The Vasarhelyi method of child art psychotherapy: an adjunctive treatment in childhood depression

We describe the use of child art psychotherapy (CAP) following the Vasarhelyi method in an 11-year-old female with a history of anxiety and depression which limited her capacity to attend school and in a 15-year-old male who had a history of depressive symptoms with suicidal thinking. In each case, the use of other therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy was not possible or unsuccessful. Through the creation of images, each young person revealed concerns which had not been previously verbalised, and recovery was linked in time to the revelation of these worries. We propose the use of the Vasarhelyi method of CAP as an adjunctive treatment of depression in young people.     

Science as a Vocation in the Era of Big Data: the Philosophy of Science behind Big Data and humanity’s Continued Part in Science

We now live in the era of big data, and according to its proponents, big data is poised to change science as we know it. Claims of having no theory and no ideology are made, and there is an assumption that the results of big data are trustworthy because it is considered free from human judgement, which is often considered inextricably linked with human error. These two claims lead to the idea that big data is the source of better scientific knowledge, through more objectivity, more data, and better analysis. In this paper I analyse the philosophy of science behind big data and make the claim that the death of many traditional sciences, and the human scientist, is much exaggerated. The philosophy of science of big data means that there are certain things big data does very well, and some things that it cannot do. I argue that humans will still be needed for mediating and creating theory, and for providing the legitimacy and values science needs as a normative social enterprise.     

Weighing the past and the future in decision making

Prior irreversible investments of money, time, or effort referred to as sunk costs frequently lead to decisions to continue a chosen course of action despite that this is irrational. With the aim of demonstrating that such escalation of commitment is a special case of a more general phenomenon, two experiments were carried out employing undergraduates as participants. Experiment 1 showed for fictitious personal and business investment scenarios that both prior losses and gains (sunk outcomes) affected choices to continue or discontinue the investment. In Experiment 2 the effect of sunk outcomes was reduced although not eliminated by a monetary bonus that in one condition depended on the future outcomes of the second gamble in two-stage gambles, in another condition on the future returns in personal investment scenarios. In support of a more inclusive theory subsuming escalation of commitment, the decisions were affected by both past and future outcomes and both gains and losses.     

Being human,more or less

Robert G. Woodhouse Memorial Philosophy Lecture, Rockland Community College of the State University of New York, Tuesday, 1 December 1992.     

Cognitive conflict in a syllable identification task causes transient activation of speech perception area

It has previously been shown that task performance and frontal cortical activation increase after cognitive conflict. This has been argued to support a model of attention where the level of conflict automatically adjusts the amount of cognitive control applied. Conceivably, conflict could also modulate lower-level processing pathways, which would be evident as trial-to-trial changes in domain specific activation. The present fMRI experiment used a syllable identification task where conflict is manipulated by presenting recently ignored syllables. Results showed that on trials following a high conflict trial, activation increased primarily in the planum temporale region of the left temporal cortex, an area believed to be involved in syllable discrimination. The experiment thus showed a transient, domain specific attention effect that was modulated on a trial-to-trial basis. We argue that this indicates a self-regulating system where increased levels of conflict directs resources in order to improve performance.     

Updating working memory in aircraft noise and speech noise causes different fMRI activations

The present study used fMRI/BOLD neuroimaging to investigate how visual‐verbal working memory is updated when exposed to three different background‐noise conditions: speech noise, aircraft noise and silence. The number‐updating task that was used can distinguish between “substitution processes,” which involve adding new items to the working memory representation and suppressing old items, and “exclusion processes,” which involve rejecting new items and maintaining an intact memory set. The current findings supported the findings of a previous study by showing that substitution activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the posterior medial frontal cortex and the parietal lobes, whereas exclusion activated the anterior medial frontal cortex. Moreover, the prefrontal cortex was activated more by substitution processes when exposed to background speech than when exposed to aircraft noise. These results indicate that (a) the prefrontal cortex plays a special role when task‐irrelevant materials should be denied access to working memory and (b) that, when compensating for different types of noise, either different cognitive mechanisms are involved or those cognitive mechanisms that are involved are involved to different degrees.     

The psychological process of reintegration following a nine month/260 day solo sailboat circumnavigation of the globe

The focus of this case report is on the psychological reintegration process following the achievement of a highly challenging long‐duration and solitary endeavor. The participant was a 29 year old male who successfully circumnavigated the globe during a 260 day solo sailing expedition. We assessed the psychological aftermath in terms of stability and change in personality characteristics and personal beliefs prior to, and at 180 and 360 days after the completion of the journey. Overall, the personality configuration reflected adaptive personality functioning. A belief in an internal locus of control was consistent throughout, as were perceptions of personal growth as a result of the circumnavigation experience. NEO PI‐R Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, and Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (Tri‐PM) Boldness scores remained stable. Positive personality change was reflected by an elevation in Conscientiousness; negative change by a decline in Agreeableness and an increase in Tri‐PM Disinhibition. While overall the participant exhibited positive change as a result of his journey, there were also some negative aspects of the reintegration phase in regard to interactions with other persons. This latter change may be related to the effects of isolation from usual social contacts over an extended period.     

Go with the flow: How to master a nonlinear multiple-cue judgment task

The authors examined the cognitive processes that participants use in linear and nonlinear multiple-cue judgment tasks, hypothesizing that people are unable to use explicit cue abstraction in a nonlinear task, instead turning to exemplar memory. Experiment 1 confirmed that people are unable to use cue abstraction in nonlinear tasks but failed to confirm the hypothesized, spontaneous shift to exemplar memory. Instead, the participants appeared to be trapped in persistent and futile attempts to abstract the cue-criterion relations. Only after being instructed to rely on exemplar memory in Experiment 2 did they master the nonlinear task. The results suggest that adaptive shifts of representation need not occur spontaneously and that analytical thought may sometimes harm performance in nonlinear tasks.     

Gaze following: why (not) learn it?

We propose a computational model of the emergence of gaze following skills in infant-caregiver interactions. The model is based on the idea that infants learn that monitoring their caregiver's direction of gaze allows them to predict the locations of interesting objects or events in their environment (Moore & Corkum, 1994). Elaborating on this theory, we demonstrate that a specific Basic Set of structures and mechanisms is sufficient for gaze following to emerge. This Basic Set includes the infant's perceptual skills and preferences, habituation and reward-driven learning, and a structured social environment featuring a caregiver who tends to look at things the infant will find interesting. We review evidence that all elements of the Basic Set are established well before the relevant gaze following skills emerge. We evaluate the model in a series of simulations and show that it can account for typical development. We also demonstrate that plausible alterations of model parameters, motivated by findings on two different developmental disorders - autism and Williams syndrome - produce delays or deficits in the emergence of gaze following. The model makes a number of testable predictions. In addition, it opens a new perspective for theorizing about cross-species differences in gaze following.