Induced autokinesis

The egocentric location of a fixated visual stimulus was shifted away from the apparent median plane through induced movement. When the stimulus appeared to lie in the periphery of vision, the inducing frame was occluded resulting in autokinesis toward the phenomenally straight-ahead position. This effect was termed “induced autokinesis.” It was used in demonstrating that apparent egocentric displacement is sufficient for initiating autokinesis.     

The effect of meaning on the allocation of visually induced movement

The directional characteristics of a meaningful target were found to affect its apparent motion when it was displaced relative to a neutral object. The effect was destroyed, however, when the target was surrounded by a frame. This was because the frame imparted a meaning which tended to override that conveyed by the target.     

Author Index Volume 111 2002

Philosophical Studies -     

Psychodynamic assessment of changes in children with autism under psychoanalytic treatment

In this article the authors report insights into autism developed through their extensive experience of psychoanalytic therapy with children with autism. The fi rst stages of body psychic development are seriously disrupted by this pathology, resulting in primitive anxieties of falling and of being liquefi ed. These anxieties are connected to the fragile development of body ego and of its related spatiotemporal organisation. The changes in children observed by the authors during the therapeutic process lead them to offer a psychodynamic assessment tool, which revolves principally around the development of body ego. After the initial state of 'severe autism', the authors describe three stages: the stage of 'recovery of the skin' (Bick); the established 'symbiotic phase', subdivided into 'vertical then horizontal splitting of the body ego'; and fi nally the stage of 'individuation'. First, the authors describe the principal psychoanalytic approaches to autism and refl ect on the links possible with nonpsychoanalytic work.     

Prototypes and personal templates: collective wisdom and individual differences

This article concerns individual differences in the associative meaning of psychological concepts. Associative meaning may be assessed with prototype methodology, which yields a list of features of the concept ordered according to their rated importance. Our theory concerns individual differences in a concept's associative meaning: A personal template reveals a person's idiosyncratic associative meaning. It is possible to assess the degree to which a personal template matches the corresponding prototype. The theory distinguishes among three types of concepts. One type, for example, specifies a particular behavior to be predicted, for example, a person who is likely to commit suicide, and features of the prototype would include predictors of suicidal behavior. According to the theory, the most prototypical features are (under specifiable conditions) valid predictors, and people with a strong template-to-prototype match possess more valid knowledge about the concept than do people with a weak template-to-prototype match. Other types of concepts cannot be validated (e.g., those describing subjective experiences). In that case, a strong template-to-prototype match does not reflect a person's degree of valid knowledge. The authors provide three applications of the theory.     

Development and validation of the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS)

The authors describe a new self-report instrument, the Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms (IDAS), which was designed to assess specific symptom dimensions of major depression and related anxiety disorders. They created the IDAS by conducting principal factor analyses in 3 large samples (college students, psychiatric patients, community adults); the authors also examined the robustness of its psychometric properties in 5 additional samples (high school students, college students, young adults, postpartum women, psychiatric patients) who were not involved in the scale development process. The IDAS contains 10 specific symptom scales: Suicidality, Lassitude, Insomnia, Appetite Loss, Appetite Gain, Ill Temper, Well-Being, Panic, Social Anxiety, and Traumatic Intrusions. It also includes 2 broader scales: General Depression (which contains items overlapping with several other IDAS scales) and Dysphoria (which does not). The scales (a) are internally consistent, (b) capture the target dimensions well, and (c) define a single underlying factor. They show strong short-term stability and display excellent convergent validity and good discriminant validity in relation to other self-report and interview-based measures of depression and anxiety.     

Language development in Down syndrome: from the prelinguistic period to the acquisition of literacy

Down syndrome (DS) is associated with abnormalities in multiple organ systems and a characteristic phenotype that includes numerous behavioral features. Language, however, is among the most impaired domains of functioning in DS and, perhaps, also the greatest barrier to independent meaningful inclusion in the community. In this article, we review what is known about the extent, nature, and correlates of the language and related problems of individuals with Down syndrome. In doing so, we focus largely on the syndrome-specific features of the language phenotype, although we also consider within-syndrome variation. The review focuses on the prelinguistic foundations of language and the major components of language (i.e., vocabulary, syntax, and pragmatics). We also consider two topics in the treatment and education of individuals with DS: prelinguistic communication intervention and the acquisition of literacy skills.