Incorporation of an invasive object

The author discusses the experience of 'being invaded' that is sometimes communicated by certain severely disturbed patients. The complaint can sometimes be couched in terms of bodily suffering and such patients may state that they have the experience of a 'foreign body' inside. It is suggested that these patients have suffered severe early failure of containment of their projections, while at the same time they have incorporated primitive characteristics of the object that have been powerfully projected into them. An object that invades in this way, it is suggested, experiences a compulsive need to expel unbearable states of mind using others as a repository. The infant incorporates these violent projections as part of his own mental representational system, and normal identifi cation processes are disrupted. There follows impairment of the development of the sense of self. Clinical examples of how the invasive experience manifests itself in the analytic setting and in the transference and countertransference are presented. It is argued that this highly complex form of early subject-object interaction (prior to the differentiation of psyche-soma) is more likely to be found in severely narcissistically disturbed individuals. Some refl ections on the origins of invasive phenomena are given.     

传统美德认同和责任情境对大学生责任行为倾向的影响

责任行为是个体在特定责任情境下履行责任和承担后果的行为。本研究采用问卷调查方法着重探讨大学生的传统美德认同和责任情境因素对责任行为倾向的影响。结果表明,传统美德认同,以及责任情境中的责任性质和责任对象都对大学生的责任行为倾向有显著影响,且三者的交互作用显著：（1）传统美德认同高的大学生在履行责任情境中,其责任行为倾向显著强于美德认同低的大学生;（2）履行责任时的责任行为倾向显著强于承担后果时的责任行为倾向,但低美德认同者的两种行为倾向在他人责任情境中无差异;（3）在履行责任情境中,大学生对自我的责任行为倾向显著强于对他人的责任行为倾向;但美德认同低的大学生在承担后果情境中则相反。     

Four themes from 20 years of research on infant perception and cognition

This paper reviews progress over the past 20 years in four areas of research on infant perception and cognition. Work on perception of dynamic events has identified perceptual constraints on perception of object unity and object trajectory continuity that have led to a perceptual account of early development that supplements Nativist accounts. Work on face processing has charted developmental changes that clarify the way innate systems are modified by experience. Research on perception of goal‐directed action and animacy has made significant progress in uncovering the roots of social cognition from 6 months onwards. New methods such as eye tracking and measures of brain activity have done much to confirm and clarify conclusions arising from more conventional looking preference methods. It is likely that future progress in theory and understanding will be made increasingly as a result of triangulation between data arising from conventional and newer methods. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Continuous visual cues trigger automatic spatial target updating in dynamic scenes

Dynamic tasks often require fast adaptations to new viewpoints. It has been shown that automatic spatial updating is triggered by proprioceptive motion cues. Here, we demonstrate that purely visual cues are sufficient to trigger automatic updating. In five experiments, we examined spatial updating in a dynamic attention task in which participants had to track three objects across scene rotations that occurred while the objects were temporarily invisible. The objects moved on a floor plane acting as a reference frame and unpredictably either were relocated when reference frame rotations occurred or remained in place. Although participants were aware of this dissociation they were unable to ignore continuous visual cues about scene rotations (Experiments 1a and 1b). This even held when common rotations of floor plane and objects were less likely than a dissociated rotation (Experiments 2a and 2b). However, identifying only the spatial reference direction was not sufficient to trigger updating (Experiment 3). Thus we conclude that automatic spatial target updating occurs with pure visual information.     

视听时间再校准：适应空间与适应客体的联合及独立作用

同一事件的视听成分即使同时发生, 由于两种信息的物理传播与神经传导速度的差异, 大脑知觉到它们的时刻仍会存在一定的延迟。时间再校准指大脑可以最小化并适应这段时间延迟的现象。本研究采用“适应—测验”范式, 在适应阶段连续给被试呈现视觉先于听觉或听觉先于视觉128ms的刺激对, 在测验阶段以时序判断任务来测量被试此时主观同时点的变化。通过操纵适应及新异视听刺激对(即适应客体与新异客体)在测验阶段出现的空间位置, 探索空间与客体因素对视听时间再校准的影响。结果发现, 当适应客体出现于适应空间时, 主观同时点显著偏向了时间延迟的方向; 同样显著或边缘显著的主观同时点偏移还发生于适应客体出现于未适应空间时, 以及新异客体出现于适应空间时。研究表明, 视听时间再校准在不同空间中的表现取决于适应空间与适应客体的联合或独立作用。     

Adult modelling facilitates young children's generation of novel pretend acts

The present work investigated the effect of modelling on children's pretend play behaviour. Thirty‐seven children aged between 27 and 41 months were given 4 min of free play with a dollhouse and associated toy props (pre‐modelling phase). Using dolls, an experimenter then acted out a series of vignettes involving object substitutions, imaginary play and attribution of properties. Children were subsequently provided with an additional 4 min free play (post‐modelling phase). Consistent with past research, more pretence was exhibited after modelling than before. Furthermore, in the post‐modelling phase, children were as likely to generate their own novel pretence as they were to copy the actions demonstrated by the experimenter. They also increased the number of novel symbolic acts involving imaginary play from the pre‐ to the post‐modelling phase. This study highlights how young children will not only imitate a model's demonstration of pretend acts but also use this demonstration to catalyze the creation of their own pretence. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

三维物体识别的心理表征：角度依赖还是角度独立

“物体识别是角度独立还是角度依赖”的问题一直存在着争议。以物体为中心理论认为是角度独立, 以观察者为中心理论认为是角度依赖。研究参照物体识别的“小几何体”思想自制实验材料, 采用启动范式, 在两个实验中通过考察结构信息和视图信息对物体识别的影响, 揭示物体识别的心理表征。结果发现: (1)形状信息和类别空间关系信息影响物体识别, 表明以物体为中心理论对物体识别表征机制解释的合理性; (2)角度信息可能独立于形状信息表征, 深度旋转方式下的识别成绩优于平面旋转, 表明以观察者为中心理论能够更好地解释三维物体识别的深度旋转现象。研究结果为物体识别理论的融合提供了实证依据。     

Two faces of Thanatos: Broken flowers (2005) and Ai no corrida (1976)1

Since Freud formulated the death instinct concept, it has received widely diverse interpretations. Even Freud advanced two versions. The concomitant analyses of two films, Ai no corrida (1976) [ In the realm of the senses (1977)] and Broken flowers (2005) evince Thanatos's two faces: the cold death of decathexis of an object, in the case of Don (in Broken flowers) and the hot death of the subject‐object fusion in Sada's case ( Ai no corrida). In our analysis, we elaborate two possible vicissitudes of the death instinct: in Broken flowers, the main character finds an ‘analyst’ and is cured. In Ai no corrida, the protagonist meets a complementary object and goes mad.     

The Cognitive Relation in a Formal Setting

This paper proposes a formal framework for the cognitive relation understood as an ordered pair with the cognitive subject and object of cognition as its members. The cognitive subject is represented as consisting of a language, conequence relation and a stock of accepted theories, and the object as a model of those theories. This language allows a simple formulation of the realism/anti-realism controversy. In particular, Tarski’s undefinability theorem gives a philosophical argument for realism in epistemology. Special Issue Formal Epistemology II. Edited by Branden Fitelson