Educating the Senses: Explorations in Aesthetics,Embodiment and Sensory Pedagogy

Studies in Philosophy and Education - This volume takes two different, albeit intertwined approaches. The first concerns a reformulation of aesthetics in education—one which highlights the...     

Assessing depressive symptoms with the Borg centiMax Scale® in a Swedish sample of patients and students

The Borg centiMax Scale, is a psychophysically composed general intensity ratio scale, which could enable more precise inter- and intraindividual comparisons of the intensity of depressive symptoms. In the present study, the properties of the centiMax scale were examined in 38 patients with clinical depression and 109 students. Additionally, preliminary centiMax cut-off scores for mild, moderate and severe depression were estimated. The psychometric properties of the centiMax were found to be satisfactory regarding internal consistency, convergent, discriminative and predictive validity. Moreover, the centiMax was demonstrated to provide meaningful comparisons of symptom intensity, which makes it possible to evaluate the relative importance of individual symptoms in a profile and make more precise comparisons within and between individuals. With regard to intraindividual comparisons, patients rated , for example, the intensity of feeling “guilt” twice as strong as feelings of “being punished,” and the intensity of “loss of pleasure” almost three times as strong as “being punished.” With regard to interindividual comparisons, patients rated e.g., the intensity of “being punished” as 12 times stronger than controls, and the intensity of “worthlessness” about nine times stronger. In conclusion, the centiMax was shown to be reliable and valid for assessing depressive symptoms. The centiMax with level anchored ratio data, appears to be highly advantageous as it permits rather precise values of symptom intensity for intra- and interindividual comparisons that could be useful in the diagnostic process and in treatment planning.     

Crossmodal temporal order and processing acuity in developmentally dyslexic young adults

We investigated crossmodal temporal performance in processing rapid sequential nonlinguistic events in developmentally dyslexic young adults (ages 20-36 years) and an age- and IQ-matched control group in audiotactile, visuotactile, and audiovisual combinations. Two methods were used for estimating 84% correct temporal acuity thresholds: temporal order judgment (TOJ) and temporal processing acuity (TPA). TPA requires phase difference detection: the judgment of simultaneity/nonsimultaneity of brief stimuli in two parallel, spatially separate triplets. The dyslexic readers' average temporal performance was somewhat poorer in all six comparisons; in audiovisual comparisons the group differences were not statistically significant, however. A principal component analysis indicated that temporal acuity and phonological awareness are related in dyslexic readers. The impairment of temporal input processing seems to be a general correlative feature of dyslexia in children and adults, but the overlap in performance between dyslexic and normal readers suggests that it is not a sufficient reason for developmental reading difficulties.     

MMPI-2 scores of patients with insomnia

Although the MMPI-2 has been employed since 1989, to date no study has been reported on its use with patients with insomnia. The MMPI-2 was administered to 104 insomnia patients. The T scores of all the MMPI-2 scales fell below the cut-off score of T = 65. Although the group profile was within the normal range, the percentages of patients who had MMPI-2 scores above T = 65 for each scale indicated that a substantial portion of the insomnia patients obtained elevated scores, particularly in the Hs, D, Hy, and Pt scales. Thus, the results suggest that many of the insomnia patients exhibit psychological distress and would benefit from brief psychological interventions, such as sleep hygiene education and relaxation training. In view of the large number of insomnia patients who obtained abnormal MMPI-2 scores, a psychological measure such as the MMPI-2 remains an important assessment tool in identifying insomnia patients who may need extensive psychotherapeutic intervention.     

Distress after a single violent crime: how shame-proneness and event-related shame work together as risk factors for post-victimization symptoms

To increase understanding of post-victimization symptom development, the present study investigated the role of shame- and guilt-proneness and event-related shame and guilt as potential risk factors. 35 individuals (M age = 31.7 yr.; 48.5% women), recently victimized by a single event of severe violent crime, were assessed regarding shame- and guilt-proneness, event-related shame and guilt, and post-victimization symptoms. The mediating role of event-related shame was investigated with structural equation modeling (SEM), using bootstrapping. The guilt measures were unrelated to each other and to post-victimization symptoms. The shame measures were highly intercorrelated and were both positively correlated to more severe post-victimization symptom levels. Event-related shame as mediator between shame-proneness and post-victimization symptoms was demonstrated by prevalent significant indirect effects. Both shame measures are potent risk factors for distress after victimization, whereby part of the effect of shame-proneness on post-victimization symptoms is explained by event-related shame.     

Are You Really Happy? Children’s Understanding of Real vs. Pretend Emotions

This paper studies children’s capacity to understand that the emotions displayed in pretend play contexts do not necessarily correspond to internal emotions, and that pretend emotions may create false beliefs in an observer. A new approach is taken by asking children about pretend emotions in terms of pretence-reality instead of appearance-reality. A total of 37 four-year-olds and 33 six-year-olds were asked to participate in tasks where they had to pretend an emotion or where they were told stories in which the protagonists pretended an emotion. In each task children were asked: a) if the pretend emotion was real or just pretended and b) if an observer would think that the emotional expression was real or just pretended. Results showed that four-year-olds are capable of understanding that pretend emotions are not necessarily real. Overall, six-year-olds performed better than younger children. Furthermore, both age groups showed difficulty in understanding that pretend emotions might unintentionally mislead an observer. Results are discussed in relation to previous research on children’s ability to understand pretend play and the emotional appearance-reality distinction.     

Gender and power in school: On girls' open resistance

Drawing upon a Swedish empirical study of gender and power relations in a 9th-grade classroom, this paper focusses especially on girls' attempts to gain influence in school. Typically, such behaviours are reported to be more frequently exhibited by boys, as is almost all kinds of public classroom participation. In the class reported on here, however, girls are those actively contesting power relations and pursuing their principles. This is done through a process much resembling the idea of a representative democratic model. The features and implications of this process are elaborated in relation to two conflicts taking place in the class.     

Assessment of self-conscious emotions: a Swedish psychometric and structure evaluation of the Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA)

The Test of Self-Conscious Affect (TOSCA) is a well-established scenario-based questionnaire assessing self-conscious emotions, such as shame and guilt, which have been shown to be differentially associated with a variety of functional, motivational, behavioral and health outcomes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties and internal structure of a Swedish version of TOSCA in a sample of 361 healthy adults. The psychometric properties and internal consistency of the Swedish version were at level with the original US TOSCA version for shame, guilt and detachment. The internal structure of the Swedish version was acceptable for shame, guilt and detachment but contained shortcomings in assessment of externalization.     

Individual differences in phonological learning and verbal STM span

A relationship between phonological short-term memory tasks (e.g., nonword repetition, digit span) and vocabulary learning in both experimental and real-life conditions has been reported in numerous studies. A mechanism that would explain this correlation is, however, not known. The present study explores the possibility that it is the quality of phonological representations that affects both short-term recall and long-term learning of novel wordlike items. In Experiment 1, groups with relatively good and poor span for pseudowords were established. The good group was found to perform better at explicit memory tasks tapping the incidental learning of a limited stimulus pool used in an auditory immediate serial pseudoword recall task. In Experiment 2, the results of Experiment 1 were replicated when experience of correct recall was controlled. In Experiment 3, the immediate recall performance of the good group was found to benefit more than that of the poor group from syllable repetition within stimulus pools. It is concluded that the efficiency of a process that creates phonological representations is related both to short-term capacity for verbal items, and to long-term phonological learning of the structure of novel phonological items.