Nonsuicidal self-injury and gender: patterns of prevalence, methods, and locations among adolescents

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents is a growing concern. However, little is known about gender and features of this behavior. Gender differences in NSSI among a sample of 7,126 adolescents were investigated, 1,774 of whom reported having engaged in NSSI. Gender differences in prevalence, method, and location of NSSI were examined. Findings revealed that females reported higher rates of NSSI, more cutting and scratching, and more injuries to arms and legs than their male counterparts. Males reported more burning and hitting-type behavior, as well as injuries to the chest, face, or genitals. This highlights an interesting pattern of NSSI, which future research should consider to accurately examine NSSI in females and males.     

Response-time dynamics: Evidence for linear and low-dimensional nonlinear structure in human choice sequences

Response time (RT) is a commonly used measure of cognitive performance, which is usually characterized as stochastic. However, useful information may be hidden in the apparently random fluctuations of RT. Dynamical systems analysis techniques allow an exploration of the alternative hypothesis that RT fluctuations are deterministic, albeit in a complex manner. We applied careful task construction and noise-reduction and surrogate series tests to show that RT series from a forced-pace serial response-time task have low-dimensional chaotic characteristics. In Experiment 1, 80% of subjects' filtered RT series had low dimensionality, sensitive dependence on initial conditions, spectra close to 1/ f , and stable attractor geometry across sessions. In Experiment 2, we showed that the size of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) determined the number of subjects with low-dimensional chaotic series. A small ISI caused 100% of subjects to respond in the chaotic regime, whereas only 25% had a low-dimensional chaotic RT component when the ISI was large. We argue that demanding task requirements cause a reduction in the dimensionality of the dynamics, producing RT fluctuations that may reflect a response strategy for controlling RT.     

Cosmopolitanism,Occupancy and Political Self‐Determination

The brand of cosmopolitanism that Cécile Fabre develops in her excellent book, Cosmopolitan Peace, leaves room for qualifying groups to exercise political self‐determination. Important questions thus emerge regarding who is entitled to have a say in the group's self‐determination, questions that take on a heightened practical urgency in the wake of wars that cause massive migration. In this article, I call into question Fabre's contention that the descendants of unjust occupants necessarily acquire occupancy rights which entitle them to a say in the political self‐determination over the territory on which they currently reside.     

Tactile recognition of mirror images by children: intermanual transfer and rotation of the palm

In order to evaluate the importance of the axis of stimulus presentation, inter- and intramanual recognition of mirror pairs was studied with the stimulus materials aligned along the front/back axis (whereas in previous work the mirror pairs were aligned along the left/right axis). Children were allowed to feel shapes with the whole hand, with only four fingers (excluding the thumb), or with only the index finger. After learning with one hand, recognition was tested in experiment 1 with the other hand; after learning with one orientation of the hand (palm down or up), recognition was tested in experiment 2 with the other orientation (palm up or down) of the same hand; after learning with one coronal alignment of the hand (to the left or right), recognition was tested in experiment 3 with the other alignment (to the right or left), but without rotation, of the same hand. Significantly fewer intermanual recognition errors were made on mirror pairs with the materials oriented along the front/back axis than in previous work when oriented along the left/right axis. This supports the suggestion that such errors arise when the stimuli are oriented along the left/right axis during formation of the memory trace. The same trend was unexpectedly obtained for intramanual recognition errors (after rotation of the hand). These errors (after hand rotation) are largely due to coding with respect to the hand; they are reduced when the hand is not aligned with the body axis, since then coding can also occur in relation to the environment.