Back to basics: A re-evaluation of the relevance of imprinting in the genesis of Bowlby's attachment theory

Attachment theory is one of the key theoretical constructs that underpin explorations of human bonding, taking its current form in John Bowlby's amalgamation of ideas from psychoanalysis, developmental psychology and ethology. Such a period of interdisciplinary exchange, and Bowlby's interest in Lorenz' concept of imprinting in particular, have been subject to rather historical and biographical studies, leaving a fine-grained theoretical scrutiny of the exact relationship between imprinting and attachment still pending. This paper attempts to remedy such an omission by exploring the relationships between these two constructs. It critically reviews the theories of imprinting in general, of human imprinting in particular, and of attachment; analysis of the links between these processes bring to the foreground the distinction between supra-individual vs. individual aspects of bonding, the relevance of 'proto-attachment' phases before 'proper' Bowlbyan attachment is attained, and the role of communicative signals during such early phases. The paper outlines potential benefits of considering such elements in the study of early social cognition, particularly in respect of the study of the gaze and the infant-directed communicative register.

Nonverbal Auditory Cues Allow Relationship Quality to be Inferred During Conversations

The claim that nonverbal cues provide more information than the linguistic content of a conversational exchange (the Mehrabian Conjecture) has been widely cited and equally widely disputed, mainly on methodological grounds. Most studies that have tested the Conjecture have used individual words or short phrases spoken by actors imitating emotions. While cue recognition is certainly important, speech evolved to manage interactions and relationships rather than simple information exchange. In a cross-cultural design, we tested participants’ ability to identify the quality of the interaction (rapport) in naturalistic third party conversations in their own and a less familiar language, using full auditory content versus audio clips whose verbal content has been digitally altered to differing extents. We found that, using nonverbal content alone, people are 75–90% as accurate as they are with full audio cues in identifying positive vs negative relationships, and 45–53% as accurate in identifying eight different relationship types. The results broadly support Mehrabian’s claim that a significant amount of information about others’ social relationships is conveyed in the nonverbal component of speech.

Prognostic factors for myasthenia gravis treated by thymectomy: review of 61 cases

BACKGROUND

Medical treatment for myasthenia gravis (MG) involves the use of anticholinesterase agents, immunosuppressive drugs, plasmapheresis, and gamma-globulin. However, these agents result in a complete clinical remission rate as low as 15%. As a consequence, thymectomy, preferably by transsternal approach, has become increasingly accepted as an efficacious procedure for MG, with reported complete clinical remission rates as high as 80%.

METHODS

We have the clinical records of 61 patients diagnosed with MG at La Paz University Hospital, Madrid, Spain, from January 1977 to December 1994. All patients underwent thymectomy. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the major prognostic factors predicting MG outcome after operation.

RESULTS

Our results indicate that patients with a length of the disease from onset to operation shorter than 8 months have the best prognosis. Ossermann stages I and III are also associated with higher complete clinical remission rates. In contrast, neither age nor sex were found to be significantly related to MG outcome after thymectomy, although female patients have better prognosis than men, and the younger the patient the more likely is complete clinical remission. Pathologic findings after the operation were not found to be of prognostic value either.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that thymectomy is a beneficial procedure for MG patients, with a complete clinical remission rate of 46% at 5 years postoperatively in our series. Therefore we advocate thymectomy for MG patients as early as possible in the course of disease because time elapsed from diagnosis to operation is the main determinant of the outcome.