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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1992

From illness to symbol and symbol to illness.

This paper explores two aspects of the relationship between illness and social symbols: one in which illnesses become symbols; the other, in which symbols become implicated in processes that eventuate in illness. Illness is first discussed as a symbol of social beliefs, attitudes, norms, values, and other social phenomena conceptualized in relation to them. This symbolization is analyzed as it relates to various dimensions of illness that lend themselves to figurative thinking. The paper then turns to processes through which social symbols may generate illness. In this regard, ways in which social symbols may attract people to behavior that puts their health at risk are discussed. The paper concludes with an analysis of how the development of illness may be affected by the relationship between social symbols and somatization.

Anorexia Nervosa↗
PubMed1991

[Man as a symbolic animal--symptoms as symbolic interaction].

This is an article about views of human nature. In western medicine man is conceived mainly as a biological being, a mammal. Philosophical-ontological questions about man's nature are answered implicitly in clinical practice. They are not, however, reflected explicitly. In this article it is argued that symptoms are primarily human experience. To understand these experiences and their expressions, it is necessary to understand man as an "animal symbolicum", a term introduced by the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer. Language is the most specific expression of man's symbolic activities, and symptoms are expressed verbally. Speech is part of social interaction--we, as human beings, have "the power of speech". This way of thinking is illustrated by clinical examples, and an alternative medical practice, homeopathy, is analyzed as a special means of symbolic interaction.

Humans↗
PubMed1990

Transcending death during early adulthood: symbolic immortality, death anxiety, and purpose in life.

Robert Jay Lifton has originated a comprehensive theory of development based on the human psychobiological need to symbolize death and life continuity. He calls this condition the sense of symbolic immortality and argues that life is threatened whenever death is not transcended. A Sense of Symbolic Immortality Scale was built and administered to two groups of young adults (N = 136) in order to test the hypothesis that symbolic immortality develops with age (Drolet, 1986). Templer's Death Anxiety Scale and Crumbaugh and Maholick's Purpose in Life Test also were administered. Results show that established adults have a sense of symbolic immortality and a purpose in life significantly stronger than those of young adults. They show a negative relation between death anxiety and purpose in life, while purpose in life correlates highly with the sense of symbolic immortality. Finally, the premise that the sense of symbolic immortality helps cope with the fear of death is supported.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1979

Symbolism in the dreams of the blind.

The present study compared a group of visually handicapped adults and normally-sighted college students with respect to extent of symbolic content in nocturnal dreams. The visually handicapped group comprised individuals who were partially sighted, congenitally blind and adventitiously blind. Each subject was required to keep a dream-diary for a period of two or four months. These diaries were then content-analyzed for frequency of symbolic instances, with symbols being identified in line with the criteria suggested by Hall (1966) and Hall and Nordby (1972). Although individual differences were marked and some visually handicapped subjects reported highly symbolic dreams, this group, on the whole, revealed less symbolism in dreams than did the normally sighted subjects. There was also a tendency for individuals blinded later in life (after age seven) to manifest more symbolic content in dreams than subjects blinded earlier (before age five). However, for the partially sighted subjects in the study, there emerged no clear relationship between age of onset of visual impairment and amount of symbolism in dreams. In general, the present findings were congruent with those of Blank (1958).

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Hemispheric priming by meaningful and nonmeaningful symbols in language-trained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): further evidence of a left hemisphere advantage.

Hemispheric priming was examined in 3 language-trained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) using a simple reaction time paradigm. Subjects were required to hold down a response button until the occurrence of a response cue. A warning stimulus was presented to either the left visual field (LVF) or the right visual field (RVF) before the response cue occurred. No warning stimulus was presented on control trials. The warning stimuli were geometric communicative symbols from two semantic categories: foods and tools. A third set of warning stimuli were familiar geometric symbols. Dependent measures included reaction time and the number of false-positive responses. Reaction-time data indicated an RVF advantage in priming when the warning stimuli were food or tool symbols. No significant visual half-field differences were found for familiar symbols, but a trend toward an RVF advantage was observed. These effects were enhanced when subjects responded with their left hand. False-positive data also indicated an RVF advantage for the food and tool warning stimuli. The data indicate that hemispheric asymmetries for processing communicative symbols are present in language-trained chimpanzees.

Animals↗
PubMed1978

The role of memory in the age decline in digit-symbol substitution performance.

Adult age differences in the Digit Symbol Test were investigated in three separate experiments. All experiments incorporated a manipulation of the number of digit-symbol pairs in modified versions of the test forms to determine whether the age differences would be reduced with decreased memory requirements. The results of all three experiments indicated that, as the number of digit-symbol pairs was reduced, the age difference was reduced in absolute terms, but not in relative terms. Older subjects decreased their times by greater absolute amounts, but by the same relative amounts when the number of digit-symbol pairs was decreased from nine to one. Independent results supported the interpretation that memory factors play a very small role in contributing to the age decline in digit-symbol performance.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Symbolic play development in toddlers with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E).

Twenty toddlers with expressive specific language impairment (SLI-E) and 20 toddlers with normal language development were compared in their symbolic play development. The groups did not differ in amount of engagement with the toys or in functional conventional play behaviors. However, the children with SLI-E displayed less decentered play (use of play schemes with a doll or another person), less well-developed sequential play, and fewer occurrences of symbolic play transformations (use of a neutral object or an absent object to carry out pretending). The provision of structure in the form of thematically related toy sets, instructions, and modeling did not reduce the discrepancy between demonstrated play behaviors of toddlers with SLI-E and their normally developing peers. Three possible explanations for this discrepancy are considered: a "stylistic" difference in play, a developmental lag in symbol use, or a deficit in retrieval of stored symbolic representation.

Child Behavior↗
PubMed1990

Playful relationships: a contextual analysis of mother-toddler interaction and symbolic play.

The relation between social interaction and complexity of toddler's symbolic play was investigated. 57 toddlers between 15 and 24 months of age were observed under 4 conditions: (1) child play alone, (2) child play with mother, (3) child modeling mother, and (4) child play with mother following the modeling condition. Each subject was rated on complexity of play, maternal attention directing, reciprocity, and maternal intrusiveness. Significant condition effects were found in which more complex forms of play were observed when the children were playing with their mothers than when playing by themselves. Maternal intrusions and questioning were negatively related to symbolic play. Turn-taking was negatively related to simple exploratory play. Results of a sequential analysis demonstrated that turn-taking was more likely to precede symbolic play, and maternal intrusiveness was more likely to precede simple exploratory play. The role of active partnership in symbolic play development is discussed.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1990

Special symbols in early female oedipal development: fantasies of folds and spaces, protuberances and concavities.

The authors present three examples, from the observation of pre-latency girls, of the use of anatomic regions for symbolic purposes. In the two cases, the first interdigital fold became the locus for castration anxiety; and in the other, the laryngeal prominence and jugular notch served as the focus for symbolic displacement of psychosexual concerns. The employment of these particular symbols, to the best of the authors' knowledge, has not been reported previously in the literature. The authors conclude by calling for further investigation into the relationship between the processes involved in such symbol-formation and those that occur in neurosogenesis.

Anxiety, Castration↗
PubMed1991

Symbolic functioning in very young children: understanding of pictures and models.

Before one can understand or use any symbol, one must first realize that it is a symbol, that is, that it stands for or represents something other than itself. This article reports 4 studies investigating very young children's understanding of 2 different kinds of symbolic stimuli--scale models and pictures. The data replicate previous findings that 2.5-year-old children have great difficulty appreciating the relation between a scale model and the larger space it represents, but that they very readily appreciate the relation between a picture and its referent. This result is interpreted in terms of the dual orientation hypothesis. Models are difficult for young children because they require a dual representation--a child must think about a model both as an object itself and as a representation of something else. Because pictures are not salient as real objects, they do not require a dual representation. Several kinds of evidence supporting the dual orientation hypothesis are presented. An additional result was the occurrence of a transfer effect: Prior experience with a picture task led to better performance on a subsequent model task. This finding suggests that experience with a symbolic medium they understand can help young children figure out a different, unfamilar medium that they would otherwise not understand.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1977

[Structure of the use of symbols in schizophrenic language].

The structure of the use of symbols in schizophrenia is examined, based on a recorded text spoken by a 35-year-old schizophrenic teacher (female). At specific points in this text, symbolic usage can be determined. The structural analysis illustrates a schizophrenic alteration which exists in each case through the substitution of a secondary meaning for a primary one. This structure is present in all cases. (In addition, the text also contains a symbol stemming from folk tradition.) This structure is identical with the structure of linguistic alteration in schizophrenics as well as that of the structure of schizophrenic delusions. This present study concentrates on the formal analysis of the use of symbols and does not present a close analysis of the content.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Development of an expert system for haemodynamic monitoring: computerized symbolization of on-line monitoring data.

The development of intelligent alarm systems for intensive care benefits from the transformation of data from a quantitative to a qualitative mode. We constructed a computerized algorithm for the symbolization of on-line monitoring data of heart rate, systemic arterial, pulmonary arterial and central venous pressures, as well as central and peripheral temperatures. We tested the ability of the algorithm to symbolize the levels of the parameters and to detect significant long-term trends in ten adult patients admitted to the intensive care unit after cardiac surgery. The estimations of an experienced clinician were taken as the 'gold standard'. The symbolization of the levels of the monitored parameters was in agreement with the clinician in 99.4% of the estimations. The algorithm detected 93.0% of the trends correctly and also estimated their reliability. The clinician considered its estimations to be accurate in 96.2% of cases. On the other hand, the clinician considered unreliable 2.4% of all the trends detected and classified as reliable by the algorithm. The computerized algorithm for the symbolization of real-time monitoring data performed efficiently enough for its further use in expert systems for intelligent monitoring.

Algorithms↗
PubMed1976

Reaction times and Digit Symbol Test scores of girls identified as daydreamers by their teachers.

Reaction times and Digit Symbol scores of 14 9-yr.-old girls identified as "daydreamers" by their teachers were compared with those of 14 9-yr.-old girls not so identified. Daydreamers tended to have longer mean reaction times under all test conditions but the differences were small. The daydreamers completed significantly less of the Digit Symbol test than did the non daydreamers and also recalled significantly fewer symbols. The daydreamers had significantly larger variances for three of the four measures of outcome of the Digit Symbol test. These data support the hypothesis that girls identified as daydreamers on a questionnaire completed by their teachers did less well on certain tests of attention than girls not so identified.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
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↗
PubMed1990

The comparative translucency of initial lexical items represented in five graphic symbol systems and sets.

The comparative translucency within and across five aided augmentative and alternative symbol systems or sets (Blissymbols, Picsyms, PIC, PCS, and Rebus) for symbols representing three parts of speech (nouns, verbs, and modifiers) was investigated. A sample of 41 items representing an initial lexicon was rated by undergraduate college students on a 7-point scale of iconicity. Results indicate that translucency varies among systems or sets and among parts of speech. Rebus and PCS were the most translucent overall; however, a number of Blissymbolics, Picsyms, and PIC symbols were also rated as highly translucent. Caution is indicated in extrapolating results to young or retarded learners because of the influence of normal adult knowledge and experience on translucency ratings. Care must also be taken in extrapolating to more advanced lexicons containing larger, more developmentally advanced vocabularies.

Adult↗
PubMed1976

Age differences in learning and memory on a digit-symbol substitution task.

Fifteen young (18 to 28 years) and fifteen old (65 to 75 years) persons were given ten 30-second trials on a modified Digit-Symbol task. Both immediate and delayed (24-hour) recall and recognition measures were used to determine how well they remembered the digit-symbol pairs. Both age groups showed similar, significantly improvement over the 10 trials, although the performance level of the young group was higher throughout. The young group showed significantly higher recall and recognition (both immediate and delayed) for the digit-symbol pairs and were more likely to report the use of mnemonic techniques in learning the pairs.

Adolescent↗