Suffering and interpersonal meaning: commentary

I would like to suggest that to describe suffering as a psychological phenomenon is still too general. It leaves the door open to the belief that suffering is an individual phenomenon, experienced because of dynamics arising out of the individual psyche as the pain arises out of the individual body. Instead of describing suffering as a psychological phenomenon, we should describe it as an interpersonal, even communal phenomenon....If the task of reestablishing, continuing, and creating interpersonal meaning within the context of suffering is accepted, the problem often arises concerning how the health professional can accomplish this task with the patient under the extraordinary circumstances that pain and illness, as well as the health-care environment, provide. Beyond sensitive and thoughtful dialogue, we may have to return to a sense of ceremony within health care, especially since the rationalistic naiveté of nineteenth-century positivism did so much to encourage the belief that the best health care is the one that does things efficiently and "unceremoniously"....     

Experimentelle Untersuchungen über simultane und sukzessive Gesichtswahrnehmungen

Zusammenfassung A. Lehmann hat in seiner Psychophysiologie ein allgemeines Gesetz aufgestellt, wonach gleichzeitige Erregungen sich hemmen, sukzessive dagegen sich bahnen. Die Schwelle für einen Schallreiz ist z. B. h?her, wenn gleichzeitig ein elektrischer Reiz einwirkt, wogegen, im allgemeinen von zwei einander folgenden gleich starken Reizen der zweite für st?rker gehalten wird. Wir führen hier diesen Satz an, um die Vermutung ausdrücklich abzuweisen, als ob unsere Prinzipien diesen oder einen ?hnlichen Sachverhalt ausdrückten. Wir sprachen nicht von einwirkenden Reizen oder physiologischen Erregungen, sondern von psychischen Inhalten, bzw. von deren gleichzeitigem oder sukzessivem Gegebensein. Und es war das Ergebnis unserer Versuche nicht, da? gleichzeitig erscheinende psychische Inhalte sich hemmen bzw. sukzessive sich bahnen, sondern es ergab sich nur,da? stückhafte Teile in einer einheitlichen simultanen Wahrnehmung in minderwertigerer Weise zur Geltung kommen als in zwei sukzessiven Wahrnehmungen, wo sie eben keine stückhaften Teile mehr sind, sondern selbst?ndige Gegebenheiten. Die Umkehrung dieses Satzes trifft aber auch zu und ist z. B. ableitbar aus unseren Versuchen über den Entfernungsvergleich der Diagonalen eines Quadrates. In jeder simultanen Wahrnehmung ergibt sich ein einheitlicher Gesamteindruck, und die diesem entsprechende Wahrnehmungsart ist eben die simultane, in welcher er auch besser verwirklicht wird, als wenn er aus einigen sukzessiven Wahrnehmungen zu entstehen h?tte. Mit 10 Figuren im Text. über einen Teil der nachfolgenden Experimente hat der Verf. schon auf dem Münchener Psychologenkongre? (April 1925) berichtet.     

Normative Objectivity Without Ontological Commitments?

Several non-naturalist philosophers look for ways to maintain the objectivity of morals without making any (robust) ontological commitments. Recently Derek Parfit proposed an account of non-ontologically existing irreducible moral properties. My first aim in this paper is to outline that such an account is doomed to fail. My second aim in this paper is to argue that irreducible moral properties can be integrated with adaptions into an ontological framework such as E.J. Lowe’s four-category ontology. If it can be shown that irreducible moral properties have a proper place in such an ontology, then there is no need to distinguish between an ontological and non-ontological mode of existence, which, in turn helps to eschew the obscurities that this distinction brings in its wake.     

Spatial updating of dynamic scenes: Tracking multiple invisible objects across viewpoint changes

Research on dynamic attention has shown that visual tracking is possible even if the observer’s viewpoint on the scene holding the moving objects changes. In contrast to smooth viewpoint changes, abrupt changes typically impair tracking performance. The lack of continuous information about scene motion, resulting from abrupt changes, seems to be the critical variable. However, hard onsets of objects after abrupt scene motion could explain the impairment as well. We report three experiments employing object invisibility during smooth and abrupt viewpoint changes to examine the influence of scene information on visual tracking, while equalizing hard onsets of moving objects after the viewpoint change. Smooth viewpoint changes provided continuous information about scene motion, which supported the tracking of temporarily invisible objects. However, abrupt and, therefore, discontinuous viewpoint changes strongly impaired tracking performance. Object locations retained with respect to a reference frame can account for the attentional tracking that follows invisible objects through continuous scene motion.     

Post-traumatic stress reactions following the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks in a Madrid community sample: a cautionary note about the measurement of psychological trauma

Posttraumatic stress reactions related to the Madrid March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks were examined in a sample of Madrid residents (N = 503) 18-25 days after the attacks, using multiple diagnostic criteria and different cut-off scores. Based on the symptoms covered by the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian (PCL-C; Weathers, Litz, Herman, Huska, and Keane, 1993), rates of probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) ranged from 3.4% to 13.3%. Taking into account additional criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 200; i.e., the impact of initial reaction and problems in daily functioning as a consequence of the traumatic event), only 1.9% of respondents reported probable PTSD. These results suggest that inferences about the impact of traumatic events on the general population are strongly influenced by the definition of traumatic response. Our findings also revealed that the magnitude of posttraumatic reactions is associated with several risk factors, including living close to the attacked locations, physical proximity to the attacks when they occurred, perception of one's life being at risk, intensity of initial emotional reactions, and being a daily user of the attacked train lines. The use of different cut-off scores did not affect the pattern of risk to develop traumatic stress. The implications of these results for public health policies related to terrorist attacks are discussed.     

Brain dopamine and kinematics of graphomotor functions

Three experiments were performed in an attempt to achieve a better understanding of the effect of dopamine on handwriting. In the first experiment, kinematic aspects of handwriting movements were compared between healthy participants and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) on their usual dopaminergic treatment and following withdrawal of dopaminergic medication. In the second experiment, the writing performance of healthy participants with a hyperechogenicity of the substantia nigra as detected by transcranial sonography (TCS) was compared with the performance of healthy participants with low echogenicity of the substantia nigra. The third experiment examined the effect of central dopamine reduction on kinematic aspects of handwriting movements in healthy adults using acute phenylalanine and tyrosine depletion (APTD). A digitising tablet was used for the assessment of handwriting movements. Participants were asked to perform a simple writing task. Movement time, distance, velocity, acceleration and measures of fluency of handwriting movements were measured. The kinematic analysis of handwriting movements revealed that alterations of central dopaminergic neurotransmission adversely affect movement execution during handwriting. In comparison to the automatic processing of handwriting movements displayed by control participants, participants with an altered dopaminergic neurotransmission shifted from an automatic to a controlled processing of movement execution. Central dopamine appears to be of particular importance with regard to the automatic execution of well-learned movements.     

Psychophysiological assessment during exposure in driving phobic patients

A comprehensive assessment of fear or anxiety requires measurement of both self-report and physiological responses. Respiratory abnormalities have been rarely examined during real-life exposure, although they are an integral part of fear. Twenty-one women with a specific driving phobia and 17 nonphobic women were psychophysiologically monitored during 2 highway-driving sessions; phobic women completed an additional session. Respiratory movements, end-tidal partial pressure of carbon dioxide, an electrocardiogram, skin conductance, and skin temperature were recorded. Phobic patients differed from control participants both physiologically and experientially before, during, and after exposure. Effect size during exposure was large for the authors' measure of hyperventilation. Discriminant analysis indicated that multiple physiological measures contributed nonredundant information and correctly classified 95% of phobic and control participants. Thus, selected respiratory and autonomic measures are valid diagnostic and therapeutic outcome criteria for this situational phobia.