The Many Senses of Imagination and the Manifestation of Fiction: A View from Husserl’s Phenomenology of Phantasy

The systematic importance of the eidetic account of phantasy for Husserlian phenomenology in general is undisputed, but whether this account can be relevant for Aesthetics has often been put into question. In this paper I argue that Husserl’s rich phenomenology of phantasy, and in particular his account of perceptual phantasy, can nevertheless significantly enhance our understanding of how we recognize and imaginatively participate in artistic fictions. Moreover, I show how Husserl’s peculiar formulation of a non-intuitive phantasy at stake in artistic representation anticipates some uses of the imagination in Aesthetics suggested by Ernst Gombrich and Kendall Walton.     

Entrevista con J. D. Frank

RESUMEN

Jerome Frank, posiblemente el autor más provocativo en la línea de considerar que las psicoterapias pueden ser placebos o que éstos deben considerarse como auténticas terapias, responde en la entrevista a algunas de las cuestiones que su reconocimiento de los factores comunes a todas las terapias han planteado a otros profesionales. Comienza explicando que desde la publicación de Persuasion and Healing se han acumulado más datos a favor de su hipótesis de la desmoralización, e introduce algunas clarificaciones terminológicas en relación con el “efecto placebo”. Seguidamente aborda, entre otras, cuestiones tales como las características que se deben considerar al diseñar un grupo control placebo, cómo deben emplearse éstos en el campo de la psicología clínica o su defensa del terapeuta ecléctico, finalizando con algunos comentarios acerca de la eficacia de varias formas de psicoterapia.     

Conditional Associative Learning of Spatial and Object Information in Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The present study assessed frontostriatal mediated memory functions in children with ADHD (N = 12) and healthy control participants (N = 12) using two tests of conditional associative learning (i.e., object and spatial) that shared similar stimulus-response association structures but that differed in terms of the demands placed upon strategic processes. Children with ADHD displayed normal performance on the object learning task but were impaired on the spatial learning task that placed greater demands on internally derived strategic processes. Secondary analyses further indicated that this strategic processing impairment cannot be attributed specifically to perseverative or working memory errors but rather appears to be related to a more general inability to maintain a high degree of consistency in responding across trials. Although the results of this study must be interpreted in light of the small sample sizes, they suggest that ADHD does not produce a basic deficit in acquiring stimulus-response associations previously shown to be associated with basal ganglia dysfunction. Rather, these findings suggest that the impaired conditional associative learning performance of children with ADHD is attributable to deficits in strategic processes previously been found to be dependent upon the integrity of the prefrontal cortex.     

How Should We Assess the Fit of Rasch-Type Models? Approximating the Power of Goodness-of-Fit Statistics in Categorical Data Analysis

We investigate the performance of three statistics, R ₁, R ₂ (Glas in Psychometrika 53:525–546, 1988), and M ₂ (Maydeu-Olivares & Joe in J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 100:1009–1020, 2005, Psychometrika 71:713–732, 2006) to assess the overall fit of a one-parameter logistic model (1PL) estimated by (marginal) maximum likelihood (ML). R ₁ and R ₂ were specifically designed to target specific assumptions of Rasch models, whereas M ₂ is a general purpose test statistic. We report asymptotic power rates under some interesting violations of model assumptions (different item discrimination, presence of guessing, and multidimensionality) as well as empirical rejection rates for correctly specified models and some misspecified models. All three statistics were found to be more powerful than Pearson’s X ² against two- and three-parameter logistic alternatives (2PL and 3PL), and against multidimensional 1PL models. The results suggest that there is no clear advantage in using goodness-of-fit statistics specifically designed for Rasch-type models to test these models when marginal ML estimation is used.     

Pragmatic norms in science: making them explicit

The present work constitutes an attempt to make explicit those pragmatic norms successfully operating in empirical science. I will first comment on the initial presuppositions of the discussion, in particular, on those concerning the instrumental character of scientific practice and the nature of scientific goals. Then I will depict the moderately naturalistic frame in which, from this approach, the pragmatic norms make sense. Third, I will focus on the specificity of the pragmatic norms, making special emphasis on what I regard as a key idea underlying them, namely, the view, vigorously advocated by classical pragmatists like C. S. Peirce and G. Vailati, that the best test for objectivity is the test of action. Finally, I am going to put forward a tentative list of pragmatic norms that can be abstracted from a careful observation and analysis of scientific practice as provided by current philosophers of experimentation (A. Franklin and F. Steinle among others). The norms will be divided into four classes corresponding to four aspects of science in which they rule, that is, self-correction, prediction, explanation and both experimentation and computation. In the following account, the formulation of those pragmatic norms successfully governing science will be understood as a contribution that scientifically-oriented pragmatism can make to the normative naturalistic project in epistemology.     

I feel so sorry! Tapping the joint influence of empathy and personal distress on helping behavior

Observing a person in need usually provokes a compound and dynamic emotional experience made up of empathy and personal distress which, in turn, may influence helping behavior. As the exclusive use of rating scales to measure these two emotions does not permit the analysis of their concurrent evolution, we added the analogical emotional scale (AES) in order to measure how these two emotions evolve throughout the emotional experience, from its onset to its conclusion. Therefore, in two studies, the concurrence of empathy and personal distress was induced, both rating scales and AES were used, and participants were given an unexpected opportunity to help. Two effects were found. First, the helping behavior was lower when personal distress prevailed over empathy at the end of the experience (Studies 1 and 2). Second, this “end” effect was coherent with the nature of the different motives evoked by personal distress and empathy—directed to increasing either one’s own welfare (egoistic) or the victim’s welfare (altruism) (Study 2). These results support the usefulness of combining the rating scales and the AES for gaining a better understanding of the nature and behavioral consequences of complex, compound and dynamic emotional experiences.     

Hermanas de Corazón y Alma

Friendship is a relationship that can traverse generations or be located within a specific era of a person's life. In this article, the author examines the role that her childhood friendship played in shaping her understanding of gender, ethnicity, poverty, immigration, spirituality and family processes. This friendship was during emerging adolescence and helped the author navigate and develop mestiza consciousness. These lessons were reinforced during her graduate training and have influenced her identity as a Chicana feminist therapist and the manner in which she connects with clients in psychotherapy. After presenting the story of her friendship, the author incorporates the theoretical perspectives of Chicana Feminism and Spirita to demonstrate how this friendship has influenced her clinical work with women. Specific themes discussed are language, invisibility, and cultural formulations of gender and spirituality.     

Attentional deficits in fibromyalgia and its relationships with pain,emotional distress and sleep dysfunction complaints

Cognitive complaints are common among subjects with fibromyalgia (FM). Yet, few studies have been able to document these deficits with cognitive tasks. A main limitation of existing studies is that attention has been broadly defined and the tasks used to measure attention are not designed to cover all the main components of the attentional system. Research on attention has identified three primary functions of attention, known as alerting, orienting and executive functioning. This study used the attentional network test-interactions task to explore whether and which of the three attentional networks are altered in FM. Results showed that FM patients have impaired executive control (greater interference), reduced vigilance (slower overall reaction time) and greater alertness (higher reduction in errors after a warning cue). Vigilance and alertness showed several relations with depression, anxiety and sleep quality. Sleep dysfunction was a significant predictor for alertness, whereas there were no significant predictors for vigilance. These findings highlight that the treatment of sleep difficulties in FM patients may help with some of their cognitive complaints.     

Job Conditions,Coping and Wellness/Health Outcomes in Spanish Secondary School Teachers

This cross-sectional study is part of EUROTEACH; a project aimed at examining the possible relationships between job conditions and wellness/ health outcomes in teachers from 11 European countries. The Spanish sample consists of 198 (53% female) teachers working in mixed public secondary schools in Alicante. The Job Demand-Control-Social Support (JDCS) model (Johnson and Hall, <citeref rid="bib18">1988</citeref>; Karasek and Theorell, <citeref rid="bib22">1990</citeref>) provides the theoretical framework for the study and specific instruments measuring additional job conditions and coping are applied to investigate these variables in the teaching profession. Moreover, the relationships between the variables are studied to clarify their possible interaction. Results confirm the expected relationship between job conditions and wellness/health effects, and also show the presence of an interaction between coping and the variables in the JDCS model. The need to perform further research on the role of coping, as well as considering other individual variables that might influence teacher occupational stress, is pointed out.     

Poor Readers but Compelled to Read: Stroop Effects in Developmental Dyslexia

We studied a group of 24 children with dyslexia in second to fifth primary school grades by using a discrete-trial computerized version of the Stroop Color-Word Test. Since the classic Stroop effect depends on the interference of reading with color naming, one would expect these children to show no interference or, at least, less interference than normal readers. Children with dyslexia showed, however, a Stroop effect larger than normal readers of the same age. This suggests that reading, although difficult and slow, is an inescapable step that precedes naming both in poor and in normal readers.