Discussion of "some problems of cross-cultural psychotherapy with refugees seeking therapy," by Carl-Ivar Dahl

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Vivid memories of distant trauma: Examining the characteristics of trauma memories and the relationship with the centrality of event and posttraumatic stress 26 years after trauma

In the present study, we investigated the phenomenological characteristics of distant trauma memories and the relationship between the vividness of trauma memories, the centrality of event and symptoms of posttraumatic stress in two groups with different types of trauma exposure, namely survivors and bereaved, from the fire on the passenger ferry, Scandinavian Star, 26 years earlier. More than two decades after the fire, the traumatic event was represented as a vivid, emotional recollection for many of the victims. For both the survivors and the bereaved, a higher degree of vividness of trauma memories and centrality of the event were associated with higher levels of posttraumatic stress. The present findings show that even very distant trauma memories can be represented as vivid recollections. Furthermore, the findings suggest that both vividness of trauma memories and event centrality may contribute to explain how posttraumatic stress reactions can remain present over a very long time.     

Applicant Perceptions of Test Fairness: Integrating Justice and Self-Serving Bias Perspectives

The justice perspective is the current dominant framework for research on applicant perceptions of test fairness. Recently, an emerging perspective suggests that self-serving bias mechanisms may be operative in the development of test fairness perceptions. Using data from 494 actual applicants to an entry-level State Police Trooper position, this study integrates both the justice and self-serving bias perspectives to achieve a better understanding of test fairness perceptions. Results from structural equation modeling show that perceived job-relevance affects perceived fairness. In addition, test performance affects both perceptions indirectly through perceived performance.     

On the interaction between memory scanning and response set

In the first of two item recognition experiments, a study by Egeth, Marcus, and Bevan (1972) was duplicated, but using a within-Ss design. Consistent with their findings, analogous differences obtained between mean RTs to positive set sizes of one and three were found to be significantly greater when Ss pressed two different keys to indicate whether or not a test letter was a member of the positive set (two-response condition) than when Ss pressed a single key to indicate only that a test letter was a positive set member (one-response condition). The number of set sizes used and results obtained for the two-response condition, which were inconsistent with characterization of the search process as either serial and exhaustive or serial and self-terminating, both limited and complicated interpretation of the obtained interaction. Further, these results suggested that the procedures used differed in important ways from those known to consistently produce linear and parallel item recognition functions for both positive and negative trials for the two-response condition. In Experiment II, those item recognition procedures which are known to allow serial exhaustive search to occur were used, and data were collected for four positive set sizes. Reaction time was a linear function of set size for both response conditions, the slopes of the functions did not differ significantly, and absolute slope values were consistent with previously reported findings for the two-response condition and letter stimuli. It is concluded that response requirements sometimes have effects on memory scanning (the slope of the item recognition function). Such an effect was observed when the experimental conditions were such as to allow neither serial and exhaustive nor serial and self-terminating memory search to occur. But, response requirements do not always have effects on memory scanning, and this was found to be the case when the experimental conditions were such as to allow serial and exhaustive memory search to occur and it was shown to occur.     

Short-term retention of superimposed and of spatially distinct multiletter visual arrays

On each trial, Ss attempted to retain a series of five visually presented letters while concurrently “shadowing” (repeating aloud) a rapid series of aurally presented letters. If serial-position accuracy is ignored, they were able to store more than only the last letter of a typical series, even though all five letters appeared on the same screen, and that performance was superior to the retention of five auditorily presented letters. Together, these findings suggest that a form of visual storage might have been employed for the retention of visual stimuli and, specifically, one that was relatively immune to erasure as compared to “iconic” storage. In further support of that hypothesis, retention of such visual series as measured by free-recall accuracy was not inferior to that of five letters, each of which was presented on a separate screen.     

Treatment of a selectively mute third-grade child

A third-grade girl who did not speak in school was treated by school personnel using principles of behavior modification. A step-by-step procedure was designed which first encouraged speech in a one-to-one setting with an adult. Gradually elements of the regular school situation were introduced into the setting. The final phrase of treatment involved moving the elements back into the regular classroom. At the end of the school year, $\text{2}\text{1}\text{2}$ months following termination of treatment, the subject was still speaking freely.     

Transfer and retroaction under conditions of changed organization

If the process of learning a response sequence is one of organizing the sequence into chunks, then two responses should be identical only if their organizations are the same. For example, if SBJFQLZ was chunked as SB JFQ LZ during original learning and SBJ FQLZ during interpolated learning, the two responses should he different from the Ss' point of view. Therefore, negative transfer and retroactive inhibition should be obtained.     

Experiments on habit reversal in the white rat following electro-convulsive treatment

Rats in a T-maze were taught two opposite habits successively, the first being heavily over learned compared to the second. One group of 14 rats was then given a series of 6 electroconvulsive shocks. The control group of 11 rats underwent a dummy procedure.

Tested subsequently the control group maintained the second habit but among the shocked animals some adopted the second habit and some the first. This was no evidence of habit reversal, however, for the behaviour of the shocked animals at the choice point was not distinguishable statistically from random behaviour.

The data of earlier workers are re-examined and, in all cases, animals said to have undergone habit reversal act as if at random.