From concepts to lexical items.

In this paper we address the question how in language production conceptual structures are mapped onto lexical items. First we describe the lexical system in a fairly abstract way. Such a system consists of, among other things, a fixed set of basic lexical entries characterized by four groups of information: phonetic form, grammatical features, argument structure, and semantic form. A crucial assumption of the paper is that the meaning in a lexical entry has a complex internal structure composed of more primitive elements (decomposition). Some aspects of argument structure and semantic form and their interaction are discussed with respect to the issue of synonymy. We propose two different mappings involved in lexical access. One maps conceptual structures to semantic forms, and the other maps semantic forms to conceptual structures. Both mappings are context dependent and are many-to-many mappings. We present an elaboration of Levelt's (1989) model in which these processes interact with the grammatical encoder and the mental lexicon. Then we address the consequences of decomposition for processing models, especially the nature of the input of lexical access and the time course. Processing models that use the activation metaphor may have difficulties accounting for certain phenomena where a certain lemma triggers not one, but two or more word forms that have to be produced with other word forms in between.     

Picture naming.

Picture naming has become an important experimental paradigm in cognitive psychology. To name a picture can be considered an elementary process in the use of language. Thus, its chronometric analysis elucidates cognitive structures and processes that underlie speaking. Essentially, these analyses compare picture naming with reading, picture categorizing, and word categorizing. Furthermore, techniques of double stimulation such as the paradigms of priming and of Stroop-like interference are used. In this article, recent results obtained with these methods are reviewed and discussed with regard to five hypotheses about the cognitive structures that are involved in picture naming. Beside the older hypotheses of internal coding systems with only verbal or only pictorial format, the hypotheses of an internal dual code with a pictorial and a verbal component, of a common abstract code with logogen and pictogen subsystems, and the so-called lexical hypothesis are discussed. The latter postulates two main components: an abstract semantic memory which, nevertheless, also subserves picture processing, and a lexicon that carries out the huge amount of word processing without semantic interpretation that is necessary in hearing, reading, speaking and writing.     

Accessing words in speech production: stages, processes and representations.

This paper introduces a special issue of Cognition on lexical access in speech production. Over the last quarter century, the psycholinguistic study of speaking, and in particular of accessing words in speech, received a major new impetus from the analysis of speech errors, dysfluencies and hesitations, from aphasiology, and from new paradigms in reaction time research. The emerging theoretical picture partitions the accessing process into two subprocesses, the selection of an appropriate lexical item (a "lemma") from the mental lexicon, and the phonological encoding of that item, that is, the computation of a phonetic program for the item in the context of utterance. These two theoretical domains are successively introduced by outlining some core issues that have been or still have to be addressed. The final section discusses the controversial question whether phonological encoding can affect lexical selection. This partitioning is also followed in this special issue as a whole. There are, first, four papers on lexical selection, then three papers on phonological encoding, and finally one on the interaction between selection and phonological encoding.     

No counterregulation after breaking the external restraint of children.

At the present, it is unknown how restraint and binge eating/counterregulation are exactly related. Earlier studies on this relationship suffer from two main shortcomings: the studies are all correlational in nature or could not rule out the contribution of confounding variables such as weight loss. The present study investigated whether a break of restraint is a sufficient condition for the occurrence of counterregulation by studying a restrained sample which is not liable to dieting practices and weight loss. The externally imposed restraint on children with regard to eating sweets was broken. However, after breaking their external restraint the children did not counterregulate. It is discussed whether restraint of food intake is really as important for binge eating as it is claimed to be or whether it is merely a consequence or an epiphenomenon of binge eating.     

Efficient pain assessment in clinical settings.

The need for efficient and practical assessment techniques of the multidimensional nature of chronic pain remains paramount in clinical settings. Visual analogue scales (VASs) and simple behavioral observation methods have been proposed as efficient, reliable, and valid measures of the subjective (sensory and affective) and overt behavioral aspects of the pain experience. The relationships among VASs and the UAB Pain Behavior Scale were examined among 48 chronic pain patients. Ratings of overt behavior were significantly related to both the VAS sensory and VAS affective ratings. Regression analysis indicated that the VAS scores accounted for significant amount of the variance (27.7%) in UAB scores. Moreover, the affective dimension of self-reported pain tended to be more strongly related to the visible manifestations of pain than were ratings of pain intensity.     

Predictors of short-term treatment outcome in bulimia nervosa inpatients.

Recent studies, mostly performed on bulimic outpatients, did not find consistent predictors of treatment outcome in bulimia nervosa. This is the first study to investigate anamnestic and clinical factors predictive of the short-term outcome of hospital treatment in 31 female bulimia nervosa patients with a mean age of 22.9 yr. Treatment outcome was assessed by several self-rating instruments measuring different features of the specific and unspecific psychopathology of bulimia nervosa. The most relevant predictors of the outcome of the 8-week hospital treatment were duration of previous inpatient treatments for bulimia, the intensity of anorexic tendency and the pretreatment level of depression. The majority of predictors tested did not show a strong relationship to treatment outcome. The findings are discussed in relation to results of other studies as well as to possible implications for treatment and research.     

A variation on Freud's theme in "A child is being beaten"--mother's role: some implications for superego development in women.

Clinical material is presented leading to a discussion of beating fantasies which varies from Freud's model. Analysis shows that the fantasied role girls assign to mother as the punisher in the oedipal drama is equivalent to the fantasied role boys ascribe to father as castrator. For both sexes, castration anxiety spurs the internalization of parental prohibitions, the repression of oedipal wishes, and the subsequent structuralization of the superego. Mother establishes the "oedipal law" for the girl analogously to father's doing the same for the boy. The role that such fantasies play in the formation of the female superego is examined.     

Art alone endures.

Sigmund Freud, a passionate collector of antiquities, often treated these objects as animate beings. He described such blurring of boundaries between persons and things in the protagonist of W. Jensen's novella, Gradiva. Freud began collecting when his father died, but his unusual attitude toward artefacts was established much earlier, presumably as a consequence of repeated early disappointments in human caretakers. It is postulated that this adaptive maneuver was not simply a displacement of love and hate, but a turning away from vulnerability in relationships, toward attachments over which he might retain effective control. The Freud Collection is largely focused on Greco-Roman and Egyptian objects. Freud's profound interest in classical civilization was established in childhood; he was particularly concerned with the struggle between Aryan Rome and Semitic Carthage, a conflict in which he identified with both sides. This ambivalence reflected growing up within a marginal Jewish family in a Germanic environment. Commitment to classical ideals represented an optimal manner of bridging these contrasting worlds. Egyptian artefacts were, for Freud, links to the prehistory of the Jewish people; they also represent an era when maternal deities found their proper place in man's pantheon--an echo of Freud's prehistoric past.