Volume 3, Number 2, Spring
Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Experienced Freedom
Malcolm R. Westcott, York University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 99-126, ISSN 0271-0137
Distinctions are made between concepts of freedom as prescribed in the philosophical, political, and legal literature, freedom as attributed to the behavior of others or the self, and the experience of feeling free. Two samples of university students were asked to indicate the extent to which they “feel free” in 28 situations of seven different types: (1) Self Direction; (2) Absence of Responsibility; (3) Release from Noxious Stimulations; (4) Recognition of Limits; (5) Active Decision Making; (6) Presence of Alternatives; (7) Exercise of Skilled Behavior. Subjects were also asked to indicate if they felt any opposite to “free” in the same situations, and if so, to supply the specific opposite appropriate to themselves and the situation. The results showed that the different types of situations evoked large and significantly different degrees of reported experiences of freedom, with Release from Noxious Stimulations and Exercise of Skilled Behavior being the most powerful, and Active Decision Making and Recognition of Limits being the least powerful. The 224 different opposites supplied were reliably coded into eight categories and were the basis for a dialectical analysis of the dimensions along which the experience of freedom is construed in the different types of situations. Differential use of the codes illuminated subtle variations in the quality of feeling free in the respective situations. No sex differences were found, and all results were strongly replicated on the two samples. Comparisons and contrasts with assertions and findings about human freedom arising in other literatures are explored.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Malcolm R. Westcott, Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3.
The Story As The Engram: Is It Fundamental To Thinking?
Renée Fuller, Ball-Stick-Bird Publications
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 127-142, ISSN 0271-0137
The following paper presents “the story” as the basic unit of learning and memory corresponding to Lashley’s engram. The reasons why Lashley’s engram was never located are discussed, as are the organizational and structural properties of the story that, in light of data from both human and infra-human research, make it the basis for cognitive cohesion. It is further suggested that the story may: (1) in its universality represent Chomsky’s “deep structure” and in its component parts “universal grammar,” (2) explain how the CNS has overcome the limits of “chunk” size during information processing, (3) suggest how memory is stored and retrieved, and (4) explain the ontogeny of human logic — or the lack of it.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. Renée Fuller, Ball-Stick-Bird Publications, P.O. Box 592, Stony Brook, New York 11790.
What Does the Mind’s Eye Look At?
John Heil, University of California
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 143-150, ISSN 0271-0137
A conception of mental imagery recently advanced by Kosslyn is discussed and criticised. An alternative account of imagery is recommended, one that assimilates the having of images to the exercise of one’s capacity to recognize the thing or event imagined.
Requests for reprints should be sent to John Heil, Department of Psychology, 3210 Tolman Hall, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.
An Olfactory Shuttle Box and Runway for Insects
Charles I. Abramson, Josef Miler, and Dan W. Mann, Boston University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 151-160, ISSN 0271-0137
A runway and shuttle box are described for the study of aversive conditioning in insects. In both situations responses are recorded automatically and olfactory stimuli are presented automatically. The technique used to evacuate olfactory stimuli is tested with five carpenter ants. Results indicate that the technique appears viable. Application of the shuttle box to the problem of insect pest control is discussed.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Charles Abramson, Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02215.
A Note on the Mythological Character of Categorization Research in Psychology
Robert Epstein, Harvard University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 161-170, ISSN 0271-0137
The concept of categorization has changed for psychologists over the last few decades. In the 1940’s, categorization was treated as the meeting of two bounded, describable entities: A psychological or behavioral invariant, such as a name, was assumed to attach itself to an invariant class of objects or events in the environment. Recent developments have called attention to the complexities of the categorization process and specifically to the fluid, fuzzy nature of the environment. A still more complete development of the concept would acknowledge the fluidity and variance in behavior. Categorization must involve a correspondence between two continua.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert Epstein, Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, 11 Ware Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
Book Reviews
The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel
Book Author: Felicitas D. Goodman. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1981
Reviewed by Sheila A. Womack, Ph.D., Institute of Mind and Behavior, New York City, New York
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 171-174, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] This is, quite simply, a remarkable book about a clash of world views. In 1978 a young German woman named Anneliese Michel died. The German courts found her parents and the priests who attended her guilty of negligent homicide. The courts concluded that Anneliese dies because she had been subjected to extensive and severe exorcism rites, rather than continuing the medications she had been given for epileptic seizures. The paradigm that guided the court’s decision was a medical/ psychological one that views reality as a uniform phenomenon, and digressions from that reality as manifestations of pathology.
Archetypes: The Persistence of Unifying Patterns
Book Author: Elemire Zolla. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981
Reviewed by Victor H. Jones, Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 175-178, ISSN 0271-0137
Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] That archetypes undergird our politics, our poetry, and our lives is the thesis of Professor Zolla’s work.
The most familiar form of an archetypal experience is what Zolla calls a “metaphysical experience.” This term is so crucial to his argument that he spends the first part of the book (some seven short chapters) discussing it. Briefly, a metaphysical experience occurs “when the experiencing psyche and the thing it perceives, subject and object, melt and are absorbed into one another…” Such a state is experienced by many members of a theatre audience when they are transported beyond themselves in response to a moving dramatic performance. The remaining six chapters of Part I discuss various aspects of the metaphysical experience, one key feature of which is that the realization of the experience is dependent upon the will of the perceiver. The perceiver can conceive as he wishes to conceive. He need not be restricted to “paltry and silly representation” of himself unless he chooses to do so; he may equally acknowledge that he is “infinite.” And should he do so he may succeed in overcoming “man’s central, abstract terror, the root of dread in his heart, which is the sense of separation and isolation from the world, and hence of a surrounding cosmic, indistinct hostility.” In this state, the individual has transcended time: he has lost his “grasping, deliberate, dense, deluded beta-self.” He has recognized this self as comical and has moved to a deeper level where delta-waves dominate and “the second hand” stands still. He has thus realized oneness, unity.
Self and Cinema
Book Authors: Beverle Houston and Marsha Kinder. Pleasantville, NY: Regrave Publishing Company, 1980
Reviewed by Warren H. Loveless, Ph.D., Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 179-180, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Self and Cinema covers a total of 14 films, each of its six chapters taking a slightly different conceptual framework and developing it in a detailed analysis of two or more films. Bergman’s Persona and The Ritual, for example, are examined in Freudian and Jungian terms: Godard’s Weekend and Wertmuller’s Seven Beauties are scrutinized in the light of Marxism and feminism; the chapter on Antonioni’s Red Desert and Bresson’s Une Femme Douce draw on the writing of R.D. Laing and B.F. Skinner; and Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism provides the framework for the chapter on the “archetypal journeys” of El Topo, 2001, and Zardoz.
The Gravity Guiding System
Book Author: Robert M. Martin, M.D. Pasadena: Gravity Guidance, Inc., 1981
Reviewed by Eoin St. John, Physical Therapy Systems, Houston, Texas
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 181-182, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Major breakthroughs often seem simple and obvious after they have been made, and with the advantage of hindsight The Gravity Guiding System appears so simple, obvious, logical, and persuasive that one suspects it may be a major breakthrough in physical training, and especially in therapy for that very common human ailment, “back trouble.” The publishing history of Dr. Martin’s little book suggests that his is an idea whose time has come. It was originally published in 1975 and it was reprinted in 1979. In 1981 it was reprinted three times.
Social Learning and Change
Book Author: Howard Goldstein. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1981
Reviewed by Leslie H. Krieger, Department of Psychology, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida 32216
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 183-186, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] A story is told of a group of friends who heard about an incredible meal which the ruler of a far-off land served to all who were guests at his palace. Everyone who had visited the palace spoke glowingly about the assortment of foods and drink and particularly of the miraculously prepared main dish that always was served. Yet try as they might, the friends could find no one who actually had tasted this main course. So they chose one among them to travel to the distant palace, sample it for himself, and report about the experience to the others.
Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense
Book Author: R. Robin Baker. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981
Reviewed by Steven E. Connelly, Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 187-188, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense is a persuasive book. It is persuasive because R. Robin Baker guides the reader step by step through his Barnard Castle and Manchester experiments, which demonstrated a magnetic sense of direction in human beings, and it is persuasive because it is so well written. Baker writes clearly, concisely, and smoothly, making his most complex experimental variations easy to follow. It is at once refreshing and reassuring to read “scientific” prose which makes no attempt to impress the reader with the difficulty of research by assuming a style which conveys a sense of difficulty. Baker never obfuscates; he always clarifies. Consequently, this book is accessible to the general reader as well as the specialist.
Stuff of Sleep and Dreams: Experiments in Literary Psychology
Book Author: Leon Edel. New York: Harper and Row, 1982
Reviewed by Steven E. Connelly, Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana 47809
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Spring 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, Pages 189-192, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Literary criticism no longer shrinks from applying the theories and discoveries of psychology to literature, but this has not, with the exception of a few farsighted critics, long been true. Leon Edel joined the ranks of the “psychological critics” early, and those who are intrigued by the strange relationship between literature and psychology will certainly want to read Stuff of Sleep and Dreams, as will students of modern literature. Edel recounts the genesis of his interest in psychology and his account, especially of the 1930 meeting in Vienna with Dr. Alfred Adler, is an especially appropriate opening. The gradually learned “lesson of Vienna” provides the book with its foundation: “After a while I came to believe that we can hardly write a ine without informing ourselves of the promptings unveiled for us in psychoanalytic study of the imagination. They lie close to the heart of all literary creation.”
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