Psychiatric diagnoses of patients visiting a sleep disorder clinic due to dyssomnias

This study analyzed the demographic characteristics and psychiatric diagnoses of 90 consecutive patients who visited a sleep disorder clinic in Taiwan with complaints of insomnia (difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or nonrestorative sleep) or hypersomnia (excessive sleepiness as evidenced by either prolonged sleep episodes or daytime sleep episodes that occur almost daily). All subjects were interviewed using a sleep disturbance questionnaire and the structured Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview supplemented by the DSM-IV criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. Among 90 patients, 79 were classified as having insomnia and 11 had hypersomnia. 53 patients also had psychiatric diagnoses other than sleep disorders. Patients with insomnia had a significantly higher rate of comorbidities with other psychiatric diagnoses (65.8%) than did subjects with hypersomnia (9.1%). These results emphasize the importance of psychiatric evaluation of patients with complaints of sleep disturbance.     

Memory reactivation in the second year of life

Memory reactivation has not been systematically studied with infants older than 1 year. Currently, three experiments examined the effects of a reactivation treatment (priming) on retention throughout the second postnatal year. Fifteen- and 18-month-olds learned an operant train task, forgot it, received a 2-min or 10-s prime, and later were tested for retention. Although the longer prime was effective for 15-month-olds, 18-month-olds required the shorter prime (Experiment 1). The memory was reactivated after delays two (18 months) and three (15 months) times longer than infants originally remembered it (Experiment 2). The reactivated memory was forgotten as fast as the original memory after the 2-min prime and twice as fast after the 10-s prime (Experiment 3). The fact that reactivation changes quantitatively but not qualitatively throughout infancy suggests that the same mechanism mediates it at all ages. These findings have major implications for the impact of early experience on cognitive development.     

Religious identity development of adolescents in religious affiliated schools. A theoretical foundation for empirical research

The question, how religious affiliated schools for secondary education shape religious education and what effects this education has on the religious identity development of pupils, is relevant in a time when the position of religious affiliated schools is highly disputable. In earlier empirical research on religious identity development of adolescence, hardly any attention was paid to the theoretical framework of this question. Therefore, connections are sought with the identity theory of Erikson and with operationalizations of his theory by Marcia and others. The key concepts are ‘exploration’ and ‘commitment’. Religious identity development is seen from a pragmatic perspective in which the transactional relation of individuals and environment is stressed.     

Can the Same Politician Help and Hurt the Evaluations of Another Politician? The Role of Categorization on the Elicitation of Assimilation and Contrast Effects in the Mexican Political Context

Two studies investigated the effects of bringing a highly controversial politician to mind on the evaluations of another politician in the Mexican political context. We took advantage of the dynamic nature of the Mexican political context in which politicians often threaten to leave or actually leave their political parties, influencing the categorization process. We hypothesized that the same controversial politician could elicit assimilation and contrast effects on the evaluations of another politician, depending on whether both political figures were treated as lateral categories or members of the same superordinate category. Study 1 found support for the predicted contrast effects but only among those who did not classify both political figures as members of the same political party. Study 2 found support for the expected interexemplar assimilation effects but only among those who classified both political figures as members of the same political party. The theoretical and applied implications of our results were discussed.     

Ethical issues related to the artificial heart

This paper is a general survey of ethical issues related to the artificial heart. It begins by looking at the history of funding of the artificial heart program through the National Institute of Health in 1965. Attention is paid to the problem of the lack of planning related to social, ethical, economic, and legal implications. The paper then deals with three areas of ethical concerns. They are those issues relating to the experimental versus therapeutic benefits, the cost, and public involvement with a private interest.     

L'accession à l'opérativité formelle chez les enfants intellectuellement précoces

This study is an attempt to contribute data concerning the cognitive functioning and development of intellectually gifted children, at the threshold of formal operational stage. It ascribes to the theory of the operational development of intelligence according to Piaget. “Gifted”, children and “average” children of an equivalent mental age (12 years and 6 months) were compared. A second group of gifted children of the same chronological age as the average children completed this study. Longeot's “Échelle de Développement de la Pensée Logique” was used for all the subjects. The results reveal dissynchronical aspects within the genesis of gifted children. They are discussed taking into account the task characteristics (type of reasoning they require) and functional specificities of compared subjects.     

Deviations in the emergence of representations: a neuroconstructivist framework for analysing developmental disorders

A common way of studying developmental disorders is to adopt a static neuropsychological deficit approach, in which the brain is characterized in terms of a normal brain with some parts or ‘modules’ impaired. In this paper we outline a neuroconstructivist approach in which developmental disorders are viewed as alternative developmental trajectories in the emergence of representations within neural networks. As a concrete instantiation of the assumptions underlying this general approach, we present a number of simulations in an artificial neural network model. The representations that emerge under different architectural, input and developmental timing conditions are then analysed within a multi‐dimensional state space. We explore alternative developmental trajectories in these simulations, demonstrating how initial differences in the same parameter can lead to very different outcomes, and conversely how different starting states can sometimes result in similar end states (phenotypes). We conclude that the assumptions of the neuroconstructivist approach are likely to be more appropriate for analysing developmental deviations in complex dynamic neural networks, such as the human brain.