Exploring the depths of the rainforest: a metaphor for teaching critical reflection

Many social welfare and social work students struggle to demonstrate competence in the complex process of critical reflection through to the stage of transformed thinking and action. Examples of how students learn critical reflection as an interpretive experience are scarce. This paper presents, as a case study, the process one of the authors experienced while critically reflecting on teaching critical reflection. The paper explores how this approach unlocked disturbing insights into how personally held values, views and knowledge influenced her performance relating to teaching critical reflection. Experiencing what she asks of her students raised questions regarding the duty of care that social welfare and social work educators have to ensure their students engage in critical, and transformative, self-discovery in safe and supportive ways. We propose that in the early stages of social welfare and social work degrees, rather than assessing students’ critical reflection of an event, educators examine students’ capacity to learn critical reflection in a different way. Drawing on critical hermeneutics, and a theory of visual thinking, the paper outlines the cognitive map of a process of critical reflection on teaching critical reflection. We present this as a metaphor of walking through a rainforest.     

The Incarnation of Lived Time: Towards an Ecology of Memory

Most of us think of memory in terms of the brain's ability to store and retrieve events, facts, and skills. Philosophers and cognitive scientists seek to understand memory in terms of causation and justification. This article steps back from these considerations to reflect broadly on what memory is. Drawing on the paradigm shift underway in mind sciences, I explore the implications of the emerging understanding of cognition as embodied, embedded, extended, and enacted. This new paradigm undermines epistemological dualism and individualism and makes it possible to view memory as an ecological process.     

Motor Imagery Shapes Abstract Concepts

The concepts of “good” and “bad” are associated with right and left space. Individuals tend to associate good things with the side of their dominant hand, where they experience greater motor fluency, and bad things with their nondominant side. This mapping has been shown to be flexible: Changing the relative fluency of the hands, or even observing a change in someone else's motor fluency, results in a reversal of the conceptual mapping, such that good things become associated with the side of the nondominant hand. Yet, based on prior studies, it is unclear whether space–valence associations were determined by the experience of fluent versus disfluent actions, or by the mere expectation of fluency. Here, we tested the role of expected fluency by removing motor execution and perceptual feedback altogether. Participants were asked to imagine themselves performing a psychomotor task with one of their hands impaired, after which their implicit space–valence mapping was measured. After imagining that their right hand was impaired, right‐handed participants showed the “good is left” association typical of left‐handers. Motor imagery can change people's implicit associations between space and emotional valence. Although asymmetric motor experience may be necessary to establish body‐specific associations between space and valence initially, neither motoric nor perceptual experience is needed to change these associations subsequently. The mere expectation of fluent versus disfluenct actions can drive fluency‐based effects on people's implicit spatialization of “good” and “bad.” These results suggest a reconsideration of the mechanisms and boundary conditions of fluency effects.     

The symbolic reach of the Catholic Church: liturgy-based language among atheists and Catholics in Poland

The power of the Catholic Church in Poland can be seen throughout modern Polish history. It can also be observed in the influence of the Catholic clergy on political and social life in Poland. But how far-reaching is this power? Does it only concern the Catholic majority in Polish society or does it extend also to the atheist minority? In this article, we address this question through a study of the linguistic habitus of two groups (Polish Catholics and Polish atheists), specifically an analysis of conceptual metaphors in a corpus compiled from web forums. We examine the frequencies of three metaphors concerning love, death and sin previously identified in Catholic transition rituals, such as baptisms or weddings. The results show no quantitative differences in the usage of these metaphors and instead significant qualitative similarities in the language form of the metaphors. The findings thus suggest the ability of the Catholic Church to influence the ways of speaking and possibly also of thinking and acting among both Catholics and atheists in Poland.     

道德概念净脏隐喻及其对道德判断的影响

通过3个实验考察道德概念净脏隐喻的心理现实性以及道德概念净脏背景和净脏自身隐喻对道德判断的影响及其差异。结果表明：（1）道德概念净脏隐喻具有心理现实性,即被试在洁净背景上判断道德词的反应时更快,在肮脏背景上判断不道德词的反应时更快。（2）当将道德两难故事呈现在肮脏背景上时,相比于呈现在洁净背景上,被试更容易将故事主人公的行为判断为不道德,表现出隐喻一致性效应。（3）相比于肮脏自身启动,被试在洁净自身启动下对道德两难故事主人公的行为判断为更加不道德,表现出隐喻补偿性效应。（4）相比于洁净背景启动,被试在洁净自身启动下对道德两难故事的判断更加严厉;相比于肮脏背景启动,被试在肮脏自身启动下对道德两难故事的判断更加宽松。研究结果证明,道德概念净脏隐喻具有心理现实性,净脏背景和净脏自身隐喻均影响个体的道德判断,并且二者对道德判断的影响不同。     

汉语时间-空间隐喻加工垂直偏向性的稳固性

前人的研究发现,汉语时间-空间隐喻的加工表现出一定的垂直偏向性。本文两个实验采用空间启动的范式,考察汉英双语者二语（英语）经验对汉语时间-空间隐喻加工偏向性的影响。实验1以中国内地汉英双语大学生为被试,结果发现,在垂直空间启动条件下,被试的反应时更快,垂直性时间问题的反应时最短,正确率最高,即表现出时间-空间隐喻加工的垂直偏向性,这说明英语经验未影响汉语时间-空间隐喻加工的垂直偏向性。实验2采用英语熟练程度更高,来自我国港、澳地区的汉英双语大学生为被试,得到了和实验1类似的结果。两个实验结果表明,对于非平衡的汉英双语者而言,英语经验并未对汉语母语时间-空间隐喻加工的偏向性产生影响,汉语时间-空间隐喻加工的垂直偏向性表现出相当程度的稳固性。     

On psychoanalytic writing

Analytic writing constitutes a literary genre of its own. It involves the linking of an analytic idea (developed in a scholarly manner) with an analytic experience created in the medium of language. What makes this literary genre so demanding is that experience-including analytic experience-does not come to us in words. This fact generates a paradox that lies at the core of analytic writing: analytic experience (which cannot be said or written) must be transformed into 'fi ction' (an imaginative rendering of experience in words) in order to convey to the reader something of what is true to the emotional experience that the analyst had with the patient. The author discusses a clinical passage from one of his recently published papers in an effort to demonstrate some of the conscious and unconscious thinking that goes into his writing. He then looks closely at the way the language works in a successful piece of theoretical analytic writing. The paper concludes with a discussion of a number of facets of the author's experience with analytic writing including the psychological 'state of writing', which is at once a meditation and a wrestling match with language; experimenting with the form (structure) of an analytic essay; and the question of originality in analytic writing.     

“上下意象图式”对汉语成语感情色彩加工的影响

通过两个实验,考察了＂上下意象图式＂对汉语成语感情色彩加工的影响。实验一发现,成语感情色彩加工存在＂隐喻一致效应＂,褒义的成语呈现在屏幕上方加工得更快,贬义的成语呈现在屏幕下方加工得更快、更准。实验二消除了具体空间信息的影响,发现仅有抽象符号水平的联结,＂上＂、＂下＂概念不能影响汉语成语感情色彩的加工。研究结果支持隐喻理论和具身认知观。     

A metaphoric evaluation: students' self‐appraisal at the end of the course year

This article focuses on an exercise to facilitate students' self‐evaluation at the end of a course year. It describes an externalizing technique using objects as metaphors . Although developed in the context of a foundation level course, it is equally relevant for evaluating learning at any stage.