Orientation in cognitive maps

In 14 experiments, subjects had to “point to” surrounding environmental locations (targets) while imagining themselves in a particular spot facing in various directions (orientations). The spatial information was either committed to memory (cognitive maps) or directly presented on each trial in the visual or tactile modality. Reaction times (RT) indicated that orientation shifts were achieved through mental rotation in the visual task, but not in the cognitive map or tactile tasks. Further, in the latter two tasks targets were located most quickly when they were adjacent to or opposite the imagined orientation. Several explanations of this finding were tested. Various aspects of the data suggest that cognitive maps are not strictly holistic, but consist of orientation-specific representations, and—at least in part—of relational propositions specific to object pairs.     

The psychiatrist Heinroth--a critical reflection

Heinroth (1773-1848) belongs to the founders of psychiatry in Germany. He represented an idealistic, spiritualistic psychiatric school that had a strong leaning towards materialist ideas. He believed that mental disturbances were caused by guilt and sin. But, besides these speculations, he also expressed views that led to view psychiatric and psychotherapeutic insights. One of these was his postulated psychogenesis of mental disturbances. His thoughts on the importance of social, biographical and psychosomatic factors also contributed to the development of psychiatry.     

Logistic latent trait models with linear constraints

Two linearly constrained logistic models which are based on the well-known dichotomous Rasch model, the ‘linear logistic test model’ (LLTM) and the ‘linear logistic model with relaxed assumptions’ (LLRA), are discussed. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of unique conditional maximum likelihood estimates of the structural model parameters are derived. Methods for testing composite hypotheses within the framework of these models and a number of typical applications to real data are mentioned.     

Age and depression: unique and shared effects

The degree to which psychosocial variables associated with depression were also associated with age was examined in 3 samples of community residents 50 years of age or older (N = 4,617). Most of the expected concomitants of depression were found. With only a few exceptions, age was not correlated with depression-related psychosocial variables. Rather, age was most strongly associated with levels in neuropsychological and psychophysiological functioning. In addition, the magnitudes of the correlations in women compared with men and in young-old age groups compared with old-age groups were examined. A number of significant differences emerged, and their implications for theories of depression are noted.     

Visual-feature and response components in a picture-word interference task with beginning and skilled readers

A series of four experiments is reported in which reaction times for naming line drawings were analyzed as a function of the similarity of the print superimposed on the drawings to the printed label for the drawing. This effect was studied as a function of grade level (ages 6, 8, and 11 years) and, hence, reading experience. The studies were designed to determine more precisely the characteristics of the stage of visual feature analysis of word identification and to examine response competition factors in this interference task. Results indicated that a combination of end letters and word shape was important for word identification and that response articulation was a significant distinct interference component in this task.