Let Nature Take Its Course

How to Situate Cognition: Letting Nature Take its Course

1. The Situation in Cognition The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition. While it has both philosophical and psychological antecedents in thought stretching back over the last century (see Gallagher, this volume, Clancey, this volume,), it has developed primarily since t...

Let the brain take the strain.

Nature and Course of Disability in Schizophrenia

Sixty eight Feighner positive schizophrenic patients were followed up prospectively for a period of six years using standardized instruments. Disability was assessed in this sample using the Schedule for the Assessment of Psychiatric Disability at the end of 4, 5 and 6 years of follow up. It was found that the three year course of disability tended to be stable and fluctuations were minimal. Di...

The nature and course of subthreshold PTSD.

This study investigated rates of subthreshold PTSD and associated impairment in comparison to no PTSD and full PTSD and prospectively followed the course of subthreshold symptoms over 3 years. 3360 workers dispatched to the WTC site following 9/11 completed clinician interviews and self-report measures at three time points each one year apart. At Time 1, 9.7% of individuals met criteria for sub...

Generalized anxiety disorder: nature and course.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a chronic and highly prevalent disorder in the adult population, yet it remains a relatively poorly understood condition. Clinicians may be familiar with the symptoms of enduring excessive worrying, anxiety, and hypervigilance that are characteristic of GAD, but may not necessarily recognize that these are usually symptoms of a distinct psychiatric disorder...