Indikation zur ambulanten Nachsorge (Curriculum Hannover) in der Psychosomatischen Rehabilitation

Outpatient psychosomatic aftercare (Curriculum Hannover) was introduced nationwide in 2000 by the pension scheme. The effectiveness and efficacy of outpatient psychosomatic aftercare has been widely researched. This publication presents an indication-model based on four levels (capacity, participation, activity and impairment) whereas empirical results and clinical experience concerning participation in psychosomatic outpatient aftercare following an in-patient rehabilitation are considered in accordance with the international classification of functioning, disability and health.     

Average Effects Based on Regressions with a Logarithmic Link Function: A New Approach with Stochastic Covariates

Psychometrika - Researchers often use regressions with a logarithmic link function to evaluate the effects of a treatment on a count variable. In order to judge the average effectiveness of the...     

Self-control motivationally reconsidered: “Acting” self-controlled is different to “being good” at self-control

Motivation and Emotion - Self-control is typically conceptualized as an inherent human skill, focusing on the imperative control of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In the present research, we...     

Sound source location modulates the irrelevant-sound effect

Participants memorized lists of visually presented digits in silence or while ignoring distractor sounds that either came from the front and thus from the direction in which participants' attention was oriented, or from behind. Distractor sounds impaired recall performance, but the largest impairment was observed when the sound source was directionally close to the frontal visual target display. The results are consistent with the assumption of cross-modal attentional links in models of attention, and they are problematic for explanations of the irrelevant-sound effect within working memory models that do not specify an explicit role of attention in the maintenance of information for immediate serial recall.     

The influence of syllable onset complexity and syllable frequency on speech motor control

Functional imaging studies have delineated a "minimal network for overt speech production", encompassing mesiofrontal structures (supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate gyrus), bilateral pre- and postcentral convolutions, extending rostrally into posterior parts of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of the language-dominant hemisphere, left anterior insula as well as bilateral components of the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and the thalamus. In order to further elucidate the specific contribution of these cerebral regions to speech motor planning, subjects were asked to read aloud visually presented bisyllabic pseudowords during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The test stimuli systematically varied in onset complexity (CCV versus CV) and frequency of occurrence (high-frequency, HF versus low-frequency, LF) of the initial syllable. A cognitive subtraction approach revealed a significant main effect of syllable onset complexity (CCV versus CV) at the level of left posterior IFG, left anterior insula, and both cerebellar hemispheres. Conceivably, these areas closely cooperate in the sequencing of subsyllabic aspects of the sound structure of verbal utterances. A significant main effect of syllable frequency (LF versus HF), by contrast, did not emerge. However, calculation of the time series of hemodynamic activation within the various cerebral structures engaged in speech motor control revealed this factor to enhance functional connectivity between Broca's area and ipsilateral anterior insula.     

Implementing communication between Windows PCs and test equipment using RS-232 and Borland C++ Builder.

Modern experiments in the behavioral sciences frequently employ several items of electronic equipment such as computers, monitoring devices, stimulus presentation equipment, and response collection systems. In many cases it would be advantageous for these items to communicate directly with each other. Such communication may facilitate greater automation of experiments (i.e., reduced experimenter influences during the experiment), more precise experiment control (i.e., superior timing and synchronization capabilities of electronic devices), and greater accuracy of data collection (i.e., reduced ambiguity of participant responses). Many electronic experiment devices already provide external interfaces through which communication with other devices can be implemented. The most common is based on the RS-232 protocol, which is also found in all standard PCs. Therefore, Microsoft Windows based computers can be programmed to control experiments by communicating directly with electronic experiment devices. We show how to implement this RS-232 interconnection between devices and a Windows PC using currently available software tools.     

Me or not me – An optimal integration of agency cues?

Recent work has demonstrated that the sense of agency is not only determined by efference-copy-based internal predictions and internal comparator mechanisms, but by a large variety of different internal and external cues. The study by Moore and colleagues [Moore, J. W., Wegner, D. M., & Haggard, P. (2009). Modulating the sense of agency with external cues. Conscious and Cognition] aimed to provide further evidence for this view by demonstrating that external agency cues might outweigh or even substitute efferent signals to install a basic registration of self-agency. Although the study contains some critical points that, so we argue, are central to a proper interpretation of the data, it hints at a new perspective on agency: optimal cue integration seems to be the key to a robust sense of agency. We here argue that this framework could allow integrating the findings of Moore and colleagues and other recent agency studies into a comprehensive picture of the sense of agency and its pathological disruptions.