Peer Assessment of Aviation Performance: Inconsistent for Good Reasons

Research into expertise is relatively common in cognitive science concerning expertise existing across many domains. However, much less research has examined how experts within the same domain assess the performance of their peer experts. We report the results of a modified think‐aloud study conducted with 18 pilots (6 first officers, 6 captains, and 6 flight examiners). Pairs of same‐ranked pilots were asked to rate the performance of a captain flying in a critical pre‐recorded simulator scenario. Findings reveal (a) considerable variance within performance categories, (b) differences in the process used as evidence in support of a performance rating, (c) different numbers and types of facts (cues) identified, and (d) differences in how specific performance events affect choice of performance category and gravity of performance assessment. Such variance is consistent with low inter‐rater reliability. Because raters exhibited good, albeit imprecise, reasons and facts, a fuzzy mathematical model of performance rating was developed. The model provides good agreement with observed variations.     

Extinction of conditioned inhibition through nonreinforced presentation of the inhibitor

In previous studies that have tried to extinguish conditioned inhibition through nonreinforced presentations of the inhibitor, researchers have repeatedly failed to find evidence for such extinction. The present study revealed that extinction can be achieved through nonreinforcement of the inhibitor, depending on properties of the reinforcer. In a human causal learning experiment, we found complete extinction in a scenario in which the reinforcer could take on negative values. Thereby, this scenario reflected the assumed symmetrical continuum on which associative strength can vary, according to the Rescorla-Wagner theory of associative learning. In contrast to this, the inhibitory cue retained its inhibitory potential in another condition, in which the scenario did not allow negative values of the reinforcer. nt]mis|Klaus G. Melchers has previously published under the surname “Lober.” Susann Wolff is now working at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany     

The Comorbidity of Conduct Problems and Depression in Childhood and Adolescence

An extensive body of research documents the high prevalence of comorbidity among child and adolescent disorders in general and between conduct problems and depression in particular. These problems co-occur at significantly higher rates than would be expected by chance and their comorbidity may have significant implications for nosology, treatment, and prognosis. Four main hypotheses have been put forth to account for these high rates of comorbidity. First, comorbidity may be a result of shortcomings associated with referral or informant biases. Second, comorbidity may be an artifact of overlapping definitional criteria. Third, one disorder may cause the other disorder by influencing the developmental trajectory and placing an individual at increased risk for further difficulties. Finally, comorbidity between two disorders may be explained by shared underlying causal or risk factors. The purpose of this review is to explore these possibilities, concentrating primarily on the common risk factors of parent psychopathology, emotion regulation, and cognitive biases that may underlie the co-occurrence of these two disorders. Based on our review, we propose a model for the development of comorbidity between these two disorders.     

Reply to Commentaries by Dodi Goldman and Avgi Saketopoulou

In this newly fashioned dialogue that allows us three respondents to continue our first-round discussions, I treasure the opportunity of learning more about Farhi's and Milner's works through the lenses of Dodi Goldman and Avgi Saketopoulou. Both respondents bring additional important historical information to this virtual roundtable, giving me another chance of re-reading Farhi's text through these new perspectives. I think that Goldman's information about Milner's interest in the natural science contributes a great deal to my understanding of her amazing capacity to tolerate her patient's changing psychotic states. I also learn a lot from Saketopoulou's sensitive discussion of the patient's last phone call to Milner shortly before her death in which the patient informs Milner that she had failed her in similar ways as Winnicott had failed Milner. I suggest a slightly different reading of the word failure and propose that the patient's utterance was a sign of a renewed strength rather than a statement of utter disappointment. A discussion of the place of phantasy in the intra-uterine life of a baby is also included in my response.     

Making a Memorial Place: The Photography of Shimon Attie

Assisting the analysand in making the past a living present held within a bearable yet unpredictable future is what psychoanalysis is so much about. Events of the past can never be redone, or fully repossessed, but they must be reconstructed in the context of the transference–countertransference experience of the analytic relationship. In order to make the past a useful present and presence, we need metaphors to give it shape—metaphors that capture the memorial activity linking the past with the present and future in a meaningful manner. In this paper, I explore the ways in which the work of the American photographer Shimon Attie creates a memorial place in which the past is not simply remembered but instead is actively mourned. In The Writing on the Wall, Attie collects broken fragments from prewar German-Jewish life in Berlin, and, by projecting these found shards of former lives onto the buildings in the Berlin Scheunenviertel, which once housed these people, he creates a potential space in which a present can suddenly come alive by the superimposition of a past that was supposed to have been obliterated. In this transitional realm, the spectator is given a wide realm of to-and-fro movements between past and present that permits the creation of an object world that did not exist before. I suggest that Attie's intricate weavings of past, present, and future serve as instructive models for the psychoanalytic process in which the analyst can find himself in a similar position of opening up a playground where the past can be brought into the present and where the presentness of the past can come alive. The ability to move back and forth between the present and the past suggests a link to the Freudian concept of deferred action, later taken up by Lacan under the notion of après-coup, where the impression (Prägung) of an earlier event, having lain dormant for a long time, breaks through into the present through a retroactive action that then completely reshapes the present impression. I draw comparisons to psychoanalytic practice, in which the superimposition (the stacking on top of one another) of recollections, dreams, and associations pries open in the analysand's mind a psychic space in which memories of a seemingly insignificant past absorb a sudden sense of urgency when revisited through this retroactive process.     

‘Translation’ and ‘transformation’ in the analytic situation: Freud – Bion – Laplanche

Following a short introduction to the core theses of Jean Laplanche’s theory of a ‘general seduction’ the author presents the resultant clinical position of the analyst. In the same way that an adult sends ‘enigmatic messages’ to the child, it is the analyst’s task to reopen this primal situation so that the patient can find new ‘translations’ for these messages. Laplanche distinguishes between the function of the analytic frame – which represents and supports attachment – and the ‘sexual’– which is the repressed and constitutes the unconscious. Only the focus on this unconscious facilitates the deconstruction of ‘incorrect’ translations. Accordingly, the analyst, says Laplanche, should not take part in construction – this is a self‐construction of the patient – but only in reconstruction. The author compares this clinical model with Freud’s notions and the ‘transformation processes’ through the alpha function as described by Bion. She illustrates Laplanche’s model and the interpretation strategy with case material.     

Position of code and code for position: From isomorphism to a sensorimotor account of space perception

The paper starts with a discussion of the assumption that positions of the outer world are coded by the anatomical locations of firing neurons within retinotopic maps (“coding position by position”). This “code position theory” explains space perception by some kind of structural isomorphism since it implies that the perceptual space is based on a spatial structure within the brain. The axiom of structural isomorphism is rejected. Subsequently, a sensorimotor account of space perception is outlined according to which the spatial structure of the outer world is coded by the temporal structure of cortical processing. The basis is that action changes the perceiver's relationship to the outer world and, therefore, changes the representation of the outer world coded by the sensory responses of the brain. According to this view the code for position is not a spatial but a temporal structure resulting from action (“coding position by action”). The sensorimotor account offers a possible solution to the binding problem. The paper ends with some remarks on the possible origin and function of retinotopic representations.     

Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months

Elucidating the neural basis of joint attention in infancy promises to yield important insights into the development of language and social cognition, and directly informs developmental models of autism. We describe a new method for evaluating responding to joint attention performance in infancy that highlights the 9‐ to 10‐month period as a time interval of maximal individual differences. We then demonstrate that fractional anisotropy in the right uncinate fasciculus, a white matter fiber bundle connecting the amygdala to the ventral‐medial prefrontal cortex and anterior temporal pole, measured in 6‐month‐olds predicts individual differences in responding to joint attention at 9 months of age. The white matter microstructure of the right uncinate was not related to receptive language ability at 9 months. These findings suggest that the development of core nonverbal social communication skills in infancy is largely supported by preceding developments within right lateralized frontotemporal brain systems.