Analysis of the creation of 'emptiness', of 'nothingness', in certain types of psychosis

Some psychotic patients manage to create nothingness and emptiness thanks to the amount of work their ego accomplishes. That is the paradox we find in schizophrenic patients, their ego is simultaneously weak and powerful. When we analyse how this nothingness/emptiness is created, we enter into a strange world in which the patient's ego is, in part, defective and fragmented; his or her thinking apparatus, capacity for perceiving and feeling are under attack. Yet this same ego can call on intellectual ability, imagination and tremendous energy in order to create a highly complex structure, thanks to which the psychotic individual manages to create a kind of para-organization of space by splitting 'nothingness' (the space between representations) and 'density' (a compact magma made up of many different highly-condensed representations). Both nothingness and density may give the impression that the patient is 'nowhere to be found' and therefore impossible to analyse. In this paper, I shall describe these mechanisms as they appear in the clinical material of a female psychotic patient.     

The 'body–container': A new perspective on the 'body–ego'

Psychoanalytic theory and practice tend to focus on metaphorical and symbolic mental representations in a way that often pushes aside the importance of a bodily 'presence' possessing qualities that can not and should not be subordinated to the representational structure. By introducing the 'body – container' model, this paper reintroduces the concrete physical body into the psychoanalytic discourse in a more direct way. This clinical – theoretical model links the 'body-ego' ( Freud, 1923 ) to the container idea ( Bion, 1962 ) aiming to creates a new integrative psyche-soma scheme. The 'body – container' experience is available as a subjective realization through a priori psycho-physical forms structured as an envelope and a central vertical axis. These forms are the outcome of our given bodily structure experienced under the 'magnetic' force of object relation. The mental envelope is already discussed in psychoanalytic theory ( Anzieu, 1989, 1990 ; Bick, 1968 ) and I wish to introduce the characteristics of the vertical axis which I call 'the frontal spine', emphasizing its constitutional reciprocity with the skin envelope. The proposed model offers new insights into the psycho-physical organization in primitive mental states and may contribute to the understanding of the complementary structural relation between embodied and represented in human experience. Two clinical examples illustrate the therapeutic work relevant to disturbances in the primal psycho-physical space organization at different developmental levels.     

A new definition of well-behaved discrimination functions

A discrimination function shows the probability or degree with which stimuli are discriminated from each other when presented in pairs. In a previous publication [Kujala, J.V., & Dzhafarov, E.N. (2008). On minima of discrimination functions. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 52, 116–127] we introduced a condition under which the conformity of a discrimination function with the law of Regular Minimality (which says, essentially, that “being least discriminable from” is a symmetric relation) implies the constancy of the function’s minima (i.e., the same level of discriminability of every stimulus from the stimulus least discriminable from it). This condition, referred to as “well-behavedness,” turns out to be unnecessarily restrictive. In this note we give a significantly more general definition of well-behavedness, applicable to all Hausdorff arc-connected stimulus spaces. The definition employs the notion of the smallest transitively and topologically closed extension of a relation. We provide a transfinite-recursive construction for this notion and illustrate it by examples.     

Tatsuoka 矩阵理论的修正

K .K.Tatsuoka和她同事开发的规则空间模型（RSM）是一种在国内外有较大影响的认知诊断模型,但是Tatsuoka的RSM中 矩阵理论存在缺陷和错误,这些失误使得RSM中用布尔描述函数（BDF）计算被试理想项目反应模式（IRP）的方法缺乏理论依据。这里揭示了Tatsuoka的 矩阵理论的缺陷和错误并引进既不使用BDF又便于应用的计算IRP的方法;接着还介绍一种由可达阵计算简化 阵的方法,该方法显示了可达阵在构造认知诊断测验的重要性。这些结果对丰富 矩阵理论及正确使用RSM进行认知诊断有一定的意义     

Assaultive behavior personality and personal space

Eysenck's Psychoticism, Extraversion and Neuroticism (PEN) Inventory was used to explore the role of personality variables in augmented personal space required by assaultive offenders. For both violent (n = 20) and nonviolent (n = 20) subjects personal space was greatest from a rear approach. Neither personality scores nor nature of offense alone predicted personal space needs; however personal space was significantly elevated in all directions for assaultive offenders with high scores on the psychoticism scale of the PEN Inventory.     

传统时空观下“左阳右阴”在中医学的化用

“左阳右阴”理论作为一种思想文化,其形成和发展不可避免地受到经济、政治、科技、思想运动、地理环境等社会与自然多方面因素的影响。鉴于传统时空观对中医学生命观存在指导意义,以时空观为出发点,窥探“左阳右阴”思想形成的自然缘由。这一思想化用于中医领域,演变为中医学认识人体、辨治疾病的重要理论,在脏腑、气血、病证等方面均有体现。关于“左血右气”与“左阳右阴”的矛盾现象,认为原因在于阐述的角度差异,两种理论具体应用时彼此支持,这是中医学立足于整体,论述气血阴阳浑为一体的具体体现。     

Affordances after spinal cord injury

Spinal cord injury can cause cognitive impairments even when no cerebral lesion is appreciable. As patients are forced to explore the environment in a non-canonical position (i.e., seated on a wheelchair), a modified relation with space can explain motor-related cognitive differences compared to non-injured individuals. Peripersonal space is encoded in motor terms, that is, in relation to the representation of action abilities and is strictly related to the affordance of reachability. In turn, affordances, the action possibilities suggested by relevant properties of the environment, are related to the perceiver's peripersonal space and motor abilities. One might suppose that these motor-related cognitive abilities are compromised when an individual loses the ability to move. We shed light on this issue in 10 patients with paraplegia and 20 matched controls. All have been administered an affordances-related reachability judgement task adapted from Costantini, Ambrosini, Tieri, Sinigaglia, and Committeri (2010, Experimental Brain Research, 207, 95) and neuropsychological tests. Our findings demonstrate that patients and controls show the same level of accuracy in estimating the location of their peripersonal space boundaries, but only controls show the typical overestimation of reaching range. Secondly, patients show a higher variability in their judgements than controls. Importantly, this finding is related to the patients’ ability to perform everyday tasks. Finally, patients are not faster in making their judgements on reachability in peripersonal space, while controls are. Our results suggest that not moving freely or as usual in the environment impact decoding of action-related properties even when the upper limbs are not compromised.     

The Convergence of Cultures and Religions in Light of the Evolution of Conciousness

This article describes a challenge to the cultures and religions of the world that the author believes is the greatest challenge that has confronted the human race in its entire history. Modernity's search for unity and postmodernity's affirmation of pluralism reflect aspects of our current situation, but more needs to be recognized. We must acknowledge that East and West must face the current challenges together. Multiculturalism and unity encompass all world cultures, and we cannot be content to read our present history only through the lens of western developments. Karl Jaspers's theory of the First Axial period of history, 800-200 B.C.E ., in which all the present world religions have their roots, is useful. It reveals that our present flowering of culture and spirit in the Western world, including our science, is not so much a product of the Western Renaissance and Enlightenment, as it is rooted in cultural events that belong to East and West equally. We are now in the Second Axial Period, which challenges the world religions to allow their energies to move toward convergence, just as in the previous millennia they moved toward differentiation. Teilhard de Chardin's thought is a guide for us, in his vision of a complex convergence of consciousness, in which differences will not be abolished but will be transformed in their coming together. This convergent perspective will also join with the perspective of rediscovering our roots in the earth, and it will repossess the spirituality of the primal peoples, in its understanding of the entire human race to be one tribe. The world religions are faced with the task, therefore, of encountering each other in "dialogic dialogue," and channeling their spiritual resources toward the solution of real-world global problems.     

速示重复和非速示呈现下的汉字结构方式效应

在速示重复和非速示两种实验条件下考察了汉字大小和笔画数对结构方式效应的影响。在速示实验中,发现有结构方式主效应,并在小号字上以及两种笔画数的汉字上也存在结构方式效应;在非速示实验中,没有发现结构方式主效应,但在多笔画的小号汉字上和多笔画的中号汉字上存在结构方式效应。两个实验还表明,汉字的结构方式效应量值随着视觉条件的改善而减少。该文提出了用以解释结构方式效应的汉字空间通透性概念及其算法,并且讨论了解释结构方式效应量值随着视觉清晰度的改善而系统性减少的模型。     

De l'argumentation comme métamorphose

Linguistic rhetoric and argumentative reasoning are generally identified. Certain types of problems, however, make use of non-verbal systems of representation, and, among them, image. Image is not just matter but also form, and computer processing in AI makes it possible to grasp this form by linguistic means (logico-mathematical languages). The synthesis of animated images has made it possible to represent metamorphoses, the thought of the unexpected. The fact that language produces image (and conversely) does not fail to transform the standard ways of thinking about epistemology.