Long-term memory for traumatic events: experiences and emotional reactions during the 2000 flood in Italy

The authors investigated how people remember real-life traumatic events. Adult residents (N = 145) of an Italian community that was flooded in fall of 2000 completed a questionnaire 3 years after the flood. Respondents briefly recounted their personal experiences with the flood and answered questions about emotional reactions to the flood, appraisal processes, and disaster exposure. Results showed that participants tended to recall experiences that occurred during the most critical phases of the disaster. The emotions most strongly experienced by respondents-sadness, fear, and surprise-were associated with specific appraisals. Content and amount of memories about flood experiences did not significantly vary as a function of flood exposure. Moreover, there was no significant relationship between memory quantity and emotional intensity. The authors discuss findings in the context of literature on traumatic memory and emotion.     

Pure optic ataxia and visual hemiagnosia – extending the dual visual hypothesis

Goodale and Milner's two visual system hypothesis is an influential model for the understanding of the primate visual system. Lesions of either the ventral (occipito‐temporal) or the dorsal (occipito‐parietal) stream produce distinct and dissociated syndromes in humans: visual agnosia is typical for ventral damage, whereas optic ataxia (OA) for dorsal damage. We studied the case of a 59‐year‐old left‐handed woman with a circumscribed lesion around the left posterior occipital sulcus, extending to the underlying white matter. Initially, she presented with a central visual field OA, which regressed to an OA to the right visual hemifield during the 3 months observation period. In addition, tachistoscopic experiments showed visual hemiagnosia to the right visual hemifield. In line with the findings of the neuropsychological experiments, the analysis of the structural MR data by means of a trackwise hodologic probabilistic approach revealed damage to the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and to the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus, indicating an impairment of both the dorsal and the ventral stream. The combination of OA and visual hemiagnosia in the same patient has never been previously described. The present case study thus provides further insights for the understanding of visual processing.     

Is Nanotechnology Giving Rise to New Ethical Problems?

In this paper I focus on the question of whether nanotechnology is giving rise to new ethical problems rather than merely to new instances of old ethical problems. Firstly, I demonstrate how important it is to make a general distinction between new ethical problems and new instances of old problems. Secondly, I propose one possible way of interpreting the distinction and offer a definition of a “new ethical problem”. Thirdly, I examine whether there is good reason to claim that nanotechnology is giving or will give rise to new ethical problems. My conclusion is that there are no new ethical problems in nanotechnology but merely new occurrences of certain well-known types of ethical problems. Fourthly, I consider three arguments by van de Poel (NanoEthics 2:25–28, 2008) which contradict my conclusion. I argue that my negative conclusion is consistent with the claim that certain ethical issues arising in nanotechnology may require new normative standards or new analytical tools. I conclude that it is likely that a number of ethical issues arising in nanotechnology will have a considerable impact on our ethical theories and values – and that ethical reflection on nanotechnology will be one of the mother lodes of future ethical research – in spite of the fact that no ethical problem in nanoethics will actually be “new”.     

Organizing principles of involvement in human rights and their social anchoring in value priorities

Two questionnaire studies were conducted (N=80 and N=175) to examine the structure and the social anchoring of the organizing principles of personal and governmental involvement concerning human rights. The results indicated that these organizing principles had, as hypothesized one abstract and one applied dimension. The second study evaluated the correlations between these dimensions and values. Results were consistent with Schwartz's (1992) model predicting both the internal structure of values and their relations with other variables. Amongst other results, self-transcendence values were positively correlated with the abstract involvements and the applied personal involvement, and negatively with the applied governmental involvement. The results concerning the correlations between conservation values and the four organizing principles were the opposite. Results concerning the links between different levels of social anchorings, particularly between the value types and variables such as religious affiliation and practice political preferences, and social and political activism were also presented and discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Introduction: Beyond Toleration?

Although tolerance is widely regarded as a virtue of both individuals and groups that modern democratic and multiculturalist societies cannot do without, there is still much disagreement among political thinkers as to what tolerance demands, or what can be done to create and sustain a culture of tolerance. The philosophical literature on toleration contains three main strands. (1) An agreement that a tolerant society is more than a modus vivendi; (2) discussion of the proper object(s) of toleration; (3) debate about whether there is a ‘paradox’ of toleration and, if so, how it might be solved. This Introduction outlines how each of the subsequent papers addresses problems in the theory and practice of toleration, in the light of these three strands in the existing literature. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Autobiographical recall training in elderly adults with subjective memory complaint: a pilot study

Subjective memory complaint is a self-reported memory impairment which affects elderly people. This problem does not interfere with daily living activities but could decrease quality of life. This study's purpose was to verify whether a specific, newly developed, autobiographical recall training could modify self-perception of memory of subjects with subjective memory complaint. Seven elderly subjects (4 women and 3 men; mean age 65.5 yr., SD=11) with such complaint, evidenced through a specific questionnaire, attended the training course and were prospectively assessed on standard neuropsychological tests, depressive symptomatology, and self-perception of memory. Self-perception of memory, as assessed by scores on a formalized questionnaire, improved significantly after the training, while depressive symptoms did not change. Neuropsychological performances were normal before and after the training, but a statistically significant improvement was observed only on the phonological fluency test. Thus the present pilot study suggested that the training may be effective in improving self-perception of memory and metamnestic capacity in elderly people with subjective memory complaints but not in changing subjects' depressive symptoms. This requires replication of this work with a much larger sample so statistical power is adequate.     

Mother and father socially desirable responding in nine countries: Two kinds of agreement and relations to parenting self‐reports

We assessed 2 forms of agreement between mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the United States (N = 1110 families). Mothers and fathers in all 9 countries reported socially desirable responding in the upper half of the distribution, and countries varied minimally (but China was higher than the cross‐country grand mean and Sweden lower). Mothers and fathers did not differ in reported levels of socially desirable responding, and mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding were largely uncorrelated. With one exception, mothers' and fathers' socially desirable responding were similarly correlated with self‐perceptions of parenting, and correlations varied somewhat across countries. These findings are set in a discussion of socially desirable responding, cultural psychology and family systems.     

An integrated model of eye movements and visual encoding

Recent computational models of cognition have made good progress in accounting for the visual processes needed to encode external stimuli. However, these models typically incorporate simplified models of visual processing that assume a constant encoding time for all visual objects and do not distinguish between eye movements and shifts of attention. This paper presents a domain-independent computational model, EMMA, that provides a more rigorous account of eye movements and visual encoding and their interaction with a cognitive processor. The visual-encoding component of the model describes the effects of frequency and foveal eccentricity when encoding visual objects as internal representations. The eye-movement component describes the temporal and spatial characteristics of eye movements as they arise from shifts of visual attention. When integrated with a cognitive model, EMMA generates quantitative predictions concerning when and where the eyes move, thus serving to relate higher-level cognitive processes and attention shifts with lower-level eye-movement behavior. The paper evaluates EMMA in three illustrative domains — equation solving, reading, and visual search — and demonstrates how the model accounts for aspects of behavior that simpler models of cognitive and visual processing fail to explain.     

Calendar interviewing: a mixed methods device for a biographical approach to migration

Biographical interviews are used in life stories research to elicit narratives on retrospective views of the self and the social world. Life calendars are used in life course research to collect standardized data in various domains of individual lives. Both instruments deal with autobiographical memory, which is a critical aspect for data quality and accuracy. This article presents a mixed methods use of life calendars and life stories for researching on migration called the Calendar Interviewing Device (CID). The CID consists of a life calendar for characterizing trajectories and collecting life stories through open-ended interviews. An analysis of 12 interviews examines the features of this particular research device, namely its flexibility on adapting to different interviewees, the strategies they used for recalling events and locating them in time, and the richness of the data obtained with the CID.