Is separation anxiety in adolescents and parents related to parental differentiation of self?

The current study examined the relationship between separation anxiety in adolescents after their transition to middle school, on the one hand, and differentiation of self and separation anxiety in their parents, on the other hand. The sample included 88 adolescents from northern Israel, together with their biological parents. Adolescents' separation anxiety was found to be negatively associated with maternal I-position (IP). In terms of gender differences, mothers' levels of emotional reactivity and fusion with others were higher than fathers', while fathers' levels of IP and emotional cut-off were higher than mothers'. Furthermore, parents' levels of differentiation of self were negatively correlated with their own levels of separation anxiety. The study found an absence of gender differences in separation anxiety, both for parents and adolescents. Also, parents' separation anxiety was not related to adolescents' separation anxiety. The results indicate that differentiation of self among mothers is a significant characteristic in understanding adolescents' separation anxiety. On a practical level, this study has the potential to increase the awareness of teachers, school counsellors and psychologists of those familial sources that promote and increase adolescents' separation anxiety.     

流畅性对再认的影响:实验证据及理论解释

流畅性可以影响再认,而且仅影响熟悉性加工的观点已得到大量研究的证实。近年一些研究者采用掩蔽启动范式并结合修改的R/K范式、独立判断的R/K范式等实验范式,操控测验项目的流畅性,发现流畅性影响的可能是猜测或者回想加工,因而质疑这个结论。为解释流畅性对再认的影响,流畅性归因理论侧重对流畅性的归因、冲突-归因理论侧重期待流畅性和实际流畅性之间的冲突、预激活-适应模型侧重启动刺激引起的神经活动激活或适应、线索-学习理论侧重流畅性线索的有效性。未来研究应关注流畅性对来源和联结记忆的影响,并考察流畅性对再认的影响在不同年龄人群或遗忘症人群中的表现是否一致。     

Asynchrony in Attitudes Toward Abortion and Gay Rights: The Challenge to Values Alignment

Political commentators tend to assume that Americans who share a particular religious affiliation think similarly about values issues and that values questions are aligned. Although religious affiliation is a strong predictor of attitudes toward abortion and gay rights, there is differentiation within denominational subgroups with respect to both; for example, while majorities of mainline Protestants and Catholics favor gay marriage, many of their respective co‐religionists do not. Further, aggregate survey data shows asynchrony in within‐group attitudes on abortion and gay rights; for example, whereas Hispanic Catholics are more likely to support gay marriage than legal abortion, black Protestants are more likely to support legal abortion than gay marriage. Abortion and gay equality are discrete issues and give rise to divergent attitudes based on the lived reality of different ethnoreligious groups. These findings challenge the utility of the construct of the “values voter,” and underscore that abortion and gay rights should be recognized as separate public policy domains.     

Emotions induced by operatic music: psychophysiological effects of music, plot, and acting: a scientist's tribute to Maria Callas

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates.     

不同认知成分在图形推理测验项目难度预测中的作用

理解项目难度变异的来源是实现计算机自动化项目生成的第一步。通过文献综述, 总结出影响图形推理测验项目难度的四个方面的因素, 再通过操控构图元素熟悉性、属性的抽象性、知觉组织的和谐性以及规则类型与数目这些因素, 编制8套图形推理测验, 共包含112个与高级瑞文推理类似的项目。采用铆测验等值设计, 在每套测验中嵌入10个高级瑞文推理测验项目为铆题, 通过网络施测于6323名被试。使用BILOG MG估算项目参数, 并使用IRTEQ进行测验等值, 将后七套测验上所有项目的项目参数都转换到第一套测验的单位系统上。以项目难度为因变量, 项目题干特征变量为预测变量进行回归分析, 结果发现这四个因素均对项目难度有显著预测作用。优势分析的结果显示记忆负荷(即规则类型与数目的组合)是项目难度的最重要的预测变量, 其他依次为属性的抽象性、知觉组织的和谐性和构图元素熟悉性。     

Current developments in the practice of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama in France

The authors present the history of individual psychoanalytic psychodrama and its current developments as practised in France. They put forward the technique, objectives and rules, along with the indications, limits and risks that ensue from the specific nature of this therapeutic approach. Through its technical adjustments, individual psychoanalytic psychodrama provides a therapeutic option that is appropriate to the defences prevalent in many patients that cause classical psychotherapies to fail: massive inhibition, operative functioning far removed from affects or in false self mode; phobias, disavowal or splitting of the internal psychic life and emotions; prevalence of short discharge circuits in acted-out behaviours and bodily or visceral complaints and expressions. Psychodrama utilizes these defences not in order to eliminate them but to 'subvert' them so that they can continue to carry out their protective role, in particular ensuring narcissistic continuity. At the same time, psychodrama relaxes these defences and facilitates a possible filtering through of the repressed material. Through the number of actors and the diffraction of transference that this allows, psychodrama provides a possibility of adjusting the potentially traumatic effect of the encounter with the object and the instigation of the transference in the regressive dimension induced by any psychotherapeutic process.     

Burge on Perceptual Entitlement

This article is concerned with the question of the nature of the epistemic liaison between experience and belief. The problem, often known as the problem of nondoxastic justification, is to see how a causal transition between experience and belief could assume a normative dimension, that is, how perceptual experience serves to justify beliefs about the world. Currently a number of theories have been proposed to resolve this problem. The article considers a particular solution offered by Tyler Burge which, among other things, introduces a new type of positive epistemic status or warrant, namely, entitlement. It contends that Burge's notion of entitlement cannot be of any help in resolving the problem of nondoxastic justification. Burge's account is compared and contrasted with other, similar, approaches to the problem of nondoxastic justification.     

Developmental Improvements in Perceptual Restoration: Can Young Children Reconstruct Missing Sounds in Noisy Environments?

Young children are frequently exposed to sounds such as speech and music in noisy listening conditions, which have the potential to disrupt their learning. Missing input that is masked by louder sounds can, under the right conditions, be ‘filled in’ by the perceptual system using a process known as perceptual restoration. This experiment compared the ability of 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children, 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children and adults to complete a melody identification task using perceptual restoration. Melodies were presented either intact (complete input), with noise‐filled gaps (partial input; perceptual restoration can occur) or with silence‐filled gaps (partial input; perceptual restoration cannot occur). All age groups could use perceptual restoration to help them interpret partial input, yet perception was the most detrimentally affected by the presentation of partial input for the youngest children. This implies that they might have more difficulty perceiving sounds in noisy environments than older children or adults. Young children had particular difficulty using partial input for identification under conditions where perceptual restoration could not occur. These findings suggest that perceptual restoration is a crucial mechanism in young children, where processes that fill in missing sensory input represent an important part of the way meaning is extracted from a complex sensory world. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

小学生朴素热概念的发展

概念转变是认知发展与教育领域的热点话题之一,但关于小学生对于热概念的转变研究仍处于萌芽阶段。本研究抽取了某小学一、三、六年级学生共104名,采用三种任务情境考察了他们在热概念方面的认识水平。研究发现：一年级学生主要将热看作是一种物质,用物质模型理解热作为一个过程概念具有的速度属性。三年级学生热的物质概念和过程概念的认识并存,能够正确认识过程概念的速度和方向两个重要属性。六年级学生对于热作为一个过程概念所应具有属性的认知较为稳固,但未发生进一步的转变,他们还不能将热作为一个自发过程概念来理解。此研究结果部分