Review of Art and Visual Perception.

Reviews the book "Art and visual perception," by Rudolph Arnheim (see record 1955-03680-000). In reading this book, one realizes why more psychologists have not been concerned with art. Art is a technical specialty in its own right and one must be expert both in psychology and in either creative art or the history of art to write on art. Arnheim's book brings the scientific knowledge of a trained psychologist to bear on the fundamental problems of visual art as it has developed through the ages. The discussion is always with reference to concrete works of art. Many original drawings, diagrams, and figures illustrate basic principles and important points. The writing is superb. The book is full of penetrating insights into questions of art and also into many problems of concern to the psychologist. Fundamentally this book is an argument against the usual art historian's approach, so well described by Arnheim as the purely subjective point of view, that what a person sees in a work of art "depends entirely on who he is, what he is interested in, what he has experienced in the past, and how he chooses to direct his attention". A book which reflects so well the author's urbanity, catholicity, and keenness of mind, as well as his technical grasp of the scientific and the artistic, is no small achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

D.H.劳伦斯短篇小说《第二好》赏析

劳伦斯的短篇小说<第二好>用双关、象征的艺术手法刻画了好强、敏感、聪慧的女主人翁弗郎西丝;话语超载以及对季节、环境的印象式描写是该小说的另外两大优点.     

The psychologist looks at language.

In this Presidential Address the author examines language—limited to the simple, declarative, present tense sentence—from the point of view of a learning psychologist. The basic assumption is "that what the sentence does is to shift or transfer meanings, not from person to person, but from sign to sign within the mind of the recipient." Language is not conditioning alone but requires postulation of a "mediating reaction." Animal communication is limited to thing-thing or thing-sign while human language is sign-sign. "Language is a device whereby another person, on the basis of experience with one reality, may be made to react… somewhat differently toward another reality, without any new direct experience with that reality." 90-item bibliography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of closed-circuit television in university resident instruction.

"It is now obvious that we can link any number of classrooms together, put one or more TV receivers in each, and let one good professor lecture over the television system to multiple groups of students." Experiments "… or demonstrations could be performed and televised… ." Initial cost, installation and maintenance, operation, flexibility and pictures are discussed. "… TV exists as an aid to, and not a replacement for, the instructor… ." Faculties should "… begin now to coolly appraise TV for its strengths and its weaknesses, and to determine in what ways and under what conditions TV can make a contribution to resident university instruction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Psychotherapy's" Autonomy.

Comments on the article by A. Astin (see record 1962-03183-001) which examined the functional autonomy of psychotherapy. The current author was left with the vague suspicion that Astin had martialed a good deal of scholarly evidence to prove a point that needs no proof. Psychotherapy is autonomous and serious students of it are giving a good deal of thought, time, and energy to a consideration of its functional properties. Certainly many of the "practitioners" are as unhappy as Astin over the uncertainties involved, but fortunately, unlike Astin they have not washed their hands of the "bothersome business" of outcome or process. The first issue that needs attention is his opening sentence. Unfortunately, here he gives no reference to indicate how long we have been about the business of attempting to formulate rigorously any test hypotheses about the therapy relationship within that situation itself and in the laboratory as well. The second and final point the current author makes is that it is unnecessary to answer Astin's article point by point. It would be more fruitful to look at the term "psychotherapy" and see in what way he may not have attended to what is perhaps the most important part of the problem he raises. That is, what does it mean to condemn "psychotherapy" when there are so many meanings attached to it, all applied by men of general good will who do intend to "provide a service to troubled people." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ability of chimpanzees to respond to symbols of quantity in comparison with that of children and of monkeys.

Four chimpanzees, 4 rhesus monkeys, and 11 4–9 yr old children were assessed under comparable conditions for their ability to make use of colors as symbols of quantity. One particular color represented the quantifier "all"; another represented "some"; another represented "one"; a 4th represented "none." These arbitrarily chosen colors retained their individual meanings when the test conditions were varied on 3 occasions. The ability of the Ss to continue responding appropriately to the colors immediately after a change of test condition was used as the measure of performance. The apes performed like the monkeys, having particular difficulties, relative to the children, with the most sensitive quantifier, "some." A multivariate ANOVA showed no significant difference between chimps and monkeys but a highly significant (p?     

Another look at phonetic symbolism.

Various possible meanings of "phonetic symbolism" are discussed. Phonetic symbolism is distinguised from onomatopoeia. "Elemental" and "structural" phonetic symbolism are defined. Elemental phonetic symbolism is discussed in terms of 7 hierarchically arranged questions which define "subjective" phonetic symbolism (that detected by Os) and "objective" phonetic symbolism (over-representation of particular sounds in words of particular connotations in natural languages). Experimental and empirical evidence relevant to each question are discussed, and it is concluded that both subjective and objective elemental phonetic symbolism are real phenomena, but that the patterns of symbolism are unrelated in historically unrelated languages. The feedback theory of phonetic symbolism (Taylor) is considered in greater detail than heretofore. (31 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensional scatterplotting: A graphic approach to profile analysis.

What increments in validity might be found from employing statistical techniques other than those of the usual linear type? The symbols for high, medium, or low for one test were put on a graph at the meeting place for the scores on 2 other tests. "It consists of entering coded symbols on a bivariate scatterplot." The procedure was found promising. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral issues in psychotherapy.

"The first moral obligation of the psychotherapist is to be competent. The more skillful he becomes, the better he fulfills his main ethical responsibility." 4 typical examples of moral issues which arise frequently in the practice of psychotherapy are specified. "One of the falsehoods with which some therapists console themselves is that their form of treatment is purely technical, so they need take no stand on moral issues… . The illusion that our art transcends morality has kept us from forthright study of the ethical and religious disciplines. We psychologists would take a dim view of any experts in philosopy and religion who might hang out a shingle to practice psychotherapy. We would deplore their lack of training in our discipline. My thesis is that scholars in religions and ethics have a right to take an equally dim view of most psychotherapists." The "meaning and contribution of psychotherapy will be enlarged as its practitioners add to their growing technical competence a broader and deeper realization of life's persistent ethical problems." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empirical evidence of Aristotle’s concepts of predication and opposition.

In the past four or five years I have been especially dependent on Aristotle's writings as I have initiated a series of experiments that can legitimately be called empirical efforts to prove Aristotelian conceptions to be true. In actuality, of course, I am trying to prove my own theory to be true—that is, worthy of consideration because it is consistent with observed human actions. However, by extension, I am surely seeking evidence for Aristotle's image of human cognition. There are two Aristotlelian conceptions that underwrite my theoretical and empirical efforts: predication and opposition. When we speak of a "predication" in cognition we refer to a process that is fundamentally creative. Predications deal in meanings; and the way in which we align meanings, lending the meaning of one concept to another is what predication is all about. Predication is the act of affirming, denying, or qualifying certain patterns of meaning in relation to other patterns of meaning. The second Aristotelian conception that I have been employing theoretically and investigating empirically is "opposition." Although association through frequent contact was recognized by Aristotle (1952b), he also appreciated that there is often an intrinsic tie of opposite meanings to be seen in human reason. In my own interpretation of Aristotle, I believe that we can see the ultimate necessity of predication stemming from the opositional ties of meanings like this. If I am cognizing within a congerie of interlacing meanings which relate to and, indeed, delimit the definitions of their opposite meanings, then it is up to me as a cognizer to continually "take a position" on just what I am going to affirm—or not! (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Medical necessity in Canadian health policy: four meanings and ... a funeral?

Four meanings of medical necessity have emerged, evolved, and dominated past and current health policy debates about the appropriate level of service coverage under Canada's health insurance program. To explore the shift in definition, provincial government and national health care association position papers responding to federal legislative and policy reviews of Canada's health insurance program from 1957 to 1984 were examined, as were more current reports on medical necessity. Four meanings of medical necessity predominated: "what doctors and hospitals do"; "the maximum we can afford"; "what is scientifically justified"; and "what is consistently funded across all provinces." These meanings changed with time as different stakeholder associations and governments redefined the concept of medical necessity to achieve different policy objectives for health service coverage under Canada's health insurance program.     

When speech conflicts with seeing: young children's understanding of informational priority

In a series of investigations we found that children between 3 and 5 years of age judged that an utterance (such as, "There's milk in the jug") would be ignored by a listener who had previously seen something contradictory (orange juice in the jug). However, children judged that the listener would believe the message "There's milk in the jug" when he had not previously seen inside. In these various conditions, child participants had not seen for themselves what was inside the jug, so it was impossible for their own directly perceived knowledge to contaminate their judgments of what the protagonist believed. Under these conditions, even many false-belief failers did not assume that the listener would believe whatever they themselves thought was true. Moreover, the results of control conditions suggested that children's success could not be attributed to low-level strategies. These results seem to indicate an early understanding of how people prioritize information, with the consequence that they acknowledge that one and the same message would be believed in one context but not in another.     

Young children's understanding of interpretive diversity between different-age listeners.

Tested children's understanding of interpretive diversity by assessing their attributions of knowledge to a mother and a preverbal baby, who both had access to an informative verbal message. In Exp 1, most children between ages 4 and 8 yrs overattributed knowledge to the preverbal baby after an informative message. Exps 1a and 1b demonstrated that overattributions were not due to conflating the speaker's intent to inform with the informativeness of the message, nor were they due to overestimating babies' limited knowledge. In Exp 2, 6- and 8-yr-olds acknowledged interpretive differences between the baby and adult listener if the message was not obviously informative. It is concluded that children do not readily view individual differences as related to interpretive differences, especially in the absence of cues inherent to a message that might suggest that the message has multiple interpretations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonetic symbolism reexamined.

Taylor (1963) pointed out (a) results of studies of universal phonetic symbolism in natural languages were contradictory. (b) Taylor and Taylor (1962) showed that speakers of different languages tend to assign different meanings to the same sounds. She argued, therefore, that current theories of phonetic symbolism, which imply its universality, must be revised, and offered a theory based upon the occurrence of certain sounds more predominantly in some meaning categories than in others. It is pointed out, however, that Taylor overlooked important methodological factors in "contradictory" studies and did not take into account findings contrary to those of Taylor and Taylor. In addition, the "language habits" theory is examined and various untested assumptions and other difficulties are pointed out. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Reasoning about the disclosure of success and failure to friends among children in the United States and China": Correction to Heyman et al. (2008).

Reports an error in "Reasoning about the disclosure of success and failure to friends among children in the United States and China" by Gail D. Heyman, Genyue Fu and Kang Lee (Developmental Psychology, 2008[Jul], Vol 44[4], 908-918). An error was introduced in the production process. The heading for the bottom half of Table 1 should be "China," not "Canada." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2008-08592-002.) Children's reasoning about individuals' willingness to disclose their successes and failures was investigated among 194 6- to 11-year-olds in the United States and China. In Study 1, participants showed a valence-matching effect, in which they predicted that individuals would be more likely to disclose their performance to an audience of friends if the friends' level of achievement was similar rather than dissimilar. This effect was weaker among children from China, who were more likely to justify their responses with reference to the implications for learning together or improving future performance. Results of Study 2 suggest that for children from the United States, the disclosure of successful performance to a friend who has performed poorly is seen as implicitly conveying the message "I'm better than you," whereas for children from China the message is "I can help you to do better." Results are interpreted with reference to cultural values and expectations about helping others to learn. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of talker familiarity on communication breakdown in conversations with adult cochlear-implant users

This investigation had three objectives: a) to determine the types of repair strategies that cochlear-implant users implement to rectify communication breakdowns during ongoing conversation when talking to either familiar or unfamiliar communication partners, b) to determine how communication partners respond to particular types of repair strategies, and c) to describe the use of conversational behaviors that might circumvent communication difficulties. In Experiment 1, cochlear-implant subjects were videotaped while talking to familiar and then unfamiliar communication partners. In Experiment 2, a second group of cochlear-implant subjects were videotaped while speaking with an unfamiliar partner for 6.5 minutes. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that the cochlear-implant subjects in the two experiments most commonly asked "what?," "huh," or "pardon?" after not recognizing a spoken message (e.g., following a communication breakdown), regardless of whether the communication partner was familiar or unfamiliar. Communication partners' more common response to this repair strategy was to repeat the original message. When cochlear-implant subjects repeated back the segment of a message that they understood, communication partners most often confirmed or corrected them. When they requested information, communication partners usually provided it. The cochlear-implant subjects were more likely to use controlling conversational behaviors when interacting with unfamiliar than familiar communication partners. We conclude that repair strategy-response adjacency pairs may emerge during spontaneous conversations. Use of both specific and nonspecific repair strategies may indicate cochlear-implant users' adherence to a cooperative principle.     

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)