Tacit Integration and Referential Structure in the Language Comprehension of Aphasics and Normals

Aphasics, brain-damaged patients with no language deficit, neurologically intact elderly subjects, and university undergraduates matched pictures to sentences having compelling tacit implications (e.g., the sentence The fox grabs the hen strongly invites one to assume that the fox will eat the hen). All groups made, for the same sentences, qualitatively similar referential errors consisting in choosing a tacit implication picture. Two auxiliary experiments using the same target sentences in other interpretive situations permitted ruling out the possibility that these errors were due to the putative intrinsic semantic properties of the sentences, showing that the sentences which were most liable to elicit integrative error varied from task to task. These results are interpreted within the conceptual framework which posits that reliable directions for interpretation are couched by the speaker in the very structure of his utterances (the utterance's referential structure) providing the hearer with means to restructure the relevant personal knowledge integrated into the interpretive process in accordance with the speaker's communicative intent. The determination of the referential structure (RSD) of utterances thus seems critical to their correct or, more precisely, conventional interpretation, and, along with the tacit integration of relevant sources of personal knowledge, constitutes the principal cognitive device enabling us to understand each other. But this device appears to be easily corruptible. It is suggested that many errors made by aphasics in language interpretation are due to a failure to follow all referential instructions, but that qualitatively similar failures also occur in normal subjects, though to a lesser degree. Language interpretation is a fallible process and aphasic errors provide remarkable clues for the understanding of its subtle referential mechanisms.     

Happiness: Classic Theory in the Light of Current Research

Happiness is an eternal concern of philosophy and social science. Several classic intuitions about happiness get some support by the results of modern empirical research, not least, expectations about positive effects of technological development and individualization. The data do not confirm dismal predictions about anomic unhappiness. Though social development and transformation is ambivalent, the overall balance seems to be positive in modern societies.     

Females in charge: Effects of sex of subordinate and romantic attachment status upon self-ratings of dominance

Female, male, and mixed-sex dyads in which one member was assigned the leader role interacted and rated their own dominance throughout the interaction. The effects of gender and romantic attachment status (whether one has an exclusive dating partner or is “unattached” and free to go out with someone new) upon these self-ratings of dominance within the interaction were examined. The results showed that both leaders and subordinates perceived female leaders to be less dominant than male leaders. In addition, members of mixed-sex pairs rated themselves as less dominant than did those in same-sex pairs. Female leaders paired with males rated themselves least dominant and unattached female leaders interacting with males rated themselves least dominant of all. Female subordinates rated themselves as less dominant when with male leaders than when with female leaders, while the effect of the gender of the leader was insignificant for male subordinates. The results are discussed as evidence of a role conflict created by the contradictory roles of “dominant” leader and “subordinate” female, roles described by the sex role stereotypes prevalent in our culture.     

Maternal employment and job satisfaction and their relationship to children's perceptions and behaviors

The impact of 179 mothers' maternal employment and maternal job satisfaction on their children's perceptions and behaviors was examined. The findings indicated that maternal employment was not related to job satisfaction or to children's perceptions or behaviors. Findings also indicated that maternal job satisfaction was not related to children's perceptions or their behaviors. It was hypothesized that maternal employment and maternal job satisfaction may not have the impact on family environment that has been previously suggested.     

Transparent screens

There is a kind of transitional phenomenon found among certain borderline patients which is quite distinct from Winnicott's transitional object. These are patients who are preoccupied with maintaining proper physical distance from their objects, in order to regulate anxieties about isolation on the one hand, and identity-annihilating closeness on the other. Since they believe the activity of looking to be intrusive and devouring, hence dangerous, transparent screens are interposed between self and other, and serve as protective barriers. These screens function intrapsychically as well, to split off or hide those aspects of the self felt to be unacceptable. The analyst may witness the failure of the screen in several ways: it may create too great a distance, isolating the individual and keeping him from life; it may become contaminated by projections and turn into a persecutor, or trap the individual, a state of intolerable claustrophobia; most dramatically, it may suddenly shatter. The latter is associated with psychosis and death, and its appearance may be a harbinger of suicide.