Bedeutung des Intelligenzquotienten für die Feststellung des Eingangsmerkmals Schwachsinn im Sinne der §§ 20, 21 StGB

Disorders in cognitive capacity, as defined in § 20 of the German legal code, are responsible for a relevant proportion of the population sentenced to treatment in forensic psychiatry in Germany. Historically one of the first conditions for diminished culpability, it refers primarily to the level of cognitive functioning. In routine psychiatric treatment of people with intellectual disability other aspects, such as emotional and social development became more and more relevant. This article explains that these aspect should be more involved in the process of forensic assessment or at least give rise to discussion and makes proposals for a modification of exculpation criteria due to the German legal code.     

the scientific association of the lake of constance psychiatrists 1919-1932 psychoanalytic contributions to the treatment of psychoses

Abstract

From 1919 until 1932, psychiatrists from the mental hospitals near Lake Constance and from the Bellevue-Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen/Switzedand organized regular scientific meetings, where well-known representatives of all the relevant psychiatric and psychotherapeutic schools and important phenomen-ologicai philosophers came together. Getting in touch with psychoanalytical and social psychiatric trends led to a quite lively and fruitful exchange in theory and practice. Through the Reichenau psychiatrist Alfred Schwenninger, Ludwig Binswanger got to know personally the phenomenologic philosophers Alexander Pfander and Edmund Husserl, who also held lectures at meetings there. Hans Wolfgang Maier from the Burghölzli in Zurich and his colleagues from Herisau and Munsterlingen concentrated on the mainly social psychiatric and forensic work diey did. Quite a few of the lectures were published in the TZeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie The paper concentrates on contributions related to psychoanalysis. The Reichenau director Karl Wilmanns showed a sceptical sympathy for psychoanalysis even when applied to schizophrenia. Ludwig Binswanger treated psychotic patients psychoanalytically and tried to combine psychoanalysis, clinical psychiatry and philosophy. Especially phenomenology was for him a fundament of psychopathology. The paper reports in detail some of his contributions at the scientific discussions, theoretical issues as well as issues of a psychoanalytic practice.     

Raptus mit amts?rztlicher Einweisung bei Sinusvenenthrombose

Der 51-j?hrige Patient, russischsprachig, mit geringen englischen Sprachkenntnissen, Mitglied einer ukrainischen Reisegruppe, wird in den Morgenstunden an unserer Abteilung vorgestellt. Er kommt mit der Rettung in Begleitung von sechs Polizisten und ebenfalls nur russischsprachigen Angeh?rigen, er ist an H?nden und Fü?en geschlossen.     

Testing theories of post-error slowing

People tend to slow down after they make an error. This phenomenon, generally referred to as post-error slowing, has been hypothesized to reflect perceptual distraction, time wasted on irrelevant processes, an a priori bias against the response made in error, increased variability in a priori bias, or an increase in response caution. Although the response caution interpretation has dominated the empirical literature, little research has attempted to test this interpretation in the context of a formal process model. Here, we used the drift diffusion model to isolate and identify the psychological processes responsible for post-error slowing. In a very large lexical decision data set, we found that post-error slowing was associated with an increase in response caution and-to a lesser extent-a change in response bias. In the present data set, we found no evidence that post-error slowing is caused by perceptual distraction or time wasted on irrelevant processes. These results support a response-monitoring account of post-error slowing.     

The influence of response-effect compatibility in a serial reaction time task

Participants performed a serial reaction time task, responding to either asterisks presented at varying screen locations or centrally presented letters. Stimulus presentation followed a fixed second-order conditional sequence. Each keypress in the experimental groups produced a contingent, key-specific tone effect. The critical variation concerned the mapping of tones to keys. In Experiment 1, keypresses in one control condition produced noncontingent tone effects, while in another control condition there were no tone effects. In Experiment 2, three different key-tone mappings were compared to a control condition without tone effects. The results show that tone effects improve serial learning when they are mapped to the response keys contingently and in a highly compatible manner. The results are discussed with reference to an ideomotor mechanism of motor sequence acquisition.     

PUTTING FEMINIST PEDAGOGY TO THE TEST

Critics of women's studies (WS) have charged that WS teaching overemphasizes students'personal experience and is overly politicized. They claim further that WS classes discourage critical, independent thinking and stifle open, participatory learning, causing student dissatisfaction. This study provides empirical evidence of the process of WS teaching from the perspective of 111 teachers and 789 of their students from 32 campuses in the United States. Contrary to WS critics, WS faculty and students reported strong emphases on critical thinking/open-mindedness and participatory learning and relatively weaker emphases on personal experience and political understanding/activism. In addition, student ratings of positive class impact were higher for WS than non-WS classes. The results support the pedagogic distinctiveness of women's studies.     

IN DEFENCE OF METAPHYSICAL ANALYTICITY

According to the so‐called metaphysical conception of analyticity, analytic truths are true in virtue of meaning (or content) alone and independently of (extralinguistic) facts. Quine and Boghossian have tried to present a conclusive argument against the metaphysical conception of analyticity. In effect, they tried to show that the metaphysical conception inevitably leads into a highly implausible view about the truthmakers of analytic truths. We would like to show that their argument fails, since it relies on an ambiguity of the notion of ‘independence of (extralinguistic) facts’. If one distinguishes between variation independence and existence independence, the unwelcome view about the truthmakers of analytic truths no longer follows. Thus, there is at best a challenge, but no conclusive argument. The door to the metaphysical conception of analyticity is still open. 1     

Hippocampal theta-dependent eyeblink classical conditioning: coordination of a distributed learning system

Richard F. Thompson's study of the neurobiological substrates of learning and memory has been a career-long endeavor, chosen early and pursued with uncompromising depth and breadth. His systematic mapping of the major brain systems and mechanisms involved in eyeblink classical conditioning (EBCC) established the essential role of the cerebellum. Investigations of the interactions between the hippocampus and cerebellum are critically important to this literature, given the essential involvement of these structures in trace EBCC as well as an important modulatory role of the hippocampus in delay EBCC. Hippocampal theta (3-7Hz) oscillations are known to reflect a functional state that influences both the timing of unit firing and the potential for neural plasticity in the hippocampus and other structures. Herein we present a brief summary of research demonstrating the behavioral enhancement due to theta and the underlying neurobiological correlates in both hippocampus and cerebellum during EBCC. Hippocampal and cerebellar local field potentials (LFPs) show that these distantly interconnected brain structures become precisely synchronized when conditions favor rapid behavioral acquisition. Our results suggest a major role for theta in coordinating the widely distributed memory system for trace EBCC. These and other important findings reflect Thompson's own work and his early-career mentoring of scientists whose contributions to the EBCC literature have ensured his major and lasting impact on the neurobiology of learning and memory.     

Cultural diversity in nanotechnology ethics

Along with the rapid worldwide advance of nanotechnology, debates on associated ethical issues have spread from local to international levels. However unlike science and engineering issues, international perceptions of ethical issues are very diverse. This paper provides an analysis of how sociocultural factors such as language, cultural heritage, economics and politics can affect how people perceive ethical issues of nanotechnology. By attempting to clarify the significance of sociocultural issues in ethical considerations my aim is to support the ongoing international dialogue on nanotechnology. At the same time I pose the general question of ethical relativism in engineering ethics, that is to say whether or not different ethical views are irreconcilable on a fundamental level.