On the concept of concept.

This commentary is in two parts: 1) a short review of problems with representational theories of mind, and 2) a critique and diagnosis of what I claim are fundamental problems with Wittgensteinian notions of grammatical analysis. These problems turn on an incomplete characterization of normativity in Wittgenstein's (and others') work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Excesses of the normalization concept.

Comments on S. Landesman and E. C. Butterfield's (see record 1988-01920-001) review of the normalization/deinstitutionalization controversy in the mental retardation field. It is argued that by basing their position on the rules of evidence, the published literature, and rational inference, the authors were unable to give a full account of the ideologues who currently dominate the extremes of the controversy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The multiple department concept.

Identifies the multiple-department model as being applicable mainly to universities with 1 or more professional schools, and containing 2 or more groups of faculty members belonging to essentially the same discipline. These faculty members are mutually autonomous with respect to (a) administrative channels upward, (b) establishing curricular plans and degree requirements, and (c) recruiting students and faculty members. The advantages and hazards of such an organization are discussed, including the control of departmental size. The dangerous operation of "the law of regressive centralism" is elucidated as a result of the alternative (monolithic department) model. Conditions for successful use of the multiple-department model are suggested including: (a) administrative autonomy, (b) equal quality of faculties and students, and (c) clear differentiation of responsibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quantitative connotation of a concept.

Trait referent terms (adjectives) were rated on the "bad-good" scale and the mean rating of each word computed. Based on these ratings, lists of 3 terms were constructed with varying distributions, and Ss formed impressions of a person therefrom. Results showed that (a) a positively skewed list produced a more positive (good) impression than one composed of terms having almost identical values, and (b) of 2 lists having identical means and midranges, the 1 including a more highly positive term produced the more positive impression. It was suggested that the connotation of an impression is influenced more by extreme terms than by relatively neutral ones. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The existential concept of death.

Comments on B. Vandenburg's (see record 1992-12211-001) article on epistemology and an existentialist consideration of development. If the existentialist prospects of death are to be included in a beyond-epistemic consideration of developmental issues, it is necessary to examine the status of the concept of death as an existential given, not subject to developmental changes over the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linguistic structure as related to concept formation and to concept content.

"… we have examined two explanations of empirical data showing that concrete-perceptual concepts are learned to an adult level of understanding earlier than are abstract concepts. Data do not fully support a developmental explanation. A linguistic relativistic position is supported, but not proved to be correct." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a concept of personality integration.

A central idea in thinking about effective behavior is "organismic integration" which suggests an inclusive phenomenon and suggests also "some form of interaction which takes place among subsystems of the organism—more specifically, an interaction which is adaptive or self-enhancing." Personality integration "is a many vectored thing, that is defined by events which go on within a variety of specific behavioral planes within the organism." Systems are grouped "on a continuum ranging from microcosmic to macrocosmic, or from molecular to molar, or even from the inside of the organism out… . The model covers events from a single heartbeat to the behavior of peoples… . The variables tentatively identified as relevant to personality integration include stability, high environmental contact, high internal communication, and affective complexity." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relational learning of a size concept.

Administered relational size problems in the context of ordinal series to 72 4-5 yr olds. Solution was facilitated when Ss were directed to locate a terminal member (the smallest) of the series. In contrast, Ss who were instructed to locate a nonterminal member without prior designation of a terminal member were unable to achieve solution of the problem. Age- and sex-related differences in performance were observed as well as differences associated with stimulus arrangements and stimulus sizes. The outcomes are discussed in terms of composite task demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of memory in concept learning.

Studies manipulating variables in the attempt to produce different memory requirements in concept learning are reviewed. Many of them have tested Underwood's theoretical position of response contiguity. Performance is generally improved by increasing the availability of previous stimulus information. The degree to which instances of the same concept occur contiguously directly affects acquisition of the concept. Attempts to demonstrate inferior performance with spaced practice have not been successful, although procedural problems make any conclusion tentative. There is some suggestion that memory effects could be classified as proactive and retroactive inhibition. A basic problem concerns the indirect type of question posed by investigators. (36 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rigidity: A flexible concept.

A survey of tests and experiments reveals little consistency of results due to poorly constructed and administered tests, failure to control relevant variables, and lack of tight theoretical conception. 220 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The body image barrier concept.

"A check was made on whether the Rorschach Barrier score of 54 patients with external psychosomatic disorders were greater than those of 29 patients with internal psychosomatic disorders. Statistical analysis showed no evidence of difference in the distribution of Barrier scores in the two groups. The potentialities of the Barrier approach cannot be truly assessed until ambiguities in the theory are clarified and until the scale is improved as a measuring instrument." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The concept of transformation in psychoanalysis.

Transformation is viewed as the essential process of structure building. This article delineates levels of meaning organization that undergo alteration and move increasingly toward higher levels of symbolization. The transition from each stage of mental organization involves a dialectic conflict leading to reorganization at a higher level. This general thesis is illustrated by clinical material, reference to the literature, and a body of research data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mathematical concept formation in children.

The issues are discussed under 4 major headings: (1) all-or-none conditioning processes in simple concept formation, (2) some results concerning transfer, (3) geometric invariants of perceptual space, and (4) mechanisms of concept formation. Experiments were developed to probe "the limits of mathematics learning in the classroom for elementary school children of various ages… . The search for a detailed algebra of concepts to provide explicit and definite mechanisms for generating new concepts out of old ones may in many situations, perhaps particularly with children, be a mistaken venture. With the exception of a few salient features, new concepts may be formed by random choices, and only after 1 or more instances of the concept have been reached or put together by accident or chance is the new concept recognized." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of the concept of truth-functional negation.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 22(1) of Developmental Psychology (see record 2008-10957-001). In the article, several key words were omitted from the last sentence of the Method section on page 464, column 2, third paragraph. The corrected sentence is included in the erratum.] Studied the development of the concept of truth-functional negation in 2 experiments, using 36 English-speaking children (aged 3–6 yrs) and 10 Korean-speaking children (aged 4–5 yrs) as Ss. In Exp I, English-speaking Ss were given a sentence-variation task in which the following 4 sentence types were used to describe 36 pictures of common items: true affirmative, false affirmative, true negative (TN), and false negative. The results show that a majority of Ss under 5 yrs had difficulty with negative sentences, particularly TN sentences, indicating a lack of explicit understanding of truth-functional negation as defined in logic. In Exp II, a cross-linguistic replication of Exp I was attempted with Korean-speaking Ss. Despite some cross-linguistic differences in the negation system, the Korean-speaking Ss showed essentially the same pattern of results, suggesting that the development in question proceeds within the general limit set by the general cognitive development. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective role of aggression in concept formation.

This experiment investigated how "Direction" in verbal problem solving is influenced by aggression. A Four-Word Problem (FWP) test was designed, consisting of: Set A, eliciting an aggressive or nonaggressive classification of equal conceptual quality; Set B, where the aggressive selection is inferior; and Set C where neither classification involves aggression. Rankings of aggressive behavior were obtained for the 75 Ss who were administered the FWP and a word association test. Thematic protocols were available for 57 Ss. Results were: (a) A positive relationship was found between rankings of aggression and "Difference Scores," i.e., the difference in selection of conceptually inferior classifications between Set B and Set C. (b) A positive relationship was obtained between Set A and aggression in the thematic data. (c) The word associations were found to be unrelated to Set A or the thematic material. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The concept of the stimulus in psychology.

"The aim of this paper is to find out what psychologists mean by the term stimulus, with the hope of deciding what they ought to mean by it. After a short look at the history of the term, I will try to uncover the sources of confusion in modern usage." Psychologists "have inherited a mixed batch of ideas about the stimulus." Interlocking issues are separated into 8 areas of disagreement which are successively discussed. Hypotheses are suggested regarding molar stimuli, potential stimuli, effective stimuli, and related problems. "A systematic study of the specifying power of stimuli will put the problem of meaning in perception on a new footing." The "stimulus is the prime independent variable of a psychological experiment." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2BC94G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developments in the concept of working memory.

The authors summarize developments in the concept of working memory as a multicomponent system, beginning by contrasting this approach with alternative uses of the term working memory. According to a 3-component model, working memory comprises a phonological loop for manipulating and storing speech-based information and a visuospatial sketchpad that performs a similar function for visual and spatial information. Both are supervised by a central executive, which functions as an attentional control system. A simple trace-decay model of the phonological loop provides a coherent account of the effects of word length, phonemic similarity, irrelevant speech, and articulatory suppression in verbal short-term memory tasks. This model of the loop has also proved useful in the analysis of neuropsychological, developmental and, cross-cultural data. The notion of the sketchpad is supported by selective interference with imagery in normal adults and by specific neuropsychological impairment. Analysis of the central executive is illustrated by work on deficits in the ability to coordinate subproccesses in Alzheimer's disease (AD). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On Brainerd and his concept of imagery.

Comments that C. Brainerd (1971) apparently assumes that for a variable to qualify as independent, it must also be a causative agent. Also discussed are Brainerd's reasons for his unwillingness to imagine imagery as an independent variable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)