Wittgensteinian Pedagogics: Cavell on the Figure of the Child in the Investigations

This paper discusses Stanley Cavell's approach to the Investigations,focusing upon his essay – `Notes and Afterthoughts on the Opening ofWittgenstein's Investigations'. First, the paper investigates the waysin which Cavell makes central the figure and `voice' of the child to hisreading of the opening of the Investigations. Second, it argues thatCavell's Notes provides a basis for a Wittgensteinian pedagogics,for not only does it hold up the figure of the child as central to the Investigations but it does so in a philosophical style that, thoughdistinctively Cavell's own, comes closest to the spirit of philosophizing inWittgenstein's sense. Third, the paper concludes by discussing the complexvocal and figural structure of the Investigations which serves tohighlight different aspects of the figure of the child and the child's `voice'.     

Zum Matching bei ambulanter Psychotherapie mit Psychosepatienten

In an outpatient setting the matching of patient and psychotherapist is essential as there is – in most cases – no protecting institutional frame. Because of the disturbance in his symbolic function the psychotic patient tends to act out his basic conflict between self- and object-related tendencies. As the patient strives for differentiation and separation, naturally, struggle is involved on various levels. The therapist must feel up to all aspects of this struggle including the more concrete ones. Also psychotic patients always induce an intricate interplay of narcissistic transference and countertransference. The psychotherapist should have the capacity to gain distance from his narcissistic countertransference, which as a rule should find support through supervision. It is necessary that in the patient there exist remnants of relatedness to his fellow-men and also a minimum amount of ego-strength and structure that enables him to cope with a cycle of more or less periodical appointments.     

Insight problem solving in individuals with high versus low schizotypy

Insight problem solving requires restructuring of a problem space by stepping out of the framework provided by the commonly activated cognitive schemas and acquiring a new perspective on the problem. Schizotypy has been linked with loosened associative and overinclusive thinking that may be advantageous for this process. The present study tested this hypothesis and found that individuals with a high degree of schizotypy show better performance on a set of insight problems relative to individuals with low schizotypy, but not on a set of incremental problems that required focused goal-related thinking. Results support the notion that schizotypy is associated not only with enhanced abilities in creative processes involved in divergent thinking but also in creative operations during analytical problem solving.     

The affect heuristic and the attractiveness of simple gambles

Prior studies have observed that the attractiveness of playing a simple gamble (7/36 to win $9; otherwise win nothing) is greatly enhanced by introducing a small loss (7/36 win $9; otherwise lose 5¢). The present studies tested and confirmed an explanation of this finding based on the concept of evaluability and the affect heuristic. Evaluators of the “no‐loss” gamble lack a precise feeling for how good $9 is, hence give it little weight in their judgment. In the second gamble, comparison with the small loss makes $9 “come alive with feeling” and become weighted in the judgment, thus increasing the attractiveness of the gamble. These results demonstrate the importance of contextual factors in determining affect and preference for simple risk‐taking opportunities. They show that the meaning, utility, and weighting of even a very familiar monetary outcome such as $9 is not fixed, but depends greatly on these contextual factors. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Central slowing during the night

The present study determined whether central information processing is subject to a circadian rhythm and, therefore, contributes to the well-known time-of-day effect on reaction time (RT). To assess the duration of central processing chronometrically, we employed the psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm. In this task, subjects make fast responses to two successive stimuli. RT to the second stimulus is usually prolonged as the interval between the two stimuli decreases. This PRP effect is commonly attributed to a central-processing bottleneck. Subjects performed the PRP task every 2 hr during 28 hr of constant wakefulness under controlled conditions. The PRP effect was most pronounced in the early morning. We conclude that central processing is subject to a circadian rhythm, exhibiting a slowing during the night and a nadir in the early morning.     

Overgeneral memory and suppression of trauma memories in post-traumatic stress disorder

The study investigated the relationship between the suppression of trauma memories and overgeneral memory in 42 assault survivors with and without PTSD. Overgeneral memory (OGM) was assessed with a standard autobiographical memory test (AMT). Participants completed two further AMTs under the instructions to either suppress or not suppress assault memories, in counterbalanced order. Participants with PTSD retrieved fewer and more general memories when following the suppression instruction than participants without PTSD, but not under the control instruction. OGM correlated with PTSD symptom severity, and measures of cognitive avoidance. The results are discussed with reference to current theories of overgeneral memory and its possible relationship with PTSD.     

Measuring fear of movement/(re)injury in chronic low back pain using implicit measures

Fear of movement/(re)injury is assumed to contribute to the development and maintenance of chronic low back pain (CLBP) in a subgroup of patients. Studying fear of movement/(re)injury with implicit attitude measures, without the awareness of the patient, might be a valuable addition to self-report questionnaires. The aims of the current study were to investigate whether CLBP patients demonstrate more implicit fear of movement/(re)injury than healthy controls, and whether 2 implicit measures are related to each other, and to an explicit self-report measure of fear of movement/(re)injury. A group of 66 CLBP patients and 30 healthy controls took part in this study. In addition to self-report questionnaires, fear of movement/(re)injury was implicitly assessed by the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST) and the Go-No-Go-Association Task (GNAT) that aimed to determine the association between back-stressing movements and the evaluation "threatening". On both implicit tasks it was found that neither CLBP patients nor healthy controls demonstrated implicit fear of movement/(re)injury, and that CLBP patients did not differ from healthy controls in their level of implicit fear of movement/(re)injury. In general, no associations were found between the EAST and the GNAT, or between implicitly measured and self-reported fear of movement/(re)injury. One major caveat in drawing inferences from these findings is the poor reliability of these implicit measures. Research towards the psychometric properties of these measures should first be expanded before modifying, and applying, them to more complex domains such as fear of movement/(re)injury.     

Christian God‐Talk While Listening to Atheists,Pluralists, and Muslims

In the global conversation over religious ideas, a de facto debate is raging between atheism, pluralism, and Islam. Pluralism respects the claim of every religion. Atheism respects the claim of no religion. Islam respects the claim of its own religion. How should a Christian theologian construct a doctrine of God that benefits from listening to this conversation yet stresses what is important in the gospel, namely, that the God of Jesus Christ is gracious in character? What is recommended here is to (1) investigate the truth question; (2) avoid putting God in the equations; (3) affirm what is essential; and (4) practice charity.     

Memory transfer for emotionally valenced words between identities in dissociative identity disorder

The present study aimed to determine interidentity retrieval of emotionally valenced words in dissociative identity disorder (DID). Twenty-two DID patients participated together with 25 normal controls and 25 controls instructed to simulate DID. Two wordlists A and B were constructed including neutral, positive and negative material. List A was shown to one identity, while list B was shown to another identity claiming total amnesia for the words learned by the first identity. The identity claiming amnesia was tested for intrusions from list A words into the recall of words from list B and recognition of the words learned by both identities. Test results indicated no evidence of total interidentity amnesia for emotionally valenced material in DID. It is argued that dissociative amnesia in DID may more adequately be described as a disturbance in meta-memory functioning instead of an actual retrieval inability.     

From social talk to social action: shaping the social triad with emotion sharing

Seemingly trivial social talk provides fertile ground for emotion sharing (a narrator and audience's realization that they experience the same emotional response toward a target), which in turn creates a coalition between the narrator and the audience, configures the narrator and audience's relationship with the target, and coordinates their target-directed action. In this article, the authors use 4 studies to investigate this thesis. In Studies 1 and 2--where participants rated scenarios in which narrators told them anecdotes--the authors found that when there was emotion sharing (a) participants were more bonded with narrators, (b) the narrator and audience's relationship with the target (as reflected in action tendencies) was determined by the emotionality of the anecdotes, and (c) they coordinated their target-directed actions. Study 3 demonstrated that this effect was indeed due to emotion sharing. Study 4 provided behavioral evidence for the effects of emotion sharing using a 2-person trust game. Together, these studies reveal that the everyday act of social talk is a powerful act that is able to shape the social triad of the narrator, the audience, and the social target, with powerful consequences for social structure and group action.