Selection demands versus association strength in the verb generation task

Neuroimaging and neuropsychological data from Thompson-Schill and colleagues (Thompson-Schill, D’Esposito, Aguirre, & Farah, 1997; Thompson-Schill et al., 1998) showed that in the verb generation task, the left inferior frontal gyrus (left IFG) was more involved in a high-selection condition, in which the noun had two verb responses of equal association strength, than in a low-selection condition, in which the noun had only one strongly associated verb. They proposed that the left IFG was involved in selecting semantic information from competing alternatives. The present study compared verb generation in two high-selection conditions that varied in the association strength of the most frequently produced verbs. The results from neurally intact participants and a patient with a lesion that included the left IFG indicated that association strength between nouns and the most frequently produced verb, rather than competition during verb selection, affected verb generation. The degree of involvement of the left IFG may depend on the difficulty of verb retrieval as reflected in association strength.     

The arousal model of moral condemnation

Previous research regarding the affective correlates of moral judgment has emphasized that this relation is rooted in the natural properties of discrete emotions, suggesting that specific emotions (e.g., disgust) increase moral condemnations for specific categories of moral violation (e.g. purity violations). In three experiments, we find that arousal increases the severity of moral condemnations, while emotion specificity effects remain absent. Results are compatible with constructivist approaches to emotion and the feelings as information account of social judgment.     

华侨与杨羲:"真人之诰"的灵媒考辨

一六朝时期的上清派道教及上清经典的文献历史一直是道教研究的重要课题,而陶弘景编著的《真诰》与杨羲、许谧、许翙等人受降于仙真的手书的文本历史则是上清经典文献历史的核心材料之一。学界一般以杨许手书代称杨     

对骨折治疗“优化选择”与“合理选择”的理解和思考

从合理化角度回顾了当前几种重要的骨折治疗理论体系的发展与演变,认为骨折治疗的最优原则是一种理想状态,现实中没有绝对最优只有相对合理。只有建立以患者为中心的思维体系,加强医疗逻辑思维能力,用多维思考的方式寻找矛盾的合理平衡点,始终坚守医学伦理道德底线,才能真正做到为每一位骨折患者进行最合理的治疗。     

Immediate emotion-enhanced memory dependent on arousal and valence: The role of automatic and controlled processing

The phenomenon that emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral ones is called emotion-enhanced memory (EEM). Previous studies have shown that both valence and arousal of stimuli contributed to EEM. Kensinger and Corkin (2004) proposed that the EEM dependent on arousal was associated with automatic encoding processes, whereas the EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled encoding processes. Their experiment with negative words provided some evidence for this associative pattern. However, it is unclear whether the observed association that occurred with negative emotional stimuli could be replicated with positive emotional stimuli. To further examine this issue, two experiments were conducted to investigate the immediate EEM of emotional words in three different attention conditions using a divided attention (DA) paradigm. Results indicated that the immediate EEM dependent on valence was associated with controlled processing, while the immediate EEM dependent on arousal was not always associated with automatic processing. The immediate EEM dependent on arousal for negative stimuli was associated with automatic processing, whereas the immediate EEM dependent on arousal for positive stimuli was associated with controlled processing. Therefore, the immediate EEM dependent on arousal, whether it is associated with automatic or controlled processing, is moderated by the valence of stimuli.     

Epidemic genital retraction syndrome: environmental and personal risk factors in southern China

Koro is the term used to define the fear that one's sex organ is retracting into the body and that the complete retraction of the organ will result in death. While koro is found mainly among the Chinese and other Asian societies near China, the condition is most prevalent in southern China, where repeated epidemics have occurred. In that region, koro is found only among the Hans, the dominant ethnic group, and is over-represented among people under age 24 years. Koro provokes considerable anxiety in the individual in question and his/her family and neighbors, and is more prevalent among males than females. Men try to pull the penis out from the body or to prevent it from shrinking further by tying a string around the penis or securing it with a clamping device. Some Asian women have reported shrinking breasts, nipples, or labia. Relatives and neighbors of the same sex often help to rescue the organ in question, especially in applying anchoring devices. Others may also believe a person has koro and attempt to rescue their organ without the individual's consent. Injury to the sex organ, including bruises, bleeding, and infection, is common and sometimes results in permanent damage. In general, however, koro attacks are acute, brief, and tend not to recur. The 1984-85 koro epidemic in Hainan Island and Leizhou Peninsula is reviewed to shed light upon prevailing cultural attitudes and beliefs, news and rumors about koro, and anxiety in neighborhoods which may be causative environmental risk factors for koro. Education, age, and marital status are considered as individual risk factors. Koro in China is best described as a social sickness supported by cultural myths which tend to affect young people who are deprived of proper sex information to explain their physical development.     

Spiritual Coping in American Buddhists: An Exploratory Study

Researchers in the United States have examined spiritual coping in Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, but rarely Buddhists. Using qualitative methodology, the present study represents an initial investigation into Buddhist forms of coping. Twenty-four Buddhists from across the United States were interviewed by phone, examining how their spirituality is used to cope with stress. Thematic analyses revealed six forms of Buddhist coping—right understanding, meditation, mindfulness, spiritual struggles, morality, and finding support in one's sangha. Implications of the study are discussed, including possibilities for future research on Buddhist coping.     

Similarity modulates the face-capturing effect in change detection

We investigated whether similarity among faces could modulate the face-capturing effect in change detection. In Experiment 1, a singleton search task was used to demonstrate that a face stimulus captures attention and the odd-one-out hypothesis cannot account for the results. Searching for a face target was faster than searching for a nonface target no matter whether distractor–distractor similarity was low or high. The fast search, however, did not lead to a face-detection advantage in Experiment 2 when the pre- and postchange faces were highly similar. When participants in Experiment 3 had to divide their attention between two faces in stimulus displays for change detection, detection performance was worse than performance in detecting nonface changes. The face-capturing effect alone is insufficient to produce the face-detection advantage. Face processing is efficient but its effect on performance depends on the stimulus–task context.