Some comments on the projectibility of anthropological hypotheses: Samoa briefly revisited

The purpose of this article is to examine the applicability of the theory of projection for Anthropological hypotheses. The claim is made that Goodman's classic statement of the problem does not apply in its entirety to actual Anthropological hypotheses. The recent Freeman-Mead debate is employed as a framework for the discussion, illustrating that the issue of projectibility, while central for the social sciences, is best used as a backdrop to illustrate several important methodological problems. For Anthropology, and other related social sciences, the central methodological problem, which is directly related to the projectibility one, is the development and justification of evidence-rules that can be used for a theory of confirmation. A preliminary attempt is then made to articulate the nature of these rules within the general Hempelian framework of qualitative confirmation.     

Accuracy and adaptation of reaching and pointing in pitched visual environments

Visually perceived eye level (VPEL) and the ability of subjects to reach with an unseen limb to targets placed at VPEL were measured in a statically pitched visual surround (pitchroom). VPEL was shifted upward and downward by upward and downward room pitch, respectively. Accuracy in reaching to VPEL represented a compromise between VPEL and actual eye level. This indicates that VPEL shifts reflect in part a change in perceived location of objects. When subjects were provided with terminal visual feedback about their reaching, accuracy improved rapidly. Subsequent reaching, with the room vertical, revealed a negative aftereffect (i.e., reaching errors that were opposite those made initially in the pitched room). In a second study, pointing accuracy was assessed for targets located both at VPEL and at other positions. Errors were similar for targets whether located at VPEL or elsewhere. Additionally, pointing responses were restricted to a narrower range than that of the actual target locations. The small size of reaching and pointing errors in both studies suggests that factors other than a change in perceived location are also involved in VPEL shifts.     

Therapeutic approaches to inhibited sexual desire in lesbians

Traditional approaches to inhibited sexual hire (ISD)—which may be exclusively heterosexist, erotophobic, sexist, and homophobic—fail to adequately address ISD within the lesbian population, in which incest and substance abuse occur commonly. Successful treatment of ISD among lesbians requires awareness of sexual minority customs, lesbian psychologies, and recovery agendas.     

Suppression of emotional and neutral material

Previous studies have indicated that suppression of a thought results in an immediate increase of the frequency of this thought and/or in a rebound effect, i.e. in a heightened frequency of this thought later on. The present study (n = 53) examined the relationship between suppression and emotionality of the to-be-suppressed material. More specifically, it was investigated whether suppression of an emotional story results in stronger immediate enhancement or thought rebounds than suppression of a neutral story. There was a clear initial enhancement effect in the group suppressing a neutral story: subjects who tried to suppress experienced more target thoughts than subjects who did not try to suppress. In the neutral-story conditions, no rebound effect occurred. In the groups exposed to an emotional story, there was neither evidence of initial enhancement nor of a rebound. As most obsessions are related to emotional themes, the present findings cast doubt on the claim that the rebound phenomenon represents a valid laboratory model for clinical obsessions.     

Hemispheric control of spatial attention

According to the activation-orienting hypothesis the distribution of attention in space is biased in the direction contralateral to the more activated hemisphere. The present investigation tested this proposal and evaluated the nature of hemispheric differences in orienting control. Activation imbalance was produced by a unilateral visual stimulus. The distribution of attention was measured using a modified line bisection task in which subjects judged the location of an intersect on a tachistoscopically presented horizontal line. The first three experiments suggest that (a) attention is biased in the direction contralateral to the stimulated hemisphere, and (b) the biases do not depend on the task relevance or hemispatial position of the stimulus producing the activation imbalance. The final three experiments suggest that when orienting conflict is introduced the rightward bias becomes more robust than the leftward bias. The findings are consistent with the activation-orienting hypothesis. Each hemisphere generates a contralateral attentional bias and the rightward bias of the left hemisphere is stronger. The relevance of these findings to understanding unilateral neglect resulting from parietal damage is discussed.     

Pause loci in stuttered and normal speech

The mainstream of research comparing types of disfluency in stuttered and normal speech has typically omitted consideration of pause. In contrast, psycholinguisticresearch addressed to disfluency in normal speech alone has revealed the salience of pause in the study of fluency/disfluency. The research reported here, which focused on the antecedents and sequelae of filled pauses, revealed substantial differences in pattern of pause occurrence between stuttered and normal speech samples obtained from 20 matched subjects. The results are discussed in reference to relevant findings from the research on pause in normal speech.