Visually guided grasping of common objects: Effects of priming

Priming effects were tested on the planning of the grasping of common objects under full vision during action performance. Healthy participants took part in four experiments which manipulated the nature of the prime (objects, circular block, rectangular bar) and priming context (blocked vs. mixed). Each experiment relied on four priming conditions: (1) congruent orientation, (2) incongruent orientation, (3) neutral prime, and (4) no prime. Priming was observed to have a facilitating effect on visually guided grasping when the object to be grasped was primed by a congruently oriented identical object. This effect was rather independent of the priming context (experimental set-up). Our data suggest an object's functional identity may contribute to the priming effect, as well as its intrinsic (e.g., shape, size) and extrinsic (orientation) visual characteristics. We showed that the planning of visually guided grasping is influenced by prior visual experience, and thus that grasping is not based exclusively on real-time processing of visual information.     

关于内科临床技能培训教学课程设置的探讨

通过对参加内科临床技能培训的大连医科大学2007级、2009级五年制及七年制临床医学专业学生进行问卷调查及客观结构化临床考试（OSCE）,探讨内科临床技能培训课程的学时及课程内容等设置.100%的学生认为有开设临床技能培训课的必要,50%以上的学生认为在大学4年级开设本课程较合适,50%以上的学生认为12学时的设置较合理,80%以上的学生认为应每4人共用一名模拟人.OSCE证实毕业前12学时培训组成绩优于实习前8学时组.     

Intentional Teaching Facilitates Young Children's Comprehension and Use of a Symbolic Object

Children are exposed to symbolic objects that they have to learn to use very early in life. The authors’ aim was to examine whether it is possible to intentionally teach young children the symbolic function of an object. They employed a search task in which children had to use a map to find a toy. Experiment 1 revealed that with no instruction 3-year-, 10-month-old children were quite successful; 3-year-, 6-month-olds showed a divided performance; and 3-year-, 0-month-olds failed. With this baseline, Experiment 2 compared the performance of 3-year-, 0-month-olds in three different conditions: no-instruction, complete instruction (before the task begins), and teaching (complete instruction plus corrective feedback); only children in the teaching condition succeeded. However, children 6 months younger, 2-year-, 6-month-olds, failed despite teaching that was provided (Study 3). This research shows that at some points in development instruction is not enough; intentional teaching in communicative contexts is the mechanism that boosts symbolic understanding in early childhood.     

The Timing Effects of Accent Production in Periodic Finger-Tapping Sequences

When subjects are required to produce short sequences of equally paced finger taps and to accentuate one of the taps, the interval preceding the forceful tap is shortened and the one that immediately follows the accent is lengthened. Assuming that the tapping movements are triggered by an internal clock, one explanation attributes the mistiming of the taps to central factors: The momentary rate of the clock is accelerated or decelerated as a function of motor preparation to, respectively, increase or decrease the movement force. This hypothesis predicts that the interre-sponse intervals measured between either tap movement onsets or movement terminations (taps) will show the same timing pattern. A second explanation for the observed interval effects is that the tapping movements are triggered by a regular internal clock but the timing of the successive taps is altered because the forceful movement is completed in less time than the other tap movements are. This “peripheral” hypothesis predicts regular timing of movement onsets but distorted timing of movement terminations. In the present study, the trajectories of the movements performed by subjects were recorded and the interresponse intervals were measured at the beginning and the end of the tapping movements. The results of Experiment 1 showed that neither model can fully explain the interval effects: The fast forceful movements were initiated with an additional delay that took into account the small execution time of these movements. Experiment 2 reproduced this finding and showed that the timing of the onset and contact intervals did not evolve with the repetition of trial blocks. Therefore, the assumption of an internal clock that would trigger the successive movements must be rejected. The results are discussed in the framework of a modified two-stage model in which the internal clock, instead of triggering the tapping movements, provides target time points at which the movements have to produce their meaningful effects, that is, contacts with the response key. The timing distortions are likely to reflect both peripheral and central components.     

Exposed: phallic protections,shame and damaged parental objects 1

Using ideas derived from Dana Birksted-Breen (‘Phallus, penis and mental space’, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 77: 649–57, 1996), this article explores the clinical experience with ‘Tommy’, a young boy who suffered multiple traumas and neglect. Birksted-Breen describes a phallic state of mind, which, amongst other things, serves to repudiate the potential for a creative link between internal parental objects and a capacity for thinking. In order to survive psychically, Tommy frequently turned to a phallic state of mind. The deficits in his internal and external objects meant that helpful parental qualities, linked with the development of psychic bisexuality, were not available for introjection and identification. The paper suggests a link between Tommy's employment of phallic (and at times perverse) ways of thinking, related to his intrusive attempts to expose and humiliate his psychotherapist, and to an experience of shame associated with inadequate internal objects. The serious compromise to the development of a creative psychic bisexuality in the patient is reflected in the countertransference strain on the psychotherapist's own internal couple.     

Invisible injuries and silent witnesses: The shadow of racial oppression in workplace contexts

Abstract

Internalized oppression is the primary means by which all of us hold on to, ‘agree’ and re-enact our unresolved and repressed difficulties. This paper will examine this particular phenomenon with specific regard to black and white relations in workplace contexts. The reality of prevailing external and internal issues will be fully discussed to highlight factors relating to racial oppression, capacity for resilience and their deleterious effects on black identity development.     

Ripples in mental space caused by dark matters and twisted tales: Some reflections on memory,memoirs and therapeutic work

In this paper, the author reflects on the issues of memory and the writing of personal memoirs, and how this impinges on our professional work. Her title is drawn in part from the work of theoretical physicists who can hypothesise about the existence of dark matter by measuring the deformations it causes in surrounding stars and galaxies. What she suggests is that there may be limitations in keeping strictly to disciplinary boundaries, and our professional lives may defy our efforts to box them in. The opening of doors to a more extensive world of ideas is often helpful, both for psychoanalysis and for the fields which it can illuminate and by which it can also be illuminated. She uses the example of the publication and critical reception of her own memoir, Pieces of Molly to make links with our professional selves and our clinical work. She draws on the work of Freud, and other seminal thinkers in the field, as well as her own clinical work to illustrate the ways in which mental space and the memories within it can be contained and transformed over time, but also can be beset by both internal and external saboteurs.     

Recovery opportunities,work–home conflict,and emotional exhaustion among hematologists and oncologists in private practice

Hematologists and oncologists in private practice play a central role in the care provided for cancer patients. The present study analyzes stress and relaxation aspects in the work of hematologists and oncologists in private practice in Germany in relation to emotional exhaustion, as a core dimension of burnout syndrome. The study focuses on the opportunities for internal recovery using breaks and time out during the working day, the frequency of working on weekends and on vacation, and the physician’s work–home and home–work conflict. Postulated associations between the constructs were analyzed using a structural equation model. If work leads to conflicts in private life (work–home conflict), it is associated with greater emotional exhaustion. Working frequently at the weekend is associated with greater work–home conflict and indirectly with greater emotional exhaustion. By contrast, the availability of opportunities to relax and recover during the working day is associated with less work–home conflict and indirectly with less emotional exhaustion. These results underline the importance of internal recovery opportunities during the working day and a successful interplay between working and private life for the health of outpatient hematologists and oncologists.     

Using optical illusions in the shoulder of a cycle path to affect lateral position

An important factor in single-sided accidents of older cyclists is that they ride off the cycle path onto the verge. Two experiments were performed to assess the feasibility of using virtual 3D objects in the verge to affect the lateral position of bicyclists. In the first experiment, different virtual objects were placed in the shoulder and 1150 passing bicyclists were observed using a fixed camera. The (standard deviation of the) lateral position and speed in four conditions with virtual objects differing in colour, structure, or 3D effect were compared with a control condition in which no virtual objects were applied. In a second experiment, the behaviour of 32 bicyclists aged 50 years or older was measured by mounting two digital action cameras with GPS on the participants’ bicycles. The participants cycled a route of approximately 12 km in which several locations were passed, one of these contained 15 virtual objects similar to the ones used in the first experiment placed in the shoulder of the cycle path. Cyclist behaviour was compared with behaviour at a control location consisting of a solitary two-way cycle path with a grass shoulder. Results indicate that the virtual objects in the tested format had little overall effect on cyclists’ behaviour. However, bicyclists were positioned closer to the virtual objects and the shoulder when they looked at the objects or when they reported that they saw them while cycling. This suggests that the overall visibility of the object design may have been too conservative.