THE FATHER,THE FATHER FUNCTION,THE FATHER PRINCIPLE: SOME CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYTIC DEVELOPMENTS

The author discusses Freud's thinking on the role of the father, as well as that of later French theoreticians. To illustrate his remarks, he draws on the poetry of Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1912–1987), a Brazilian poet whose work often dealt with themes of the father, the family, and his own paternal relationship. The author also discusses the psychic formation of the father principle and how this may be evident in the clinical analytic setting, even when the analyst's approach privileges field theory, intersubjectivity, or other concepts emphasizing the relationship between analyst and patient.     

Perfect visual short-term memory for periodic patterns

Abstract

The short-term memory for spatial frequency information was assessed by measuring the spatial frequency discrimination thresholds for briefly flashed luminance gratings as a function of the time interval between the test and reference gratings, using a computer-controlled two-interval forced-choice procedure. Discrimination thresholds were stable for interstimulus intervals in the range 1–30 sec under all conditions tested. At low contrasts, short exposure times and low spatial frequencies discrimination thresholds increased, but no interactions between stimulus parameters affecting thresholds and interstimulus interval were observed. It is concluded that factors limiting spatial discrimination are associated with the sensory coding stage. Spatial discrimination and visual memory may be based on a common representation, which is perfectly retained in short-term memory. Visual half-field tests revealed no hemispheric differences in the processing and retention of spatial frequency information.     

Surprise-induced blindness: a stimulus-driven attentional limit to conscious perception

The cost of attending to a visual event can be the failure to consciously detect other events. This processing limitation is well illustrated by the attentional blink paradigm, in which searching for and attending to a target presented in a rapid serial visual presentation stream of distractors can impair one's ability to detect a second target presented soon thereafter. The attentional blink critically depends on 'top-down' attentional settings, for it does not occur if participants are asked to ignore the first target. Here we show that 'bottom-up' attention can also lead to a profound but ephemeral deficit in conscious perception: Presentation of a novel, unexpected, and task-irrelevant stimulus virtually abolishes conscious detection of a target presented within half a second after the 'Surprise' stimulus, but only for its earliest occurrences (generally 1 to 2 presentations). This powerful but short-lived deficit contrasts with a milder but more enduring form of attentional capture that accompanies singleton presentations in rapid serial visual presentations. We conclude that the capture of stimulus-driven attention alone can limit explicit perception.     

Both exogenous and endogenous target salience manipulations support resource depletion accounts of the attentional blink: A reply to Olivers, Spalek, Kawahara, and Di Lollo (2009)

Input control theories of the attentional blink (AB) suggest that this deficit results from impaired attentional selection caused by the post-Target 1 (T1) distractor (Di Lollo, Kawahara, Ghorashi, & Enns, 2005; Olivers, van der Stigchel, & Hulleman, 2007). Accordingly, these theories predict that there should be no AB when no distractors intervene between the targets. Contrary to these hypotheses, Dux, Asplund, and Marois (2008) observed an AB (T3 deficit) when three targets, from the same attentional set, were presented successively in a rapid stream of distractors, if subjects increased the resources they devoted to T1 processing. This result is consistent with resource depletion accounts of the AB. However, Olivers, Spalek, Kawahara, and Di Lollo (2009) argue that Dux et al.’s results can be better explained by the relationship between T1 and T2, and by target discriminability effects, rather than by the relationship between T1 and T3. Here, we find that manipulating the resources subjects devote to T1, either exogenously (target perceptual salience) or endogenously (target task relevance), affects T3 performance, even when T2 and target discriminability differences are controlled for. These results support Dux et al.’s conclusion that T1 resource depletion underlies the AB.     

An attentional blink for sequentially presented targets: Evidence in favor of resource depletion accounts

Several accounts of the attentional blink (AB) have postulated that this dual-target deficit occurs because of limited-capacity attentional resources being devoted to processing the first target at the expense of the second (resource depletion accounts; e.g., Chun & Potter, 1995). Recent accounts have challenged this model (e.g., Di Lollo, Kawahara, Ghorashi, & Enns, 2005; Olivers, van der Stigchel, & Hulleman, 2007), proposing instead that the AB occurs because of subjects’ inability to maintain appropriate levels of attentional control when targets are separated by distractors. Accordingly, the AB is eliminated when three targets from the same attentional set are presented sequentially in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream. However, under such conditions poorer identification of the first target is typically observed, hinting at a potential trade-off between the first and subsequent target performances. Consistent with this hypothesis, the present study shows that an AB is observed for successive targets from the same attentional set in an RSVP stream when the first target powerfully captures attention. These results suggest that resource depletion contributes significantly to the AB.     

Prereaders’ eye movements during shared storybook reading are language-mediated but not predictive

When viewing a visual scene, eye movements are often language-mediated: people look at objects as those objects are named. Eye movements can even reflect predictive language processing, moving to an object before it is named. Children are also capable of making language-mediated eye movements, even predictive ones, and prediction may be involved in language learning. The present study explored whether eye movements are language-mediated in a more naturalistic task – shared storybook reading. Research has shown that children fixate illustrations during shared storybook reading, ignoring text. The present study used high-precision eye-tracking to replicate this finding. Further, prereader participants showed increased likelihood of fixating relevant storybook illustrations as words were read aloud, indicating that their eye movements were language mediated like the adult participants. Language-mediated eye movements to illustrations were reactive, not predictive, in both participant groups.     

The future of workplace commitment: key questions and directions

This position paper presents the state-of-the art of the field of workplace commitment. Yet, for workplace commitment to stay relevant, it is necessary to look beyond current practice and to extrapolate trends to envision what will be needed in future research. Therefore, the aim of this paper is twofold, first, to consolidate our current understanding of workplace commitment in contemporary work settings and, second, to look into the future by identifying and discussing avenues for future research. Representative of the changing nature of work, we explicitly conceptualize workplace commitment in reference to (A) “Temporary work”, and (B) “Cross-boundary work”. Progressing from these two themes, conceptual, theoretical and methodological advances of the field are discussed. The result is the identification of 10 key paths of research to pursues, a shared agenda for the most promising and needed directions for future research and recommendations for how these will translate into practice.     

Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.     

Preventing Contagion With Avian Influenza: Disease Salience,Attitudes Toward Foreigners,and Avoidance Beliefs1

Building on an evolutionary approach to out‐group avoidance, this study showed relations between perceived disease salience and beliefs in the efficacy of avoiding foreigners as protective measures in the context of a real‐life pandemic risk; i.e., avian influenza. People for whom avian influenza was salient and who held unfavorable attitudes toward foreigners were more likely to believe that avoiding contact with foreigners protects against infection. This finding suggests that individual differences in social attitudes moderate evolved mechanisms relating threat of disease to out‐group avoidance.