Self and body esteem perception in multiple sclerosis

Self esteem and body esteem were examined in a group of 35 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) patients using the Body Esteem Scale (BES) and the Eysenck Self Esteem Scale (ESES) and compared to age and sex matched normal controls. There were 23 females and 12 males in the MS patient's group; average age 38.9 years (range: 22-52). All participants completed the self-rated BES evaluating the following subscales: females - sexual attractiveness, physical condition and weight concern; males - physical attractiveness, physical condition and upper body strength. In addition all participants were scored, following a semi-structured interview, on the ESES. Psychiatric co-morbidity was excluded using a semi-structured interview by the consulting psychiatrist. All evaluations were carried out during the remitting phase. Statistical analysis, comparing patients to healthy controls, demonstrated lowered self-rating of the physical condition (males < 0.05, females < 0.001). On the other hand, no significant differences were found in the physical (male) or sexual (female)?attractiveness subscales. The mean ESES score in the patients group was 23.2 ± 4.0, slightly above the reported average. The controls mean ESES was 28.4 ± 3.6, (P < 0.05). No correlation was found between self and body esteem amongst M.S. patients. This study emphasizes impaired perception of body esteem in multiple sclerosis patients even in remission. The preservation of physical and sexual attractiveness may be related to the non-disfiguring nature of the disease. Preservation of self-esteem in MS patients suggests that body-esteem should be the focus of supportive treatment.     

解释学与自然科学:导论

２０世纪欧洲大陆思想发展过程中一直有一种最为怪癖的现象,就是对自然科学缺乏研究。的确,科学文献似乎否认哲学有超乎生活经验的立足点,并力求以这种方式采取一种客观陈述的姿态。分析的科学哲学采取了这种表面上有价值的姿态,并且以文化和历史要素相结合为代价而得以发展。分析的科学哲学家们把他们的工作看作是使自然科学的方法形式化,他们的兴趣不是专注于文化的、历史的和个人的因素能够成为决定因素的发现过程以及其他领域。然而,科学的知识也像一切知识一样,涉及对某人揭示（诉说）某事。科学探讨意义,这些意义就是体现在语…     

人文因素与技术:事实、人造物及其解释

一、有关技术的传统概念技术不过是人的劳作而已。它既是一种人为的事物也是一种人为的发明过程,其目的是由人制定的,从而也是由人所贯彻的。这就是从古至今技术的哲学人类学背景：从柏拉图的《普罗泰戈拉篇》到卡普（Kapp）和该伦（Gehlen）。他们都将技术说成是必然,因为人是一种有缺陷的生灵,而且他们对技术目的也都是在这样的标题下进行讨论,如加强、延伸以及替代我们可怜的人类器官或肢体,为的是生存竞争或改善我们的境况。但是,这种对技术的传统理解过于狭窄了,因为它没有涵盖这些东西,如教堂的建造、金字塔和庙宇,这些东…     

The effectiveness of psychoanalytic psychotherapy: the role of treatment duration, frequency of sessions, and the therapeutic relationship

This is an effectiveness study of treatment outcome that relies on patients' perception of their mental health during and after psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Ninety-nine outpatients attending the IPTAR Clinical Center (ICC) responded to the Effectiveness Questionnaire (EQ) adapted from that developed by Consumer Reports. Effectiveness is studied from various perspectives. Findings indicated (1) an incremental gain in effectiveness scores from six to over twenty-four months of therapy; (2) an incremental gain with greater session frequency from one to two or three weekly sessions; (3) facilitation of effectiveness by the experience of a positive relationship with the therapist; (4) an interplay between clinical syndrome and treatment conditions. A method giving clinical validity to the quantitative findings is described. Brief summaries of two recorded interviews reveal differential reconstruction of events that had occurred during treatment. The findings are discussed from the vantage point of two hypotheses: cognitive dissonance and internalization of therapeutic experience.     

Shades of the mirror effect: Recognition of faces with and without sunglasses

A mirror effect was found for a stimulus manipulation introduced at test. When subjects studied a set of normal faces and then were tested with new and old faces that were normal or wearing sunglasses, the hit rate was higher and the false alarm rate was lower for normal faces. Hit rate differences were reflected in remember and sure recognition responses, whereas differences in false alarm rates were largely seen in know and unsure judgments. In contrast, when subjects studied faces wearing sunglasses, the hit rate was greater for test faces with sunglasses than for normal faces, but there was no difference in false alarm rates. These findings are problematic for single-factor theories of the mirror effect, but can be accommodated within a two-factor account.     

A grouping interpretation of the modality effect in immediate probed recognition

In a series of experiments on immediate probed recognition for eight 3-digit numbers, it was shown that if the target modality involved auditory components and the effect of the similarity of the modality of the probe to that of the targets was controlled, unequivocal evidence was obtained for an auditory superiority effect (modality effect) for hit rates for the final items of the list. Moreover, false-alarm rates were significantly lower following targets with an auditory component than they were following silently seen targets. It is argued that this pattern of hits and false alarms is consistent with the idea that targets that have an auditory component yield memory representations that are better grouped as units than are those for targets that are only silently seen; in particular, if a new probe has a first digit that accidentally matches the first digit of a target item, it is more likely that the subject will mistakenly identify this new probe as old (give a false alarm) if the target has only been partially encoded because it was only silently seen.     

Statistical inference in behavior analysis: Friend or foe?

Behavior analysts are undecided about the proper role to be played by inferential statistics in behavioral research. The traditional view, as expressed in Sidman's Tactics of Scientific Research (1960), was that inferential statistics has no place within a science that focuses on the steady-state behavior of individual organisms. Despite this admonition, there have been steady inroads of statistical techniques into behavior analysis since then, as evidenced by publications in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. The issues raised by these developments were considered at a panel held at the 24th annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Orlando, Florida (May, 1998). The proceedings are reported in this and the following articles.     

Photopic visual phantom illusion: its common and unique characteristics as a completion effect

An illusion similar to the stationary visual phantom illusion presented earlier by Gyoba (1983, Vision Research 23 205-211) is reported. This illusion is visible in photopic vision and we have tentatively named it the 'photopic phantom illusion'. A typical example of this illusion is a white and light-gray square-wave grating occluded by a black region. In this figure, a phantom grating running across the occluder with clear contours but less contrast, is seen. The critical spatial frequencies of photopic phantoms have been measured and compared with those of scotopic phantoms that have been reported previously, revealing a great resemblance between them. We discuss the characteristics of this illusion in terms of transparency, stereoscopic viewing, and perceptual completion.     

The myth of upright vision. A psychophysical and functional imaging study of adaptation to inverting spectacles

The adaptation to inverting prisms and mirror spectacles was studied in four subjects over periods of six to ten days. Subjects showed rapid adaptation of visuomotor functions, but did not report return of upright vision. The persistence of the transformed visual image was confirmed by the subjects' perception of shape from shading. No alteration of the retinotopy of early visual cortical areas was seen in the functional magnetic resonance images. These results are discussed in the context of previous claims of upright vision with inverting prisms and mirror spectacles.     

Do 9-month-olds perceive causation-at-a-distance?

Humans understand mechanical events to involve physical bodies interacting by contact, but intentional events involve agents that can also interact at a distance. We investigated infant sensitivity to causality in a simple event in which one agent appears to react to another without contact. Infants 9 months old were habituated to one of two events involving a computer-animated red square moving nonrigidly--like a caterpillar--towards a green square. In the 'reaction event', the green object moved in turn before the red one stopped, while in the 'pause event' the green object moved after the red one stopped. After habituation, each infant saw the habituation movie played in reverse. This test involved identical spatiotemporal changes for reaction and pause event, but the reversed reaction additionally involved a change in the causal roles. Infants dishabituated to reversal of the reaction but not the pause event, a result which suggests sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance. This ability could support development of social cognition and theory of mind.