Nonsomatic cerebullar circuits: a broader view of cerebellar involvements in locomotion

The cerebellum not only receives extensive proprioceptive input from the periphery but also has bidirectional monosynaptic connections with the hypothalamus. This latter structure, in turn, is reciprocally interconnected with brain-stem visceral centers that also project to the cerebellum. Through these connections, information derived from somatic receptors that arrives at the cerebellum can directly influence visceral centers and circuits. It is suggested that the visceral responses seen during locomotor activity can be continuously monitored and partially regulated through such connections.     

Error patterns in the judgment and production of numerical proportions

Sinusoidal constant error curves frequently occur in the judgment of nurnerical proportions, but there are puzzling discrepancies in the direction of constant error reported in various experiments. An experiment showed that the direction of constant error was reversed when the required response changed from judgment to production of proportions. It is concluded that errors are perceptual in origin rather than reflecting response biases. One subject showed an error pattern opposite to the group mean, both in judgment and in production. It is speculated that the discrepancies hetween reported results may primarily reflect the random assortment of subjects with consistent, but fundamentally different, characteristics.     

The role of postdeployment social factors in linking deployment experiences and current posttraumatic stress disorder symptomatology among male and female veterans

Background and Objectives: The postdeployment social context is likely highly salient in explaining mental health symptoms following deployment. The aim of this study was to examine the role of postdeployment social factors (social support and social reintegration difficulty) in linking deployment-related experiences (warfare exposure, sexual harassment, concerns about relationship disruptions, and deployment social support) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology in male and female veterans.

Design: A survey was administered to 998 potential participants (after accounting for undeliverable mail) who had returned from deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. Completed surveys were received from 469 veterans, yielding a response rate of 47%.

Methods: Hypotheses were examined using structural equation modeling.

Results: For male and female veterans, deployment factors predicted later PTSD symptoms through postdeployment social support and social reintegration, with lower support and higher social reintegration difficulty both associated with higher PTSD symptomatology. While the final models for women and men indicated similar risk mechanisms, some differences in pathways were observed. Sexual harassment presented more of a risk for women, whereas lower social support was a greater risk factor for men.

Conclusions: Postdeployment social factors appear to represent potentially important targets for interventions aiming to reduce the potential impact of stressful deployment experiences.     

Social likeability,conformity, and body talk: Does fat talk have a normative rival in female body image conversations?

Fat talk, dialogues among women involving negative body-focused discussions, was studied as a function of conformity and social likeability through the use of four vignettes depicting young women in conversation. Using a 2 (body presentation style of the group: negative or positive) × 2 (body presentation style of the target, Jenny: negative or positive) factorial design, 215 college women (92.1% non-Hispanic Caucasian) read one of four vignettes in a classroom setting and made ratings on a social likeability scale. Participants’ personal ratings of Jenny's likeability were higher when she spoke positively about her body, whereas they expected the other group members in the vignette to like Jenny more when she conformed to the group's body presentation style. This study is the first to support two competing norms for women's body image—the existing norm to fat talk versus a newly documented norm that some women like others who express body acceptance.     

Measuring Implicit British Perceptions of German Intentions in 1938–1939

Implicit British perceptions of German leaders during the period September 30, 1938–September 1, 1939 (from the Munich Agreements to the German invasion of Poland) are studied with a "ratio of threat accentuation" measure. This ratio is calculated by comparing the densities of power motive imagery in two kinds of archival material: full texts of major Hitler speeches versus summaries in The Times of London, and British versus German accounts of meetings between British diplomats and major Nazi leaders. In both cases, the British ratio of threat accentuation increases following the unexpected German occupation of Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939. These changes in implicit perception are congruent with changes in British explicit perceptions and foreign policy after the German action.     

The self, the psyche and the world: a phenomenological interpretation

Abstract :  This paper takes as its starting point Jung's definition of the self as the totality of the psyche. However, because the term psyche remains conceptually unclear the concept of the self as totality, origin and goal, even centre, remains vague. With reference to Heidegger's analysis of human being as  Dasein , as well as Jung's writings, it is argued that Jung's concept of psyche is not a synonym for mind but is the world in which we live psychologically. An understanding of the psyche as existentially situated requires us to rethink some features of the self. For instance, the self as origin is thus not a pre-existential integrate of pure potentiality but the original gathering of existence in which, and out of which, personal identity is constituted. The ego emerges out of the self as the development and ownership of aspects of an existence that is already situated and gathered. Relations between the ego and the self are about what is known, or admitted, and its relation with what is already being lived within the gathering that is existence. The self as psyche, origin, and centre are discussed, as well as the meaning of interiority. Epistemological assumptions of object relations theory are critically discussed. The paper also includes critical discussions of recent papers on the self.