Testing the attention shift hypothesis as an account for the flanker sequence-based congruency modulation in spatial flanker tasks

Smaller Simon effects when stimulus locations are repeated on successive trials rather than alternated have been explained by the attention shift hypothesis, suggesting that shifts of attention result in interfering response codes. We investigated whether the attention shift hypothesis can also explain smaller flanker effects for repeated flankers than for alternated flankers, which occur only with directional information. In 3 peripheral letter identification tasks, target locations were cued by partial or complete flanker stimuli. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that directional flankers elicit shifts of attention. However, Experiment 3 revealed that directional flankers induced inverted cuing effects when reacting to the central target arrow was additionally required. These results are difficult to reconcile with the attention shift hypothesis as an explanation for the congruency reduction with repetitions of directional flankers.     

Psychoanalytic lexicography: notes from two "harmless drudges"

The co-Editors in Chief of the American Psychoanalytic Association's new edition of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts (previously edited by Moore and Fine and last revised in 1990) recount their lexicographical adventures. Editing a dictionary at the turn of the twenty-first century is a daunting, some might say foolhardy, undertaking. The most obvious challenge faced by the editors was the growing pluralism within psychoanalysis. However, a more fundamental challenge was that the object of psychoanalytic study, the mind and its processes, can be known only by putting words to our observations, inferences, and interpretations. Psychoanalytic thinkers, starting with Freud, have wrestled with this challenge in ways that define the history of psychoanalysis itself. Long gone are the days when Freud could commend the "correctness" of Sterba's lexicographical efforts. Today postmodern critics, at the opposite extreme, argue that terms and concepts are best understood as "verbal gestures" in the "language-game" of psychoanalysis. Some go so far as to assert that dictionary-writing is obsolete. The co-Editors in Chief of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts have not succumbed to such nihilistic views, but have instead struggled to establish a reasonable stance within contemporary debates over the nature of psychoanalytic language.     

Content analysis of the Journal of Counseling Psychology: Buboltz, Miller, and Williams (1999) 11 years later

A content analysis of research published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (JCP) was conducted for Volumes 46 (1999) through 56 (2009). The analysis involved the placement of 514 articles in 15 substantive content categories. In addition, we identified the most frequently published authors, most frequent institutional affiliations, and several reported demographic characteristics. The principal areas of research activity in the JCP were multiculturalism and/or diversity, research on development and evaluation of tests and measures, personality and adjustment, outcome research, and interpersonal and/or social support and/or attachment, with these categories accounting for 57% of the articles published. Over 40% of the samples reported were college students, with a large number of samples including both genders and indicating the ethnic breakdown. This content analysis revealed that the JCP has remained consistent with its stated mission while incorporating changes in the field in its publications.