The restless mind.

This article reviews the hypothesis that mind wandering can be integrated into executive models of attention. Evidence suggests that mind wandering shares many similarities with traditional notions of executive control. When mind wandering occurs, the executive components of attention appear to shift away from the primary task, leading to failures in task performance and superficial representations of the external environment. One challenge for incorporating mind wandering into standard executive models is that it often occurs in the absence of explicit intention--a hallmark of controlled processing. However, mind wandering, like other goal-related processes, can be engaged without explicit awareness; thus, mind wandering can be seen as a goal-driven process, albeit one that is not directed toward the primary task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The analogical mind.

The use of analogy in human thinking is examined from the perspective of a multiconstraint theory, which postulates 3 basic types of constraints: similarity, structure, and purpose. The operation of these constraints is apparent in laboratory experiments on analogy and in naturalistic settings, including politics, psychotherapy, and scientific research. The multiconstraint theory has been implemented in detailed computational simulations of the analogical human mind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other union card.

Describes problems encountered over 6 yrs of trying to complete the steps necessary for state certification in psychology. Such problems could be reduced if universities keep files on students who have completed the PhD, and bureaucratic decision making is improved. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The growth of mind.

"What is most unique about man is that his growth as an individual depends upon the history of his species [as reflected in culture]… . the growth of the mind is always growth assisted from the outside… . What a culture does to assist the development of the powers of mind of its members is, in effect, to provide amplification systems… ." These are amplifiers of action, of the senses, and of thought processes. In considering the distinctiveness of man and his potentiality for further evolution: "The 5 great humanizing forces are… tool making, language, social organization, the management of man's prolonged childhood, and man's urge to explain… . [The] psychologist cannot alone construct a theory of how to assist cognitive development and cannot alone learn how to enrich and amplify the powers of a growing human mind." The task belongs to the whole intellectual community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The information-processing theory of mind.

H. A. Simon expresses his thanks for receiving the American Psychological Association citation for outstanding lifetime contribution to psychology. He describes cognitive psychology as a progressive science that, building on behaviorist and Gestalt foundations, has continually broadened and deepened the phenomena that it can predict and explain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at children’s understanding of mind and emotion: The case of prayer.

Multiple methods were used to examine children’s awareness of connections between emotion and prayer. Four-, 6-, and 8-year-olds and adults (N = 100) predicted whether people would pray when feeling different emotions, explained why characters in different situations decided to pray, and predicted whether characters’ emotions would change after praying. Four- and 6-year-olds exclusively judged that positive emotions motivate prayer, whereas 8-year-olds and adults most often predicted that negative emotions would cause people to pray and that praying could improve emotions. There was also a significant increase between 4 and 8 years in explaining prayer as motivated by need for assistance, for thanksgiving, and for conversation, as well as for explaining postprayer emotions in relation to God or prayer. Religious background predicted individual differences in reasoning only for 4-year-olds. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The open and closed mind: A review of dogmatism.

Research on Rokeach's concept of dogmatism is reviewed and structured into 10 areas: authoritarianism, the Dogmatism scale, personality, adjustment, group behavior, parent-child relationships, time perception, cognitive inconsistency, problem solving, and learning. Findings generally support the validity of Rokeach's concept, particularly as a generalized theory of authoritarianism independent of ideological content. Evidence suggests that a "dogmatic personality" style exists and may be readily identified. Limitations of the work done on dogmatism are noted and suggestions for specific areas of future research are made. (4 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessing children's states of mind: A multitrait, multimethod study.

There is growing interest in assessing the positive and negative cognitions of children and adults alike. Much of this interest is attributable to the States of Mind (SOM) model, which relates the balance of positive and negative thoughts to psychological adjustment (R. M. Schwartz and G. L. Garamoni; see records 75:2138 and 79:28228). However, the validity of a central assumption of the SOM model and several critical methodological and psychometric questions must be considered when applying the SOM model to children. In a sample of 34 7- to 10-year-olds, 35 11- to 14-year-olds, and 40 undergraduates, we used four assessment methods to examine the effects of age, measurement method, and self- versus other-reference on SOM ratios. Results indicated that SOM ratios significantly varied depending on measurement method and the self- versus other-reference condition. Age did not significantly influence SOM ratios, suggesting that the set point specified by the SOM model is applicable to children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diversity and the social mind: Goals, constructs, culture, and development.

Articles in this issue by A. C. Casiglia, A. LoCoco, and C. Zappulla; D. S. Crystal, H. Watanabe, K. Weinfurt, and C. Wu; M. Keller, N. Edelstein, C. Schmid, F. -X. Fang, and G. Fang; and J. J. Han, M. D. Leichtman, and Q. Wang are discussed according to (a) the extent to which cultural variability can be reconciled with developmental theory and (b) the dimensions of cultural variability that matter most for development. It is argued that (a) cross-cultural research needs to be predicted on a model of how culture interacts with the forces that underlie and guide development and (b) the interpretation of cross-cultural research is severely limited without the direct measurement of the specific culture-related variables and processes that are hypothesized to account for diversity in development. Finally, within-culture variability needs to be studied in conjunction with between culture variability so that a full model of diversity and development can be constructed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnosis, surgery, and mind–body interaction: An historical evaluation.

Maintains that hypnosis is one of the many means for understanding mind–body interactions. Hypnosis has been shown to be effective in the treatment of asthma, dermatological conditions, burns, clinical pain, and perhaps some forms of cancer. The less researched area of surgical pain is the focus of the present study, with particular emphasis on surgeries performed in the 19th century, both before and after safe and effective chemical anesthetics were developed. Some of the modern scepticism toward such reports, which attempt to dismiss them in terms of social-psychological variables is discussed, as are the mechanisms underlying hypnotic responsivity as indicated by both current theorizing and research. It is concluded that the mechanisms underlying high hypnotic responsivity involve imagination in which a person becomes deeply involved to the extent that critical judgment is superseded. While these observations may have profound implications for the understanding of some of the processes underlying health and illness, the mechanisms by which semantic messages are converted to somatic ones are still not at all understood. (French abstract) (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The getting of wisdom: Theory of mind in old age.

Theory of mind, the ability to attribute mental states, has been little explored beyond the early school years. Yet, later development, including possible patterns of breakdown, has important implications for current debate concerning the modularity/domain-specificity of the cognitive and neurological systems underlying theory of mind. This article reports a first study of theory of mind in normal aging. The results suggest that although performance on tasks with nonmental content may decrease with age, performance on theory of mind tasks remains intact and may even improve over the later adult years. The implications of these findings for the cognitive processes underlying theory of mind are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Keeping an open mind: A rejoinder.

Replies to the comments of S. M. Essock and H. H. Goldman (see record 1990-02584-001) on C. A. Kiesler and T. L. Morton's (see record 1988-21263-001) article on the prospective payment system (PPS) according to diagnosis-related groups in inpatient psychiatry. The present authors argue that Essock and Goldman's comments on the role of length of stay in PPS, Kiesler and Morton's perceived attitudes toward hospitalization, and a number of pro-PPS arguments, represent a one-sided anti-PPS attitude prominent in the psychiatric literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping the mind in relational psychoanalysis: Some critiques, questions, and conjectures.

Mind maps in psychoanalysis consist of hypothetical constructs, first posited and then interwoven, for generating conceptual leverage so that the analyst may make useful clinical interventions. An infinite number of constructs are conceivable; they must be tested in the clinical situation for efficacy. Maps of the mind proposed by relational analysts are examined and critiqued as pulling clinical theory too far toward environmental factors. Clinical dilemmas that may follow are identified. A dichotomous view that parses relational from other psychoanalytic views is discussed as a strategy that limits necessary clinical theory building and evolution. A view of mind maps that attempt to coordinate a balance between endogenous and exogenous pressure is described and is linked to evidence from human development. Questions concerning the role of representations and the developmental course of the structures in the mind are addressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society.

Reviews the book, Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind, body, and society edited by Bessel A. van der Kolk, Alexander C. McFarland, and Lars Weisaeth (see record 1996-98017-000). According to the reviewer, this book has, no doubt, been long awaited by professionals working in the field of traumatic stress. On the whole, it should be welcomed by psychiatrists. It leaves little reservation that, for the guiding interests of psychology, practitioners and researchers will need to look elsewhere. Although acclaimed on the flyleaf as "the gold standard reference," this book, however, falls far short of that mark, and it is bewildering and disappointing that this ambitious, extensive volume comes to so little in a field requiring lucid and advanced theoretical and empirical contributions. The book's purpose is a synthesis of what has been learned over the past 20 years about the effects of trauma, using a biopsychosocial framework. The emphasis throughout is on psychobiology and intrapersonal psychology, attention to the latter at times appearing almost quaint. The book is more properly read as a synthesis of some of the prevailing viewpoints expressed within psychiatry. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking the mind during reading: The influence of past, present, and future words on fixation durations.

Reading requires the orchestration of visual, attentional, language-related, and oculomotor processing constraints. This study replicates previous effects of frequency, predictability, and length of fixated words on fixation durations in natural reading and demonstrates new effects of these variables related to 144 sentences. Such evidence for distributed processing of words across fixation durations challenges psycholinguistic immediacy-of-processing and eye-mind assumptions. Most of the time the mind processes several words in parallel at different perceptual and cognitive levels. Eye movements can help to unravel these processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The religious mind and the evolution of religion.

This article summarizes the literature on the religious mind and connects it to archeological and anthropological data on the evolution of religion. These connections suggest a three stage model in the evolution of religion: One, the earliest form of religion (pre-Upper Paleolithic [UP]) would have been restricted to ecstatic rituals used to facilitate social bonding; two, the transition to UP religion was marked by the emergence of shamanistic healing rituals; and, three, the cave art, elaborate burials, and other artifacts associated with the UP represent the first evidence of ancestor worship and the emergence of theological narratives of the supernatural. The emergence of UP religion was associated with the move from egalitarian to transegalitarian hunter-gatherers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)