A comparison of two measures of egocentrism

This study examined the relationship between two prominent measures of egocentrism, Enright's Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES) and Elkind's Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS), in a sample of 458 adolescents, between 10 and 15 years old. Both correlational and factor analyses indicated that the two measures assess distinctly different phenomena. As predicted, IAS scores were correlated with self-reported levels of shyness, nervousness, and social skills. These results provide partial evidence for the validity of the IAS as a measure of self-consciousness, though not necessarily egocentrism per se. The validity of the AES was not examined.     

Are words represented by nodes?

Semantic priming in a lexical decision task was investigated with concurrent pretarget and posttarget primes. The posttarget prime also served as a pattern mask of the lexical decision target. Forward priming is defined as the presence of a semantically related pretarget prime and an unrelated posttarget prime. Backward priming is defined as the presence of a semantically related posttarget prime and an unrelated pretarget prime. Forward and backward priming were compared both when the nonword foils were "legal" and when they were "illegal" with respect to English orthography. Predictions were derived for two general approaches to word recognition: spreading-activation and expectancy-set theories. Both approaches assume that word representations occupy distinct, nonoverlapping locations in memory. Backward-prime facilitation was equivalent to forward-prime facilitation when nonword foils were illegal; however, backward-prime facilitation was not significant when nonword foils were legal. These results challenge both approaches. The proposed solution uses semantic-space (distributed) representations that are functionally unitized by a resonant matching (verification) process.     

The physiology of the tunnel

Several theories to account for the origin of tunnel hallucinations and tunnel experiences near death are considered: (1) the idea of a real tunnel; (2) representations of transition; (3) reliving birth memories; (4) imagination; and (5) physiological origins. Three different physiological theories are considered that related the tunnel form to the structure of the visual cortex. All can account for much of the phenomenology of the tunnel experience, and all lead to testable predictions. It is argued that the tunnel experience involves a change in the mental model of the self in the world. Because of this, an experience of purely physiological origin, with no implications for other worlds or for survival, can nevertheless produce lasting changes in the sense of self and reduce the fear of death.     

Event content in a daily survey is differentially associated with concurrent mood

Daily life events were grouped according to their life content area and according to the desirability of the event as rated by the subject. Associations among event groupings and concurrently measured daily mood were examined. As in studies of major life events, some event classifications were more strongly associated with mood than were others: Specifically, desirable family-leisure events and undesirable work events were strongly related to mood. The results suggests that particular life areas deserve special attention in understanding environmental stress.     

Psychoanalytic observations on the pathology of depressive illness: selected spheres of ambiguity or disagreement

This paper has two general sources: my own clinical psychoanalytic work extending over about four and one half decades; and consideration of certain outstandingly influential ideas in our literature: first, those of the pioneer contributors, and then those of certain more recent writers, whose views have sometimes exhibited important differences from those widely held in the past. I try to evaluate the two groups--in their occasional overlapping and important divergences, in relation to my own clinical experience. A certain general position of my own emerges from such process inevitably; but it is far from "revolutionary." Indeed, the contrary is more largely true. In extreme anticipatory condensation--what I do propose, from my own reflections, is the preeminent importance of an archaic characterological core in depressive illness.     

Daily versus major life events as predictors of symptom frequency: a replication study

Predictions of physical symptomatology by daily life events and by major life events were compared, replicating and expanding work reported by DeLongis, Coyne, Dakof, Folkman, & Lazarus (1982). Analyses of daily, prospective data collected on 79 married men for 90 days demonstrated that daily, undesirable events were better predictors of symptom frequencies than either past, major life events or daily, desirable events. These results, similar to those found by DeLongis et al. (1982), were further explored by examining "healthy" subjects versus subjects with prior medical conditions. Undesirable daily events were a much stronger predictor of physical symptoms in the healthy group than in the prior medical conditions group.