The neurobiology of adaptive learning in reading: A contrast of different training conditions

fMRI was used to investigate the separate influences of orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing on the ability to learn new words and the cortical circuitry recruited to subsequently read those words. In a behavioral session, subjects acquired familiarity for three sets of pseudowords, attending to orthographic, phonological, or (learned) semantic features. Transfer effects were measured in an event-related fMRI session as the subjects named trained pseudowords, untrained pseudowords, and real words. Behaviorally, phonological and semantic training resulted in better learning than did orthographic training. Neurobiologically, orthographic training did not modulate activation in the main reading regions. Phonological and semantic training yielded equivalent behavioral facilitation but distinct functional activation patterns, suggesting that the learning resulting from these two training conditions was driven by different underlying processes. The findings indicate that the putative ventral visual word form area is sensitive to the phonological structure of words, with phonologically analytic processing contributing to the specialization of this region.     

The capacity to forgive: intrapsychic and developmental perspectives

The topic of forgiveness, despite its importance for the continuity of relationships and for the mental health of the aggrieved party, is relatively neglected in the psychoanalytic literature, perhaps because it is often seen as the province of religion and carries the connotation of reaction formation and inauthenticity. However, genuine forgiveness involves significant intrapsychic work, conscious and unconscious working through of one's anger, and putting the offense into the context of an integrated view of the whole person of the offender. Early developmental structures are the ground on which the relative ability to let go of a grievance depends. While later motives and defenses (e.g., fear of retraumatization, avoidance of shame) may also play a role, these early structures are primary. They are described here in terms of attainment of the depressive position and the development of a sense of secure attachment, the capacity to mentalize, and the ability to mourn.     

Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger

Research bearing on several popular conceptions of the major determinants of anger arousal indicates that the particular appraisals often identified as causes of anger frequently only serve to affect the intensity of the anger that is generated. Research into effects of physical pain or other physically unpleasant conditions or involving social stresses suggests that decidedly aversive conditions are a major spur to anger. Experiments are also reviewed showing that anger-related muscular movements can also lead to anger-related feelings, memories, cognitions, and autonomic responses. Alternative explanations for the findings are discussed. The authors urge emotion theorists to widen their methodology and analyses so that they give careful, detailed attention to the many different factors that can influence anger.     

Inducing blindsight in normal observers

We attempted to induce blindsight in normal observers, in an effort to replicate and extend the findings of Kolb and Braun (1995). In that demonstration, observers were able to localize a target in the absence of visual awareness, indicated by the lack of a correlation between localization accuracy and confidence ratings. Replication of this work seemed essential, given the failed attempt by Morgan, Mason, and Solomon (1997). A key aspect of the present work was the use of a pointing response, which is believed to have access to the unconscious representations subserving blindsight. In the critical rivalrous condition, the display consisted of Gabor patterns presented dichoptically with orthogonal orientation in each eye. Binocular summation of left and right images combined to give the appearance of a uniform plaid, camouflaging the texture-defined target. Our attempt to demonstrate blindsight in normal observers was unsuccessful, in that the localization accuracy of the texture-defined target and the observers’ confidence ratings were positively correlated. Although the replication was unsuccessful, the results are valuable in that they provide closure to this widely publicized but fruitless line of inquiry.     

Applications of Personality Assessment to the Workplace: A Review

Our review of the relevant research literature in the recent past strongly supports the view that personality assessment has high utility in the workplace. We review the evidence that personality assessment measures, especially those based upon the Big Five factors of personality, can effectively predict job performance and thus can be used for personnel selection. The validity of integrity testing in predicting counterproductivity on the job has been demonstrated both for overt measures of integrity and, to a lesser degree, for more general (subtle) measures of personality. We also found good evidence of validity for measures of (supervisory) management and (transformational) leadership, a complex field which includes a number of multidimensional instruments each built around its own theory. Finally, we review the empirical literature that supports the use of assessment centers and the use of personality assessment in training and development.     

A Survival Analysis of Communal-Living, Self-Help, Addiction Recovery Participants

We examined individual and group characteristics associated with the duration of community involvement (i.e., length of residence) in 11 Illinois Oxford Houses for 129 male recovering addicts. Survival analyses indicated that the best predictor of duration of community involvement from demographic items was age (i.e., older age and older age of fellow residents were associated with being more likely to continue residence). Among psychological measures, the best survival predictor was lack of pessimism of the future. Although the relationship between longer length of residence and treatment outcomes are complex, because it is often difficult to keep people involved in treatment programs, knowledge that we can gain about those factors that might lead to greater lengths of stay are of importance.     

Change in visually perceived eye level without change in perceived pitch

Both the physical elevation that appears to correspond to eye level and the visually perceived pitch of a visual field are linear functions of the physical pitch of a normally illuminated, complexly structured visual field. One of the possible bases for the large effect of physical pitch on the elevation of visually perceived eye level (VPEL) is that the visual field generates a mental representation which specifies spatial coordinates and these determine the VPEL elevation ('implicit-surface model'; ISM). The influence on the elevation of VPEL is nearly as large when the visual field contains either one or two long pitched-from-vertical or rolled-from-vertical lines in otherwise total darkness as when it consists of a well-illuminated and complexly structured pitched room (L Matin and W Li, 1994 Vision Research 34 311-330), and, in order to examine the ISM, we employed a rolled-from-vertical, two-line configuration within a frontoparallel plane viewed in otherwise total darkness. Measurements of visually perceived pitch were made by a manual matching procedure and VPEL measurements were made by the psychophysical setting of the elevation of a small visual target to appear at eye level while each of three subjects viewed the two-line configuration at each of three horizontal eccentricities with the configuration at each of seven roll orientations. In direct contradiction to the ISM, the perceived pitch of the two-line configuration did not deviate significantly from the erect orientation ('vertical') for any roll at any eccentricity, but the elevation of VPEL changed systematically with the roll of the configuration both at left and at right eccentricities, and did not change at all with the two-line configuration centered on the median plane. Consistent with our previous work and with our previous interpretation regarding the basis for VPEL (L Matin and W Li, 1994 Vision Research 34 2577-2598), the variation of VPEL for the two-line visual field equals the average of the VPEL variations produced by viewing each of the single lines separately.     

The end of phenomenology: Expressionism in Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty

In this paper I examine how well Merleau-Ponty's philosophy can respond to Deleuze's challenge to phenomenology. The Deleuzian challenge is double, that of immanence and that of difference; in other words, the double challenge is what Deleuze calls the paradox of expression. I bring together, in particular, Deleuze's 1969 The Logic of Sense and Merleau-Ponty's 1945 the Phenomenology of Perception, and am able to discover a lot of similarities mainly centered around the notion of a past that has never been present. However, this comparison is not decisive; what alone can decide is an interpretation of expression in Merleau-Ponty's final, unfinished The Visible and the Invisible.     

An investigation of hierarchical Bayes procedures in item response theory

Hierarchical Bayes procedures for the two-parameter logistic item response model were compared for estimating item and ability parameters. Simulated data sets were analyzed via two joint and two marginal Bayesian estimation procedures. The marginal Bayesian estimation procedures yielded consistently smaller root mean square differences than the joint Bayesian estimation procedures for item and ability estimates. As the sample size and test length increased, the four Bayes procedures yielded essentially the same result.The authors wish to thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.