Validation of graphoanalysis by "global" or "holistic" method.

Graphoanalysis is the most systematically developed and best researched of all methods of handwriting analysis (genetically called graphology). This is a projective expressive movement that is neither better nor more poorly validated than most projective techniques as a means of personality assessment, which is inadequate because their subjectivity makes statistical study difficult. With all projective techniques "sign" or trait validation has been minimal, and the best validation has come from "global" or "holistic" methods. The present study presents a paradigm for the latter type of approach to handwriting analysis, using a matching technique with probabilities of 1/5, wherein five subjects were matched by people who knew them to one of five blind Graphoanalyses of the subjects' writing. This design is herein replicated five times, with total data significantly different from chance expectation (p less than .001), supporting the hypothesis that it is possible to evaluate personality through analysis of handwriting.     

Comparison of two theories of "ratio" and "difference" judgments

This article examines the hypothesis that judges compare stimuli by ratio and subtractive operations when instructed to judge" "ratios" and "differences." Rule and Curtis hold that magnitude estimations are a power function of subjective values, with an exponent between 1.1 and 2.1. Accordingly, the two-operation model tested assumes magnitude estimations of "ratios" are a comparable power function of subjective ratios. In contrast, Birnbaum and Veit theorize that judges compare two stimuli by subraction for both "ratio" and "difference" instructions and that magnitude estimations of "ratios" are approximately an exponential function of subjective differences. Three tests were used to compare the theory of one operation with the two-operation theory for the data of nine experiments. The results strongly favor the theory that observers use the same operation for both instructions.     

"Totem and Taboo" in a latency boy.

Against the background of Freud's "Totem and Taboo" the case of a seven-year-old boy is discusses, focusing on his identification with a cat. Guided by Freud's dialectic thinking and his discussion of the phenomena of patriarchy and matriarchy, one is led to contemplate the totemism of a matriarchally oriented boy. The attempt to understand this child's pathology is based upon the concept of the specificity of a developmental phase. In the light of anthropological data, clinical phenomena are evaluated ontogenetically, in analogy with the recapitulation hypothesis.     

The "subliminal" versus the "subconscious" in the American acceptance of psychoanalysis, 1906-1910.

Insofar as Frederic W. H. Myers' conceptions of the "subliminal" were spread by the Boston-based "Emmanuel movement" for medically supervised religious psychotherapy (fl. 1906-1910), the movement probably did more to help than to hinder American acceptance of Freudian ideas. Certainly, many academic psychologists' conceptions of the "unconscious" and "subconscious" were a hindrance.     

"Psychotherapy" versus "treatment"

Presents a comment on "Psychological treatments" by D. H. Barlow. Barlow proposed that we distinguish between the terms "treatment" and "psychotherapy." The author believes that not only is the distinction unnecessary, but that its implications could have negative consequences for the field of clinical psychology. It is the proposed distinguishing feature that treatments are "specifically tailored to the pathological process that is causing the impairment and distress" that is most problematic. Clinical psychology does not need a distinction that further exacerbates the split between researchers and practitioners.     

Short-term memory for "surprising" versus "expected" unconditioned stimuli in Pavlovian conditioning.

Rabbits were trained via a Pavlovian eyelid-conditioning regime to respond differentially to a conditioned stimulus (CSR) depending on whether or not that stimulus was preceded several seconds earlier by a preparatory stimulus consisting of an electric shock otherwise employed as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Following training, differential responding to CSR varied systematically with the interval between the preparatory stimulus and CSR, consistent with assumptions concerning decay of information in short-term memory. The major finding, however, involved the test effects of announcing the preparatory stimulus by either a conditioned stimulus with which it had otherwise been paired (CS+) or a conditioned stimulus with which it had otherwise been systematically unpaired (CS-). The greater differential responding to the following CSR in the latter case is taken to support the notion that a "surprising" UCS is more likely to be retained (rehearsed) in short-term memory than is an "expected" UCS.     

Calibration of "pokes": psychophysical measurement of computer-generated temporal intervals.

To answer questions raised about the accuracy of temporal intervals used to produce perception of apparent motion, interstimulus intervals generated by a computer were measured using physical and psychophysical procedures. Calibration of such devices was assumed initially to be routine but search of the literature indicated that calibration has been ignored in studies of motion and masking. Direct/physical methods of calibration proved unfeasible for assessing the accuracy of a computer programmed through "poke" procedures because signals for temporal intervals could not be differentiated from the output controlled by the machine's "hardwired" program. The results of psychophysical measurement of temporal intervals indicated that, on the average, differences, "constant errors" between expected/programmed intervals and matches of those intervals generally were less than six milliseconds.     

邵雍先天易“天地自然之数”一解——对冯友兰先生《邵雍的“先天学”》的两点补充

作者通过对冯友兰先生《邵雍的“先天学”》的两点补充,认为．邵雍“先天易”图的六十四卦卦序按二进制六位数的大小依次排列而来．此即是宋代道学家所谓的“天地自然之数”。作者由此进一步揭示了先天卦序与阴阳生息的卦气思想之同．在一定程度上的某种暗合与实质上的相互矛盾。     

Illiteracy and brain damage. 2. Manifestations of unilateral neglect in testing "auditory comprehension" with iconographic materials

This report concerns the sentence-picture matching behavior of 100 neurologically healthy and 169 brain-damaged subjects, all of whom were unilingual adult right-handers. Within this population, 144 subjects were totally unschooled illiterates and the remaining 125 had received school education and thereafter had retained writing skills and reading habits. Brain-damaged subjects were tested less than 2 months after a first left- or right-hemisphere stroke. All subjects were administered an aphasia screening battery including, among other subtests, a set of six sentence-picture matching stimuli. For each of these six stimuli, subjects heard a sentence uttered by the examiner and were then requested to match this sentence with one of four drawings presented within a single display divided into four quadrants of equal surface. Three sentences were syntactically "simple" (noun subject + verb) and three were relatively more "complex" (noun subject + verb + one or two noun complements). Evidence of unilateral neglect was found in both left- and right-brain-damaged illiterates and literates. Moreover, the right neglect of left-brain-damaged subjects was manifest mostly when target sentences were relatively "complex" whereas the left neglect of right-brain-damaged subjects was manifest irrespective of the syntactic complexity of target sentences. Our data are interpreted as indicative of an interaction between two cognitive disorders resulting from dysfunctions of asymmetrically represented cognitive mechanisms. The implications of these findings with respect to clinical and research aphasia testing are discussed.     

Neural correlates of "absence" in interactive simulator protocols.

While much has been written about the importance of the experience of presence in simulation protocols, the role of "absence" deserves closer attention. The role of subjective experience and neurophysiologic processes involved in fluctuating states of consciousness is a key issue in developing assessment and treatment tools using interactive immersive simulator tasks. This paper proposes that when engaging in an interactive simulator task, there are fluctuations of consciousness that determine both motivational engagement and measured performance. Rather than expecting a continuous experience, both in terms of perceptual and motor output flow, factors such as circadian fluctuations, fatigue, and actual intrusion of sleep into waking consciousness are relevant in assessments and treatments using virtual environment-based tasks. These factors are particularly relevant in treatment populations with neurological and psychiatric disorders, where such disturbances are more common. To illustrate this construct, a series of experiments examining these phenomena in relation to a standardized driving-simulation protocol to detect psychomotor impairment developed for clinical and diagnostic testing in a sleep laboratory setting are reviewed.     

Simulating consciousness in a bilateral neural network: "nuclear" and "fringe" awareness

A technique for the bilateral activation of neural nets that leads to a functional asymmetry of two simulated "cerebral hemispheres" is described. The simulation is designed to perform object recognition, while exhibiting characteristics typical of human consciousness-specifically, the unitary nature of conscious attention, together with a dual awareness corresponding to the "nucleus" and "fringe" described by William James (1890). Sensory neural nets self-organize on the basis of five sensory features. The system is then taught arbitrary symbolic labels for a small number of similar stimuli. Finally, the trained network is exposed to nonverbal stimuli for object recognition, leading to Gaussian activation of the "sensory" maps-with a peak at the location most closely related to the features of the external stimulus. "Verbal" maps are activated most strongly at the labeled location that lies closest to the peak on homologous sensory maps. On the verbal maps activation is characterized by both excitatory and inhibitory Gaussians (a Mexican hat), the parameters of which are determined by the relative locations of the verbal labels. Mutual homotopic inhibition across the "corpus callosum" then produces functional cerebral asymmetries, i.e., complementary activation of homologous "association" and "frontal" maps within a common focus of attention-a nucleus in the left hemisphere and a fringe in the right hemisphere. An object is recognized as corresponding to a known label when the total activation of both hemispheres (nucleus plus fringe) is strongest for that label. The functional dualities of the cerebral hemispheres are discussed in light of the nucleus/fringe asymmetry.     

"Knowledge by acquaintance" and "Knowledge-about": A psychometrical demonstration

In two studies, students were asked to rate their knowledge of a number of different topics, extracurricular as well as drawn from their textbooks of the history of psychology and philosophy. The score distributions on a scale from "unknown" to "well known" were in all cases distinctly U-formed, as if knowledge were a question of either/or, rather than one of degree. However, when knowledge was rated on a scale from "know nothing about" to "know much about", the U-pattern failed to appear, and the students tended generally to give more cautious ratings. The differences are interpreted as evidence for the philosophical and linguistic distinction between "knowledge by acquaintance" (German: "kennen", French: "connaître") and "knowledge-about" (German: "wissen", French: "savoir").     

"Shaping" of frequency discrimination performance using only intrinsic reinforcement.

This experiment compared two modes of practice at a difficult frequency discrimination, i.e., one in which the frequency difference was initially correctly discriminated only 65% of the trials in a two-alternative forced-choice task. One group of Ss (N = 13) was assigned to a progressive-practice group, in which the frequency difference to be discriminated was progressivley changed from a large, easy, difference to the difficult, small, difference. The other group of Ss (N = 13) received the same amount of practice as the first, but all at the difficult discrimination. Only the progressive-practice group improved their discrimination performance. Since no feedback was given, the effect of progressive practice is interpreted as "shaping" Ss' attentional response by virtue of the information provided by the successively more difficult discriminations. This "shaping" process is potentially available as a learning mechanism for other fine discriminations.     

Between morality and repentance: recapturing "sin" for bioethics.

Distinguishing within "sin" the dimensions of anomia, hamartia, and asthenia makes it possible to analyze in greater detail the contrary manners in which traditional and post-traditional Christianities in this issue of Christian Bioethics endeavor to recapture what was lost when secular bioethics reconstructed the specifically spiritual-context-oriented normative commitments of Christianity in one-dimensionally moral terms. Various post-traditional attempts at securing moral orientation and resources for forgiveness, both of which secular bioethics finds increasingly difficult to provide, are critically reviewed. Their engagement of secular moral concepts and concerns, and even their adoption of an academically philosophical posture and language, is presented as responsible for their failure to adequately preserve what in traditional Christianity would count as prohibited vs. permitted, and advisable vs. non-advisable, or what would allow to resolve "tragic conflicts." The deeper reason for this failure lies in post-traditional Christianity's restricting the Christian life (with its central tension between love and the law) to what can be captured by cognitive categories. As the survey of several traditionally Christian accounts of sin in bioethics makes clear, both moral orientation (along with the resolution of "tragic" conflicts) and the sources of forgiveness are available, once that Christian life is framed in terms of persons' spirit-supported practical involvement in ascesis and liturgy, and once bioethical reflections are situated in the experiential context of such involvement.     

A critical role for "affective neuroscience" in resolving what is basic about basic emotions.

Ortony and Turner (1990) asked "What's Basic About Basic Emotions," and they concluded "very little." They proceeded to advocate a "componential" or "mosaic" view of how emotional systems should be analyzed. Their thesis was flawed by their failure to consider the available neurobehavioral data. Genetically dictated brain systems that mediate affective-emotional processes do exist, even though there are bound to be semantic ambiguities in how we speak about these systems. This commentary summarizes key lines of evidence for coherently operating emotional systems in the brain and advocates the position that the issue of basic emotions can no longer be credibly discussed without adequate consideration of the relevant brain research in the area. The type of conceptual, logical analysis pursued by Ortony and Turner, in the absence of a thorough analysis of the available neurological data, is not an adequate basis for resolving what is basic about basic emotions.     

"Taking" an Aerobics Class in the U.S. and "Entering" an Aerobics Class in Japan: Primary and Secondary Control in a Fitness Context

The study tested Weisz, Rothbaum, and Blackburn's (1984) hypothesis that "primary" control is emphasized in the United States and "secondary" control is emphasized in Japan. Aerobics participants in Japan and the United States completed surveys about their reasons for choosing classes, their attributions for mistakes in class, their behavioral responses to a difficult class, and what others in the class typically do. Some responses indicated that both groups use some secondary control. But Americans were more likely to report that they choose classes based on convenience and that they change moves in the class that are too difficult, a pattern that suggests primary control. Japanese were more likely to report that they choose classes based on their ability level, work harder when moves are too difficult, and attribute mistakes to a lack of fit between their own ability and the level of the class, a pattern that suggests more secondary control.     

Emotions of "higher" cognition

The target article by Lindquist et al. considers discrete emotions. This commentary argues that these are but a minor part of human emotional abilities, unifying us with animals. Uniquely human emotions are aesthetic emotions related to the need for the knowledge of "high" cognition, including emotions of the beautiful, cognitive dissonances, and musical emotions. This commentary touches on their cognitive functions and origins.     

Gender differences in "social portraits" reflected in MySpace profiles.

The internet has brought about an entirely new method of self-presentation in such online social networking Web sites as MySpace in which individuals create profiles that reflect their identity. This cyber social tool provides a new site of analysis to examine the extent of patterns of gendered identity in which females tend to turn to others for validation in contrast to males, who are more apt to maintain their individuality and whose relationships are more of an extension of their already-complete selves. In this study of 51 female and 49 male MySpace profiles, males were less apt to mention their significant other in the "About Me" section: 43% mentioned their significant other 0 times compared to 16% of females, and 14% of males mentioned their significant other between 2 and 10 times compared to 37% of females (p = 0.003). In the "Interests" section, the majority of males (67%) did not mention their significant other at all compared to 47% of females, and 33% mentioned her between 1 and 5 times compared to 53% of females (p = 0.05). These results reveal that online data sources manifest identity formation consistent with traditional gender roles in which females are dependent on others for their sense of self.     

On the Phenomenon of "Dog-Wise Arrangement"

An influential line of thought in metaphysics holds that where common sense discerns a tree or a dog or a baseball there may be just many microparticles. Provided the microparticles are arranged in the right way—are "treewise" or "dogwise" or "baseballwise" arranged—our sensory experiences will be just the same as if a tree or dog or baseball were really there. Therefore whether there really are such familiar objects in the world can be decided only by determining what more is needed for microparticles dogwise arranged actually to compose a dog. This paper argues that this line of thought sets up the wrong agenda. Composition is trivial; dogwise (etc.) arrangement is tricky. Dogwise arrangement will obtain in the wrong regions unless we stipulate that there are dogs, and that dogwise arrangement obtains only within their borders. The bearers of dogwise arrangement, moreover, will have to be dogs themselves, not their microparticles. Thus allowing that dogwise arrangement obtains at all is allowing that there are dogs.     

Potential erosion of psychotherapist-patient privilege beyond California: dangers of "criminalizing" Tarasoff.

The "dangerous patient exception" to psychotherapist-patient privilege, adopted almost a decade before the celebrated case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California (1976), was mentioned in a footnote to that decision in the context of an analogy. Although intended to permit testimony in civil commitment proceedings, this exception has been used to "criminalize" the Tarasoff duty in California. California courts eroded the privilege initially primarily to permit victims to sue psychotherapists and later to require psychotherapists to testify against their patients in criminal proceedings and appear to have confused evidentiary privilege and confidentiality. If consistent, similar reasoning in California in the future should allow therapists to testify against their patients if they were civilly committed in the past for dangerousness and attorneys to testify against their clients in criminal cases if at some earlier time they believed their clients represented a risk of future harm. Although most other jurisdictions may not word their privilege exceptions for civil commitment in the same way as California, most states have some type of privilege exception for civil commitment that could allow for such an interpretation. The United States Supreme Court in Jaffee v. Redmond (1996) found a psychotherapist-patient privilege, but stated in a footnote that an exception to the privilege would exist if a serious threat of harm to the patient could be averted only by means of disclosure by the therapist. Other jurisdictions have begun to consider these issues. Rather than being unique to California, similar reasoning could lead to the "criminalization" of Tarasoff in other jurisdictions and thereby compel therapists outside California to testify against their patients in criminal proceedings.