Long-term memory for 400 pictures on a common theme

Long-term memory for large numbers of color photographs with a common motif--doors--was studied using pictures with two levels of informative cues: original photographs, and edited pictures in which extraneous information on details such as vegetation, paint scratches, signs, and lamp posts was removed. In the study phase, subjects viewed 400 pictures and were subsequently tested for memory on two-alternative forced-choice discriminations between studied and distracter pictures from the same picture category, at retention intervals between 0.5 h and 9 days. When tested with the nonedited original photographs immediate memory performance was close to 85% correct; when pictorial details were removed memory performance dropped by 20%. The decay functions were shallow with parallel paths for the categories of pictures. It is concluded that specific details of visual scenes contributed to long-term memory of those scenes.     

Religious Perspectives on the Use of Psychopharmaceuticals as an Enhancement Technology

The use of psychopharmaceuticals as an enhancement technology has been the focus of attention in the bioethics literature. However, there has been little examination of the challenges that this practice creates for religious traditions that place importance on questions of being, authenticity, and identity. We asked expert commentators from six major world religions to consider the issues raised by psychopharmaceuticals as an enhancement technology. These commentaries reveal that in assessing the appropriate place of medical therapies, religious traditions, like secular perspectives, rely upon ideas about health and disease and about normal human behavior. But unlike secular perspectives, faith traditions explicitly concern themselves with ways in which medicine should or should not be used to live a “good life”.     

Die Screening Skala Pädophilen Tatverhaltens

The importance of including crime scene information into the diagnostic process and into risk assessment is emphasized throughout the literature. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to investigate the feasibility of identifying pedophilic interest in child molesters using crime scene information. The development sample consisted of 113 expert opinions in forensic cases of sexual child abuse. The sample covered 50 pedophilic and 63 non-pedophilic offenders. Based on theoretical and empirical considerations it was concluded that the study should capture 6 content areas including 24 variables. Multivariate analyses revealed that the seven items that comprise the screening scale of pedophilic criminal behavior (SSPC) showed high predictive accuracy for the diagnosis of pedophilia (area under the curve AUC?=?0.91, standard error SE?=?0.03) and had incremental validity above and beyond the screening scale for pedophilic interest (SSPI).     

Das „Als-Ob“ in Molekularphysik

Annalen der Philosophie -     

How We Institute Our Psychoanalytic Education: Reply to Commentaries

In reply to Altman's and Schellekes's questions and discussion, the author explores in more depth his own theoretical-technical point of view in order to clarify—chiefly in the light of a modern application of Ferenczi's and Heimann's way of thinking—the rationale for the selection of clinical facts in his paper.     

Advancement of Criminal Profiling Methods in Faceted Multidimensional Analysis

The current study seeks to advance the faceted multidimensional scaling (termed FMDS) procedure used in much of the investigative psychology research. To this end, recent research on street robbery by Goodwill and colleagues will be utilised to illustrate the effectiveness of a facet scale method for offender profiling. Four FMDS themes of street robbery (Con, Blitz, Confrontation and Snatch) were revealed by the crossing of two underlying axial facets: the offenders' level of violence and interaction with the victim. The facet scale method, utilising offenders' axial facet scores, was compared to previous count, proportional and centroid classification methods in the prediction of offender criminal histories. Utilising logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analyses, the axial facet scale method was found to significantly outperform the qualitatively based dominant theme classification methods that typically employ angular and radial facets for FMDS interpretation. Implications for the use of axial facet scales within FMDS analysis for offender profiling research are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.