The Philosophical Roots of Ernst Mach's Economy of Thought

A full appreciation for Ernst Mach's doctrine of the economy of thought must takeaccount of his direct realism about particulars (elements) and his anti-realism aboutspace-time laws as economical constructions. After a review of thought economy,its critics and some contemporary forms, the paper turns to the philosophical rootsof Mach's doctrine. Mach claimed that the simplest, most parsimonious theorieseconomized memory and effort by using abstract concepts and laws instead ofattending to the details of each individual event or experiment. For Mach, theindividual case never truly repeated in all of its uniqueness, nor was all of theindividual detail of a physical element adequately captured in abstract laws andschemata, however necessary these were for the pursuit of science. As can beshown from specific passages, some already published, some not, Mach's elementsincluded physical qualia in nature similar to Russell's unsensed sensibilia, whichexisted even where there were no conscious observers. An argument will be presentedto make the case that Mach believed in the mind-independent elements from the 1870son, while other aspects of his thought evolved over time; I have thus dated the referencesto reflect this historical progression. I concentrate on Mach's ontology, as it bears oneconomy of thought, not his epistemology per se, which might well have been restrictedto observable elements/ sensations. After his own conversion to neutral monism, in the1920s, Bertrand Russell echoed Mach's call for a `future science' capable of handlingthe `intrinsic character' of qualitative data directly without the excessive abstraction ofphysics.     

Does the covert nature of caring prohibit the development of effective services for young carers?

Almost 3 million children in the UK live in households where at least one family member is affected by chronic illness or disability. A proportion of these children will be young carers. This paper begins with a brief review of the literature relating to young carers. Particular attention is paid to the adoption of a caring role, the'hidden' nature of caring including young people'sreluctance to discuss their caring, the impact of caring on education, and the location and type of services provided.The findings of a small-scale study carried out in Scotland are presented in order to highlight some of the issues raised in the literature. Discussion focuses on the implications for the field of guidance and counselling.     

Self-regulation of unattainable goals in suicide attempters: The relationship between goal disengagement, goal reengagement and suicidal ideation

There is growing interest in models of adaptive self-regulation. Recent research suggests that goal disengagement and goal reengagement (i.e., goal adjustment) are implicated in the self-regulation of emotion. This study extends the self-regulation research to investigate the utility of goal adjustment in understanding suicidal risk. To this end, two hundred adults hospitalised following a suicidal episode completed a range of clinical and psychological measures in hospital and were followed up approximately 2.5 months after discharge (Time 2). Hierarchical regression analyses showed that goal reengagement predicted suicidal ideation at Time 2. In addition, the lack of goal reengagement was especially pernicious when reported concomitantly with high disengagement. These predictive effects were independent of baseline mood, attempt status and suicidal intent. The theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.     

Reactance,autonomy and paths to persuasion: Examining perceptions of threats to freedom and informational value

Autonomy, often associated with an open and reflective evaluation of experience, is sometimes confused with reactance, which indicates resistance to persuasion attempts. Two studies examined a path model in which autonomy and reactance predicted motivation following the provision of anonymous or source-identified health-risk information, via the mediation of perceived threat to decision-making freedom and of perceived informational value. Study 1 (N = 122) investigated alcohol consumption. The results showed that autonomy was positively related to autonomous motivation and intentions to drink responsibly. Reactance negatively predicted autonomous motivation in the source-identified information condition but positively predicted autonomous motivation and intentions in the anonymous information condition. Reactance negatively predicted attitudes through the mediation of perceived threat to decision-making freedom. Study 2 (N = 145) tested our hypothesized model for smoking behavior and replicated several of the Study 1 findings. Implications for our understanding of autonomy, reactance, and responses to risk-information are discussed.     

Where Have All the Children Gone? Movement from Child to Adult Mental Health Systems

The mental health histories of the 448 children 15 and 16 years of age who were admitted to state-operated children's psychiatric inpatient services in New York during 1982 were reviewed for the 11 year period through April 1993, Thirty-three percent were served as adults (after age 18) in the state-operated adult civil mental health system; 42% of these individuals were still receiving services at the end of the period. 113 of the 146 individuals served as adults were served only in the civil system. Thirteen percent of the cohort received some of their mental health services as adults in the state-operated adult forensic mental health system due to criminal law involvement. This includes nine percent who received mental health services while they were inmates in state prisons. Twenty four of the 57 forensic clients received services as adults only in the forensic system. Diagnostic, demographic, and service history characteristics of the groups were compared to foster an early understanding of policy and programmatic issues related to movement from the child mental health system to the adult system. Baseline (1982) information was used to identify predictors of later service utilization.     

Discriminations among perceptual and symbolic stimuli

This research compares the time required for perceptual discriminations among pairs of physically present objects (circles) with the time required to discriminate pairs of symbols Inonsense syllables) that subjects learned to associate uniquely with each of the circles. Four experiments show very large differences between symbolic and perceptual discriminations. Discrimination times for the perceptual stimuli declined systematically as their size ratio increased, but discriminations among the associated nonsense syllables showed only a strictly ordinal effect of position in the series. Discriminations among the symbolic stimuli showed a large semantic congruity effect, but the perceptual stimuli showed none. The research does not replicate previous results showing similarities between perceptual and symbolic processing suggestive of image processing. We conclude that in the symbolic task subjects use only ordinal information rather than images or analog representations of the associated circles. We propose that perceptual discriminations show a semantic congruity effect only when they are processed as if the perceptual stimuli were symbolic.     

The perception of verticality and the frame of reference of the visual tilt aftereffect

Previous research has suggested that the visual tilt aftereffect operates according to a gravitational frame of reference. Three experiments were conducted to test this conclusion further. In each experiment, observers (with head upright) adjusted an illuminated bar to apparent vertical following various adaptation conditions. In Experiment 1, observers were given clear visual cues for objective vertical while adjusting the bar. In Experiment 2, they were not given visual cues for vertical. The adaptation conditions in Experiments 1 and 2 consisted of various combinations of head and stimulus tilt. Experiment 3 investigated the effects of head tilt alone. The results indicated that the tilt aftereffect follows a retinal frame of reference under some conditions (Experiment 1) and appears to follow a gravitational frame under others (Experiment 2). These results can be predicted by a simple model involving two factors, a purely visual aftereffect that follows a retinal frame and an extravisual aftereffect that appears to follow a gravitational frame.     

Assessing relations between imagery and perception

Direct comparisons between perceptual performance and reports made under imagery instructions are uninterpretable except in cases where (a) the perceptual phenomenon is well understood and (b) experimental constraints are sufficient to establish imagery causally in the effect. Neither condition seems to be satisfied in Finke and Kurtzman's article. Furthermore, if imagery is an internal medium conceived in introspective terms, the second condition can never be met because the medium is not accessible to operational definition. Perhaps the basic problem with this research is that the instructions used to create conditions in imagery experiments do not qualify as operational definitions. Reports of successful compliance with imagery instructions are logically equivalent to introspective reports.     

The effects of perceived similarity upon the use of reward and punishment

Subjects were led to perceive a trainee as either similar or dissimilar to themselves. During subsequent influence trials, subjects attempted to assess the causes of the trainee's performance and to employ rewards, punishments, or manipulations of the trainee's environment to optimize her performance. It was predicted that subjects would perceive the performance of dissimilar trainees as caused more by the dispositional factor of motivation than the performance of similar trainees, and that dissimilar trainees would thus be rewarded more upon success as well as punished more upon failure. The hypotheses were supported, and a model of reward-punishment behavior and attribution is discussed.