Competing for Reality

In this article, we will apply aspects of Rychlak's philosophy of science to some of the most important issues in psychology today (issues of brain versus behavior, genetic destiny, the nature of scientific investigation, ecopsychology, and artificial intelligence). In our discussion of these issues, we attempt to show the ways that an appreciation of Rychlak's views can help conceptualize the bases of the disagreements in the field as well as explain why so many psychologists tend to “talk past” as opposed to “talk to” one another. We believe that a greater appreciation of Rychlak's major theses could allow psychologists to respect the work of others instead of trying to assert politically their favorite truth claims.     

虚拟现实技术在心理治疗中的应用

虚拟现实系统具有良好的沉浸性、互动性和构想性而被广泛应用于军事、工业、建筑、教育等诸多领域。近年来,国外一些研究者将虚拟现实技术用于恐惧症、社交焦虑症、创伤后应激性障碍和厌食症等心理疾病的治疗,并取得了良好效果。本文简要介绍了国外在方面开展的主要工作,并对未来的研究趋势进行了展望。     

Search for Security

This article uses fictionalized accounts of counseling situations in various periods of history—prehistorical, Greek, Middle Ages, and the twentieth century—to illustrate that man's search for security, his need for an answer to the question “What shall I do?” and other men's responses to that need have not changed much throughout history.     

Imagination and Reality: On the Relations Between Myth, Consciousness, and the Quantum Sea

There often appears to be a striking correspondence between mythic stories and aspects of reality. We will examine the processes of creative imagination within a neurobiological frame and suggest a theory that may explain the functions of myth in relation to the hidden aspects of reality. Myth is peppered with archetypal entities and interactions that operate to reveal hidden processes in reality that are relative to the human condition. The imagery in myths in a sense "sustains the true." That is, mythopoetic imagery keeps the interpretive process in experience closer to the actual nature of reality than the rational faculties operating alone are able to do. Indeed, whereas rationalizing can easily lead us awry, genuine myth rarely does. Explanations of events offered by cultures around the world are frequently couched in terms of mythic themes and events. An important function of myth is to provide a "field of tropes" that in-forms the lived experience of people. This paper focuses especially on those aspects of myth that represent facets of the quantum universe and give us clues as to the relationship between consciousness, symbolism, and reality.     

虚拟与虚拟实在

虚拟是这个时代的热门词,也是当下文化的关键词.在三亿多的网民中,很多人见面时的问候语从吃过没有变为魔兽了吗抑或摘菜了没有,网络虚拟生活已经成为国人乃至世人一种必不可少的生活方式.二十年前美国学者迈克海姆写过一本关于虚拟实在的书,大约十年前引入国内,引发了国内学者关于虚拟实在的研究和讨论.但由于当时国内的信息技术尚未普及,网民数量稀少,所以他的书和这场讨论未能引起社会轰动并深入持久下去.如今恰逢读网时代,我们重拾虚拟实在,重新探讨它的形而上以及与虚拟的区别与联系,因为它是我们在谈及当下文化时绝不能回避和忽略的问题.     

Reality Monitoring for Sexual Abuse Memories

The reality monitoring model of Johnson and Raye proposes that the phenomenal characteristics of memories for real and imagined events are utilized in reality monitoring judgements. This study examined the reality monitoring strategies utilized by subjects when remembering sexual abuse, and compared them with the strategies utilized for other types of events. Thirty-one subjects described how they knew that four different autobiographical events (a sexual abuse experience, another unrelated trauma experience, a social occasion, and an imagined event) had, or had not, happened. Sexual abuse experiences were found to elicit a unique reality monitoring response profile. This profile suggests that the characteristics of memory for sexual abuse may be more vivid than other memories. In addition, the profile for sexual abuse shows fewer contextual supporting memories than other real memories, and more psychological reasoning responses. The finding that emotional rehearsal can cause fading of perceptual detail was not found to hold for the long-term autobiographical memories that were the object of this study. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reality monitoring in anosognosia for hemiplegia

Anosognosia for hemiplegia (AHP) is a lack of awareness about paralysis following stroke. Recent explanations use a ‘forward model’ of movement to suggest that AHP patients fail to register discrepancies between internally- and externally-generated sensory information. We predicted that this failure would impair the ability to recall from memory whether information is internally- or externally-generated (i.e., reality monitor). Two experiments examined this prediction. Experiment 1 demonstrated that AHP patients exhibit a reality monitoring deficit for non-motor information (i.e., perceived vs. imagined drawings), whilst hemiplegic controls without anosognosia (nonAHP) perform like age-matched healthy volunteers (HVs). Experiment 2 explored if this deficit occurs when AHP patients discriminate performed, imagined, or observed movement. Results showed impaired reality monitoring for movements in AHP and nonAHP patients relative to HVs. Findings suggest that reality monitoring processes not directly related to movement, together with a failure to reality monitor movements, contribute to the pathogenesis of AHP.     

学术性与现实性的双重诉求

正确理解学术性与现实性及其相互关系,是关系到能否正确理解马克思主义的在场性及马克思主义创新发展的一个重要理论前提.     

Search for the Grounds for Mutual Reinforcement

Both PP and IP are the outgrowth of disenchantment with the mainstream western psychology. However, it is argued that these two psychologies are rooted in irreconcilable epistemological traditions. PP calls for a correction in western psychology, to focus less on human pathology and negativity and more on strengths and virtues. Indian Psychology has begun as an alternative psychology, shaped by the spiritual traditions, with emphasis on development of human potentials. IP, in its modern incarnation, is still at a nascent stage and must grow independently till it acquires its own identity and strength. Unless IP collaborates from the position of strength, the danger is real that it may be eventually usurped by the western psychology.     

Aging and the Search for Meaning

SUMMARY

The natural science model is not adequate alone to deal with some of the profound problems of gerontology because it does not deal well with meaning and values issues. This paper develops the topic “Aging and the Search for Meaning” using phenomenological and hermeneutical methods. It is assumed that finding a meaning in life is a primary drive across the years. Such a quest requires a hermeneutic, i.e. a means by which life may be symbolized or given meaning and direction. Using Viktor Frankl's meaning theory, the paper introduces an approach which describes the process by which the meaning of aging can be interpreted.     

Philosophy and the Search for Truth

Philosophy, as it is understood and practiced in the West, is and has been generally considered to be the search for truth. But even if philosophy is the search for truth, it does not automatically follow that those who are identified as ‘philosophers’ are themselves actually engaged in that search. And indeed, in this paper I argue that many philosophers have in fact not been genuinely engaged in the search for truth (in other words, many philosophers have not been doing philosophy) and as such much of what passes for philosophy is in fact not really philosophy at all.