Special Issues of the International Journal of Psychology – serie

This special issue of the International Journal of Psychology had its origins in the Quebec 98 Conference on Short-Term Memory, held in Quebec City, Canada, in June 1998. Following this conference, participants were invited to submit contributions based on, and expanding upon, their presentation at this conference. The enthusiastic response made it possible to collect the exciting selection of articles that you will find herein. It must be noted that because of the finite journal space available, the editors and reviewers were faced with the difficult problem of selecting only a limited number of the excellent articles that were submitted. The outcome of this process is this special issue, which we believe provides an up-to-date overview of current research on short-term/working memory, including the challenges, controversies, and recent theoretical advances in this field.

The abstracts of the XXX International Congress of Psychology (July 2012, Cape Town) are published as a supplement to Volume 47 of the International Journal of Psychology. The published volume includes the abstracts of the invited addresses, symposia, oral and poster presentations, numbering over 5,000 separate contributions and creating an invaluable overview of the discipline of psychological science around the world today.

This special issue of the International Journal of Psychology had its origins in the Quebec 98 Conference on Short-Term Memory, held in Quebec City, Canada, in June 1998. Following this conference, participants were invited to submit contributions based on, and expanding upon, their presentation at this conference. The enthusiastic response made it possible to collect the exciting selection of articles that you will find herein. It must be noted that because of the finite journal space available, the editors and reviewers were faced with the difficult problem of selecting only a limited number of the excellent articles that were submitted. The outcome of this process is this special issue, which we believe provides an up-to-date overview of current research on short-term/working memory, including the challenges, controversies, and recent theoretical advances in this field.

Due to worldwide economical and political pressures, millions of people have emigrated in recent decades, and many countries have become increasingly multicultural. Cross-lingual and cross-cultural interactions are growing, both within and across nations. As a consequence, professionals in psychology, psychiatry, neurology and related fields have to take cultural factors into account as they diagnose and treat their patients. Clinicians have to develop cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills to work with clients whose cultural background is different fom their own, a development which poses great theoretical and practical challenges for the field of neuropsychology. This special issue is intended to contribute to the analysis of similarities and diferences in neuropsychological functions from memory span to moral judgement. It also addresses the question of how rehabilitation programs could be composed in different cultural settings. This special issue was accepted under the editorship of Laura Herández-Guzmán.

Behaviour analysis has tradionally been one of the main areas and main approaches to psychology. It is based on laboratory research and in conceptualizations from distinguished figures of the discipline, such as Skinner, Pavlov, Mach, and even Watson and Thorndike. It has generated a science (the experimental analysis of behaviour), a philosophy (behaviourism), and numerous practical applications (applied behaviour analysis). For several decades it was even considered to be the dominant paradigm in psychology. This special issue contains scientific articles in the main areas of behaviour analysis, both as a laboratory science and as an applied discipline. It covers representative research and applications of behaviour analysis at the beginning of the 21st century. The authors come from countries including the United States, China, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Colombia, Poland, Greece. This special issue is an indication of the international relevance of this area of psychology, and its current state.

More than half of all everyday memory problems concern the delayed execution of an intended action, e.g. forgetting to give someone a call. This type of memory task has been labelled prospective memory and interest in this rather new field of cognitive psychology is growing. There are at least three reasons why research in prospective remembering is highly relevant. Firstly, prospective memory is of great relevance for everyday life. Secondly, prospective memory is of enormous clinical relevance. Thirdly, prospective memory research is of tremendous theoretical relevance. The six research papers in this special issue are paradigmatic examples of current approaches in this new and relevant field of cognitive psychology. Specifically, the question of to what extent is prospective memory similar to and to what extent is it different from the traditional topic of memory research is discussed. In addressing this question, concepts of cognitive functioning in general are being advanced. In addition, the mechanisms of neuropsychological impairments in prospective remembering as well as possible strategies of rehabilitation are investigated. Finally, a third focus is on the life-span development of prospective remembering. Investigating age-effects and possible underlying mechanisms, the influence of executive functioning, the specific nature of memory for intentions, and the role of motivational aspects are examined. Overall, this special issue convenes experts from several psychological disciplines in a collaborative effort to explore why humans so frequently have difficulties actually executing intentions that have been previously formed.

Several studies have suggested that education and/or literacy may protect not only against the effects of biological aging but also against the clinical manifestation of cerebral neuropathology. In clinical neuro-psychology, much debate has centered on whether the brain is more likely to degenerate as a result of overuse or underuse. There is a popular belief that an active mental life may delay the cognitive deterioration associated with normal aging. Animal studies also support the concept that environment can influence brain development. This special issue brings together data from neuro-psychology and neuro-imaging studies, and evoked potentials that analyse the impact of literacy on the functional organization of the adult brain. Discussion of how specific life experiences such as learning how to read and write can change patterns of brain activation and implications of these findings for the theory of cognitive and brain reserve are presented.

Perception has always been conceptualized as one of the most relevant processes within General Psychology. Perception theories also constitute one of the most firmly grounded roots of psychological knowledge, and their increasing scientific contribution has been recognized and used in many different disciplines and fields of research. Environmental perception plays a similar role within the framework of Environmental Psychology. Research and theories in environmental perception have primarily focused on the development and processing of mental representations by subjects to better interpret and understand their surroundings. One of the first and principal concepts developed to investigate the mental representations of an environment is the cognitive map. Since Tolman coined the term, the concept of cognitive map has evolved to integrate many different sources which can influence such mental representations. The first of these sources is the environment itself. Studies on spatial orientation and spatial perception are primarily focused on the way that physical characteristics of the environment influence knowledge, wayfinding ability or orientation capabilities of the subjects.All the papers in this special issue are proof of the complexity of issues involved in understanding the nature of the relations between people and the environment, as well as the large number of disciplines needed to deal with such phenomena. This issue seeks to shed some light on the various aspects which may be relevant or may contribute to theoretical developments in this scientific field.

Indigenous psychologies are attempts to portray the concepts, and to present the evidence, about human behaviour and experience from a point of view within the cultural traditions of the group. It takes a position that distances itself from a uniform (usually Western) psychology, and explores human psychological variation in its own cultural contexts. Indigenous psychologies provide important alternatives to the existing unitary psychology, but in their very diversity we may discover variations and communalities that could provide the basic material to create a more truly pan-human psychology. Thus, diversity in psychological knowledge may allow for the eventual development of a more representative psychology that will likely be very different from current conceptions of human behaviour.

The abstracts of the XXX International Congress of Psychology (July 2012, Cape Town) are published as a supplement to Volume 47 of the International Journal of Psychology. The published volume includes the abstracts of the invited addresses, symposia, oral and poster presentations, numbering over 5,000 separate contributions and creating an invaluable overview of the discipline of psychological science around the world today.

This special issue includes revised versions of papers presented at the IUPsyS Symposium "Psychology and Cognitive Science", held during the XXVIth International Congress of Psychology in Montreal, August 1996. The introductory article reports the results of an international survey conducted for the IUPsyS on the place and role of psychology in cognitive science; the next three papers are illustrations of interdisciplinary approaches to cognitive issues. Approaches to discourse comprehension by cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and neurobiology are discussed, and it is considered how the human mind and machines represent knowledge from discourse and text. Finally, there is a description of a computational approach to vision and language inspired by psychological theories.

Counselling in Australia is a relatively new and developing profession. As such, counselling and counsellor representation, education, and credentialing are all in flux. This special issue is the first of its kind to examine counselling in Australia. It provides a venue though which the current status of Australian counselling can be outlined and the main stakeholders in Australian counselling can present their efforts at promoting and developing Australian counselling. This special issue will be required reading for Australians interested in counselling. Current Australian counsellors and counselling educators will also use this special issue as a resource to the complex nature of Australian counselling, as it is a comprehensive overview of Australian counselling in a non-political manner. Readers interested in international counselling and counselling as a developing profession will be interested in this special issue as it illustrates efforts at developing the profession of counselling in a specific cultural context.

This special issue is the outcome of a conference held in Stockholm 1998. The purpose of the conference was to discuss contributions that psychology can make to international diplomatic negotiations with the aim of preventing conflicts within and between states. In addition to the editors and article authors who are all researchers in psychology, Swedish diplomats and peace and conflict researchers participated in the conference.Following two overviews highlighting psychological aspects of diplomacy and world politics respectively, topics in this special issue include reviews of psychological research on negotiation, decision making in interdependence situations (as exemplified by the prisoner's dilemma game), perceptions of and behavioral effects of social justice, causes and solutions of intergroup conflicts, cultural differences in communication and negotiation styles, and psychological problems in environmental resource managing. Although not providing ready-made solutions, many useful examples are given of how this research bears on our understanding of the important role preventive diplomacy may have in the future. The articles also identify gaps in our knowledge and what will be fruitful future areas of research for the benefit of preventive diplomacy. The topic areas covered by the special issue will be represented at the XXVII International Congress of Psychology in Stockholm July 23-28 2000, in the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Seminar that will be organized to honour the contributions made by the late Swedish citizen and the second Secretary General of the United Nations.