Determinants of fraud examination performance: An empirical study of internal investigation reports

Fraud examiners from global auditing firms and local law firms are in the business of private policing by conducting internal investigations in private and public organisations when there is suspicion of financial crime. The business is often characterised by secrecy, and reports of investigations are often difficult or impossible to disclose. Since 2012, we have successfully retrieved 63 fraud examination reports in Scandinavia. Based on these reports, this article presents a statistical analysis of fraud examination performance. Performance was measured in terms of the extent of successful reconstruction of past events and the extent of justification of conclusions from the examinations. We identified three statistically significant determinants of fraud examination performance: the seriousness of the consequences, the relative seriousness of the consequences and the conclusions, and the seriousness of the conclusions.     

跨通道语义启动对视觉注意的影响

采用生活中的真实客体,考察了跨通道语义相关性对视觉注意的影响以及跨通道促进的时程。结合启动范式和点探测范式,实验1发现在听觉启动600ms后,被试对高相关视觉刺激的反应比对低相关刺激的反应更快,而在视觉启动下没有发现启动效应。实验2发现在启动刺激呈现900ms后跨通道启动效应消失。研究证明了基于先前经验的视、听语义相关能够促进视觉的选择性注意。     

Is it dangerous? The role of an emotional visual search strategy and threat-relevant training in the detection of guns and knives

Counter-terrorism strategies rely on the assumption that it is possible to increase threat detection by providing explicit verbal instructions to orient people's attention to dangerous objects and hostile behaviours in their environment. Nevertheless, whether verbal cues can be used to enhance threat detection performance under laboratory conditions is currently unclear. In Experiment 1, student participants were required to detect a picture of a dangerous or neutral object embedded within a visual search display on the basis of an emotional strategy ‘is it dangerous?’ or a semantic strategy ‘is it an object?’. The results showed a threat superiority effect that was enhanced by the emotional visual search strategy. In Experiment 2, whilst trainee police officers displayed a greater threat superiority effect than student controls, both groups benefitted from performing the task under the emotional than semantic visual search strategy. Manipulating situational threat levels (high vs. low) in the experimental instructions had no effect on visual search performance. The current findings provide new support for the language-as-context hypothesis. They are also consistent with a dual-processing account of threat detection involving a verbally mediated route in working memory and the deployment of a visual template developed as a function of training.     

On the development of a benign superego- thoughts arising from psychoanalytical work with children and grownups

ABSTRACT

The human psyche unfolds through the internalization of the presence of the object; little by little the child makes the functions and characteristics of the object her own. Part of the internalization of the primary objects result in the superego formation. When the internalized object is reliably present, protecting and need fulfilling the superego will be formed into a benign inner structure, which has self-observing, self-regulatory and ideal forming functions. A good internal object lays the basis for a well- functioning and protective superego, whereas an object experienced as too distant and not there when needed results in internalizations which build a harsh and persecuting superego. The focus in this article is on the development of a benign superego.     

成人婚恋依恋研究回顾与展望

婚恋关系是成人依恋的主要形式。自上世纪80年代末，国外兴起了对成人婚恋依恋（Adult Romantic Attachment）的研究。该文介绍了成人婚恋依恋的理论背景、依恋型、内部工作模型研究及当前对婚恋依恋与成人社会功能发展的研究进展。文章最后讨论了当前研究存在的一些问题及未来研究的基本走向。     

Language as potential space for relational positioning: Exploring language use as a manifestation of leadership anxiety dynamics

This exploratory study considered language use as a manifestation of anxiety in work and everyday settings. Respondents were seven psychology practitioners from across the discipline (following a psychodynamic approach), who reflected on the dynamics of language use associated with their social and occupational roles. Hermeneutic phenomenological analysis revealed the way in which participants characterised their language use in managing the language of titles and defining potential space for relational, regressive and defensive purposes.     

Vague fictional objects

ABSTRACT

I propose a different account of fictional objects from the ones already present in the literature. According to my account, fictional objects are culturally created abstract objects dependent for their existence on the pretence attitude adopted by a group of people towards a single fictional content. My work is divided into three parts: in the first one, I present how fictional objects come into existence according to my proposal; in the second part, I illustrate how the existence of fictional objects so conceived may be ontically indeterminate; in the last part, I consider what happens when vague existence and indeterminate identity are claimed within fictional texts.