Selective impairment of living things and musical instruments on a verbal 'Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire' in a case of apperceptive visual agnosia

Semantic memory was investigated in a patient (MR) affected by a severe apperceptive visual agnosia, due to an ischemic cerebral lesion, bilaterally affecting the infero-mesial parts of the temporo-occipital cortices. The study was made by means of a Semantic Knowledge Questionnaire (Laiacona, Barbarotto, Trivelli, & Capitani, 1993), which takes separately into account four categories of living beings (animals, fruits, vegetables and body parts) and of artefacts (furniture, tools, vehicles and musical instruments), does not require a visual analysis and allows to distinguish errors concerning super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic knowledge. When the total number of errors obtained on all the categories of living and non-living beings was considered, a non-significant trend toward a higher number of errors in living stimuli was observed. This difference, however, became significant when body parts and musical instruments were excluded from the analysis. Furthermore, the number of errors obtained on the musical instruments was similar to that obtained on the living categories of animals, fruits and vegetables and significantly higher of that obtained in the other artefact categories. This difference was still significant when familiarity, frequency of use and prototypicality of each stimulus entered into a logistic regression analysis. On the other hand, a separate analysis of errors obtained on questions exploring super-ordinate categorization, perceptual features and functional/encyclopedic attributes showed that the differences between living and non-living stimuli and between musical instruments and other artefact categories were mainly due to errors obtained on questions exploring perceptual features. All these data are at variance with the 'domains of knowledge' hypothesis', which assumes that the breakdown of different categories of living and non-living things respects the distinction between biological entities and artefacts and support the models assuming that 'category-specific semantic disorders' are the by-product of the differential weighting that visual-perceptual and functional (or action-related) attributes have in the construction of different biological and artefacts categories.     

Assessment Use by Counselors in the United States: Implications for Policy and Practice

Although assessment use is a professional activity recognized by every major counseling organization, little is known about which assessments are used in counseling. In this study, 926 respondents from a random national sample of counselors reported their use of personality, projective, career, intelligence/cognitive, educational/achievement, clinical/behavioral, and environmental/interpersonal tests. Test rankings by frequency of use and comparisons by type of counselor and type of test are reported. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

How virtuous is humor? What we can learn from current instruments

Despite the diverse philosophical accounts of the relation of humor to virtue or vice, this ethical dimension has not been included explicitly in psychological humor instruments. Yet, behavior described in humor questionnaires covering a broad variety of components can be used to study an implicit relation of humor to vices and virtues. The main aim of the present paper was (1) to find humorous behavior and attitudes representing virtues and vices within an item pool of 12 popular humor questionnaires; and (2) to investigate the nature of the virtues represented by their item contents. A comprehensive measure of humor covered the entire range from virtue to vice, with the majority of items evaluated as neutral. Humanity and wisdom were most strongly represented, but the items cover all six core virtues (Dahlsgaard, 2004 Dahlsgaard, K. 2004. “Universal virtues?—Lessons from history”. In Character strengths and virtues, Edited by: Peterson, C and Seligman, MEP. 33–52. New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]) to varying degrees. Further research can now investigate the relationship of humor and individual virtues more closely.     

Counting Stages

This paper defends stage theory against the argument from diachronic counting. It argues that stage theorists can appeal to quantifier domain restriction in order to accommodate intuitions about diachronic counting sentences. Two approaches involving domain restriction are discussed. According to the first, domains of counting are usually restricted to stages at the time of utterance. This approach explains intuitions in many cases, but is theoretically costly and delivers wrong counts if diachronic counting is combined with fission or fusion. On the second approach, domains of counting are usually restricted in an indeterminate way, so as to include at most one member of any maximal class of counterpart-interrelated stages (with respect to a certain utterance). This view can accommodate all the relevant intuitions about counting sentences, and it fits well with a new stage-theoretic view of reference that allows speakers to refer to both present and past stages.     

Does change in positive affect mediate and/or moderate the impact of symptom distress on psychological adjustment after cancer diagnosis? A prospective analysis

This study tested the predictive value of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) for the preparation to action stage transition by conducting a detailed examination of changes in TTM components in the days leading up to, and following, a planned quit attempt. Participants were 193 callers to a Quitline telephone service. Only limited support for the TTM was found. Consistent with the TTM, measures of self-efficacy were related to making an attempt and to achieving 7 + days of abstinence. Contrary to the TTM, the behavioral change processes were unrelated to making quit attempts and to short-term abstinence, with the exception of self-liberation, which is conceptually related to self-efficacy. New non-TTM measures assessing commitment to quitting were predictive of outcomes. The results provide strong support for the preparation to action transition being discontinuous, and thus consistent with a stage model. However, they bring into question many of the other postulates of the TTM. Further critical testing and evaluation of the TTM is required.     

Identifying Causal Estimands for Time-Varying Treatments Measured with Time-Varying (Age or Grade-Based) Instruments

This commentary discusses causal estimands of same-age and same-grade comparisons for assessing grade-retention effects on student ability and performance. Using potential outcomes notation, we show that same-age and same-grade comparisons refer to different retention–promotion contrasts and therefore assess different causal questions. We also comment on deleting versus censoring records of students who dropped out of the study or do not belong to the treatment regimes under investigation. Whereas deleting entire student records potentially induces collider bias, censoring circumvents bias if censoring is ignorable given the observed pretreatment covariates.     

Developmental stages,Piagetian stages in particular: A critical review

Developmental stages in general and Piaget's stages in particular have given rise to considerable controversy. Much of this controversy revolves around the responses that have been given to the following five central questions: (1) Do developmental stages exist? (2) If they exist, where are they? (3) What features define a developmental sequence as a sequence of developmental stages? (4) What psychological processes underlie developmental change? (5) Should we abandon the concept of developmental stages? The main goal of this paper is to present a critical review of such responses, while arguing for a strong conception of development and a “non-received” view of Piaget's theory. After an introduction section, we elaborate on each of the five questions. Finally, we present several reasons why this paper often appeals to Piaget's theory, and why his theory has been greatly misunderstood.     

心理治疗效果评定量表(简式)在中、德应用的心理测量学研究(英文)

419名中国和德国被试参加了本研究,并回答了若干简式心理健康量表。所选的这套量表能对心理治疗不同阶段的效果(Howard’s阶段模型:重新认识期-转变期-康复期)进行测查。本研究目的在于考察这些简式量表能否用于认知-行为治疗跨文化培训项目中的质量管理。结果显示,这些量表在中德两种文化背景下都有很高的信度和效度(聚合效度和敏感性)。尽管项目间的高相关似乎提示心理健康模型只有一个维度,但探索性因素和理论分析则更支持心理健康是一个分为8个亚维度的模型,其中每个亚维度或者与基础情绪、或者与社会性情感相连关联。本文最后就研究结果及其对心理治疗质量控制的意义进行了详细讨论。     

Introducing the Concepts of “Positions,” “Space,” and “Worlds”: Seeing Human Being and Becoming—and Religion—in New Ways

Theories of psychological development, however diverse, often express common underlying ontological-epistemological commitments shaped by the legacies of Descartes, Newton, and Kant. Three related psychoanalytic concepts—“positions,” “space,” and “worlds”—individually and collectively sketch the contours of a different way of construing human being and becoming—a way that departs from these legacies. Implications for the study of religion of this “different way” are examined.     

Thomas Kuhn‘s Latest Notion of Incommensurability

To correct the misconception that incommensurability implies incomparability, Kuhn lately develops a new interpretation of incommensurability. This includes a linguistic theory of scientific revolutions (the theory of kinds), a cognitive exploration of the language learning process (the analogy of bilingualism), and an epistemological discussion on the rationality of scientific development (the evolutionary epistemology). My focus in this paper is to review Kuhn's effort in eliminating relativism, highlighting both the insights and the difficulties of his new version of incommensurability . Finally I suggest that some of Kuhn's difficulties can be overcome by adopting a concept of rationality that filly appreciates the important role of instruments in the development of science. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.