Über Notwendigkeit und Möglichkeit der psychologischen Wahrnehmungslehre

Zusammenfassung In der psychologischen Persönlichkeitstheorie kann die Analyse der Wahrnehmungsfunktion nicht ohne ernste Folgen ausgeklammert werden. Diese Ausklammerung tritt sowohl in vom behavioristischen als auch vom phänomenologisch-introspektionistischen Ansatz aus entwickelten Persönlichkeitstheorien auf — wobei allerdings die Wahrnehmungsfrage in Umformulierungen ständig erneut aufbricht — und ist die Folge der Versuche, das in der Wahrnehmungslehre thematisch werdende psychophysische Dilemma zu umgehen. Gerade dieses Dilemma aber muß ausgehalten werden, da sonst nicht nur die Wahrnehmungslehre verkümmert, sondern auch das Bild vom Menschen sich in der psychologischen Theorie destruiert. Es wird nun für die Wahrnehmungslehre vorgeschlagen, die aussichtslosen Beseitigungsbemühungen aufzugeben und statt dessen zu versuchen, den durch das Dilemma bedingten Unsicherheitsbereich der Theoriebildung sowohl von physiologischer als auch von psychologischer Seite aus vorgehend — quasi in unendlicher Approximation — einzuschränken. Als ein der Psychologie möglicher Beitrag dazu wird die physiologiefreie Ableitung einer Theorie des Mediums von Strukturvorgängen im Wahrnehmungsfeld betrachtet.Der vorliegende Aufsatz bildet das Einleitungskapitel einer Arbeit, die — in teilweiser Erfüllung der Habilitationsverpflichtungen — der Philosophischen Fakultät der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster vorgelegt wurde. — Der Verfasser widmet ihn seinem hochverehrten Lehrer, Herrn Professor Dr. Wolfgang Metzger, in Dankbarkeit zum 60. Geburtstage.     

(Neuro)Psychological Interventions for Non-Motor Symptoms in the Treatment of Patients with Parkinson’s Disease: a Systematic Umbrella Review

Neuropsychology Review - Conducted in a multidisciplinary and multimodal setting, the main objectives of neuropsychological treatment are to improve cognition, alleviate affective disorders, and to...     

A comparison between elemental and compound training of cues in retrospective revaluation

Associative learning theories assume that cue interaction and, specifically, retrospective revaluation occur only when the target cue is previously trained in compound with the to-be-revalued cue. However, there are recent demonstrations of retrospective revaluation in the absence of compound training (e.g., Matute & Pine?o, 1998a, 1998b). Nevertheless, it seems reasonable to assume that cue interaction should be stronger when the cues are trained together than when they are trained apart. In two experiments with humans, we directly compared compound and elemental training of cues. The results showed that retrospective revaluation in the elemental condition can be as strong as and, sometimes, stronger than that in the compound condition. This suggests that within-compound associations are not necessary for retrospective revaluation to occur and that these effects can possibly be best understood in the framework of general interference theory.     

Harm,risk, and doping analogies: A counter-response to Kious

Brent Kious has objected to our previous criticism of his views on doping, maintaining that we, by and large, misrepresented his position. In this response, we strengthen our original misgivings, arguing that (1) his views on risk of harm in sport are either uncontroversially true (not inconsistent with the views of many doping opponents) or demonstrably false (attribute to doping opponents an overly simplistic view), (2) his use of analogies (still) indicates an oversimplification of many issues surrounding the question of doping in sports, and (3) his doping analogies are insufficiently precise to support his conclusions.     

Philosophy on steroids: a reply

Brent Kious has recently attacked several arguments generally adduced to support anti-doping in sports, which are widely supported by the sports medicine fraternity, international sports federations, and international governments. We show that his attack does not succeed for a variety of reasons. First, it uses an overly inclusive definition of doping at odds with the WADA definition, which has global, if somewhat contentious, currency. Second, it seriously misconstrues the position it attacks, rendering the attack without force against a more balanced construal of an anti-doping position. Third, it makes unwarranted appeals to matters Kious considers morally ‘clear’, while simultaneously attacking a position many others take to be equally morally ‘clear’, namely that of anti-doping. Such an inconsistency, attacking and appealing to the moral status quo as befits one’s argument, is not acceptable without further qualification. Fourth, his position suffers from a general methodological flaw of over-reliance upon argumentation by analogy. Moreover, it is argued that the analogies, being poorly selected and developed, fail to justify his conclusion that the anti-doping lobby lacks philosophical and moral authority for its stance. These issues are symptomatic of a more fundamental problem: any attempt at providing a blanket solution to the question of whether doping is morally acceptable or not is bound to run up against problems when applied to highly specific contexts. Thus, rather than reaching any particular conclusion for or against doping products or processes in this article, we conclude that an increased context-sensitivity will result in a more evenhanded appraisal of arguments on the matter.     

Occasional reinforced trials during extinction can slow the rate of rapid reacquisition

Two appetitive conditioning experiments with rats examined reacquisition after conditioned responding was eliminated by either extinction or by a partial reinforcement procedure in which reinforced trials were occasionally presented among many nonreinforced trials. In Experiment 1, reacquisition to a conditional stimulus (CS) that had been conditioned and extinguished was more rapid than acquisition in a group that had received no prior conditioning. However, the addition of occasional reinforced trials to extinction slowed this rapid reacquisition effect. Experiment 2 replicated the result and showed that a procedure in which the CS and the unconditional stimulus (US) were unpaired in extinction interfered even further with reacquisition. The results suggest that rapid reacquisition is ordinarily produced when reinforced trials provide a contextual cue that can renew responding by signaling other acquisition trials (Ricker & Bouton, 1996). The effects of partial reinforcement in extinction are surprising from several theoretical perspectives and have useful clinical implications.     

Spontaneous recovery from forward and backward blocking

This article demonstrates and analyzes spontaneous recovery of stimulus control following both forward and backward blocking in a conditioned suppression preparation with rats. Experiment 1 found, in first-order conditioning, robust forward blocking and an attenuation of it following a retention interval. Experiment 2 showed, in sensory preconditioning, recovery of responding following both forward and backward blocking. Also, the results of this experiment indicated that response recovery to the blocked stimulus cannot be explained by an impaired status of the blocking stimulus after a retention interval. Experiment 3, also in sensory preconditioning, suggested that spontaneous recovery following both forward and backward blocking in Experiment 2 was due to impaired associative activation of the blocking stimulus' representation during testing with the blocked stimulus. Although no contemporary model of associative learning can explain these results, a modification of R. R. Miller and L. D. Matzel's (1988) comparator hypothesis is proposed to do so.     

Comparing associative, statistical, and inferential reasoning accounts of human contingency learning

For more than two decades, researchers have contrasted the relative merits of associative and statistical theories as accounts of human contingency learning. This debate, still far from resolution, has led to further refinement of models within each family of theories. More recently, a third theoretical view has joined the debate: the inferential reasoning account. The explanations of these three accounts differ critically in many aspects, such as level of analysis and their emphasis on different steps within the information-processing sequence. Also, each account has important advantages (as well as critical flaws) and emphasizes experimental evidence that poses problems to the others. Some hybrid models of human contingency learning have attempted to reconcile certain features of these accounts, thereby benefiting from some of the unique advantages of different families of accounts. A comparison of these families of accounts will help us appreciate the challenges that research on human contingency learning will face over the coming years.     

Failure of serial taste-taste compound presentations to produce overshadowing of extinction of conditioned taste aversion

Two experiments were conducted to study overshadowing of extinction in a conditioned taste aversion preparation. In both experiments, aversive conditioning with sucrose was followed by extinction treatment with either sucrose alone or in compound with another taste, citric acid. Experiment 1 employed a simultaneous compound extinction treatment and found results indicative of overshadowing of extinction. By contrast, Experiment 2, in which extinction treatment involved serial compound presentations, failed to obtain evidence of overshadowing of extinction. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that the serial presentation of two tastes was processed as equivalent to the separate presentation of the tastes. The results are discussed in relation to: (1) Convergent evidence from research on latent inhibition, (2) competing theories of learning and, (3) their possible adaptive value in food-selection learning.