The significance of unusual acts in sexual homicide

In addition to being an unusual form of crime, sexual homicide (SH) sometimes includes unusual crime scene behaviours, such as carving on the victim, evisceration (i.e., removal of internal organs), skinning the victim, cannibalism and vampirism. The current study investigates these unusual crime scene behaviours to better understand their meaning as well as to explore whether such behaviours are associated with a specific crime-commission process. Using a sample of 762 SH cases, the study uses a combination of chi-square and stepwise forward logistic regression analyses to identify the differences between cases with and without unusual acts. Findings reveal that SH cases with unusual acts present a specific crime-commission process. This crime-commission process is characterised by a greater level of sadism—as demonstrated by the presence of mutilation and foreign object insertion—as well as a greater level of organisation from the selection of a contact location where the risk of being seen or heard was low. These findings provide a better understanding of these behaviours and could help investigators facing such cases.     

Profiling Korean sex crimes: Offender characteristics and crime scene actions

The present study aimed to examine the demographic information of sex offenders in South Korea and explore whether a U.K. thematic model of criminal behaviour could be replicated in the Korean context. The 27 variables of crime scene actions derived from 50 Korean sexual offences through a content analysis were analysed with smallest space analysis. Chi‐square was also administered to explore the differences in offender characteristics among behavioural themes. Consequently, three separate action themes, hostility–involvement, theft, and control, were revealed. Next, each case was assigned to one of the dominant or hybrid themes, with 84% of the total cases being classified to the dominant themes. Moreover, there were significant differences in four offender characteristics between the themes: “previous conviction of robbery,” “previous conviction of sexual crime,” “knowing the victim,” and “vehicle use.” These outcomes have implications for the development of the Korean profiling system.     

Detection of a change in photorealism1

The perceived degree of photorealism is interpreted as reflecting the artificialness or naturalness of images. Natural images (real‐scene photographs) are images with high degrees of naturalness, while artificial images (e.g., paintings) are images with low degrees of naturalness. Alternatively, natural images are images with low degrees of artificialness, while artificial images are images with high degrees of artificialness. We attempted to disambiguate these two interpretations of the perception of photorealism by using a change‐blindness paradigm. Participants observed an image sequence showing a gradual transformation from a natural image to an artificial image or vice versa, and reported changes they noticed. More participants reported noticing changes in photorealism for the natural‐to‐artificial transformations than for the opposite transformations. This asymmetry indicates that disappearing naturalness was detected more readily than emerging naturalness, or alternatively, emerging artificialness was detected more readily than disappearing artificialness. The results for the control conditions showed that the emergence of visual information was detected more readily than the disappearance. These results suggest that the perception of photorealism should be considered as the perception of artificialness.     

现实场景典型空间位置关系客体的解码效应

通过探讨典型空间关系客体对中单个客体的视觉工作记忆,考察空间位置关系的解码特征和主动客体记忆优势。结果发现：（1）当客体以符合空间位置关系方式呈现时,记忆更准确;（2）符合空间位置关系条件下单个客体提取反应时更长,上方客体反应时更短,记忆更准确;（3）兼具空间位置关系与动作关系客体对中的主动客体记忆正确率更高。结果表明,现实场景客体空间分组中单个客体提取时存在解码现象和顺序效应,对现实中的上方与主动客体存在加工偏好。     

SOME REFLECTIONS ON IAN MCEWAN'S ATONEMENT: ENACTMENT,GUILT, AND REPARATION

Recognizing that enactments have been discussed in psychoanalysis primarily as occurrences in the treatment setting, the author proposes a new application of the term enactments: that it may pertain to the actions of some individuals in their efforts to cope with bad things that they have done to others. That is, enactment can be a substitute‐for‐atonement mechanism. The author illustrates this view of enactment through a discussion of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement (2001), and in particular by examining the behavior and motivations of one of its central characters, Briony Tallis. Included are explorations of the relationships between enactment and guilt and between enactment and reparation.     

Effect of temporal constraints on hemispheric asymmetries during spatial frequency processing

Studies on functional hemispheric asymmetries have suggested that the right vs. left hemisphere should be predominantly involved in low vs. high spatial frequency (SF) analysis, respectively. By manipulating exposure duration of filtered natural scene images, we examined whether the temporal characteristics of SF analysis (i.e., the temporal precedence of low on high spatial frequencies) may interfere with hemispheric specialization. Results showed the classical hemispheric specialization pattern for brief exposure duration and a trend to a right hemisphere advantage irrespective of the SF content for longer exposure duration. The present study suggests that the hemispheric specialization pattern for visual information processing should be considered as a dynamic system, wherein the superiority of one hemisphere over the other could change according to the level of temporal constraints: the higher the temporal constraints of the task, the more the hemispheres are specialized in SF processing.     

Who's afraid of the Wolfe couple: the interlocking traumatic scene

Fulfilling intimate relationships require a constant emotional and psychological struggle to disentangle strangleholds created by the interpenetration of unresolved complexes stemming from previous disappointing relational experiences. These complexes may manifest as an encrypted pattern of engagement that each partner brings to the marriage, like a 'malignant dowry'. The dowry box, once opened, releases its nefarious contents to create an extremely complex and entangled drama I call the 'interlocking traumatic scene'. Partners unconsciously entrap each other to play a part in such a scene with double (sometimes multiple) roles for each antagonist. The imaginal space between the two characters can be seen as a projection screen, upon which are superimposed two separate shadow plays, one on each side of the screen. A third play, which is a co-created product of these two individual traumatic scenes, can also be observed. Three plays are performed simultaneously. The defensive systems that the two individuals bring to the equation dovetail together, but the actual interlocking mechanism itself deadlocks in such a way that it seems to have its own malignant presence, a 'malevolent third' (after Ogden 1994). I outline therapeutic interventions using the metaphor of the therapist as 'anti-director' and I introduce my concept of the conjoint selected fact (after Bion 1963 after Poincaré 1952).     

Role of expertise and action in motion extrapolation from real road scenes

The tendency of participants to “remember” the stopping point of an event as being farther along in the direction of motion has been a topic of study for about 30 years. The purpose of the present experiment was to test the influence of two factors on motion extrapolation: (1) The involvement of participants in the action, and (2) their expertise in the domain of automobile driving. Participants viewed real driving scenes from the driver's point of view. They were divided into four groups depending upon their involvement in the action (more or less active) and their driving experience (inexperienced or experienced). In order to get half of the participants involved in the driving situation, they had to use a steering wheel to follow the contour of the road. The results showed that both of these factors increased motion extrapolation. The discussion deals with how the interrelationships between real road scenes, expertise, and action-related knowledge affect motion extrapolation.     

Rhythmic sensorimotor coordination is resistant but not immune to auditory stream segregation

In a recent study of musicians' sensorimotor synchronization with auditory sequences composed either of beat and subdivision tones differing in pitch or of beat tones only, Repp (2009) found that the phase correction response (PCR) to perturbed beats was inhibited by the presence of subdivisions regardless of whether beats and subdivisions formed integrated or segregated perceptual streams. The present study used a different paradigm in which perturbed subdivisions triggered the PCR. At the slower of two sequence tempi, the PCR was equally large in integrated and segregated conditions, but at the faster tempo stream segregation reduced the PCR substantially. This new finding indicates that although the PCR is strongly resistant to auditory stream segregation, it is not totally immune to it.     

Erna and Melanie Klein

Erna was one of the child patients treated by Melanie Klein in Berlin, employing her recently discovered play technique. Since Erna died in Chile, the authors considered the IPA Congress in Santiago an opportunity to present a paper as a homage both to Erna and, especially, to Klein. She learned much from that very disturbed child, which she later used to sustain the ongoing development of her theories. The paper explores biographic data relevant to understanding both the case and the theories. It analyses the case material to follow Klein in the discovery and the handling of the child's transference and the harsh expressions of hate, jealousy and envy, which are brought in, with sad consequences, by strong persecutory feelings. Klein's comparison of this case with that of Freud's Wolf-man is also considered, mostly to show that the similarities were less than originally claimed, and that Klein, perhaps, was introducing a theoretic shift which led her technique to gradually change from ' Nachträglichkeit ' to the 'signification-resignification' pair, akin to Strachey's concept of the mutative interpretation. Lastly, the comprehension of Erna's strong psychotic traits and the links with later developments of the theory on psychosis are studied.