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Descartes drove a wedge between human cognition and biology. Cognitive neuroscience is beginning to bridge the gap, and the application of mirror neuron theory to a range of problems in psychology has demonstrated the possibility of developing an understanding that spans from neural anatomy to language and empathy.
The concept of 'cognition' is central to a wide literature in social science and philosophy where a key assumption conceptualises the central unit of analysis as a cognising agent. However, recent developments in Science and Technology Studies (STS) question this assumption and suggest the basis for its modification. The paper describes and evaluates these developments. It examines critiques for the "received view" of science and suggests that nothing less than a full scale analytic inversion is needed adequately to confront entrenched conceptions about cognition. It surveys progressive attempts to achieve symmetry in STS. It then considers three sets of key assumptions about agency: 1. what is the agent doing?; 2. what is the nature of the agent?; and 3. why should human agents have the monopoly on human attributes?
AIMS: To demonstrate an integrative methodology to explore psychological constructs, we used multiple methods in the examination of alcohol expectancies-a psychological construct that is generally measured using survey methodology. We then used the methodology in order to assess the relationship of alcohol expectancy dimensions to drinking-related outcomes. DESIGN: We developed alcohol expectancy models using a cognitive paradigm designed to maximize cognitive activation of expectancies, in order to delineate dimensions of alcohol expectancies. Next, using multidimensional scaling (MDS), we defined heuristic models representing domains for arousing, sedating, positive, and negative alcohol expectancies. We then assessed these models in a separate sample using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and covariance structure modeling. SETTING: The research was conducted at a large public university in the southeastern US. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 927 male and female college students ranging in age from 17 to 35 years participated. MEASUREMENTS: Measures included the Alcohol Expectancy Inventory, the Quantity Frequency Index (QFI), and the Drinking Styles Questionnaire. FINDINGS: Single indicator models representing expectancies for arousing and positive effects of alcohol did not differ significantly in the prediction of drinking, and both accounted for significantly more variance in self-reported drinking than expectancies for sedating and negative effects of alcohol consumption. Expectations for the sedating effects of alcohol accounted for significantly more variance than those for negative effects. Expectations for sedating effects added unique variance in the prediction of drinking when all predictors were simultaneously modeled. CONCLUSIONS: The multiple methods integrated here can be used in the development and testing of alcohol expectancy models. This integrative methodology warrants further development and validation.
Our paper on loss of neurons in the Nucleus Basalis of Meynert (now considered part of the cholinergic basal forebrain) in Alzheimer disease (AD) stimulated scientific interest in this little studied brain region. Our subsequent studies associated pathology in the basal forebrain with other dementias, such as Parkinson's disease, and with neurotransmitter receptor changes, such as in nicotinic receptors. We and many others worked to develop medications to treat AD through cholinergic mechanisms and eventually four cholinesterase inhibitors were approved. However the effect sizes of currently available drugs are modest and ethical issues in conducting research in dementia are challenging. In Cleveland we came to focus on the goals of improving quality of life and the importance on non-pharmacological approaches to treatment. International efforts were organized to improve the efficiency of drug development and to focus on important cultural and pharmacoeconomic issues. Eventually I became concerned about the very way we conceive AD and related concepts like MCI (mild cognitive impairment). As the hundredth anniversary of the first case approaches I am helping to organize meetings to reflect deeply on what we have learned and how to imagine creating a more positive future for persons affected by what I used to call AD.
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Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
A change in paradigm has occurred in psychotherapy. Dynamic psychotherapy has still not been shown to be better than placebo treatment or good clinical care. As harm can occur, patients should enter such therapy with caution. The cognitive behaviour therapies are newer and more efficient. They have been demonstrated to be better than placebo or good clinical care for anxiety and depression, and are of benefit in many less common disorders. Informative clinical trials are identified. Clinicians who treat patients with mental disorders should acquaint themselves with these techniques.
To generate hypotheses about how physicians make difficult clinical decisions, we analyzed transcripts of the "thinking aloud" behavior of expert clinicians making a testing or treatment decision with an uncertain diagnosis. We compared the clinicians' reasoning with a decision analysis of the same problem. The experts did not formulate a global outline of their decision, but chained together a sequence of decisions based on available and incomplete information. Despite effective and efficient problem solving, the clinicians used numeric terms only as symbolic representations of likelihood, used limited information in choosing among alternatives, and dismissed the possibility that a less conventional strategy, empiric therapy, might yield equivalent outcome. We describe cognitive problem-solving strategies and knowledge representations that permit persons to make successful decisions despite limited processing resources. The same cognitive procedures probably contribute to observed errors in decision-making under uncertainty.
The health services literature many articles related to expanding and refining quality measures. But the rich body of empirical research on how people process information has rarely been applied to the challenge of presenting complex information about health care in ways that facilitate its comprehension and use. In this article, the authors review key findings from this research. Based on their review, the authors develop some general principles for presenting information and demonstrate their utility by assessing three Web sites that report performance data.
Analytic philosophers have long used a priori methods to characterize folk concepts such as knowledge, belief and wrongness. Recently, researchers have begun to exploit social scientific methodologies to characterize such folk concepts. One line of work has explored folk intuitions with cases that are disputed within philosophy. A second approach, with potentially more radical implications, applies the methods of cross-cultural psychology to philosophical intuitions. Recent work in this area suggests that people in different cultures have systematically different intuitions surrounding folk concepts. A third strand of research explores the emergence and character of folk concepts in children. These approaches to characterizing folk concepts provide important resources that will supplement, and perhaps in some cases displace, a priori approaches.
There are no generally accepted classification schemes for motivational and emotional disorders. One of the reasons is the difficulty in isolating motivational and emotional disorders from complex behaviors. Therefore, terms which characterize certain behaviors globally, such as clinical syndromes, are preferred in the clinical literature. Another, related reason is that within clinical psychology and the psychology of emotions are treated as two entirely separate fields with hardly any mutual influence. A third reason lies in the diversities of theories and schools of thought where the psychology of emotions as well as clinical psychology are concerned, thus, schemes, based on a general framework which is grounded in research in "Cognitiver Science" and general psychology, were developed which enable the comprehensive classification of motivational and emotional disorders, irrespective of individual therapeutic schools of thought or emotion-theoretic orientations. From the classification schemes, diagnostic criteria can be derived. This is the topic of Part I. In Part II it is demonstrated how these schemas can be applied to the comparison of different therapeutic schools with respect to theories of motivational and emotional disorders. Moreover, it is shown, how these ideas can be used to derive strategies for therapeutic interventions.
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