Spatial constraints on visual-tactile cross-modal distractor congruency effects

Across three experiments, participants made speeded elevation discrimination responses to vibrotactile targets presented to the thumb (held in a lower position) or the index finger (upper position) of either hand, while simultaneously trying to ignore visual distractors presented independently from either the same or a different elevation. Performance on the vibrotactile elevation discrimination task was slower and less accurate when the visual distractor was incongruent with the elevation of the vibrotactile target (e.g., a lower light during the presentation of an upper vibrotactile target to the index finger) than when they were congruent, showing that people cannot completely ignore vision when selectively attending to vibrotactile information. We investigated the attentional, temporal, and spatial modulation of these cross-modal congruency effects by manipulating the direction of endogenous tactile spatial attention, the stimulus onset asynchrony between target and distractor, and the spatial separation between the vibrotactile target, any visual distractors, and the participant’s two hands within and across hemifields. Our results provide new insights into the spatiotemporal modulation of crossmodal congruency effects and highlight the utility of this paradigm for investigating the contributions of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive inputs to the multisensory representation of peripersonal space.     

Work and Pregnancy: Individual and Organizational Factors Influencing Organizational Commitment,Timing of Maternity Leave,and Return to Work

The authors surveyed 86 pregnant women (73%White, 8% Asian, 7% African American, 6% Hispanic, and1% Native American) to examine individual andorganizational factors associated with organizationalcommitment and planned timing of their maternity leavesand return to work after childbirth. Women whoseorganizations offered guaranteed jobs after childbirthplanned to work later into their pregnancies and toreturn to work sooner after childbirth. Women whoperceived supportive work-family cultures were morecommitted to their organizations and planned to returnmore quickly after childbirth than women who perceived less supportive cultures. Also, women with lesstraditional attitudes toward parenting planned to worklater into their pregnancies and return to work soonerafter childbirth.     

Recognition memory in mentally retarded persons

The continuous recognition memory of retarded and normal subjects was assessed. The stimuli were magazine pictures, arranged so that lags of up to 250 pictures occured. The overall performance of the retarded subjects was poorer, in terms of hit rate or d′. However, the differences were present at 0 lag and the slopes of the forgetting curves were similar in both groups. It was concluded that differences between these subjects were due to a perception related process and not to memory.     

Social cognition and real-life functioning in patient samples with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome with or without psychosis,compared to a large sample of patients with schizophrenia only and healthy controls

Patients with the 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (DS) show an increased risk of developing a psychotic illness lifetime. 22q11.2DS may represent a reliable model for studying the neurobiological underpinnings of schizophrenia. The study of social inference abilities in a genetic condition at high risk for psychosis, like 22q11.2DS, may shed light on the relationships between neurocognitive processes and patients' daily general functioning. The study sample consisted of 1736 participants, divided into four groups: 22q11.2DS patients with diagnosis of psychotic disorder (DEL SCZ, N = 20); 22q11.2DS subjects with no diagnosis of psychosis (DEL, N = 43); patients diagnosed with schizophrenia without 22q11.2DS (SCZ, N = 893); and healthy controls (HC, N = 780). Social cognition was assessed through The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT) and general functioning through the Specific Levels of Functioning (SLoF) scale. We analysed data through regression analysis. The SCZ and DEL groups had similar levels of global functioning; they both had significantly lower SLoF Total scores than HC (p < .001); the DEL SCZ group showed significantly lower scores compared to the other groups (SCZ, p = .004; DEL, p = .003; HC, p < .001). A significant deficit in social cognition was observed in the three clinical groups. In the DEL SCZ and SCZ groups, TASIT scores significantly predicted global functioning (p < .05). Our findings of social cognition deficit in psychosis-prone patients point to the possible future adoption of rehabilitation programmes, like Social Skills Training and Cognitive Remediation, during premorbid stages of psychosis.     

The aggression test as a taxonomic tool: Evaluation in sympatric and allopatric populations of wood-ant species

Ant-workers of Formica lugubris and F. rufa from colonies living sympatrically (from the same area) and allopatrically (from different areas) were tested in pairs using a laboratory aggression test. The aim was to verify whether sharing the same area of origin influences the relationships among heteroeolonials between and within these species which belong to the F. rufa group. The results suggest that a similar degree of agonistic behaviour (ritualised aggression) was shown in sympatric and allopatric conspecific dyads of both species studied. The interactions between F. lugubris and F. rufa were characterised by a low level of overt aggression both in sympatric and allopatric pairs, confirming the interspecific tolerance observed in our previous studies on these wood-ant species. This reduced aggressiveness between workers of F. lugubris and F. rufa coming from the same or a different area can be interpreted on the basis of their sharing common signals, such as odours and patterns of behaviour. Therefore, their mutual tolerance and acceptance can be indicative of a phylogenetic closeness between such species. We propose that an aggression test can be a valid tool for elucidating systematic problems in this taxonomically difficult group of ants. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

A Common Abstraction of MV-Algebras and Abelian l-groups

We investigate the class of strongly distributive pregroups, a common abstraction of MV-algebras and Abelian l-groups which was introduced by E.Casari. The main result of the paper is a representation theorem which yields both Chang's representation of MV-algebras and Clifford's representation of Abelian l-groups as immediate corollaries.     

Intensive Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy (ITAP): A case series study

Intensive Transactional Analysis Psychotherapy (ITAP) is a new therapeutic approach based on the integration of Transactional Analysis and brief psychodynamic approaches. ITAP is based on two key therapeutic tools—the intrapsychic triangle and the interpersonal triangle—which the therapist uses to focus patients’ attention on moment‐by‐moment therapy processes. The aim of the present study was to provide early empirical documentation of ITAP effectiveness. To this aim, six patients (four females, two males) were longitudinally evaluated using an A‐B‐A mixed quantitative and qualitative design, with evaluations at Baseline, Treatment and Follow‐up phases. Each patient received 16 50‐min weekly sessions of ITAP therapy over 4 months. For quantitative evaluations, patients filled out the Clinical Outcome in Routine Evaluation‐Outcome Measure (CORE‐OM) at each evaluation. Effects size values were estimated to evaluate quantitative changes comparing mean scores of Baseline, Treatment and Follow‐up phases. At the first follow‐up, the Change Interview was used to qualitatively evaluate patients’ perceived changes. In the quantitative data, four of the six patients reported a very good outcome, with large to very large effect sizes in Baseline versus Treatment and/or Baseline versus Follow‐up scores comparisons, whereas two patients reported variable fluctuations within the non‐clinical range of outcome scores. In the qualitative evaluations, all patients reported several moderately to extremely important perceived changes attributed to psychotherapy.     

Electrophysiological and behavioral measures of the influence of literal and figurative contextual constraints on proverb comprehension

Proverbs tend to have meanings that are true both literally and figuratively (i.e., Lightning really doesn't strike the same place twice). Consequently, discourse contexts that invite a literal reading of a proverb should provide more conceptual overlap with the proverb, resulting in more rapid processing, than will contexts biased towards a non-literal reading. Despite this, previous research has failed to find the predicted processing advantage in reading times for familiar proverbs when presented in a literally biasing context. We investigate this issue further by employing both ERP methodology and a self-paced reading task and, second, by creating an item set that controls for problems with items employed in earlier studies. Our results indicate that although people do not take longer to read proverbs in the literally and proverbially biasing contexts, people have less difficulty integrating the statements in literal than figurative contexts, as shown by the ERP data. These differences emerge at the third word of the proverbs.     

Use of the computer and Internet among Italian families: first national study.

Although home Internet access has continued to increase, little is known about actual usage patterns in homes. This nationally representative study of over 4,700 Italian households with children measured computer and Internet use of each family member across 3 months. Data on actual computer and Internet usage were collected by Nielsen//NetRatings service and provide national baseline information on several variables for several age groups separately, including children, adolescents, and adult men and women. National averages are shown for the average amount of time spent using computers and on the Web, the percentage of each age group online, and the types of Web sites viewed. Overall, about one-third of children ages 2 to 11, three-fourths of adolescents and adult women, and over four-fifths of adult men access the Internet each month. Children spend an average of 22 hours/month on the computer, with a jump to 87 hours/month for adolescents. Adult women spend less time (about 60 hours/month), and adult men spend more (over 100). The types of Web sites visited are reported, including the top five for each age group. In general, search engines and Web portals are the top sites visited, regardless of age group. These data provide a baseline for comparisons across time and cultures.     

Disjunctive logic programming with types and objects: The DLV system

The paper presents DLV⁺, a Disjunctive Logic Programming (DLP) system with object-oriented constructs, including classes, objects, (multiple) inheritance, and types. DLV⁺ is built on top of DLV (a state-of-the art DLP system), and provides a graphical user interface that allows one to specify, update, browse, query, and reason on knowledge bases. Two strong points of the system are the powerful type-checking mechanism and the advanced interface for visual querying.DLV⁺ is already used for the development of knowledge based applications for information extraction and text classification.