La compréhension d'un texte procédural: Un processus à profondeur variable

This study investigates the comprehension of a dosage according to the desired aim before reading. The results of the two experiments carried out indicate that only the cognitive activities underlying the performance of the instructions (versus comprehension/memorisation) require the transformation of the declarative representation into a procedural one. The inferences generated attest a result/procedure relation and a hierarchical organisation of the planification of actions brought into play. Moreover, information which is directly goal‐related receives more extensive treatment than other information.     

Parallel process in supervision

This paper addresses the concept of parallel process and its application in clinical supervision. Parallels between therapy and supervision are examined as well as some of the key issues surrounding the use of parallel process as a supervisory intervention. Although there is a need for more investigation to explain and support this concept further, the authors would argue that parallel process interventions in supervision can enhance the supervisory process and the task of teaching and learning for both the supervisee and supervisor. A case example is provided to demonstrate the parallel process in supervision and its potential as a facilitative intervention.     

The ventriloquist effect does not depend on the direction of automatic visual attention

Previously, we showed that the visual bias of auditory sound location, or ventriloquism, does not depend on the direction of deliberate, orendogenous, attention (Bertelson, Vroomen, de Gelder, & Driver, 2000). In the present study, a similar question concerning automatic, orexogenous, attention was examined. The experimental manipulation was based on the fact that exogenous visual attention can be attracted toward asingleton—that is, an item different on some dimension from all other items presented simultaneously. A display was used that consisted of a row of four bright squares with one square, in either the left- or the rightmost position,smaller than the others, serving as the singleton. In Experiment 1, subjects made dichotomous left-right judgments concerning sound bursts, whose successivelocations were controlled by a psychophysical staircase procedure and which were presented in synchrony with a display with the singleton either left or right. Results showed that the apparent location of the sound was attractednot toward the singleton, but instead toward the big squares at the opposite end of the display. Experiment 2 was run to check that the singleton effectively attracted exogenous attention. The task was to discriminate target letters presented either on the singleton or on the opposite big square. Performance deteriorated when the target was on the big square opposite the singleton, in comparison with control trials with no singleton, thus showing that the singleton attracted attention away from the target location. In Experiment 3, localization and discrimination trials were mixed randomly so as to control for potential differences in subjects’ strategies in the two preceding experiments. Results were as before, showing that the singleton attracted attention, whereas sound localization was shifted away from the singleton. Ventriloquism can thus be dissociated from exogenous visual attention and appears to reflect sensory interactions with little role for the direction of visual spatial attention.     

FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE TO THE ANALYSING SITUATION1

The analytic method relies on the mental capacity to produce an associative sequence, and, afterwards, to discern its unconscious logic; within the social practice of the analytic cure, the method presents itself as the mastered enactment of the condition through which free association proves to be possible, interpretable and beneficial. There is a contradiction between the necessity of relying on a former theorisation and that of willingly suspending a knowledge that might serve the authenticity of the experience. The author reminds us of the structural links between the fundamental rule and the defined situations within which the analytic process of transformative investigation can take place. He raises the problems that it is suggested arise with the initial objectivation method by acknowledging the transference as the created‐found object of interpretation. He shows how the transformation of the patient into analysand implies the functional introjection of the various elements contained by the analytic site. The meaning given to the expression ‘analysing situation’ is made explicit. The crucial value of the process of enunciation is illustrated by a brief example.     

Correlates of Mental Disorders in the Quebec General Population of 6 to 14-Year Olds

Previous epidemiological studies of correlates of child and adolescent mental disorders in the general population have focused more on child/adolescent and socioeconomic/sociodemographic characteristics than on family characteristics. Moreover, there are no generally accepted methods to analyze and interpret correlates. The purpose of the Quebec Child Mental Health Survey in this regard was twofold: (1) to identify correlates of DSM-III-R internalizing and externalizing disorders according to informant (youth, parent, teacher), for three age groups (6–8, 9–11, and 12–14 years), including relevant family characteristics not considered in previous studies; and (2) to interpret the relative importance of risk indicators by ranking correlates according to strength and consistency of association across age groups. Logistic regression models suggest the inconsistency of correlates across informants. The ranking of correlates reveals that individual and family characteristics make a more important contribution than do socioeconomic characteristics, thereby supporting the relevance of proximal variables in the development of psychopathology.     

Simultaneous nonlinear prediction

A previous article was concerned with simultaneous linear prediction [1]. There one was given a set of predictor tests or items and one predicted a set of predictands (also tests or items, or perhaps criteria.) We proposed asimultaneous prediction which was a certain weighted sum of the predictors. In the present article the constraint that the prediction be a weighted sum is relaxed. We seek a general function of the predictors which will maximize the quantity chosen for measuring prediction efficiency. This quantity is the same as the one used in linear prediction and we justify this approach by showing it is the appropriate one when there is only one predictand. In order to solve the problem we restrict consideration to a vector of predictors having only a finite number of possible values, i.e., it possesses discrete probability distribution weights. This can be applied in the case of dichotomous items for instance. It may also be used in continuous distributions as an approximation, by first dividing the original range of values into a finite number of intervals. Then one attributes to the interval the weight corresponding to the probability mass it underlies in the original distribution.This work was initiated at Stanford University under contract 2-10-065 with U. S. Office of Education and was partly revised at the Université de Montréal.I wish to express my gratitude to Professor Herbert Solomon, Stanford University, for his unfailing assistance at all stages of my work and specially for bringing to my attention the problem of nonlinear prediction in the present context.