A signal detection theory analysis of an unconscious perception effect.

The independent observation model (Macmillan & Creelman, 1991) is fitted to detection-identification data collected under conditions of heavy masking. The model accurately predicts a quantitative relationship between stimulus detection and stimulus identification over a wide range of detection performance. This model can also be used to offer a signal detection interpretation of the common finding of above-chance identification following a missed signal. While our finding is not a new one, the stimuli used in this experiment (redundant three-letter strings) differ slightly from those used in traditional signal detection work. Also, the stimuli were presented very briefly and heavily masked, conditions typical in the study of unconscious perception effects.     

G. C. Lichtenberg: dreams, jokes, and the unconscious in eighteenth-century Germany.

The German physicist and writer Lichtenberg (1742-1799) was well known during the nineteenth century as a humorist, thinker, and psychologist. He was also a favorite author of Freud, who read him beginning in his teens, quoted him frequently, and called him a "remarkable psychologist." Despite this, he has been ignored by psychoanalysts and historians of psychiatry alike, and most of his writing is still unavailable in English. An introduction to Lichtenberg as a psychologist is provided, stressing material dealing with dream analysis, association theory, and drives. Relevant excerpts are translated into English. Lichtenberg is shown to have insisted upon the need for a systematic and rationalistic study of dreams, to have analyzed individual dreams (describing them as dramatized representations of thoughts, associations, and even conflicts from his own waking life), and to have emphasized the functional link between dreams and daydreams. His remarks on drives and commentary on eighteenth-century association theory represent a significant practical application, and thus refinement, of Enlightenment rationalistic psychology. These achievements are assessed in light of Freud's early fascination with him; it is argued that Lichtenberg is an example of the relevance of the historical and cultural background of psychoanalysis to clinical practice.     

Logical expressivism,logical theory and the critique of inferences

Synthese - The basic idea of logical expressivism in the Brandomian tradition is that logic makes inferential relations explicit and thereby accessible to critical discussion. But expressivists...     

The alienness of the unconscious: on Laplanche's theory of seduction

In this paper the author uses a clinical example as a focus for an exploration of his thesis that the parent is the 'other' who implants his or her unconscious message into the child by means of seduction. As the other is alien, the unconscious of the child cannot any longer be considered the centre of the person but is decentred by the implanted alienness. The author draws on Laplanche's seduction theory to argue that the unconscious message of seduction by the other is exclusively sexual and that it cannot be translated nor symbolized because an interpretative system shared by subject and object is lacking. The decentred alterity of the unconscious allows for comparison with a third object and hence a structural triangulation of the mind which is a prerequisite for symbolization. The role of the analyst in permitting a transference enactment and so facilitating the beginning of sexual symbolization is discussed in relation to the clinical example given at the start of the paper.     

Age and the availability of inferences.

Age differences in inference availability and memory were investigated using a speeded decision procedure and cued recall. Younger and older adults read passages that directly suggested either a target inference or an incorrect, competing inference before finally supporting the target inference. At critical points in a passage, subjects judged whether each of a series of words, including either the target or competing inference, was consistent with their current interpretation. Although both groups agreed on the final target inference, younger and older adults showed different patterns of inference availability and revision. Older adults showed broader and more sustained activation of alternative interpretations and also showed lower levels of inference recall. These findings are interpretable by a framework that proposes age-related breakdowns in inhibitory mechanisms that control the contents of working memory (Hasher & Zacks, 1988).     

Toward a general theory of unconscious processes in psychoanalysis and anesthesiology

Psychoanalysis and anesthesiology appear radically different in their clinical practice, yet they share a focus of inquiry: unconscious processes. Despite this common domain, there has been no exploration of the relationship between "the unconscious" as conceived by psychoanalysts and "surgical unconsciousness" as conceived by anesthesiologists. This is likely due to the fact that general anesthesia has been assumed to be a state in which the brain is simply "turned off." More recent neuroscientific data invalidate this assumption by demonstrating that the anesthetized brain is both cognitively dynamic and capable of implicit learning. Current perspectives on anesthetic mechanisms suggest that general anesthesia is characterized not simply by the absence of cognitive activity, but by the disintegration of cognitive activity. The cognitive unbinding paradigm of general anesthesia is discussed and its application to Wilfred Bion's theory of thinking, as well as his concept of attacks on linking, is elucidated. Based on the common structure and function of unconscious processes in psychoanalysis and anesthesiology, the foundation of a general theory is established.     

A signal detection theory analysis of an unconscious perception effect

The independent observation model (Macmillan & Creelman, 1991)is fitted to detection-identification data collected under conditions of heavy masking. The model accurately predicts a quantitative relationship between stimulus detection and stimulus identification over a wide range of detection performance. This model can also be used to offer a signal detection interpretation of the common finding of above-chance identification following a missed signal. While our finding is not a new one, the stimuli used in this experiment (redundant three-letter strings) differ slightly from those used in traditional signal detection work. Also, the stimuli were presented very briefly and heavily masked, conditions typical in the study of unconscious perception effects.     

H. G. Wells and B. F. Skinner on the superorganism

In Skinner's Walden Two, the central character Frazier refers to the superorganism and how to build it, but without elaboration. An examination of some parallels between the work of H. G. Wells and B. F. Skinner, however, casts light on that reference and other aspects of Skinner's views, such as multiple selves. Both Wells and Skinner wrote in similar ways about what the composition of such a superorganism would be and the conditions for its development. In particular, attention is directed to the ways in which their forecasts of the conditions for producing the superorganism changed over time, from determinism-based conditions to more evolutionary or selection-based conditions.     

Substantive unconscious and adjective unconscious: the contribution of Wilfred Bion

The author first provides her readers with a brief summary of some of Freud's ideas, as found throughout his work, on the notion of 'unconscious'. The notion of unconscious as noun is contrasted to the idea of unconscious as adjective, this latter being proposed as a quality, or a state, ever temporary, dynamic, and subject to the constant changes going on in the individual's internal psychic world, as well as to external conditions. After presenting some considerations, the author then contrasts the Kleinian model of the mind to the Freudian, and Wilfred Bion's contribution is discussed at some length. Within Bion's conception of psychic functioning, the model of 'dream' is highlighted and, in this regard, clarifications are sought regarding Bion's view of the unconscious. To conclude, a brief and superficial approximation to the work of Carl Jung is touched upon, although the author admits to knowing little of Jung's positions.     

Behaviorism and the unconscious

It is argued that the behaviorist's rejection of mind as irrelevant to a functional account of behavior does not necessitate his rejection of unconscious phenomena, and that the behaviorist can account for behavior normally attributed to the workings of an unconscious mind by reference to historical rather than to contemporary factors controlling behavior, and to the independent acquisition of verbal and motor behavior.