The Skin Picking Impact Scale: Factor structure,validity and development of a short version

In the present study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Skin Picking Impact Scale (SPIS; Keuthen, Deckersbach, Wilhelm et al., 2001), a 10 item self‐report questionnaire designed to assess the psychosocial impact of skin picking disorder (SPD). Participants were 650 individuals who met criteria for SPD in an online survey. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated a unitary factor structure with high internal consistency (α = 0.94). Consequently, we constructed an abbreviated 4‐item version that retained good internal consistency (α = 0.87) and a robust factor structure. Both the short and the full versions demonstrated discriminant and convergent/concurrent validity. In conclusion, the findings indicate that both versions are psychometrically sound measures of SPD related psychosocial impact; however, some potential limitations of the full scale are discussed.     

Meaning,Context, and Control:Convergent trends and controversial issues in current Social‐scientific research on Human cognition and communication

A survey of a wide range of social‐scientific disciplines reveals a definite convergence of theoretical interest in human cognition and communication as situated, concerned, and embedded in social commitment. Recent contributions within situation semantics and cognitive science explicitly reject some of the constraints inherent in their shared philosophical heritage and prepare novel ground for dialogues between fields as far apart as formal semantics and ‘dialogical’ text theory. Issues such as purely cognitive versus motivational aspects of human situatedness, and the relationship between models of individual information processing, on the one hand, and hermeneutic‐dialectic assumptions about social and collective features of meaning and mind, on the other, are thus made topics of cross‐disciplinary discussions. These are some of the many problems in need of further clarification if we want to explore the possibility of bridging and/or transcending the gulf between analytic‐rationalist and hermeneutic‐dialectic contributions to our insight into human cognition and communication.     

Evaluating a model of global psychophysical judgments—I: Behavioral properties of summations and productions

The research presented is a partial empirical evaluation of the second author's proposed psychophysical theory [Luce (2002). Psychological Review, 109, 520-532; Luce (2004). Psychological Review, 111, 446-454]. The theory deals with the global percept of subjective intensity, in which there is a psychophysical function Ψ that maps pairs of physical intensities onto the positive real numbers and represents, in an explicit mathematical way, subjective summation and a form of ratio production. A number of behavioral properties have been shown to follow from these specific representations, and in the presence of certain plausible background assumptions these properties are also sufficient for the representations. In four auditory experiments, key behavioral properties of summation over the two ears and a form of generalized ratio production are evaluated empirically. Considerable support is reported for particular forms of Ψ for summations and ratio productions separately. A second article, Steingrimsson and Luce (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, in press), explores the behavioral properties that link summations and productions.     

STAGES IN CONCEPT FORMATION AND LEVELS OF COGNITIVE FUNCTIONING

This paper deals with a process of intuitive concept formation which is assumed to take place when learning of the concept involves unfamiliar discriminations, and is subordinate relative to some salient behavioral goal. Under such conditions, three separate stages of learning are hypothesized. At first, the defining property acquires perceptual dominance. After that, the functional concept is achieved. Finally, the verbal concept is developed as an insight into and symbolic representation of an already established intuitive discriminatory mechanism. This follows from certain theoretical assumptions concerning levels of cognitive organization, it is maintained, and is also in part corroborated by the findings from a preliminary experimental study.     

SEMANTIC, SYNTACTIC, AND ASSOCIATIVE CONTEXT EFFECTS IN A STEREOSCOPIC RIVALRY SITUATION

R ommetveit , R., T och , H. & S vendsen , D. Semantic, syntactic, and associative context effects in a stereoscopic rivalry situation. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1968, 9, 145–149.—Typographically similar words (e.g. 'wine' and 'nine') were presented to left and right eye, each pair in combination with three unequivocal words in such a way that the test word ('wine') would appear in either a meaningful phrase ('sweet wine'), or in an anomalous phrase ('wrinkled wine'), or in an associated-words context ('beer wine'). All three types of context proved effective in making the test word dominate, but anomalous phrase was inferior to the others. A set to 'read part of a text' appeared to facilitate the effect of phrase context.     

On the Persistence of the Genealogical in Contemporary Theology

There is a persistence of genealogical discourse in a certain strand of contemporary theology. Opting for the genealogical shapes the theological task of remembrance and engagement with the historical tradition in important, but also problematic, ways. In this article I discuss how genealogical discourse was appropriated by theology, and then uncover its implicit assumptions and tendencies. Analysing some encounters between theological genealogies and various Hegelian thinkers, I draw a contrast between Nietzschean genealogy and Hegelian ‘phenomenology’. This comparison brings to light some fundamental ways in which the genealogical might distort theological writing and practice.     

No deep disagreement for new relativists

Recently a number of writers have argued that a new form of relativism involves a form of semantic context-dependence which helps it escape the perhaps most common objection to ordinary contextualism; that it cannot accommodate our intuitions about disagreement. I argue: (i) In order to evaluate this claim we have to pay closer attention to the nature of our intuitions about disagreement. (ii) We have different such intuitions concerning different questions: we have more stable disagreement intuitions about moral disputes than about, say, disputes about matters of taste. (iii) The new form of relativism does not vindicate the stable intuitions about disagreement. (iv) It does a better job explaining the unstable intuitions than contextualism. But, pace some relativists, it is not clear that assertion-truth rather than just proposition-truth has to be relativized to accomplish this.