Action Fusion Research Articles

Relationships between thought–action fusion, thought suppression and obsessive–compulsive symptoms: a structural equation modeling approach

Research has shown that there are strong similarities in content between the obsessions and compulsions that characterize obsessive–compulsive disorder and nonclinical obsessions and compulsions. However, clinical and nonclinical obsessions and compulsions do differ with respect to characteristics like frequency, intensity, discomfort and elicited resistance. Two separate concepts have been invoked to explain how normal obsessions and compulsions may develop into clinical phenomena. First, it is suggested that thought–action fusion (TAF) contributes to obsessive–compulsive symptoms. Second, thought suppression may intensify obsessive–compulsive symptoms due to its paradoxical effect on intrusive thoughts. Although both phenomena have been found to contribute to obsessive–compulsive symptoms, possible interactions between these two have never been investigated. The current study explored how TAF and thought suppression interact in the development of obsessive–compulsive symptoms. Undergraduate psychology students ( N=173) completed questionnaires pertaining to TAF, thought suppression and obsessive–compulsive symptoms. Covariances between the scores on these questionnaires were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling. Results suggest that TAF triggers thought suppression, while thought suppression, in turn, promotes obsessive–compulsive symptoms.

Multi-scale aspects in model-predictive control

Abstract Multi-scale models of processing systems offer an attractive alternative to models defined in the time- or frequency-domain. They are defined on dyadic or higherorder trees, whose nodes are used to index the values of any variable, localised in both time and scale (range of frequencies). This dual localisation is particularly attractive in solving estimation and control problems. In this paper, multi-scale models are used to design model-predictive controllers (MPC), resulting in design techniques with several important advantages, such as; (a) natural depiction of performance characteristics and treatment of output constraints, (b) fast algorithms for establishing the constrained control policies over long prediction/control horizons, (c) rich depiction of feedback errors at several scales, and (d) optimal fusion of multi-rate measurements and control actions.

Cognitive distortions: thought-action fusion

Thought–action fusion (TAF) is a cognitive distortion with two forms: ‘probability TAF’ in which the intrusive thought is believed to increase the probability that a specific negative event will occur and ‘morality TAF’ in which experiencing the intrusive thoughts is morally equivalent to carrying out a prohibited action. This distortion is especially prominent in obsessions, is closely related to guilt and is associated with subsequent attempts at neutralization. A comparable cognitive distortion termed ‘thought–shape fusion’ has been found in a minority of people with eating problems and occurs when the thought of eating is sufficient to induce feelings of fatness, moral unacceptability and weight gain. These cognitive distortions can be manipulated experimentally and have clinical implications that include improvement in understanding the nature of the disorder and its treatment. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Metacognition, specific obsessive-compulsive beliefs and obsessive-compulsive behaviour

Cognitive distortions and beliefs have been found to be associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder. Most of these cognitive distortions are supposed to be non-specifically related to obsessive–compulsive behaviour in general, rather than specific domains of beliefs being related to specific forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether specific cognitive domains are related to specific obsessive–compulsive behaviours. In this study 305 subjects from the community completed a number of questionnaires assessing specific belief domains, obsessive–compulsive behaviour (Padua-R) and depressed mood (CES-D). Multiple regression analyses provided support for the notion that specific beliefs are associated with specific forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour (i.e. washing, checking, precision, rumination and impulses). Further, as expected meta-cognition beliefs such as Thought–Action Fusion and Inverse Inference were found to be related to most forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour. Depressed mood did not affect the results substantially. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Metacognition, specific obsessive–compulsive beliefs and obsessive–compulsive behaviour

Cognitive distortions and beliefs have been found to be associated with obsessive–compulsive disorder. Most of these cognitive distortions are supposed to be non-specifically related to obsessive–compulsive behaviour in general, rather than specific domains of beliefs being related to specific forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether specific cognitive domains are related to specific obsessive–compulsive behaviours. In this study 305 subjects from the community completed a number of questionnaires assessing specific belief domains, obsessive–compulsive behaviour (Padua-R) and depressed mood (CES-D). Multiple regression analyses provided support for the notion that specific beliefs are associated with specific forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour (i.e. washing, checking, precision, rumination and impulses). Further, as expected meta-cognition beliefs such as Thought–Action Fusion and Inverse Inference were found to be related to most forms of obsessive–compulsive behaviour. Depressed mood did not affect the results substantially. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Thought–action fusion as a causal factor in the development of intrusions

Thought–action fusion refers to the tendency to treat thoughts and actions as equivalents. Some authors (e.g., Rachman, 1997; Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 793–802) have suggested that thought–action fusion plays a role in the etiology of obsessive intrusions. The present study sought to test this idea. Subjects ( n=19) in the experimental condition underwent a bogus EEG recording session. They were informed that the apparatus was able to pick up the word ‘apple’ and that thoughts of that word could result in the administration of electrical shocks to another person. After having spent 15 minutes in the EEG laboratory, experimental subjects and controls ( n=26) completed a short questionnaire containing items about characteristics of the target thought (e.g., frequency, aversiveness). Results indicate that thought–action fusion, indeed, promotes intrusive thinking in that it results in a higher frequency of target thoughts, more discomfort, and more resistance. Thus, the current findings support the idea that thought-action fusion may contribute to the development of obsessive intrusions.

Multi-Scale Aspects in Model-Predictive Control

Multi-scale models of processing systems offer an attractive alternative to models defined in the time- or frequency-domain. They are defined on dyadic or higherorder trees, whose nodes are used to index the values of any variable, localised in both time and scale (range of frequencies). This dual localisation is particularly attractive in solving estimation and control problems. In this paper, multi-scale models are used to design model-predictive controllers (MPC), resulting in design techniques with several important advantages, such as; (a) natural depiction of performance characteristics and treatment of output constraints, (b) fast algorithms for establishing the constrained control policies over long prediction/control horizons, (c) rich depiction of feedback errors at several scales, and (d) optimal fusion of multi-rate measurements and control actions.

Fuzzy behavior integration and action fusion for robotic excavation

This paper discusses control behavior integration and bucket action fusion for excavation control of a robotic front-end-loader type machine. To utilize the experience and expertise from skilled human operators, a fuzzy-logic based control approach is developed. A hierarchical excavation control architecture decomposes excavation goals to tasks, then tasks to behaviors, and finally behaviors to actions. The excavation actions are primitive and can be executed directly by an excavation machine. Finite state machines are used to specify the coordination and integration of behaviors for task execution and actions for behavior implementation. A simple strategy for action fusion is proposed based on fuzzy logic reasoning and the COA defuzzification method. Finally, laboratory experiments are conducted using a PUMA 560 robot arm and a Zebra force/torque sensor in a simulated rock excavation environment. Experimental results indicate that the proposed approach in this paper has led to more efficient task execution than previous approaches.

Committees

Research has demonstrated that higher levels of religiosity are positively correlated with thought–action fusion (TAF), a set of cognitive biases found to be associated with obsessive–compulsive symptoms. However, previous studies have exclusively relied on a nomothetic approach to measuring TAF using a single self-report instrument, the thought–action fusion scale. The current study examined the relationship between religiosity and TAF using an in vivo behaviorally-based assessment in which participants thought about and wrote down thoughts of negative events involving loved ones. Forty-three highly religious Protestant Christians were compared to 30 Atheists/Agnostics on their in vivo ratings of anxiety, estimates of likelihood, and moral wrongness related to the negative thoughts. Results indicated that compared to the non-religious participants, those who were highly religious believed that writing and thinking about the negative events was more morally wrong and increased the likelihood of the event. Results are discussed in terms of the potential relationship between certain religious teachings and TAF-related beliefs about the importance, significance, and influence of thoughts.

Obsessions, responsibility and guilt

Introduction of the concept of “inflated responsibility” into the so-called anatomy of obsessions gives rise to an elaborated analysis of obsessions, responsibility and guilt. The analysis touches on a range of phenomena including anger and guilt, control of thoughts, the fusion of thoughts and action, resistance to additional responsibility, procrastination and unfinished tasks, hypochondriasis, brief holidays. Some clinical implications are deduced from the analysis.

Marat/Sade, or the Birth of Postmodernism from the Spirit of the Avantgarde

Peter BUirger's Theory of the Avantgarde (1974)' drew its critical energy from the failure of the May '68 revolt in Paris and the collapse of the student movement in West Germany at the beginning of the 1970s. 1968 became the historical vantage point which sharpened Biirger's perception of the connections between the avantgarde movements of the 1920s and the revolutionary impulses of the 1960s. The momentary fusion of surrealist slogans and political action in May'68 pointed to the renewed actuality of the Surrealists' call to pratiquer la po(sie at the same time as the proclamation of the of in West Germany articulated a deep dissatisfaction at the impotence of art to change the world. If the revolts of the late 1960s failed and the utopia of cultural revolution faded, the old question of the end and the ends of art remained. And this is the question posed by Biirger: what is the function of art in contemporary society, given that the avantgarde's project of cancelling the separation, the alienation of art from life has become doubly historically viewed through the prism of '68? In his most recent book on the critique of idealistic aesthetics,2 Biirger has retreated from the impasse of his position in The Theory ofthe Avant-garde. Just as for Adorno the moment of practicing philosophy had passed, for Biirger the moment for practicing poetry the historical moment of the avantgarde in the 1920s was behind us. If this left Adorno with nothing but the hibernation of negative dialectics, it left Biirger in the situation of a suspended aesthetics. The end of art which was no end had revealed art as the prisoner of its impotent autonomy, safely neutralized within the institution of art, as Buirger termed it. Biirger's argument went as follows: the historical process of differentiation the immanent logic of development of autonomous art had run its course by the end of the 19th century. The subsequent reaction of the

A quantitative study of skeletofusimotor innervation in the cat peroneus tertius muscle.

1. Physiological tests were used to identify skeletofusimotor or beta axons to the cat peroneus tertius muscle in order to assess the proportion of beta axons in the motor supply to this muscle. 2. Static beta axons (beta S) were identified by: (a) observation of a delay between the complete block of extrafusal contraction and the failure of spindle activation upon prolonged stimulation, (b) increase of spindle excitation with stimulation frequencies above that eliciting maximal extrafusal contraction, (c) observation of 'unfused' frequencygram of spindle primary afferent discharge during stimulation of the axon at frequencies above that eliciting complete fusion of extrafusal contraction and (d) static action exerted on the response of the spindle afferent to ramp stretch. 3. Dynamic beta axons (beta D) were identified by the persistence of spindle activation after selective block of extrafusal neuromuscular junctions and by their dynamic action on spindle primary endings. 4. The actions of 116 motor axons (conduction velocity 56-104 m/sec) on ninety-five spindle afferents (fifty-seven from primary and thirty-eight from secondary endings) were examined in ten experiments. Thirty-six beta axons (31% of the total sample) were identified: twenty-four beta S (conduction velocity 69-104 m/sec) and twelve beta D (conduction velocity 56-91 m/sec). 5. Twenty (35%) primary endings were activated by a beta S and sixteen (28%) by a beta D axon. Nineteen (45%) secondary endings were activated by a beta S and five (13%) by a beta D axon. Convergence of beta D and beta S axons on the same spindle occurred in 10% of instances. beta-innervated spindles were also supplied by gamma axons. 6. Most of the beta S motor units were of the fast-fatigue resistant (FR) type, with a few units of the fast-fatigable (FF) type, and nearly all the beta D motor units were of the slow (S) type.

The Contemporary Problem

Apropos of Birtwistle's Punch and Judy and its libretto, Gordon Crosse, in Tempo 85, submits that “an opera is a fusion of word, music and action in which, perhaps, only the music can bear separate scrutiny. W. H. Auden once described librettos as ‘private letters to the composers', and so they are”. On reflection and inspection, Gordon Crosse is much righter than Auden; as a matter of fact, he could hardly be righter. I'll take up the ‘hardly’ a little further down; for the moment, I want to rejoice that somebody has, at long last, said it. Crosse's may sound a slightly commonplace statement once it's out, but that is true of many propositions which hit the truth right at the centre.

The Shakespearian Clock: Time and the Vision of Reality in Romeo and Juliet and the Tempest

EW approaches to a given play reveal its form and its view of reality as quickly as a study of its treatment of time. This is so because drama, above all other arts, is the temporal art. The arts may be divided for convenience into the literary, the static, and the arts. In the static arts-painting, sculpture, architecture-time plays no constitutive role, not even in such a painting as Chagall's Time is a River without Banks. For although time may be the subject of such works, its expression is assimilated totally to space, color, and geometric form. In poetry and fiction noi only is time often an important part of the subject, but -also its passage may become part of the created illusion. This potentiality in fiction has been much explored by novelists since Proust and Joyce. In poetry, the outstanding example of time as a subject is found in Shakespeare's sonnets. Except in very long poems, however, it is not easily possible for poetry to generate an illusion of passing time. In works designed to be performed before an audience, time enters art in a much more complex way. It becomes a constituent part of the artistic form itself. Music, the dance, and drama are realized as works of art only as they have duration in the time of their performance. The form of each of these depends in no small part upon rhythm and duration. Drama is the only art that is performed and that also may speak of time as a subject. (The dance and program music may do so to the extent that they introduce narrative and become dramatic, but narrative as such is not intrinsic to them.) Drama is partly a literary and partly a performing art. It is a combination (actually a fusion) of word and action. The action unfolds in time, and the word attempts to understand and comment upon the action-to reveal the mystery of action-filled time. It follows that much about the form and content of a play will be revealed by analysis of its treatment of time.' Such an analysis can be useful, for instance, in defining the view of reality given in The Tempest, and in relating that view to what we find elsewhere in Shakespeare. I shall try to show here the working of such a method. The Tempest shows a manner of imitating reality that is radically different from most of Shakespeare's earlier work. But how is it different? What new