Spontaneous versus instructed use of multiple standards for evaluating comprehension: Effects of age,reading proficiency,and type of standard

Nine- and eleven-year-old children differing in reading proficiency read and commented on brief expository passages containing three different types of embedded problems (nonsense words, prior knowledge violations, and internal inconsistencies). Half of the children were specifically instructed as to the types of standards they should apply in order to detect the problems (lexical, external consistency, and internal consistency); the remaining children were simply instructed to look for problems. Both quantitative and qualitative differences in standard use were revealed by the children's comments about all parts of the passages. Older and better readers used more different standards and they used them more frequently than younger and poorer readers. The lexical standard was more likely to be adopted spontaneously than the other two standards and it was the only standard used by a substantial proportion of both younger and poorer readers. Finally, the consistent effects of instruction type indicate that children's evaluation activities were strongly influenced by the amount of guidance received.     

Integration of melody and text in memory for songs

Two experiments examined whether the memory representation for songs consists of independent or integrated components (melody and text). Subjects heard a serial presentation of excerpts from largely unfamiliar folksongs, followed by a recognition test. The test required subjects to recognize songs, melodies, or texts and consisted of five types of items: (a) exact songs heard in the presentation; (b) new songs; (c) old tunes with new words; (d) new tunes with old words; and (e) old tunes with old words of a different song from the same presentation (‘mismatch songs’). Experiment 1 supported the integration hypothesis: Subjects' recognition of components was higher in exact songs (a) than in songs with familiar but mismatched components (e). Melody recognition, in particular, was near chance unless the original words were present. Experiment 2 showed that this integration of melody and text occurred also across different performance renditions of a song and that it could not be eliminated by voluntary attention to the melody.     

A comparison of monocular and binocular depth perception in 5- and 7-month-old infants

Monocular depth perception was compared with binocular depth perception in 5- and 7-month-old infants. Reaching was used as the dependent measure. Two objects, identical except in size, were presented simultaneously to each infant. The smaller object was within reach for the infants while the larger object was just beyond reach. The two objects subtended equal visual angles from the infants' observation point. With binocular presentation, 96% of the 7-month-olds' reaches and 89% of the 5-month-olds' reaches were for the nearer object. With monocular presentation, 58% of the 7-month-olds' reaches and 65% of the 5-month-olds' reaches were for the nearer object. The reaching preferences observed in the monocular condition indicated sensitivity to monocular depth information (motion parallax, accommodation, and relative size information were available). Binocular viewing, however, resulted in a far more consistent tendency to reach for the nearer object. This result suggests that the infants' perception of the objects' distances was more veridical in the binocular condition than in the monocular condition.     

The selective impact of question form and input mode on the symbolic distance effect in children

Five experiments are reported on the symbolic distance effect (SDE) and related phenomena with 6- and 9-year-old children. In the first of these, children were asked to judge the relative sizes of animals in verbal and pictorial tests featuring the comparatives "bigger" and "smaller." A perceptual condition with actual objects was included by way of comparison. A Symbolic Distance Effect was obtained for both lexical and pictorial input. Mode differences were also observed. Pictures produced faster responses than words, and congruity effects occurred only in the pictorial condition. Although performance was similar in tests with either comparative, our subsequent experiments on both 6- and 9-year-olds reveal a significant asymmetry in the child's capacity to verify statements of relation as a function of the direction along the (size) continuum implied by the question. However, important differences between age groups also apparent in the data lead us to conclude that the older subjects develop strategies to overcome this asymmetry by translating certain statements of relation into a form more congruent with their natural modes of encoding.     

Social Activism's Possibility through Perspectives of Gloria Anzaldúa,Walter Benjamin and C. G. Jung1

This paper explores the vertices of Jung's, Anzaldúa's and Benjamin's distinct ontologies and the way in which they connect in the shared recognition that what has been estranged in human history is enigmatically lodged in the world's fabric today. Cultural distress, in other words, is the outcome of what has become repudiated in the self and the collective across time. From this perspective, the paper argues that we have a collective responsibility to listen to the claims of the dead laid bare in moments of contemporary real-world danger and it elaborates the psychical dimensions of being that are cultivated in times of danger. The author contends that these psychical presences are the dead of human history including our ancestral heritage that linger and possibly may penetrate our awareness. They haunt and hold a potential to animate our movement towards a sublimatory process that can be seen as a precursor to social responsiveness and action. The author explores this through her own experience with an example of the spawning of spiritual activism within the socio-political maelstrom of AIDS.     

Seeing in the Dark: A View into Dissociation and Healing

In this paper, I will explore the role of art-making, the experience of trauma and dissociation, and the process of working with self-states from an analytic and creative frame. Relevant literature on dissociation, trauma, and the use of art will be discussed. A case involving my work with an adolescent girl who had experienced sexual abuse from a family member will be shared, with an emphasis on the meaningful role images played during the therapeutic process. Both Jungian and psychoanalytic models of conceptualizing and working with dissociation are included, following Donald Kalsched’s (2013) recommendation for a “binocular stance” to treatment, including both a focus on the inner, intrapsychic world and the interpersonal, relational realm, and how art images both illuminated and expressed these realms. Within the therapeutic process, art images allowed the therapist a view into the client’s unconscious process, and created a meeting ground for dissociative barriers to be gradually seen, felt and known, by both therapist and client. The experience of dissociation, in images and in session, provided a reference point for myself and my client, Taylor, to develop a shared understanding and a framework for growth.     

Take care of egotism,and redemption will take care of itself: Comments on Tracy Llanera's Richard Rorty: Outgrowing modern nihilism

This commentary critically examines two facets of Tracy Llanera's recent book Richard Rorty: Outgrowing Modern Nihilism. First, it considers her interpretation of Richard Rorty's redemptive project. It argues that, while Llanera succeeds in resolving tensions in Rorty's public-private distinction, her account downplays the role of abnormal discourse within projects of self-creation. Second, it raises several questions about Llanera's strategy for situating this redemptive project within debates concerning existential nihilism. On her view, one ought to follow Rorty in addressing the problem of egotism instead of the problem of nihilism, since the former is prior to the latter. But it is not clear who counts as an egotist, or why egotists are especially prone to becoming nihilists. Moreover, there are reasons to think that egotism and nihilism are fundamentally different kinds of problems.     

Collective Trauma,Implicit Memories,the Body,and Active Imagination in Jungian Analysis1

This presentation attempts to show the healing potential underlying the inclusion of the patient's body in the analytic process, while honouring and revisiting the understanding of the psyche-body connection described by Jung in his early work. In addition, the author offers reflections on the impact of collective trauma whose aftermath, among others, has been the disappearance of thousands of people, consequently breaking the family genealogy, leaving hundreds of children stripped of their roots and true identity. Referencing clinical material, the author describes how the process of translation and integration—from the sensory-perceptual to the conceptual-symbolic—can be halted on account of collective trauma occurring at an early stage in development. Moreover, it is shown how the potential of the archetype or image schema, linked to the somatic-affective early experiences encoded as implicit memories, can be recovered, when Embodied Active Imagination is included in the analytic work. The patient's bodily gestures and somatic experience may bridge the gap between the preverbal-implicit knowledge and the emergence of emotions and images that allow for the creation of a new symbolic narrative.     

Jung’s Psychoid Monism

Jung’s final psychoid theory of archetypes was an additional attempt to find a solution to the philosophical problem of how to relate mind and matter. In the following essay Jung’s solution is summarized by a set of 17 theses, and Jung’s philosophy will be called psychoid monism. According to psychoid monism, what ultimately and primarily is, is the psycho-physically neutral domain of instinctual experience. The origin of this view can be traced back to Post-Kantian German Idealism (Schopenhauer, Schelling, Hölderlin), and a systematization of the view requires a dialectic approach and, in particular, contradiction-tolerant dialectic logic.