Depression is theorized to be caused in part by biased cognitive processing of emotional information. Yet, prior research has adopted a reductionist approach that does not characterize how biases i...

It is increasingly acknowledged that cognitive impairment can play an important role in depression vulnerability. Therefore, cognitive remediation strategies, and cognitive control training procedures have gained attention in recent years as possible interventions for depression. Recent studies suggest a small to medium effect on indicators of depression vulnerability. Despite initial evidence for the efficacy and effectiveness of CCT, several central questions remain. In this paper we consider the key challenges for the clinical implementation of CCT, including exploration of potential working (...) mechanisms and related to this, moderators of training effects, necessary conditions under which CCT could be optimally administered, such as dose requirements and training schedules, and how CCT could interact with or augment existing treatments of depression. Revisiting the CCT literature, we also reflect upon the possibilities to evolve toward a stratified medicine approach, in which individual differences could be taken into account and used to optimize prevention of depression. (shrink)

Several versions of the dot probe detection task are frequently used to assess maladaptive attentional processes associated with a broad range of psychopathology and health behavior, including eating behavior and weight. However, there are serious concerns about the reliability of the indices derived from the paradigm as measurement of attentional bias toward or away from salient stimuli. The present paper gives an overview of different attentional bias indices used in psychopathology research and scrutinizes three types of indices calculated from a (...) pictorial version of the dot probe task to assess food-related attentional biases in children and youngsters with and without obesity. Correlational analyses reveal that dynamic scores are dependent on general response speed. Reliability estimates are low for the traditional and probability indices. The higher reliability for the dynamic indices is at least partially explained by general response speed. No significant group differences between youth with and without obesity are found, and correlations with weight are also non-significant. Taken together, results cast doubt on the applicability of this specific task for both experimental and individual differences research on food-related attentional biases in youth. However, researchers are encouraged to make and test adaptations to the procedure or computational algorithm in an effort to increase psychometric quality of the task and to report psychometric characteristics of their version of the task for their specific sample. (shrink)

"Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance" (1927) schreibt ein Stück philosophischer Problemgeschichte und geht der Frage nach, "ob und inwiefern die Gedankenbewegung des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts bei aller Mannigfaltigkeit der Problemansätze und bei aller Divergenzen der Lösungen eine in sich geschlossene Einheit bildet". Provoziert durch Burckhardts Renaissancestudie, die die Philosophie der Zeit unberücksichtigt läßt, versucht Cassirer nachzuweisen, daß auch die Renaissancephilosophie Teil einer "geistigen Gesamtbewegung" ist und eigene systematische Mittelpunkte besitzt.

The present volume, a tribute to Harry Dondorp, contains contributions to the symposium held on the occasion of his farewell at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Written by four eminent scholars in the field of legal history, the contributions are related to his areas of interest: delictual liability, Romano-canonical procedure and comparative law texts. The contributors are Wolfgang Ernst, David Ibbetson, Yves Mausen and Andreas Thier. The introductory words are by Eltjo Schrage, Jan Hallebeek and Hylkje de Jong.

Ernst H. Gombrich criticized abstract painting with several remarks scattered around his wide oeuvre. I argue that his view of abstract paintings is coherent with the account of pictorial representation he put forward in Art and Illusion, show some limits of such view, and maintain that, although several of Gombrich’s criticisms of abstract painting should be rejected, some of his remarks are insightful and worthy of consideration.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.4 (2004) 32-45 [Access article in PDF] Ernst H. Gombrich, Pictorial Representation, and Some Issues in Art Education Nanyoung Kim Introduction This essay will deal with different ways of conceptualizing pictorial representation in art education and their implications. The philosophical issues involved in pictorial representation have fascinated philosophers since the time of Plato and Aristotle. In the first half of the twentieth century, (...) the issue of representation became a centerpiece of various theories among art historians in an attempt to explain representational styles of non-Western cultures that were vastly different from Western styles, and also in order to reinterpret less-valued Western styles that had deviated from the Classical and Renaissance traditions. In recent years, the field of aesthetics has seen a resurgence of interest in the issue, probably because of the demise of Formalism and the returning interest in representation among postmodernists.In art education, interest in pictorial representation has been limited to research on children's drawing (mostly unsolicited drawing) and to the alleged benefits of drawing activity on children's emotional and cognitive development. To understand art images made by adult artists, especially in the Western tradition, art educators must refer to art history or aesthetics. For non-Western images, an anthropological or sociological approach seems appropriate because, more than Western images, they seem to demand knowledge about the culture in which they originated. Art education therefore does not have one comprehensive model of pictorial representation to encompass all these different kinds of images.For more than a decade, the dominant theory of children's pictorial representation in art education has been a symbolic model, and it thrived and is thriving in the context of ever-growing cognitive claims on art. Replacing the long-held creative self-expression model of Viktor Lowenfeld of the 1960s and 1970s, the advocates for this model advanced their theory based on Nelson Goodman's symbolic interpretation of pictorial representation.1 [End Page 32] While their theory illuminated what had not been revealed by the previous creative self-expression model, its long-held dominance in the field lends it an aura of self-evidence and authority.My aim in this essay is to reintroduce Ernst H. Gombrich's theory of pictorial representation in order to balance the dominant theory and to provide a broad perspective for viewing children's drawings and adults' art images together.2 Despite its potential contribution to art education, Gombrich's theory has not been adequately interpreted for art educators. When Gombrich's theory was introduced in art education in the past, he was treated, along with Goodman, as a prime advocate of the concept of representation as a convention. His attention to cultural, psychological, biological, sociological, and art historical dimensions of pictorial representation has never been fully explored by art educators. Gombrich was first and foremost an art historian and theorist of art history of solid classical scholarship, but he was also a cultural historian equipped with extensive knowledge of diverse fields such as cognitive psychology, ethology, psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of science. He was truly a scholar with an interdisciplinary penchant, which makes it difficult for his readers to categorize him. In addition, his elusive writing style tends to limit access to his theory.In this sense, Leslie Cunliffe's recent reintroduction of Gombrich's theories to art education is notable.3 Cunliffe covered the whole gamut of Gombrich's theories, including that on representation, by contextualizing him as a Social-Constructivist, and he expounded many potential benefits that art educators may gain through understanding and adopting his theories. My scope will be narrower than Cunliffe's. I will deal with Gombrich's theory of representation insofar as it illuminates the nature of children's drawings and other art images and helps us understand them within a coherent system. The order of discussion will be as follows: first, the linguistic model derived from Goodman and its continuing influence on art education; second, Gombrich's theory of pictorial representation, including his discussions of the conventional and biological aspects of... (shrink)