The Journal of Mind and Behavior

Volume 9, Number 4, Autumn 1988

Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions in the Psychological Journal Literature, 1969-1983: A Descriptive Study
S.R. Coleman and Rebecca Salamon, Cleveland State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 415-446, ISSN 0271-0137
The impact of T.S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962, 1970) on psychological-journal liturature was assessed through a descriptive-actuarial study of 652 articles that cited Kuhn's monograph between 1969 and 1983, and that were published in "psychology journals," as defined by Social Science Citation Index. Citation frequencies, ratings of agreement and disagreement with Kuhn, a content analysis, and other data were obtained from the articles. Reception of Kuhn's monograph was found to be highly favorable but somewhat superficial, chronologically stable over the 15-year period, and marked by "revisonist" uses. Kuhn's concepts and claims were used selectively, with paradigm, crisis, revolution, and anti-positivistic themes most frequently referenced. Kuhn was cited most often in philosophical-methodological articles, but infrequently in the experimental-psychology literature. The practice of citing Kuhn was discussed, and questions were raised about the depth of Kuhn's impact on literature.
Requests for reprints should be sent to S.R. Coleman, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio 44115.

Existence and the Brain
Gordon G. Globus, University of California, Irvine
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 447-456, ISSN 0271-0137
The interface between an account of existence and an account of the brain qua information processing machine is discussed. Heidegger's "analytic of Dasein" is taken as the account of existence and Gibson/Neisser is taken as the machine account. It is shown that a Gibson/Neisser machine would be the right kind of machine so that to be that machine would be to "exist" (in the technical sense of Existenz). The heuristic value of existential considerations for the theory of the brain machine is illustrated.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Gordon G. Globus, M.D., University Services, Capistrano by the Sea Hospital, Box 398, Dana Point, California 92629.

Test of a Field Model of Consciousness and Social Change: The Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program and Decreased Urban Crime
Michael C. Dillbeck, Maharishi International University, Carole Bandy Banus, George Washington University, Craig Polanzi, Southern Illinois University and Garland S. Landrith, III, Maharishi International University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 457-486, ISSN 0271-0137
A series of three studies is reported that tests the prediction that participation in the Transcendental Meditation (TM) and TM-Sidhi program by a small fraction of the population of a society positively influences quality of life in the entire society, measured here in terms of reduced crime rate. Two cross-lagged panel studies among random samples of U.S. cities over the years 1972-1978 and metropolitan areas over the years 1972-1979 gave evidence for a causal influence of TM program participation in decreasing crime rate. A similar conclusion was supported by a time series analysis, using the transfer function approach, to assess the relationship between weekly variations in the number of participants in the group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program and decreased violent crimes in the District of Columbia over a two-year period. These findings cannot be explained by currently understood principles of behavioral interactions, but are consistent with the proposal that consciousness has, more fundamentally, a field character. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael C. Dillbeck, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa 52556.

The Schema Paradigm in Perception
Aaron Ben-Zeev, University of Haifa
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 487-514, ISSN 0271-0137
The prevailing cognitive approach to perception is an intellectualist one. This paradigm conceives of perception and other mental states as products of previous, usually unconscious, inferences, computations, and similar reasoning processes found in abstract thinking. I suggest an alternative approach that may be termed the "schema paradigm." In this paradigm, the cognitve features are not added by previous, separate processes; they are expressed in perceptual schemas that are constantly participating in the ongoing activity of perception. The suggested paradigm is supported by both theoretical and empirical considerations.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Aaron Ben-Zeev, Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa, Haifa 31999, Israel.

Consciousness and Commissurotomy: II. Some Pertinencies for Intact Functioning
Thomas Natsoulas, University of California, Davis
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 515-548, ISSN 0271-0137
Study of the consciousness of commissurotomized people may enlighten us with regard to consciousness more generally. Researchers in this area have addressed, for example, the general problem of the unity of conscious experience. They have proposed various means by which such unity is accomplished, based on their observations of commissurotomized people. Some of these means are (a) a verbal-conceptual consciousness system that unifies by making the individual (or cerebral hemisphere) consciously aware and spinning out interpretations, (b) the transmission of information from each cerebral hemisphere to the other via subcortical pathways, (c) the duplication or equalization of processes between cerebral hemispheres by means of the forebrain commissures, and (d) the production of a single stream of consciousness per intact human being in a tripartite structure that includes a part of each cerebral hemisphere and the forebrain commissures.
Reqests for reprints should be sent to T. Natsoulas, Ph.D., Psychology Department, University of California, Davis, California 95616.

The Intentionality of Retrowareness
Thomas Natsoulas, University of California, Davis
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 549-574, ISSN 0271-0137
An instance of retrowareness is a veridical nonperceptual occurrent awareness of something or other about a particular past event or state of affairs. Accordingly, this occurrence is intentional, or exemplifies the property of intentionality, in the sense that it is as though it were about something (which it is, given the requirement of veridicality) in contrast to other equally intentional mental occurrences that only seem to be about something. That a retrowareness has intentionality must be explained, therefore, in terms of its own content and structure, rather than in terms of its success in being about an actual past state of affairs or event. Such an explanation will help us to understand both (a) how a retrowareness succeeds in being about its intentional object, and (b) how mental occurrences lacking an intentional object nevertheless may possess an intentional character.
Requests for reprints should be sent to T. Natsoulas, Ph.D., Psychology Department, University of California, Davis California 95616.

Book Reviews ª How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World.
Felicitas D. Goodman. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Reviewed by Sheila A. Womack, Institute of Mind and Behavior
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 575-576, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] Dr, Goodman says of Andrew Jackson Davis, the main provider of the theological underpinnings of the American spiritualist movement, that he "fitted in with the urgent desire of the age (mid-1800s) to be able to find so-called scientific proof for the existence of the world of spirits" (p. 32.). Dr. Goodman must feel a kinship with that same age because she labors under a similar motivation. The thread running through most of her work, and especially this latest offering, is an attempt to challenge the "paradigm concerning the nature of "reality" (p. 125). Her central hypothesis is that extra-human entities, such as spirits and demons, are operative in some instances of non-ordinary reality or altered states of consciousness (ASCs).
Requests for reprints should be sent to Sheila A. Womack, Ph.D., 3816 S. Lamar #2707, Austin, Texas 78704.

Book Review ª Cognition and Symbolic Structures: The Psychology of Metaphoric Transformation.
Edited by Robert E. Haskell. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1987.
Reviewed By Mary Galbraith and Lynne Hewitt, State University of New York at Buffalo
The Journal of Mind and Behavior , Autumn 1988, Vol. 9, No. 4, Pages 577-584, ISSN 0271-0137
[Note: First paragraph, no abstract available.] A book on metaphor which contributes to existing theory at the same time as it argues for radical epistomological and methodological changes in the study of metaphor can easily become a hall of mirrors. This is especially so of a book which subscribes to Vico's dictum that the study of a topic should reflect our primary epistemological relationship to it. Robert Haskell's edited volume, Cognition and Symbolic Structures: The Psychology of Metaphoric Transformation, attempts this ambitious project, with rich and hard-to-summarize results.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Mary Galbraith, Department of English, State University of New York at Buffalo. Amherst, New York 14260.