Test-retest reliability of the Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt in chronic schizophrenics

This study assesses the test-retest reliability of the revised Advanced Psychodiagnostic Interpretation (API) scoring system for the Bender Gestalt Test (BGT). The API system identifies 207 possible distortions in a BGT protocol. Test-retest reliability for 40 schizophrenic patients tested twice with a mean interval of 6.4 years (SD=3.8 years) was good, ranging from .71 to .80. Further reliability and validity studies are needed to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the system.     

Shared neighborhood effects in masked orthographic priming

Several studies have found effects of orthographically related masked nonword primes on lexical decisions to target words. These effects have been explained by the neighborhood characteristics of the target word (Forster, 1987), but the neighborhood characteristics of the prime in combination with the target are also found to be important (Hinton, Liversedge, & Underwood, 1998). In this study, we present a new account of masked form-priming effects based on the shared neighborhood of prime and target. Shared neighbors are words that are activated by both prime and target. According to the interactive activation model (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981), shared neighborhood determines the size of priming effects. This prediction was tested and confirmed in a masked priming experiment that manipulated the shared neighborhood density of complete primes.     

Loss of rapid phonological recoding in reading Hanja, the logographic script of Korean

The role that recent experience has in the processing of Korean Hanja characters was investigated in two masked priming experiments. Two groups of Korean native speakers that differed in their recent exposure to Hanja were asked to name single Hanja characters (targets) that were immediately preceded by masked presentations of the same characters (repetition priming), Hanja characters that were homophones of the target (homophone priming), or unrelated characters (baseline). The results showed that the group that had been less recently exposed made more errors and were slower than the group that had been the more recently exposed. Furthermore, there was no character homophone priming for the less recently exposed group, although they did show a robust repetition priming effect. On the other hand, the more recently exposed group showed both strong character repetition and homophone priming effects. We suggest that regular exposure to characters supports their rapid and automatic processing. It is argued that the different patterns of priming for the two groups were due to how rapidly the orthographic and phonological information of the prime could be resolved.     

The Embodiment of Birth

This paper rejects dualism between mind and body toview the self as an embodied biological entity. Rather thanseeing the body operating by passive mechanisms as Descartesargues, it holds it actively moves in and even defines its world. Carrying this perspective to medicine presents an attempt toincorporate or work with internal processes of the body; it issensitive to how patients identify with their bodies. Thecurrent discussion over the extent to which women should try tohave natural childbirths provides a concrete example of thedifferences between mechanistic and embodied approaches tomedicine.     

Face recognition and emotional valence: processing without awareness by neurologically intact participants does not simulate covert recognition in prosopagnosia

Covert face recognition in neurologically intact participants was investigated with the use of very brief stimulus presentation to prevent awareness of the stimulus. In Experiment 1, skin conductance response (SCR) to photographs of celebrity and unfamiliar faces was recorded; the faces were displayed for 220 msec and for 17 msec in a within-participants design. SCR to faces presented for 220 msec was larger and more likely to occur with familiar faces than with unfamiliar faces. Face familiarity did not affect the SCR to faces presented for 17 msec. SCR was larger for faces of good than for faces of evil celebrities presented for 17 msec, but valence did not affect SCR to faces displayed for 220 msec. In Experiment 2, associative priming was found in a face familiarity decision task when the prime face was displayed for 220 msec, but no facilitation occurred when primes were presented for 17 msec. In Experiment 3, participants were able to differentiate evil and good faces presented without awareness in a two-alternative forced-choice decision. The results provide no evidence of familiarity detection outside awareness in normal participants and suggest that, contrary to previous research, very brief presentation to neurologically intact participants is not a useful model for the types of covert recognition found in prosopagnosia. However, a response based on affective valence appears to be available from brief presentation.     

Autonomy and relatedness in psychopathology and treatment: a cross-cultural formulation

A cross-cultural view of psychopathology is proposed, contending that there are two basic systems of self-organization. These two systems of self-organization, labeled autonomy and relatedness, are essential to a person's well-being regardless of the culture or society to which the person belongs. The degree of autonomy and relatedness required to maintain mental health in a specific society is affected by cultural mores. People in collectivistic (primarily non-Western) cultures require high levels of relatedness and moderate levels of autonomy to maintain mental health. People in individualistic (primarily Western) cultures require high levels of autonomy and moderate levels of relatedness to maintain mental health. This view, based on a review of past work in various areas of psychology, is discussed in the context of various forms of psychotherapy existing in individualistic and collectivistic cultures.     

Feature localization and identification

Theories on visual search differ substantially with respect to the relationship they assume between localization and identification processes. The aim of the present study was to rigorously compare the alternative theoretical notions on how localization and identification processes are related. In two experiments, participants searched for a target with a unique line orientation among distractors containing another orientation. Localization and identification performance were measured in combination, as function of display size and target eccentricity. To compare the alternative theories, formal binomial models were developed and compared with respect to their goodness of fit to the individual data. The formal analyses showed that the model assuming identification processes to be conditioned on localization processes provided the best fit to the individual data. Furthermore, maximum likelihood estimates of the parameter corresponding to identification processes were differently affected by display size than identification performance was. The results were discussed in terms of their implication for current theories on visual search.     

Labeling sexual harassment in the military: an extension and replication

Research conducted by V. Magley, C. Hulin, L. F. Fitzgerald, and M. DeNardo (1999) has suggested that women who experience sexual harassment report worse outcomes independent of the labeling process. This study replicates and extends that work. Discriminant analyses were conducted on a sample of approximately 28,000 men and women from the military. The authors included variables similar to those used by V. Magley et al., as well as a variety of antecedent variables. Two significant functions were obtained from the discriminant analysis. The 1st function ordered groups according to the frequency of harassment and accounted for substantially more variance than did the 2nd function, which ordered groups according to whether they labeled their experiences as sexual harassment. The overall results from these analyses demonstrate that labeling incidents as sexual harassment is of marginal meaningfulness in terms of job outcomes and antecedents of harassment.