In this paper we review the factors alleged to be responsible for the creation of inaccurate reports among preschool-aged children, focusing on so-called "source misattribution errors." We present the first round of results from an ongoing program of research that suggests that source misattributions could be a powerful mechanism underlying children′s false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Preliminary findings from this program of research indicate that all children of all ages are equally susceptible to making source misattributions. Data from (...) a follow-up wave of data indicate that very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors when the procedure is changed slightly to create mental images more easily. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they actually experienced events that they only thought about. These preliminary findings are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions. (shrink)

In this paper we review the factors alleged to be responsible for the creation of inaccurate reports among preschool-aged children, focusing on so-called "source misattribution errors." We present the first round of results from an ongoing program of research that suggests that source misattributions could be a powerful mechanism underlying children′s false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Preliminary findings from this program of research indicate that all children of all ages are equally susceptible to making source misattributions. Data from (...) a follow-up wave of data indicate that very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors when the procedure is changed slightly to create mental images more easily. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they actually experienced events that they only thought about. These preliminary findings are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions. (shrink)

Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a part of the brain's limbic system. Classically, this region has been related to affect, on the basis of lesion studies in humans and in animals. In the late 1980s, neuroimaging research indicated that ACC was active in many studies of cognition. The findings from EEG studies of a focal area of negativity in scalp electrodes following an error response led to the idea that ACC might be the brain's error detection and correction device. In (...) this article, these various findings are reviewed in relation to the idea that ACC is a part of a circuit involved in a form of attention that serves to regulate both cognitive and emotional processing. Neuroimaging studies showing that separate areas of ACC are involved in cognition and emotion are discussed and related to results showing that the error negativity is influenced by affect and motivation. In addition, the development of the emotional and cognitive roles of ACC are discussed, and how the success of this regulation in controlling responses might be correlated with cingulate size. Finally, some theories are considered about how the different subdivisions of ACC might interact with other cortical structures as a part of the circuits involved in the regulation of mental and emotional activity. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists distinguish between automatic and controlled mental processes. Automatic processes are either innately involuntary or become automatized through extensive practice. For example, reading words is a purportedly automatic process for proficient readers and the Stroop effect is consequently considered the “gold standard” of automated performance. Although the question of whether it is possible to regain control over an automatic process is mostly unasked, we provide compelling data showing that posthypnotic suggestion reduced and even removed Stroop interference in highly hypnotizable (...) individuals. Drawing on a large sample of highly hypnotizable participants, we examined the effects of suggestion on Stroop performance both with and without a posthypnotic suggestion to perceive the input stream as meaningless symbols. We show that suggestion administered to highly hypnotizable persons significantly reduced Stroop interference and derailed a seemingly automatic process. (shrink)

Tested the 2-process theory of detection, search, and attention presented by the current authors in a series of experiments. The studies demonstrate the qualitative difference between 2 modes of information processing: automatic detection and controlled search; trace the course of the learning of automatic detection, of categories, and of automatic-attention responses; and show the dependence of automatic detection on attending responses and demonstrate how such responses interrupt controlled processing and interfere with the focusing of attention. The learning of categories is (...) shown to improve controlled search performance. A general framework for human information processing is proposed. The framework emphasizes the roles of automatic and controlled processing. The theory is compared to and contrasted with extant models of search and attention. (shrink)

Historians of philosophy often credit Descartes, Locke, and other seventeenth-century authors with having introduced one of the most vexing problems into epistemology: the problem of mental representations. For these authors claimed that our knowledge of the external world is always mediated by mental representations, so that we have immediate access only to these representations, the ideas in our mind. As is well known, this “veil-of-ideas epistemology” gave rise to a number of skeptical questions. How can we be certain that our (...) ideas are accurate representations of the external world? And how can we be sure that there is an external world at all if we never have immediate access to it? In his highly original and provocative study, Robert Pasnau argues that these questions are not distinctively modern. They were already asked and thoroughly discussed by medieval authors: “much of what is often taken to be novel in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was already old news by the fourteenth”. According to Pasnau, it was Thomas Aquinas who introduced some form of representationalism into epistemology by developing the species-theory, and it was first Peter John Olivi and later William Ockham who attacked this theory, insisting that we always have immediate cognitive access to the external world. (shrink)

Empirical studies largely support the continuity hypothesis of dreaming. Despite of previous research efforts, the exact formulation of the continuity hypothesis remains vague. The present paper focuses on two aspects: the differential incorporation rate of different waking-life activities and the magnitude of which interindividual differences in waking-life activities are reflected in corresponding differences in dream content. Using a correlational design, a positive, non-zero correlation coefficient will support the continuity hypothesis. Although many researchers stress the importance of emotional involvement on the (...) incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams, Hartmann formulated the hypothesis that highly focused cognitive processes such as reading, writing, etc. are rarely found in dreams due to the cholinergic activation of the brain during dreaming. The present findings based on dream diaries and the exact measurement of waking activities replicated two recent questionnaire studies. These findings indicate that it will be necessary to specify the continuity hypothesis more fully and include factors which modulate the incorporation rate of waking-life experiences into dreams. Whether the cholinergic state of the brain during REM sleep or other alterations of brain physiology are the underlying factors of the rare occurrence of highly focused cognitive processes in dreaming remains an open question. Although continuity between waking life and dreaming has been demonstrated, i.e., interindividual differences in the amount of time spent with specific waking-life activities are reflected in dream content, methodological issues have limited the capacity for detecting substantial relationships in all areas. Nevertheless, it might be concluded that the continuity hypothesis in its present general form is not valid and should be elaborated and tested in a more specific way. (shrink)

Freud, Psychoanalysis and Symbolism offers an innovative general theory of symbolism, derived from Freud's psychoanalytic theory and relocated within mainstream scientific psychology. It is the first systematic investigation of the development of Freud's treatment of symbolism throughout his published works, and discovers in those writings a broad theory which is far superior to the widely accepted, narrow, 'official' view. Agnes Petocz argues that the treatment of symbolism must begin with the identification and clarification of a set of logical constraints and (...) psychological requirements which any general theory of symbolism must respect, and that these requirements have been neglected by existing accounts across a number of disciplines. Her newly proposed 'Freudian broad' theory of symbolism, by contrast, does meet these requirements, but only after it has been rehabilitated within a revised psychoanalytic context, encompassing major changes to our understanding of the concepts of unconscious and repression and the role of language. (shrink)

When the stored representation of the meaning of a stimulus is accessed through the processing of a sensory input it is maintained in an activated state for a certain amount of time that allows for further processing. This semantic activation is generally accompanied by conscious identification, which can be demonstrated by the ability of a person to perform discriminations on the basis of the meaning of the stimulus. The idea that a sensory input can give rise to semantic activation without (...) concomitant conscious identification was the central thesis of the controversial research in subliminal perception. Recently, new claims for the existence of such phenomena have arisen from studies in dichotic listening, parafoveal vision, and visual pattern masking. Because of the fundamental role played by these types of experiments in cognitive psychology, the new assertions have raised widespread interest. (shrink)

Clinical experience suggests that adult survivors of childhood trauma arrive at their memories in a number of ways, with varying degrees of associated distress and uncertainty and, in some cases, after memory lapses of varying duration and extent. Among those patients who enter psychotherapy as a result of early abuse, three general patterns of traumatic recall are identified: relatively continuous and complete recall of childhood abuse experiences coupled with changing interpretations of these experiences, partial amnesia for abuse events, accompanied by (...) a mixture of delayed recall and delayed understanding, and delayed recall following a period of profound and pervasive amnesia. These patterns are represented by three composite clinical vignettes. Variations among them suggest that the phenomena underlying traumatic recall are continuous not dichotomous. Future research into the nature of traumatic memory should be informed by clinical observation. (shrink)

This book outlines the realist and pluralist philosophy of John Anderson, Australia's most original thinker. His teaching at Sydney University and his arti6es have deeply influenced Australian intellectual life. Several main themes run through his work, but Anderson never gave an overall account of his views. This is remedied here: exhibiting the range of Anderson's thought from logic, epistemology and theory of mind, to language and social theory, this volume sketches realism as a systematic philosophical position, while showing something of (...) the history of ideas in Australia. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the history of philosophy in the later medieval period (1250-1350). It focuses on cognitive theory, a subject of intense investigation during these years. In fact many of the issues that dominate philosophy of mind and epistemology today - intentionality, mental representation, scepticism, realism - were hotly debated in the later medieval period. The book offers a careful analysis of these debates, primarily through the work of Thomas Aquinas, John Olivi, and William Ockham. Each (...) of these figures attempts to reconceptualise cognition along direct realist lines, criticising in the process the standard Aristotelian account. Though of primary interest to medieval philosophers, the book presupposes no background knowledge of the medieval period, and will therefore interest a broader community of philosophers concerned with the origins of contemporary cognitive theory. (shrink)

Memory and Amnesia: An Introduction provides a clear and comprehensive account of amnesia set in the context of our understanding of how normal memory operates. Part 1 provides the reader with an up-to-date survey of contemporary memory theories. Part 2 deals with amnesia, incorporating all important new developments, and focuses on the nature and explanation of the amnesic syndrome.

In this Afterword I wanted to reconsider the arguments and conclusions of Freud Evaluated in the light of the post- 1989 literature, but a search of the PsycLit data base quickly showed that goal was unattainable. Between 1990 and 1995 some  ...

Examines modern controversies over Freud and Freudian thought while questioning the theory of infantile sexuality and showing where Freud consistently misdiagnosed his patients and failed to make his claimed cures.

Book jacket/back: Although it is now widely held that the scientific basis for Sigmund Freud's theories is decidedly wobby, and his surmises often appear woefully incomplete at best, there yet remains an impression that Freud was a bold explorer of the mind's hidden depths, a penetrating if fallible discerner of unsuspected motives behind the superficially innocent forms of behavior. And if even that is now more frequently questioned, we are at least left with the consolation that Freud, however misguided, was (...) a man of unsported integrity, who sincerely strove to uncover the truth and accurately reported what his clients told him. Only a few writers have heretofore intimated the possibility that Freud's accounts of his cases are systematically and self servingly untruthful, but now Allen Esterson picks up the trail, and demonstrates, by acute detective work, that Freud's work cannot be relied upon. The notorious 'child seduction' incidents, which supposedly led to the framing of the fundamentals of psychoanalytic theory, have occasioned much controversy over the question whether Freud was right to consign these reminiscences of sexual molestations in infancy to the realm of fantasy. This dispute is entirely beside the point because, as Esterson shows, Freud's clients did not report memories of childhood molestation. Here as became habitual with him, Freud muddled his own conjectures of what was going on in his clients' unconscious with their accounts of what they remembered, and, over time, Freud came to represent the former as the latter. Esterson takes us through all the key published cases in Freud's cases in Freud's career, showing that Freud's reports are often at least strongly indicative of misrepresentation, and in some cases demonstrably misleading. Esterson's indictment builds irresistiby to a 'proof beyond reasonable doubt' that Freud's claim to rank as a major thinker is unfounded, and indeed quite preposterous, though his extraordinary achievement as persuader and rhetorician is unassailable. (shrink)

This book offers a feminist philosophical analysis of contemporary public skepticism about women's memories of past harm. It concentrates primarily on writings associated with the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, founded in 1992 as a lobby for parents whose adult children have accused them of some abuse after a period of having not remembered it.

Memory. There may be nothing more important to human beings than our ability to enshrine experience and recall it. While philosophers and poets have elevated memory to an almost mystical level, psychologists have struggled to demystify it. Now, according to Daniel Schacter, one of the most distinguished memory researchers, the mysteries of memory are finally yielding to dramatic, even revolutionary, scientific breakthroughs. Schacter explains how and why it may change our understanding of everything from false memory to Alzheimer's disease, from (...) recovered memory to amnesia with fascinating firsthand accounts of patients with striking—and sometimes bizarre—amnesias resulting from brain injury or psychological trauma. (shrink)

Elements of Episodic Memory is a classic text in the psychology literature. It had a significant influence on research in the area has been much sought after in recent years. Finally, it has now been made available again with this reissue, the text unchanged from the original.

"This collection of chapters illustrates how Posner's examination of elementary processes has moved the field toward a fundamental level of understanding about human cognition. This basic understanding will greatly affect how we deal with cognitive development problems that derive either from deficiency of experience or from genetic differences."--Jacket.

In 1993 and 1994, The New York Review of Books published two tenaciously argued essays by Frederick Crews attacking Freudian psychoanalysis and its aftermath in the so-called recovered memory movement. The first reviewed a growing body of evidence indicating that Freud doctored his data and manipulated his colleagues in an effort to consolidate a cult-like following that would neither defy nor upstage him. The second, published in two parts, challenged the scientific and therapeutic claims of the rapidly growing recovered memory (...) movement, maintaining that its social effects have been devastating. Crews traced that movement to Freudian precedent - not just to Freud's abandoned "seduction theory" but also to the most essential assumptions of psychoanalysis itself. The response was tremendous: issues flew off the stands, and therapists, patients, scholars, philosophers, and others whose lives had been touched by Freud's ideas responded in one of the largest waves of letters the Review had ever seen. Twenty-five of these were published, with Crews's deft and forceful replies. Most are gathered here, together with Crews's original essays, a new introduction describing the genesis of his pieces, and an epilogue considering the debate and its reverberations. The result is a fierce, contentious, and startling book that rocks the foundations of one of the century's governing ideas. (shrink)

Drawing on theories of William James, Freud, and Dewey, as well as on studies in mood control, cognitive therapy, and artificial intelligence, this...

Linking the process of rational decision making to emotions, an award-winning scientist who has done extensive research with brain-damaged patients notes the dependence of thought processes on feelings and the body's survival-oriented regulators. 50,000 first printing.

This landmark volume brings together the work of the world's leading researchers in sublimated perception. This compilation marks a fundamental shift in the current study of subliminal effects: No longer in question is the notion that perception without awareness occurs. Now, the emphasis is on elucidating the parameters of subliminal effects and understanding the conditions under which stimuli perceived without awareness significantly influence affect, cognition, and behavior. PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS firmly establishes subliminal perception within the mainstream of psychological science. Well (...) represented here are the two main research branches that have emerged: One directly investigates the nature of subliminal effects; the other uses subliminal techniques as tools for investigating psychological phenomena such as hypnosis, dreaming, repression, social judgment and inference, psychopathology, and symptom formation. Broadly grouped into three main sections, the contributed chapters explore * The cognitive perspective--including implicit memory and implicit perception, the measurement of unconscious perceptual processes, and methods for revealing unconscious processes * The clinical perspective--exploring the cognitive and dynamic aspects of subliminal perception, memory, and consciousness; direct recovery of subliminal stimuli; and validation of subliminal psychodynamic activation * The social perspective--discussing subliminal mere-exposure effects, affect and social perception, and the role of subliminality in social psychology Timely and thought-provoking, PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS is sure to be of enormous interest to all psychoanalytic clinicians and scholars, as well as cognitive, clinical, and social psychologists whose work touches upon issues relating to psychopathology, perception, cognition, and memory. (shrink)