When remembering causes forgetting: retrieval-induced forgetting as recovery failure

Retrieval practice on a subset of previously learned material can cause forgetting of the unpracticed material and make it inaccessible to consciousness. Such inaccessibility may arise because the material is no longer sampled from the set of to-be-recalled items, or, though sampled, its representation is not complete enough to be recovered into consciousness. In 2 experiments, it was examined whether retrieval-induced forgetting reflects a sampling or recovery failure by studying the time course of cued recall in this type of situation. Although retrieval practice reduced recall totals of the unpracticed items, in both experiments, the forgetting was not accompanied by an effect on the items' response latencies. This pattern of results is consistent with the view that inhibited items are successfully sampled but, because of a reduction in their activation level, do not exceed the recovery threshold.     

Exemplarization: a solution to the problem of consciousness?

In recent publications, Keith Lehrer developed the intriguing idea of a special mental process??exemplarization??and applied it in a sophisticated manner to different phenomena such as intentionality, representation of the self, the knowledge of ineffable content (of art works) and the problem of phenomenal consciousness. In this paper I am primarily concerned with the latter issue. The target of this paper is to analyze whether exemplarization, besides explaining epistemic phenomena such as immediate and ineffable knowledge of experiences, can also solve the ontological problem of consciousness. In particular, Lehrer suggests that if we consider exemplarization, zombies cannot provide an argument for anti-physicalism. I argue that exemplarization offers neither a physicalist explanation of the conceivability of zombies nor an elucidating physicalist account of their impossibility. Therefore, exemplarization cannot offer a physicalist solution to the ??hard problem?? of consciousness.     

Impulse control disorders in obese patients

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of impulse control disorders (ICDs) in morbidly obese individuals. One hundred bariatric surgery candidates were examined using a module of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV that has been developed for ICDs. Nineteen per cent suffered from at least one current ICD and 27% met the criteria for any lifetime ICD, most frequently skin picking (current, 8%; lifetime, 9%), compulsive buying (current 6%, lifetime 8%), and intermittent explosive disorder (current, 5%; lifetime, 10%). Patients with regular binge eating (N?=?25) reported significantly more often a history of at least one ICD compared with those without binge eating. The results indicate a high prevalence of ICDs among morbidly obese prebariatric surgery patients that are related to regular binge eating.     

Emotional support and counselling for people with visual impairment: Quantitative findings from a mixed methods pilot study

Aims: This paper reports on mainly quantitative findings from a mixed methods evaluation of a new model of emotional support and counselling for people with moderate visual impairment. Method: The CORE Outcome Measure was completed with service users at baseline and post‐intervention to assess the impact of the new service on psychological wellbeing and social functioning. Their perceived needs and expectations of the service were also explored. Results: Of the 35 individuals providing data at each assessment time, mean item scores on the CORE fell significantly (p<.001), taking the sample from within a clinical population before therapy, to a mean score below this following therapy. A more positive outlook accompanied this improvement in functioning. Discussion: Findings from the study augment the growing evidence that emotional support and counselling services can play an important role alongside and within related vision services. Implications for practice: The study indicates that therapeutic input for the visually impaired client group may need to target both wellbeing (feelings about oneself and the future) and problems (depression, anxiety, physical health, and trauma). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a dual model of emotional support and counselling offers considerable benefit for people with visual impairment.     

Estimation of Health-State Utility Values and Factors Driving Health-Related Quality of Life in People Living with HIV and AIDS and Receiving cART in Germany: Baseline Analysis of a Cohort Study

Applied Research in Quality of Life - HIV has become a chronic disease since widespread of combined antiretroviral therapy (cART). Understanding the influence of therapeutic and preventive...     

“Like a Fanciful Kind of Half Being”: Mary Wollstonecraft's Criticism of Jean‐Jacques Rousseau

The article investigates the philosophical foundations and details of Mary Wollstonecraft's criticism of Jean‐Jacques Rousseau's views on the education and nature of women. I argue that Wollstonecraft's criticism must not be understood as a constructionist critique of biological reductionism. The first section analyzes the differences between Wollstonecraft's and Rousseau's views on the possibility of a true civilization and shows how these differences connect to their respective conceptions of moral psychology. The section shows that Wollstonecraft's disagreement with Rousseau's views on women was rooted in a broad scope of philosophical disagreement. The second section focuses on Rousseau's concept of nature, and I argue that Rousseau was neither a biological determinist nor a functionalist who denied that nature had any normative significance. The section ends with a discussion of Wollstonecraft's criticism of Rousseau's application of the distinction between the natural and the artificial. The third section focuses on Wollstonecraft's critique of Rousseau's claim that there are different standards for the perfectibility of men and women. The article concludes with a critical discussion of the claim that Aristotle would have provided Wollstonecraft with the philosophical tools she needed for her criticism of Rousseau.     

The Bergen left–right discrimination test: practice effects,reliable change indices,and strategic performance in the standard and alternate form with inverted stimuli

Several authors pointed out that left–right discrimination (LRD) tasks may be entangled with differential demands on mental rotation (MR). However, studies considering this interrelationship are rare. To differentially assess LRD of stimuli with varying additional demands on MR, we constructed and evaluated an extended version of the Bergen right–left discrimination (BRLD) test including additional subtests with inverted stickmen stimuli in 174 healthy participants (50♂, 124♀) and measured subjective reports on participants’ strategies to accomplish the task. Moreover, we analyzed practice effects and reliable change indices (RCIs) on BRLD performance, as well as gender differences. Performance significantly differed between subtests with high and low demands on MR with best scores on subtests with low demands on MR. Participants’ subjective strategies corroborate these results: MR was most frequently reported for subtests with highest MR demands (and lowest test performance). Pronounced practice effects were observed for all subtests. Sex differences were not observed. We conclude that our extended version of the BRLD allows for the differentiation between LRD with high and low demands on MR abilities. The type of stimulus materials is likely to be critical for the differential assessment of MR and LRD. Moreover, RCIs provide a basis for the clinical application of the BRLD.     

A four-part working bibliography of neuroethics: part 1: overview and reviews – defining and describing the field and its practices

Background

Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called “traditions” of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels.Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. This first installment lists reviews and overviews of the discipline, and broad summaries of basic developments and issues of the field.

Methods

To systematically survey the neuroethics literature, searches were performed by accessing 11 databases, 8 additional literature depositories, and 4 individual journal searches using indexing language for National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medical Subject Heading databases. Searches and assurance against overlapping coverage were conducted using the RefWorks citation management program.

Results

Overview, review and reflections upon the history and multicultural perspectives of neuroethics were obtained and relevant listings from international journals, books, and book chapters are provided. Part I will be followed by three installments that will address a): the neuroscience of morality and ethics, including discussions of free will, and personal autonomy; b) “second tradition neuroethics”, to include specific ethical issues in neuroscience; clinical neuroethics; and c) neuroethics education/training; neuroethics and society; neuroethics and law; neuroethics and policy; and international neuroethics.

     

Using scissors to bisect a line: A perception–action dissociation in complex tool use

Previous research has shown that unilateral visual neglect is improved when patients are required to actively grasp an object at its center, rather than only pointing to its center. A similar dissociation between pointing and grasping responses has been reported for pseudoneglect, a spatial bias toward the left side of space that is normally exhibited by healthy participants. Among other theories, the two-visual-streams hypothesis has been offered as an explanation for these dissociations. According to this hypothesis, highly practiced actions that are performed under easily available visual input (e.g., grasping an object) are controlled by the dorsal stream and can resist perceptual judgment biases. We investigated whether, in pseudoneglect, dissociations between perceptual judgments and motor–manipulative responses occur when participants have to respond with complex tools that are highly practiced but that have been shown to rely on both ventral- and dorsal-stream processing. In a standard line bisection task, participants had to either mark the center of a line with a pencil or cut the line in two halves using a pair of scissors. The results indicated the typical leftward bias (pseudoneglect) in the pencil task, whereas performance was much more accurate in the scissors task. These results show that actions featuring complex tool use can resist perceptual judgment biases, and the findings are discussed with reference to existing accounts of perception–action dissociations.