Patriarchy and phantasy: A conception of psychoanalytic sociology

The nature versus nurture controversy in the history of the social sciences is compared with the heredity versus environment debate in the history of psychoanalysis. Generally, psychoanalysis addresses the question of human thought in contrast to the social disciplines, which examine human behavior. This division of science may be considered the representation of a fundamental dichotomy between internal (latent) and external (manifest) aspects characteristic of human existence. This universal duality is based on the division between the sexes, the union of which reproduces life. This paper attempts to draw attention to the common structure of the mind and society by showing that the same pattern of manifest and latent content exists within each entity. The manifest aspect of existence is reflected in patriarchal social structure and the latent aspect in the structure of unconscious phantasy. These aspects are dialectically interrelated in that patriarchy is the manifest form of phantasy and phantasy the latent form of patriarchal order. This model of the integration of psychoanalysis and sociology is based on the work of Juliet Mitchell, particularly Psychoanalysis and Feminism. Psychoanalytic sociology is defined as a discipline that investigates the relationship between mental life and social organization.     

Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: applications to dementia and amnesia

This article has two purposes. The first is to describe four theoretical models of yes-no recognition memory and present their associated measures of discrimination and response bias. These models are then applied to a set of data from normal subjects to determine which pairs of discrimination and bias indices show independence between discrimination and bias. The following models demonstrated independence: a two-high-threshold model, a signal detection model with normal distributions using d' and C (rather than beta), and a signal detection model with logistic distributions and a bias measure analogous to C. C is defined as the distance of criterion from the intersection of the two underlying distributions. The second purpose is to use the indices from the acceptable models to characterize recognition memory deficits in dementia and amnesia. Young normal subjects, Alzheimer's disease patients, and parkinsonian dementia patients were tested with picture recognition tasks with repeated study-test trials. Huntington's disease patients, mixed etiology amnesics, and age-matched normals were tested by Butters, Wolfe, Martone, Granholm, and Cermak (1985) using the same paradigm with word stimuli. Demented and amnesic patients produced distinctly different patterns of abnormal memory performance. Both groups of demented patients showed poor discrimination and abnormally liberal response bias for words (Huntington's disease) and pictures (Alzheimer's disease and parkinsonian dementia), whereas the amnesic patients showed the worst discrimination but normal response bias for words. Although both signal detection theory and two-high-threshold discrimination parameters showed identical results, the bias measure from the two-high-threshold model was more sensitive to change than the bias measure (C) from signal detection theory. Three major points are emphasized. First, any index of recognition memory performance assumes an underlying model. Second, even acceptable models can lead to different conclusions about patterns of learning and forgetting. Third, efforts to characterize and ameliorate abnormal memory should address both discrimination and bias deficits.     

A developmental trajectory in implicit memory is revealed by picture fragment completion

Dissociations between performance on implicit and explicit tasks have often been taken as evidence that different neural structures subserve the two types of memory. One such dissociation involves developmental differences that emerge in explicit tasks, but which appear to be absent in implicit tasks. Such findings are consistent with the idea that implicit memory is subserved by a more primitive system that evolves earlier at both phylogenetic and ontogenetic levels. The present paper reviews previous studies that claimed to find evidence that implicit memory is fully developed in very young children. Issues of measurement error, ceiling effects, and insufficient power brought up questions about those studies with respect to the developmental issue. The present study compares performance on implicit (picture fragment completion) and explicit (free recall and recognition) memory tasks with groups ranging in age from 5-28 years. We find a reliable developmental trend in both implicit and explicit performance in which the former cannot be attributed to the operation of explicit memory processes. Thus, we conclude that implicit memory, like explicit memory, develops with age.     

The dissociation paradigm and its discontents: how can unconscious perception or memory be inferred?

Erdelyi does us all a great service by his customarily incisive discussion of the various ways in which our field tends to neglect, confuse, and misunderstand numerous critical issues in attempting to differentiate conscious from unconscious perception and memory. Although no single commentary could hope to comprehensively assess these issues, I will address Erdelyi's three main points: (1) How (and if) the dissociation paradigm can be used to validly infer unconscious perception; (2) The implications of below-chance effects; and (3) The role of time. I suggest that (a) significant progress on construct validity issues is possible; (b) below-chance effects are part of a more general bidirectional phenomenon, very likely unconscious, and do not threaten absolute subliminality; and (c) practice/learning effects pose potential difficulties for time-based dissociation paradigms.     

Episodic priming and memory for temporal source: event-related potentials reveal age-related differences in prefrontal functioning.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from young (M = 25) and older (M = 71) adults during a recognition memory paradigm that assessed episodic priming. Participants studied two temporally distinct lists of sentences (each with two unassociated nouns). At test, in response to the nouns, participants made old-new, followed by remember (context)-know (familiarity) and source (i.e., list) judgments. Both young and older adults showed equivalent episodic priming effects. However, compared to the young adults, the older adults showed a greater source performance decrement than item memory performance decrement. Both age groups showed equivalent posterior-maximal old-new ERP effects. However, only the young produced a frontal-maximal, late onset old-new effect that differed as a function of subsequent list attribution. Because source memory is thought to be mediated by prefrontal cortex, we conclude that age-related memory differences may be due to a deficit in a prefrontal cortical system that underlies source memory and are not likely to be due to an age-related decline in episodic priming.     

The picture superiority effect: support for the distinctiveness model

The form change paradigm was used to explore the basis for the picture superiority effect. Recognition memory for studied pictures and words was tested in their study form or the alternate form. Form change cost was defined as the difference between recognition performance for same and different form items. Based on the results of Experiment 1 and previous studies, it was difficult to determine the relative cost for studied pictures and words due to a reversal of the mirror effect. We hypothesized that the reversed mirror effect results from subjects' basing their recognition decisions on their assumptions about the study form. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed this hypothesis and generated a method for evaluating the relative cost for pictures and words despite the reversed mirror effect. More cost was observed for pictures than words, supporting the distinctiveness model of the picture superiority effect.     

Neighborhood effects in visual word recognition: Facilitatory or inhibitory?

In five experiments, in which subjects were to identify a target word as it was gradually clarified, we manipulated the target's frequency of occurrence in the language and its neighborhood size—the number of words that can be constructed from a target word by changing one letter, while preserving letter position. In Experiments 1–4, visual identification performance to screen-fragmented words was measured. In Experiments 1 and 2, we used the ascending method of limits, whereas Experiments 3 and 4 presented a fixed-level fragment. In Experiment 1, there was no relation between overall accuracy and neighborhood size for-words-between three and six letters in length. However, more errors of commission (guesses) were made for high-neighborhood words and more errors of omission (blanks) were made for low-neighborhood words. Letter errors within guesses occurred at serial positions having many neighbors, and these positions were also likely to contain consonants rather than vowels. In Experiment 2, a smallfacilitatory effect of neighborhood size on bothhigh- and low-frequency words was found. In contrast, in Experiments 3 and 4, using the same set of words,inhibitory effects of neighborhood size, but only for low-frequency words, were found. Experiment 5, using a speeded identification task, showed results parallel to those of Experiments 3 and 4. We suggest that whether neighborhood effects are facilitatory or inhibitory depends on whether feedback allows subjects to disconfirm initial hypotheses that the target is a high-frequency neighbor.     

Intensity affects the preconscious processing of emotionally toned words in college students

The detectability of high and low intensity emotionally toned words was investigated in a signal detection paradigm using college students as subjects. Individually set thresholds kept word identification to an average of 16 percent. The results indicate a complicated pattern of interactions among intensity, gender, positive or negative tone, and hemispheric presentation. Greater detectability was found for right hemisphere presentations and low intensity words. In addition, positive words showed greater detectability than negative words. The findings are discussed in terms of factors that affect automatic attitude activation. This article is based on a presentation at the American Psychological Society Annual in Washington, D.C., June 1998.     

Right Hemisphere Positivity Bias in Preconscious Processing: Data From Five Experiments

Using a signal detection paradigm, participants’ sensitivity to emotionally toned stimuli was evaluated in five experiments. A tachistoscope was used to present stimuli to one hemisphere at a time, too rapidly for conscious identification. Pictures, words, and faces were pretested for emotional valence and familiarity. Stimulus selection was based on obtaining the largest possible difference between the positive and negative valence ratings, keeping familiarity equal. Each experiment used a 2×2×2 mixed groups design. The within-subject variables were the hemispheric presentation (right and left) and the emotional tone of the stimuli (positive and negative). Gender of the participant was the between-subjects variable. The results of these studies indicate greater sensitivity in the right than in the left hemisphere, and greater sensitivity to positive than to negative stimuli. Interpretations focus on the automatization of affect and the brain lateralization of emotional processing.