The Signal-Cognition interface: Interactions between degraded auditory signals and cognitive processes

A hearing loss leads to problems with speech perception; this is exacerbated when competing noise is present. The speech signal is recognized by the cognitive system of the listener; noise and distortion tax the cognitive system when interpreting it. The auditory system must interact with the cognitive system for optimal signal decoding. This article discusses this interaction between the signal and cognitive system based on two models: an auditory model describing signal transmission and degeneration due to a hearing loss and a cognitive model for Ease of Language Understanding. The signal distortion depends on the specifics of the hearing impairment and thus differently distorted signals can affect the cognitive system in different ways. Consequently, the severity of a hearing loss may not only depend on the lesion itself but also on the cognitive recourses required to interpret the signal.     

The Therapeutic System as Viewed by Depressive Inpatients and Outcome: An Expanded Study

In an expansion of a previous study, we examined in which way depressive inpatients' views of psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes toward the severity of their illness were related to outcome. Fifty-six patients were asked a two-part question —“Who regards your illness as being more severe: (a) you or your significant others; (b) you or your psychiatrist?” Two subsamples of patients were identified: those who viewed the psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes as similar and those who viewed them as dissimilar. Both groups showed substantial and significant improvement during hospital treatment; but the group that viewed the attitudes held by psychiatrists and significant others as dissimilar had significantly fewer depressive symptoms by the end of a 3-month followup period. The findings were consistent with those of the original study, and with the hypothesis as derived from the Mental Research Institute brief therapy principles.     

SOME NORMATIVE IMPLICATIONS OF KORSGAARD'S THEORY OF THE INTERSUBJECTIVITY OF REASON

Abstract: This article argues that Christine Korsgaard's conception of self‐constitution can be historicized by considering the impact of actual humans on our reflective activity. Because Korsgaard bases her argument on a philosophy of action rather than of intention (as Kant does), and our actions must always be concrete, the article argues that the principles for action which we develop in reflection are likewise responses to concrete human demands. It further interprets the types of demands humans make on each other as the expression of historical circumstance rather than as transcendentally anchored. The notion of universal respect that reflection seeks to achieve is thus seen as developing by a self‐correcting process of concrete human interaction. Finally, the article concludes that there can be no metaphysical proof of morality, since morality develops through human interaction that seeks to approximate the idea of respect for persons.     

Can Patients' Views of a Therapeutic System Predict Outcome? An Empirical Study with Depressive Patients

Using the principles of brief therapy as developed at the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto, this study examined how patients viewed psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes toward the severity of their illness, as compared with their own attitude, and whether these views were related to outcome. Forty-one depressive inpatients were asked a two-part question — Who regards your illness as being more severe: (a) you or your significant others; (b) you or your psychiatrist? Two subsamples of patients were identified: those who viewed psychiatrists' and significant others' attitudes toward the illness as similar (equally structured systems) and those who viewed them as dissimilar (differently structured systems). Both groups showed equal and significant improvement during hospital treatment; but the group that viewed the attitudes held by psychiatrists and significant others as dissimilar reported improvement after discharge.