Charles “Erik” Eriksen (1923-2018)

A towering figure in experimental psychology, Charles W. Eriksen, passed away in February this year. “Erik” made extensive original and lasting contributions to both research methods and theories in several areas of psychology, especially involving visual information processing. His research exhibited consistent concerns with experimental methods for distinguishing among alternative explanations and distinguishing perception from behavior. Erik pioneered many research methods now in common use—including converging operations, visual search, rapid serial presentations, the stop-signal paradigm, temporal integration in form perception, spatial cues for guiding selective attention, and the flankers task. He also introduced and tested many theories of selective attention. Erik was the founding editor of Perception & Psychophysics, and served for 23 years as its principal editor. An impressive and unforgettable person, Erik was a compelling personification of “the greatest generation.”     

Metametaphysics and Substance: Two Case Studies

This paper examines an often-ignored aspect of the evaluation of metaphysical analyses, namely, their ontological commitments. Such evaluations are part of metaphysical methodology, and reflection on this methodology is itself part of metametaphysics. I will develop a theory for assessing what these commitments are, and then I will apply it to an important historical and an important contemporary metaphysical analysis of the concept of an individual substance (i.e., an object, or thing). I claim that in evaluating metaphysical analyses, we should not only rule out counterexamples, but also compare them with respect to their ontological commitments, and we should hold that if they are comparable in other respects, then an analysis with fewer such commitments is preferable to one with more (There is, of course, a connection between counterexamples and ontological commitments. If the existence or possible existence of something one is committed to the existence or possible existence of is incompatible with an analysis, then one should reject that analysis as inadequate to the data. On the other hand, if one is uncertain about the existence or possible existence of something that is incompatible with an analysis, then while this does not refute the analysis for one, it raises doubts about it. The fewer such doubts are raised by an analysis, the better it is.).     

Behavioral community psychology: training a community board to problem solve

This study demonstrated the effect of training nine lower socio-economic adults participating as policy board members in a federally funded rural community project to make behaviorally defined statements to increase problem-solving behaviors in board meetings. A multiple-baseline design across subjects and skills was used to analyze the behavioral categories of: (1) stating the problem; (2) finding solutions to the problem, and (3) implementing the action to the solution. Problem-solving responses during board meetings increased for subjects following training and remained higher than baseline during follow-up.     

War,revolution, and psychoanalysis: Freudian thought begins to grapple with social reality

Psychoanalytic theory and practice have been affected by external events as well as by internal development. Specifically, the period of the Great War and its aftermath was a turning point in the history of psychoanalysis. These experiences emphasized the inadequacy of the libido theory alone, accelerated Freud's impetus toward metapsychology, and encouraged the articulation of theories of innate destructive urges, of ego instincts, of the superego, and of social interaction. Discussionsof war neuroses, of aggression and the death instinct, of the reality principle, and of the mechanisms of social psychology undermined Freud's original biologism in favor of a social-scientific approach. Psychoanalytic theory began to take more account of social experience and was profoundly changed in the process.     

The perception of color from motion

We introduce and explore a color phenomenon which requires the prior perception of motion to produce a spread of color over a region defined by motion. We call this motion-induced spread of colordynamic color spreading. The perception of dynamic color spreading is yoked to the perception of apparent motion: As the ratings of perceived motion increase, the ratings of color spreading increase. The effect is most pronounced if the region defined by motion is near 1° of visual angle. As the luminance     

Female intimate partner violence perpetration: stability and predictors of mutual and nonmutual aggression across the first year of college

Cross-sectional and longitudinal predictors of mutual and nonmutual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration were identified in a sample of female college freshmen (N = 499). Using female reports, couples were classified as to whether the relationship included no IPV, female-only IPV, or mutual IPV (male-only IPV was too rare to analyze). Mutual IPV was more common than asymmetrical IPV, and women in mutually violent relationships perpetrated more frequent acts of physical aggression than those in female-only violent relationships. In cross-sectional analyses of IPV in the first semester of college, only partner antisocial behavior and psychological aggression distinguished female-only IPV from no IPV; witnessing mother-to-father aggression, higher psychological aggression, more frequent partner marijuana use, partner antisocial behavior, and, surprisingly, higher relationship satisfaction, discriminated mutual IPV from no IPV. Contrary to hypothesis, first semester (T1) IPV did not predict having a new partner in the second semester (T2); however, women who reported more frequent heavy episodic drinking and lower relationship satisfaction at T1 were more likely to be in a different relationship at T2. Prospective prediction of T2 IPV category failed to support the hypothesis that female-only IPV would escalate to mutual IPV. The majority of couples with female-only IPV reported no IPV at T2. After accounting for T1 IPV, the only significant predictor of T2 IPV category was T1 psychological aggression, suggesting that this may be an appropriate target for IPV prevention efforts among college dating couples.     

Beyond the intellectual

Pastoral Psychology -     

American Psychology and Schools: A Critique

No one denies that the Boulder Conference on Clinical Psychology marked a turning point on American psychology. This paper by one of the three or four living participants lists the conference as one in which psychology was at a choice point, went in one and only one direction, without examining the possible consequences or the possibility of going in more than 1 direction. A second theme is that the APA has to be faulted for a lack of searching self-scrutiny of its past. Organizations, like individuals, resist such self-scrutiny.