Shadow recognition in human infants

Seventy-five children of five different age groups (ranging from 13–18 to 37–42 months of age) were tested using various nonverbal indices for (a) their ability to respond to shadowed information about objects other than themselves, (b) their ability to manipulate their own shadow, and (c) their ability to recognize their own shadow as evidenced by the explicit use of shadowed information about themselves to respond to themselves. The results show that although infants are aware of shadows and show signs of having mastered the concept of shadow permanence at a fairly early age, compelling evidence of shadow self-recognition is developmentally delayed relative to what has been reported for the onset of mirror self-recognition, with most infants failing to show positive evidence prior to 3 years of age. The results are discussed in light of psychological differences that may exist between shadows and mirrors. Prior involvement and/or tutoring by parents about shadows had no effect on the emergence of shadow recognition.     

Eye contact as an antecedent to compliant behavior

Many experimenters and practitioners regard eye contact between instructor and learner as a facilitator, if not a prerequisite, to the effective instruction of sighted people. Without scientifically supporting the practice of demanding eye contact, experimenters, nonetheless, advocate its use and offer a variety of procedures to promote its acquisition. To justify the widespread use of demanded eye contact and to explain its role functionally, one experiment and data from six replications with nine subjects are presented. The primary experiment provides an empirical base for the training of eye contact prior to instruction. In a multiple-baseline design across two students demanded eye contact resulted in levels of compliance that were double and triple those of baseline. A tentative functional analysis of demanded eye contact is presented, followed by a discussion of the relationship of eye contact to attending.     

脑内信息加工的不连续性假说

根据阅读眼动的实验资料 ,提出脑内信息加工的时间不连续性假说 ,认为脑内加工相继信息间存在暂时性中断。最近观察到的注意间隙现象为这一假说提供了新的实验证据。     

The familiar stranger

To classify the contents of the collective unconsciousness which he had just discovered, Jung made use of typology. Later, beginning in the 1940s, he adopted the concept of archetypal field (relational and energetic), emphasizing the dynamic of opposites. Drawing inspiration from the field concept, the author shows the active role taken in the transference relationship by the opposites 'strange' and 'familiar'– defined as antinomic values – and studies the therapeutic conditions for a transition from one pole to the other, in neurotic and borderline cases. The clinical examples are drawn from Théodore Flournoy's book, Des Indes à la planète Mars (From India to the Planet Mars) , and two films, Theorem by Pasolini and Hiroshima mon amour by Alain Renais and Marguerite Duras.     

Driving skills after whiplash

Previous studies have shown that some persons with longlasting problems after whiplash have changed eye movements. These changes have been related to disturbance of the posture control system. The question raised in the present study is whether such disturbances can influence daily life functions connected with balance, position and external movements, such as car driving. A group of 23 persons with disturbed eye movements due to whiplash injury, was tested in a driving simulator, together with a closely matched control group. The results revealed significant differences between the two groups with respect to response times to the traffic signs presented, identification of type of sign, as well as steering precision while the subjects’ attention was directed to the process of identifying the signs. Alternative explanations such as driving experience, pain, medication or malingering are at least partly controlled for, but cannot completely be ruled out. A distorted posture control system leading to disturbance of eye movements seems to be the most likely primary causative factor, but these disturbances are most certainly complexly determined. Reduced attention capacity is considered to be a mediating secondary factor. Registration of eye movements may be a useful diagnostic tool to evaluate driving skill after whiplash.     

Adult's failures on euclidean and projective spatial tasks: Implications for characterizing spatial cognition

In their initial study of the development of children's spatial concepts, Piaget and Inhelder (1956) designed the “water-level” and “plumb-line” tasks to assess children's Euclidean abilities to perceive and represent horizontals and verticals. Surprisingly, subsequent research has shown that many adults perform badly on these tasks designed for children. Here we studied whether adults (N=160) would also have difficulty on a shadow projection task developed to assess theoretically related projective spatial concepts. The data showed that some adults had difficulty on the shadow task, whether tested by a drawing or by a selection task, and whether scored with respect to qualitative shape or metric accuracy. Performance was significantly worse on complex than simple forms, and when sex differences emerged, they favored males. As hypothesized, the best predictor of shadow performance was performance on the Euclidean tasks. Scores on the Embedded Figures Test and participant sex accounted for small (but significant) additional variance on shadow performance. Implications for theories of spatial development and for modeling individual differences in spatial cognition are discussed.     

珠心算过程的眼动和认知研究

本实验采用眼动技术和实验神经心理学的方法对珠心算的认知过程进行了实验研究。研究发现,在竖式运算时,接受过珠心算训练的儿童与没有接受过珠心算训练的儿童相比其眼动轨迹显著不同;神经心理实验的结果表明,训练组儿童在数学运算能力、数字记忆空间、注意力、大脑功能偏侧化等方面均与非训练组儿童有显著差别。     

MP3播放器外观设计效果的眼动评估

以大学生为被试,利用眼动法和主观评定法,分析了大学生在评估不同颜色（银白色、红色）、不同外形（椭圆形、圆形、长方体形和四棱柱形）MP3播放器外观设计时的眼动特征。结果发现：对于MP3播放器的外观来说,被试最关注的区域是功能键区域,即就是关注MP3播放器的人机交流功能;对于不同外形的MP3播放器,被试对圆形MP3播放器最感兴趣。     

Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.     

几何解题过程的眼动及视觉工作记忆模型:OGRE模型

简要介绍了一个几何解题过程的眼动及视觉工作记忆模型——跟动的几何推理引擎模型（OGRE）,对该模型的特点及其在其它认知过程中的应用进行了讨论。