A re-reading of Studies on Hysteria: the Freud-Breuer break revisited.

Argues that the commonly accepted view that J. Breuer and Freud ended their relationship simply because the former objected to the latter's claim as to the sexual etiology of the psychoneuroses is a myth (propounded by Freud and E. Jones) that masked an ongoing polemic in Studies on Hysteria. Breuer objected to Freud's claim that symbolic processes unconsciously determine symptoms. What disturbed both Freud and Breuer was Freud's vision of an interpenetration of intelligence and sexuality operating according to the laws of language completely out of the ego's awareness. The unconscious link between sexuality and intellection remains as problematic today. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral knowledge and the problems of psychotherapy.

The distinction between objective and subjective knowledge has a long philosophical history, but the modem version has ties to Hume's separation of reason and belief. The extraction of reason from mere habits of the mind raises its own problems concerning the possibility of knowledge (via the problem of induction). These problems are especially acute within the therapeutic context. Indeed, the inclusion of morals in psychotherapy is considered unethical. This arises from the assumption that morality is idiosyncratic and subjective whereas scientific knowledge is objective and thus closer to truth. The argument developed here is that the therapeutic endeavor is implicitly philosophical and civic in its assumptions. As such it requires the resources of moral and political philosophy as well as a standard by which to assess its achievements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Minority rights or public health? The smoky logic of Hadaway and Beyerstein.

Replies to comments made by Hadaway and Beyerstein (see record 2007-09096-001) on the current author's original record (see record 1989-01264-001). Hadaway and Beyerstein defended the right of smokers to expose others to second-hand smoke, arguing that, in the absence of evidence that passive smoking causes injury to others, society has no right to restrict individual liberties. If Hadaway and Beyerstein are genuine proponents of John Stuart Mill's civil libertarian philosophy, then regardless of the difficulties inherent in developing legislation, they are obligated to reverse their position in order to defend the rights of the true victims: those forced to breathe second-hand smoke. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reply to Kaplan and Parlow: Minority rights and public health are not mutually exclusive.

It is unfortunate that Kaplan and Parlow (1988) misinterpreted our plea for justice and compassion in balancing the rights of smokers and non-smokers (1987; see record 1989-01264-001) as a blanket endorsement of smokers' rights to expose abstainers to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). We absolutely do not advocate such a straw man; obviously, innocent third parties have the right to be protected. Kaplan and Parlow's assertion that our position is that "smoking is not a legitimate threat" is totally incorrect. In pointing to the controversy in the scientific literature about the degree of risk associated with ETS, we were not arguing that the risk is non-existent, nor that smokers are entitled to do as they please if others are adversely affected (or even if abstainers simply find ETS esthetically objectionable). Rather, we were emphasizing that the warlike rhetoric, emotionalism, and morally superior stance of the anti-smoking crusade can have a negative impact on the scientific objectivity that ought to guide social policy. The commendability of one's goals is not an excuse for ignoring contrary evidence or failing to examine the evidence for preferred hypotheses as critically as one would the support for unpopular causes. Our concern in our article, which Kaplan and Parlow failed to realize, was with how the rights of both smokers and non-smokers can best be achieved with a minimum of social and personal costs. The intent of our article was to remind readers that, in the past, emotionality and haste on the part of well-intentioned reformers have often been responsible for unnecessary social disruption and trammelling of individual rights--all while failing to achieve their noble goals. We agree with Kaplan and Parlow's position that individuals must be protected from exposure to unwanted ETS and that is the position we took in our article. This, however, can be done without creating greater social problems by trampling on the rights of smokers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists' knowledge, opinions, and decision-making processes regarding child abuse and neglect reporting laws.

Mandated child abuse reporting laws have been in effect in the United States for more than 20 years, yet practitioners vary in their understanding and opinions of these laws. A sample of licensed psychologists were surveyed and reported being relatively well-informed. However, their performance on a knowledge measure suggests knowledge deficits and a tendency to overreport. Legal considerations encourage reporting, whereas beliefs that one can provide client treatment deter reporting. Opinions of the laws were generally favorable, with some concerns about child protection systems and the impact of reporting on the therapeutic alliance. Practice and policy implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Context-gated knowledge partitioning in categorization.

According to the knowledge partitioning framework, people sometimes master complex tasks by creating multiple independent parcels of partial knowledge. Research has shown that knowledge parcels may contain mutually contradictory information, and that each parcel may be used without regard to knowledge that is demonstrably present in other parcels. This article reports 4 experiments that investigated knowledge partitioning in categorization. When component boundaries of a complex categorization were identified by a context cue, a significant proportion of participants learned partial and independent categorization strategies that were chosen on the basis of context. For those participants, a strategy used in one context was unaffected by knowledge demonstrably present in other contexts, suggesting that knowledge partitioning in categorization can be complete. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Admissibility of polygraph tests: The application of scientific standards post- Daubert .

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993) modernized the long-standing Frye (1923) precedent and requires courts to make scientific judgments. Courts, however, are not well-equipped to parse scientific arguments. To illustrate the difficulty of applying Daubert , this article focuses on the controversy over admissibility of polygraph test evidence ("lie detectors"). Reliability and validity are discussed in relation to polygraph testing and the Daubert criteria. Although the validity of polygraph test results has been examined across many studies, none satisfy necessary methodological criteria and accuracy rates are unpredictable. This analysis points to the need for social scientists and courts to develop a mutually understood language to assess validity claims. Courts must have the ability to weight scientific evidence and, although they need not become amateur scientists, they must become sophisticated consumers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Erratum to Tesser and Paulhus.

Reports an error in the article, "Toward a Causal Model of Love," by Abraham Tesser and Delroy Paulhus (Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 1976[Dec], Vol 34[6], 1095-1105). There are six incorrect entries in Table 2 (p. 1101). In addition, on page 1104, left-hand column, the sentence beginning on the 15th line of the paragraph headed Reproducing the Correlations reads: This value was comfortably small, .027 z units. The sentence should be changed to read: This value was comfortably small, .039 z units. Details underlying these corrections are available from the authors.(The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1978-31808-001.) Under a proposed systems model of love, (a) thought about other and love for other have a positive causal impact on one another, (b) dating frequency and love have a positive causal impact on one another, and (c) dating has a positive impact on "reality constraints," which, in turn, (d) have a negative impact on love. Questionnaires administered 2 wks apart to a 202-member panel of college students (106 females and 96 males) served as the data collection vehicle. Temporal order of the measures was used to determine causal direction, and path analysis was used to analyze these correlational data. Results support Hypotheses (a), (b), and (d) but do not support Hypothesis (c). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Interactive use of lexical information in speech perception": Correction to Connine and Clifton.

Reports an error in "Interactive use of lexical information in speech perception" by Cynthia M. Connine and Charles Clifton (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1987[May], Vol 13[2], 291-299). In the aforementioned article, Figures 1 and 2 were inadvertently transposed. The figure on p. 294 is actually Figure 2, and the figure on p. 296 is actually Figure 1. The captions are correct as they stand. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1987-23984-001.) Two experiments are reported that demonstrate contextual effects on identification of speech voicing continua. Experiment 1 demonstrated the infuence of lexical knowledge on identification of ambiguous tokens from word–nonword and nonword–word continua. Reaction times for word and nonword responses showed a word advantage only for ambiguous stimulus tokens (at the category boundary); no word advantage was found for clear stimuli (at the continua endpoints). Experiment 2 demonstrated an effect of a postperceptual variable, monetary payoff, on nonword–nonword continua. Identification responses were influenced by monetary payoff, but reaction times for bias-consistent and bias-inconsistent responses did not differ at the category boundary. An advantage for bias-consistent responses was evident at the continua endpoints. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A three-person perspective on transference.

Different approaches to psychoanalysis may be classed according to the number of persons that they assume to be necessary in order to adequately describe mental life. One-person approaches assume the basic autonomy of the individual to act as a subject in her world, while 2-person approaches assume the irreducibility of object and subject, their essential complementarity and their mutual affirmation as subjects. Three-person approaches, on which the present article focuses, argue that the subject can fully develop only by creating enough space for herself among other persons who compete for subject positions. Such space is created in relation to (at least) 2 other subjects, hence the system of 3 persons. In the 3-person perspective, the position of the subject is defined as First, and the Second is defined by the one with whom the subject identifies and in whom she mirrors herself through cycles of projection and introjection. The position of the Third involves the personification of the cultural matrix and, especially, the way language informs our ability to relate to each other. This is best represented in the universal system of personal pronouns: the subject takes the position of the 1st person (I), the Second takes the position of the 2nd person (You), and the Third is posited as the 3rd person (she or he and it). In psychoanalytic therapy, the patient takes the position of the Subject, the First. Transference is construed as the superposition of both the 2nd and the 3rd persons upon the figure of the analyst, a mental process that (re)creates the necessary conditions for the development of subjecthood. As a result, in the discourse of transference, the position of the analyst keeps fluctuating between the 2nd and 3rd positions: When one takes place on the actual level, the other acts in the background, and vice versa. The therapeutic consequences of this view are discussed; for example, transference love is construed as a process in which the 2nd person struggles to dominate the positioning of the analyst. Other transferential configurations are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expertise and age effects on knowledge activation in chess.

Novice, intermediate, and expert chess players of various ages, playing with two chess pieces on a quarter-section of a chessboard, performed a simple task to detect that the king is in check or is threatened with being in check. Age slowed response for both tasks. An interaction of task and skill revealed differences in diminishing response time between check and threat tasks as skill increased; experts were equally fast on both tasks. Measures of speed and working memory were negatively related to age but unrelated to skill. Skill did not mitigate age-related effects on speed of detection. These results suggest that knowledge-activation processes necessary to assess basic chess relationships slow with age, even in experts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge of secondary mathematics teachers.

Drawing on the work of L. S. Shulman (1986), the authors present a conceptualization of the pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge of secondary-level mathematics teachers. They describe the theory-based construction of tests to assess these knowledge categories and the implementation of these tests in a sample of German mathematics teachers (N=198). Analyses investigate whether pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge can be distinguished empirically, and whether the mean level of knowledge and the degree of connectedness between the two knowledge categories depends on mathematical expertise. Findings show that mathematics teachers with an in-depth mathematical training (i.e., teachers qualified to teach at the academic-track Gymnasium) outscore teachers from other school types on both knowledge categories and exhibit a higher degree of cognitive connectedness between the two knowledge categories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of assigned versus participatively set goals, knowledge of results, and individual differences on employee behavior when goal difficulty is held constant.

In Exp I, 60 female clerical workers were randomly assigned to participative, assigned, and "do best" goal conditions on a clerical test. Specific goals led to higher performance than did the "do best" goals. With goal difficulty held constant, there was no significant difference between the assigned and participative conditions on performance or goal acceptance. Goal attainment, however, was higher in the assigned condition than it was in the participative condition. No main or interaction effects were found for knowledge of results (KR) or for individual difference measures with performance or goal acceptance. However, high self-esteem Ss who received KR attained their goals more often than did Ss with low self-esteem when the goals were participatively set. Exp II was conducted with 28 employees from the same sample in a performance-appraisal setting over an 8-mo period. Assigned goals resulted in higher performance and greater goal acceptance than participatively set goals. There was a positive linear relationship between goal difficulty and performance in the participative condition only. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Causal knowledge and categories: The effects of causal beliefs on categorization, induction, and similarity.

Despite the recent interest in the theoretical knowledge embedded in human representations of categories, little research has systematically manipulated the structure of such knowledge. Across four experiments this study assessed the effects of interattribute causal laws on a number of category-based judgments. The authors found that (a) any attribute occupying a central position in a network of causal relationships comes to dominate category membership, (b) combinations of attribute values are important to category membership to the extent they jointly confirm or violate the causal laws, and (c) the presence of causal knowledge affects the induction of new properties to the category. These effects were a result of the causal laws, rather than the empirical correlations produced by those laws. Implications for the doctrine of psychological essentialism, similarity-based models of categorization, and the representation of causal knowledge are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Cognitive aging: A primer.

Reviews the book, Cognitive aging: A primer edited by Denise C. Park and Norbert Schwarz (see record 2000-07430-000). The objective of this edited book is to present a comprehensive overview of what is known about normal cognitive functioning in older adults. The book's 14 short chapters, all written by well-known experts in cognitive aging, are divided into four sections on basic mechanisms, attention and memory, language and speech, and applications. This book was intended as a textbook for teaching advanced undergraduate and beginning undergraduate students. Overall, this objective is reached by most contributions. While creatively updating knowledge in cognitive aging, it does a great job of identifying limitations and theoretical challenges and of pinpointing many exciting research questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Counselor dogmatism, willingness to disclose, and clients' empathy ratings.

Assessed counselee perceptions of counselor interpersonal affectiveness, using the responses of 51 college-student counselees who evaluated 1 of 6 counselors on the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI). To test the hypothesis that the concepts of dogmatism, authoritarianism, and the closed person are synonymous, these concepts were studied in relationship to counselors' degree of disclosure by having the 6 counselors complete the BLRI and Rokeach Dogmatism Scale. Findings suggest that dogmatism is an unstable characteristic of counselors during counseling. Low-dogmatic counselors appeared to show higher levels of psychological insight during counseling than high-dogmatic counselors. It is suggested that the psychological state of the counselee may determine to a great extent the effectiveness of high-dogmatic counselors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The middle way: Charles Taylor on knowledge and the self.

Reviews the books, Philosophical papers, volume I: Human agency and language by Charles Taylor (1985) and Philosophical papers, volume II: Philosophy and the human sciences by Charles Taylor (1985). Professor Taylor of McGill University is one of a number of thinkers who are attempting the difficult and important task of taking the social sciences "beyond objectivism and relativism." One of the foremost philosophers of his generation, Taylor has long devoted himself to study of the foundations of the social sciences, especially psychology and political science. Now the Cambridge University Press has issued, in a two-volume set, a selection of Taylor's essays written over the last twenty years. The essays cover a wide variety of topics. Some are focussed critiques—of mainstream cognitive psychology, of Piagetian developmental psychology, and of Michel Foucault's social studies of knowledge and power, for example. Others are historical studies which trace the development of theories of language and meaning from the Renaissance to the present day. Several essays discuss the nature of the self, and seek to show the incoherence of positions which fail to take into account the human capacity for self-consciousness, choice and responsibility. "Interpretation and the Sciences of Man," perhaps the best-known essay in the collection, is a closely argued demonstration of the irreducability of human meanings and the consequent necessity for a "hermeneutic" social science. Despite their historical range and disciplinary breadth, not to mention their casual familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon, French and German philosophical traditions, Taylor's essays form an organic, if sprawling whole. No psychologist interested in the epistemological foundations of his science should neglect these stimulating and cogent articles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Exploring the neural organization of person-related knowledge: Lateralization of lesion, category specificity, and stimulus modality effects.

While it is generally agreed that the right fusiform gyrus is specialized for face recognition, the question of whether knowledge about persons is lateralized in the temporal lobes is more contentious. Does knowledge about people differ from other kinds of object knowledge with respect to brain laterality? Are side-of-lesion effects mediated by stimulus modality? This study aimed to investigate these questions by comparing patients with left temporal (LT) (n = 8) and right temporal (RT) (n = 11) lesions to control subjects (n = 12) on verbal and visual tests of people, buildings, and objects. The RT group was impaired at recognizing famous faces, but not at choosing the picture of a famous building or a famous name from nonfamous distracters. The LT group was impaired at naming people, buildings, and objects, regardless of stimulus modality. When presemantic processing was controlled for, neither patient group was impaired in producing person-specific knowledge to faces or names, supporting the notion that semantic knowledge for people as for other kinds of objects, is stored in a distributed network across both hemispheres, regardless of stimulus modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of horizontal viewing angle on visual and audiovisual speech recognition.

The authors investigated the effects of changes in horizontal viewing angle on visual and audiovisual speech recognition in 4 experiments, using a talker's face viewed full face, three quarters, and in profile. When only experimental items were shown (Experiments 1 and 2), identification of unimodal visual speech and visual speech influences on congruent and incongruent auditory speech were unaffected by viewing angle changes. However, when experimental items were intermingled with distractor items (Experiments 3 and 4), identification of unimodal visual speech decreased with profile views, whereas visual speech influences on congruent and incongruent auditory speech remained unaffected by viewing angle changes. These findings indicate that audiovisual speech recognition withstands substantial changes in horizontal viewing angle, but explicit identification of visual speech is less robust. Implications of this distinction for understanding the processes underlying visual and audiovisual speech recognition are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mental representation of normal subjects about the sources of knowledge in different semantic categories and unique entities.

According to the “sensory-motor model of semantic knowledge,” different categories of knowledge differ for the weight that different “sources of knowledge” have in their representation. Our study aimed to evaluate this model, checking if subjective evaluations given by normal subjects confirm the different weight that various sources of knowledge have in the representation of different biological and artifact categories and of unique entities, such as famous people or monuments. Results showed that the visual properties are considered as the main source of knowledge for all the living and nonliving categories (as well as for unique entities), but that the clustering of these “sources of knowledge” is different for biological and artifacts categories. Visual data are, indeed, mainly associated with other perceptual (auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactual) attributes in the mental representation of living beings and unique entities, whereas they are associated with action-related properties and tactile information in the case of artifacts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)