Emotions,Cognition, Affect: On Jerry Neu's A Tear is an Intellectual Thing

Jerome Neu has been one of the most prominent voices in the philosophy of emotions for more than twenty years, that is, before the field was even a field. His Emotions, Thought, and Therapy (1977) was one of its most original and ground-breaking books. Neu is an uncompromising defender of what has been called the cognitive theory of emotions (as am I). But the ambiguity, controversy, and confusions own by the notion of a cognitive theory of emotion is what I would like to focus on here. In so doing I will indicate some of the way sin which my own theory has developed.     

Effects of manual versus voice-activated dialing during simulated driving

We measured driving performance (lane-keeping errors, driving times, and glances away from the road scene) in a video driving simulator for 24 volunteers who each drove alone on a 10.6-km multicurved course while simultaneously placing calls on a mobile phone subscribed to a voice-activated dialing system. Driving performance also was measured for the same distance while participants manually dialed phone numbers and while they drove without dialing. There were 22% fewer lane-keeping errors (p<.01) and 56% fewer glances away from the road scene (p<.01) when they used voice-activated dialing as compared to manual dialing. Significantly longer driving times in both of the dialing conditions as compared to the No Dialing condition are discussed in terms of the hypothesis that drivers decrease driving speed to compensate for the demands of the secondary phone tasks.     

Beneficial and adverse effects of pets

The beneficial and adverse effects of pets on people with special mental and physical conditions merit inclusion in psychological evaluations and treatments.     

Repetition blindness has a perceptual locus: evidence from online processing of targets in RSVP streams

Four experiments tested whether repetition blindness (RB; reduced accuracy reporting repetitions of briefly displayed items) is a perceptual or a memory-recall phenomenon. RB was measured in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams, with the task altered to reduce memory demands. In Experiment 1 only the number of targets (1 vs. 2) was reported, eliminating the need to remember target identities. Experiment 2 segregated repeated and nonrepeated targets into separate blocks to reduce bias against repeated targets. Experiments 3 and 4 required immediate "online" buttonpress responses to targets as they occurred. All 4 experiments showed very strong RB. Furthermore, the online response data showed clearly that the 2nd of the repeated targets is the one missed. The present results show that in the RSVP paradigm, RB occurs online during initial stimulus encoding and decision making. The authors argue that RB is indeed a perceptual phenomenon.     

Speech treatment and support group experiences of people who participate in the National Stuttering Association

Support groups are rapidly becoming an important part of the recovery process for many people who stutter, and a growing number of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are encouraging their clients to participate in support groups. At present, however, little is known about the individuals who join stuttering support groups and the benefits they derive from their participation. This study surveyed members of the National Stuttering Association (NSA) to learn about their experiences in support groups, as well as their experiences in speech therapy. Respondents were 71 people who attended the 1999 NSA conference in Tacoma, WA. The majority of respondents had participated in treatment several times during their lives, using a variety of techniques. Respondents who had participated in fluency-shaping treatments were more likely to report that they had experienced a relapse than those who had participated in stuttering modification or combined treatments. Also, there was a strong positive correlation between respondents' satisfaction with treatment and their judgments of clinicians' competence, suggesting that improved training for SLPs should lead to improved treatment for people who stutter. Results will be used to provide a foundation for further evaluations of the benefits of support group participation for people who stutter. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will learn (a) that many people who participate in the NSA have had numerous and varied experiences with speech treatment throughout their lives, (b) which aspects of treatment and support group participation are seen as most beneficial for people who participate in the NSA.     

MMPI-A validity scale uses and limitations in detecting varying levels of random responding

Although there is a substantial research literature on the effects of random responding on the MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989), there are very few studies available on this topic with the MMPI-A (Butcher et al., 1992). Archer and Elkins (1999) found that MMPI-A validity scales F and VRIN were particularly useful in detecting entirely random profiles from those derived standardly in clinical settings but noted that "all random" protocols could not be used to evaluate the usefulness of the T-score difference between the first half (F1) and the second half (F2) of the MMPI-A test booklet. Following up on this issue, this study extended the methodology of previous research by examining the hit rate, positive predictive power, negative predictive power, sensitivity, and specificity of VRIN, F, F1, F2 and the absolute value of the T-score difference between F1 and F2 (denoted as IF1-F21) in 5 samples varying in the degree of protocol randomness. One of the samples consisted of 100 adolescent inpatients administered the MMPI-A under standard instructions, and another sample consisted of 100 protocols randomly generated by computer. The additional 3 samples of 100 protocols each contained varying degrees of computer-generated randomness introduced in the latter half of the MMPI-A item pool. Over- all, the results generally indicate that several MMPI-A validity scales are useful in detecting protocols that are largely random, but all of these validity scales are more limited in detecting partially random responding that involves less than half the total item pool located in the second half of the test booklet. Clinicians should be particularly cautious concerning validity inferences based on the observed T-score difference that occurs for the F1 and F2 subscales and current findings do not support the clinical usefulness of this index.     

Dispelling the illusion of invulnerability: the motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion

Three studies examined the impact of a treatment designed to instill resistance to deceptive persuasive messages. Study 1 demonstrated that after the resistance treatment, ads using illegitimate authority-based appeals became less persuasive, and ads using legitimate appeals became more persuasive. In Study 2, this resistance generalized to novel exemplars, persevered over time, and appeared outside of the laboratory context. In Study 3, a procedure that dispelled participants' illusions of invulnerability to deceptive persuasion maximized resistance to such persuasion. Overall, the present studies demonstrate that attempts to confer resistance to appeals will likely be successful to the extent that they install 2 conceptual features: perceived undue manipulative intent of the source of the appeal and perceived personal vulnerability to such manipulation.     

Influences of hand posture and hand position on compatibility effects for up-down stimuli mapped to left-right responses: evidence for a hand referent hypothesis

Unimanual left-right responses to up-down stimuli show a stimulus-response compatibility (SRC) effect for which the preferred mapping varies as a function of response eccentricity. Responses made in the right hemispace and, to a lesser extent, at a midline position, are faster with the up-right/down-left mapping than with the up-left/down-right mapping, but responses made in the left hemispace are faster with the up-left/down-right mapping. Also, for responses at the midline position, the preferred mapping switches when the hand is placed in a supine posture instead of the more usual prone posture. The response eccentricity effect can be explained in terms of correspondence of asymmetrically coded stimulus and response features, but it is not obvious whether the hand posture effect can be explained in a similar manner. The present study tested the implications of a hypothesis that the body of the hand provides a frame of reference with respect to which the response switch is coded as left or right. As was predicted by this hand referent hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed that the influence of hand posture (prone and supine) on orthogonal SRC was additive with that of response location. In Experiment 2, the location of the switch relative to the hand was varied by having subjects use either a normal grip in which the switch was held between the thumb and the index finger or a grip in which it was held between the little and the ring fingers. The magnitudes of the mapping preferences varied as a function of the grip and hand posture in a manner consistent with the hand referent hypothesis.     

The Experience of the Holy: A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis

The title of this paper, The Experience of the Holy is a direct reference to Rudolf Otto's book Das Heilige. The paper begins with Otto because he lays out many of the important issues involved in a psychological investigation of the experience of the holy, especially the question of whether the sacred is a unique object of experience, or a characteristic of our experience of ordinary objects. The paper then discusses three contemporary relational psychoanalysts (D.W. Winnicott, Hans Loewald, and Christopher Bollas), and the ways in which their theorizing illuminates the psychology of the sacred.