Philosophy of Education in a Poor Historical Moment: A Personal Account

Under the post-metaphysical sky “old” humanistic-oriented education is possible solely at the cost of its transformation into its negative, into a power that is determined to diminish human potentials for self-exaltation. Nothing less than total metamorphosis is needed to rescue the core of humanistic genesis: the quest for edifying Life and resistance to the call for “home-returning” into the total harmony that is promised to us within nothingness.     

Are Individuals Always Aware of Their Trauma-Related Intrusive Thoughts? A Study of Meta-Awareness

Individuals are not always aware of their mental content. We tested whether lack of awareness occurs in those who have experienced trauma, with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We also examined the role of proposed cognitive mechanisms (working memory and inhibition) in explaining unnoticed intrusions. Individuals with PTSD (n = 44), and varying levels of symptoms (high posttraumatic stress [PTS]: n = 24; low PTS: n = 37) reported on intrusive thoughts throughout a reading task. Intermittently, participants responded to probes about whether their thoughts were trauma related. Participants were “caught” engaging in unreported trauma-related thoughts (unnoticed intrusions) for between 24 and 27% of the probes in the PTSD and high PTS groups, compared with 15% of occasions in the low PTS group. For trauma-related intrusions only, participants lacked meta-awareness for almost 40% of probes in the PTSD group, which was significantly less than that observed in the other groups (～60%). Contrary to predictions, working memory and response inhibition did not predict unnoticed intrusions. The results suggest that individuals who have experienced significant trauma can lack awareness about the frequency of their trauma-related thoughts. Further research is warranted to identify the mechanisms underpinning the occurrence of unnoticed intrusions.     

Personality development and growth in women across 30 years: three perspectives

This article addressesthree questions about personality development in a 30‐year longitudinal study of women (N = 78): (1) To what extent did the women maintain the same position inrelation to each other on personality characteristics over the 30 years, and what broad factorswere related to the amount of change in their rank order? (2) Did the sample as a whole increaseor decrease over time on indices of personality growth, and did they change in ways distinctive towomen? (3) Were experiential factors associated with individual differences in the amount ofchange? Results showed that personality was quite consistent while also showing that timeinterval was positively related to rank‐order change and age was negatively related to rank‐orderchange. Over the period from age 21 to age 52, the women increased on measures ofnorm‐orientation and complexity and showed changes on measures of Dominance andFemininity/Masculinity consistent with the hypothesis that changing sex roles would lead toincreases in Dominance and increases, then decreases, in Femininity/Masculinity. A third set ofresults showed that changes in Dominance and Femininity/Masculinity were associated with lifecircumstances such as marital tension, divorce, and participation in the paid labor force. Theimplications of the findings for personality development and growth are discussed.     

Action-based and vision-based selection of input: Two sources of control

In the first part of this paper we review evidence suggesting that there exists a mechanism that selects input on the basis of its similarity to the required action. This response-based input selection differs from the more established space- and object-based input selection in that it is not constrained by the structure of the input. Our evidence suggests that the two-choice Stroop effect is caused by this response-based selection mechanism. By contrast, it is known that the flanker effect is determined by the space- and object- based selection mechanisms. We explore whether the conflict resolution of the Stroop and flanker tasks is different as well by embedding these two tasks in a PRP (Psychological Refractory Period) paradigm. We show that the Stroop and the PRP effects are additive whereas the flanker and the PRP effects are underadditive, suggesting that the processes in charge of the conflict resolution in the Stroop and the flanker tasks are indeed different. We discuss possible reasons for this difference, and discuss possible ways in which the response-based mechanism can be implemented in information processing models.     

Win-shift and win-stay learning in the short-beaked echidna (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Tachyglossus aculeatus</Emphasis>)

Numerous previous investigators have explained species differences in spatial memory performance in terms of differences in foraging ecology. In three experiments we attempted to extend these findings by examining the extent to which the spatial memory performance of echidnas (or "spiny anteaters") can be understood in terms of the spatio-temporal distribution of their prey (ants and termites). This is a species and a foraging situation that have not been examined in this way before. Echidnas were better able to learn to avoid a previously rewarding location (to "win-shift") than to learn to return to a previously rewarding location (to "win-stay"), at short retention intervals, but were unable to learn either of these strategies at retention intervals of 90 min. The short retention interval results support the ecological hypothesis, but the long retention interval results do not. Electronic Publication