Retrieval rules and semantic coding in short-term memory.

Examines studies of semantic coding in short-term memory for evidence of semantic effects in the primary memory component. It is argued that all cases in which semantic factors have been shown to affect primary memory are attributable to S's utilization of retrieval rules (i.e., techniques and strategies that are stored in secondary memory but facilitate the retrieval of phonemically-coded information from primary memory). It is concluded that semantic coding produces durable secondary memory traces. (41 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The linguistic repudiation of Wundt.

Wilhelm Wundt's influence on the development of linguistics and psychology was pervasive. The foundations for this web of influence on the sciences of mind and language were laid down in Wundt's own research program, which was quite different from other attempts at founding a new psychology, as it was deeply rooted in German philosophy. This resulted in certain gaps in Wundt's conception of mind and language. These gaps provoked a double repudiation of Wundt's theories, by linguists and psychologists. The psychological repudiation has been studied by historians of psychology, and the linguistic repudiation has been studied by historians of linguistics. The intent of this article is to bring the linguistic repudiation to the attention of historians of psychology, especially the one outlined by two important figures in the history of psychology: Karl Bühler and George Mead. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Design for a dual component cognitive dictionary.

Proposes that in addition to the common semantic organization of cognitive dictionaries shared by all members of the same linguistic community, there is a personal semantic organization that is unique to the individual. An empirical test of this proposition, using free word-association performance, yielded successful idiographic predictions of performance 1 yr later. The life-span development of these common and personal components is described by means of free word-association data on 666 Ss, aged 3–85 yrs. Four features of the common component are evident: (1) universality among adults of the same linguistic community, (2) a stable hierarchical structure, (3) a tendency to function as an integral system, and (4) a 2-stage course of development corresponding to semantic changes predicted by Piaget. The function of the personal component remains unclear. (French abstract) (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linguistic constraints on participation in psychology.

Suggests that R. W. Russell (see record 1985-21215-001) provides examples of how linguistic and semantic factors (particularly the dominance of English as a universal language in psychology) limits psychology's potential development as an international discipline. Data that describe the linguistic characteristics of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, International Journal of Psychology, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, and the Interamerican Journal of Psychology indicate that articles written in languages other than English (and their authors) are virtually excluded from the international communication process. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cultural psychology as metatheory.

Examines the nature and uses of metatheory. Current needs for metatheoretical understanding are discussed in the context of increased skepticism about grand narratives. A focus on the lived meanings of existing metatheory and meta discourse points to the importance of cultural psychology in addressing some of the conceptual, methodological, and axiological problems being faced. It is proposed that cultural psychology can illuminate the semantic sources and pragmatics of academic discourse in the social sciences and facilitate a reflexive understanding of ways of being and knowing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rebuilding the ship at sea: The historical and theoretical problems of constructionist epistemologies in psychology.

Argues that constructionist positions may provide important answers to critiques of psychological theories in the twentieth century. Focus is on the mental characterization of psychology and the intentional nature of the mental. The constructionist argument in psychology is drawn by tracing its roots in the sociology of knowledge and antifoundational philosophy. The problems of language bear centrally on the constructionist thesis, particularly the view that psychological phenomena are inherently linguistic and lingual. In recent years, constructionist programs in psychology have begun to reorient and reconstruct understandings of the subject matter in such areas as social, developmental, and cognitive psychology. The charge of relativism remains a serious challenge for the constructionist, although a coherentist interpretation of constructionist justifications may resolve this issue. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The emperor's used clothes.

Presents a fairy tale that illustrates concerns regarding the consequences of the removal of school psychology from the generic house of psychology and the unreality of creating a "separate but equal" nondoctoral profession. Questions of semantic confusion in defining differences between professional psychology and school psychology are raised. It is postulated that the split suggested by J. I. Bardon (see record 1983-24212-001) may result in the extinction rather than the salvation of school psychology. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in its world context.

Discusses factors affecting psychology in countries other than the US in terms of national interests and priorities; national expectations; and economic, geographical, linguistic and semantic, and cultural factors. Perceptions of American psychology among other countries are considered, and the effects of interests common to the national psychologies are examined in relation to the exchange of persons, internationally oriented publications, and international and regional meetings and associations. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental changes in semantic interpretation of ambiguous words.

Administered homograph measures of vocabulary and semantic interpretation to 81 7th grade and 85 12th grade children to test for patterns of developmental change in language. Developmental progressions were found for enlargement of abstract vocabulary and reduction of biases toward primary (common) and concrete errors of interpretation in sentence contexts. Another experiment using the same measures found a loss of abstract vocabulary in aphasics and a trend toward excessive primary bias in schizophrenics. However, on all other measures of vocabulary and semantic interpretation the mental patients did not perform like the younger Ss in this experiment. Results do not support conceptions of linguistic regression in psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On Ardila's "International psychology."

Argues that although R. Ardila (see record 1982-29234-001) provides some relevant information and intended to set out an international perspective for psychology, he inadvertently confirmed the provincialism that characterizes much of the North American enterprise by emphasizing the number of its practitioners, its linguistic predominance, and its general pervasiveness. It is argued that Ardila missed significant developments in German-language psychology, and that a one-language psychology may have more disadvantages than advantages for an international psychology. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The specificity of age-related decline in interpretation of emotion cues from prosody.

Older adults are not as good as younger adults at decoding prosodic emotions. We sought to determine the specificity of this finding. Performance of older and younger adults was compared on a prosodic emotion task, a “pure” prosodic emotion task, a linguistic prosody task, and a “pure” linguistic prosody task. Older adults were less accurate at interpreting prosodic emotion cues and nonemotional contours, concurrent semantic processing worsened interpretation, and performance was further degraded when identifying negative emotions and questions. Older adults display a pervasive problem interpreting prosodic cues, but further study is required to clarify the stage at which performance declines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scientist-practitioner ≠ science + practice: Boulder is bolder.

Discusses myths and assertions regarding the scientist-practitioner model. The author suggests that the myths associated with the model include: (1) a scientist-practitioner model program represents the midpoint on a continuum of programs that emphasize either research or practice, (2) the scientist-practitioner model has failed because many graduates enter practice rather than academic positions, and (3) the only valid measure of success of scientific training is number of publications. It is asserted that the scientist-practitioner model is fundamental to the growth of psychology. The author contends that the fundamental tenet to professional psychology graduate education is; education and training in professional psychology require training in the conduct of scientific research, clinical practice, and their integration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anomia as a marker of distinct semantic memory impairments in Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia.

Objective: Many neurologically constrained models of semantic memory have been informed by two primary temporal lobe pathologies: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Semantic Dementia (SD). However, controversy persists regarding the nature of the semantic impairment associated with these patient populations. Some argue that AD presents as a disconnection syndrome in which linguistic impairment reflects difficulties in lexical or perceptual means of semantic access. In contrast, there is a wider consensus that SD reflects loss of core knowledge that underlies word and object meaning. Object naming provides a window into the integrity of semantic knowledge in these two populations. Method: We examined naming accuracy, errors and the correlation of naming ability with neuropsychological measures (semantic ability, executive functioning, and working memory) in a large sample of patients with AD (n = 36) and SD (n = 21). Results: Naming ability and naming errors differed between groups, as did neuropsychological predictors of naming ability. Despite a similar extent of baseline cognitive impairment, SD patients were more anomic than AD patients. Conclusions: These results add to a growing body of literature supporting a dual impairment to semantic content and active semantic processing in AD, and confirm the fundamental deficit in semantic content in SD. We interpret these findings as supporting of a model of semantic memory premised upon dynamic interactivity between the process and content of conceptual knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding the intentions of others: Re-enactment of intended acts by 18-month-old children.

Investigated whether children would re-enact what an adult actually did or what the adult intended to do. In Experiment, 1 children were shown an adult who tried, but failed, to perform certain target acts. Completed target acts were thus not observed. Children in comparison groups either saw the full target act or appropriate controls. Results showed that children could infer the adult's intended act by watching the failed attempts. Experiment 2 tested children's understanding of an inanimate object that traced the same movements as the person had followed. Children showed a completely different reaction to the mechanical device than to the person: They did not produce the target acts in this case. Eighteen-mo-olds situate people within a psychological framework that differentiates between the surface behavior of people and a deeper level involving goals and intentions. They have already adopted a fundamental aspect of folk psychology—persons (but not inanimate objects) are understood within a framework involving goals and intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Elements of episodic memory.

Reviews the book, Elements of episodic memory by Endel Tulving (1983). Those of us who have followed Tulving's investigations in the somewhat fragmented form of journal articles are very grateful to have his ideas encapsulated, elaborated, and elegantly expounded in his Elements of episodic memory. Tulving spends the initial third of the book driving home the evidence that the distinction between episodic and semantic memory is not just that episodic is time-lagged and semantic is not: it is more far-ranging, and his new work on amnesia is leading to the conclusion that for some forms of this disorder either type of memory may be attacked but not necessarily both. The first vista that opens from Tulving's vantage point is that "systems" and "schemata" are collections of connections that derive a certain autonomy from being only loosely connected to other collections. The second vista that emerges is a psychology in which the use of numbers is rich and strange. A third vista that opens up is shielded at first by a spectre of opposition. The spectre seizes on the passage on "free radicals," in which Tulving claims that certain thoughts cannot be unambiguously assigned to either episodic or semantic memory. Perhaps the most heartening aspect of this book is that Tulving could never have written this monograph without the foundations of his experiments. It is a great relief to see experimentation validated in so invigorating a form. Nevertheless, the most difficult chapters of the book, on recognition and recall, are built on experimental findings that are not yet properly understood. I am glad Tulving did not delay in writing this book until he felt more secure about the questions raised in these last chapters: the work thereby remains a challenge rather than a fait accompli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The mentally ill witch in textbooks of abnormal psychology: Current status and implications of a fallacy.

The psychopathological interpretation of demonology, witchcraft, and possession states that demonology replaced psychiatric knowledge and practice in the Middle Ages and that the mentally ill were subsequently misidentified as witches and demoniacs. This model has been discredited, but its persistence is demonstrated by an examination of 20 textbooks in abnormal psychology published between 1978 and 1981. Almost all authors endorsed at least 1 aspect of the psychopathological interpretation, and only 3 books included contradictory opinions. Textbooks that presented the psychiatric model seem to have derived it primarily from G. Zilboorg (1935), and there is also evidence of unreferenced internal borrowing among textbooks. Authors generally ignored prominent historical and anthropological research on witchcraft and possession; they also gave minimal attention to more recent, socioculturally oriented histories of psychiatry and to critiques of the older psychiatric paradigm. It is concluded that these results are at least partly due to clinical psychologists' identification with psychiatrists' efforts at self-validation and self-justification. (94 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expressing the inexpressible and measuring the incommensurable: On language, literature and psychology.

Presents a broad historical survey of the various reflective, analytical, and scientific approaches to an intellectual understanding of language and literature. Within this overall picture, the contribution of psychology is seen as limited for the area of language and negligible for that of literature. It is argued that psychology has not done justice to language as a complex, hierarchically structured system by concentrating on micro- rather than macro-analysis and on isolated words rather than texts or sequences of natural language. Various characteristics of poetic language (in its semantic, emotional, rhythmic, and phonetic aspects) are offered as prime examples of the type of interpretive challenge to which a maturing science of psychology might be expected to rise. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a science of the heart: Romanticism and the revival of psychology.

In recent years, American psychology has conspicuously distanced itself from its romantic roots. Although affective, intuitive, and holistic bases for understanding human behavior have never occupied a mainstream position in the discipline as a whole, in recent years, their very existence has been threatened. This article, which focuses primarily on clinical psychology but also spells out implications for the entire discipline, elaborates the reasons for the threat to romanticism, the consequences that are associated with it, and the rich and practical advantages for reclaiming romanticism's legacy. The role that romanticism can play in psychology's future is also addressed. It is argued that romanticism can and should play a significantly greater role in our profession than it currently does. Finally, romanticism is discussed in light of another major alternative to mainstream psychology—postmodernism. Although romanticism is seen as compatible with postmodernism in certain respects, the limitations of this compatibility are also acknowledged. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of affective prosody by young and older adults.

Emotion is conveyed in speech by semantic content (what is said) and by prosody (how it is said). Prior research suggests that older adults benefit from linguistic prosody when comprehending language but that they have difficulty understanding affective prosody. In a series of 3 experiments, young and older adults listened to sentences in which the emotional cues conveyed by semantic content and affective prosody were either congruent or incongruent and then indicated whether the talker sounded happy or sad. When judging the emotion of the talker, young adults were more attentive to the affective prosodic cues than to the semantic cues, whereas older adults performed less consistently when these cues conflicted. Participants’ reading and repetition of the sentences were recorded so that age- and emotion-related changes in the production of emotional speech cues could be examined. Both young and older adults were able to produce affective prosody. The age-related difference in perceiving emotion was eliminated when listeners repeated the sentences before responding, consistent with previous findings regarding the beneficial role of repetition in conversation. The results of these experiments suggest that there are age-related differences in interpreting affective prosody but that repeating may be a compensatory strategy that could minimize the everyday consequences of these differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)