Unglücklich machende Familienideale

Zusammenfassung Der Artikel konstrastiert familiäre Lebensrealitäten und familiäre Idealvorstellungen miteinander. Für Patienten, bei denen beide weit auseinander klaffen, werden Anregungen für die Dekonstruktion selbstquälerischer Familienideale in der Psychotherapie entwickelt. Als potenziell unglücklich machend werden Familienideale beschrieben, nach denen Kinder (nur) eine Familie und Familien (nur) ein Heim brauchen; dass Familien gemeinsam verbrachte Zeit, Söhne ihre Väter und überhaupt Kinder heterosexuelle Eltern bräuchten; dass Eltern einander lieben und ihre Kinder bei sich behalten sollten; dass Kinder sich von ihren Eltern ablösen sollten. Als psychotherapeutisch nützlich werden aus Familiensoziologie und systemischer Psychotherapie die Ideen der Wahlverwandtschaft, der konsensentlasteten Diskurse und der systemischen Selbstbeobachtung empfohlen, ferner als therapeutische Techniken die zirkulären Fragen, speziell Verschlimmerungsfragen und die positive Umdeutung. Die Konstruktion neuer Rituale und die Nutzung von Netzwerkressourcen stehen am Ende der Untersuchung.Überarbeitete Fassung des Eröffnungsvortrags der Lübecker Psychotherapiewoche, 17.10.1999.     

Predictive pointing movements and saccades toward a moving target

The authors investigated whether and, if so, how velocity information is used to control predictive manual pointing movements and saccades. Participants (N = 6) intercepted an occluded moving target as if it were still visible. They kept their eyes fixated while the target moved. The target traveled over a fixed distance and changed its velocity on the way. The presentation time of the final velocity was varied. Both the eye and the hand overshot the slow target and undershot the fast target, particularly when the duration of the final velocity was short. Thus, responses were biased in the direction of the target's initial velocity. The error seemed to arise because participants did not take their latency into account when aiming at the target. Instead, they strategically aimed farther ahead when the target was fast. Amplitude was also more related to the position of velocity change than to final velocity duration. Both findings suggest that target velocity is not extrapolated but that individuals add an increment to the position of velocity change.     

Personality differences in hindsight bias

Ten personality correlates of hindsight bias were tested in a study with 75 participants answering almanac-type knowledge questions. Participants showed hindsight bias when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates (memory condition), when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates of other participants (BS = between-subjects hypothetical condition), and when hindsight estimates were compared to foresight estimates in response to equally difficult control items (WS = within-subject hypothetical condition). The magnitude of hindsight bias in both hypothetical conditions was positively associated with the participant's field dependence and his or her tendency for favourable self-presentation (as measured by social desirability and impression management). Between-subjects hypothetical hindsight was associated with the participant's conscientiousness and need for predictability and control (as measured by a rigidity scale). In a multiple regression analysis, 39% of the variance in BS hypothetical hindsight, 24% of the variance in WS hypothetical hindsight, but no significant proportion of the variance in memory hindsight could be accounted for by personality measures. It is concluded that individual differences in hindsight bias exist and must be taken into account in a complete model of the effect.     

Natural scenes upset the visual applecart

The effortless ease of everyday vision seems to contradict numerous findings on the limited capacity of visual attention. However, natural scenes appear to escape the stringent limitations of attention that apply to seemingly far simpler stimuli. This astonishing result will oblige us to rethink the nature of visual attention and its limited capacity.     

Visual perspective taking for avatars in a Simon task

In modern digital applications, users often interact with virtual representations of themselves or others, called avatars. We examined how these avatars and their perspectives influence stimulus–response compatibility in a Simon task. Participants responded to light/dark blue stimuli with left/right key presses in the presence of a task-irrelevant avatar. Changes in stimulus–response compatibility were used to quantify changes in the mental representation of the task and perspective taking toward this avatar. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that perspective taking for an avatar occurred in orthogonal stimulus–response mappings, causing a compatibility effect from the avatar’s point of view. In the following two experiments we introduced a larger variety of angular disparities between the participant and avatar. In Experiment 3, the Simon effect with lateralized stimulus positions remained largely unaffected by the avatar, pointing toward an absence of perspective taking. In Experiment 4, after avatar hand movements were added in order to strengthen the participants’ sense of agency over the avatar, a spatial compatibility effect from the avatar’s perspective was observed again, and hints of the selective use of perspective taking on a trial-by-trial basis were found. Overall, the results indicate that users can incorporate the perspective of an avatar into their mental representation of a situation, even when this perspective is unnecessary to complete a task, but that certain contextual requirements have to be met.     

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Anterior cingulate cortex activation is related to learning potential on the WCST in schizophrenia patients

The remediation of executive function in patients with schizophrenia is important in rehabilitation because these skills affect the patient's capacity to function in the community. There is evidence that instructional techniques can improve deficits in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in some schizophrenia patients. We used a standard test/training phase/standard test format of the WCST to classify 36 schizophrenia patients as high-achievers, learners or non-retainers. All healthy controls performed as high-achievers. An event-related fMRI design assessed neural activation patterns during post-training WCST performance. Patients showed a linear trend between set-shifting related activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and learning potential, i.e. increased activation in high-achievers, a trend for increased activation in learners, and no activation in non-retainers compared to controls. In addition, activation in the temporoparietal cortex was highest in patients classified as learners, whereas in non-retainers activation was increased in the inferior frontal gyrus compared to controls and high-achieving patients. These results emphasize the relevance of the ACC's neural integrity in learning set-shifting strategies for patients with schizophrenia. Also, our results support the hypothesis that compensatory neural activation in patients with schizophrenia helps them to catch up with healthy controls on cognitive tasks.     

On the meaning and the epistemological relevance of the notion of a scientific phenomenon

In this paper I offer an appraisal of James Bogen and James Woodward’s distinction between data and phenomena which pursues two objectives. First, I aim to clarify the notion of a scientific phenomenon. Such a clarification is required because despite its intuitive plausibility it is not exactly clear how Bogen and Woodward’s distinction has to be understood. I reject one common interpretation of the distinction, endorsed for example by James McAllister and Bruce Glymour, which identifies phenomena with patterns in data sets. Furthermore, I point out that other interpretations of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction do not specify the relationship between phenomena and theories in a satisfying manner. In order to avoid this problem I propose a contextual understanding of scientific phenomena according to which phenomena are states of affairs which play specific roles in scientific practice and to which we adopt a special epistemic attitude. Second, I evaluate the epistemological significance of Bogen and Woodward’s distinction with respect to the debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists. Contrary to what Bogen and Woodward claim, I argue that the distinction does not provide a convincing argument against constructive empiricism.     

Defection in the dark? A randomized‐response investigation of cooperativeness in social dilemma games

As previous research has demonstrated numerous times, humans show a robust tendency for cooperation. However, part—or indeed all—of this cooperativeness may be due to socially desirable responding. To address this problem, we propose and apply a new approach for the unbiased measurement of cooperativeness in social dilemma games. Specifically, we employ an extension of the randomized‐response technique (RRT). The RRT protects the privacy of respondents by adding random noise to their responses. It thus encourages more honest responding and thereby provides less biased estimates of sensitive attributes. In a large‐scale study with 2043 respondents we maximized anonymity in a one‐shot prisoner's dilemma game through use of the RRT. Comparing the prevalence rates for cooperation obtained via the RRT with those from direct self‐report showed that traditional direct questioning formats overestimate cooperation rates, with a relative bias of 18%. This finding suggests that to a considerable extent, self‐reported cooperation is due to socially desirable responding, rather than actual cooperativeness. However, our results also demonstrate that cooperation remains substantial even under conditions of maximized anonymity. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.