THE CONFESSING ANIMAL IN FOUCAULT AND WITTGENSTEIN

In The History of Sexuality, Foucault maintains that “Western man has become a confessing animal” (1990, 59), thus implying that “man” was not always such a creature. On a related point, Wittgenstein suggests that “man is a ceremonial animal” (1996, 67); here the suggestion is that human beings are, by their very nature, ritualistically inclined. In this paper I examine this crucial difference in emphasis, first by reconstructing Foucault's “genealogy” of confession, and subsequently by exploring relevant facets of Wittgenstein's later thinking. While there are significant correlations between Foucault and Wittgenstein, an important disparity emerges in relation to the question of the “natural.” By critically analyzing this, I show how Wittgenstein's minimal naturalism provides an important corrective to Foucault's more extravagant claims. By implication, we see why any radical relativist, historicist, and/or constructivist position becomes untenable on Wittgensteinian grounds, even though Wittgenstein himself is often read as promoting such views.     

Inhibition of return generated by voluntary saccades is independent of attentional momentum

Summoning attention to a peripheral location, either by a peripheral cue with the eyes fixed or when a voluntary saccade is made to it and gaze is then returned to the centre, delays detection of subsequent targets at that location compared to a location in the opposite visual field. It has been proposed that oculomotor activation generates this inhibition of return (IOR). This account presupposes that the asymmetry in detection results from inhibition at the cued location rather than facilitation at the uncued location. This has been confirmed for exogenously generated IOR. However, it has not, heretofore, been confirmed for “IOR” generated by voluntary saccades. The current study investigated whether the asymmetry in target detection, elicited either by a peripheral flash or by an eye movement generated in response to a central arrowhead, reflects facilitation at the opposite location due to the path of attentional momentum. Reaction times at the cued location were slower than reaction times at the opposite or perpendicular locations, which did not differ. Opposite facilitation due to attentional momentum requires that opposite be faster than perpendicular, which was not obtained. The results were the same whether IOR was generated by an exogenous cue or by a saccade executed endogenously to a central arrow.     

Legal responsibilities for educational psychologists

This paper considers the legal responsibilities of educational psychologists which fall mainly in relation to pupils with special educational needs. The first section introduces the work of educational psychologists, with some discussion of the professional and ethical difficulties posed by many aspects of their practice. An outline of the legal framework for their work in the England and Wales is provided, as an example of the application of those professional and ethical issues in practice, followed by and outline of potential areas of legal challenge and their implications. Reference is finally made to problems being experienced in policy, principle and practice arising from the tensions and dilemmas inherent in the legislation.     

Facial attractiveness and personal-social development

The relationship between physical attractiveness and personal-social development was examined. The entire third, fourth, and fifth grade school population (N=440) was administered a self-concept and peer acceptance measure. School pictures of these children were then rated into attractive and unattractive groups (N = 84). Three separate three-factor (sex X attractiveness X grade) analyses of variance indicated attractive children were more socially accepted than their unattractive peers and had higher self-concepts.     

Perceptions of a University Environment by Social-Political Action Leaders

Leaders of campus social-political action groups were compared with the leaders of four other categories of student leaders on the basis of perceptions of the prevailing campus environmental press as measured by the College and University Environment Scales. Significant differences among the five categories of group leaders were observed on four scales of the inventory. Three of the scales, Community, Awareness, and Scholarship, appeared to differentiate social-political activists from leaders of other types of campus groups. Significant differences between liberal and conservative leaders of social-political action groups were also observed on three scales of the CUES and between male and female leaders across all group categories on four scales.     

Preserved re-experience of discrete emotions: Amnesia and executive function

Amnesic patients can re-experience emotions elicited by forgotten events, suggesting that brain systems for episodic and emotional memory are independent. However, the range of such emotional memories remains under-investigated (most studies employing just positive–negative emotion dyads), and executive function may also play a role in the re-experience of emotions. This is the first investigation of the intensity of the emotional re-experience of a range of discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, and happiness) for a group of amnesic patients. Twenty Korsakoff syndrome (KS) patients and 20 neurologically normal controls listened to four novel emotional vignettes selectively eliciting the four basic emotions. Emotional experience was measured using pen-and-paper Visual Analogue Mood Scales and episodic memory using verbal recollections. After 30 min, the recollection of stories was severely impaired for the patient group, but the emotional re-experience was no different from that of controls. Notably, there was no relationship between episodic recall and the intensity of the four emotions, such that even profoundly amnesic patients reported moderate levels of the target emotion. Exploratory analyses revealed negative correlations between the intensity of basic emotions and executive functions (e.g., cognitive flexibility and response inhibition) for controls but not patients. The results suggest that discrete emotions can be re-experienced independently of episodic memory, and that the re-experience of certain discrete emotions appears to be dampened by executive control. KS patients with absent or mild cognitive symptoms should benefit from emotion-regulation interventions aimed at reducing the recognized affective burden associated with their episodic memory deficit.