Journal of Psycholinguistic Research最新文献

Language characteristics reflect the ability to connect emotions to words and thoughts, thus transforming non-verbal material into material that can be communicated to others, allowing people to share their emotional experience with others and to regulate their own emotions. In this review, we present the results from the last decade by the three main university research groups (Universities of Rome, Bergamo, and Padua) on Italian computerized linguistic measures of the Referential Process (RP). We discuss 22 studies across several clinical and non-clinical settings and populations, exploring the application of RP measures to heterogeneous materials, such as transcripts of validated clinical instruments, expressive writings, autobiographical memories, dreams, and the therapists' clinical notes. We also consider the associations between linguistic measures and psychological constructs. The results show the existence of definite linguistic characteristics in the different samples examined. Specifically, a higher use of sensory-somatic words appears to be associated with depressive states, while a greater use of abstract words is associated with defensive dimensions. Additionally, RP measures seem to capture the affective dysregulation features shown by individuals with higher alexithymia scores, indicating reduced symbolizing and affective capabilities. In general, these findings confirm a strong association between language and bodily functioning, highlighting the connection between physical arousal, emotion, thoughts, and health/pathology dimensions.

The analysis of epistemological beliefs underlying psychotherapeutic interventions has been largely neglected by research in psychotherapy, training in psychotherapy and psychology, and often by theorists of different clinical orientations. The main risks of this neglect are the unexamined adoption of the epistemology that is taken for granted by the culture and is largely inconsistent with the specifics of the object of study of psychological science; the reduction of intervention effectiveness due to the inconsistency between epistemology, theory, and practice; and the maintenance of the gap between research and practice due to the different epistemologies used by clinicians and researchers. This article discusses the scientific status of the computerized linguistic measures of the Referential Process when used for clinical and research purposes. Our claim is that these measures developed to test Wilma Bucci's multiple code theory don't represent an objective examination of the psychotherapeutic process, but rather a methodological option to guide the researcher and clinician in identifying the most plausible scientific hypotheses about the complex phenomenon of emotional communication between speakers. Comparison of data from different points of view (therapist, patient, external observer, computerized linguistic analysis, etc.) and in different contexts (therapies, psychological tests, everyday conversations, experimental situations, etc.) will be presented as promising and viable ways to examine the validity of the hypotheses based on the Referential Process theory.

In the clinical situation, there are both verbal and non-verbal interactions. Patients express themselves, whether in words or otherwise, in direct or disguised ways, whether consciously or unconsciously. Such conscious or unconscious ideas and feelings are related to personal desires, relationships with important people in their present or past life, or in the transference relationship. These ideas and feelings are organized in the brain/mind as emotion schemas. Wilma Bucci argues that emotion schemas derive from subsymbolic and symbolic processes, which may be conscious or unconscious. It is important to note that the term "emotion schema," is used much less frequently than the term "mental representation." Since too many people consider the term "mental representation" a static concept, the term "emotion schema" can be a shorthand for "emotionally infused mental representation." This paper proposes that the construct of unconscious fantasy overlaps with that of emotion schema. The importance of priming phenomena between the members of the therapeutic dyad is discussed. Each person's unconscious fantasy can serve as a prime for the other.

This is a condensed version of a series of talks given by Bernard Maskit at the Referential Process Workshop Conference, at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (July, 2023). Dr. Maskit discusses the Discourse Attributes Analysis Program (DAAP) which he created to evaluate psychotherapy and other texts utilizing measures of the Referential Process, a theory developed in the context of multiple code theory (Bucci in Psychoanalysis and cognitive science: a multiple code theory, Guilford Press, New York, 1997, 2023). Dr. Maskit's emphasis is for his audience to understand how his system can be used technically and conceptually, and to provide updates on how measures can be aligned with time to produce new insights. In the first days of the Workshop, Dr. Maskit reviewed the development of the DAAP and its measures; sections of these talks are summarized here with references to relevant publications. He then went on to focus on development of the new TimeDAAP and its crucial role in the Referential Process project. We note with sadness that Dr. Maskit died before he could review and edit his presentation for publication. Wilma Bucci participated in the work presented here and prepared Dr. Maskit's talks for publication. We thank Sean Murphy, Michael Peral and Perry Suskind for their invaluable contributions to this paper.

This study aims to explore the relationship between linguistic features of the Referential Process (RP) applied to autobiographical narratives, personality dimensions, and affect regulation capabilities in a group of women diagnosed with restrictive anorexia nervosa (AN). The study included 40 female participants hospitalized with AN during an acute phase, with a mean age of 19.50 (SD = 3.8). Participants completed several assessments, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2 (MMPI-2), the Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI-3), the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm Interview (RAP). The RAP interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for the application of RP Linguistic Measures. The results of the correlation analysis revealed several significant associations among linguistic measures, EDI-3 scale scores, affect regulation measures, and personality dimensions. The linguistic measures indicating higher rationality, abstraction, and cognitive word usage, were associated with higher psychopathological severity in AN. Alexithymia showed significant correlations with the Affect words, supporting the perspective of MCT concerning dissociation of emotional schemas. These findings confirm the relationship between linguistic measures and the severity of the disease. Therefore, autobiographical narratives can be considered not only as diagnostic indicators, but also as variables to verify the efficacy of treatments in patients with AN.

Persuasive texts aim to impact readers' behaviors through linguistic manipulations. Advertisements, for example, attempt to convince consumers to prefer and purchase a certain product or service. The objective of this study was to examine whether persuasive texts impact people differently than informational texts and whether the former can lead to behavioral changes in the short term. The 135 teenagers and young adults who participated in the study were asked to taste two different types of chocolate spread that were, in fact, the same. The research groups were asked to read a persuasive text about the product before tasting Chocolate #1 and an informational text before tasting Chocolate #2. On the other hand, the control groups were asked to read informational texts before tasting both "flavors". The results showed that both teenagers and adults were influenced by the persuasive texts when choosing their preferred flavor, yet to a different degree. These findings lead to a discussion about the power of words in shaping consciousness and minds.

Bernard Maskit's work in developing computerized linguistic measures of the referential process has significantly advanced one of the most promising fields of psychotherapy research. His contributions offer the potential for empirical confirmation of the hypotheses contained in Wilma Bucci's multiple code theory, a general theory of information processing, emotional communication, and psychotherapeutic change. Three key aspects of Maskit's work yielded rich results for the purposes of both research and clinical practice are highlighted and described: (a) a truly transdisciplinary approach, characterized by the creation of conceptual and operational devices that do not belong to any of the disciplines potentially involved but are instead placed in a third terrain responding to broader, transversal knowledge problems; (b) the ability to develop graphic and formal ways of representing elusive aspects of emotional and linguistic communication, facilitating connections between theory and clinical data, and between clinicians and researchers; and (c) the capacity for a very functional intersubjective connection with Wilma Bucci, his scientific partner and wife, which created a productive new space intertwining psychology and mathematics. Lastly, the future development of Maskit's work is outlined for the next generation of clinicians and researchers. One of these is the development of the Time-Discourse Attribute Analysis Program, the most current version of the computerized program that applies linguistic measures to texts, which Maskit worked on in his final years. This program must be finalized and validated for its potential heuristic value in both research and clinical practice.

The purpose of this study was to validate a novel reading comprehension assessment for college students named MOCCA-College. A random sample of college students (N = 63, average age of 22.5) were recruited from various education programs (e.g., first-year courses, TRIO, SONA) and completed MOCCA-College Online and were later recruited to complete face-to-face think-aloud and recall tasks, as well as standardized assessments such as the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT) and the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2). Based on the think-aloud findings, correct answers on MOCCA-College were associated with meaningful connections to background knowledge. Incorrect answers were associated with irrelevant connections to background knowledge that are not helpful for comprehension. Moreover, efficiency on MOCCA-College (seconds per correct answer) demonstrated criterion validity based on the NDRT and TOWRE-2. Future research and analyses may examine assessment development, particularly for identifying nuanced individual differences in college readers' comprehension.