The effect of alcoholic intoxication upon calorically induced oculogyral illusion

Ten male and 10 female subjects, half of whom were classified as “heavy” and half as “light” drinkers, ingested a 4-1 combination of tonic water and 80-proof vodka in an amount calculated to produce a state of moderate intoxication (average estimated peak blood alcohol level=.075). This resulted in an increased sensitivity (latency, magnitude, and duration) to the calorically induced “oculogyral illusion” (OGI) relative to a placebo (tonic water) condition. “Heavy” and “light” drinkers did not differ significantly on any of the measures. It was speculated that the alcoholic enhancement of the OGI was due either to a decreased ability to suppress vestibular nystagmus when attempting to fixate a visual stimulus or to the expenditure of extra-normal effort in order to maintain fixation.     

Self-focused attention and the experience of alcoholic intoxication

The present study investigates the relationship between self-focused attention and the experience of emotional and bodily concomitants of alcoholic intoxication. It was hypothesized that self-focused attention would amplify salient mood and bodily concomitants of intoxication after alcohol intake and counteract these concomitants after placebo treatment. Self-focused attention was assessed by measures of private body consciousness, private self-consciousness, and of self-awareness. Since alcohol intake did not influence mood, it was not possible to test our main-hypothesis linking self-focused attention with the experience of mood concomitants of intoxication. As to bodily concomitants of intoxication a strong effect of alcohol intake was disclosed. Further analysis revealed the predicted relationship between self-awareness and private body consciousness on one hand and the experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication, on the other. The relationship between private body consciousness and experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication was moderated by the amount of experience with alcohol. No significant relationship between private self-consciousness and experience of bodily concomitants of intoxication was found.     

Institutionalization of psychoanalysis by health policy. The "general practice study" and its "short form"

The author reviews the "study of practice" concerning the delivery of psychotherapeutic services in the Federal Republic. She then evaluates the short formulation of these findings and finally the long version as well. In doing so, she traces developmental tendencies of psychoanalysis in the Federal Republic.     

The role of experience in liking "read-to-drink" alcoholic beverages.

Ready-to-drinks (RTDs) are composed of an alcoholic component and a soft-drink base and are primarily consumed by a youth market. The authors explored whether liking and experience with an RTD soft-drink base predicts liking for the RTD. Participants (N=350) from ages 12 to 30 years sampled 3 RTDs and their respective soft-drink and alcoholic components. For milk- and fruit-based RTDs, liking for and familiarity with their soft-drink base was the best predictor of liking for and familiarity with the RTD itself. For the Coke-based RTD, familiarity with and liking for bourbon best predicted familiarity with and liking for the RTD. All of these effects were consistent across blind and nonblind testing. The authors' results suggest that where there is perceptual similarity between the RTD and its soft-drink base, these beverages may provide an easy transition into alcohol consumption for novice drinkers.     

中国古典美学中的身体及其映像

Richard Shusterman’s Pragmatist Aesthetics: Living Beauty, Rethinking Art was published in China in 2002. In the preface of the Chinese edition, the author claimed that his tentative idea of soma esthetics was encouraged by Chinese philosophy and other ancient Asian philosophy. Shusterman’s background in pragmatist philosophy greatly constrains his understanding of the body in classical Chinese aesthetics in that he only pays attention to the technical aspects of physical training while neglecting the philosophical basis of this training. In Chinese philosophy the orientation of the body, the relationship between the body and the universe, the body characteristic of the beauty of nature and the beauty of art, etc., is a theoretical response to Shusterman’s oriental misreading. Translated by Lei Yongqiang from Wenyi Yanjiu 컄틕퇐뺿 (Literature & Art Studies), 2007, (4): 23–31     

Self-reported expected emotional changes as a function of alcohol intoxication by alcoholic men and women

80 alcoholic men and women registered for counseling at different Swedish outpatient units volunteered to complete semantic differential scales related to emotional expected effects of alcohol intoxication. Analyses indicated that alcoholics expect large doses of alcohol to increase pleasure, dominance, and arousal. These results were discussed in comparison with the results from previous related studies with nonalcoholic samples.     

Masking-level differences and the form of the psychometric function

Functions showing the relation between-the detectability and the energy of a signal were determined for various interaural phase conditions. The empirical relation between d′ and signal energy E is approximately d′=m(E/N₀)^k where m and k are constants for a particular function. The data show that k is fairly constant for a particular O and that m depends upon the interaural condition. That is, the various psychometrie functions for a given O all had the same form, independent of location. Therefore, the magnitude of the MLD=(10/k)log(m_i/m_r), where m_i is the constant for condition i, and m_r corresponds to a reference condition. Consequently, an MLD is relatively independent of the level of performance that is chosen for the determination of that MLD.     

Children judge "perspective" transformations of letterlike forms as different from prototypes

Children from 5 to 11 years old made same-different judgments of prototypes of letterlike forms paired with transforms of these prototypes generated on a dimension either critical or noncritical for object identification. For compression transformations (noncritical: as in perspective shift), frequency of correct “different” judgments increased as the degree of compression in the transform increased. This result challenges the view that dimensions irrelevant in object identification are ignored or not detected in graphic discrimination.     

The pre-delirium syndrome in alcoholic patients in ambulatory care and its treatment

In an administrative district of roughly 70,000 inhabitants, two-thirds urban, one-third rural, 60 patients, 46 male, 14 female, received out-patient treatment for alcoholic predelirious syndromes during the period 1982-1986. The total number of predeliorious attacks was 91, age incidence lay between 18 and 65, peaking at 35 to 45. In 61.7% of the cases only one predelirious attack occurred, in 28.3% two, and in 10.0% three or more. Through the period there is a perceptible rising tendency. In eight cases there was an epileptic grand mal fit in the course of a predelirious attack. Out-patient treatment was successful in all but three cases, which definitely called for hospitalised treatment. Diazepam, Diazepam/Haloperiodol, and Distraneurin were administered orally as a regular part of the program of treatment. 30 times Diazepam and Haloperidol effected a cure, while in 61 attacks it appeared that treatment with Chlormethiazol was inevitable. Results are discussed and conclusions drawn.     

A framework for the transfer of proofs,lemmas and strategies from classical to non classical logics

There exist valuable methods for theorem proving in non classical logics based on translation from these logics into first-order classical logic (abbreviated henceforth FOL). The key notion in these approaches istranslation from aSource Logic (henceforth abbreviated SL) to aTarget Logic (henceforth abbreviated TL). These methods are concerned with the problem offinding a proof in TL by translating a formula in SL, but they do not address the very important problem ofpresenting proofs in SL via a backward translation. We propose a framework for presenting proofs in SL based on a partial backward translation of proofs obtained in a familiar TL: Order-Sorted Predicate Logic. The proposed backward translation transfers some formulasF _TL belonging to the proof in TL into formulasF _SL , such that the formulasF _SL either (a) belong to a corresponding deduction in SL (in the best case) or, (b) are semantically related in some precise way, to formulas in the corresponding deduction in SL (in the worst case). The formulasF _TL andF _SL can obviously be considered aslemmas of their respective proofs. Therefore the transfer of lemmas of TL gives at least a skeleton of the corresponding proof in SL. Since the formulas of a proof keep trace of the strategy used to obtain the proof, clearly the framework can also help in solving another fundamental and difficult problem:the transfer of strategies from classical to non classical logics. We show how to apply the proposed framework, at least to S5, S4(p), K, T, K4. Two conjectures are stated and we propose sufficient (and in general satisfactory) conditions in order to obtain formulas in the proof in SL. Two particular cases of the conjectures are proved to be theorems. Three examples are treated in full detail. The main lines of future research are given.     

The representation of auditory source characteristics: Simple geometric form

Two experiments examined listeners’ ability to discriminate the geometric shape of simple resonating bodies on the basis of their corresponding auditory attributes. In cross-modal matching tasks, subjects listened to recordings of pairs of metal bars (Experiment 1) or wooden bars (Experiment 2) struck in sequence and then selected a visual depiction of the bar cross sections that correctly represented their relative widths and heights from two opposing pairs presented on a computer screen. Multidimensional scaling solutions derived from matching scores for metal and wooden bars indicated that subjects’ performance varied directly with increasing differences in the width/height (WIH) ratios of both sets of bars. Subsequent acoustic analyses revealed that the frequency components from torsional vibrational modes and the ratios of frequencies of transverse bending modes in the bars correlated strongly with both the bars’ WIH ratios and bar coordinates in the multidimensional configurations. The results suggest that listeners can encode the auditory properties of sound sources by extracting certain invariant physical characteristics of their gross geometric properties from their acoustic behavior.     

Unique characteristics of neonatal classical conditioning: The role of the amygdala and locus coeruleus

The central nervous system of altricial infants is specialized for optimizing attachments to their caregiver. During the first postnatal days, infant rats show a sensitive period for learning and particularly susceptible to learning an attraction to their mother’s odor. Classical conditioning appears to underlie this learning that is expressed behaviorally as anincreased ability to acquire odor preferences and a decreased ability to acquire odor aversions. Specifically, in neonatal rats, pairing an odor with moderately painful shock (0.5mA) or milk produces a subsequent relativepreference for that odor. The neural circuitry supporting theincreased ability to acquire odor preferences appears to be the heightened functioning of the noradrenergic pontine nucleus locus coeruleus. Indeed, norepinephrine from the locus coeruleus appears to be both necessary and sufficient for learning during the sensitive period. On the other hand, thedecreased ability to acquire odor aversions seems to be due to the lack of participation of the amygdala in at least some aversive learning situations. The site of plasticity in the pup’s brain appears to be limited to the olfactory bulb. This neonatal sensitive period for learning ends around postnatal day 9–10, at which time pups make the transition from crawling to walking and classical conditioning becomes “adultlike”. The neonatal behavioral and neural induced changes are retained into adulthood where it modifies sexual behavior.     

Stability of individual differences in personality characteristics from 3 to 15 years

Ratings of 23 personality variables on a longitudinal sample of 97 children at the ages of 3, 7, 11 and 15 yr had previously been shown to yield orthogonal factors of high continuity of structure across ages. Subjects' scores on these factors were employed to derive stability coefficients over these ages. The general level of obtained r's is modest, but is higher for measures of Extraversion-Introversion (EI) and other broad factors (Neuroticism (N), Melancholic-Sanguine (MS), and Choleric-Phlegmatic (CP)) than for narrower Varimax factors (EI, Melancholic and Activity), except in the case of Choleric. Complete regression factor scores proved more satisfactory than an inexact method. Global ratings of EI and N yielded similar r's to the factor measures.The effects of correcting for rater unreliability and possible values of ‘protocol’ unreliability are examined. Even in the case of a maximal correction, stability tends to be lower than is found for IQ data, suggesting greater instability of the underlying personality variables.Lawley's test of heterogeneity of correlation matrices provides only limited evidence of a simplex pattern across ages, and virtually none of a ‘sleeper effect’. Jennrich's test of differences in matrices provides no evidence of sex differences in stability.Results on stability of the specific variables are also reported. They show, with few exceptions, lower stability than factor variables. Jennrich's test yielded significant sex differences on only three specific variables.     

The "population explosion" and its ecological consequences

Study of the population problem is essential because the world is now experiencing a natural birthrate and an artificially created death rate due to the impact of modern medicine. It is felt that we are now at the peak of the growth rate of the earth's population and that eventually, through higher cultural levels, everybody will start regulating his fertility.     

Consistencies in sex differences on the Cognitive Abilities Test across countries,grades, test forms,and cohorts

Background Strand, Deary, and Smith (2006) reported an analysis of sex differences on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT) for over 320,000 UK students 11–12 years old. Although mean differences were small, males were overrepresented at the upper and lower extremes of the score distributions on the quantitative and non‐verbal batteries and at the lower extreme of the verbal battery. Aims We investigate whether these results were unique to the UK or whether they would be seen in other countries, at other grades, cohorts, or forms of the test. Sample The sample consisted of three nationally representative cohorts of US students in grades 3 through 11 (total N = 318,599) for the 1984, 1992, and 2000 standardizations of the US version of the CAT. Methods We replicated and extended the Strand et al. (2006) results by comparing the proportions of males and females at each score level across countries (UK vs. US), grades (3–11), and cohorts/test forms (Forms 4, 5, and 6 standardized in 1984, 1992, and 2000, respectively). Results The results showed an astonishing consistency in sex differences across countries, grades, cohorts, and test forms. Conclusions Implications for the current debate about sex differences in quantitative reasoning abilities are discussed.     

A formal system for classical particle mechanics,its model-theoretic applications and space-time structure

In the history of Newtonian Mechanics physicists and astronomers did not rely on so-called inertial frames, indeed they were not able to identify such frames. So the usual neo-Newtonian formalism of Newtonian Mechanics contains some superfluous components. In the present paper I will formulate a formal system for classical particle mechanics in Leibnizian space-time, where a relation, a counterpart of the second law of motion, between force on bodies and derivative of their momentum will be defined relative to every, inertial or not, reference frame. And I will present a view that in the research process under Newtonian mechanics the accumulation of those models of the relation that satisfied some realistic conditions determined an additional structure of non-rotating frames to Leibnizian space-time.