Young Muslim Women in France: Cultural and Psychological Adjustments

Even though France has experienced increasing and inevitable feminization in its immigrant population since 1974, research has tended to ignore the role of immigrant women, especially Muslim women, in the migration process. Public attention has been diverted by concern over such relatively marginal issues as the headscarf affair, and insufficient attention has been paid to the important role Muslim women play in France, especially those coming from Algeria. These women function as cultural mediators between the traditional culture of the sending country and the modern one of the host country. They see themselves as both tradition-bearers and integration proponents. The demands of immigration have given rise to the growth and development of different leaders, among them cultural mediators seeking a bridge between Islam and modernity, economic mediators seeking to establish women in the media and as entrepreneurs, and political mediators who seek access to power at the local level for the immigrants. These new mediators will eventually shape a new generation of female actors very far from the traditional countries of origin, although for the time being they still suffer from the inequality of rights for women and chances in their overall social life.     

Neuropsychological Evaluation of Everyday Memory

The evaluation of everyday memory (EM) was reviewed and reconceptualized. EM has established new objectives of study and the development of new methods to reach these objectives . At the basic level, this approach has already produced important discoveries and the development of new principles about memory and functioning. At the clinical level, this new area of investigation has resulted in evaluating deficits of EM, which is defined as what daily life functions remain impaired after a deficit pathology has occurred. A type of evaluation has evolved that is oriented toward treatment and extremely useful in designing rehabilitation programs for individuals with alterations in memory.     

Discrimination of 3-D shape and 3-D curvature from motion in active vision

We examined the ability of human observers to discriminate between different 3-D quadratic surfaces defined by motion, and with head position fed back to the stimulus to provide an up-to-date dynamical perspective view. We tested whether 3-D shape or 3-D curvature would affect discrimination performance. It appeared that discrimination of 3-D quadratic shape clearly depended on shape but not on the amount of curvature. Even when the amount of curvature was randomized, subjects’ performance was not altered. On the other hand, the discrimination of 3-D curvature clearly depended linearly on curvature with Weber fractions of 20% on the average and, to a small degree, on 3-D shape. The experiment shows that observers can easily separate 3-D shape and 3-D curvature, and that Koenderink’s shape index and curvedness provide a convenient way to specify shape. These results warn us against using just any arbitrary 3-D shape in 3-D shape perception tasks and indicate, for example, that emphasizing 3-D shape in computer displays by exaggerating curvature does not have any effect.     

A comment on ‘some standard errors in item response theory’

In maximum likelihood estimation the standard error of the location parameter of the three parameter logistic model can be large, due to inaccurate estimation of the lower asymptote. Thissen and Wainer who demonstrated this effect, suggested that the introduction of a prior distribution for the lower asymptote might alleviate the problems. Here it is demonstrated in some detail that the standard error of the location parameter can be made acceptably small in this way.The author thanks Pieter Vijn for his helpful comments.     

Linear relations amongk sets of variables

A family of solutions for linear relations amongk sets of variables is proposed. It is shown how these solutions apply fork=2, and how they can be generalized from there tok3.The family of solutions depends on three independent choices: (i) to what extent a solution may be influenced by differences in variances of components within each set; (ii) to what extent the sets may be differentially weighted with respect to their contribution to the solution—including orthogonality constraints; (iii) whether or not individual sets of variables may be replaced by an orthogonal and unit normalized basis.Solutions are compared with respect to their optimality properties. For each solution the appropriate stationary equations are given. For one example it is shown how the determinantal equation of the stationary equations can be interpreted.     

Abnormal and normal obsessions

Three related, exploratory studies were carried out in order to ascertain the occurrence and nature of normal obsessions, and to relate them to abnormal obsessions. The subjects included 8 obsessional patients, and up to 124 non-clinical subjects.Broadly, the findings were that normal obsessions are a common experience and they resemble the form of abnormal obsessions. They also show some notable similarities of content. However normal and abnormal obsessions differ in several respects, including frequency, duration, intensity and consequences, among others.With repeated practice, the frequency, duration and discomfort of obsessions are observed to decrease. Overall, the findings are considered to be consistent with the noxious stimulus cum habituation theory.     

Insulin and glucagon as determinants of body weight set point and microregulation in rats

Seven adult male rats were observed for body weight and microregulation (feeding, drinking, and running patterns) after manipulation of insulin and glucagon levels. They received three injections per day for 3 days each week of 3 U of protamine zinc insulin, .25 mg of zinc glucagon, 50 microgram of protamine zinc somatostatin (SRIF), or protamine zinc vehicle. Diabetes was then induced with an iv injection of streptozotocin (65 mg/kg), and the injection schedule was repeated after the full diabetic syndrome emerged. In all rats whose insulin levels were increased relative to glucagon levels, body weight increased; in those whose glucagon levels were increased relative to insulin levels, body weight decreased. All injections except vehicle reduced meal sizes in both normal and diabetic rats, but only insulin increased the frequency of feeding. These effects could be predicted by the glucostatic theory of food intake regulation and are thus interpreted as supportive of this theory. These results also support the hypothesis that the relative concentration of insulin to glucagon is a regulator of body weight set point.     

Authoritarianism-situation interactions in the determination of punitiveness: Engaging authoritarian ideology

An analysis of previously reported authoritarianism-situation interactions in the determination of punitiveness suggested that the extent to which target person characteristics or behaviors engage the important ideological content dimensions of the authoritarianism syndrome is a potent mediator of authoritariansim-punitiveness relationships. Support for this analysis was obtained in a jury decisions task in which high authoritarians recommended more severe punishments than did low authoritarians for a defendant accused of incest (p < .01) but not for a defendant accused of child abuse in the course of disciplining a disobedient son or daughter. It was argued that a thorough understanding of authoritarianism-situation interactions as well as other disposition-situation interactions will be achieved only if dispositional variables receive a degree of scrutiny at least equal to that which has recently been recognized as crucial for situational variables.     

Associative transfer and stimulus selection in classical conditioning of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response to serial compound CSs

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether in conditioning to a serial compound, CS1-CS2-UCS, there are (a) associative mechanisms operating to extend conditioning beyond the bounds of a CS-UCS contiguity gradient and (b) stimulus selection processes acting to attenuate the potency of CS-UCS contiguity. In Experiments 1 and 2, the CS2-UCS interval was held at .35 sec while the CS1-UCS interval was varied across groups from .75 to 2.75 sec. CS1 test trials revealed substantial CR acquisition at all CS1-UCS intervals. Moreover, Experiment 2 indicated that when the contribution of cross-modal generalization from CS2 to CS1 was factored out, there still remained a substantial level of conditioning, which Experiment 3 indicated was attributable to an associative mechanism like higher-order or sensory conditioning. The observation of CR acquisition at CS1-UCS intervals of 4.75, 8.75, and 18.75 sec in Experiment 4 suggested that serial compound training yields conditioning to CSs located well beyond the single CS contiguity gradient for the rabbit's nictitating membrane response. Experiments 1 and 2 also indicated the presence of stimulus selection processes because, at the shorter CS1-UCS intervals (.75 and 1.25 sec), the levels of test-trial responding to CS2 fell below those observed to the less contiguous CS1.