Cross-cultural differences in item and background memory: examining the influence of emotional intensity and scene congruency

After viewing a scene, individuals differ in what they prioritise and remember. Culture may be one factor that influences scene memory, as Westerners have been shown to be more item-focused than Easterners (see Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–934). However, cultures may differ in their sensitivity to scene incongruences and emotion processing, which may account for cross-cultural differences in scene memory. The current study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine scene memory while controlling for scene congruency and the perceived emotional intensity of the images. American and East Asian participants encoded pictures that included a positive, negative, or neutral item placed on a neutral background. After a 20-min delay, participants were shown the item and background separately along with similar and new items and backgrounds to assess memory specificity. Results indicated that even when congruency and emotional intensity were controlled, there was evidence that Americans had better item memory than East Asians. Incongruent scenes were better remembered than congruent scenes. However, this effect did not differ by culture. This suggests that Americans’ item focus may result in memory changes that are robust despite variations in scene congruency and perceived emotion.     

A Feasibility Trial of Mental Health First Aid First Nations: Acceptability,Cultural Adaptation,and Preliminary Outcomes

The Mental Health First Aid First Nations course was adapted from Mental Health First Aid Basic to create a community‐based, culturally safe and relevant approach to promoting mental health literacy in First Nations contexts. Over 2.5 days, the course aims to build community capacity by teaching individuals to recognize and respond to mental health crises. This feasibility trial utilized mixed methods to evaluate the acceptability, cultural adaptation, and preliminary effectiveness of MHFAFN. Our approach was grounded in community‐based participatory research principles, emphasizing relationship‐driven procedures to collecting data and choice for how participants shared their voices. Data included participant interviews (n = 89), and surveys (n = 91) from 10 groups in four provinces. Surveys contained open‐ended questions, retrospective pre‐post ratings, and a scenario. We utilized data from nine facilitator interviews and 24 facilitator implementation surveys. The different lines of evidence converged to highlight strong acceptability, mixed reactions to the cultural adaptation, and gains in participants’ knowledge, mental health first aid skill application, awareness, and self‐efficacy, and reductions in stigma beliefs. Beyond promoting individual gains, the course served as a community‐wide prevention approach by situating mental health in a colonial context and highlighting local resources and cultural strengths for promoting mental well‐being.     

Altered White-Matter Microstructure in Conduct Disorder Is Specifically Associated with Elevated Callous-Unemotional Traits

Adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) and elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits have been reported to present with a more severe and persistent pattern of antisocial behaviour than those with low levels of CU traits. However, relatively few studies have investigated whether there are differences in brain structure between these subgroups.We acquired diffusion tensor imaging data and used tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to compare adolescents with CD and high levels of CU traits (CD/CU+; n?=?18, CD and low levels of CU traits (CD/CU-; n?=?17) and healthy controls (HC; n?=?32) on measures of fractional anisotropy (FA), axial (AD), radial (RD) and mean (MD) diffusivity. Compared to CD/CU- adolescents, those with CD/CU+ presented increased FA and reduced RD and MD (lower diffusivity) in several tracts including: body and splenium of the corpus callosum, right inferior longitudinal fasciculus, ILF; right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, IFOF; left superior longitudinal fasciculus, SLF; left cerebral peduncle, bilateral internal capsule, left superior and posterior corona radiata, bilateral thalamic radiation and left external capsule. In addition, relative to CD/CU- individuals, adolescents with CD/CU+ showed lower diffusivity (indexed by reduced RD and MD) in left uncinate fasciculus and bilateral fornix. Finally, relative to healthy controls, CD/CU+ individuals showed lower diffusivity (reduced RD) in the genu and body of the corpus callosum and left anterior corona radiata. These results suggest that CD/CU+ individuals present with white-matter microstructural abnormalities compared to both CD/CU- individuals and age-matched healthy controls. This finding is consistent with emerging evidence suggesting that CD/CU+ represents a distinct subtype of CD, and illustrates the importance of accounting for heterogeneity within CD populations.     

Psychoanalytic considerations about the anti‐oedipal condition in Heinrich von Kleist’s Penthesilea and in the analysis of Miss M1

Based on Heinrich von Kleist’s drama Penthesilea and a clinical case, this study seeks to demonstrate a theoretical concept that is developed and identified as the anti‐oedipal condition. This state involves a regressive insistence on suffocating any form of oedipal maturation and, with it, any form of genital–sexual desire; it damages, even destroys, any form of intellectual–creative curiosity. A specific form of defensive organization, the anti‐oedipal condition, is sought out when psychic development, when oedipal–genital maturation requires re‐establishing contact with a sort of inner terra cremata, an emotional domain that once had been supposed to be eliminated due to catastrophic experiences that could not be integrated. This defensive organization dominated Kleist’s Amazons as well as Miss M. What happened first in both instances was a regression to and fixation at the anti‐oedipal condition, but the paths leading out of this incapsulation were antipodal.     

MMPI–2 Characteristics of Transsexuals Requesting Sex Reassignment: Comparison of Patients in Prehormonal and Presurgical Phases

Forty-three medical students and 78 nursing students each filled out four copies of the Interpersonal Check List. The subjects described self, ideal self as physician or nurse, and typical and ideal work partner. For each questionnaire the two summary scores Dom and Lov were computed. The results indicate a discrepancy between concepts of self and ideal self and the results also point to considerable disagreement between medical students and nursing students about their roles on the physician-nurse team.     

Need for Closure and the Social Response to Terrorism

It has been long contended that terrorism is a form of psychological warfare with the aim of advancing political objectives through the spreading of fear. The present set of five studies explored the relation between need for closure and the social response to terrorism. We found support for the notion that reminders of terrorist attacks elevate the need for closure and that the need for closure may enhance ingroup identification; interdependence with others; outgroup derogation; and support for tough and decisive counterterrorism policies and for leaders likely to carry out such policies. The implications of this research for the claims of terrorist ideologues regarding the efficacy of terrorism are discussed.     

Deciding to Dissolve: Individual- and Relationship-Level Predictors of Roommate Breakup

The desire to change roommates served as a model of nonromantic relationship dissolution within 115 college roommate dyads. We measured personality, mental health, social/communication patterns, and academic achievement attitudes over the course of a semester, and we used multilevel modeling to estimate individual-level and relationship-level predictors of dissolution. Self-characteristics (e.g., one's own depression), roommate characteristics (e.g., roommate's poor communication), and relationship characteristics (e.g., similarity in attitudes toward competition) each increased desire to end the roommate relationship. In these data, unique contributions from one's own psychological health, one's own and one's roommate's social/communication style, and roommates' attitude similarity predicted relationship dissolution.     

Perversion – structure or organization?

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss perversion, its implications in the clinical setting, and some of the key concepts around it. First, the etymology of the words “perversion”, “structure”, and “organization” is analyzed. Next follows a discussion on the sexual organization of instincts – from the Unconscious to the Oedipus complex in Freud and Lacan – setting the ground for a disavowal-based theory of perversion. An instructive approach has been chosen so as better to organize the various points presented.

Laender NR et al. Perversion – Struktur oder Organisation?

Der Aufsatz diskutiert die Perversion, ihre Auswirkungen im klinischen Setting und einige Schlüsselkonzepte. Zuerst wird die Herkunft der Wörter Perversion, Struktur und Organisation analysiert. Dann folgt eine Diskussion über die Organisation der Sexualität bzw. der Instinkte – vom Unbewussten bis zum Ödipuskomplex bei Freud und Lacan – wodurch eine Theorie der Perversion auf der Basis von Ablehnung begründet wird. Ein instruktiver Zugang, bei dem die verschiedenen Punkte von Interesse gut strukturiert sind, wurde gewählt.

Laender NR et al . Perversion – organización o estructura?

Este trabajo intenta discutir la perversión, sus implicaciones en la clínica y algunos de los conceptos clave alrededor de la perversión.

Primero, es analizada la etimología de las palabras Perversión, Estructura y Organización. Despúes sigue una discusión sobre la organización sexual de los instintos- desde lo Inconsciente hasta el complejo de Edipo en Freud y Lacan- planteando las bases para una teoría de la negación-desaprobación de la perversión.

Para organizar mejor los varios aspectos presentados se escogió una aproximación instructiva.     

The Numerical Stroop Effect in Primary School Children: A Comparison of Low,Normal, and High Achievers

Sixty-six primary school children were selected, of which 21 scored low on a standardized math achievement test, 23 were normal, and 22 high achievers. In a numerical Stroop experiment, children were asked to make numerical and physical size comparisons on digit pairs. The effects of congruity and numerical distance were determined. All children exhibited congruity and distance effects in the numerical comparison. In the physical comparison, children of all performance groups showed Stroop effects when the numerical distance between the digits was large but failed to show them when the distance was small. Numerical distance effects depended on the congruity condition, with a typical effect of distance in the congruent, and a reversed distance effect in the incongruent condition. Our results are hard to reconcile with theories that suggest that deficits in the automaticity of numerical processing can be related to differential math achievement levels. Immaturity in the precision of mappings between numbers and their numerical magnitudes might be better suited to explain the Stroop effects in children. However, as the results for the high achievers demonstrate, in addition to numerical processing capacity per se, domain-general functions might play a crucial role in Stroop performance, too.     

The microcrystalline state of slowly solidified decaprismatic Al-Co-Cu(-Si) needles

Abstract

We show that samples of the decagonal Al-Co-Cu(-Si) phase produced by different slow solidification methods are in the microcrystalline and not in the quasicrystalline state. Parameters for the underlying unit cell are a = b ≈ 51.3 Å, c ≈ 4.1 Å and γ = 108°. Experiments on differently produced samples show the same microcrystalline state and that the (5,7) approximant seems to be highly favoured, compared with the set of possible high-order approximant states.