Schizophrenia Epigenesis?

I begin by examining how genetics drivesschizophrenia research, and raise both familiar andrelatively novel criticisms of the evidence putativelysupporting the genetic basis of schizophrenia. Inparticular, I call attention to a set of concernsabout the effects of placentation on concordance ratesof schizophrenia in monozygotic twins, which furtherweakens the case for schizophrenia's so-called stronggenetic component. I then underscore two criticalpoints. First, I emphasize the importance of takingseriously considerations about the complexity of bothontogenesis and the development of hereditarydiseases. The recognition of developmentalconstraints and supports is crucial, for attention todevelopment exposes the naivete of too many models ofgene action in the aetiology of disease. Secondly, Iattend to those schizophreniologists who ignoremethodological criticisms and thus presume a geneticbasis for schizophrenia, and then seek the schizophrenic genotype lacking an adequatephenotype. In response I attempt to demonstrate thenecessity of a sustained effort at characterizing thephenotype of schizophrenia as an enabling conditionfor the whole enterprise of psychiatric genetics – andfor psychiatry itself. Without the organism-levelphenotype, research at the level of genes will remainunproductive – assuming of course that research at thegenetic level is appropriate at all.     

儿童早期"心理理论"发展研究中的几个基本问题

儿童"心理理论"的发展研究是当今发展心理学中最活跃的领域之一.近年来,该领域的研究重点已逐渐由一般的发展描述,转向关于"心理理论"的缘起与发展机制的研究.由此,有许多密切相关的关于早期"心理理论"发生发展及其评估的基本问题,横亘于研究者面前,迄今仍悬而未决,并引发诸多争议.如何解决这些问题并理顺它们之间的关系,将极大地影响着该领域今后的研究进展.     

The Ecological Self: Metaphor and Developmental Experience?

The term ecological self, used within the fields of deep ecology and ecopsychology, is considered here from the viewpoint of developmental research and theory, within the context of contemporary relational psychoanalysis. Both developmental theory and more specifically our concept of health are explored with the inclusion of relatedness to the nonhuman world and an emphasis on embodiment and interactive experience. Illustrations and examples are drawn from research, clinical work with adults and the literature of natural history.     

Infant recall memory and communication predicts later cognitive development

This longitudinal study investigates the relation between recall memory and communication in infancy and later cognitive development. Twenty-six typically developing Swedish children were tested during infancy for deferred imitation (memory), joint attention (JA), and requesting (nonverbal communication); they also were tested during childhood for language and cognitive competence. Results showed that infants with low performance on both deferred imitation at 9 months and joint attention at 14 months obtained a significantly lower score on a test of cognitive abilities at 4 years of age. This long-term prediction from preverbal infancy to childhood cognition is of interest both to developmental theory and to practice.     

Operational Noology as a new methodology for the study of thought and language: theoretical aspects and possible practical applications

In this article, the author presents a new methodology for the study of two fundamental components of consciousness, that is thought and language. The fundamental presupposition that forms the basis of this methodology is that thought is not simply a passive "reflection" of an external "reality", but also (and especially) something active, i.e. that the fundamental components of thought are sequences of operations, amongst which the ones of attention play a key role. These sequences of elementary mental operations are called mental categories, and are the meanings of all the words that do not seem to indicate something physical (first of all, all the "grammatical" words, that is conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, fundamental verbs like "to be", "to have" etc., the main adverbs, and, in the large number of languages that have a more or less rich morphology, all morphemes (the ones which indicate cases, in languages that have cases, the number and the gender of nouns and adjectives, moods and tenses of the verb etc.). The author proposes a list of these elementary mental operations and he shows how it is possible, basing ourselves on them, to identify the meanings of these words, which are indispensable for any linguistic expression. The author also mentions a possible short-term practical application of these theories, i.e. a device in order to improve the quality of machine translation. He also formulates the hypothesis that these theories could allow us to look in a new way at the problem of the (partial) artificial reproduction of the human activity of thought and language.     

Technical intelligence in animals: the kea model

The ability to act on information flexibly is one of the cornerstones of intelligent behavior. As particularly informative example, tool-oriented behavior has been investigated to determine to which extent nonhuman animals understand means-end relations, object affordances, and have specific motor skills. Even planning with foresight, goal-directed problem solving and immediate causal inference have been a focus of research. However, these cognitive abilities may not be restricted to tool-using animals but may be found also in animals that show high levels of curiosity, object exploration and manipulation, and extractive foraging behavior. The kea, a New Zealand parrot, is a particularly good example. We here review findings from laboratory experiments and field observations of keas revealing surprising cognitive capacities in the physical domain. In an experiment with captive keas, the success rate of individuals that were allowed to observe a trained conspecific was significantly higher than that of naive control subjects due to their acquisition of some functional understanding of the task through observation. In a further experiment using the string-pulling task, a well-probed test for means-end comprehension, we found the keas finding an immediate solution that could not be improved upon in nine further trials. We interpreted their performance as insightful in the sense of being sensitive of the relevant functional properties of the task and thereby producing a new adaptive response without trial-and-error learning. Together, these findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the distribution of higher cognitive skills in the animal kingdom by showing high levels of sensorimotor intelligence in animals that do not use tools. In conclusion, we suggest that the 'Technical intelligence hypothesis' (Byrne, Machiavellian intelligence II: extensions and evaluations, pp 289-211, 1997), which has been proposed to explain the origin of the ape/monkey grade-shift in intelligence by a selection pressure upon an increased efficiency in foraging behavior, should be extended, that is, applied to some birds as well.     

The effect of cues on young children's abilities to discriminate among thoughts, feelings and behaviours

OBJECTIVE: To determine if cues help young children discriminate among thoughts, feelings and behaviours. PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-six children aged 4-7 years from three schools in Norwich, UK. DESIGN: Within each age band (4, 5, 6, 7), children were randomised to the cue or the no cue condition on a stratified basis ensuring that equal numbers of boys and girls from each school were in each of the eight cells (cue condition x age). Cues were glove puppets and post boxes. The effect of IQ was controlled. MEASURES: A discrimination task, in which children were asked to identify a thought, a feeling and a behaviour from each of six brief stories, and a brief IQ assessment were administered to children individually. RESULTS: There was a significant effect of age and cue condition on performance; older children and those who were presented with the cue performed better. There were no gender differences and no interaction between cue condition and age. CONCLUSION: Many young children discriminated among thoughts, feelings and behaviours suggesting that they may be able to engage in this aspect of cognitive behaviour therapy. Simple cues (puppets and posting boxes) improved children's performance and these may be useful therapeutic tools with young children.     

Developmental dyscalculia and basic numerical capacities: a study of 8-9-year-old students

Thirty-one 8- and 9-year-old children selected for dyscalculia, reading difficulties or both, were compared to controls on a range of basic number processing tasks. Children with dyscalculia only had impaired performance on the tasks despite high-average performance on tests of IQ, vocabulary and working memory tasks. Children with reading disability were mildly impaired only on tasks that involved articulation, while children with both disorders showed a pattern of numerical disability similar to that of the dyscalculic group, with no special features consequent on their reading or language deficits. We conclude that dyscalculia is the result of specific disabilities in basic numerical processing, rather than the consequence of deficits in other cognitive abilities.     

Six does not just mean a lot: preschoolers see number words as specific

This paper examines what children believe about unmapped number words - those number words whose exact meanings children have not yet learned. In Study 1, 31 children (ages 2-10 to 4-2) judged that the application of five and six changes when numerosity changes, although they did not know that equal sets must have the same number word. In Study 2, 15 children (ages 2-5 to 3-6) judged that six plus more is no longer six, but that a lot plus more is still a lot. Findings support the hypothesis that children treat number words as referring to specific, unique numerosities even before they know exactly which numerosity each word refers to.     

The mind-brain relationship: the emergent self

This paper explores the mind-brain relationship, using insights from contemporary neuroscience. It seeks to investigate how our brains become who we are, how subjective experience arises. In order to do this some explanation is given of the basic concepts of how the brain produces our subjective mental life. Current neuropsychological and neurobiological understanding of early brain development, memory, emotion and consciousness are explored. There is also an attempt at mapping the mind-brain-self relationship from a uniquely Jungian perspective. Clinical material is included in order to show the relevance of these insights to our work in the consulting room, arguing the value of the affect-regulating, relational aspects of the analytic dyad that forge new neural pathways through emotional connection. Such experience forms the emotional scaffolding necessary for the emergence of reflective function.