Current status of the Rorschach Inkblot Method

The current scientific, clinical, and professional status of the Rorschach Inkblot Method (RIM) is reviewed with respect to its psychometric properties, the applied purposes it can be expected to serve, the extent of its use, and the nature of prevailing attitudes toward it. Available evidence indicates that the RIM is a psychometrically sound measuring instrument that provides valid assessments of personality characteristics and can facilitate differential diagnosis and treatment planning and evaluation. The RIM continues as in the past to be widely used by both clinicians and researchers. However, the esteem in which it is held by practitioners, who are generally agreed that clinical psychologists should be competent in Rorschach assessment, is not universally shared by academicians, many of whom presently question the future place of Rorschach training in graduate education.     

The Case(s) of Gordon Allport

ABSTRACT Gordon Allport has frequently been criticized for advocating the use of idiographic studies but undertaking only one such study himself. This article describes Allport's work on the case of Marion Taylor, an unpublished study that clearly contributed to his later work on the case method. The unfinished Taylor case materials suggest that Ada Allport was an important collaborator in Allport's work with individual cases. The case of Taylor is compared with the later case of Jenny Masterson using Allport's rules for the preparation of case studies in order to shed light on Allport's ambivalence regarding case studies.     

MEMORY PROCESSES IN DELAYED SPATIAL DISCRIMINATIONS: RESPONSE INTENTIONS OR RESPONSE MEDIATION?

Pigeons were trained on a pair-comparison task in which left versus right choices were reinforced following different sequences of two center-key stimuli. Choice accuracy was higher when retention intervals occurred after the entire sequence than when they separated the two stimuli comprising it, and this effect occurred independently of whether the initial and terminal stimuli came from the same or different dimensions. The initial stimulus from the prior trial was a source of proactive interference only in groups for which the retention interval separated the two sequence stimuli. By contrast, differential delay-interval behavior was observed only in groups for which the retention interval followed presentation of the entire sequence. These results indicate that coding processes in delayed discriminations are influenced by the location of the retention interval, and that response mediation affects retention performances if the reinforced choice can be determined prior to the interval.     

Is there implicit memory without attention? A reexamination of task demands in Eich’s (1984) procedure

The relation between memory and attention has been of long-standing interest. Eich (1984) made an important discovery of implicit but not explicit memory for contextually determined homophones (e.g., taxi-FARE) presented in a channel to be ignored within a selective listening procedure. However, his slow rate of presentation of shadowing task materials may have allowed frequent attention shifts to the allegedly ignored channel. With a direct replication of Eich’s timing parameters, we reproduced his results, but when the attended channel was presented twice as fast as Eich’s, implicit memory for the to-be-ignored words vanished. Our results contradict claims of extensive semantic processing of unattended auditory information in this task.     

Cognition Is Not Computation: The Argument from Irreversibility

The dominant scientific and philosophical view of the mind – according to which, put starkly, cognition is computation – is refuted herein, via specification and defense of the following new argument: Computation is reversible; cognition isn't; ergo, cognition isn't computation. After presenting a sustained dialectic arising from this defense, we conclude with a brief preview of the view we would put in place of the cognition-is-computation doctrine.     

Rationality in Religion

Religion can be defined narrowly as belief in anthropomorphic supernatural beings. For Levy-Bruhl this meant that prelogical ‘mystic participation’ preceded true religion. For Donald Wiebe and others it means that philosophical-scientific rationality has been struggling to replace religion since the axial age. A broader definition of religion interprets rational post-axial theology as a development within religion, not a replacement of true religion. Both definitions are legitimate. The narrow definition highlights a tendency to superstition in religion. The broader definition recognizes the possibility of an evolution of religious thought.     

Need probability affects retention: A direct demonstration

Recent memory theory has emphasized the concept ofneed probability—that is, the probability that a given piece of learned information will be tested at some point in the future. It has been proposed that, in real-world situations, need probability declines over time and that the memory-loss rate is calibrated to match the progressive reduction in need probability (J. R. Anderson & Schooler, 1991). The present experiments were designed to examine the influence of the slope of the need-probability curve on the slope of the retention curve. On each of several trials, subjects memorized a list of digits, then retained the digits in memory for 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 sec. Some trials ended with a recall test; other trials ended with the message, “no test.” In Experiment 1, the likelihood of encountering a memory test (i.e., the need probability) was made to either increase or decrease as the retention interval increased; in Experiment 2, need probability either was flat (invariant across retention intervals) or decreased as the retention interval increased. The results indicated that the shape of the need-probability curve influenced the slope of the retention curve (Experiment 1) and that the effect became larger as the experimental session progressed (Experiment 2). The findings support the notion that memory adapts to need probabilities and that the rate of forgetting is influenced by the slope of the need-probability curve. In addition, all of the forgetting curves approximated a power function, suggesting that need probability influences the slope but not the form of forgetting.     

The Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology at 25

This issue, redesigned in a new format, marks the beginning of Volume 25, the beginning of the silver anniversary year of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. Data were compiled from the first 24 volumes to study changes over time, and Pearson correlations were calculated to determine linear trends in the journal's development The number of articles per volume has doubled, from about 25 to 50. In recent years the first authors of articles were more likely to be located outside the U.S. (up from about 5% to about 25%). Also, in recent years the first authors of articles were less likely to be affiliated with nonmedical school university departments and more likely to be affiliated with medical schools or research institutes. An introduction to this special 25th anniversary issue is provided.