Zur Bedeutung der Psychoendokrinologie in der Psychosomatik

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Mood and memory for tightly organized social information

The frequently cited finding that mood-congruent information can be better recalled than mood-incongruent information is tested using categorically organized stimulus material which imposes a systematic structure on the recall process. A target person was described with respect to six categories of social behaviour, with predominantly desirable behaviours in some categories and predominantly undesirable behaviours in others. Participants were induced either an elated mood state or a neutral state using Velten's procedure. Instructions (impression formation versus memory) were also manipulated. Although the mood manipulation apparently worked and did influence the impression judgments of the target person, it did not selectively facilitate the recall of mood-congruent material, neither at the level of specific items nor at the categorical level. However, when only deviating behaviours are considered which do not fit the structural constraints, mood-congruent information is indeed better recalled. To interpret these results, it is argued that the manifestation of mood effects depends on the restrictions of different tasks or response modes. Three other findings were obtained: Superior recall of redundant, structurally consistent information compared with deviating information; an advantage of positive over negative information which is confined to the impression formation condition; and, surprisingly, an incongruency effect for the encoding mood which may reflect the deeper processing of incongruent material.     

Reasons for Actions and Desires

It is an assumption common to many theories of rationality that allpractical reasons are based on a person's given desires. I shall callany approach to practical reasons which accepts this assumption a `Humean approach'.In spite of many criticisms, the Humean approach has numerous followers who take it to be the natural and inevitable view of practical reason. I will develop an argument against the Humean view aimingto explain its appeal, as well as to expose its mistake. I focus on just one argument in favour of the Humean approach, which I believe can be constructed as the background idea of many Humean accounts: the argument from motivation.I first present the argument from motivation and explain why it seems so compelling. However, I then develop an equally compellingobjection to desire-based approaches to reason, showing that they cannot accommodate the justificatory role of reasons. I show that this objection suggests that at least one of the premises of the argument from motivation must be false. And, finally, I argue thatwe should reject the premise that claims that only desires can explain actions. This result is fatal for desire-based views of practical reason. My conclusion is that practical reasons should be based not on desires, but on values.     

Semantic priming by irrelevant speech

To-be-ignored, task-irrelevant speech disrupts serial recall performance relative to a quiet control condition. In most studies, the content of the auditory distractors had no effect on their disruptive potential, one’s own name being one of the few exceptions. There are two possible explanations of this pattern: (1) Semantic features of the irrelevant speech are usually not processed, except for highly relevant auditory distractors, or (2) semantic processing of the irrelevant speech always occurs, but usually does not affect serial recall performance. To test these explanations, we presented to-be-ignored auditory distractor words drawn from different categories while participants memorized visual targets for serial recall. Afterwards, participants were invited to what they believed to be an unrelated norming study, in which they were required to spontaneously produce words from the categories from which the auditory distractor words were drawn. Previously ignored words were produced with a higher probability than words from a parallel, nonpresented set, demonstrating that features of to-be-ignored, task-irrelevant speech that do not interfere with immediate serial recall performance are nevertheless processed semantically and may have substantial effects on subsequent behavior.     

The Burden of Proof and Its Role in Argumentation

The notion of “the burden of proof” plays an important role in real-world argumentation contexts, in particular in law. It has also been given a central role in normative accounts of argumentation, and has been used to explain a range of classic argumentation fallacies. We argue that in law the goal is to make practical decisions whereas in critical discussion the goal is frequently simply to increase or decrease degree of belief in a proposition. In the latter case, it is not necessarily important whether that degree of belief exceeds a particular threshold (e.g., ‘reasonable doubt’). We explore the consequences of this distinction for the role that the “burden of proof” has played in argumentation and in theories of fallacy.