Originally published in 1979, the world’s leading researchers contributed chapters describing their work on the orienting reflex in humans. The contributions, at the time current and comprehensive, in a sense that each facet of contemporary research was represented, address the orienting reflex, now recognized as a fundamental component of human learning and cognitive function. The authors contributing to this volume emphasize both theoretical and methodological issues, as well as present more empirical research. Here is a volume that spans all current work on the orienting reflex in humans, both basic and applied, from the laboratory as well as clinical data, and which would be of immense interest to psychologists, psychophysiologists, psychiatrists, physiologists, and all others interested in this fascinating topic.
A testimony to the work of Evgeny Nikolaevich Sokolov, this new book presents a cognitive science approach to the study of perception,information processing & attention.Reviews of the co- authors studies on attention & anticipation are also included.
Orienting is the gateway to attention, the first step in processing stimulus information. This volume examines these initial stages of information intake, focusing on the sensory and motivational mechanisms that determine such phenomena as stimulus selection and inhibition, habituation, pre-attentive processing, and expectancy. Psychophysiological methods are emphasized throughout. The contributors consider analyses based on cardiovascular and electrodermal changes, reflex reactions, and neural events in the cortex and subcortex. Stimulated by a conference lauding Frances Graham -- held before and during a recent meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, the book presents current theory and research by an international cadre of outstanding investigators. A major researcher and theorist in the field of attention for more than three decades, Dr. Graham contributes an Afterword to the present volume which is both a consideration of the work which has gone before, and a new, original theory paper on preattentive processing and attention.
The central theme of this book is the role of energetical factors in the regulation of human information processing activity. This is a restatement of one of the classic problems of psychology - that of acc ounting for motivational or intensive aspects of behaviour, as opposed to structural or directional aspects. The term "energetics" was first used in the 1930's by Freeman, Duffy and others, following Cannon's energy mobilization view of emotion and motivation. The original concept had a limited life, probably because of its unnecessary focus on relativ ely peripheral processes, but it provided the foundations for the con cepts of "arousal" and "activation" which became the popular motivational constructs of the 1950's and 1960's. Now, these too are found wanting. The original assumptions of a unitary, non-specific process based on activation of the brain stem reticular formation have been shown to be misleading. Current work in neurobiology has demonstrated evidence of discrete neurotransmitter systems having quite specific information processing functions, and central roles in the regulation of behaviour. Even the venerable curvilinear relationship between motivation and per formance (the Yerkes-Dodson law) has been shown to be, at best, an unhelpful oversimplification. On a different front psychophysiologists have found complex patterns in the response of different bodily systems to external stressors and to task demands.
First published in 1991. The impetus for this book and the conference upon which it was based stemmed from the authors’ observation that the interrelated phenomena of attention and information processing were the focus of intensive theoretical analysis and empirical research in many different scientific disciplines. The goal of the conference upon which this volume is based was to bring together a distinguished group of investigators from different fields who had rarely (or never) interacted. The specific issues addressed in the present volume concern the changes that occur in attention and information processing during development, the role of selective attention and pre-attentive mechanisms in information processing, the allocation of processing resources, the physiological correlates of attention, and the role of attention-like processes in learning and memory in animals. The participants were from all over the world and represented the areas of psychophysiology, human infancy, developmental psychobiology, animal learning, autonomic regulation, and psychopathology.
Calatonia is a body-based, psychophysical approach created during WWII by Pethö Sándor, a Hungarian physician. He developed Calatonia whilst working as a doctor for the Red Cross, in various refugee camps. Calatonia arose out of necessity, and was probably the first somatic therapy developed from, and initially for, those suffering from war trauma.A pioneering spirit, he recognised the importance of fostering the organism's self-regulation within the therapeutic context, in order to achieve psychological balance and to facilitate the integration of traumatic experiences. His work is life affirming and encourages resilience building, structured around the global reorganisation and mutual regulation of soma and psyche - dictated neither by symptoms nor by the grip of trauma.Sándor settled in Brazil after the Second World War, where his gentle method has been used in psychotherapy, education, child development, health, personal growth, and stress prevention. There are many books, theses and dissertations written in Portuguese, and now, an ever-growing enthusiasm for it has been endorsed by recent studies in neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience and neuroscience of touch, which have offered abundant evidence for future validation of the method. Calatonia uses Default Mode Network connectivity, integrates Mind Wandering, and explores the positive potential of the Orienting Reflex to reorganise mind-body. Chapters: First chapter, "Calatonia", was published in 1969 in the Boletim de Psicologia, in São Paulo, by Pethő Sándor, and is here reprinted (translated). Paulo Machado Filho's chapter gives a context for Sándor's method. Rosa Farah (1949-2016) briefly describes the teaching of the method within the professional course of psychology in São Paulo.Sandra Tavares presents her work with Subtle Touch and Calatonia within the Brazilian public healthcare system, both in individual and group therapy. Claudia Herbert addresses the healing of trauma and offers an exploration of the scientific rationale and specific considerations for the application of Calatonia and Subtle Touch in trauma treatment. Maria Irene Gonçalves finds a parallel between alchemical symbolism and psychodynamic processes in somatic psychotherapy with children.Céline Lorthiois explains Deep Pedagogy, a pedagogic method that integrates Calatonia and Subtle Touch approach to child development.Irene Gaeta presents an adult patient, who suffered early trauma, and how through the use of Calatonia followed by art-therapy, she was enabled to access, reorganise and integrate her preverbal memories. Leda Seixas expands on the use of Sándor's body-based techniques in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia and discuss central tenets of Jung's psychology in Sándor's method. Anita Blanchard writes about the Jungian concept of psyche in psychotherapy and in the ethos of Sándor's work. Vivian Nassif and Maria Georgina Gonçalves describe the Calatonia of Sight, formulated for the treatment of individuals suffering from visual impairment, and now used as a tool in psychotherapy. Ana Maria Rios describes the case of a child with attachment issues stemming from trauma, abandonment and loss, who was successfully treated with Calatonia. Lúcia Helena Almeida presents the case of an uncommunicative teenager who was able to express herself through a series of drawings, created after receiving Calatonia and other somatic work in session. Marilena Armando examines some essential attributes of resilience, and the ways in which Calatonia contributes to the development of resilience and numinous experiences. Beatriz Henry and Luiz Lemos discuss how the use of Calatonia produces a distinctive field of transference in psychotherapy and enhances the probability of synchronous phenomena. Anita Blanchard presents a summary of the hypotheses about the neuroscientific underpinnings of Pethö Sándor's method.
Attention: Theory and Practice provides a balance between a readable overview of attention and an emphasis on how theories and paradigms for the study of attention have developed. The book highlights the important issues and major findings while giving sufficient details of experimental studies, models, and theories so that results and conclusions are easy to follow and evaluate. Rather than brushing over tricky technical details, the authors explain them clearly, giving readers the benefit of understanding the motivation for and techniques of the experiments in order to allow readers to think through results, models, and theories for themselves. Attention is an accessible text for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, as well as an important resource for researchers and practitioners interested in gaining an overview of the field of attention.
Stress impacts the daily lives of humans and all species on Earth.Physiology, Biochemistry, and Pathology, the third volume of the Handbook of Stress series, covers stress-related or induced physiology, biochemistry, and pathology. Integrated closely with new behavioral findings and relevance to human conditions, the concepts and data in this volume offer readers cutting-edge information on the physiology of stress.A sequel to Elsevier's Encyclopedia of Stress (2000 and 2007), this Handbook of Stress series covers the many significant advances made since then and comprises self-contained volumes that each focus on a specific area within the field of stress. Targeted at scientific and clinical researchers in neuroendocrinology, neuroscience, biomedicine, endocrinology, psychology, psychiatry, the social sciences, and stress and its management in the workplace, this volume and series are ideal for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty interested in stress and its consequences. - Chapters offer impressive scope, with topics addressing stress-related or induced physiology, biochemistry, and pathology - Articles carefully selected by eminent stress researchers and prepared by contributors representing outstanding scholarship in the field, with each chapter fully vetted for reliable expert knowledge - Richly illustrated with explanatory figures and tables - Each chapter has a boxed "Key points call out section - The volume is fully indexed - All chapters are electronically available via ScienceDirect - Affordably priced, self-contained volume for readers specifically interested in the physiology, biochemistry and pathology of stress, avoiding the need to purchase the whole Handbook series
This book is a succinct introduction to the orienting of attention. Richard Wright and Lawrence Ward describe the covert orienting literature clearly and concisely, illustrating it with numerous high-quality images, specifically designed to make the challenging theoretical concepts very accessible. The book begins with an historical introduction that provides a great deal of information about orienting, much of which will be new even to seasoned researchers. Wright and Ward then systematically describe the development of various experimental paradigms that have been devised to study covert orienting, and the theoretical issues raised by this research. One trend that they analyze in detail is the progression from relatively simple models of spatial attention (attention spotlight and zoom lens models) to an integrative computational framework based on a concept called the "activity distribution." They also present a comprehensive survey of cognitive neuroscience research on the brain mechanisms underlying spatial attention shifts, as well as a chapter summarizing recent research on crossmodal attention shifts, and elucidating the links between attention orienting in the visual, auditory, and tactile domains. In the Epilogue they offer a concise summary of the book, and develop preliminary frameworks for understanding the relationship between spatial attention and orienting in response to social cues (social cognitive neuroscience) and for describing the evolution of covert orienting. Orienting of Attention provides a systematic survey that is ideal for those looking for an accessible introduction to the field and also for students and researchers who want a state-of the-art overview.
