Compassion: An east‐west comparison

Compassion is an emotion that occupies a central position in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy while it is often a neglected subject in contemporary western philosophy. This essay is a comparison between an Eastern view of compassion based upon Mahāyāna Buddhist perspectives and a western view of the same emotion. Certain principles found in Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy such as the Bodhisattva Ideal, and suffering (dukkha) to name two, are explored for the information they contain about compassion. An essay by Lawrence Blum is taken as representative of a Western view (but not exclusively) and it is analyzed for its shortcomings in light of the Buddhist view. The conclusion briefly describes the value of understanding an eastern view on compassion as a means of filling the void one finds in western medical ethics discourse which focuses so heavily, and redundantly, upon issues such as patient autonomy and paternalism.     

Age differences in peripheral perceptual processing: a monoptic backward masking investigation

Peripheral processes in vision were investigated in two experiments involving monoptic backward masking with random noise. For young and old subjects, peripheral processing time (represented by stimulus onset asynchrony of target and mask) was characterized as a power function of target energy. Although processing time for both age groups showed a similar rate of decline with increasing target energy, old subjects processed targets more slowly at all energy levels. Results were independent of education, sex, and criterion differences between young and old. Target duration was related to critical interstimulus interval, such that stimulus onset asynchrony between target and mask was approximately constant for a given target energy within each age group. Evidence suggests that peripheral processing begins with target onset and that processing time is best characterized by a power function relating stimulus onset asynchrony of target and mask to target energy.     

Memory for movement: Interaction of location and distance cues and imagery ability

The present experiments examined the role of imagery ability in recall of either the terminal location or the distance of a preselected horizontal linear movement following changes in the recall starting position. Subjects were selected on the basis of their scores on a shortened version of the Betts Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (Betts Q.M.I., Sheehan 1967). Both high and low imagers were assigned to one of four groups, HIL, LIL, HID, LID, the last letter indicating the movement cue (terminal location or distance moved) to be recalled. Recall of the appropriate movement cue from one of four new recall starting positions occurred after either a 5-sec or 30-sec unfilled retention interval. Analysis of constant error indicated all groups were unable to recall the specified movement cue independent of the other source of information, even when subjects were given explicit instructions to utilise an imagery strategy. The data corroborate our earlier findings that memory for self paced movements is based on an interaction of location and distance cues derived from the criterion movement.     

Concurrent validity of Holland's theory for non-college-degreed black women

This study, using the Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and the Self-Directed Search (SDS), explored the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women. The VPI and the SDS were administered to 102 black women workers in occupational environments consistent with Holland's six vocational environments. The results revealed that four scales of the VPI and four scales of the SDS successfully differentiated the occupational groups consistent with Holland's theoretical notions. In general, the findings lend some support to the concurrent validity of Holland's theory for employed non-college-degreed black women.     

Mouse killing in rats induced by lesions of the medial hypothalamus or medial accumbens: short-term preoperative exposure to a mouse does not suppress the killing

Rats were either exposed or not exposed to a mouse in their living cage for a 48-hr period. At the end of this time a bilateral lesion was made in the medial accumbens region or in the medial hypothalamus. When tested 2 days postoperatively, the killing frequency among rats that had been exposed to mice preoperatively was not significantly lower than that of rats that were not preoperatively exposed. The ineffectiveness of preoperative experience in suppressing the mouse killing induced by medial accumbens and medial hypothalamic lesions is similar to that found previously with dorsal-median raphe lesions and olfactory bulb lesions and is in contrast to the ease with which preoperative experience prevents mouse killing induced by septal lesions and serotonergic lesions induced by 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine.     

Voice-onset time as a clue to the nature of Broca speech errors

Blumstein, Cooper, Goodglass, Statlender, and Gottleib (Brain and Language, 9, 153–170 (1980)) attempt to determine by an examination of the VOTs of aphasic speakers whether Broca's aphasics make phonemic substitutions in addition to their well-known phonetic errors. There are a number of problems with this study, mostly due to an apparent failure to fully appreciate the fact that VOT is a cover term for several acoustic features. It is suggested that VOT measurement in any given position in a word cannot solve this problem and that future studies should include glottographic observations as well as VOT measurements made in all positions in the word.     

Rorschach assessment of purging and nonpurging bulimics

Research in bulimia has flourished in recent years, and yet minimal attention has been devoted to explorations of the bulimic's basic personality organization. We utilized the Rorschach to differentiate between purging and nonpurging bulimics and controls. There were 15 subjects in each group. The Comprehensive System (Exner, 1986) was used for the scoring of the protocols. Statistically significant differences were not found between the two bulimia groups, but interesting trends were detected in the areas of depression, anger, and self-preoccupation. Results appear to be constrained by the low rate of purging behavior. Comparisons between the combined bulimia groups and the controls resulted in solidly characterizing the bulimics as displaying perceptual inaccuracies, disordered thinking, a vulnerability to interpersonal problems, a damaged self-image, and a pessimistic outlook. The strengths of the study were its use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., rev. [DSM-III-R]; American Psychiatric Association, 1987) nonpatients bulimic subtypes and a control group that was comparable in terms of demographics. Future Rorschach studies with bulimics displaying higher frequencies of binging and purging behaviors are suggested.     

Consequences of person-environment incongruence: absenteeism, frustration, and stress

Two correlational studies using English nurses and working adults are reported that examined the relationship between the three measures of person-environment (P-E) fit as derived from Holland's (1973) theory and three dependent work-related variables. In the first study, the P-E fit measures of congruence, consistency, and differentiation were correlated with two measures of absenteeism, frustration, and various demographic variables. Contrary to predictions, two measures of absenteeism were positively correlated with congruence and consistency. In accordance with the hypothesis, however, frustration was highly negatively correlated with congruence and consistency. In the second study, consistency, but not congruence or differentiation, was significantly negatively correlated with stress, as predicted. These studies provide some support for Holland's theses, although not all hypotheses were supported, both for methodological and theoretical reasons. It is argued that P-E fit measures are useful predictors of occupational behavior in conjunction with other major determinants.