Recognizing the infant as subject in infant-parent psychotherapy

Drawing on Winnicott's view of infants as subjects entitled to an intervention in their own right, infants as the referred patient have been seen in infant-parent psychotherapy for 20 years at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. This is a radically different view of infant symptomatology than viewing it as only expressing an aspect of the mother's unconscious. The clinical pathway differentiates the therapy from much parent-infant psychotherapy. The author describes the theoretical model of a twofold approach to understanding the infant's experience through interactive dialogue between therapist and infant, and sharing this understanding with the parents, and illustrates it with cases of failure-to-thrive infants. She discusses two criticisms: first, that infant-parent psychotherapy may undermine the parents and, second, that brief parent-infant psychotherapy does not alter parents' insecure attachment status. Videotaped sessions often show rapid improvement; parents generally feel relieved. This approach potentially shapes not only parents' and infants' representations, but also their implicit knowledge of relationships-partly, it is suggested, through activating the mirror neuron system to bring about implicit memory change. Change may therefore be longer lasting than psychoanalytic theory presently conceives. The approach is relevant in an outpatient setting: gains were maintained long term in 90% of out-patient cases.     

Experience with dynamic reinforcement rates decreases resistance to extinction

The ability of organisms to detect reinforcer‐rate changes in choice preparations is positively related to two factors: the magnitude of the change in rate and the frequency with which rates change. Gallistel (2012) suggested similar rate‐detection processes are responsible for decreases in responding during operant extinction. Although effects of magnitude of change in reinforcer rate on resistance to extinction are well known (e.g., the partial‐reinforcement‐extinction effect), effects of frequency of changes in rate prior to extinction are unknown. Thus, the present experiments examined whether frequency of changes in baseline reinforcer rates impacts resistance to extinction. Pigeons pecked keys for variable‐interval food under conditions where reinforcer rates were stable and where they changed within and between sessions. Overall reinforcer rates between conditions were controlled. In Experiment 1, resistance to extinction was lower following exposure to dynamic reinforcement schedules than to static schedules. Experiment 2 showed that resistance to presession feeding, a disruptor that should not involve change‐detection processes, was unaffected by baseline‐schedule dynamics. These findings are consistent with the suggestion that change detection contributes to extinction. We discuss implications of change‐detection processes for extinction of simple and discriminated operant behavior and relate these processes to the behavioral‐momentum based approach to understanding extinction.     

Consequences of Repeated Critical Versus Neutral Body Checking in Women With High Shape or Weight Concern

Body checking is a repeated behavior conducted in an attempt to gain information about one’s shape, weight, size, or body composition. Body checking is associated with negative behavioral, emotional, and cognitive outcomes and may maintain body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. The precise function and consequences of body checking remain less well understood. Specifically, immediate and delayed impacts of repeated critical body checking (CBC) have not been determined. The current study randomly assigned 142 young women with high shape/weight concern to daily 10-min CBC, neutral body checking (NBC), or a non-body critical checking (NBCC) comparison condition, examining their immediate and delayed (one-week follow-up) effects on body satisfaction, self-esteem, and negative affect. Multilevel modeling and follow-up planned comparisons found that compared to NBCC, CBC participants’ body satisfaction and self-esteem immediately decreased, but negative affect improved from baseline to follow-up. Compared to CBC, NBC participants’ self-esteem and negative affect improved immediately, and their self-esteem improved over time compared to NBCC. Over time, all participants’ state body satisfaction improved, regardless of condition. Our findings suggest a 10-min CBC session may function differently than typical (harmful) in vivo body checking. However, reasons for this difference are unclear. Additional research is needed to distinguish (harmful) in vivo body checking from CBC procedures such as this and other mirror exposure interventions. Research is needed to examine the effects of varying CBC duration and instructions during body exposure to further clarify mechanisms of change during body exposures.     

镜像神经元:认知具身性的神经生物学证据

传统认知心理学认为认知类似于计算机对抽象符号的加工和运算,这种观点支持了身心二元论。但是近年来兴起的具身认知运动却否定了这一观点的合理性。具身认知认为认知是身体与世界互动的结果,是身体的感觉-运动系统作用于世界而塑造出来的。认知是具身的,离不开身体的构造和感觉运动系统的作用。镜像神经元的发现支持了认知的具身特征,为认知的具身性提供了神经生物学的证据。     

Reinforcement: Food Signals the Time and Location of Future Food

It has long been understood that food deliveries may act as signals of future food location, and not only as strengtheners of prefood responding as the law of effect suggests. Recent research has taken this idea further—the main effect of food deliveries, or other “reinforcers”, may be signaling rather than strengthening. The present experiment investigated the ability of food deliveries to signal food contingencies across time after food. In Phase 1, the next food delivery was always equally likely to be arranged for a left‐ or a right‐key response. Conditions were arranged such that the next food delivery was likely to occur either sooner on the left (or right) key, or sooner on the just‐productive (or not‐just‐productive) key. In Phase 2, similar contingencies were arranged, but the last‐food location was signaled by a red keylight. Preference, measured in 2‐s bins across interfood intervals, was jointly controlled by the likely time and location of the next food delivery. In Phase 1, when any food delivery signaled a likely sooner next food delivery on a particular key, postfood preference was strongly toward that key, and moved toward the other key across the interreinforcer interval. In other conditions in which food delivery on the two keys signaled different subsequent contingencies, postfood preference was less extreme, and quickly moved toward indifference. In Phase 2, in all three conditions, initial preference was strongly toward the likely‐sooner food key, and moved to the other key across the interfood interval. In both phases, at a more extended level of analysis, sequences of same‐key food deliveries caused a small increase in preference for the just‐productive key, suggesting the presence of a “reinforcement effect”, albeit one that was very small.     

Poor Imitative Performance of Unlearned Gestures in Children with Probable Developmental Coordination Disorder

It has been hypothesized that deficits in imitation, linked to abnormal functioning of the mirror neuron system (MNS), may contribute to the motor impairments associated with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The authors aimed to examine imitation of complex novel postures and sequences of gestures in children with and without probable DCD (pDCD), using the postural praxis and sequencing praxis subtests of the Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests (Ayres, 1989 Ayres, A. J. (1989). Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests: SIPT manual. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services. [Google Scholar]). Participants were 29 boys with pDCD between 6.08 and 13.33 years old, and 29 group age-matched typically developing boys between 6.08 and 13.83 years old. Responses of children with pDCD on both imitation tasks were less accurate than controls, with group differences more apparent with increasing task complexity. Furthermore, as a group, children with pDCD were slower and had a higher number of non–mirror-imitated responses. There was considerable variability within the pDCD group, with some children displaying imitation scores within the normative range. Given the importance of imitation and visual learning for motor development, the difficulties in imitation displayed by some children with pDCD have the potential to impact on movement acquisition. Interventions to target imitation may be beneficial for these children. The results show that children with pDCD had difficulty imitating complex novel postures, children with pDCD had difficulty imitating gesture sequences, children with pDCD had slower responses than controls, group differences in imitation performance increased with task complexity, and not all children with pDCD displayed imitation deficits.     

内隐序列学习意识的具身机制

内隐序列学习意识已有三类理论如全局工作平台理论、神经可塑性理论、新异刺激理论都忽略了身体感受的关键因素, 难以揭示意识产生的根本原因。具身意识理论和研究发现, 运动/情感镜像神经元系统及与自我、认知控制系统的交互, 是初级/高级意识产生的本源, 但未涉及内隐序列学习规则意识这个对人类学习认知至关重要的领域。内隐序列学习研究实质上已接近揭示其学习机制正是感知觉运动具身学习, 其意识机制很可能是感知觉运动/情感具身意识, 并且其意识加工脑区与具身意识脑区有关键重合。未来研究可采用Granger因果大脑网络技术证明内隐序列学习意识的具身本源, 并考察已有三类意识理论的具身基础, 以及探索意识影响因素的具身机制。