Maternal Experience with Online Information on Parenting and Infant Care: Qualitative Findings from Quebec,Canada

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Use of online health information is positively associated with citizen knowledge, empowerment, self-care, health outcomes, and quality of life. However, little...     

Visual Perception in Acoustically Deprived and Normally Hearing Children

In the present study an attempt was made to establish if and to what extent auditory deprivation modifies the processes of visual analysis and synthesis. The study included 54 children aged 10–16 years with hearing impairment attending the School and Educational Center for Children with Hearing Impairment in Wroc?aw (group I) and 127 children with normal hearing acuity attending public schools (group II), forming a reference group. Hearing impairment in the children of group I was from 60 to 100 dB. In 9 of these children the hearing impairment was inherited, while in some others it was acquired and resulted from rubella during the mother's pregnancy (5 subjects) or a severe disease course in childhood, for instance cerebral meningitis (4 subjects) and otolaryngologic antibiotic therapy (7 subjects). In the remaining subjects the reason for auditory deprivation was unknown. Hearing impairment, apart from genetically conditioned causes, appeared in the first months or years of life. The general intellectual level of the examined children was similar to that of their control counterparts, which was confirmed by school psychologists during a routine examination. The examination was performed by means of two tests from the Nonverbal Score of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children: Puzzles and Block Design. The children with a hearing deficit generally needed more time to perform the tasks than those with normal hearing. The investigated parameters of visual perception improved in correlation with age, but the dynamics of these changes were different in the two study groups.     

Hate: Evidence for a motivational conceptualization

Motivation and Emotion - Four studies (three Canadian, one African) tested whether lay understandings of hate are congruent with conceptualizing hate as a motive with the goal of diminishing or...     

EFFECT OF ACADEMIC DEGREE AND DISCIPLINE ON RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND EVOLUTION ACCEPTANCE: SURVEY AT A CHILEAN UNIVERSITY

Affiliation with a scientific area or degree program could affect one´s religious beliefs and acceptance of evolution; however, this issue has been poorly studied. Moreover, little information is available regarding Chilean university scientists’ views on religion and evolution. This study aims to provide the first documentation of the opinion of scientists at a Chilean University with regard to religion and evolution. This was done by conducting a personal survey of first and last year undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty. We found that nonreligiosity, as well as acceptance of Darwinian evolution, increased with possession of an advanced degree and this correlation was stronger for individuals who study biology and physics in comparison to those who study chemistry. Although less than 30 percent of undergraduate students are atheists/agnostics, more than 70 percent of faculty members are atheist or agnostic. However, most of the surveyed scientists did not see a conflict between science and religion.     

The suppressing effect of chlorpromazine treatment on alimentary-social differentiation in amygdala dogs

Experiments were performed on dogs with bilateral electrolytic damage of dorso-medial amygdala. Before the operation dogs were trained in alimentary-social reward differentiation. It consisted in conditioning of instrumental responses of either right or left foreleg to two different tones respectively. Chlorpromazine was injected intramuscularly in 1,5 mg/kg dose during four consecutive days, beginning at third to fifth week after the operation. Amygdala damage produced significant deterioration of the instrumental performance both reinforced by food and by social-sensory rewards. Chlorpromazine produced further dramatic decrease of performance of both responses. It was concluded that chlorpromazine exerts a suppressing effect on motivated behavior reinforced by positive rewards in amygdala dogs. As the effect of chlorpromazine and medial amygdalar damage are summated it may be suggested that the deficit of medial amygdala neurons impairs similar neurochemical mechanisms, (probably dopaminergic and α-adrenergic transmission) as does chlorpromazine.     

The Impact of Deep Muscle Training on the Quality of Posture and Breathing

Postural control and breathing are mechanically and neuromuscularly interdependent. Both systems– of spinal stability and respiration– involve the diaphragm, transversus abdominis, intercostal muscles, internal oblique muscles and pelvic floor muscles. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of exercises activating deep stabilizer muscles on postural control and quality of breathing movements. Eighteen volunteers (25,7 ± 3,5) were recruited from the general population. All the subjects implemented an exercise program activating deep muscles. Head, pelvic and trunk positions in the sagittal and frontal planes were assessed with the photogrammetric method. Breathing movements were estimated with the respiratory inductive plethysmography. The results indicate that the use of deep muscle training contributed to a significant change in the position of the body in the sagittal plane (p = 0.008) and the increase in the amplitude of breathing (p = 0.001).     

False memories of emotional and neutral words

This study used the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm to investigate the direction and the extent to which emotional valence in semantic word lists influences the formation of false memories (FM). The experimental paradigm consisted of 1) a study phase (learning of neutral and negative lists of words semantically associated to a non-presented critical lure (CL), 2) a free recall phase, and 3) a recognition phase. Participants had to indicate whether the displayed item was "new" (new item or non-studied CL) or "old" (studied list item). CL associated with negative word lists elicited significantly more FM than CL associated with neutral word lists. This finding is in contrast to previous work showing that emotional words elicit fewer FM than neutral words. The results of our study also suggest that valence is capable of influencing emotional memory in terms of encoding and retrieval processes.     

Cognitive processing impairments in a supra-second temporal discrimination task in rats with cerebellar lesion

The role of interpositus nuclei (IN) in timing in the sub-second range is well supported in eyeblink conditioning studies. Timing impairments shown in the seconds range in patients with intermediate cerebellar lesion, and known intermediate cerebellar cortex projection to IN raise the question of a possible involvement of IN in timing in the supra-second range as well. To address this question, we tested rats (Sprague-Dawley) given bilateral lesions of IN with Colchicine in a 2- vs. 8-s temporal discrimination task, followed by three daily sessions of a temporal bisection tests with five added intermediate non-reinforced durations. IN lesioned rats showed normal acquisition of the temporal discrimination, but a transient impairment of temporal sensitivity during the bisection tests. In addition, their response latencies suggested a different behavioral strategy from that of control animals. Our results indicate that the IN of the cerebellum may not be critically involved in temporal processing in the 2–8 s range, but may play a role in the cognitive processes that access temporal information in the mediation of choice behavior.