The goal as process: music and the search for the Self

This paper explores and compares the processes of music and analysis from the author's experience as a musician, piano teacher and analyst. It explains how the use of music improvisation in analysis (with simple percussion instruments) can powerfully enhance the dialogue between the unconscious and conscious psyche, as well as deepen the relationship between analyst and analysand. This is connected theoretically to Jung's active imagination and Winnicott's concept of play within the analytic encounter. Finally, the question is raised whether analytic trainings could do more to expose trainees to the possibility of using music within the analytic encounter. This touches on the more basic and controversial issue (which often separates analytical psychology and psychoanalysis) of whether expressive therapy should be used in analysis at all.     

Constraints have different concurrent effects and aftereffects on variability

Three experiments showed that constraints imposed early in learning have different effects on variability when they are in effect and after they are removed. Task constraints, which determine how something can be done, limited the number of possible responses in a computer game. Variability constraints, which specify how differently something must be done, required that each response differ from some number of prior responses. Less restrictive constraints (Experiments 1 and 2) produced higher variability during the constraints. More restrictive constraints (Experiments 2 and 3) led to higher variability after the constraints were relaxed. The authors discuss how these differences reflect strategies acquired during the constraints (default rules) and modified in closely related ways (exception rules) afterward.     

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.     

Measures of self-efficacy and optimism in older adults with generalized anxiety

This study provides initial psychometric data for the Self-Efficacy Scale (SES) and the Life Orientation Test (LOT) in a sample of older adults with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Participants included 76 adults, ages 60 to 80, who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for GAD. Self-efficacy and outcome expectancies were lower in older adults with GAD relative to published data from younger and older community samples. Both the SES and LOT demonstrated adequate internal consistency. Confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for optimism and pessimism factors within the LOT and exploratory factor analysis of the SES suggested threefactors that overlap with previous findings. Overall, the data support the potential utility of these instruments in late-life GAD and set the stage forfuture investigations of generalized self-efficacy expectancies and outcome expectancies (or optimism) as they relate to the prediction of affect and behavior in this group.     

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     

The generalization of deferred imitation in enculturated chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Deferred imitation of object-related actions and generalization of imitation to similar but not identical tasks was assessed in three human-reared (enculturated) chimpanzees, ranging in age from 5 to 9 years. Each ape displayed high levels of deferred imitation and only slightly lower levels of generalization of imitation. The youngest two chimpanzees were more apt to generalize the model's actions when they had displayed portions of the target behaviors at baseline, consistent with the idea that learning is more likely to occur when working within the "zone of proximal development." We argue that generalization of imitation is the best evidence to date of imitative learning in chimpanzees. Electronic Publication     

Agreement Checking in Comprehension: Evidence from Relative Clauses

Work on agreement processing in comprehension in English has provided evidence that the plural feature is specified or marked and that the syntactic structure of the subject plays a role in checking features. It is argued here that the structure intervening between the subject and verb also plays a role in checking and that there is pressure to check features immediately. A self-paced reading study tested this proposal in a previously unstudied configuration: agreement between the verb in a subject relative clause (RC) and the relative clause head (e.g., the niece of the actors who was/were¨). According to the Construal Hypothesis (Frazier and Clifton, 1995), the structural relation between the RC and head is not immediately fully specified (unlike, for example, the relation between the subject and verb of a main clause). Thus, at the point when an agreeing verb is processed, the structure underlying the check may not yet be fully specified. This assumption about structural processing, together with the proposal for agreement checking in comprehension predicts (1) that there will be a large asymmetry between the processing of singular and plural agreeing verbs in the RC (larger than those seen in direct subject-verb predication) and (2) that there could be a role for agreement in determining RC attachment. Clear evidence for the first prediction was found; evidence for the second was inconclusive.     

The Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales

Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses of the Beavers Interactional Scales did not appear to support the model offered by its developers, namely, several specified family attributes contributing respectively to two global factors of Family Competence and Family Style. Moreover, regression analysis indicated that only three of 12 items predicted raters' assessments of Global Family Health, and one of seven items predicted Global Family Style. Individuals interested in the family dynamic centripetal/centrifugal might best think of that as a unitary entity and rate it accordingly.