Exposure to physical movements in low back pain patients: restricted effects of generalization.

Whether the effects of exposure to 1 movement generalize to another dissimilar movement was investigated in 37 patients with low back pain (15 men, 22 women). Two movements were executed twice: bending forward while standing and lifting 1 leg while lying down. During each trial, baseline pain, expected pain, and experienced pain were recorded. Similar ratings for perceived harm were obtained. Analyses revealed an initial over prediction of pain, but after exposure the overprediction was readily corrected. This exposure effect did not generalize toward another dissimilar movement. These results were only characteristic for patients with catastrophic thinking about pain. Low pain catastrophizers did not overpredict pain. There were no effects of exposure on perceived harm. Exposure may profitably be conceived of as the learning of exceptions to a general rule.     

“If I Didn't Have My Faith I Would Have Killed Myself!”: Spiritual Coping in Patients Suffering From Schizophrenia

Spirituality, religiousness, and existential thought were qualitatively investigated in six patients suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The present study is a deepening of a recently published quantitative investigation by Danbolt, Møller, Lien, and Hestad (2011) Danbolt, L., Møller, P., Lien, L. and Hestad, K. 2011. The personal significance of religiousness and spirituality in patients with schizophrenia. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 21: 145–158. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. The patients in the present study were chosen on the basis of diversity as to how they experienced their spirituality to be of significance when coping with their disorder. The informants displayed many signs of spiritual struggle and transitional spiritual coping strategies, all of which seemed to be linked to hallucinatory experiences. Even though their spirituality met the criteria of religious delusions, the patients described their spirituality to have vital importance. The informants showed little spiritual preknowledge and seemed to be left alone without any clerical support in their spiritual struggle. This may underline the importance of including spiritual issues in the treatment of these patients.     

Contour-based object identification and segmentation: stimuli, norms and data, and software tools.

We summarize five studies of our large-scale research program, in which we examined aspects of contour-based object identification and segmentation, and we report on the stimuli we used, the norms and data we collected, and the software tools we developed. The stimuli were outlines derived from the standard set of line drawings of everyday objects by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980). We used contour curvature as a major variable in all the studies. The total number of 1,500 participants produced very solid, normative identification rates of silhouettes and contours, straight-line versions, and fragmented versions, and quite reliable benchmark data about saliency of points and object segmentation into parts. We also developed several software tools to generate stimuli and to analyze the data in nonstandard ways. Our stimuli, norms and data, and software tools have great potential for further exploration of factors influencing contour-based object identification, and are also useful for researchers in many different disciplines (including computer vision) on a wide variety of research topics (e.g., priming, agnosia, perceptual organization, and picture naming). The full set of norms, data, and stimuli may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.     

认知逻辑与认识论之研究现状

在某种程度上说,认知逻辑似乎有些脱离一般的认识论研究。本文旨在说明介于这两个领域之间的“桥梁”依然存在。而且,事实上它们之间的联系十分紧密。文章通过分析下面的一些实例对此加以论证,即,知识和证据演算的关系,怀疑主义,信息的动态性,学习和证实,多主体或群体问题等等。作者试图通过以上分析来表明下面的观点:知识不应被定义成命题的某种本质特征,我们应当根据知识在认知活动中所起的作用来对它加以理解。     

Imprinting, Conditioning, and Within-event Learning

Three experiments investigated whether or not the temporal relationship between the visual (V) and auditory (A) components of an imprinting stimulus influenced the acquisition of a visual preference in domestic chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus). In Experiments 1a and 1b, chicks given simultaneous presentations of V and A showed a more marked tendency to approach V than those given sequential exposure to V and A. In Experiments 2 and 3, chicks received exposure to two visual stimuli, V1 and V2. During training, presentations of V1 preceded, followed, or were separated by 30 sec from presentations of a simultaneous compound comprising V2 and A. Chicks in each condition subsequently showed an equivalent preference to approach V2 rather than V1. These results show that filial imprinting, unlike Pavlovian conditioning but like within-event learning, proceeds most readily when training involves the simultaneous presentation of stimuli.     

Observation Sentences And Joint Attention

The aim of this paper is to examine W. V.Quine's theory of infants' early acquisition oflanguage, with a narrow focus on Quine's theory ofobservation sentences. Intersubjectivity and sensoryexperiences, the two features that characterise thenotion, receive the most attention. It is argued,following a suggestion from Donald Davidson, thatQuine favours a proximal theory of languageacquisition, i.e., a theory which is focused onprivate experiences as ultimate sources ofstimulation, contrary to a distal theory, where thestimulus source is located in externally observableobjects and events. I use the philosophical criticismof Donald Davidson, Dagfinn Føllesdal and CharlesTaylor to suggest an alternative account of languageacquisition, which emphasises the primacy ofparticipation and joint attention to external stimuli.I argue that such an alternative theory is moreconsistent with recent studies in child developmentand language acquisition.     

Correction to: Free-Market,Perfect Market and Welfare State Perspectives on “Good” Markets: an Empirical Test

Applied Research in Quality of Life -