What Factors Influence Therapy Drop Out?

Are there systematic factors that predict client drop out in marriage and family therapy? Based on our review of literature we investigated the influence on drop out of personality characteristics such as hostility, anxiety, satisfaction with life, and self-esteem. We also investigated several demographic variables. The following variables were statistically significant predictors of client drop out: modality of treatment, marital status, occupation, income, and previous therapy experience.     

Neural enhancement and pre-emptive perception: the genesis of attention and the attentional maintenance of the cortical salience map

One of the stable hypotheses in systems neuroscience is the relationship between attention and the enhancement of visual responses when an animal attends to the stimulus in its receptive field (Goldberg and Wurtz, 1972 Journal of Neurophysiology 35 560-574). This was first discovered in the superior colliculus of the monkey: neurons in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus responded more intensely to the onset of a stimulus during blocks of trials in which the monkey had to make a saccade to it than they did during blocks of trials in which the monkey had to continue fixating a central point and not respond to the stimulus. This enhancement has been found in many brain regions, including prefrontal cortex (Boch and Goldberg, 1987 Investigative Ophthalmology 28 Supplement, 124), V4 (Moran and Desimone, 1985 Science 229 782-784), and lateral intraparietal area (Colby et al, 1996 Journal of Neurophysiology 76 2841-2852; Colby and Goldberg, 1999 Annual Review of Neuroscience 22 319-349), and even V1 (Lamme et al, 2000 Vision Research 40 1507-1521). In these studies the assumption has been that the monkey attended to the stimulus because the stimulus evoked an enhanced response. In the experiments described here we show that for abruptly appearing stimuli, attention is not related to the initial response evoked by the stimulus, but by the activity present on the salience map in the parietal cortex when the stimulus appears. Attention to the stimulus may subsequently, by a top down signal, sustain the map, but stimuli can as easily be suppressed by top down features as they can be enhanced.     

INCOMMENSURABILITY,RELATIVISM, SCEPTICISM: REFLECTIONS ON ACQUIRING A CONCEPT

Some opponents of the incommensurability thesis, such as Davidson and Rorty, have argued that the very idea of incommensurability is incoherent and that the existence of alternative and incommensurable conceptual schemes is a conceptual impossibility. If true, this refutes Kuhnian relativism and Kantian scepticism in one fell swoop. For Kuhnian relativism depends on the possibility of alternative, humanly accessible conceptual schemes that are incommensurable with one another, and the Kantian notion of a realm of unknowable things‐in‐themselves gives rise to the possibility of humanly inaccessible schemes that are incommensurable with even our best current or future science. In what follows we argue that the possibility of incommensurability of either the Kuhnian or the Kantian variety is inescapable and that this conclusion is forced upon us by a simple consideration of what is involved in acquiring a concept. It turns out that the threats from relativism and scepticism are real, and that anyone, including Davidson himself, who has ever defended an account of concept acquisition is committed to one or the other of these two possibilities. 1     

Neuronal correlates of "free will" are associated with regional specialization in the human intrinsic/default network

Recently, we proposed a fundamental subdivision of the human cortex into two complementary networks-an "extrinsic" one which deals with the external environment, and an "intrinsic" one which largely overlaps with the "default mode" system, and deals with internally oriented and endogenous mental processes. Here we tested this hypothesis by contrasting decision making under external and internally-derived conditions. Subjects were presented with an external cue, and were required to either follow an external instruction ("determined" condition) or to ignore it and follow a voluntary decision process ("free-will" condition). Our results show that a well defined component of the intrinsic system-the right inferior parietal cortex-was preferentially activated during the "free-will" condition. Importantly, this activity was significantly higher than the base-line resting state. The results support a self-related role for the intrinsic system and provide clear evidence for both hemispheric and regional specialization in the human intrinsic system.     

Cognitive Coping Tool Kit for Psychosis: Development of a Group-Based Curriculum

This article outlines an 8-week curriculum that was created to help outpatients develop cognitive and behavioral skills for coping with delusions and hallucinations as well as to reduce patients’ comorbid subjective levels of distress (e.g., depression, anxiety). The manualized protocol consisted of psychoeducation and training in a variety of CBT skills that have shown promise in treating individuals with residual psychosis, using recovery-oriented “naturalistic” methods and culminating in the creation of an individualized “tool kit” of cognitive coping resources. A preliminary study of the effectiveness of this brief group-based CBT program for outpatients with chronic, residual symptoms of schizophrenia was conducted. Participants were 24 outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who were stable on medications and connected to case management community follow-up. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale for Schizophrenia interview and the Symptom Checklist-90 self-report symptom scales were administered pre- and post-intervention. The results suggest that there were significant improvements in psychotic symptoms and self-reported distress from pre- to posttreatment.     

The role of spatial location in remembering and forgetting peripheral words.

This study examined whether spatial location mediates intentional forgetting of peripherally presented words. Using an item-method directed forgetting paradigm, words were presented in peripheral locations at study. A recognition test presented all words at either the same or a different location relative to study. Results showed that while recognition of Remember words was unaffected by test location, when Forget words were presented in the same location at test as at study, recognition accuracy was significantly greater than when presented in a different location. Experiment 2 showed that the speed to localize a previously studied word was faster when it was presented in the same rather than a different study-test location but that the magnitude of this spatial priming was unaffected by memory instruction. We suggest that the location of peripherally presented words is represented in memory and can aid the retrieval of poorly encoded words.     

Developmental "Roots" in Mature Biological Knowledge

ABSTRACT— Young children tend to claim that moving artifacts and nonliving natural kinds are alive, but neglect to ascribe life to plants. This research tested whether adults exhibit similar confusions when verifying life status in a speeded classification task. Experiment 1 showed that undergraduates encounter greater difficulty (reduced accuracy and increased response times) in determining life status for plants, relative to animals, and for natural and moving nonliving things, relative to artifacts and nonmoving things. Experiment 2 replicated these effects in university biology professors. The professors showed a significantly reduced effect size for living things, as compared with the students, but still showed greater difficulty for plants than animals, even as no differences from the students were apparent in their responses to nonliving things. These results suggest that mature biological knowledge relies on a developmental foundation that is not radically overwritten or erased with the profound conceptual changes that accompany mastery of the domain.     

Triangulation,Untranslatability, and Reconciliation

Donald Davidson used triangulation to do everything from explicate psychological and semantic externalism, to attack relativism and skepticism, to propose conditions necessary for thought and talk. At one point Davidson tried to bring order to these remarks by identifying three kinds of triangulation, each operative in a different situation. Here I take seriously Davidson’s talk of triangular situations and extend it. I start by describing Davidson’s situations. Next I establish the surprising result that considerations from one situation entail the possibility that at any one time one language is partially untranslatable into another. Because the possibility is time-indexed, it need not conflict with Davidson’s own argument against the possibility of untranslatability. I derive the result, not to indict Davidson, but to propose a new kind of triangulation, the reconciliation of untranslatability, which I investigate. Insofar as triangulation is central to Davidson’s views, getting a handle on his various triangular situations is key to getting a handle on his contributions to philosophy. Insofar as those contributions have enriched our understanding of how language, thought, and reality interrelate, extending Davidson’s model promises to extend our understanding too.