Prose Reading in Neglect

Prose reading has been shown to be a very sensitive measure of Unilateral Spatial Neglect. However, little is known about the relationship between prose reading and other measures of neglect and its severity, or between prose reading and single word reading. Thirty participants with a first stroke in the right hemisphere and clear symptoms of spatial neglect in everyday life were assessed with tests of prose reading (text in one column book-like, and in two columns magazine-like), single words reading, and a battery of 13 tests investigating neglect. Seventy percent of these participants omitted words at the beginning of the text (left end), showing Prose Reading Neglect (PRN). The participants showing PRN differed from those not showing PRN only for the overall severity of neglect, and had a lesion centred on the insula, putamen and superior temporal gyrus. Double dissociations emerged between PRN and single word reading neglect, suggesting different cognitive requirements between the two tests: parallel processing in single word reading vs. serial analysis in text reading. Notably, the pattern of neglected text varied dramatically across participants presenting with PRN, including dissociations between reading performance of one and two columns text. Prose reading proved a complex and unique task which should be directly investigated to predict the effects of unilateral neglect. The outcome of this study should also inform clinical assessment and advises given to patients and care-givers.     

Interacting with inter ACT

A patch for making ACT loadable by RDOS and a program that makes ACT program tapes compatible with editors available from the computer manufacturer are described. These two facilities allow greater ease in loading ACT and modifying ACT programs.     

FELDMAN'S JUSTICIZED ACT UTILITARIANISM

In Confrontations with the Reaper Fred Feldman puts forward puts forward an ethical theory called ‘justicized act utilitarianism’, JAU, according to which an act is morally right if and only if it maximizes universal justice level, i.e., brings it about that as many as possible get what they deserve. It is here argued that JAU is exposed to objections under the force of which it either loses its special emphasis on justice or its utilitarian character. It is also contended that, contrary to what Feldman suggests, JAU does not deal more plausibly with procreation and abortion than do more familiar forms of utilitarianism. Rather, it deals less plausibly at least with abortion, due to difficulties in the concept of desert.     

RIGHT ACT, VIRTUOUS MOTIVE

Abstract: The concepts of virtue and right action are closely connected, in that we expect people with virtuous motives to at least often act rightly. Two well-known views explain this connection by defining one of the concepts in terms of the other. Instrumentalists about virtue identify virtuous motives as those that lead to right acts; virtue-ethicists identify right acts as those that are or would be done from virtuous motives. This essay outlines a rival explanation, based on the "higher-level" account of virtue defended in the author's Virtue, Vice, and Value . On this account rightness and virtue go together because each is defined by a (different) relation to some other, more basic moral concept. Their frequent coincidence is therefore like a correlation between A and B based not on either's causing the other but on their being joint effects of a single common cause.     

布伦塔诺的意动心理学述评

几乎所有的心理学史教科书都要提到布伦塔诺,但也几乎没有一本教科书对他有过系统的介绍。本文依据他的原著和近年来国外对他研究的新成果,较为详细地评介他的意动心理学体系,包括关于心理学的性质、对象、方法和对心理的分类等思想,并指出意动心理学的贡献和局限。文中澄清了一些过去对其学说的误解。     

ACT in Context: An Exploration of Experiential Acceptance

Experiential acceptance, which involves “having,” or “allowing” private experiences, has recently gained much attention in the cognitive-behavioral literature. Acceptance, however, may be considered a common factor among psychotherapeutic traditions. The purposes of this paper are to examine the historical roots of acceptance and to discuss the forms of and theoretical rationales for which the concept of acceptance has been recently introduced into the cognitive-behavioral literature, with an emphasis on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999). It is hoped that clarification of the theoretical basis underlying acceptance-based approaches, as well as a comparison of various forms of psychotherapy with regard to their emphasis on acceptance, will promote heightened understanding and stimulate more rigorous exploration of treatment efficacy.     

Automaticity and the ACT* theory.

An explanation of automaticity within the framework of the Adaptive Control of Thought (ACT*) production system theory (Anderson, 1983, 1987) is presented. There is no automaticity mechanism per se in ACT*. This is as we would expect it to be. It would be the exception rather than the rule that we would find in a scientific theory mechanisms that directly correspond to natural language concepts. The critical question is whether ACT* can give an account of the phenomena associated with the term automaticity. This article is structured as follows: First, I will try to identify the phenomena of automaticity to be explained, then give a brief overview of the ACT* theory, and finally explain how these phenomena of automaticity are to be understood in terms of the theory.     

System developments in the ACT language: Towards machine independence

ACT (the Automated Contingency Translator) is a list-processing state-oriented sequence control language for on-line control and data acquisition of psychological experiments. Since 1967, ACT software has been progressively expanded and the machine base extended from the PDP8 family to the PDP9, NOVA, and the PDP11. The most recent variant of this language, designated ACT-N, removes previous arbitrary restrictions on state network complexity, expands the conversational repertoire, and adds a subset of compatible BASIC to ACT, thereby giving the package greatly increased computational powers and data storage facilities.     

ILLOCUTION,SILENCING AND THE ACT OF REFUSAL

Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby argue that there may be a free‐speech argument against pornography, if pornographic speech has the power to illocutionarily silence women: women's locution ‘No!’ that aims to refuse unwanted sex may misfire because pornography creates communicative conditions where the locution does not count as a refusal. Central to this is the view that women's speech lacks uptake, which is necessary for illocutionary acts like that of refusal. Alexander Bird has critiqued this view by arguing that uptake is not necessary for the illocutionary act of refusal. The Hornsby‐Langton view, then, is philosophically indefensible. Here I defend the philosophical cogency of the Hornsby‐Langton approach.     

Prose Representation: A Multidimensional Scaling Approach

Multidimensional scaling was employed to study the comprehension of prose. Subjects rated the similarity between pairs of 20 nouns before reading. After reading a passage containing the nouns, the subjects re-rated the words with respect to similarity within the passage. Subjects then recalled the passage. The similarity ratings were analyzed by multidimensional scaling. The results indicated that the scaling analysis provided an effective, valid indicator of prose representation. The multidimensional structural characteristics of dimension interpretation, clustering, and centrality were interpreted in terms of the theme, episodes, and central organizing feature of the story, respectively. Theoretically, the analysis indicated that comprehension was a function of the passage organization mapping onto the existing memory structure superimposed upon and suppressing the prior conceptual structure.     

散文学习过程中的自我解释及其对散文理解的影响

散文学习中的自我解释是指学习者在散文学习过程中向其自身做出解释,力图以此理解散文所含各种信息的活动.本研究以大学非中文系45名学生学生为被试,通过实验组与控制组的对比研究,结果发现,在本研究条件下,第一,散文学习过程中的自我解释包括"是什么"的自我解释、"怎么样"的自我解释和"为什么"的自我解释等三种类型.第二,自我解释对散文的阅读理解具有明显的促进作用.第三,自我解释促进散文学习的原因,既可能是认知缺口填补的,也可能是心理模型修正的.第四,对自我解释提供的反馈有助于提高自我解释的准确性.     

Non-g residuals of the SAT and ACT predict specific abilities

This research examined whether non-g residuals of the SAT and ACT subtests, obtained after removing g, predicted specific abilities. Non-g residuals of the verbal and math subtests of the SAT and ACT were correlated with academic (verbal and math) and non-academic abilities (speed and shop), both based on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. Non-g residuals of the SAT and ACT math subtests were positively related to math ability and negatively to verbal ability, whereas the opposite pattern was found for the verbal subtests. Non-g residuals of both sets of subtests were weakly related to non-academic abilities. The results support an investment theory of skills and abilities: Investing in skills in one area (e.g., math) improves abilities in that area but lowers abilities in competing areas (e.g., verbal).     

COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION AND BEHAVIOR: APPLYING A MULTIPLE ACT CRITERIA1

Operating from a model derived from research on the attitude-behavior relationship, a conceptualization is presented which indicts current attempts to select a specific behavior and examine its relationship with a personality characteristic relevant to the field of communication. Evidence is presented demonstrating that the characteristic should predict well a multiple act criteria but not a single act criterion. In addition, an empirical distinction is predicted between apprehension and attitude and a comparison is made between three self-report measures of apprehension.     

Alphabet Soup: ERP,CT, and ACT for OCD

The present article comments on the case conference presented in this issue, namely, Himle and Franklin's (Himle & Franklin, 2009) exposure and response prevention (ERP); Chosak and colleagues' (Chosak, Marques, Fama, Renaud, & Wilhelm, 2009) cognitive therapy (CT); and (Twohig, 2009) Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Two questions are addressed: (1) How different are these treatments? (2) What are the active vs. inert ingredients of each treatment? With regard to the first question, it is concluded that ERP and ACT appear more similar than dissimilar in terms of actual therapist/patient behaviors. CT shows more substantial differences from ERP and ACT, primarily in the therapist's direct efforts to target antecedent cognitions. With regard to the second question, examination of the likely active ingredients of each treatment suggests that interventions that encourage direct behavioral change (described as a characteristic feature of ERP and ACT and an incidental feature of CT) are most likely responsible for improvement in all three treatments, whereas evidence for the importance of altering antecedent cognitions (a characteristic feature of CT and an incidental feature of ERP) is less clear. Additional controlled research is recommended to identify which aspects of treatment are truly efficacious for OCD and other conditions.     

Working Memory Demands and Semantic Sensitivity for Prose in Mild Alzheimer's Disease

The debate continues with regard to whether degradation of semantic knowledge or deficits in information processing lead to impaired memory performance in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study examined the effects of semantic content and working memory demands on the recall and recognition abilities of patients with mild AD. Nineteen patients with probable AD and 19 demographically matched normal control participants were asked to remember prose passages that varied in semantic content (high, medium, and low level of idea importance) and working memory demands (narrative and expository passages). Compared to the controls, patients with mild AD lost the ability to recall prose in a manner consistent with the semantic structure of the passages as the demands on working memory increased. Furthermore, as the demands on working memory increased, patients recognized information in a manner that suggested their initial processing was of isolated details rather than by semantic structure. This study provides support for the hypothesis that information processing deficits contribute to impaired semantic processing in patients with mild AD.