Scaling clinical judgments of symptom pathology by means of the psychophysiological method of magnitude estimation

Summing scores across heterogeneous symptom items without consideration of their differing psychopathological significance has been criticized as producing an inadequate picture of an individual's clinical status. The purpose of this study was to derive symptom item weights representing clinically judged seriousness of each symptom through the application of Stevens's psychophysical method of magnitude estimation. A nationwide sample of 129 clinicians rated the pathological significance of 221 symptom items in a design such that every rater rated 121 items, 21 of which were rated by all raters and 100 of which were rated only by the A or B subgroup to which each rater was randomly assigned. Each item was rated as to the seriousness of the pathology it would represent if manifested by either a boy child, girl child, boy adolescent, or girl adolescent, with one-fourth of the raters assigned to each condition. The results of 211 two-way analyses of variance revealed that age and age and sex in interaction, but not sex alone, significantly influenced the clinical ratings. The resulting magnitude estimation ratings of symptom pathology ranged from 1.0 to 9.9. They were demonstrated to have satisfactory reliability and convergent validity and to have the psychophysical characteristics of a prothetic continuum.A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 85th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August 1977. The research was supported by HEW grant MH24886. The authors wish to express appreciation to Walter W. Wengel for his work in developing the median quotient ratings used in the study, to Terrance Auger for making available unpublished raw data, and to Merton S. Krause for helpful suggestions regarding the interpretation of results.     

Psychological management and body image issues in facial transplantation

Facial transplantation, although controversial, is proposed as a major advance in facial reconstructive surgery, with the first partial transplant having taken place in France in November 2005. Although the psychological impact of facial transplantation will not be understood until several procedures have been carried out, this article examines the psychological issues likely to arise with particular reference to body image. A detailed framework for anticipation and management of psychological change is proposed. Pre-operative preparation must include thorough psychological preparation for the patient and their family. The immediate post-operative period is likely to be challenging, and a detailed management plan is proposed emphasising early return to function; subsequent psychological issues including altered body image, anxiety, shame, depression, communication and behavioural avoidance are discussed and a management strategy based on cognitive behavioural principles is proposed for the first post-operative year. Previous discussion frames psychological outcome in terms of complication and risk, tending to downplay the potential advantages of a successful procedure; the focus of this paper is on ensuring psychological adjustment as an inevitable consequence of change.     

Using high frame rate CMOS sensors for three-dimensional eye tracking

A novel three-dimensional eye tracker is described and its performance evaluated. In contrast to previous devices based on conventional video standards, the present eye tracker is based on programmable CMOS image sensors, interfaced directly to digital processing circuitry to permit real-time image acquisition and processing. This architecture provides a number of important advantages, including image sampling rates of up to 400/sec measurement, direct pixel addressing for preprocessing and acquisition, and hard-disk storage of relevant image data. The reconfigurable digital processing circuitry also facilitatesin-line optimization of the front-end, time-critical processes. The primary acquisition algorithm for tracking the pupil and other eye features is designed around the generalized Hough transform. The tracker permits comprehensive measurement of eye movement (three degrees of freedom) and head movement (six degrees of freedom), and thus provides the basis for many types of vestibulo-oculomotor and visual research. The device has been qualified by the German Space Agency (DLR) and NASA for deployment on the International Space Station. It is foreseen that the device will be used together with appropriate stimulus generators as a general purpose facility for visual and vestibular experiments. Initial verification studies with an artificial eye demonstrate a measurement resolution of better than 0.1° in all three components (i.e., system noise for each of the components measured as 0.006° H, 0.005° V, and 0.016° T. Over a range of ±20° eye rotation, linearity was found to be <0.5% (H), <0.5% (V), and <2.0% (T). A comparison with the scierai search coil technique yieldednear equivalent values for the systemnoise and the thickness of Listing’s plane.     

Agent Causation and the Phenomenology of Agency

Several philosophers claim that the phenomenology of one's own agency conflicts with standard causal theories of action, couched in terms of causation by mental events or states. Others say that the phenomenology is prima facie incompatible with such a theory, even if in the end, a reconciliation can be worked out. Here, it is argued that the type of action theory in question is consistent with what can plausibly be said to be presented to us in our experience of our agency. Several routes to a claim that there is nevertheless a prima facie incompatibility are examined, and all are found wanting. The phenomenology of agency, it is argued, is no threat to a standard causal theory of action.     

Conjoint dissociations reveal involuntary "perceptual" priming from generating at study.

Incidental perceptual memory tests reveal priming when words are generated orally from a semantic cue at study, and this priming could reflect contamination by voluntary retrieval. We tested this hypothesis using a generate condition and two read conditions that differed in depth of processing (read-phonemic vs read-semantic). An intentional word-stem completion test showed an advantage for the read-semantic over the generate condition and an advantage for the generate over the read-phonemic condition, and completion times were longer than in a control test, prior to which there was no study phase. An incidental word-stem completion test showed equivalent priming for the read-semantic and read-phonemic study conditions, despite considerable power, and completion times were no longer than control, indicating that retrieval was involuntary, and insensitive to prior conceptual processing. The generate condition produced less priming than the read conditions, but significant priming nonetheless. The results show that priming from generating can be involuntary and suggest that lexical processes are responsible. They are also the first results conjointly showing a crossed double dissociation, a single dissociation, and a parallel effect across memory tests with identical physical retrieval cues.     

Top‐star’ priests and the catholic response to the ‘explosion’ of evangelical protestantism in brazil: The beginning of the end of the ‘walkout'?

Brazil's ‘new’ style of Catholicism, essentially the creation of a group of young, charismatic clergy—'pop‐star priests’ or ‘stars of the altar’, as they have become known—appears to have set in train a reversal, in that Latin American country at least, of the ‘walkout’ to evangelical Protestantism that David Martin analysed in Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Pentecostalism in Latin America (1990). In that volume Martin described the rapid development of Protestantism in Latin America in the twentieth century and particularly from the 1960s as “... an explosion of conservative evangelical religion, a shift toward Pentecostalism, a rejection of ecumenism, and the manifestation among many of those involved of the evangelical capacity to unite modern technology with political conservatism”; (Martin, 1990: 54). During the past year millions of lapsed Catholics, and former Catholics some of whom were part of that ‘explosion’, have become involved in the ‘new’ Catholicism whose emergence illustrates the indispensable role of the media in religious reform and conversion in contemporary society. The article examines the superstructural elements of the ‘new’ Catholicism and compares its positive ‘cosmology’ and worldview with the emphasis on demonization in the teaching and ritual of the controversial, but highly successful evangelical Protestant Church, the Igreja Universal do Reino de Dens (the Universal Church of the Reign of God). This presentation also considers the various responses to the ‘new’ Catholicism which, although responsible for the return to worship of millions of Catholics, has been strongly criticised by both Liberation Theology and the more theologically and liturgically conservative wing within the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil.