The role of functional and perceptual attributes: evidence from picture naming in dementia

We examined the performance of a group of people with moderately severe Alzheimer's type dementia on a naming task. We found that functional information plays an important role in determining naming performance on both living and non-living things. Perceptual information may play some role in naming living things. We also found some evidence that the semantic category to which an item belongs may also have some effect on naming performance. We argue that both the sensory-functional and domain-specific knowledge hypotheses may be correct: the brain is to some organized on taxonomic grounds, while the semantic representations of living and non-living things depend differentially on perceptual and functional information. These representations can be differentially disrupted by damage to modality-specific stores. At a moderate level of severity, dementia causes global damage that has the effect of disrupting both the localized taxonomic and the modality-specific stores. We discuss the nature of functional information.     

Jung, Evans-Wentz and various other gurus

How did Jung become deeply concerned with Asian religions and particularly with the Tibetan Buddhism of a Welshman from Trenton, New Jersey? Could that man be considered one of Jung's gurus? This essay begins six years after Jung, at twenty, was admitted to the medical school of Basel University and became a member of the Zofingiaverein, a student society. The next year he gave the first of a series of lectures on the interpretation of Christ as the model of the ‘god-man’, like the Apostle Paul, Confucius, Zoroaster and the Buddha, who was ‘drummed into the Hindu boy’. (Jung's Zofingia Lectures were discovered only after his death, in 1961, and were published in English in 1983). The present essay discusses Jung's early Buddhist interest as displayed in The Psychology of the Unconscious (finally, in a revision, entitled Symbols of Transformation), in Psychological Types and later in his foreword of the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching. Jung was influenced by the gurus Richard Wilhelm and his son Hellmut, the scholar J. W. Hauer (with whom he later broke off relations because of Hauer's Nazi politics), the indologist Heinrich Zimmer, and the Zen master D. T. Suzuki. Walter Yeeling Wentz was born in Trenton in 1878 and brought up in his family's theosophist faith. The Wentzes moved to San Diego in 1900, and Walter added his mother's Celtic surname, Evans, to the German Wentz. He was educated at Stanford University and travelled in Europe, studying Celtic folklore, and widely in the Near East, Tibet, India, and Oxford – studying religions everywhere and editing Tibetan books. He lived his last decades in San Diego and conducted a correspondence with Jung, while living in a cheap hotel, or in an ashram.     

Neuropsychology,genetic liability,and psychotic symptoms in those at high risk of schizophrenia

Neuropsychological assessments were compared among individuals at enhanced genetic risk of schizophrenia (n = 157) and controls (n = 34). The relationship between cognitive impairments and the presence of psychotic symptoms and measures of genetic risk was explored in the high-risk subjects. Neuropsychological differences were identified in many areas of function and were not accounted for by the presence of psychotic symptoms. Genetic liability was not associated with neuropsychological performance or with psychotic symptoms, but exploratory analysis showed some tests were associated with both liability measures. These results suggest that what is inherited is not the disorder itself but a state of vulnerability manifested by neuropsychological impairment, occurring in many more individuals than are predicted to develop the disorder.     

Clarifying achievement goals and their impact

The study of achievement goals has illuminated basic motivational processes, though controversy surrounds their nature and impact. In 5 studies, including a longitudinal study in a difficult premed course, the authors show that the impact of learning and performance goals depends on how they are operationalized. Active learning goals predicted active coping, sustained motivation, and higher achievement in the face of challenge. Among performance goals, ability-linked goals predicted withdrawal and poorer performance in the face of challenge (but provided a "boost" to performance when students met with success); normative goals did not predict decrements in motivation or performance; and outcome goals (wanting a good grade) were in fact equally related to learning goals and ability goals. Ways in which the findings address discrepancies in the literature are discussed.     

Development and validation of a modified version of the Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire

This article reports results from 3 studies conducted to develop and validate a modified version of the self-administered form of the Peritraumatic Dissociative Experiences Questionnaire (PDEQ; C. R. Marmar, D. S. Weiss, & T. J. Metzler, 1997). The objective was to develop an instrument suitable for use with persons from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. In Study 1, the original PDEQ was administered to a small sample (N = 15) recruited from among men admitted to the hospital for physical injuries stemming from exposure to community violence. Results led to modifications aimed at improving the utility of the instrument. In Study 2, the modified PDEQ was subjected to structural equation modeling and item response theory analyses to assess its psychometric properties in a larger, primarily male, sample of community violence survivors (N = 284). In Study 3, the reliability and validity of the modified instrument were further assessed in a sample of female survivors of sexual assault (N = 90). Results attest to the psychometric properties as well as the reliability and validity of the modified 8-item PDEQ.     

Delusions and delusional reasoning

In 2 studies, delusional participants assigned higher probabilities to narratives of actual delusions than participants with no history of delusions; previously delusional participants did not differ significantly from delusional participants or participants with no history of delusions. In Study 2, the authors found that this reasoning bias was specific to delusions and did not generalize to "neutral" text. Familiarity with the content of the delusion narratives played a mediating role in the estimation of their probability, but delusional status also had a significant, independent effect. These findings are consistent with the Bayesian model of delusion formation proposed by D. R. Hemsley and P. A. Garety (1986), and with R. P. Bentall, P. Kinderman, and S. Kaney's (1994) concept of "emotional saliency." A productive area of future research might be to further determine the elements of "emotional saliency" and their impact on the individual steps of the Bayesian model.     

A possible function of the preference for hind nipples in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster)

Prairie vole pups (Microtus ochrogaster) in laboratory cages prefer hind nipples. In this research, the author observed 8 litters of prairie voles in a seminatural environment to confirm the preference for hind nipples and to determine if young on hind nipples were groomed more frequently or dislodged less frequently than were young on other nipples. Prairie vole pups in seminatural environments preferred hind nipples; this preference was illustrated by the progressive use of more anterior nipples only as litter size increased and by the reluctance of pups to voluntarily release their hold on hind nipples. Maternal grooming of young did not vary with suckling location. Prairie vole young on hind nipples, however, were dislodged less frequently than were young on other nipples. Less frequent dislodgment from hind nipples during maternal movements may play a role in the preference for hind nipples in prairie voles.     

The self in the couple relationship: part 1

This paper discusses the importance of the ‘good-enough’ development of the core self in the couple relationship. It argues that difficulties in the development of the self lie behind a significant number of troubled couple relationships. Part 1 focuses on individual psychotherapy and how changes to the core self are often attended by shifts in the marital relationship. It traces how this occurs through clinical material and analyses what kinds of changes to the self are needed for the couple relationship to function well. Psychodynamic theory is used to understand the core changes over time and how these are related to significant second-order change in the couple relationship. The construct of the ‘transitional space’ is used to theorize the couple relationship. Implications for the practice of individual psychotherapy are discussed. In Part 2, the significance of change in the experience of the self of one or both partners for a successful outcome of couples therapy is discussed, along with the place of work with individual partner(s) in the course of conjoint couples therapy.