Dual Coding: A Cognitive Model for Psychoanalytic Research

Abstract

Four theories of mental representation derived from current experimental work in cognitive psychology have been discussed in relation to psychoanalytic theory. These are: verbal mediation theory, in which language determines or mediates thought; perceptual dominance theory, in which imagistic structures are dominant; common code or propositional models, in which all information, perceptual or linguistic, is represented in an abstract, amodal code; and dual coding, in which nonverbal and verbal information are each encoded, in symbolic form, in separate systems specialized for such representation, and connected by a complex system of referential relations. The weight of current empirical evidence supports the dual code theory. However, psychoanalysis has implicitly accepted a mixed model-perceptual dominance theory applying to unconscious representation, and verbal mediation characterizing mature conscious waking thought. The characterization of psychoanalysis, by Schafer, Spence, and others, as a domain in which reality is constructed rather than discovered, reflects the application of this incomplete mixed model. The representations of experience in the patient's mind are seen as without structure of their own, needing to be organized by words, thus vulnerable to distortion or dissolution by the language of the analyst or the patient himself. In these terms, hypothesis testing becomes a meaningless pursuit; the propositions of the theory are no longer falsifiable; the analyst is always more or less "right." This paper suggests that the integrated dual code formulation provides a more coherent theoretical framework for psychoanalysis than the mixed model, with important implications for theory and technique. In terms of dual coding, the problem is not that the nonverbal representations are vulnerable to distortion by words, but that the words that pass back and forth between analyst and patient will not affect the nonverbal schemata at all. Using the dual code formulation, and applying an investigative methodology derived from experimental cognitive psychology, a new approach to the verification of interpretations is possible. Some constructions of a patient's story may be seen as more accurate than others, by virtue of their linkage to stored perceptual representations in long-term memory. We can demonstrate that such linking has occurred in functional or operational terms--through evaluating the representation of imagistic content in the patient's speech.

Las experiencias terapéuticas modifican el inconsciente relacional

“…Porque nuestra víscera cordial no va nunca por su lado, sino que, totalmente integrada con la totalidad del organismo, interviene ininterrumpidamente en todo nuestro quehacer físico y emocional, cambiando el ritmo y la fuerza de sus latidos de acuerdo con las diversas circunstancias emocionales y físicas en las que nos encontramos, y se modifica y adapta según las influencias y estímulos, internos y externos que recibe, como puede verse fácilmente, por ejemplo, cuando una persona se entrena para practicar un deporte. Pues bien, así debe entenderse, de una vez por todas, el papel de las primeras experiencias emocionales vividas por el niño en su etapa subsimbólica y no verbal (Bucci, W., 1985(Bucci, W., , 2001(Bucci, W., , 2002, no como algo aislado, congelado e inmodificable, siempre igual a sí mismo, sino como una estructura que influye en todos los estados mentales y somáticos y, a la vez, es influida por ellos.…”

Funciones organizadoras del sueño: Cuestiones centrales en el entendimiento y el trabajo con los sueños

“…La temprana aparición del sueño REM sugiere que lo que llamo pensamiento simbólico imagenístico 3, y que Bucci (1985) y Pavio (1971) denominan pensamiento simbólico no-verbal, comienza en el útero y está operativo al nacer. Las experiencias son registradas en la memoria por medio de imágenes, olores, contacto físico, y experiencias kinésicas y propioceptivas.…”

“…A diferencia de las conceptualizaciones basadas en la energía de Freud acerca de la movilidad de las catexias, ahora entendemos los modos duales fundamentalmente en imágenes, modo dominado por lo sensorial y el modo basado en lo lingüístico. (Bucci, 1985;Fosshage, 1983Fosshage, , 1987ª, 1987bLichtenberg, 1983;McKinnon, 1979;McLaughlin, 1978;Noy, 1969Noy, , 1979.…”

Operational Diagnostic Approaches in the Assessment of Defense Mechanisms

“…The elaborated model of dual coding for mental representations, which Bucci [34] worked out on the basis of models from cogni tive theories, [35,36] gave us the idea that the mental representation for defense mecha nisms should be operationalized in different experimental paradigms. The above-men tioned authors postulate that perceptual and verbal (linguistic) information is coded and stored in different specialized systems.…”

“…The dif ferent levels for such a regulation of opera tionalized diagnosis of defenses are graphi cally shown in figure 1. Gitzinger [33,34] has published a framework of hypotheses for a multilevel diagnosis of defense mechanisms. She demonstrated, on different levels, the fal sification of operationalized hypotheses.…”