Manipulation of responsibility in non-clinical subjects: does expectation of failure exacerbate obsessive-compulsive behaviors?

An exaggerated sense of responsibility is currently considered as the ground for the obsessive-compulsive disorder. Obsessive-like behaviors, such as hesitations and checks, may be induced in non-clinical subjects by increasing perceived responsibility (i.e., perceived personal influence on negative outcomes). In line with Salkovskis' proposal [The cognitive approach to anxiety: threat beliefs, safety-seeking behavior, and the special case of health anxiety and obsessions, in: P.M. Salkovskis (Ed.), Frontiers of Cognitive Therapy, Guilford, New York], we tested the hypothesis that reduced coping abilities (i.e., an exaggerated expectation of failure) are another effectual factor contributing to obsessive-like behaviors. We examined 47 normal volunteers in a visuo-spatial memory task, and manipulated their perceived personal influence and expectation of failure by giving differential instructions and feedback about their performance. Increase of perceived personal influence induced slowness, hesitations and checks without enhancing performance. Expectation of failure exacerbated obsessive-like behaviors, again without affecting performance. These results confirm the role of responsibility in obsessive-like behavior and indicate that reduced coping abilities may contribute to worsen dysfunctional strategies.     

How to hit Scylla without avoiding Charybdis: comment on Perruchet, Tyler, Galland, and Peereman (2004)

M. Pe?a, L. L. Bonatti, M. Nespor, and J. Mehler argued that humans compute nonadjacent statistical relations among syllables in a continuous artificial speech stream to extract words, but they use other computations to determine the structural properties of words. Instead, when participants are familiarized with a segmented stream, structural generalizations about words are quickly established. P. Perruchet, M. D. Tyler, N. Galland, and R. Peereman criticized M. Pe?a et al.'s work and dismissed their results. In this article, the authors show that P. Perruchet et al.'s criticisms are groundless.     

Between Causes and Reasons: Sellars,Hegel (and Lewis) on “Sensation”

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Sellars’ and Hegel’s treatment of ‘sensation’ – a notion that plays a central role in the reflections of both authors but which has garnered little scholarly attention. To disentangle the issues surrounding the notion and elaborate its role, function, and fate in their thought, I begin with a methodological question: what kind of philosophical argument leads Sellars and Hegel to introduce the concept of ‘sensation’ into their systems? Distinguishing between their two argumentative approaches, I maintain that Hegel offers what I broadly label a ‘transcendental’ argument for ‘sensation,’ which he presents in the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit and in the corresponding Lectures, whereas Sellars introduces the notion of sensation for what I term empirically ‘explanatory’ reasons. Next, I closely analyze Hegel’s and Sellars’ theories of sensation to produce a textually supported and conceptually coherent reading of their views on the notion. To clarify my methodological distinction and its stakes in Hegel’s and Sellars’ I will reference Lewis’ notion of the given.