Foetal trauma,body memory and early infant communication: a case illustration

This paper presents the complex case of a male patient who started life as an unwanted pregnancy and adoptee in an era of socio‐cultural shame and blame. When able to contact his birth mother later in life, he experienced a number of confronting synchronicities as well as visions which he felt were related to failed abortion attempts and to other pre‐ and post‐natal events. The case material lends weight not only to Freud's, Ehrenwald's and FitzHerbert's assertions that the earliest form of mother‐infant communications is telepathic in nature but that this mode of communication can be retained if emotional trauma inhibits normal developmental processes. Contemporary neuroscience research is presented supporting the hypothesis that emotional memory can become imbedded in the psyche/soma of the foetus. Such memory traces can later emerge into imagery and/or words if the traumatic impingement has been substantial enough and if other defensive strategies are in place. Clinical implications are then suggested regarding analysts’ attention to the emotional conditions underpinning their patients’ conceptions and foetal development; the connection to projective identification components of the countertransference as being aspects of the earliest telepathic mother/infant communication channel and the need for reductive analyses in analyst training programmes.     

Prevalence of auditory hallucinations in Norwegian adolescents: Results from a population‐based study

Knowing the prevalence and characteristics of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) in adolescents is important for estimations of need for mental health care and assessment of psychosis risk. In this report we assess the prevalence of AVH in a population‐based sample of 16–19 years old Norwegian adolescents (n = 9,646, 46.4% male) using two items assessing AVH (from the extended Launay‐Slade Hallucination Scale). The prevalence of hearing a voice speaking thoughts aloud was 10.6%. The prevalence of being troubled by voices was 5.3%, showing that negative emotionality about AVH is less frequent than the experience of hearing voices. Female respondents had slightly increased risk for being troubled by voices than males (odds ratio = 1.3), while age did not modulate prevalence. This AVH prevalence is in line with earlier reports in smaller samples of adolescents and indicates that AVH are not uncommon in this period of life. Further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate the value of AVH in predicting psychiatric disorder.     

Client crying in the context of family therapy: an exploratory study

This study explores the crying episodes of twenty‐eight clients treated at a family therapy service in a community centre. The crying episodes were associated with some significant elements: the time of appearance, the content and triggering factor, the interpersonal context of sessions and the emotions clients had for the therapist, as well as the therapy's outcome (end of treatment and the satisfaction of clients). Crying was much more frequent during the first session. It occurred more frequently when there was another family member present. The proportion of clients who cried during the treatment was significantly higher for clients who completed it successfully. Clients who cried perceived the therapist, in all cases, as a kind person who never got annoyed with them. Crying could be considered a type of behaviour that helps the therapist to create a safe context and foster the therapeutic alliance.     

Exploring cooperation and competition in the Centipede game through verbal protocol analysis

The Centipede game is an abstract model of reciprocal relationships in which two individuals alternate in helping each other at relatively small personal cost. Whereas mutual cooperation can benefit both individuals in the long run, a paradoxical but logically compelling backward induction argument suggests that cooperation is irrational. Empirical studies have reported reliable deviations from the non‐cooperative backward induction solution, but their exclusively quantitative methods allow only a limited range of predefined motives to be explored. Our study uses verbal (‘think aloud’) protocols and qualitative data analysis to identify motives for cooperation in the Centipede game. The results provide little evidence for sophisticated backward induction reasoning. Instead, a wide range of motives emerged, their relative saliences varying according to the stage of the game. Activity bias affected decisions mainly at the beginning of the game, whereas cooperative and altruistic social value orientations most frequently accounted for cooperation towards its natural end.     

谁该成为体验型产品网络评论的主角,图片还是文字?

图片、文字是体验型产品网络评论的两种主要形式,但关于两者对消费者影响的研究结论尚存在分歧。本研究基于解释水平理论,通过系列实验揭示了图片、文字评论在不同购买可行性情境下对消费者产品评价的影响,及产品类型(怀旧/非怀旧)的调节作用。结果表明:(1)购买可行性低情境下的消费者受文字评论的影响更大,而购买可行性高情境下的消费者受图片评论的影响更大(实验1a、实验1b和实验2);(2)购买怀旧产品时,购买可行性低情境下的消费者仍受文字评论的影响更大,而购买可行性高情境下的消费者受两类评论的影响无差异;购买非怀旧产品时,购买可行性高情境下的消费者仍受图片评论的影响更大,而购买可行性低情境下的消费者受两类评论的影响无差异(实验3)。本研究表明,当图片、文字评论与购买可行性在解释水平上一致时,影响力最大,且怀旧/非怀旧产品类型会调节这种效应。本研究还讨论了如何在实际中运用此结论。     

The effect of age-at-testing on verbal memory among children following severe traumatic brain injury

Memory deficits are a common sequelae following childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI), which often have serious implications on age-related academic skills. The current study examined verbal memory performance using the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) in a pediatric TBI sample. Verbal memory abilities as well as the effect of age at-testing on performance were examined. A sample of 67 children following severe TBI (age average = 12.3 ± 2.74) and 67 matched controls were evaluated using the RAVLT. Age effect at assessment was examined using two age groups: above and below 12 years of age during evaluation. Differences between groups were examined via the 9 RAVLT learning trials and the 7 composite scores conducted out of them. Children following TBI recalled significantly less words than controls on all RAVLT trials and had significantly lower scores on all composite scores. However, all of these scores fell within the low average range. Further analysis revealed significantly lower than average performance among the older children (above 12 years), while scores of the younger children following TBI fell within average limits. To conclude, verbal memory deficits among children following severe TBI demonstrate an age-at-testing effect with more prominent problems occurring above 12 years at the time of evaluation. Yet, age-appropriate performance among children below 12 years of age may not accurately describe memory abilities at younger ages following TBI. It is therefore recommended that clinicians address child’s age at testing and avoid using a single test as an indicator of verbal memory functioning post TBI.     

The effect of a simulated hearing loss on performance of an auditory memory task in driving

Hearing loss has been shown to exacerbate the effect of auditory distraction on driving performance in older drivers. This study controlled for the potentially confounding factor of age-related cognitive decrements, by applying a simulated hearing loss in young, normally hearing individuals. Participants drove a simulated road whilst completing auditory tasks under simulated hearing loss or normal hearing conditions. Measures of vehicle control, eye movements and auditory task performance were recorded. Results showed that performing the auditory tasks whilst driving resulted in more stable lateral vehicle control and a reduction in gaze dispersion around the road centre. These trends were not exacerbated by simulated hearing loss, suggesting no effect of hearing loss on vehicle control or eye movement patterns during auditory task engagement. However, a small effect of simulated hearing loss on the performance of the most complex auditory task was observed during driving, suggesting that the use of sound-based in-vehicle systems may be problematic for hearing impaired individuals. Further research incorporating a wider variety of driving scenarios and auditory tasks is required in order to confirm the findings of this study.     

Auditory spatial concepts in blind football experts

ObjectivesWe compared the spatial concepts given to sounds' directions by blind football players with both blind non-athletes and sighted individuals.MethodParticipants verbally described the directions of sounds around them by using predefined spatial concept labels, under two blocked conditions: 1) facing front, 2) pointing with the hand towards the stimulus.ResultsBlind football players categorized the directions more precisely (i.e., they used simple labels for describing the cardinal directions and combined labels for the intermediate ones) than the other groups, and their categorization was less sensitive to the response conditions than blind non-athletes. Sighted participants' categorization was similar to previous studies, in which the front and back regions were generally more precisely described than the sides, where simple labels were often used for describing directions around the absolute left and right.ConclusionsThe differences in conceptual categorization of sound directions are a) in sighted individuals, influenced by the representation of the visual space b) in blind individuals, influenced by the level of expertise in action and locomotion based on non-visual information, which can be increased by auditive stimulation provided by blind football training.     

Cognitive representation of auditory space in blind football experts

ObjectivesWe compared the mental representation of sound directions in blind football players, blind non-athletes and sighted individuals.DesignStanding blindfolded in the middle of a circle with 16 loudspeakers, participants judged whether the directions of two subsequently presented sounds were similar or not.MethodStructure dimensional analysis (SDA) was applied to reveal mean cluster solutions for the groups.ResultsHierarchical cluster analysis via SDA resulted in distinct representation structures of sound directions. The blind football players' mean cluster solution consisted of pairs of neighboring directions. The blind non-athletes also clustered the directions in pairs, but included non-adjacent directions. In the sighted participants' structure, frontal directions were clustered pairwise, the absolute back was singled out, and the side regions accounted for more directions.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the mental representation of egocentric auditory space is influenced by sight and by the level of expertise in auditory-based orientation and navigation.