Attention shifts and the Simon effect: a failure to replicate Stoffer (1991)

The Simon effect refers to the intrusion of an irrelevant spatial dimension in the selection of a response to a stimulus. Recently, Stoffer (1991) proposed a specific role for attention orienting in the Simon effect. According to Stoffer, attentional shifts from an initial fixation point to a stimulus location are associated with the generation of a spatial code which specifies the position of the stimulus in relation to the last attended location. This spatial code forms the basis for the Simon effect because it is used to specify the selection of the right or left response. Three experiments were performed to examine further the attention-shift hypothesis forwarded by Stoffer. Experiment 1 was an attempt to replicate Stoffer (1991), but failed to do so. Experiments 2 and 3 were designed to optimize conditions for replicating crucial aspects of Stoffer's findings, but also failed to yield support for the attention-shift account.     

Ambiguity: Spiritual and psychotherapeutic aspects

Ambiguity is treated here as one of the interfaces between spirituality and psychotherapy. The multiplicity of spiritualities and the characteristics of spiritual leaders are discussed, the latter contrasted with the tenets of traditional psychotherapy. Similar and integrative aspects of spiritual and psychotherapeutic sojourners are examined.     

Murder: A psychotherapeutic investigation

This paper suggests that it is theoretically necessary and clinically useful to make a distinction between two types of psychic encapsulation within the broader literature. The proposed distinction, as it relates to these psychic structural manifestations, is illustrated here as applied to anorexia. The author suggests that psychic encapsulation is commonly encountered in work with anorexics, and that each type seems to imply a somewhat different therapeutic course. The distinction is made between anorexic patients who appear to display evidence of autistic/autistoid encapsulation as opposed to those who seem to manifest non-autistoid/later traumatic encapsulation – termed secondary adjunctive encapsulation in this paper. Defensive encapsulations are associated with pathological organisations of the personality – both within and beyond these structures, they exert an organising power over central mental processes. Psychic encapsulation and pathological organisations are defensive structural developments – the result of psychic trauma. Clinical material from three cases is presented to illustrate the arguments.     

Constructing and deconstructing psychotherapeutic discourse

This paper reviews recent work on the social construction of the self in counselling and psychotherapy, and argues that we need to attend to the ways in which the therapeutic self is fashioned (a) in relation to the ‘psy-complex' as the network of theories and practices concerned with psychological governance and self-reflection in modern Western culture and (b) in the context of ‘therapeutic domains' outside the clinic and academe, domains of discursive regulation and self-expression which then bear upon the activities of professional and lay counsellors. Therapeutic domains contain repertoires, templates and complexes within which counsellors and clients fabricate varieties of truth and story a core of experience into being. I then turn to describe and assess some of the various ways in which this kind of critical reflection on therapeutic discourse and counselling practice now already underpins the work of social constructionist ‘narrative' therapists. Some attention is given to the different pragmatic and deconstructionist approaches which make the discursive constitution of the problem into the problem, either by dissolving or by externalizing the account the client presents. Here I argue that the activities of social constructionist counsellors can be viewed as forms of deconstruction-in-process (a deconstruction of the discursive frames which have been constructed by the client), but that they should not be viewed as stepping outside the discursive conditions of possibility which ground their work. the psy-complex and therapeutic domains still function as relatively enduring structures which limit the degree to which we may construct and deconstruct psychotherapeutic discourse.     

Simon says: Reliability and the role of working memory and attentional control in the Simon task

TheSimon effect refers to the observation that subjects identify targets (e.g., colors) faster when the irrelevant spatial location of the target corresponds to the location of the response key. Theoretical accounts of the Simon effect typically explain performance in terms of automatic and controlled processes. Furthermore, the relative contributions of automatic and controlled processes are held to change as a function of the proportion of compatible to incompatible trials (compatibility proportion). Data are presented demonstrating that the reliability of the Simon effect, indexed by correlating its magnitude within subjects across blocks of trials, varied substantially as a function of the compatibility proportion. When the compatibility proportion was high, so was reliability. When the compatibility proportion was low, reliability was low as well. The results are discussed in terms of the relative reliability of automatic and controlled processes and the role of working memory and attentional control in goal maintenance.     

Attention precuing and Simon effects: A test of the attention-coding account of the Simon effect

Simon effects refer to the finding that choice-response latencies to a nonspatial aspect of a stimulus vary depending on the spatial correspondence between the stimulus position and the position of the correct response alternative. Recently, researchers have proposed an attention-coding account of Simon effects whereby the (irrelevant) stimulus spatial code involved in the generation of the effect is formed in the process of attentional orienting to the stimulus. This account predicts that if attentional orienting is unnecessary at stimulus onset, as when the stimulus appears at an attended location, Simon effects will not be observed. This prediction was tested by measurement of Simon effects in an attention-precuing task in which the stimulus was presented at attended and unattended locations. Significant Simon effects were observed independently of the focus of attention. This result was obtained over a large range of precue-target SOAs, and did not depend on whether central or peripheral precues were used to direct attention or on whether the relevant target dimension was color or form. Significant Simon effects were not observed when the precue-target SOA was 50 ms, irrespective of the other precue and task conditions. The data do not support the prediction of the attention-coding account and thus question the generality of the account in its current form. It is suggested that spatial and temporal uncertainties are important factors that influence the pattern of results, and that these factors must be incorporated into attention-coding models of the Simon effect.     

Suicide survivors: psychotherapeutic implications of egocide.

Interviews with seven of ten known survivors of jumps from the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge revealed that all of them experienced transcendence and spiritual rebirth phenomena. The psychotherapeutic implications of these findings lie in helping depressed and suicidal individuals confront death in a symbolic and meaningful way. The issue is one of "egocide" (symbolic suicide) and aiding individuals in the rebirth process. In this way actual suicides can be prevented. When individuals experience partial "deaths" (like loss, failure, rejection, depression, suicidal states, or negative parts of their egos), there is opportunity for "rebirth" (positive transformation, creative change, growth, and significant spiritual reawakening). The therapeutic task is to help individuals differentiate between "ego death" and total death and to discover through the creative process of psychotherapy that overt suicide need not be a solution.     

Playing the Simon game: Use of the Simon task for investigating human information processing

A little more than 40 years ago, J. R. Simon and colleagues introduced what is now called the Simon task, which yielded a correspondence effect known as the Simon effect. In this paper, I set Simon's contribution in the context of research on stimulus-response compatibility. The novel contribution of the Simon task is described, along with foundational findings using the task that Simon and colleagues reported. I acknowledge the significance of Simon's (1990) review chapter in generating my own interests in the Simon task and describe four selected lines of research from my lab that have been a result of those interests. The article concludes with a brief tribute to Simon and his contribution to experimental psychology.     

Elimination of the enhanced Simon effect for older adults in a three-choice situation: Ageing and the Simon effect in a go/no-go Simon task

In a Simon task, participants show better performance when the irrelevant stimulus location corresponds with the response location than when it does not, and this effect is typically greater for older adults than for younger adults. To study the effect of cognitive ageing in the Simon task, we compared young and old adults using two versions of the Simon task: (a) a standard visual Simon task, for which participants respond with left and right key-presses to the red and green colours of stimuli presented in left and right locations; (b) a go/no-go version of the Simon task, which was basically the same, except that the shape of the stimulus in one third of the trials indicates that no response is to be made. In both tasks, both age groups showed the Simon effect. The magnitude of the effect for the standard Simon task was greater for the older adults than for the younger adults. Nevertheless, the two groups showed an equivalent Simon effect in the go/no-go version of the Simon task. Reaction time distribution analyses revealed basically similar functions for both age groups: a decreasing pattern of the Simon effect in the standard task and an increasing pattern of the effect in the go/no-go version of the task. The results suggest that older adults find it more difficult to suppress an automatic activation of the corresponding response, though this automatic activation was reduced in situations where the response was frequently inhibited.     

Intimacy and confidentiality in psychotherapeutic relationships

This article explores the relations among and between intimacy, psychotherapeutic relationships and moral advice. The article concludes that a psychotherapeutic relationship is not usefully explained in terms of intimacy. Instead, a psychiatric relationship is a form of moral advice, and it is this dimension of a psychotherapeutic relationship as a form of moral advice that poses a natural limit to the confidentiality necessary for engaging in psychotherapy.