Book Reviews

Book Reviewed
The Politics of Cultural Differences. By David C. Leege, Kenneth D. Wald, Brian S. Krueger, and Paul D. Mueller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2002. 304 pp. $21.95 paper, $60 cloth.
The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders. Edited by Jerrold M. Post, M.D. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. 2003. 412 pp.
FDR's Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability. By Davis W. Houck and Amos Kiewe. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. 2003. 141 + xii pp.
The Power of Legitimacy: Assessing the Role of Norms in Crisis Bargaining. By Christopher Gelpi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2003. 232 pp. $39.50.     

BODY, MOTHER, MIND: ANOREXIA, FEMININITY AND THE INTRUSIVE OBJECT

This paper takes as its starting point the preponderance of female to male patients who suffer from anorexia. The author suggests that there may be something specific about certain experiences of femaleness which predispose towards anxieties of intrusion. Two contemporary theories of the aetiology of anorexia are outlined. Both of these suggest that the problem has its origins in intrusion or invasion of different sorts. The author suggests that many women who suffer from anorexia have an intrusive object instated in their minds, which may not necessarily be the result of actual intrusions in external reality. In the final part of the paper, the author examines the intrusiveness of anorexic patients in the transference and suggests that such patients very often harbour profound phantasies of intruding between the parents, with a wish to regain their special place with mother, untroubled by the presence of father. It is further suggested that the psychopathology underlying certain cases of anorexia leads to a failure in symbolisation. This failure in turn complicates the clinical picture, making such patients particularly difficult to think with about their difficulties.     

Concurrent Validity Studies of the Facial Discrimination Task

We examined the concurrent validity properties of the Facial Discrimination Task (FDT), an instrument for the assessment of facial emotion recognition by comparing it with the widely used Pictures of Facial Affect (PFA). In Study 1, 100 adults with heterogeneous psychiatric diagnoses were administered items of the FDT Emotion Task, the FDT Age Task, and PFA. In Study 2, 25 normally developing preschool children were instructed to label happy, sad, or neutral facial expressions from the FDT and the PFA. Despite methodological differences between the two studies, very similar and high correlations were found between the FDT and the PFA overall correct scores (r = .79 and r = .77, respectively). The data suggest that the FDT and the PFA measure similar competencies in preschoolers and in adults with psychiatric disorders. This finding is important because it establishes the concurrent validity of the FDT in child and adult populations.     

Disclosure of Divorce Plans to Children: What the Children Have to Say

Divorce has become a common experience for children. One part of the process that children of divorcing parents experience is the time when they are informed of their parents' approaching separation or divorce. In this study, 20 adults from eight families who had experienced the divorce of their parents when they were younger were interviewed using a guided interview format. At least two siblings from each family except one was interviewed. Qualitative analyses of data revealed interesting themes around the questions of how the participants were told about the impending separation or divorce, who told them, whether or not siblings were present, how they reacted to the news, and how they would have preferred being told.     

A review of Frederick Adams and Kenneth Aizawa, The Bounds of Cognition

In The Bounds of Cognition, Fred Adams and Kenneth Aizawa treat the arguments for extended cognition to withering criticism. I summarize their main arguments and focus special attention on their distinction between the extended cognitive system hypothesis and the extended cognition hypothesis, as well as on their demand for a mark of the mental.     

Bennett and “proxy actualism”

Karen Bennett has recently argued that the views articulated by Linsky and Zalta (Philos Perspect 8:431–458, 1994) and (Philos Stud 84:283–294, 1996) and Plantinga (The nature of necessity, 1974) are not consistent with the thesis of actualism, according to which everything is actual. We present and critique her arguments. We first investigate the conceptual framework she develops to interpret the target theories. As part of this effort, we question her definition of ‘proxy actualism’. We then discuss her main arguments that the theories carry a commitment to actual entities that do not exist. We end by considering and addressing a worry that might have been the driving force behind Bennett’s claim that Linsky and Zalta’s view is not fully actualistic.

Making sense of mirror neurons

The discovery of mirror neurons has been hailed as one of the most exciting developments in neuroscience in the past few decades. These neurons discharge in response to the observation of others’ actions. But how are we to understand the function of these neurons? In this paper I defend the idea that mirror neurons are best conceived as components of a sensory system that has the function to perceive action. In short, mirror neurons are part of a hitherto unrecognized “sixth sense”. In this spirit, research should move toward developing a psychophysics of mirror neurons.