Looking for reconciliations between anecdotes and causalities: The stoical model

Our bias in establishing causality ties which attribute to one consequence a unique cause make circular causality difficult as a way of thinking. Philosophy shows many theories about causality which all are ways to reduce anxiety. Our experiences sometimes require us to go farther than the instrumental (causal) level and to discover a place where disorder may be reestablished in the movement and contradiction. The Stoical model of expressive causality gives a different meaning to our work. In practice the anecdote becomes the essential element in a chair of expressive causalities. A clinical example shows how the anecdote can be the intersection between the family and therapist, offering a new dimension to circular causality and helps the therapist to understand and create another way of thinking about disorder and confusion.     

Why Friedman's non-monotonic reasoning defies Hempel's covering law model

In this paper we will show that Hempel's covering law model can't deal very well with explanations that are based on incomplete knowledge. In particular the symmetry thesis, which is an important aspect of the covering law model, turns out to be problematic for these explanations. We will discuss an example of an electric circuit, which clearly indicates that the symmetry of explanation and prediction does not always hold. It will be argued that an alternative logic for causal explanation is needed. And we will investigate to what extent non-monotonic epistemic logic can provide such an alternative logical framework. Finally we will show that our non-monotonic logical analysis of explanation is not only suitable for simple cases such as the electric circuit, but that it also sheds new light on more controversial causal explanations such as Milton Friedman's explanation of the business cycle.We gratefully acknowledge the helpful suggestions and critical comments of Johan van Benthem, Bert Hamminga, Kevin Hoover, Theo Kuipers, and Rick Looyen.     

Observing groups as seen from both sides of the looking glass

Conclusion This paper attempts to make a contribution to an area of the literature on group therapy about which very little has been published—the effects of the therapy group upon the observing group and the dynamics of the observing group as an entity in itself. Although work on which this paper is based took place in training institutions where education is the primary function, it is important to emphasize that education and personal change are interrelated. Psychotherapeutic activity takes place spontaneously with the observers and needs to be constructively utilized. This wealth of process and reaction is an untapped training opportunity for the observing group. The challenge of method, personal reactions, and group process responses are all opportunities for its members to both learn more as therapists and mature as individuals. At this juncture, we are trying to establish ways of     

在班集体影响下学生道德品质形成过程的心理学分析

这篇初步的研究报告有很值得重视的意义。所介绍的不仅是很可宝贵的教育工作经验,并同样是可以很富有成效的一种发展心理学和教育心理学研究方法,只是所作的心理学考察还可以更深入一些。这样的研究可以由教育工作者自己做,也可以由心理学工作者和教育工作者一起做。也可以在后者的协助之下进行。     

Does family therapy produce change? an overview of outcome studies

Summary Families were randomly assigned to one of two forms of conjoint marital therapy: an insight-oriented treatment (n=10) or a problem-solving intervention (n=10.). The results on self-report measures of family functioning indicate that the problem-solving intervention produced more favorable changes after three months. However on long-term follow-up after a year, this more positive effect did not apparently persist, since the insight treatment group reported better results. Experienced therapists did better than inexperienced therapists in the insight treatment condition, but level of experience did not make a difference in the problem-solving intervention. A group of eight families who dropped out of the insight treatment group provided data on correlates of premature termination. Several of the practical obstacles to implementing an experimental design in a clinic setting are illustrated by the research.As we develop more sophisticated methodology, we hope that is the near future family therapy researchers will be better able to state which type of approach is more effective for whom and under what circumstances. A review of current studies of family therapy outcome research indicates that family therapy seems to be as effective as individual psychological treatment.     

Numerosity judgments for tactile stimuli distributed over the body surface

A large body of research now supports the claim that two different and dissociable processes are involved in making numerosity judgments regarding visual stimuli: subitising (fast and nearly errorless) for up to 4 stimuli, and counting (slow and error-prone) when more than 4 stimuli are presented. We studied tactile numerosity judgments for combinations of 1-7 vibrotactile stimuli presented simultaneously over the body surface. In experiment 1, the stimuli were presented once, while in experiment 2 conditions of single presentation and repeated presentation of the stimulus were compared. Neither experiment provided any evidence for a discontinuity in the slope of either the RT or error data suggesting that subitisation does not occur for tactile stimuli. By systematically varying the intensity of the vibrotactile stimuli in experiment 3, we were able to demonstrate that participants were not simply using the 'global intensity' of the whole tactile display to make their tactile numerosity judgments, but were, instead, using information concerning the number of tactors activated. The results of the three experiments reported here are discussed in relation to current theories of counting and subitising, and potential implications for the design of tactile user interfaces are highlighted.     

Protection of animal research subjects

The use of experimental animals, mostly rodents, in biomedical research and especially in oncology and immunology should be acknowledged with respect, recognizing the contribution of animal experimentation in the fascinating scientific progress in these disciplines of research. It is an obligation of the investigator to justify the scientific and ethical aspects of each study requiring the use of animals. The international guiding principles for using animals in biomedical research are well defined and have been distributed worldwide by the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) since 1956, when this Organization was founded. In Poland the ICLAS philosophy and principles are highly respected and were implemented firstly by the members of the Commission on Biology of Experimental Animals appointed in 1962 by the Department of Medical Science of the Polish Academy of Science in Warsaw. Animal Protection Acts, first proclaimed in 1928 were gradually modified and improved. Actual legislation (enacted in 1997, 2003 and 2005) is consistent with EU Directives (86/609/EEC) and follows the internationally recommended principles that include ICLAS guidelines concerning animal welfare and care condition in biomedical research. The problem of “alternative methods” is briefly discussed. Dr. Donald Boisvert, CCAC — Canadian Council on Animal Care A lecture on the subject of this paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference entitled ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005. The author is the National Representative of Polish Academy of Science to the International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) and a Member of the ICLAS Governing Board.     

Proactive interference and cuing effects in short-term cued recall: Does foil context matter?

Tehan and Humphreys's (1995, 1996) short-term cued recall paradigm showed that recall in short-term memory is cue driven. In critical trials, the participants studied two blocks of four words each and were required to forget the first block while remembering the second block. A foil in the first block (e.g., orange) was related to a target (e.g., carrot) in the second block. Proactive interference (PI) was evident when a retrieval cue was used that subsumed the foil and the target (e.g., type of juice), but not when a cue was used that subsumed only the target (e.g., type of vegetable). Four experiments were performed to examine the extent to which contextual organization in the foil block would enhance or diminish the foil's efficacy in creating PI. A novel condition was included in which the words in the foil block were studied in a phonologically related context but the target was cued semantically, and vice versa with a semantic context and phonological cue. There were no differences in recall accuracy between conditions with and without contextual organization, but reliable increases in foil intrusions were observed when contextual organization was present. Contextual organization enhanced the foil, rather than diminished it, but the strengthened foil generated PI only when the cue subsumed the foil and the target and had no effect when the cue subsumed only the target. The results are consistent with a cue-driven retrieval interpretation of short-term recall.     

Interdependent self: self-perceptions of Vietnamese-American youths

This study examined how Vietnamese-American adolescents perceive themselves in relation to their families. Qualitative, criterion-based sampling and "snowball" or "chain sampling" strategies were used as well as in-depth interviews with 10 Vietnamese-American adolescents. The research focused on parental interactions, family climate, and parental control. The study also looked at peer relationships, parental input, and adolescents' academic achievement orientation. The adolescents described grow closer to, and more emotionally dependent upon, their parents over time. The parents see their children's education as an effective instrument of empowerment and liberation for the entire family, and as providing hope for the future.