Change in affective state assessed by impaired color-naming of threat-related words

This study investigated the effects of mood induction on Stroop color-naming times for threat-related words. The subjects’ task was to color-name sets of threat-related words and affectively neutral matched control words both before and after mood-induction. Subjects were shown a short film about the medical effects of nuclear war (negative affect manipulation), a humorous cartoon, or no film. A significant and highly reliable color-naming decrement of the threat-related words was observed only after the negative affect manipulation. This indicates that the attentional bias towards the processing of threat-related material observed in clinically anxious or high Trait-Anxious subjects can be induced in initially nonanxious subjects. An incidental recall task included in the procedure provided no evidence of mood state dependent recall.     

Intersubjectivity,time and social relationship in Alfred Schutz's philosophy of music

Alfred Schutz's (Vienna 1899 — New York 1959) research into the philosophy of music certainly cannot be regarded as the most notable aspect of this writer, born and educated in Vienna, later a naturalized American citizen. Nor can it legitimately be maintained that Schutz's writings on the subject form a systematic corpus in his work. Schutz was above all a social scientist, strongly attracted, as were many writers of the first half of this century, to the project of aphilosophical foundation within his field of expertise. In this project, where phenomenology is encountered, the question ofintersubjectivity together with that ofcommunication among individuals, plays a crucial role. It is, therefore, undoubtedly correct to consider Schutz's theoretical interests in music within this framework; thus music tends to assume a paradigmatic value, in the sense that the musical piece in its concrete temporal development, in the presence of performers and listeners, demonstrates in a truly exemplary manner, how the process of social relationship actually functions.Although mindful of this frame of reference, nontheless we feel it can be asserted that the works of Schutz which we are about to examine are in themselves interesting stimuli, independently of any organic connection with the author's general project. These stimuli have furthermore proveked a theoretical debate that is still going on in the USA.     

Family therapy and soiling: an audit of externalizing and other approaches

This is a retrospective audit of the therapy outcome of 108 children with soiling and their families. Fifty-four children were treated by externalizing and 54 comparison children and families were treated by the usual methods in the same clinic. The results from the externalizing group were better and compared favourably with standards derived from previous studies of soiling. Externalizing was rated as much more helpful by parents at follow-up.     

Influence of Stimulus Salience and Attentional Demands on Visual Search Patterns in Hemispatial Neglect

Seventy-five left and right brain-damaged patients, with or without hemispatial neglect, and 40 age-matched control subjects were tested on cancellation tasks with two different visual textures modeled after Julesz (1981). In one condition (“preattentive”), target elements segregated easily from background elements and were perceived effortlessly. In the other (“attentive”), target elements did not segregate easily and could be detected only after prolonged focal scrutiny. Both controls and patients were more accurate and faster on the preattentive than attentive texture. However, only neglect patients were disproportionately impaired on the attentive texture, thus suggesting that unilateral neglect is exacerbated by the low visual salience of the stimuli and a higher engagement of focal attention. Thus, a simple bedside test may help to tell apart the level of visual information processing maximally impaired in neglect patients.     

An Investigation of Counselor Interpretations in Client-Centered Therapy

Preliminary findings by the McGill Psychotherapy Process Research Team indicate that not only are interpretations used in client-centered therapy, but they are also efficient in producing in-session client change. Using the Hill Counsellor Verbal Response Category System—Revised (Friedlander, 1982) as a guide to locate interpretations, we investigated the qualitative differences between interpretations leading to different in-session client change events in six sessions conducted by Carl Rogers. The occurrence of in-session therapeutic phenomena were assessed using the Experiencing Scale (Klein, Mathieu, Gendlin, & Keisler, 1970) and the Category System of Good Moments (Mahrer & Nadler, 1986). Results indicate that significant in-session therapeutic phenomena are preceded by interpretations and that qualitative differences exist between interpretations that precede change events and those that do not. Implications for psychotherapy theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

The influence of context‐specific and dispositional achievement goals on children's paired collaborative interaction

Background . Research has demonstrated that working collaboratively can have positive effects on children's learning. While key factors have been identified which influence the quality of these interactions, little research has addressed the influence of children's achievement goals on collaborative behaviour. Aims . This paper investigates the influence of mastery and performance goals on the nature of children's collaborative participation while playing a problem‐solving computer game with a peer. Sample . Forty‐eight primary schoolchildren aged 8–10 years were divided into two groups: those displaying strong personal goal preferences (dispositional group: N = 14) and those whose goal preferences were context‐dependent, displaying no consistent bias for either mastery or performance goals (context‐dependent: N = 34). Children were paired on the basis of same gender, year group, and goal orientation. Method . Context‐dependent pairs were assigned to either a mastery or a performance condition in which they received goal‐focused instructions. Dispositional pairs received only the instructions to collaborate given to all groups. Collaborative sessions were videotaped and interactions coded. Results . Children who were assigned mastery goals engaged in significantly more elaborated problem‐solving discussion whilst children who were assigned performance goals engaged in more executive help seeking and displayed lower levels of metacognitive control. Dispositional pairs shared some similar patterns, according to goal orientation, as context‐dependent pairs. Conclusions . Goal‐focused instructions can be used to influence the nature and quality of children's paired interactions. Instructing children towards mastery goals appears to promote a more collaborative style of interaction.     

Anaphoric agreement violation: an ERP analysis of its interpretation

In the present study we analyzed the processing of grammatically anomalous sentences like "The famous dancer were nervously preparing herself/themselves to face the crowd.", which contains two anomalies, one early and one late. We investigated how processing of the later anomaly (at the pronoun 'herself' or 'themselves') was affected by the processing of the early anomaly (at 'were'). We considered two processing scenarios involving the first anomaly: (1) The representation of the subject-verb number agreement error at the first verb is coerced to match the verb, rendering 'herself' anomalous; (2) The representation of the subject-verb agreement error is coerced to match the subject noun, rendering 'themselves' anomalous. Our dependent measure was event-related scalp potentials (ERPs). When the pronoun disagreed with the verb (and agreed with the subject), a P600 was recorded, while the opposite condition elicited no reliable effect. Our data suggest that interpretation of reflexive pronouns involves the reactivation of multiple lexical items, verbs included.