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PubMed1975

Values, Myths, and Symbols.

Defining "symbol" as that which draws together and unites experience and "myth" as a cluster of symbols set in dramatic form, the author discusses the lack of both symbols and myths in contemporary sociaty. This lack had led to a disintegration of commonly held values and, ultimately, to a great need for psychotherapy on the part of individuals seeking personal identity. The individual must define his or her own values according to personal myths. One basic function of psychotherapy is to help individuals in their attempt to recover values.

Anxiety↗

PubMed2006

The interplay between the abstract and the particular: research ethics standards and the practice of research as symbolic.

Ethical standards for research with human participants are increasingly important. With respect to nursing research these standards are symbolic of the interplay between the abstract theoretical aspects of bioethical standards and the particulars of nursing practice. In this column, this interplay is symbolized as a reflective equilibrium. These standards are argued to symbolize not only the dialectic relationship between the abstract and the particular in ethics, but also the general lack of a nursing specific articulation of ethical standards. Further understanding of the distinctiveness of nurses' moral judgments and knowledge is presented as necessary in strengthening the reflective equilibrium.

Codes of Ethics↗

PubMed2001

The symbol trail making test: test development and utility as a measure of cognitive impairment.

Although the Trail Making Test (TMT) has proven to be an exceptional clinical tool, its applications have been limited by the instrument's use of the Arabic numeral system and Latin alphabet. Clearly an instrument not limited by a specific alphabet or numerical system could fill this void. This study presents the development and validation of an alternative to the TMT that offers modestly similar psychometric properties and can be used with populations that have no familiarity with the Arabic numerical system or a specific alphabet. The Symbol Trail Making Test (STMT), which employs symbols that are not language or numerically based was administered to a normative sample of 210 participants, including 54 individuals whose first language was not English, for the purpose of collecting normative data. Reliability, assessed through an alternate form administration, and convergent validity, assessed through correlation with the TMT in a nonpatient sample, was deemed acceptable. Significant discriminant validity was obtained comparing non-brain-injured patients to brain-injured patients, particularly on time measures. An analysis of variance found no significant difference between native English speakers and individuals speaking English as a second language on performance on the STMT. This preliminary study provides evidence that the STMT is a clinically useful instrument for discriminating brain-injured from non-brain-injured participants without employing a specific culture-bound symbol system.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

The ambiguity of lesbian and gay marriages: change and continuity in the symbolic order.

The article discusses the Registered Partnership Act, passed in Norway in 1993, which has given gay and lesbian couples a right to register their relationship and to obtain many of the legal rights that heterosexual couples have. The article argues that the introduction of the Act is a product of, among others, cohabitation having become more legitimate as a life-form also among heterosexuals. The practical consequences of the Act have been modest, with relatively few couples having registered their relationship. The article suggests that the symbolic rather than the practical aspects of the Act have been important, and even then, the symbolic effect of the Act is equivocal. The new formal rights of gays and lesbians are of decreasing social and symbolic value, as new boundaries for legitimate life-forms are being demarcated elsewhere: While legislation on marriage concedes that personal relationships are a private matter, the right to have and to foster children is regarded as an issue where society at large should have a say. This view is also reflected in the restrictions that the Registered Partnership Act has placed on gay and lesbian couples in having children of their own.

Family↗

PubMed1982

Processing of symbolic and nonsymbolic events: a review of comparisons in selected cognitive activities.

The cognitive processing of symbolic and nonsymbolic events was compared. Evidence was drawn from the clinical and experimental literature on normal processing, on hemispheric asymmetry and on brain damage sequelae. It was concluded that several basic cognitive activities were manifest both symbolically and nonsymbolically. The cognitive activities included analysis of rapidly changing stimuli, categorical perception, categorical production, hierarchical organization and the production of complex movements. Damage to subcortical as well as cortical structures may contribute to the covariation of symbolic and nonsymbolic deficits. Suggestions were made for future research and the implications for the understanding of aphasia were described.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

Variation in cue duration reveals top-down modulation of involuntary orienting to uninformative symbolic cues.

This article reports three experiments in which the effects of cue duration on involuntary orienting to uninformative symbolic cues (arrows presented at fixation) were investigated. Experiment 1 showed that symbolic cues had less effect on involuntary orienting when they were presented for only 25 msec than when they were presented for 200 msec across a range of stimulus onset asynchronies. Experiment 2 suggested that the effect of cue duration on involuntary orienting was due primarily to top-down strategic factors, rather than to bottom-up stimulus factors, and Experiment 3 suggested that these strategic factors may involve differences in how the cue is processed. Altogether, the present findings are important because they emphasize the distinction between cue processing and the putative involuntary orienting that results from such processing in the symbolic-cuing paradigm. In so doing, the present results help resolve discrepant findings that have been reported across previous studies.

Attention↗

PubMed2004

A response time model for judging order relationship between two symbolic stimuli.

The response time to judge the order relationship between two symbolic stimuli is frequently modeled as the time spent in a (constant-rate) accumulative sampling process until a threshold is reached. We will show that empirical descriptions of observed effects in number comparisons suggest an accrual process that reaches the threshold at an exponential rate. The model accrual equations and stopping conditions have an immediate interpretation in terms of a simple quantitative connectionist network. The encoded stimuli and thresholds are inputs to the network. The former are considered to result from the participant's learning history, and the latter modulate the rearrangement of the network parts; each arrangement models a different task. We have found a good correlation between model predictions and other authors' experimental data, both in number comparisons and in experiments in which the ordering of the symbolic stimuli has been artificially induced. Incorrect answers are discussed, and predictions are compared with data. We will explore differences and similarities with other approaches, such as random walk and the symbolic comparison model. In a limit case, our model becomes identical to the discriminability model.

Humans↗

PubMed2002

[The symbolic power of bodily secretions].

Are ethical and political questions discussed more in aesthetic than in social terms? Political debates in contemporary art are often expressed through the use of symbolic power structures that are related to bodily secretions and products. By visualizing the less delicate parts of the organic body, contemporary artists focus on the vulnerability of the human body and its illness and pain. If human suffering is aestheticized: is this a question of form or a question of creating a cultural cover-up? Bodily secretions are associated with a range of complex social and cultural meanings and symbols. Metaphors related to body products may function as markers of ethnic, religious, social and sexual differences. In postmodern cultural criticism, the symbolic power of body metaphors is of great importance.

Bodily Secretions↗

PubMed2002

Snake and staff symbolism, and healing.

Since time immemorial the snake has been venerated as an enigmatic creature with supernatural powers. As a snake and staff symbol it is also traditionally associated with the healing arts, either as the single-snake emblem of Asklepios, or as the double-snake emblem (caduceus) of Hermes. The mythological basis for this symbolism is reviewed. The Asklepian emblem has been associated with health care since the 5th century BC, when Asklepios became accepted by the Greeks as the god of healing. Whether he was also an historical figure as healer in earlier ages is less certain. The origin of the double-snake emblem is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. In classical times it became the herald's wand of Hermes, messenger of the gods who guided departed souls to the underworld, and was seen as protector of travellers, shepherds and merchants. In the latter capacity Hermes also conveyed a negative connotation as protector of thieves. During the Middle Ages the caduceus became a symbol of the healing sciences (pharmacy and alchemy in particular), and today, although mythologically incorrect, it is in common usage in the health care field.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Letters, numbers, symbols and words: how to communicate grades of evidence and recommendations.

The GRADE Working Group is developing and evaluating a common, sensible approach to grading quality of evidence and strength of recommendations in health care. In this article, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using letters, numbers, symbols or words to represent grades of evidence and recommendations. Using multiple strategies, we searched for comparative studies of alternative ways of representing ordered categories in any context. In addition, we contacted experts and reviewed theoretical work and qualitative research on how best to communicate grades of any kind quickly and clearly. We were unable to identify health care research that addressed, either directly or indirectly, the best way to present grades of evidence and recommendations. We found examples of symbols used by government, commercial and consumer organizations to communicate quality of evidence or strength of recommendations, but no comparative studies. Although a number of grading systems are used in health care and other fields, there is little or no evidence of how well various presentations are understood. Before promoting the use of specific symbols, numbers, letters or words, the extent to which the intended message is comprehended should be evaluated.

Communication↗

PubMed2006

[Emergent functions in paediatric nursing: control of symbolic environmental mediators in child hospitalisation].

In the work which methods and results we shall later describe, we have tried to indicate which symbolic environmental mediators appear most frequently in the contexts of child hospitalisation. By symbolic environmental mediators, we understand the stimulus signals of the environment, associated, by virtue of personal or vicarious experiences, to certain emotional experiences--this is, signals capable of affecting the patients' emotional experience. From our work it follows that there exists a wide margin of improvement of these aspects in the current settings of child hospitalization, and that it is the paediatric nursing professionals who, in an emergent way, are assuming functions of control of the symbolic environmental mediators in the mentioned processes of hospitalisation.

Child↗

PubMed1985

"Your feet's too big": an inquiry into psychological and symbolic meanings of the foot.

The foot is a highly cathected appendage that is commonly singled out as the brunt of humorous or derisive remarks, as if it embodies repugnance and disgust. Attitudes toward the foot are overdetermined, bearing the imprint of man's early linguistic patterns and individual dynamics. This article suggests that feet are symbolic because they bear the feelings derived from earlier separations, good and bad object representations, collective memories, and genital representations. The foot's role as symbol of both the male and female genitals, repository of badness, symbol of passivity, initiator of movement, and site of self-mutilation have been briefly reviewed. As Fats Waller rhapsodizes that the "feet's too big," he finds a convenient way to displace his symbiotic and erotic anxieties vis-à-vis women. Similarly, patients who come for psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy frequently make references to their feet or use them in specific ways. An understanding of this type of communication can often provide insight into individual dynamics and enhance treatment. The weight placed on these communications depends, of course, on the vicissitudes of the previous therapeutic work as well as on the particular problems of the patient.

Adult↗

PubMed1985

[Developmental dysphasia and the use of symbols in play].

In the present study symbolic play behavior was examined in eight dysphasic children and eight mentally retarded children matched for expressive language ability. Significant correlations between symbolic play and expressive language ability were found for the mentally retarded children but not for those of normal intelligence with dysphasia. Consequently, the developmental disorder of the dysphasic children cannot be attributed to a generalized deficit in representational symbolic ability.

Aphasia↗

PubMed1989

Effects of symbolic play intervention with children who have mental retardation.

The effects of intervention versus nonintervention on the length and diversity of symbolic behaviors in children with mental retardation (classified as trainable) were compared. Eight children were matched on several variables and divided into two groups. The experimental, intervention group received 10 therapy sessions that were focused on symbolic play development; the control, nonintervention group did not receive play intervention. Children in the experimental group demonstrated qualitative as well as quantitative changes in their symbolic play profile. Clinical implications of these findings were discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed1985

Retention of symbolic communications skills by severely mentally retarded persons.

The nonspeech symbol vocabularies of five severely mentally retarded persons were assessed 18 months after the completion of a longitudinal computer-keyboard symbol acquisition study. These individuals retained a mean of 83% of their comprehension vocabularies and 70% of their production vocabularies without systematic maintenance teaching on the learned symbols. Interviews with special-education and living unit staff members corroborated this result and described the ways in which the subjects used their conversation boards in their everyday environment.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1985

The development of constraints on symbol-meaning structure in notation: evidence from production, interpretation, and forced-choice judgments.

Adults use notational systems in a variety of problem-solving situations. For notations to serve the goals we set them, they must conform to certain well-formedness rules, including one-to-one mapping between symbols and meanings and maintenance of the same symbol-meaning relations for both encoding and decoding. Do young children show an appreciation for the utility of notation by adhering to these rules in their production, interpretation, and judgment of notations? Study 1 provides a descriptive analysis of notations created by children aged 5-11 years. Study 2 is a forced-choice task in which preschoolers, 6- and 7-year-olds, and adults chose between a notation that was well-formed according to Goodman's theory of notation and one that violated exactly one of Goodman's principles. The 2 studies present converging evidence that young children may not impose the same symbol-meaning structure at decoding that was set up at encoding, and only after this develops does a preference for one form-one function mapping appear (approximately age 8). Comparisons are made to relevant aspects of the literature on language acquisition.

Age Factors↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Significance of symbolism in analytic and analytically oriented psychotherapy].

Since the very beginning of psychoanalysis there has been a long lasting discussion about the definition and the role of symbols and symbolization within the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis. The discussion has been summarized by Orban (1976) and Speidel (1978). In this paper a psychoanalytic understanding of creative processes and the relevance of symbolization for the course of treatment is presented.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

The use of Bliss symbols as a first step into literacy with four children with Down syndrome.

This study describes the use of Bliss symbolics as a first step into literacy with four children with Down syndrome in a preschool setting. Initial stages of the intervention programme are discussed as well as the children's ability to read Bliss symbols six months after commencement of the programme. Symbol errors are analyzed and implications for further research discussed.

Child↗