Tactile memory in sighted and blind observers: the influence of orientation and rate of presentation

Sighted, early blind, and late blind subjects attempted to identify numerals or number sequences printed on their palms. The numerals were either upright, or inverted, or rotated perpendicular to the arm axis. Stimulus rotation degraded recognition in the early blind subjects, suggesting the influence of experience with visual frames of reference. Slower rates of presentation with upright number sequences improved recall in both sighted and blind observers. An experiment on tactual-visual braille recognition in the sighted observers showed that tilt degraded pattern identification, but visual guidance of the fingertip and ballpoint minimized this loss. A further experiment was performed to distinguish between visual imagery and visual frame of reference explanations of the visual guidance effect on recognition of rotated braille. Subjects explored upright or tilted braille characters while viewing only a light emitting diode on the exploratory fingertip. Sight of scanning movements did not aid pattern recognition with tilt. The results indicate that the benefits of visual guidance on recognition of tilted patterns were probably due to frame of reference information. It is concluded that spatial reference information may aid tactile memory in the sighted and late blind, since the early blind performed at a lower level in the retention task. It is proposed that visual imagery may only explain the superiority of the sighted and late blind when familiar stimuli are studied.     

The neurodynamics of emotion: delineating typical and atypical emotional processes during adolescence

The study of development is, in and of itself, the study of change over time, but emotions, particularly emotional reactivity and emotional regulation, also unfold over time, albeit over briefer time‐scales. Adolescence is a period of development characterized by marked changes in emotional processes and rewiring of the underlying neural circuitry, making this time of life formative. Yet this period is also a time of increased risk for anxiety and mood disorders. Changes in the temporal dynamics of emotional processes (e.g. magnitude, time‐to‐peak and duration) occur during this developmental period and have been associated with risk for mood and anxiety disorders. In this article, we describe how the temporal dynamics of emotions change during adolescence and how they may increase risk for these psychopathologies. We highlight studies that illustrate how formalizing temporal neurodynamics of emotion may enhance links among levels of analyses from neurobiological to real‐world, moment‐to‐moment experiences.     

SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN THE KRAKÓW SCHOOL

This article outlines the contributions of the Kraków School to the field of science and religion. The Kraków School is a group of philosophers, scientists, and theologians who belong to the milieu of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. The members of the group are engaged in inquiries pertaining to the relationship between theology and various sciences, in particular cosmology, evolutionary theory, and neuroscience. The article includes a presentation of the historical background of the School, as well as its main original contributions pertaining to the history of the interactions between science and religion, the rationality and mathematicity of the universe, theology of science, and the role of logic in theology.     

The Future of Multilateral Ecumenical Dialogue

This article offers an overview of work undertaken in multilateral ecumenical dialogue, as it has been conducted at the international level by the commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC), to clarify the issues discussed in this dialogue and the methods used. In particular, the article analyzes the statements on unity made at various WCC assemblies. While they demonstrate a certain continuity regarding the key points of church unity they identify, they clearly mark a shift in the overall understanding of how unity is conceived. The second part of the article examines the current ecumenical situation and its importance for this dialogue, to show how Faith and Order has responded and what further progress in multilateral dialogue might look like.     

No blank slates: Pre-existing schemas about pharmaceuticals predict memory for side effects

Objectives: Attribution of symptoms as medication side effects is informed by pre-existing beliefs about medicines and perceptions of personal sensitivity to their effects (pharmaceutical schemas). We tested whether (1) pharmaceutical schemas were associated with memory (recall/recognition) for side effect information (2) memory explained the attribution of a common unrelated symptom as a side effect.

Design: In this analogue study participants saw the patient leaflet of a fictitious asthma drug listing eight side effects.

Main outcome measures: We measured recall and recognition memory for side effects and used a vignette to test whether participants attributed an unlisted common symptom (headache) as a side effect.

Results: Participants who perceived pharmaceuticals as more harmful in general recalled fewer side effects correctly (r_{Correct Recall} = ?.273), were less able to differentiate between listed and unlisted side effects (r_{Recognition Sensitivity} = ?.256) and were more likely to attribute the unlisted headache symptom as a side effect (r_{side effect attribution} = .381, ps < .01). The effect of harm beliefs on side effect attribution was partially mediated by correct recall of side effects.

Conclusion: Pharmaceutical schemas are associated with memory for side effect information. Memory may explain part of the association between pharmaceutical schemas and the attribution of unrelated symptoms as side effects.     

Race, Culture, and Ethnicity: Implications for a Community Intervention

We present an overview of research on African American families and emphasize in this discussion limitations of approaches used in the past to study African American families. We also discuss and identify challenges for designing and implementing community, family-based programs targeting competence-promoting behaviors in African American families. In addition, we attempt to accomplish the following objectives: (1) identify themes in studies of African American families, including bias in prior research; (2) discuss ways in which prior approaches and conceptual models guiding studies of African Americans have created challenges for the development and implementation of community-based intervention and research programs; and (3) present the Parents Matter! Program as an example of a community-based prevention effort that attempted to overcome many of the challenges created by prior research efforts.     

Ontological Categories in GOL

General Ontological Language (GOL) is a formal framework for representing and building ontologies. The purpose of GOL is to provide a system of top-level ontologies which can be used as a basis for building domain-specific ontologies. The present paper gives an overview about the basic categories of the GOL-ontology. GOL is part of the work of the research group Ontologies in Medicine (Onto-Med) at the University of Leipzig which is based on the collaborative work of the Institute of Medical Informatics (IMISE) and the Institute for Computer Science (IfI). It represents work in progress toward a proposal for an integrated family of top-level ontologies and will be applied to several fields of medicine, in particular to the field of Clinical Trials.     

Object-based selection in the Baylis and Driver (1993) paradigm is subject to space-based attentional modulation

Three experiments re-examined Baylis and Driver's (1993) strong evidence for object-based selection, that making relative apex location judgments is harder between two objects than within a single object, with object (figure-ground) segmentation determined solely by color-based perceptual set. Using variations of the Baylis and Driver paradigm, the experiments replicated a two-object cost. However, they also showed a large part of the two-object cost to be attributable to space-based factors, though there remained an irreducible cost consistent with 'true' object-based selection.