Adult Thematic Similarity Has Come

Adult thematic similarity has come to the attention of medical scientists because of its potential benefit in treating people with diseases such as depression, or conditions like obsessive compulsive disorder (Norton and Whittal 2004). Drs. Edward Wisniewski of Northwestern University in Illinois, and Miriam Basok of the University of Chicago, worked together in dispelling some older thinking of thematic similarity that confined it to a cognitive function of matching and mismatching attributes to mental representations (Wisniewski and Bassok 1996). Bassok and Medin (1996) found through their research that "the judged similarity of sentences does not necessarily reflect the degree of overlap between the properties and paired stimuli. Rather, similarity judgments are often mediated by a process of thematic integration and reflect the degree to which stimuli can be integrated into a common thematic scenario (Cottrell, Ed., Wisniewski and Bassock 1996, p. 464). This means we can now look at certain diseases and disorders by group, define the thematic similarities, and intervene in the disease or disorder therapeutically by introducing stimuli into the common thematic scenario that could ostensibly bring about reversal or improvement in the disease or condition.

Not all medical scientists ascribe to the new outlook on thematic similarity, and Sigmund Freud's conclusions on thematic kinship did not go far enough such that it was recognized as useful for the treatment of adult conditions. Grunbaub (Mills, p. 156) says this about Freud's position on thematic kinship:

"As we saw in the case of Rat Man, Freud appealed to the thematic kinship between the punitive and biting episode and adult rat obsessions as his basis for inferring an etiologic linkage between them. but, as is now clear, the thematic connection adduced by Freud not vouch for the etiologic role of paternal punishment in the pathogenesis of the rat obsessions. And Freud simply begs the etiologic question here by trading thematic affinity. Furthermore, as I have noted elsewhere, in the case of his Wolf Man, Freud appealed to thematic affinity of upright physical posture as a basis for fallaciously inferring an etiologic connection between eighteen-month-old child's presumably witnessing a tergo intercourse between his parents and his wolf obsessions in adult life (p. 156)."

Freud's theory of transference, Graunbaub says, erred, first, because while the patient's behavior toward the attending psychotherapist might have had a retroindictive inference that did provide a linkage to his childhood experiences with his parents, it is not enough to demonstrate that that experience was pathogenic to begin with (p. 156). The pathogenic linkage is necessary to establish adult thematic similarity, which Mills contends Freud failed to establish.

"The finding, based on similarity judgments, that both adults and children in the learning condition show the same pattern of expansion at the category boundary when compared with participants in the control condition is consistent with the idea that changes to the metric of similarity and space may mediate the concept formation in an age-independent fashion (Gray and Christian 2002, p. 588)."

In other words, the use of thematic similarity logic in adults is as relevant as it is in young children, where the focus of thematic similarity has long been an ongoing one. This gives rise to new approaches in treatment of conditions like OCD. Joseph Walters, Tina Blythe, and Noel White (Puckett and Reese (Eds.) 1993) say that questions like "How do people change or develop?" And "How should we train agents of change to do that effectively?" are answered with studies formed around adult thematic similarity (p. 74).

Walters, et al., say that we must look to the theory of Multiple Intelligence (MI) to better understand the cognitive abilities of adults that often deviate from observable behaviors demonstrated as children (p. 138), and we can then use this understanding to better understand thematic similarities that are demonstrated by adults. These researchers use the imaginary studies created around middle school children who demonstrate certain strengths in music, leadership, and learning (pp. 136-138).

Observably, these strengths, which might be impacted by the response of the group around them during middle school, is not indicative in and of itself as to how these children will behave and manifest their strengths as adults (pp. 136-138). The child with the strong musical ability, but whose ability is inhibited by being unique in that regard amongst her peers, and who therefore does not readily demonstrate that ability amongst her peers as a young middle school child, might nonetheless overcome those inhibitions as grow into adulthood, and especially when they begin relating to their musical peer group on an level of participation with an increased frequency and increased duration of time (pp. 136-138).

This is true of all of us who, as adults, change the nature of our jobs or profession, or change employers within the same profession. As we move from employer to employer, the semantics of the work we do might vary or change with organizationally unique language, and we adapt to the thematic similarities of the groups within we work and communicate about our work. Not to do would adversely impact the way we communicate with our co-workers, and it would isolate us from the group as a result of our inability to communicate with our peer group.

On the other hand, as is pointed out in Cottrell, the middle school student that exhibits the leadership qualities in the middle school group might not carry-over that ability into her adult life (pp. 136-138). In that case, the student might find that the social and working skill sets required of her are very different than what she experienced amongst her middle school peer group, and she would have to adopt the thematic similarities of the group with whom she is now associated with on an adult level, or fail in those relationships. All of these forms of adapting require a different level of cognitive process of information, and it is a process that does not cease throughout our adult lives.

Certainly, as Freud held, the experiences of childhood and our emergence into young adulthood will in some ways manifest themselves, and those manifestations could take on negative expressions. To that extent, thematic similarity studies and information in adults would be useful in treating those negative behavioral expressions.

"The various aptitudes or intelligences are universal; that is, they are found in all humans (with only rare exceptions) and in all cultures. The intelligences are also tightly bound to specific cultural contexts. For example, the linguistic skill (or intelligence) is universal and its development in children is surprisingly constant across cultures; the use of spoken words to tell a story, or the use of signs in American Sign Language to give directions, or the use of letters to produce a secret code. These activities also occur in a cultural context: The story might be a parable told by a religious leader; the directions might be instructions for finding one's way through a new city; the code an initiation to a secret society (Puckett and Reese, pp. 138-139)."

We are in a continual cognitive learning state as we move through our lives and experience different stimuli that must be interpreted by us in order to achieve our goals, whether it be directions to the gas station in a foreign country, or the desire to communicate topically with someone of a different culture and language. We are relying upon thematic similarities to accomplish the goals of communication, understanding, and interaction in our lives, and it is a continual cognitive learning process.

"Thematic similarity has only been previously documented in young children (see E. Markman, 1989, for a review) and in adults from illiterate cultures. In one study, Luria (1976) had illiterate adults compare pairs of objects, asking them what the objects had in common and in what way they were alike. These adults sometimes responded by noting thematic relations between the objects. For example, when one illiterate adult from Uzbekistan was asked by Luria, "what do water and blood have in common?" he responded: 'What's alike about them is that water washes off all sorts of dirt, so it can wash off blood too (82) (Cottrell, p. 464).'"

This question and response was compared and contrasted to the Bassok and Medin (1995) study of students who were neither illiterate nor young, and the results were surprisingly similar: they reflect a prevalent tendency to use thematic integration for computing similarity, and, as such, "should be seriously considered by theoretical accounts of similarity and cognitive processes which rely on similarity as an explanatory construct (Cottrell, pp. 464-465)."