REALITY MONITORING,PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOLS,AND COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY IN BILINGUALS: THEORETICAL SYNTHESIS AND PILOT EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION*

An attempt was made to bring about a theoretical synthesis of such seemingly unrelated concepts as ‘reality monitoring’ (belonging to contemporary American cognitive psychology), ‘psychological tools’ (suggested by Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky in the 1930s), and ‘cognitive flexibility in bilinguals’ (developed by Canadian researchers in the 1970s). Psychological tools of symbolic character which-as Vygotsky and his followers suggested-mediate human actions and mental operations, were shown to improve reality monitoring, i.e., subject's ability to discriminate between memories of words that he/she either spoke or merely thought. The concept of cognitive flexibility was applied to reality monitoring in Russian-English bilinguals. It was shown that greater cognitive flexibility associated with balanced bilingualism enhances a subject's ability to discriminate memories of words said and words thought. Suggestions are made concerning further possible experimental investigations.     

Requiem for analytical psychology: a reflection on Jung's (anti)catastrophic psychology

This article is an interpretation of analytical psychology in the light of the catastrophic vision and dreams that Jung had in 1913 and 1914. It is shown how the guiding spirit of Jung's psychological project is to be found in that psychic material. Then it is proposed that the completion of the symbolic catastrophe displayed in Jung's last vision (1961) points to the end of the psychological foundations upon which analytical psychology is built, and thus to its cultural obsolescence, extensive to any psychology grounded in Jung's notion of ‘soul’.     

L'INVENTAIRE DE RESOLUTION DE PROBLEMES PERSONNELS: UNE PERSPECTIVE METACOGNITIVE*

Studies on personal problem solving demonstrate important variations in intra- and interindividual problem solving performances. These differences have been associated with different levels of subject's psychological distress. Recently, several investigators have attempted to identify meta-cognitive factors associated with fluctuations in problem solving performance and variations in subject's level of mental health. The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychometric qualities of the French version of the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI). The 35-item questionnaire assess people's attitudes toward their personal problem solving competence. Reliability, factorial structure and construct validity of the instrument were evaluated with two different samples of subjects. Results indicated that the French version of the PSI has high internal consistency and, as predicted, a tri-dimensional factorial structure. The observed relation between subject's appraisal of their personal problem solving abilities and level of psychological distress support the discriminant properties and the concurrent validity of the PSI.     

An Interpretation of Projective Findings in a Case of Female Transsexualism

Summary

Process analysis of Rorschach material was defined, illustrated, and used to delineate differences between the nature of data obtained in different varieties of diagnostic assay. It was suggested that failure to take into account distinct differences in sources for data contributed to confusion about diagnostic decisions among different disciplines. The Rorschach experience may allow symbol formation to take place, whereas, in interview techniques, symbolic inferences are made from a subject's answers to questions about formal adaptivity. Identification of the processes that surround a subject's conscious reactions to the formation of a symbol may sharpen our awareness about a subject's inner state. Optimal use of both psychiatric and projective data should include a clear understanding of the differences in the nature of the materials obtained and their sources. Attention to these parameters may improve our decisions and predictions.     

CHARACTER,PSYCHOANALYTIC IDENTIFICATION,AND NUMERICAL IDENTITY

Identification figures prominently in moral psychological explanations. I argue that in identification the subject has an ‘identity‐thought’, which is a thought about her numerical identity with the figure she identifies with. In Freud's psychoanalytic psychology character is founded on unconscious identification with parental figures. Moral philosophers have drawn on psychoanalysis to explain how undesirable or disadvantageous character dispositions are resistant to insight through being unconscious. According to Richard Wollheim's analysis of Freud's theory, identification is the subject's disposition to imagine, unconsciously, her bodily merging with the figure she identifies with. I argue that this explanation of identification is not adequate. Human character is held to be capable of change when self‐reflection brings unconscious identifications to conscious self‐knowledge. I argue that for self‐knowledge these identifications must be an intelligible part of the subject's self‐conception, and that Wollheim's ‘merging phantasy’ is not intelligible to the subject in this way. By contrast, the subject's thought that she is numerically identical to the figure she identifies with does provide an intelligible starting‐point for reflecting on this identification. This psychoanalytic account provides a clear conception of identification with which to investigate puzzle cases in the moral psychology of character.     

The Orsino complex: Men who love themselves as love objects

Abstract

The Duke Orsino, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, is cited as the archetypal embodiment of a psychological complex which, it is argued, may affect many men in modern patriarchal societies. This condition named the ‘Orsino complex’ is characterized by the subject's experience of being in love with himself as a love object. It is the consequence of the subject's very early experience of his mother's dual psychological reactions to him as a male child. The first of these, and the more significant, I have called maternal phallic projection, while the second I term maternal withdrawal. I also consider the influence of the father upon this complex.

While this paper remains speculative in its present form—that is, its central thesis is based on fictional and not on clinical material—it might, I hope, assist all of us working psychodynamically in understanding further some of the severe problems that male clients present in their relationships with women, as well as directing further research into the complexities of gender identity in contemporary society.     

Research Artifacts and the Social Psychology of Psychological Experiments

In psychological research with human subjects, experimenters need to anticipate potential artifacts that may be attributable to the social context of such research. Called research artifacts in this review, they are essentially uncontrolled, systematic errors (or biases) that threaten the degree of validity of statements made about whether changes in one variable result in changes in another variable. This discussion focuses on a proposed Markov‐like model emphasizing three mediating variables that operate in a theoretical chain of events. One variable refers to the likelihood of the subject's receptivity to task‐orienting cues (called demand characteristics), or incidental hints about the experimenter's expectations. A second variable refers to the likelihood of the subject's motivation (or willingness) to comply with those cues or hints. A third variable refers to the likelihood of the subject's capability of responding in accordance with the cues or hints. These three variables are discussed along with strategies that researchers can use to break the chain of events.     

PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT AS TREATMENT FOR STEREOTYPIC HAND MOUTHING: SENSORY EXTINCTION OR PUNISHMENT EFFECTS?

We examined the effects of noncontingent and contingent protective equipment as treatment for self-injurious hand mouthing exhibited by 2 individuals with profound mental retardation. Results of a functional analysis assessment revealed that neither subject's self-injury was maintained by social reinforcement: One subject's self-injury was cyclical in nature; the other's occurred during all assessment conditions but most frequently when left alone. In the noncontingent-equipment condition, oven mitts were placed on the individual's hands at the beginning of a session and remained on throughout. In the contingent-equipment condition, the mitts were briefly placed on the individual's hands following occurrences of hand mouthing. For 1 subject, noncontingent mitts produced a large decrease in the rate of hand mouthing and contingent mitts produced similar results following a return to baseline. Hand mouthing was also reduced in the 2nd subject, but this individual was exposed only to the contingent-equipment condition (i.e., there was no prior history with the noncontingent-equipment condition). These results suggest either a punishment or a time-out interpretation rather than an extinction interpretation to account for the behavior-reducing effects of contingent protective equipment on self-injury.     

The transcendent function in adolescence: miracle cures and bogeymen

Abstract: This paper proposes that Damasio's mental images, Stern's moments of meeting and Tronick's dyadically expanded consciousness refer to different aspects of the same psychological process as Jung describes in the transcendent function. This proposition is illustrated with two case vignettes of adolescents who functioned on a pre‐symbolic level, but who through a transformative experience were catapulted into new developmental trajectories and the beginning of symbol formation.     

SIMONE WEIL'S SPIRITUAL CRITIQUE OF MODERN SCIENCE: AN HISTORICAL‐CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

Simone Weil is widely recognized today as one of the profound religious thinkers of the twentieth century. Yet while her interpretation of natural science is critical to Weil's overall understanding of religious faith, her writings on science have received little attention compared with her more overtly theological writings. The present essay, which builds on Vance Morgan's Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Necessity, and Love (2005), critically examines Weil's interpretation of the history of science. Weil believed that mathematical science, for the ancient Pythagoreans a mystical expression of the love of God, had in the modern period degenerated into a kind of reification of method that confuses the means of representing nature with nature itself. Beginning with classical (Newtonian) science's representation of nature as a machine, and even more so with the subsequent assimilation of symbolic algebra as the principal language of mathematical physics, modern science according to Weil trades genuine insight into the order of the world for symbolic manipulation yielding mere predictive success and technological domination of nature. I show that Weil's expressed desire to revive a Pythagorean scientific approach, inspired by the “mysterious complicity” in nature between brute necessity and love, must be recast in view of the intrinsically symbolic character of modern mathematical science. I argue further that a genuinely mystical attitude toward nature is nascent within symbolic mathematical science itself.     

Gender concept development of preschool-aged children in the United States and Egypt

Thirty-one American and 31 Egyptian children were given the Slaby-Frey Gender Concept Test to measure gender understanding of children from two cultures assumed to differ in level of androgyny. The subject's sex, age, parent's education, and siblings' sex and age were explored in relation to gender concept. A multivariate analysis of variance (Nationality × Sex of Subject) yielded a significant nationality effect. American children had a higher mean score on gender identity than Egyptian children. In addition, a Pearson product-moment correlation revealed significant positive relationships between the age of the subject and two gender constructs, identity and stability. Future research on specific cognitive, developmental, and cultural influences on the gender development of young children was proposed.     

The use of strategies and messages to alter aggressive interactions

Male and female college students were instigated to aggression by a confederate's shocks during a preliminary task. The confederate informed half of the treatment subjects of the response strategy which he intended to adopt. The other half received an irrelevant message. All subjects then competed against the confederate, who employed one of the following five response consequence strategies: a) set a maximum shock on all trials; b) set a minimum shock on all trials; c) set shocks identical to the subject's response on the preceding trial; d) set shocks two settings below the subject's response; or e) set shocks two settings above the subject's. The subject's latency to setting a shock, the intensities of the shocks set, the durations of the shock settings, and the subject's reaction times were recorded. When an irrelevant message was delivered, passive responses, well below those of the opponent, resulted in the lowest level of retaliation. In the presence of a relevant message, the match-same strategy emerged as an effective deterrent to aggressive behavior. The results were found to be consistent with predictions derived from an application of the norm of reciprocity and research demonstrating the enhancing effects achieved through the communication of existing contingencies.     

GENERALIZATION EFFECTS FROM INTRATHERAPY ARTICULATION TRAINING: A CASE STUDY1

This study analyzed generalization effects found associated with a language-training intervention to modify the articulation (/f/ phoneme) of a 3.5-year-old boy. The McLean and Raymore Stimulus Shift Articulation Program was implemented by the subject's mother. This language training program is designed to produce setting generalization effects based on an intratherapy training model (i.e., systematic training is applied in a single setting to promote transfer effects to nontraining environments). The intervention resulted in a significant improvement in the subject's production of the /f/ phoneme within the clinical setting in response to untrained stimuli (stimulus generalization). Additionally, the subject's correct phoneme production was observed to generalize to his home and school settings (setting generalization) under “opportunity loaded” (picture prompts) and “spontaneous” (no prompts) conditions. The results provide case-study evidence that stimulus generalization, both within and across settings, may occur with exclusively intratherapy articulation training.     

Reconnecting interpretation to reasoning through individual differences

Computational theories of mind assume that participants interpret information and then reason from those interpretations. Research on interpretation in deductive reasoning has claimed to show that subjects' interpretation of single syllogistic premises in an “immediate inference” task is radically different from their interpretation of pairs of the same premises in syllogistic reasoning tasks (Newstead, 1989, 1995; Roberts, Newstead, & Griggs, 2001). Narrow appeal to particular Gricean implicatures in this work fails to bridge the gap. Grice's theory taken as a broad framework for credulous discourse processing in which participants construct speakers' “intended models” of discourses can reconcile these results, purchasing continuity of interpretation through variety of logical treatments. We present exploratory experimental data on immediate inference and subsequent syllogistic reasoning. Systematic patterns of interpretation driven by two factors (whether the subject's model of the discourse is credulous, and their degree of reliance on information packaging) are shown to transcend particular quantifier inferences and to drive systematic differences in subjects' subsequent syllogistic reasoning. We conclude that most participants do not understand deductive tasks as experimenters intend, and just as there is no single logical model of reasoning, so there is no reason to expect a single “fundamental human reasoning mechanism”.     

Mentalization, insightfulness, and therapeutic action The importance of mental organization

Continuing debates over the relative importance of the role of interpretation leading to insight versus the relationship with the analyst as contributing to structural change are based on traditional defi nitions of insight as gaining knowledge of unconscious content. This defi nition inevitably privileges verbal interpretation as self‐knowledge becomes equated with understanding the contents of the mind. It is suggested that a way out of this debate is to redefi ne insight as a process, one that is called insightfulness. This term builds on concepts such as mentalization, or theory of mind, and suggests that patients present with diffi culties being able to fully mentalize. Awareness of repudiated content will usually accompany the attainment of insightfulness. But the point of insightfulness is to regain access to inhibited or repudiated mentalization, not to specifi c content, per se. Emphasizing the process of insightfulness integrates the importance of the relationship with the analyst with the facilitation of insightfulness. A variety of interventions help patients gain the capacity to refl ect upon and become aware of the intricate workings of their minds, of which verbal interpretation is only one. For example, often it seems less important to focus on a particular confl ict than to show interest in our patients’ minds. Furthermore, analysands develop insightfulness by becoming interested in and observing our minds in action. Because the mind originates in bodily experience, mental functioning will always fl uctuate between action modes of experiencing and expressing and verbal, symbolic modes. The analyst's role becomes making the patient aware of regressions to action modes, understanding the reasons for doing so, and subordinating this tendency to the verbal, symbolic mode. All mental functions work better and facilitate greater self‐regulation when they work in abstract, symbolic ways. Psychopathology can be understood as failing to develop or losing the symbolic level of organization, either in circumscribed areas or more ubiquitously. And mutative action occurs through helping our patients attain or regain the symbolic level in regard to all mental functions. Such work is best accomplished in the transference. The concept of transference of defense is expanded to all mental structure, so that transference is seen as the interpersonalization of mental structure. That is, patients transfer their mental structure, including their various levels of mentalizing, into the analytic interaction. The analyst observes all levels of the patient's mental functioning and intervenes to raise them to a symbolic one. At times, this will require action interpretations, allowing oneself to be pulled into an enactment with the patient that is then reprocessed at a verbal, symbolic level. Such actions are not corrective emotional experiences but are interpretations and confrontations of the patient's transferred mental organization at a level affectively and cognitively consistent with the level of communication. Nonetheless, the goal becomes raising the communication to a symbolic level as being able to refl ect symbolically on all aspects of one's mind with a minimum of restriction is the greatest guarantee of mental health.     

Disrupted narrative and narrative symbol

In this article a specific type of narrative, which often appears in analytic sessions, is discussed. It is characterized by a seemingly ordinary, everyday topic and by a peculiar disruption of the narrative flow. The threefold structure of this type of narrative is described, along with its main characteristics. One element of this type of narrative is very similar to symbolic content or complex symbolic structures, e.g. dreams, the sort of material that can be used for the purpose of interpretation. The similarities as well as the differences are elaborated in the article. Thanks to the observed general structure and ‘symbolic’ nature of some parts of the narrative, it is easy to notice some of the unconscious elements, which are not familiar to the patient's ego, and to make an interpretation. Because these elements are close to the threshold of consciousness, the patient willingly accepts an interpretation based on them. This is especially true for patients whose dominant function is thinking. A temporary, working name for this type of narrative is proposed in the article: ‘disrupted narrative’ ? and for its disruptive part ‘narrative symbol’.     

Pictorial depth perception: Tasks levels imposed by testing instruments

Attempts to devise verbal and non-verbal instruments for measuring pictorial depth perception that are different from Hudson's (1960) have resulted in different perceptual demands. Whereas this was recognized by the constructors of non-verbal tests, it was not by those who changed Hudson's question “Which is nearer to the man…?” to “Which is/looks nearer/farther to you… ?”. While the latter question tests simple perception (or interpretation of cues) of pictorial depth, the former tests comprehension of complex pictorial space relations arising from the depth perceived. A verbal instrument that had been devised for testing simple pictorial depth interpretation, equivalent to Jahoda and McGurk's (1974) non-verbal instrument, was tested on Grade 3 Shona children against the hypothesis that the terms “nearer” and “farther” have different lexical markings likely to affect subject's responses. No support was found for the hypothesis, but Opolot's (1976) Grade 3 findings were able to be explained.     

JFGI: FROM DISTRIBUTED COGNITION TO DISTRIBUTED RELIABILISM*

While, prima facie, virtue/credit approaches in epistemology would appear to be in tension with distributed/extended approaches in cognitive science, Pritchard ( 2010 ) has recently argued that the tension here is only apparent, at least given a weak version of distributed cognition, which claims merely that external resources often make critical contributions to the formation of true belief, and a weak virtue theory, which claims merely that, whenever a subject achieves knowledge, his cognitive agency makes a significant contribution to the formation of a true belief. But the significance of the role played by the subject's cognitive agency in distributed cognitive systems is in fact highly variable: at one extreme, formation of a true belief seems clearly to be significantly creditable to the subject's agency; at the other extreme, however, the subject's agency plays such a peripheral role that it is at best unclear whether it should receive significant credit for formation of a true belief. The compatibility of distributed cognition and virtue epistemology thus turns on what it takes for a contribution to the formation of true belief to count as significant. This article argues that the inevitable vagueness of this notion suggests retreating from virtue epistemology to a form of process reliabilism and explores the prospects for a distributed reliabilist epistemology designed to fit smoothly with distributed cognition. In effect, distributed reliabilism radicalizes Goldberg's recent extended reliabilist view (Goldberg 2010 ) by allowing the process the reliability of which determines the epistemic status of a subject's belief to extend to include not only processing performed by other subjects but also processing performed by non‐human technological resources.     

Attraction to Competent and Incompetent Members of Cooperative and Competitive Groups1

A laboratory experiment and a reanalysis of data collected in a previous field study examined the effects of cooperation and competition on liking for other group members who varied in competence. It was hypothesized that when other members of a cooperative group are relatively incompetent, they will tend to be disliked because they decrease the subject's chances of success. On the other hand, in competitive groups incompetent group members should not be disliked because they do not reduce the probability of the subject's success. Both the laboratory experiment and the field study found support for these suggestions. In addition, in the field study it was found that the race of the other group members did not affect these tendencies. Other results from the present study yielded information concerning some of the psychological processes that determine attraction in cooperative and competitive groups. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for the use of cooperative groups in desegregated schools.