A mismatch of meaning and intentionality between analyst and analysand

In this paper, I will consider a type of misunderstanding in the analytical dialogue and the possible unconscious motivations underlying this. I will also make reference to the patient's use of the analyst's words for the purpose of narcissistic enactment and will explore the extent of the analyst's involvement in this. The subjects of misunderstanding and narcissistic enactment will be dealt with in relation to a patient's way of processing certain interpretations at the beginning of analysis and the concealment of her way of processing the analyst's words. By contributing dreams and other significant material in the sessions, the patient gradually revealed her phantasies which enabled the analyst to uncover the possible factors which determined her particular attribution of meaning to the analyst's words and her retention of information about how she had initially construed his interpretations.     

Age-related changes in trunk neuromuscular activation patterns during a controlled functional transfer task include amplitude and temporal synergies

While healthy aging is associated with physiological changes that can impair control of trunk motion, few studies examine how spinal muscle responses change with increasing age. This study examined whether older (over 65 years) compared to younger (20–45 years) adults had higher overall amplitude and altered temporal recruitment patterns of trunk musculature when performing a functional transfer task. Surface electromyograms from twelve bilateral trunk muscle (24) sites were analyzed using principal component analysis, extracting amplitude and temporal features (PCs) from electromyographic waveforms. Two PCs explained 96% of the waveform variance. Three factor ANOVA models tested main effects (group, muscle and reach) and interactions for PC scores. Significant (p < .0125) group interactions were found for all PC scores. Post hoc analysis revealed that relative to younger adults, older adults recruited higher agonist and antagonistic activity, demonstrated continuous activation levels in specific muscle sites despite changing external moments, and had altered temporal synergies within abdominal and back musculature. In summary both older and younger adults recruit highly organized activation patterns in response to changing external moments. Differences in temporal trunk musculature recruitment patterns suggest that older adults experience different dynamic spinal stiffness and loading compared to younger adults during a functional lifting task.     

GM Crops in Hungary: Comparing Mass Media Framing and Public Understanding of Technoscientific Controversy

In Hungary, there has been limited public debate about genetically modified crops, unlike in some Western countries. The mass media has published little to inform Hungarian lay people about genetically modified (GM) crops or their relevance to the country. Nevertheless, the media did convey some general impressions, mainly from within an Anti-GM Threat framing of the issue. This mass media frame was evident in lay focus group discussions—e.g. GM crops branded a food risk, general focus on risks, health risk identified as important risk, foreign companies regarded as source of the problem and as being ‘just out for profit’, image of corn, rhetoric of deterioration, etc. This overlap supports theories which suggest that media framings provide a resource which can be appropriated for public understanding. At the same time, however, dominant media framings were also mentioned only vaguely or in a somewhat modified way. Other issues raised in the media framing, not resonating with wider cultural themes, were absent from focus group discussions (e.g. environmental concerns). And participants were also able to rely on other conversational resources (analogous reasoning and cultural themes) to formulate some additional issues beyond the media reportage.     

Action representations activated by task‐irrelevant information: Is it really irrelevant?

Accessing action knowledge is believed to rely on the activation of action representations through the retrieval of functional, manipulative, and spatial information associated with objects. However, it remains unclear whether action representations can be activated in this way when the object information is irrelevant to the current judgment. The present study investigated this question by independently manipulating the correctness of three types of action‐related information: the functional relation between the two objects, the grip applied to the objects, and the orientation of the objects. In each of three tasks in Experiment 1, participants evaluated the correctness of only one of the three information types (function, grip or orientation). Similar results were achieved with all three tasks: “correct” judgments were facilitated when the other dimensions were correct; however, “incorrect” judgments were facilitated when the other two dimensions were both correct and also when they were both incorrect. In Experiment 2, when participants attended to an action‐irrelevant feature (object color), there was no interaction between function, grip, and orientation. These results clearly indicate that action representations can be activated by retrieval of functional, manipulative, and spatial knowledge about objects, even though this is task‐irrelevant information.     

Memory for between‐list and within‐list information in amnesic patients with temporal lobe and diencephalic lesions

Patients with medial temporal lobe damage and diencephalic damage were compared on two tests of verbal temporal order memory: between‐list discrimination and within‐list discrimination. Both patient groups were impaired relative to a group of healthy control participants. In addition, despite comparable levels of item recognition, the diencephalic group was impaired relative to the medial temporal lobe group on both within‐list and between‐list discrimination. Temporal order memory for between‐list information showed a significant correlation with a composite measure of recognition memory, and the results are discussed in terms of the patients' reliance on familiarity and distance‐based processes to make temporal order judgments.     

The intricacies of verbalizations,gestures, and game outcome using sequential analysis

ObjectivesThe purpose of the present study was to identify the intricacies of verbalizations, gestures, and game outcome during competition.DesignThe behavioral research software Observer XT^® using sequential analysis was used to analyze our data.MethodParticipants were 34 junior tennis players with a mean age of 13.68 (SD = 1.8). Youth players were observed during 17 matches using the Self-Talk and Gestures Rating Scale and were examined by a built-in application (Observer XT^®) of mapping of verbalizations, gestures, and performance.ResultsSequences indicated negative verbalizations were the most frequently exhibited form of overt verbalizations, followed by positive and instructional verbalizations. Furthermore negative verbalizations for either the server or the receiver decreased the probability of winning a game and showed verbalizations from the server related to the receiver's verbalizations and game outcome, and vice versa.ConclusionsThe results shed light on how verbalizations and gestures interact differently according to the context, which may have important implications for research that has focused on verbalizations and has neglected gestures and contextualized performance in sport.     

Perceived shared understanding in teams: The motivational effect of being ‘on the same page’

This study examines the role of perceived shared understanding with regard to team performance, taking into account the motivational mechanisms (i.e., group potency and team effort) involved in this relationship and the moderating role of task routineness. Using a multisource approach and a team‐level design, we collected data from 101 teams (i.e., 381 members and their 101 immediate superiors) working in a Canadian public safety organization. The results support the mediating role of group potency and team effort in the relationship between perceived shared understanding and team performance. Moreover, the results show that the relationship between team effort and team performance is moderated by task routineness, such that this relationship is stronger when task routineness is high. On the whole, the findings of this study help to better understand why and under what circumstances perceived shared understanding may enhance team performance.     

Eavesdropping on character: Assessing everyday moral behaviors

Despite decades of interest in moral character, comparatively little is known about moral behavior in everyday life. This paper reports a novel method for assessing everyday moral behaviors using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)—a digital audio-recorder that intermittently samples snippets of ambient sounds from people’s environments—and examines the stability of these moral behaviors. In three samples (combined N = 186), participants wore an EAR over one or two weekends. Audio files were coded for everyday moral behaviors (e.g., showing sympathy, gratitude) and morally-neutral comparison language behaviors (e.g., use of prepositions, articles). Results indicate that stable individual differences in moral behavior can be systematically observed in daily life, and that their stability is comparable to the stability of neutral language behaviors.