Adaptations to changing times: Agency in context

British society has changed greatly over the past half century. Increasing uncertainty about economic and social developments is becoming a distinctive feature of modern industrialized countries, affecting the life chances and opportunities of young people making the transition from dependent childhood into independent adulthood. Summarizing recent findings from data collected from about 30,000 individuals born 12 years apart, in 1958 and 1970 respectively, this paper examines the role of individual agency in shaping educational and occupational transitions as well as the assumption of family‐related roles in times of social change. The data suggest that societal change and the associated increasing uncertainty does not impact on all individuals in the same way, and that there has been an increasing polarization between those who are able to benefit from the economic and social transformations and the ones who are excluded, largely because of their relatively disadvantaged socioeconomic circumstances and lack of access to opportunities in education and employment. It is concluded that human agency processes cannot be studied in isolation from the sociohistorical context in which they are embedded.     

Traumatic memories of war veterans: not so special after all

Several authors have argued that traumatic experiences are processed and remembered in a qualitatively different way from neutral events. To investigate this issue, we interviewed 121 Croatian war veterans diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) about amnesia, intrusions (i.e., flashbacks and nightmares), and the sensory qualities of their most horrific war memories. Additionally, they completed a self-report scale measuring dissociative experiences. In contrast to what one would expect on the basis of theories emphasizing the special status of traumatic memories, amnesia, and high frequency intrusions were not particularly typical for our sample of traumatized individuals. Moreover, traumatic memories were not qualitatively different from neutral memories with respect to their stability and sensory qualities. The severity of PTSD symptoms was not significantly correlated with dissociative experiences. Our findings do not support the existence of special memory mechanisms that are unique to experiencing traumatic events.     

Some surprising findings on the involvement of the parietal lobe in human memory

The posterior parietal lobe is known to play some role in a far-flung list of mental processes: linking vision to action (saccadic eye movements, reaching, grasping), attending to visual space, numerical calculation, and mental rotation. Here, we review findings from humans and monkeys that illuminate an untraditional function of this region: memory. Our review draws on neuroimaging findings that have repeatedly identified parietal lobe activations associated with short-term or working memory and episodic memory. We also discuss recent neuropsychological findings showing that individuals with parietal lobe damage exhibit both working memory and long-term memory deficits. These deficits are not ubiquitous; they are only evident under certain retrieval demands. Our review elaborates on these findings and evaluates various theories about the mechanistic role of the posterior parietal lobe in memory. The available data point towards the conclusion that the posterior parietal lobe plays an important role in memory retrieval irrespective of elapsed time. However, the available data do not support simple dichotomies such as recall versus recognition, working versus long-term memory. We conclude by formalizing several open questions that are intended to encourage future research in this rapidly developing area of memory research.     

The Semiotic Regulation of Sexuality from a Microgenetic Perspective

On the level of collective culture, sexuality and sensuality are interpreted as zero signifiers, i.e., areas of human life, which gain their power through being purposefully kept invisible and unverbalized. Explicit transgressions (e.g., curse words) only refer to culturally "illegitimate" forms of sexuality, while the respective figure--in terms of the figure-ground principle--of "legitimate" meaning and feeling fields has to be constructively inferred by the person him- or herself. The present paper gives some examples of personal meaning making in the field of sexuality. For studying the semiotic regulation of sexuality and sensuality on the personal level, microgenetic investigations are proposed. Only they can offer an online access to the powerful process of culturally mediated sign construction and reconstruction.     

Book reviews

SINGER, J. L. (Ed.). The Child's World of Make-Believe. New York: Academic Press. 1973. PP. 294. £5.75.

CRUE, B. L. (Ed.). Pain Research and Treatment. New York: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 417. £12.50.

BEILIN, H. Studies in the Cognitive Basis of Language Development. New York: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 420. £11.25.

ROLLS, E. T. The Brain and Reward. Oxford: Pergamon Press. 1975. Pp. 115. £3.00.

GAZZANIGA, M. S. and BLAKEMORE, C. Handbook of Psychobiology. New York and London: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 639. £15.15.

KULLER, R. (Ed.). Architectural Psychology. Stroudsberg: Dowden, Hutchinson and Ross. 1973. Pp. 450. S.Kr. 69.

CANTER, D. and LEE, T. (Eds). Psychology and the Built Environment. London: Architectural Press. 1974. Pp. 213. £7.50.

CLARE, A. Psychiatry in Dissent. Controversial Issues in Thought and Practice. London: Tavistock Publications. 1976. Pp. xvii +438. £7.50 (hardback); £4.00 (paperback).

RACHMAN, S. J. and PHILIPS, C. Psychology and Medicine. London: Temple Smith. 1975. PP. 223. £3.75.

VURPILLOT, ELIANE. The Visual World of the Child. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1976. Pp. 372. £9.50.

FALMAGNE, R. J. (Ed.). Reasoning: Representation and Process. London and New York: Wiley. 1975. Pp. 275. £10.15.

FANT, G. and TATHAM, M. A. (Eds). Auditory Analysis and Pevception of Speech. London: Academic Press. 1975. Pp. 564. £12.00.     

How We Hurt The Ones We Love

Paradoxically, the practical necessity of love seems to combine the personal character of psychological necessity with the inescapable and authoritative quality of moral necessity. Traditionally, philosophers have avoided this paradox by treating love as an amalgam of impersonal evaluative judgments and affective responses. On my account, love participates in a different form of practical necessity, one characterized by a non‐moral yet normative type of expectation. This expectation is best understood as a kind of second‐personal address that does not support derivative third‐personal demands. It is revealed when we react with hurt feelings instead of resentment upon its disappointment.     

Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for Research Performing Organisations: The Bonn PRINTEGER Statement

This document presents the Bonn PRINTEGER Consensus Statement: Working with Research Integrity—Guidance for research performing organisations. The aim of the statement is to complement existing instruments by focusing specifically on institutional responsibilities for strengthening integrity. It takes into account the daily challenges and organisational contexts of most researchers. The statement intends to make research integrity challenges recognisable from the work-floor perspective, providing concrete advice on organisational measures to strengthen integrity. The statement, which was concluded February 7th 2018, provides guidance on the following key issues:

1. § 1.
   Providing information about research integrity
    
2. § 2.
   Providing education, training and mentoring
    
3. § 3.
   Strengthening a research integrity culture
    
4. § 4.
   Facilitating open dialogue
    
5. § 5.
   Wise incentive management
    
6. § 6.
   Implementing quality assurance procedures
    
7. § 7.
   Improving the work environment and work satisfaction
    
8. § 8.
   Increasing transparency of misconduct cases
    
9. § 9.
   Opening up research
    
10. § 10.
    Implementing safe and effective whistle-blowing channels
     
11. § 11.
    Protecting the alleged perpetrators
     
12. § 12.
    Establishing a research integrity committee and appointing an ombudsperson
     
13. § 13.
    Making explicit the applicable standards for research integrity
     

     

Stories of Relative Privilege: Power and Social Change in Feminist Community Psychology

Stories about community work in New Zealand and Scotland are presented to describe and reflect on issues central to feminist community psychology. Organizing a lesbian festival, Ingrid Huygens describes feminist processes used to equalize resources across Maori (indigenous) and Pakeha (white) groups. Heather Hamerton presents her experiences as a researcher using collective memory work to reflect on adolescent experiences related to gender, ethnicity, and class. Sharon Cahill chronicles dilemmas and insights from focus groups about anger with women living in public housing in Scotland. Each story chronicles experiences related to oppression and privilege, and describes the author's emotions and reflections. Individually and collectively, the stories illustrate the potential offered by narrative methods and participatory processes for challenging inequalities and encouraging social justice.     

Using perfusion fMRI to measure continuous changes in neural activity with learning

In this study, we examine the suitability of a relatively new imaging technique, arterial spin labeled perfusion imaging, for the study of continuous, gradual changes in neural activity. Unlike BOLD imaging, the perfusion signal is stable over long time-scales, allowing for accurate assessment of continuous performance. In addition, perfusion fMRI provides an absolute measure of blood flow so signal changes can be interpreted without reference to a baseline. The task we used was the serial response time task, a sequence learning task. Our results show reliable correlations between performance improvements and decreases in blood flow in premotor cortex and the inferior parietal lobe, supporting the model that learning procedures that increase efficiency of processing will be reflected in lower metabolic needs in tissues that support such processes. More generally, our results show that perfusion fMRI may be applied to the study of mental operations that produce gradual changes in neural activity.     

Differential involvement of hippocampal calcineurin during learning and reversal learning in a Y-maze task

The regulation and function of the calcium-dependent phosphatase calcineurin (CaN, protein phosphatase 2B) in learning and memory remain unclear, although recent work indicates that CaN may play a differential role in training and reversal training. To gain more insight into the involvement of CaN in these two types of learning, hippocampal CaN activity, protein levels, and expression patterns were studied in mice subjected to a reference memory version of the Y-maze task. We show that (1) training but not habituation induces a decrease in cytosolic CaN activity, (2) the recovery of cytosolic CaN activity is reversal training specific and does not reflect normal restoration of basal levels unrelated to subsequent learning, (3) cytosolic protein levels for the catalytic subunit of CaN (CaNA) are decreased at the early phase of training, but not at the early phase of reversal training, (4) CaNA immunoreactivity in the dorsal hippocampus is enhanced in the CA1 and CA3 area (but not in the dentate gyrus [DG] or subiculum [SUB]) only during reversal training. These findings indicate that memory formation is accompanied by reduced CaN activity, whereas adapting to changes in a familiar environment is accompanied by restored CaN activity. Moreover, reversal training selectively affects hippocampal CA3 and CA1 regions, suggesting a specific function of these hippocampal subregions in reversal learning.