The Role of Domain-Specific Knowledge in Generative Reasoning About Complicated Multileveled Phenomena

Promoting the ability to reason generatively about novel phenomena and problems students may encounter in their everyday lives is a major goal of science education. This goal proves to be a formidable challenge in domains, such as molecular genetics, for which the accumulated scientific understandings are daunting in both amount and complexity. To develop effective instruction that fosters generative reasoning we need to have a sound understanding of the types of knowledge in the domain that are critical for such reasoning. In this study I examined the ensemble of knowledge, both general and domain-specific, undergraduate students employed in reasoning about problems in genetics. I found that students initially formulate a solution in terms that are not domain specific and that serve as a frame–solution frame–that outlines and constrains a more specific and domain-appropriate explanation. This solution frame is then filled in with two powerful forms of domain-specific knowledge I term: domain-specific heuristics and domain-specific explanatory schemas. These knowledge forms embody understandings of central mechanisms and entities in molecular genetics. By invoking these domain-specific knowledge forms, students were able to reason about a variety of both familiar and novel genetics problems. I present a cognitive model that highlights the role of these powerful conceptual understandings in promoting generative reasoning in genetics.     

The Effect of Morphological Complexity on Verbal Working Memory: Results from Arabic Speaking Children

To examine the role of morphology in verbal working memory. Forty nine children, all native speakers of Arabic from the same region and of the same dialect, performed a Listening Word Span Task, whereby they had to recall Arabic uninflected words (i.e., base words), inflected words with regular (possessive) morphology, or inflected words with irregular (broken plural) morphology. Each of these words was at the end of a sentence (henceforth, target word). The participant’s task was to listen to a series of sentences and then recall the target words. Recall of inflected words was significantly poorer than uninflected words, and recall of words with regular morphology was significantly poorer than recall of words with irregular morphology. These findings, albeit preliminary, suggest a role of morphology in verbal working memory. They also suggest that, at least in Arabic, regular morphological forms are decomposed into their component elements and hence impose an extra load on the central executive and episodic buffer components of working memory. Furthermore, in concert with findings from other studies, they suggest that the effect of morphology on working memory is probably language-specific. The clinical implications of the present findings are addressed.     

Taking the Sting Out: Manifesting Aggression and Containing Difficult States in a Relational Group Psychotherapy

This paper describes ways of handling aggression and difficulty in containing intense emotional experiences in group psychotherapy. The clinical vignette illustrates how, in cases of overprotectiveness, an external trigger may sometime serve as a vehicle of liberation and ventilation. The therapist’s enactment in response to the sudden penetration of a wasp into the room is discussed by relating to the functions it serves in the process of encountering aggression, as well as the group and therapist’s capacity to move from “twoness” to a “co-created third.” Whereas aggression, in general, is difficult to deal with, in a group it might prove to be extremely threatening, posing dangers unique to groups. Moreover, openly discussing the group conductor’s aggressiveness is especially challenging in a group. The paper illustrates the fruitful intersection of group analytic thinking and relational psychoanalytic conceptualization.     

‘WITH PSYCHOSIS IN MIND’ – the reverberations of the psychotic encounter

Psychoanalytic theory offers a varied conceptual system for considering psychosis by providing a coherent representation of the anxieties and processes at work in adult patients. But at the practical clinical level, it is not enough simply to ‘think about psychosis’ and have a theoretical system in place. The therapist must also ‘have psychosis in mind’, that is, get to grips with its forms of logic, gain familiarity with its workings, and learn to understand and accept the effects it has on the therapeutic relationship and on their own expectations. Clinicians engaged in this type of work must be able to tolerate getting back in touch with processes deemed archaic at the core of their own psychological functioning, which will impact their ability to listen and think. These chaotic processes demand a change of approach since they cause a ‘desymbolisation’ that perturbs the internal mental structure of the therapist. This ‘desymbolisation’ is therefore the locus of the therapeutic work, which must attempt to render it comprehensible and represent it. A case study illustrates these processes.     

“Feeling Good in Your Own Skin” Part I: Primary Levels of Mental Organization

This two-part article (the first part published here and the second part will be published in the March 2011 Issue of the AJP), deals with the relation between a certain type of idiomatic expression, which we call somatic idioms, and what we recognize as the primary levels of mental organization. The article raises the following questions: What do we actually know about the primary levels of mental organization? What is the language's way to connect with the primary levels of mental organization? The first part of the article addresses the issue of how to describe and conceptualize the individual's earliest experiences, and how they continue to exist throughout one's adult life. The second part of the article focuses on the accessibility of the primary levels to language. Whereas most of the theories identify the primary levels as being outside of the linguistic realm, we suggest that some idiomatic expressions are the language's way to get in touch or connect with the primary levels. Therefore, the goals of the present article are to (1) characterize the primary levels of mental organization differently from the ways in which other psychoanalytic schools have done up until now; (2) reveal how language manages to find a way to connect with these primary levels, which are not outside of the linguistic realm, as has been previously suggested; and (3) exemplify the frequency and wide range of mental states—not only those which are pathological or extreme—in which the primary levels can be identified.     

Approach/Avoidance Orientations Affect Self-Construal and Identification with In-group

Approach and avoidance are two basic motivational orientations. Their activation influences cognitive and perceptive processes: Previous work suggests that an approach orientation instigates a focus on larger units as compared to avoidance. Study 1 confirms this assumption using a paradigm that more directly taps a person's tendency to represent objects as belonging to small or large units than prior studies. It was further predicted that the self should also be represented as belonging to larger units, and hence be more interdependent under approach than under avoidance. Study 2 supports this prediction. As a consequence of this focus on belonging to larger units, it was finally predicted that approach results in a stronger identification with one's in-group than avoidance. Studies 3 and 4 support that prediction.     

Cognitive consequences of motivational orientation: perceived similarity between objects

Recent findings suggest that the unconscious activation of the motivational orientations of approach and avoidance is accompanied by the adoption of a more global and a more local processing style, respectively. A global processing style, in turn, is assumed to instigate a focus on similarities whereas a local processing style is assumed to instigate a focus on differences. Integrating these two ideas, the present research examines the hypothesis that participants under approach perceive objects as more similar to each other than participants under avoidance. To test this assumption, we induced the two motivational orientations and elicited judgments of similarities (Experiments 1 and 2) and differences (Experiment 2) for pairs of pictures. Results confirmed the hypothesis. We propose that the relative attunement to similarities/differences under approach/avoidance is functional because it allows for a flexible conceptualization of the environment/an ability to discern slight deviations from what is expected.     

What do we know about what we cannot remember? Accessing the semantic attributes of words that cannot be recalled

Two experiments examined access to the semantic attributes of words that participants failed to retrieve. The results indicated access to all 3 dimensions of the semantic differential--evaluation, potency, and activity, as revealed by attribute judgments and by the nature of the commission errors made. There was no evidence for superior access to the emotional-evaluative dimension, inconsistent with what may be expected from the claimed primacy of emotion. In comparison with complete recall, partial recall exhibited a slower rate of forgetting and a stronger tendency to elicit know rather than remember responses. The results were discussed in terms of the processes that lead to partial recall and in terms of the possibility that the affective primacy hypothesis does not apply to memory retrieval.     

When customers exhibit verbal aggression, employees pay cognitive costs

In 4 experimental studies, we show that customer verbal aggression impaired the cognitive performance of the targets of this aggression. In Study 1, customers' verbal aggression reduced recall of customers' requests. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that customer verbal aggression impaired recognition memory and working memory among employees of a cellular communication provider. In Study 3, the ability to take another's perspective attenuated the negative effects of customer verbal aggression on participants' cognitive performance. Study 4 linked customer verbal aggression to quality of task performance, showing a particularly negative influence of aggressive requests delivered by high-status customers. Together, these studies suggest that the effects of even minor aggression from customers can strongly affect the immediate cognitive performance of customer service employees and reduce their task performance. The implications for research on aggression and for the practice of customer service are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).