An experimental reunion of psychoanalytic theory with perceptual vigilance and defense.

"This experiment was designed to test, within the framework of perceptual behavior, two psychoanalytic hypotheses: (a) the unconscious striving for expression of underlying psychosexual impulses (vigilance); and (b) the warding off of these threatening impulses as they begin to approach conscious awareness (defense)." Using Blacky Pictures, the vigilance hypothesis was supported in 11 of the 14 cases tested; the defense hypothesis was supported in 12 of the 14 cases tested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictability of perceptual defense behavior.

As part of a larger study, 140 Ss were given a sentence-completion task with stems which were specially selected to elicit sex and hostility content. The sentence completions were judged by four clinical psychologists for indication of conflict and for the particular type of defense, repressive or sensitizing, used by the subject. When Ss were selected as using repressive or sensitizing mechanisms in particular conflict areas, it was found, as predicted, that sensitizers were significantly faster in perceiving conflict words than were repressers. 20 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychogenic deafness and perceptual defense.

Thresholds for crucial and neutral words were obtained for Ss with psychogenic deafness and a matched group with organic hearing losses. All Ss then listened to an anxiety-producing playlet in which crucial words were centrally involved. Re-measurement indicated that the difference between the reduction in thresholds for the crucial and neutral words (C - N) was 11.32 for the control Ss and -37.91 for the experimental Ss. This difference (p     

Converging operations for perceptual defense.

Discusses some recent experimental attempts to provide converging operations for a concept of perceptual defense. For present purposes, perceptual defense is defined as a relative failure of perception per se due to the emotional character of the stimulus. Experiments are evaluated and discussed mainly in terms of their ability to eliminate as an explanation the response-bias hypothesis for differential accuracy between neutral and emotional words. In addition, following Blum, a stimulus-effect hypothesis is described and applied; all the experiments discussed require, if differences in accuracy of recognition are to be attributed to perceptual variation, converging operations to eliminate this hypothesis. It is argued as well that the search for converging operations for perceptual defense has implications for methodology in other areas of perception. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Externalization in perceptual defense.

2 group of Ss (male undergraduate psychology students) were selected on the degree to which they tend to externalize or internalize responsibility for actions (as measured by a specially developed scale). Ss were asked to respond to tachistoscopically presented stimulus words, shown under varying conditions of illumination and under 2 experimental conditions (defined by instructions identifying the words as having been abstracted from one of 2 kinds of conversations: an impersonal source, participating in research on patterns of language; vs. sailor, delinquents, and college failures). Differential reactivity was noted only when the set was for obscenity, violence, and failure; under these conditions, externalizers showed greater group mean consistency in threshold for disagreeable words, i.e., they neither reacted with sensitization (low) or inhibition (high) thresholds; not so with internalizers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Avoidance learning of perceptual defense and vigilance.

Thirty-two undergraduates were randomly assigned to defense and vigilance training groups. "This study supports the view that perceptual defense and vigilance are learned reactions to anxiety arousing stimuli." A behavior theory analysis of the learning process is proposed. "According to this analysis, perceptual defense is learned when the perceptual response to a threatening stimulus is punished and competing perceptual responses are instrumental to anxiety reduction. Competing perceptual responses when reinforced are strengthened at the expense of the critical perceptual response. Perceptual vigilance is learned when the perceptual response to a threatening stimulus is reinforced by anxiety reduction and competing perceptual responses are punished." Learning for both groups "proceeded in the absence of awareness." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality, perceptual defense, and stereoscopic perception.

Stereoscopic perception was investigated using an experimental design similar to those employed in tachistoscopic studies of perceptual defense. "In the first experiment, some of the variables involved in stereoscopic suppression were investigated, while the second experiment demonstrated the differences in the stereoscopic perception of normals and schizophrenics." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A "pure" measure of perceptual defense uncontaminated by response suppression.

"Using a tachistoscopic recognition technique, an experiment was designed that provided measures both of 'perceptual defense' and of response suppression. The 'perceptual defense' measure could be corrected by the response suppression measure to yield a 'pure' perceptual defense measure. With this method, it was found that Ss scoring high on the Hy scale of the MMPI demonstrate a significant perceptual defense effect over and above a response suppression effect, when confronted by words preselected so as to be emotional for each S individually. It is therefore concluded that perceptual defense effects cannot be accounted for entirely on the basis of response suppression." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Replication and comments: "An experimental reunion of psychoanalytic theory with perceptual vigilance and defense."

"The results of an initial attempt to replicate the results of Blum's experiment (see 28: 6928) indicated that stimulus similarity was an important determinant of errors of localization in the test of the perceptual defense hypothesis. A second experiment was designed to test the defense hypothesis under the specified conditions and at the same time yield information concerning the role of stimulus similarity on errors of recognition in the defense series. The results indicated similarity among the experimental and control stimuli was the primary determinant of the frequency of correct response… . Evidence was presented which tentatively suggests that systematic errors of localization might be due to an increased generalization gradient associated with anxiety arousal." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual defense revisited.

"In the present study the following hypothesis was submitted to experimental test: Subjects predisposed to use the mechanism of repression in conjunction with a given conflict will, when confronted subliminally with a conflict-relevant stimulus, show defensive behavior directly traceable to the perceptual process itself… ." The results of this study show that "with selective verbal report, familiarity, set, and antecedent conditions all controlled, an avoidance response directly traceable to the perceptual process was obtained." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Set versus perceptual defense: A confirmation.

"Two experiments were performed to determine the influence of sex differences and ego involvement upon the perceptual defense phenomenon. Sixty undergraduate students (30 male and 30 female) served in the experiments which involved the tachistoscopic presentation of taboo and neutral words. The major independent variables differentiating the matched experimental and control groups were the type of instructions received and sex groups. The results were interpreted as being similar to the results of previous studies, with similar explanatory principles involved, and in addition, the factors of sex differences and ego involvement were demonstrated to influence the perceptual defense phenomenon." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A further study of the relationship between response bias and perceptual defense.

Ss were exposed to tachistoscopically-presented pairs of words and asked to report whether a particular word was on the left or right of a fixation point. A non-statistically-significant trend showed that Ss tended to demonstrate a response bias in terms of reporting anxiety or neutral words on one or the other side whether or not they were in fact on the stated side of the point. A 2nd phase of the experiment presented S with blank stimulus fields although S was expecting words. A response bias was not demonstrated. "… it is suggested that the use of a forced-choice spatial indicator of perception may undermine the motivational basis for perceptual defense." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of providing knowledge of results upon the perceptual defense effect.

"The present paper reported a study designed to observe the perceptual defense effect over trials. It was hypothesized that the introduction of knowledge of results would result in an equalization of the probability of using anxiety words as responses and in the accuracy for neutral and anxiety words. The study did not confirm this hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychogenic deafness, perceptual defense, and personality variables in children.

"Survey of a child guidance population showed that of 26 functionally hard-of-hearing cases, 14 presented elevated thresholds for pure tones but were within normal limits for speech. The other group, though normal on pure-tone testing, presented elevated thresholds for all speech, rather than for relatively threatening stimuli. It would appear that both groups were reactive to situations, as opposed to specific auditory stimuli within those situations. Furthermore the majority of the pure-tone group were clinically classified as 'hysteric,' whereas the majority of the speech group was classed as 'anxiety state.' The applicability of 'defense' theories to such cases is discussed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental analysis of role behavior.

"Six Ss, equated for age, conformance of expectation of the role of daughter in contemporary American culture, and congruence of self with the daughter role, each engaged in brief enactment of the role of daughter. The Ss varied systematically in role-taking aptitude as assessed by a simple face-valid As-If procedure." The following hypotheses are tested and supported by the data: "role-taking aptitude and validity of role-enactment are positively correlated; role-taking aptitude and self-constancy following role-enactment are negatively correlated; the shift in self-conception following role-enactment is in part, a function of the specific role enacted; and, finally, role-taking aptitude and a social adjustment variable are positively correlated." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word frequency or motivation in perceptual defense.

The alternative hypotheses proposed to account for differential perceptual threshold of words, (1) motivation and meaning factors, and (2) word frequency and structure factors, are tested by measuring the recognition thresholds of words having two meanings, neutral and threat. The test material consisted of a series of booklets containing thirty successive carbon copies of the test words each, the least clear copy first and the clearest last. For the experiment proper, the threat words were imbedded in a threat context, the neutral words in a neutral context. The threat group needed significantly fewer trials than the neutral group to decipher the critical words. The author concludes that, all else held constant, word meaning and motivational factors are important determinants in perceptual behavior. 23 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural analysis of dreams: Clues to perceptual style.

"… persons who show differences in the perceptual attitude of flexibility-rigidity as estimated from the Rorschach test also differ predictably along this dimension in the perceptual response pattern of their dreams… . Results confirmed the experimental hypothesis." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual defense, dissimulation, and response styles.

This investigation notes the conceptual similarities between perceptual defense and dissimulation research, in the assumption of a behavioral dimension of defensiveness, and relates perceptual defense and dissimulation measures and consistent stylistic response tendencies. A factor analysis was performed on scores from 150 college males on 65 personality scales, mainly from the MMPI. Evidence is cited supporting the interpretation of 3 of the 4 largest of 10 factors as response sets. Of the various measures of perceptual defense and dissimulation included, most could be accounted for by the first 2 factors, social desirability and acquiescence. The "fake-good" dissimulation scales loading the third, or lie, factor, reflect, the endorsement of desirable but highly improbable characteristics. (42 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental approximation of thought reform.

Thought reform processes were simulated in the laboratory with 96 Ss. The Ss were required to evolve an extended series of alternative responses from their own behavior repertoire, in successive approximation to the criterion demanded by the E, which remained unknown to the Ss. This study sought to achieve the abandonment of a basic behavior pattern and the adoption of a new behavior pattern of more than momentary duration. The experimentally induced changes of the Ss, in the direction opposite to their starting positions, persisted over an 8-day follow-up period. Sex and the use of positive or negative signals had no effect on the magnitude of the changes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)