Direct gaze modulates face recognition in young infants

From birth, infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in direct eye contact. In adults, direct gaze is known to modulate the processing of faces, including the recognition of individuals. In the present study, we investigate whether direction of gaze has any effect on face recognition in four-month-old infants. Four-month infants were shown faces with both direct and averted gaze, and subsequently given a preference test involving the same face and a novel one. A novelty preference during test was only found following initial exposure to a face with direct gaze. Further, face recognition was also generally enhanced for faces with both direct and with averted gaze when the infants started the task with the direct gaze condition. Together, these results indicate that the direction of the gaze modulates face recognition in early infancy.     

The assessment of subjective visual vertical: comparison of two psychophysical paradigms and age-related performance

Perception of the subjective visual vertical (SVV) is usually assessed by asking to subjects, in complete darkness, to adjust the position of a luminous rod that is variably tilted (i.e., by the method of adjustment [ADJ]). Conversely, the two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) method requires subjects to categorize, as tilted either clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW), stimuli that are presented on a computer screen and are variably tilted from vertical. In this study, we aimed to compare the results of these two methods and investigate age-related effects on the SVV. SVV was assessed in 102 healthy individuals, 50 women and 52 men, with a mean age of 45.7 (range 20–91), using both ADJ (ten trials, initial 1°, 2°, 4°, 8°, or 12° bar tilts both CW and CCW) and 2AFC (120 stimuli with a 1°–32° variable tilt). Also, 50 of the subjects performed the ADJ test twice, with different bar lengths. We estimated bias and threshold for the two methods, and found that neither measure differed across the methods. Age was a significant predictor of threshold (2AFC, R ² = .141; ADJ, R ² = .190; p < .001), implying lower sensitivity with increasing age. Moreover, the ADJ method showed a significant increase of bias when the initial tilt was farthest from vertical, whereas the rod length was irrelevant. SVV measures obtained with the ADJ and 2AFC methods were comparable, but the latter measures were more resistant to artifacts that might affect the measurement. The lower sensitivity found in older persons may have an influence on their ability to interact with the environment and may contribute to impairment of postural control.     

Development and Validation of Research Scales for the Leadership Multi‐rater Assessment of Personality (LMAP)

This article presents large‐sample developmental and validation research for a set of research scales of an existing 360‐degree personality measure, the LMAP 360 (Leadership Multi‐rater Assessment of Personality). In Study 1 (N = 1,771), we identified 6 broad domains underlying LMAP item clusters: Neuroticism, Dominance, Enthusiasm, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Scales measuring these broad domains and their constituent facets showed strong internal consistency, inter‐rater reliability, and self‐informant correlations. In Study 2 (N = 729 and N = 694), we examined LMAP research scales’ convergent and discriminant validity against three well‐validated personality inventories (Goldberg's adjectives, the Big Five Inventory, and the Big Five Aspects Scales) and one measure of cognitive ability (the International Cognitive Ability Resource). LMAP research scales correlated strongly with corresponding scales from other inventories and were distinct from cognitive ability.     

Narcissism, solitude, friendship: notes on the therapeutic alliance in the context of the Freud-Jung relationship

This paper deals with friendship and therapeutic alliance as a transformation of the libidinal love that structures the Oedipal complex. The author considers the relationship between Jung and Freud as a formidable test that may shed light on their personalities and on the relevance of the Oedipal complex for both of them and for their particular theories and practices. The author discusses the possibility that the Oedipal complex may be seen under a finalistic frame of reference and discusses which implicit goals it may express. Such a goal has not been reached by either Freud nor Jung, but might be the key to underline and recognize the fundamental importance of the 'therapeutic alliance' within the analytical situation, seen as a potential relationship between the selves of the patient and of the analyst springing from a transformation of libidinal love into 'friendship' as it was described by Friedrich Nietzsche.     

Ideomotor silence: the case of complete paralysis and brain–computer interfaces (BCI)

The paper presents some speculations on the loss of voluntary responses and operant learning in long-term paralysis in human patients and curarized rats. Based on a reformulation of the ideomotor thinking hypothesis already described in the 19th century, we present evidence that instrumentally learned responses and intentional cognitive processes extinguish as a consequence of long-term complete paralysis in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Preliminary data collected with ALS patients during extended and complete paralysis suggest semantic classical conditioning of brain activity as the only remaining communication possibility in those states.     

The role of children’s negative attributions on depressive symptoms: an inherited characteristic or a product of the early environment?

Negative attributional style has been associated with depressive symptoms in children. Yet, it is unclear whether these cognitive biases reflect inherited characteristics of the broader depressive phenotype or are a product of children's environments. While existing data in adolescents show that negative attributions reflect a genetic predisposition, elevating depressive responses to stress, other data suggest that negative attributions in children are more likely to reflect early environmental experiences on symptoms. Here, we assess the degree to which negative attributional style and depressive symptoms arise from common genetic, shared and non-shared environmental influences in childhood. Monozygotic and dizygotic twins reported on attributional style and depressive symptoms at age 8 (n = 300 pairs) and at age 10 (n = 250 pairs). Two multivariate models with varying assumptions on the nature of the relationship between negative attributions and depressive symptoms within and across time were fit to the data. The Common Pathway model provided better fit than the Cholesky decomposition. A common, latent factor influenced both attributional style and depressive symptoms at both time-points in children. The only significant influences on this factor were shared and non-shared aspects of the environment. Placing the present findings with those of adolescents suggests possible developmental differences in the relationship between attributional style and depressive symptoms.