The Alien-Hand Experiment

This article reintroduces a phenomenological experiment designed in the early 1960’s, The Alien-Hand Experiment (TAHE), and it illustrates how phenomena denoted by theoretical concepts like body image, body schema and agency can be studied via the experiment. An analysis of the verbal reports from 26 subjects who participated in TAHE is presented in this article. Subjects were divided into three groups: A group of non-bulimic men, a group of non-bulimic women and a group of female bulimics. The group of (female) bulimics was studied due to the widely spread notion that subjects suffering from eating disorders have a distorted body image. TAHE can be thought of as both a qualitative and quantitative way to study the phenomena arising when the normal relationship between motor behaviour and body experience is disrupted. The present investigation is not an operational definition of body schema and body image, but the two concepts offer a useful interpretive framework.     

Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance: A Treatment Model

Idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI) refers to a health condition characterized by the presence of multiple symptoms in different organ systems in response to a variety of environmental cues, such as chemical exposures, electromagnetic radiation, infrasound from windmill farms, (parts of) buildings, foods, etc. Typically, the symptoms arise in response to triggers and at dosages that do not cause symptoms in the majority of people, and no clear link with any physiological dysfunction can be found. The condition varies in a dimensional way from very mild, for which no medical help is sought, to very disabling, compromising normal life. The condition is controversial, but several indications strongly suggest that the symptoms result from nocebo mechanisms. Currently, different psychological treatments are explored, but they are generally not based on a clear understanding of the aetiopathological mechanisms and the treatment effects are not well documented. In the present paper, we describe a treatment protocol based on a comprehensive explanatory model of IEI. The goal is to contribute to standardized, mechanism-based treatments as a basis for more systematic treatment studies.     

Spatial interaction effects in letter processing

The hypothesis of independent processing channels was tested in a letter-recognition task. Letter space and retinal position were varied for both unilateral and bilateral presentations of two-letter configurations. The response latencies indicated contour interference effects for small letter spaces as well as a different type of processing delay which increased rapidly with increased letter distance from the fixation point. The latter effect was assumed to represent an interaction between the feature extraction processes of the adjacent letters. Since the processing capacity decreases as a function of the distance from the fovea, the reaction times were correspondingly lengthened.     

Hypnotic ingroup-outgroup suggestion influences economic decision-making in an Ultimatum Game

Studies in economic decision-making have demonstrated that individuals appreciate social values supporting equity and disapprove unfairness when distributing goods between two or more parties. However, this seems to critically depend on psychological mechanisms partly pertaining to the ingroup-outgroup distinction. Little is known as to what extent economic bargaining can be manipulated by means of psychological interventions such has hypnosis. Here we show that a hypnotic ingroup versus outgroup suggestion impacts the tolerance of unfairness in an Ultimatum Game. Specifically, the ingroup suggestion was associated with significantly greater acceptance rates of unfair offers than the outgroup suggestion, whereas hypnosis alone exerted only small effects on unfairness tolerance. These findings indicate that psychological interventions such as hypnotic suggestion can contribute to ingroup favoritism and outgroup rejection.     

Most people do not ignore salient invalid cues in memory-based decisions

Former experimental studies have shown that decisions from memory tend to rely only on a few cues, following simple noncompensatory heuristics like "take the best." However, it has also repeatedly been demonstrated that a pictorial, as opposed to a verbal, representation of cue information fosters the inclusion of more cues in compensatory strategies, suggesting a facilitated retrieval of cue patterns. These studies did not properly control for visual salience of cues, however. In the experiment reported here, the cue salience hierarchy established in a pilot study was either congruent or incongruent with the validity order of the cues. Only the latter condition increased compensatory decision making, suggesting that the apparent representational format effect is, rather, a salience effect: Participants automatically retrieve and incorporate salient cues irrespective of their validity. Results are discussed with respect to reaction time data.     

Misserfolge in der station?ren Therapie von Patienten mit Pers?nlichkeitsst?rungen

While psychotherapy has proven its efficacy and effectiveness in the treatment of personality disorders (PD) there is a lack of studies on treatment failure, i.e. non-response or deterioration of psychopathology. In a naturalistic approach the failed treatment of1,239 inpatients with PD was studied by means of direct and indirect assessment of change from patient and therapist perspectives. For indirect assessment the global severity index of the symptom checklist SCL-90-R (self-report by patients) and the impairment severity score (judgement by therapists) were used. Depending on the method between 11% and 31% of inpatients did not show any relevant improvement in symptoms but concordance between the methods was poor (Cohen’s kappa between 0.10 and 0.30). Patients with treatment failure did not differ from those with successful treatment with respect to sociodemographic and clinical features. The findings are discussed with respect to methodological limitations but also reflect possible clinical and therapeutic implications as well as future research approaches.     

Measuring religious attitudes: reliability and validity of the German version of the Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R-D) in a representative sample

Forgiveness is a core value within Christianity and many other religions, but it is unclear whether valuing forgiveness results in individuals being more forgiving. This study examines the effect of Christian religious belief on forgiveness; tests the theoretical speculation that trust fosters forgiveness; explores the effect of cynicism, and examines age effects on forgiveness with a British sample. Christian clergy (N?=?209), general population samples of Christians (N?=?176), and a group with NRA (N?=?65) completed the Heartland Forgiveness Scale measuring forgiveness of self, others, and situations, and measures of trust, cynicism, and the importance of forgiveness. The clergy score higher on total forgiveness, forgiveness of self, others, and situations; rate forgiveness as being more important; are more trusting; and are less cynical than the Christian and no religious affiliation (NRA) samples in the general population. While the Christian sample value forgiveness more than the NRA group, they are not more forgiving on any of the measures tested. Age is a significant predictor only for situational forgiveness. Trust is not a positive mediator of forgiveness for any of the participant groups, and neither is cynicism a negative mediator of forgiveness.     

Means–end comprehension in four parrot species: explained by social complexity

A comparative approach is required to investigate the evolutionary origins of cognitive abilities. In this paper, we compare the performance of four parrot species, spectacled parrotlets (Forpus conspicillatus), rainbow lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus), green-winged macaws (Ara chloroptera) and sulphur-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita triton) in standardized string-pulling and string-choice paradigms. We varied the spatial relationship between the strings, the presence of a reward and the physical contact between the string and the reward to test different cognitive skills requiring means–end comprehension. The species tested showed a high individual and inter-specific variation in their ability to solve the tasks. Spectacled parrotlets performed best among the four species and solved the most complex choice tasks, namely crossed-string task and broken-string task, spontaneously. In contrast, macaws and cockatoos failed to identify the correct string in these two tasks. The rainbow lorikeets were outperformed by the parrotlets, but outperformed in turn the macaws and the cockatoos. The findings can be best explained by the variation in social complexity among species, rather than in their ecology.     

The search for evidence: Psychoanalytic practice and the male imaginary

In this paper, I will attempt to discuss the future of psychoanalytic practice in the wake of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) embrace of ‘evidence’-based practice. In 2005, NICE, whose task is to regulate the provision of health care across the National Health Service, adopted positivistic evidence-based protocols as the sole proof of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Despite the success over the past 40?years of psychoanalytic and humanistic therapies in primary care and psychotherapy departments of psychiatric hospitals, NICE insists on restricting therapy, to those who can claim effectiveness as a result of using the data from client questionnaires commonly described as ‘outcome measures’ and it has gone on to promoting new modalities many of which have been imported from the States. As a consequence, most of the provision of psychotherapy in the public sector currently, whether as part of the National Health Service or the voluntary sector, has embraced evidence-based practice’ and many training organisations are promoting it, which will, in time, have an effect on private practice. I use some of the threads of the work of the feminist psychoanalyst Irigaray and others to understand this turn to positivistic science and how it can be understood as an instance of the retrenchment of the ‘male imaginary’ and a re-installation of the values of detachment and mastery. I query whether there are some problems within current theory, practice and institutionalisation which interfere with the emergence of a more progressive psychoanalytic practice.