Improvement of learning by mesencephalic reticular stimulation during postlearning paradoxical sleep

Evidences have been given which suggest that a newly formed memory trace is processed during paradoxical sleep (PS) following learning. The present experiments were aimed at testing the hypothesis that during postlearning PS the new memory trace is in a similar state as immediately after acquisition. For this purpose, a mild electrical stimulation of the mesencephalic reticular formation (MRF)--known to enhance retention performance when delivered just after learning--was administered during postlearning PS phases. Wistar rats were trained to run in a six-unit spatial discrimination maze for food reward. After each daily trial, extradural cortical electrodes (ECoG) activity was monitored polygraphically for 4 h. Half of the animals received nonawakening MRF stimulations during the first six phases of PS. Control rats received no stimulation. The learning results showed a marked improvement in performance, in terms of error number reduction, in the stimulated group. Results of a second experiment confirmed the facilitative effect of MRF stimulations given during postlearning PS. Moreover, they emphasized the specific role of PS, by showing that the same stimulations were ineffective when delivered, at the same time intervals after training, during six periods of waking or six periods of slow-wave sleep. These results lend support to the idea of a reactivation of the new memory trace during PS. They suggest that dynamic processes, similar to those immediately following acquisition or exposure to a reactivating treatment (i.e., a reminder), take place during postlearning PS.     

The moderating roles of personal and social resources on the relationship between dual expectations (for instrumentality and expressiveness) and well-being

The authors examined the roles of self-esteem and perceived social support in moderating the relationship between dual social expectations (instrumentality and expressivity) and well-being. Participants were 166 female and 87 male students in an urban community in the midwestern United States. After the authors controlled for the main effects of instrumental and expressive expectations, social support, as predicted, moderated the relationship between dual expectations and well-being: With higher levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with higher levels of well-being; with lower levels of social support, higher levels of dual expectations were associated with lower levels of well-being. Contrary to predictions, however, self-esteem did not moderate the relation between dual expectations and well-being. The discussion focuses on the importance of social resources in enhancing the potential benefits of dual expectations in interpersonal contexts.     

暴力的哲学还是哲学的暴力?--与冈特·嫩宁的谈话

布洛赫重申自己是一个马克思主义哲学家.对他来说,唯物主义问题并不是简单的唯物主义问题,马克思主义中一开始就包含了唯心主义,哲学的最伟大业绩多半是唯心主义思想家完成的.暴力是阶级社会特有的现象,国家乃是暴力的潜力本身,国家的消亡是一个无暴力的、和平的过程.被压迫者的革命运动依然存在,大学生运动不会消亡.无神论与基督教并不是二者择一的问题,无神论与基督教的对话也不是一场徒劳的对话.世界过程本身处于过程之中,而这一过程尚未被获取,但也尚未被挫败."已知的希望"取决于把科学投入于希望的国度之中.存在第二真理,即乌托邦的-具体的真理问题,这是真理所固有的问题.     

The relationship between puberty and social emotion processing

The social brain undergoes developmental change during adolescence, and pubertal hormones are hypothesized to contribute to this development. We used fMRI to explore how pubertal indicators (salivary concentrations of testosterone, oestradiol and DHEA; pubertal stage; menarcheal status) relate to brain activity during a social emotion task. Forty‐two females aged 11.1 to 13.7 years underwent fMRI scanning while reading scenarios pertaining either to social emotions, which require the representation of another person’s mental states, or to basic emotions, which do not. Pubertal stage and menarcheal status were used to assign girls to early or late puberty groups. Across the entire sample, the contrast between social versus basic emotion resulted in activity within the social brain network, including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the posterior superior temporal sulcus, and the anterior temporal cortex (ATC) in both hemispheres. Increased hormone levels (independent of age) were associated with higher left ATC activity during social emotion processing. More advanced age (independent of hormone levels) was associated with lower DMPFC activity during social emotion processing. Our results suggest functionally dissociable effects of pubertal hormones and age on the adolescent social brain.     

Antisocial Behavior,Moral Disengagement,Empathy and Negative Emotion: A Comparison Between Disabled and Able-Bodied Athletes

Theories of morality suggest that negative emotions associated with antisocial behavior should diminish motivation for such behavior. Two reasons that have been proposed to explain why some individuals repeatedly harm others are that (a) they use mechanisms of moral disengagement to justify their actions, and (b) they may not empathize with and vicariously experience the negative emotions felt by their victims. With the aim of testing these proposals, the present study compared spinal cord injured disabled athletes and able-bodied athletes to determine the effect of reduced visceral afferent feedback caused by spinal cord injury on antisocial behavior, moral disengagement, empathy, and negative emotion (i.e., anger, anxiety, and dejection). Disabled athletes reported less frequent antisocial behavior and lower moral disengagement than able-bodied athletes. Group differences in antisocial behavior were mediated by differences in moral disengagement. The two groups did not differ in empathy or negative emotion. The findings of this study suggest that antisocial behavior may be regulated by mechanisms of moral disengagement.     

Effects of 7.5% CO2 inhalation on allocation of spatial attention to facial cues of emotional expression

Increased vigilance to threat-related stimuli is thought to be a core cognitive feature of anxiety. We sought to investigate the cognitive impact of experimentally induced anxiety, by means of a 7.5% CO₂ challenge, which acts as an unconditioned anxiogenic stimulus, on attentional bias for positive and negative facial cues of emotional expression in the dot-probe task. In two experiments we found robust physiological and subjective effects of the CO₂ inhalation consistent with the claim that the procedure reliably induces anxiety. Data from the dot-probe task demonstrated an attentional bias to emotional facial expressions compared with neutral faces regardless of valence (happy, angry, and fearful). These attentional effects, however, were entirely inconsistent in terms of their relationship with induced anxiety. We conclude that the previously reported poor reliability of this task is the most parsimonious explanation for our conflicting findings and that future research should develop a more reliable paradigm for measuring attentional bias in this field.     

The effects of age,enactment, and cue-action relatedness on memory for intentions in the Virtual Week task

ABSTRACT

The current study investigated the influence of encoding modality and cue-action relatedness on prospective memory (PM) performance in young and older adults using a modified version of the Virtual Week task. Participants encoded regular and irregular intentions either verbally or by physically performing the action during encoding. For half of the intentions there was a close semantic relation between the retrieval cue and the intended action, while for the remaining intentions the cue and action were semantically unrelated. For irregular tasks, both age groups showed superior PM for related intentions compared to unrelated intentions in both encoding conditions. While older adults retrieved fewer irregular intentions than young adults after verbal encoding, there was no age difference following enactment. Possible mechanisms of enactment and relatedness effects are discussed in the context of current theories of event-based PM.     

Inhibiting children's memory of an interactive event: the effectiveness of a cover‐up

Children are generally more susceptible than adults to suggestive interview techniques. Children's memories of an event can be altered and added to by presenting post‐event information (PEI). What is not known is whether embedding silence about a particular scene within the PEI makes that scene less likely to be reported. Children aged 5–6 years made cakes with an agent ‘Mrs Flour’. The following day they received PEI in which a target scene from the original event was omitted, resulting in children reporting the target scene significantly less often than did controls (control= 57% and omit= 23% correct responses). There was direct evidence from the children's language that the omission led to a detriment in memory for the original scene itself. Allowing children to draw during the interview did not reduce the effect. Implications are discussed in terms of child victims and witnesses particularly regarding child sexual abuse. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moods and Quality of Life

In modern society, flow and stress are well-known terms in the theoretical discussions of the good life, subjective well-being and quality of life. The purpose of this article is to present the results of a phenomenological analysis of flow and stress experiences in everyday life. The analysis yielded a distinction between different phenomenological dimensions identified as arising in different combinations within concrete experience of flow and stress. These different dimensions were characterised by different feelings, different experiences of time and different experiences of the world. The results are discussed and interpreted in the light of Martin Heidegger's, Otto Friedrich Bollnow's and F.C.J. Buytendijk's theories of moods and feelings. Flow and stress experiences are phenomenologically interpreted as moods and classified as a modern version of basic polarities of moods as described by Bollnow and Buytendijk. Lastly, the concept of mood is emphasised as a specific entrance to the subjective and experienced dimensions involved in the complex concepts of quality of life, the good life and happiness.