubiquitous technological presence and is the more isolated, reflective experience being eroded?     

Psychosis: A Synthesis of Motivational and Defect Perspectives

Based on the evolution of human intelligence and the tremendous cognitive capacities arising from it, we have an innate tendency for the extreme thought content, thought form, and sensory perceptions of psychosis. During the conscious and awake state, cognitive regulatory control processes block these more extreme variants to facilitate reality congruency necessary for adaptive functioning. While asleep there is no need for reality congruency and the cognitive regulatory control processes are deactivated allowing psychotic equivalents to be expressed in dreams. This paper helps synthesize the two dominant perspectives regarding the etiology of psychosis: the neuroscience defect perspective and the psychoanalytic motivational perspective. Regarding the former, defective cognitive regulation arising from certain conditions, such as the deficit state of schizophrenia, allows extreme cognitive distortions, thought form variants, and sensory perceptual experiences to intrude into the conscious and awake state, thereby producing psychosis. Consistent with the psychoanalytic motivational perspective, defensive processes can motivate extreme cognitive distortions, thought form variants and sensory perceptual experiences, and also facilitate their expression by deactivating the relevant cognitive regulatory control processes.