An inquiry into the problem of evil

Paper presented as the invited keynote address at the Society of Clinical Psychologists of Chile Annual Conference, Santiago, Chile, November, 1992.     

An inquiry into the process of temporal orientation.

A recent study (Koriat and Fischhoff 1974) in which subjects were asked to respond to the question ‘What day is today?’ revealed ease of day retrieval to be a curvilinear function of the day of the week, with greatest difficulty being encountered in midweek. Data suggested a twostage model for the day retrieval process, with the weekend serving as a facilitating ‘landmark.’ It was unclear whether these results were due to the day on which the subject was questioned or to the day label which he was requested to produce, the two being completely confounded. In the present experiment, subjects at each of the six working days of two weeks were presented with questions of the form ‘Is today …?’ until 12 correct RT's were obtained for each Actual Day—Proposed Day combination. Major results include significant quadratic effects for Actual Day, Proposed Day and Actual Day—Proposed Day temporal distance; greater latencies for acceptance (‘yes, today is…’) than rejection responses; and details of the weekend effect. The nature of temporal orientation and the role of landmarks are discussed as well as the specifics of the day label retrieval and day label evaluation processes.     

Abduction and metaphor: An inquiry into common cognitive mechanism

Abduction and metaphor are two significant concepts in cognitive science. It is found that the both mental processes are on the basis of certain similarity. The similarity inspires us to seek the answers to the following two questions: (1) Whether there is a common cognitive mechanism behind abduction and metaphor? And (2) if there is, whether this common mechanism could be interpreted within the unified frame of modern intelligence theory? Centering on these two issues, the paper attempts to characterize and interpret the generation and evolution of scientific metaphors from the perspective of the cognitive mechanism of abductive inference. Then it interprets the common cognitive mechanism behind abduction and metaphor within Hawkins’ frame of intelligence theory. The commonality between abduction and metaphor indicates the potential to further explore human intelligence.     

An experimental inquiry into transference roles and age

In this psychotherapy analogue investigation, the effects of client age and therapist age on transference-like projections onto therapists were examined. Young (25-35) and older (60-70) pseudoclients compared paraprofessional therapists to significant figures in their own lives after a dyadic "helping" interview. The results provide empirical support for the phenomenon of reverse transference in therapy with older patients. Older clients were more inclined than young clients to view therapists, particularly younger therapists, as similar to their children. Young clients more willingly attributed parental qualities to older therapists. Both old and young clients may see therapists more as peers or friends than as family members.     

An inquiry into the construct validity of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire

The construct validity of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) was investigated using a series of visual memory tasks. Subjects were shown a picture after completing the questionnaire. Their ability to recall that picture was probed through a free-recall procedure, drawing, two spatial-recall tasks, and a multiple-choice questionnaire. Scores on the VVIQ were statistically unrelated to performance on any of the memory tasks demonstrating a lack of support for construct validity as a measure of visual memory imagery.     

Creative cities: Breeding places in the knowledge economy

This paper explores the function of cities in the knowledge economy. The knowledge economy asks for “creative cities,” i.e. competitive urban areas that combine concentration, diversity, instability and a positive reputation. For a review of the concept of creative cities from a historical and theoretical perspective, we draw the conclusion that knowledge, creativity and innovation cannot be planned from scratch by local governments. However, creative cities par excellence such as Austin, the Øresund and Barcelona demonstrate that local policymakers in fact can play a part in preparing cities for the requirements of the knowledge economy. We conclude that local governments can increase the chance that urban creativity emerges by providing the appropriate underlying framework conditions.     

How depressing: Another cognitive dimension of commonsense knowledge

Subjects in three naturally-occurring groups were asked to rate 15 events, mentioned by Ss in a previous study, as amongst those which would make them feel worse if they were already feeling depressed, according to how depressed each event would be likely to make them feel. They were also asked to estimate the mean rating that their group would give each item. High, positive and significant correlations were found between the two sets of mean ratings in all three groups and the mean predictions for all groups were also significantly correlated. The findings suggested that people in our culture possess generally accurate, socially-shared ideas about the likely impact of such events on depressed others. Qualitative data suggested that their ideas are associated with qualifications about factors which modulate the impact of these events. The results are discussed in the light of recent research on the social behaviour of depressives and of the neoclassical tradition of advice on melancholy.