A network model of referent identification by toddlers in a visual world task

We present a neural network model of referent identification in a visual world task. Inputs are visual representations of item pairs unfolding with sequences of phonemes identifying the target item. The model is trained to output the semantic representation of the target and to suppress the distractor. The training set uses a 200-word lexicon typically known by toddlers. The phonological, visual, and semantic representations are derived from real corpora. Successful performance requires correct association between labels and visual and semantic representations, as well as correct location identification. The model reproduces experimental evidence that phonological, perceptual, and categorical relationships modulate item preferences. The model provides an account of how language can drive visual attention in the inter-modal preferential looking task

Race and diagnosis : an assesment of clinician detection of eating disorder symtomatology in Asian, African-American, and White women

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to further explore the effect of race on clinicians\u27 recognition of eating disorder symptomatology in Asian, African-American, and White women. This study replicated the work of Gordon, Brattole, Wingate, and Joiner (2006) in an attempt to re-affirm or challenge previous research findings found by Gordon et al., 2006, which suggest that clinicians identify eating disorder symptoms in White women more frequently than in African American women. The present study expanded Gordon et al.\u27s (2006) work by assessing clinicians\u27 identification of eating disorder symptoms in Asian women and by examining themes in the qualitative portion of the narrative. The study explored the following question: Does a client\u27s race impact clinicians\u27 identification of eating disorder symptoms? It was hypothesized that clinicians are less likely to identify eating disorder symptoms in Asian and African American women than in White women and that clinicians would rate the severity of eating disorder symptoms similarly across racial groups. Thirty-four clinicians trained in the field of Social Work participated in this study. Data was collected using the Drive for Thinness subscale of the Eating Disorder Inventory 3-RF (Garner, 2005) and the narrative portion of a case vignette describing the symptoms of Mary, a 16 year old Asian, African American, or White female (Gordon et al., 2006). Quantitative findings from the present study challenge the findings of Gordon et al. (2006) by suggesting that race does not significantly impact clinicians\u27 identification of eating disorder symptomatology. Analyses of qualitative data suggest that race impacts the language used by clinicians to describe eating disorder symptomatology and is often reflective of racial stereotypes. An examination of the findings as they compare to previous literature and a discussion of language use in diagnoses were explored. Implications for social work practice were discussed

Towards a sinthomatology of organization?

In this paper I attempt to further the emerging Lacanian-inspired study of management and organization by introducing his notion of the sinthome. The sinthome must be understood as a necessary support of subjectivity rather than a pathological formation. In the Lacanian conceptualization of subjectivity, it enables the registers of the Symbolic, the Imaginary and the Real to be knotted together in a specific way,and thereby regulates the distribution of jouissance that takes shape within their ?knot?. Therefore, the sinthome can be thought of as the specific constellation of the registers in a socio-historical context, by organizing jouissance and giving a superficial sheen of consistency to the subject. It reproduces itself in the registers and ensures the superficial coherence of an ideological discourse. I argue that the three functions by which the sinthome reproduces itself in the registers, namely consistency, hole and exsistence,provide a fruitful and novel theorization of how subjectivity, discourse and jouissance are entangled in organizational contexts

Our Liberation and the Liberation of Our Images: Friedrich Schiller and the Politics of the Image

In this paper, I will compare the aesthetic philosophies put forward in Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man and Plato\u27s Republic. Using Schiller\u27s more robust aesthetic philosophy and its political import, I will argue that the government of Plato\u27s Republic would not create freedom for its citizens. Then, I will carry Schiller\u27s aesthetics and politics forward to argue, using Freud and a number of thinkers who champion Freud’s work, that economic interests can also limit the freedoms of a nation\u27s citizens. Finally, I will argue that Schiller\u27s aesthetic philosophy can deliver a political freedom free from the state control depicted in Republic and the economic control of modern consumer culture

Beyond the impasse : reflections on dissociative identity disorder from a Freudian–Lacanian perspective

Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a widely contested diagnosis. The dominant posttraumatic model (PTM) considers early life trauma to be the direct cause of the creation of alter identities and assumes that working directly with alter identities should be at the core of the therapeutic work. The socio-cognitive model, on the other hand, questions the validity of the DID diagnosis and proposes an iatrogenic origin of the disorder claiming that reigning therapeutic and socio-cultural discourses create and reify the problem. The author argues that looking at the underlying psychical dynamics can provide a way out of the debate on the veracity of the diagnosis. A structural conception of hysteria is presented to understand clinical and empirical observations on the prevalence, appearance and treatment of DID. On a more fundamental level, the concept of identification and the fundamental division of human psychic functioning are proposed as crucial for understanding the development and treatment of DID