Specificity of Task Constraints and Effects of Visual Demonstrations and Verbal Instructions in Directing Learners' Search During Skill Acquisition

In the present study, the efficacy of visual demonstrations and verbal instructions as instructional constraints on the acquisition of movement coordination was investigated. Fifteen participants performed an aiming task on 100 acquisition and 20 retention trials, under 1 of 3 conditions: a modeling group (MG), a verbally directed group (VDG), and a control group (CG). The MG observed a model intermittently throughout acquisition, whereas the VDG was verbally instructed to use the model's movement pattern. Participants in the CG received neither form of instruction. Kinematic analysis revealed that compared with verbal instructions or no instructions, visual demonstrations significantly improved participants' approximation of the model's coordination pattern. No differences were found in movement outcomes. Coordination data supported the visual perception perspective on observational learning, whereas outcome data suggested that the modeling effect is mainly a function of task constraints, that is, the novelty of a movement pattern.     

FOCUS: ComplexityandPsychology Guest Editors: Giuseppe Mininni and Mauro Maldonato

Recently the complexity of discursive practices has been widely acknowledged by the humanities and social sciences. In fact, to know anything is to know in terms of one or more discourse. The “discursive turn” in psychology may be considered as a new paradigm oriented to a correct study of (wo)man only if it is able to grasp the semiotical ground of psychic experience both as an “effort after meaning” and as a “struggle over meaning.” In this sense the notion of “diatext” has been proposed as a contribution in working out a psychosemiotical approach to understand how the discursive practices assign subject-positions to the agents of each interlocution scenario.     

Editorial

No abstract available for this article.     

Fostering Students’ Appraisals of the Relevance of History by Comparing Analogous Cases of an Enduring Human Issue: A Quasi-Experimental Study

To identify the challenges that students must meet to engage in effective self-directed inquiry, a class was followed for three years, from the fourth through the sixth grades, as they engaged in a sequence of progressively more demanding inquiry activities. Students made substantial progress in understanding the objectives of inquiry, identifying questions, attending to evidence, identifying patterns, making controlled comparisons, interpreting increasingly complex data, supporting claims, and drawing justified conclusions. Retaining awareness of inquiry objectives and integrating influences of multiple variables in predicting outcomes were two areas that remained challenging. A comparison group of seventh graders who had not been involved in the program displayed strikingly different approaches to an inquiry task, indicating that the skills identified here are not ones that develop in the absence of appropriate kinds of educational experiences.     

Mass psychology of the led and the leaders

Abstract

Some salient features of a Sullivanian perspective are given as a background for a discussion of the case of Anna. Lived experience is mentioned as of equal importance as fantasy. Technically, analytic inquiry in the form of questions is stressed. In his review of the case presentation, the author observes that too much emphasis is given to content, compared to form. He notes that the therapist does not report key transference and non-transference interactions with the patient and further suggests that the patient still has significant narcissistic problems. He suggests that it is time to confront the patient with her characterological ways of relating to the analyst.     

ACTION,AGENCY, AND EMPATHY: SCHAFER ON THE ANALYST'S DILEMMA

Throughout his career, a central feature of Roy Schafer's theorizing has been to highlight the role of activity and personal agency in every facet of human experience. This theme has remained at the forefront of Schafer's work, despite being embedded within different frames of reference. In this paper, the author highlights Schafer's focus on activity, notes some clinical problems to which it can give rise, and suggests the way that Schafer has attempted to deal with these difficulties.     

Community Psychology and Transformative Policy Change in the Neo-liberal Era

I present ideas about how community psychologists, as researcher-activists, can influence public policy. I begin by describing the current neo-liberal era, noting the immense obstacles it poses to progressive policy change. Next I contrast two approaches to understanding policy formation, evidence-based policy and discursive policy analysis, and argue that transformative policy change can benefit from both approaches. I then propose three types of policy outcomes that community psychology research and activism should aim to promote: (a) shaping problem definition, (b) controlling channels for debate and participation, and (c) allocating resources. I use examples from community psychologists’ involvement in policy, mostly in Canada, to illustrate how such policy change can be both achieved and constrained. I conclude by discussing implications for theory and practice related to policy change.     

Training in health psychology: An international look

With the progression of health psychology as a new field in psychology specific training programs are more and more needed. A survey of the training situation of health psychology in Northern America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand highlighted a lack of formalized training programs in most countries except the United States and Canada, as well as an enormous variety between countries on standards of training, and on the differentiation of health psychologists from clinical psychologists.

For the qualification of health psychology as an independent psychological discipline a plea is made for international standardization of quality control and suggestions for the content of formalized training programs in health psychology are given.