Normas de asociación léxica e índices psicolingüísticos de 407 palabras en español en una muestra latinoamericana / Lexical associative norms and psycholinguistic indexes of 407 Spanish words in a latin american sample

El diseño de tareas experimentales en psicología y lingüística suele requerir el uso de estímulos con características y propiedades estandarizadas, con el objetivo de predecir con mayor exactitud el impacto de su presentación. Las normas de asociación léxica son instrumentos que determinan la fuerza de asociación que existe entre dos conceptos. El método más común para su construcción es mediante la evocación libre de un concepto ante la presentación de una palabra clave. El objetivo de este trabajo fue construir normas de asociación léxica para 407 palabras en español. Participaron del estudio 800 estudiantes de la Ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina. Se analizó cuantitativamente el número de respuestas válidas, en blanco y no válidas, número de asociados por ítem, y se añadió una clasificación cualitativa según la fuerza de asociación. Adicionalmente, se presentaron un conjunto de índices psicolingüísticos para una mejor descripción de los ítems utilizados. Se realizó un análisis de correlaciones que demostró una fuerte relación negativa entre la frecuencia del primer y segundo asociado y el número de asociados por cada ítem. Este estudio pretende ser de suma utilidad en investigaciones de psicología y lingüística que requieran su consulta para la construcción de instrumentos de evaluación (AU)

The design of experimental tasks in psychology and linguistics requires using stimulus with properties and characteristics in standardized values. This allows predicting with higher accuracy the impact of the stimulus presentation. The lexical associative norms are instruments that determine the strength of association between two concepts. The most common method to construct these norms is to take a free response from a presentation of a cue word. The main goal of this study was to construct lexical associative norms of 407 Spanish words. 800 students from Ciudad de Córdoba, Argentina, participated in the study. Quantitative analyses were performed taking into account the number of valid answers, blank and non valid answers, and number of associates per item. A qualitative classification was performed according to the strength of association. Additionally, it is presented a group of psycholinguistic indexes for a better description of the items used. Correlation analysis demonstrated a strong and negative relation between the frequency of first and second associations and the number of associations per item. This study pretends to be highly useful in research in psychology and linguistic where it is required consulting the norms presented to the design of evaluation instruments (AU)

Discriminaciones condicionales con estímulos contextuales versus complejos: implicaciones en la transferencia del aprendizaje / Conditional discriminations using contextual versus complex stimuli: implication for learning transfer

No disponible

This study sought to determine the effect of two conditional discrimination procedures involving contextual vs complex stimuli, on two types of learning transfer. For this purpose, three experiments were carried out. The first experiment used a contextual control procedure and the second a complex control procedure. The third experiment compared the two procedures using an inter-group design. The first two experiments aimed to determine the effect of the teaching procedure used on the transfer of learning to new stimulus relations (first type of transfer). The third experiment sought to determine the effect of teaching conditional discriminations using wither contextual or complex stimuli on the other discrimination (second type of transfer). In the first experiment, four out of six subjects displayed transfer of learning to new stimulus relations; in the second, only two subjects displayed that transfer. In the third experiment, statistically-significant differences were recorded for the dependent variable: successful attempts in the test using contextual stimuli. The teaching of tasks using contextual stimuli appears to favour the transfer of learning to conditional discriminations involving complex stimuli; the reverse, however, is not true to the same extent. These findings may be useful for the teaching of complex discriminations to intellectually-disabled or autistic children (AU)

La medida de la capacidad reflexiva: instrumentos disponibles en castellano y tareas pendientes / The measurement of reflective capacity: instruments available in spanish and pending tasks

Introducción: La medida de la función reflexiva se ha convertido en un aspecto central para la evaluación e investigación de procesos en psicoterapia. Material y método: Se realizó una revisión sistemática de los instrumentos propuestos para la medida de la función reflexiva, actualizando la realizada por Luyten en el año 2011. Se realizó también una revisión de los instrumentos validados en lengua castellana. Resultados: Se encontraron cuestionarios, entrevistas, pruebas experimentales y proyectivas indicadas para la medida de función reflexiva. Conclusiones: En el momento actual faltan instrumentos validados en castellano para poder realizar investigaciones en este campo. Por esta razón, se hacen recomendaciones sobre formación de evaluadores, la puesta a prueba de instrumentos ya validados en muestras clínicas y la validación de instrumentos no disponibles en castellano (AU)

Introduction: The measurement of reflective functioning has become a centralaspect for evaluation and processes investigation in psychotherapy. Material and method: A systematic review of the proposed instruments for measuring reflective functioning was performed, updating that one realized by Luyten in 2011. A review of validated instruments in Spanish was also performed. Results: Questionnaires, interviews, experimental and projective tests indicated for the measurement of reflective functioning were found. Conclusions: At the current time, instruments validated in Spanish are absent to be able to perform investigations in this field. For this reason, recommendations for evaluators training, testing validated instruments in clinical samples and validation of non-available instruments in Spanish are performed (AU)

Numbers and prior knowledge in sentence comprehension / Números y conocimiento previo en comprensión de frases

Evaluamos si la comprensión de frases que contenían información numérica se beneficiaría de la presentación de números en formato arábigo y del uso del conocimiento previo. Los participantes leyeron frases que incluían números (dígitos arábigos o palabras numéricas) mientras se evaluaba la precisión de la comprensión. Además, las frases estaban sesgadas o no-sesgadas por el conocimiento previo de las personas sobre cantidades. Los resultados mostraron mejor comprensión de frases que contenían dígitos arábigos frente a palabras numéricas. Además, las frases segadas se comprendieron más precisamente que las frases no-sesgadas. Estos resultados indican que la información sobre magnitud en el contexto de frase se comprende mejor cuando las cantidades se presentan en formato arábigo y cuando están asociadas al conocimiento del mundo de los participantes (AU)

We evaluated whether the comprehension of sentences that contained numerical information could benefit from presenting numbers in Arabic format and from using prior knowledge. Participants read sentences including numbers (Arabic digits or number words) while the comprehension accuracy was evaluated. In addition, the sentences were biased or un-biased by people’s prior knowledge about quantities. The results showed better comprehension for sentences that contained Arabic digits as compared to number words. Moreover, biased sentences were understood more accurately than unbiased sentences. These results indicate that information about magnitude in sentence context is comprehended better when quantities are presented in Arabic format and when they are associated with participants’ world knowledge (AU)

The value of mindfulness-based methods in teaching at a clinical field placement.

The value of mindfulness-based methods in an undergraduate field placement was investigated in relation to the acquisition of self-care and other basic clinical competencies. The participants were 22 students in an applied behavioral analysis course, which included a mindfulness-based training module, and 20 students enrolled in an experimental psychology course without mindfulness training. The Mindfulness Attention and Awareness Scale, the Freiberg Mindfulness Inventory, and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills were used as measurements before and after intervention. Mindfulness-trained participants kept records and were asked to share their personal experiences during supervision and an exit interview. Results demonstrated that training significantly increased mindfulness. Qualitative data indicated enhanced self-care, attention to well-being, self-awareness, active involvement acquiring skills, and empathy and compassion. The need to expand the utility of mindfulness to the realm of education and the importance of including comparison groups with other self-care modules for future studies were discussed.

The curious rise and fall of experimental psychology in "Mind".

The journal "Mind" is now a wholly philosophical journal. At the time of its founding, in 1876, however, its mission was rather different in character. Its aim was to discover whether scientific psychology was a truly viable enterprise and, if so, what its boundaries with philosophy, with other scientific disciplines, and with the earlier generation of discredited attempts at "scientific" studies of the mind (e.g. phrenology, mesmerism) might be. Although at first "Mind" published mostly philosophical pieces and literature reviews, by the mid-1880s it was publishing primary experimental research, mostly by American psychologists who as yet had few outlets of their own. For a time it was the leading journal of experimental psychology in the English-speaking world. As the international competition among scientific and scholarly journals intensified in the 1890s, however, "Mind" started to lose its share of experimental contributions, and with the editorial takeover of the journal of George Stout in 1892, the journal soon became one dedicated purely to philosophy.

Mechanized metrics: from verse science to laboratory prosody, 1880-1918.

From roughly the 1880s on, a methodical verse "science" was beginning to assert itself. Gripped by the thought of articulating an objective, fact-based metrics, poetry scientists brought to bear on the traditional verse-line principles of observation and, later, on full-blown experimental practices­not to mention a curious array of instrumentation. By the turn of the century, metrical verse was being subjected to a rigorous measurement regime, which employed techniques and apparatuses derived from the new disciplines of experimental physiology and psychology. Proponents of this newly mechanized metrics pitched themselves enthusiastically into the turn-of-the-century prosody fray, believing they could resolve, once and for all, some of the fundamental dilemmas of versification.

Contradictions between Catholicism and psychology in the United States.

A study of two conflicts between psychology and Catholic thinking in the twentieth century in the United States suggests that between psychology and religion there are intrinsic contradictions. In the mid-1890s, Edward A. Pace defended the new experimental psychology against attacks by Thomas Hughes, who argued that psychology abandons the soul and encourages utilitarianism in education. In the late 1940s, Fulton J. Sheen attacked psychoanalysis for its reductionism and he asserted the superiority of the sacrament of confession. His critics, mainly Catholic psychoanalysts, claimed that Sheen misrepresented what occurred in psychiatry. Underlying both conflicts were conflicting conceptions of human subjectivity.

Giving up instincts in psychology -- or not?

In this paper I argue that while McDougall's theory of instincts is widely regarded as having been discarded by mid-1920's psychologists, it in fact continued to be influential in the work of some later psychologists. A case-study is presented which analyzes the development of E.C. Tolman's concept of "demand" (purpose, determining adjustment, instinct) out of McDougall's earlier notion of "instinct".

Simulating the unconscious.

This paper is concerned with hypnosis and the methodological "anxiety" (Devereux) which inevitably affects the hypnotist, whether experimental psychologist or therapist: what if the phenomena observed during hypnosis were only an effect of compliance with his own expectations, demands and suggestions? What if the hypnotized simulated hypnosis solely to please him? From Charcot and Richet to Martin Orne, by way of Bernheim or Freud, the response of researchers to this disquieting question has always been the same: the subject cannot be simulating, because he is hypnotized, asleep, unconscious. The hypothesis of a psychic unconscious (or of unconsciousness), which determined the very concept of hypnosis from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards is nothing more than a postulate required to guarantee the objectivity of hypnotic and, more broadly, psychological phenomena, by preventing the latter from being seen as simple artifacts of the experimental or clinical situation. The present paper examines several historical avatars of this postulate, including psychoanalysis, and proposes that it be abandoned in favor of a conception of psychology and psychotherapy which is constructivist and no longer objectivist, recognizing the artifactual character of psychic productions instead of denying it.

A biographical note on Max Friedrich (1856-1887), Wundt's first PhD student in experimental psychology.

This article unveils some previously unknown facts about the short life of Max Friedrich (1856-1887), the author in 1881 of the first PhD dissertation on experimental psychology, written under the supervision of Wilhelm Wundt: "On the Duration of Apperception for Simple and Complex Visual Stimuli." The article describes Friedrich's family background and life, professional career as a teacher, and works in psychology and mathematics.

Tipos de retroalimentación en el aprendizaje de términos metodológicos de la psicología experimental / Feedback types in methodology terms learning in experimental psychology

El presente estudio evaluó los efectos de proporcionar retroalimentación diferenciada en términos de su complejidad funcional sobre el desempeño de universitarios en la identificación de términos metodológicos de la psicología experimental. Para tres grupos el entrenamiento consistió en presentar, en un monitor, un ejemplo del concepto a entrenar y cuatro opciones de respuesta (términos). Una vez que los estudiantes elegían una opción de respuesta se presentaba en la pantalla la retroalimentación cuyo contenido variaba en función del grupo (intrasituacional, extrasituacional o transituacional); un cuarto grupo no recibió entrenamiento. Se encontró que la retroalimentación extra y transituacional promovieron un mejor desempeño. Se discute la importancia de diferenciar funcionalmente la retroalimentación proporcionada a los estudiantes, en función de los requerimientos académicos (AU)

French descriptions of Wundt's laboratory in Leipzig in 1886.

Translations are provided of extracts from reports by the French-speaking scholars Alfred Grafé and Emile Durkheim concerning the instructional procedures in place at Wundt's Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig in the summer of 1886. It is stressed that reports such as theirs were of importance, not only to researchers, but also to teachers and administrators concerned with how the new experimental psychology should be taught, especially with respect to practical classes.

Teaching psychology as a laboratory science in the age of the Internet.

For over 30 years, psychologists have relied on computers to teach experimental psychology. With the advent of experiment generators, students can create well-designed experiments and can test sophisticated hypotheses from the start of their undergraduate training. Characteristics of new Net-based experiment generators are discussed and compared with traditional stand-alone generators. A call is made to formally evaluate the instructional effectiveness of the wide range of experiment generators now available. Specifically, software should be evaluated in terms of known learning outcomes, using appropriate control groups. The many inherent differences between any two software programs should be made clear. The teacher's instructional method should be fully described and held constant between comparisons. Finally, the often complex interaction between the teacher's instructional method and the pedagogical details of the software must be considered.

ePsych: interactive demonstrations and experiments in psychology.

ePsych (http://epsych.msstate.edu), a new Web site currently under active development, is intended to teach students about the discipline of psychology. The site presumes little prior knowledge about the field and so may be used in introductory classes, but it incorporates sufficient depth of coverage to be useful in more advanced classes as well. Numerous interactive and dynamic elements are incorporated into various modules, orientations, and guidebooks. These elements include Java-based experiments and demonstrations, video clips, and animated diagrams. Rapid access to all material is provided through a layer-based navigation system that allows users to visit various "Worlds of the Mind." Active learning is encouraged, by challenging students with puzzles and problems and by providing the opportunity to "dig deeper" to learn more about the phenomena at hand.

WEXTOR: a Web-based tool for generating and visualizing experimental designs and procedures.

WEXTOR is a Javascript-based experiment generator and teaching tool on the World-Wide Web that can be used to design laboratory and Web experiments in guided step-by-step process. It dynamically creates the customized Web pages and Javascripts needed for the experimental procedure and provides experimenters with a print-ready visual display of their experimental design. WEXTOR flexibly supports complete and incomplete factorial designs with between-subjects, within-subjects, and quasi-experimental factors, as well as mixed designs. The software implements client-side response time measurement and contains a content wizard for creating interactive materials, as well as dependent measures (graphical scales, multiple-choice items, etc.), on the experiment pages. However, it does not aim to replace a full-fledged HTML editor. Several methodological features specifically needed in Web experimental design have been implemented in the Web-based tool and are described in this paper. WEXTOR is platform independent. The created Web pages can be uploaded to any type of Web server in which data may be recorded in logfiles or via a database. The current version of WEXTOR is freely available for educational and noncommercial purposes. Its Web address is http://www.genpsylab.unizh.ch/wextor/index.html.