Medical problems,maladaptive behaviors,and the developmentally disabled

Research has shown that aberrant behaviors of people with developmental disabilities have multiple determinants; of these, medical problems and their potential relations to aberrant behaviors, have been, for the most part, not studied. This retrospective study examined the relations of 26 acute medical treatements to the aberrant behaviors of 10 elderly people with developmental disabilities. Results showed that 73.1% of the aberrant behaviors decreased in frequency after medical treatments. The study suggests the importance of acute medical problems and treatments as possible factors in the occurrence of aberrant behaviors in this population.     

Current directions in visual working memory research: An introduction and emerging insights

Visual working memory (VWM) is a core construct in the cognitive (neuro‐)sciences, assumed to serve as a hub for information exchange and thus supporting a multitude of cognitive functions related to processing visual information. Here, we give an introduction into key terms and paradigms and an overview of ongoing debates in the field, to which the articles collected in this Special Issue on ‘Current Directions in Visual Working Memory Research’ contribute. Our aim is to extract, from this overview, some ‘emerging’ theoretical insights concerning questions such as the optimal way to examine VWM, which types of mental representations contribute to performance on VWM tasks, and how VWM keeps features from the same object together and apart from features of concurrently maintained objects (the binding problem).     

Cognitive Progression in Epilepsy

The issue of cognitive progression in people with epilepsy is of considerable interest and has important clinical and theoretical implications. In this paper, we review recent studies in both the adult and childhood epilepsy literature which have included a longitudinal test–retest design to examine this question. Several important methodological issues of this literature are highlighted and areas which require more investigation are identified.     

是联合世界还是分裂世界？——科学和宗教：哪种观点具有真正普遍意义，哪种观点又是狭隘之极？

关于科学调查研究成果和宗教叙述之间所谓的冲突已经有很多的论述。我更愿意把精力集中在科学与宗教的方法论和观点的对比上。一、科学的普遍性或许科学最显著的特性就在于它的普遍性。科学是一项最基础和最首要的社会任务。除非一个科学家的成果能够被其他科学家理解和接受(无论是去检验它,批评它,驳倒它,还是以它为研究的基础),否则他的成果就没有任何意义。最独特的是在这项公共事业之中没有国籍、种族、宗教或者意识形态的障碍。这种以经验为依据的衡量标准为所     

Dimension‐specific intertrial facilitation in visual search for pop‐out targets: Evidence for a top‐down modulable visual short‐term memory effect

In visual search for pop‐out targets, target detection is expedited when the target‐defining dimension (e.g., colour) is repeated on consecutive trials, but not (or less) when the target feature (e.g., red) is repeated (Found & Müller, 1996). The present study examined whether this dimension‐specific intertrial facilitation (ITF) is mediated by an explicit or an implicit memory of the target on the previous trial. In Experiment 1, observers had no above‐chance knowledge of the target dimension (or feature) when this information was not to be encoded and retained explicitly; yet, they exhibited dimension‐specific ITF. In Experiment 2, the nature of the ITF effect was unaffected by whatever attribute of the target was to be explicitly encoded and memorized, its dimension or feature; however, ITF was increased compared to a no‐memory control condition. In Experiment 3, ITF was not increased when observers had to determine the target dimension, but without having to maintain a memory of it during the intertrial interval. These results suggest that, although an implicit memory is sufficient for producing dimension‐specific ITF, ITF is top‐down modulable by explicit memory instructions.