Sexual Socialization Messages on Entertainment Television: Comparing Content Trends 1997–2002

Previous content analyses of sex on television have relied on differing measures and sampling strategies, which makes it difficult to compare patterns of sexual portrayals over time. This large-scale study (N = 2,817 programs) examines the sexual messages presented on television across both broadcast and cable channels over a 5-year period, applying identical measures to three biennial samples of program content. Results demonstrate that sexual talk and behavior are highly frequent aspects of the television environment. Talk about sex is shown more often than sexual behavior, though both types of content increased significantly from 1997/1998 to 2001/2002. Over that time span, the percentage of shows portraying sexual intercourse doubled from 7 to 14%. Results also show that topics related to sexual risks or responsibilities (e.g., condom use, abstinence) are increasingly included on television, but nonetheless remain infrequent overall. Such safe sex messages occur most frequently in program environments where they are most relevant (i.e., when sexual intercourse is included in the story). The content analysis findings are discussed in terms of their implications for audience effects.     

Application of Attachment Theory to Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy

Equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP) is a form of animal-assisted therapy used to treat human psychological problems that employs horses in and around the natural surroundings of the stables. Despite the increasing number of professionals and organizations that offer this innovative therapy, EFP lacks a firm theoretical and research base. This paper aims to reveal how attachment theory can inform and enrich theory and practice of EFP. It explores the fit between central features of EFP and several of the primary concepts of attachment-based psychotherapy, such as: secure base and haven of safety through the provision of a holding environment, affect mirroring, mentalizing and reflective functioning, and non-verbal communication and body experience. This work is composed of definitions of these concepts, their application to human–horse context and EFP, and interpretation in light of potential therapeutic (transformative) processes.     

Prosodic knowledge affects the recognition of newly acquired words

An eye-tracking study examined the involvement of prosodic knowledge--specifically, the knowledge that monosyllabic words tend to have longer durations than the first syllables of polysyllabic words--in the recognition of newly learned words. Participants learned new spoken words (by associating them to novel shapes): bisyllables and onset-embedded monosyllabic competitors (e.g., baptoe and bap). In the learning phase, the duration of the ambiguous sequence (e.g., bap) was held constant. In the test phase, its duration was longer than, shorter than, or equal to its learning-phase duration. Listeners' fixations indicated that short syllables tended to be interpreted as the first syllables of the bisyllables, whereas long syllables generated more monosyllabic-word interpretations. Recognition of newly acquired words is influenced by prior prosodic knowledge and is therefore not determined solely on the basis of stored episodes of those words.     

The modulation of lexical competition by segment duration

In an eye-tracking study, we examined how fine-grained phonetic detail, such as segment duration, influences the lexical competition process during spoken word recognition. Dutch listeners’ eye movements to pictures of four objects were monitored as they heard sentences in which a stop-initial target word (e.g.,pijp “pipe”) was preceded by an [s]. The participants made more fixations to pictures of cluster-initial words (e.g.,spijker “nail”) when they heard a long [s] (mean duration, 103 msec) than when they heard a short [s] (mean duration, 73 msec). Conversely, the participants made more fixations to pictures of the stop-initial words when they heard a short [s] than when they heard a long [s]. Lexical competition between stop- and cluster-initial words, therefore, is modulated by segment duration differences of only 30 msec.     

Resolving the trauma organized system of sexual abuse by confronting the abuser: A focal family therapy approach with a woman who was a childhood victim of sexual abuse

The longer-term emotional and interpersonal effects of sexual abuse in childhood are reviewed and approaches to treatment discussed. The notion of a 'trauma organized system' to account for the long-standing effects of abuse is described. A major potential issue in creating therapeutic change is confronting the abuser, and a case is described where a woman brought her family for therapy when it was feared that the father, who had abused her in childhood, might abuse his grandchildren. A focal family therapy approach was used: this takes into account the traumatic nature of abusive events and their long-term organizing effects on individual and family functioning. The process of therapeutic work is described, including the resolution of traumatic effects by confronting the abusive act.     

Recognition models of alphanumeric characters

Several methods to study the recognition and similarity of alphanumeric characters are briefly discussed and evaluated. In particular, the application of the choice-model (Luce, 1959, 1963) to recognition of letters is criticized. A feature analytic model for recognition of alphanumeric characters based on Tversky’s (1977) features of similarity is proposed and tested. It is argued that the proposed model: (a) is parsimonious in that it utilizes a relatively small number of parameters, (b) is psychologically more meaningful compared with other approaches in that it is attempting to study underlying processes rather than just reveal a similarity structure, (c) yields predictions that have a high level of fit with the observed data. Possible implications from the use of the model for future research are briefly discussed.     

The authority of pleasure

The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non‐contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitutes their aesthetic evaluation and appreciation. This is why and how art is non‐contingently related to pleasure. Call this, the Affective View. While I don't advance conclusive arguments for the affective view in this paper, I aim to reassess its prospects by (1) undermining central objections against it, (2) dissociating it from hedonism about the value of artworks (the view that this value is grounded in, and explained by, its possessors’ power to please), and (3) introducing some observations on the practice of art in support of it. Given that the objections I discuss miss their target, and given the observations in support of it, I conclude that the affective view is worth serious reconsideration.     

On Liking Aesthetic Value

According to tradition, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to a certain feeling of liking or pleasure. Is that true? Two answers are on offer in the field of aesthetics today: 1. The Hedonist answers: Yes, aesthetic value is non-contingently connected to pleasure insofar as this value is constituted and explained by the power of its possessors to please (under standard conditions). 2. The Non-Affectivist answers: No. At best, pleasure is contingently related to aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is to point to a blind spot in the dialectic between these two standard positions by defending a third neglected answer to the question above, the answer of the Value-Meriting-Pleasure [VMP] advocate. According to this answer, a certain kind of (cognitive and responsive) pleasure is connected to aesthetic value non-contingently, but also non-hedonically. VMP is the view that objects of aesthetic value are non-contingently related to pleasure insofar as they merit a certain kind of pleasure. But, pace the hedonist, those objects are valuable (those that are to be engaged with etc.) neither on account of their capacity to give pleasure nor on account of the hedonic value of the attitude they merit.