Religious Confession and Symptom Severity: A Prospective Comparative Study

Little research has been done on comparing confessions regarding mental health. In the present study, 320 people (78 Buddhists, 77 Catholics, 89 Protestants and 79 Muslims) were compared in terms of their symptom severity. Buddhists and Protestants had lower scores than Catholics and Muslims for obsessive–compulsive behavior and hostility. Muslim group had the highest comparative scores for psychoticism. Buddhists and Protestants had comparatively low scores for paranoid ideation and overall symptom severity, with Catholics and Muslims having high ones. Results reveal that confession should be taken in account in psychological research and diagnosis, since it is explicitly associated with psychological well-being.     

Milestones in the development of infant numeracy

This article deals with the development of numeracy among young children of the four to seven year age group. The research investigation described had two aims: to see how early numeracy develops in children of different ages; and to see whether there are fixed points which might serve as milestones in the development of infant numeracy. The results of this investigation involving 96 children indicate a strong development of numeracy skills during this period. With reference to the literature, it is also shown that certain items of a test previously developed for this purpose may be taken as core items that do indeed represent milestones in the development of infant numeracy.     

Recalling what was where when seeing nothing there

So-called “looks-at-nothing” have previously been used to show that recalling what also elicits the recall of where this was. Here, we present evidence from an eye-tracking study which shows that disrupting looks to “there” does not disrupt recalling what was there, nor do (anticipatory) looks to “there” facilitate recalling what was there. Therefore, our results suggest that recalling where does not recall what.     

Counterconditioning in the treatment of spider phobia: effects on disgust, fear and valence

From the perspective that disgust is a core feature of spider phobia, we investigated whether the treatment efficacy could be improved by adding a counterconditioning procedure. Women with a clinically diagnosed spider phobia (N = 34) were randomly assigned to the regular one-session exposure condition (EXP) or to the exposure with counterconditioning condition (CC). In the CC-condition tasty food-items were used during the regular exposure exercises and the participants' favourite music was played. Both treatment conditions appeared very effective in reducing avoidance behaviour and self-reported fear of spiders, strongly attenuated the disgusting properties of spiders and altered the affective evaluations in a positive direction. CC was not more effective in altering the affective valence of spiders than EXP and was not superior with respect to the long term treatment efficacy at 1 year follow up. Apparently, regular exposure treatment is already quite effective in altering the affective-evaluative component of spider phobia and it remains to be seen whether it is possible to further improve treatment outcome by means of procedures which are specifically designed to reduce the spiders' negative affective valence.     

Frontal-Lobe Involvement in Spatial Memory: Evidence from PET,fMRI, and Lesion Studies

Many studies have identified the prefrontal cortex as the brain area that is critical for spatial memory, both in humans and in other primates. Other studies, however, have failed to establish this relation. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to review the literature regarding the role of the human prefrontal lobe in spatial memory. This was done by examining the evidence obtained from neuropsychological patients and from studies using brain-imaging techniques (PET and fMRI). Evidence supporting the notion that the prefrontal cortex is extensively involved in spatial working memory was found. The majority of these studies, however, suggests that frontal-lobe involvement is not related to the type of material that is being processed (e.g., spatial vs. nonspatial), but to process-specific functions, such as encoding and retrieval. Theoretically, these functions could be linked to the central executive within Baddeley's working-memory model, or to recent theories that emphasize the various processes that play a role in working memory. Also, methodological issues were discussed. Further research is needed to enhance our understanding of the precise interaction of domain-specific and general processes.     

Andrzej de Lazari et al. (eds.), Idei v Rossii/Idee w Rosji/Ideas in Russia; Leksykon rosyjsko-polsko-angielski

Studies in East European Thought -     

A Note on Graded Modal Logic

We introduce a notion of bisimulation for graded modal logic. Using this notion, the model theory of graded modal logic can be developed in a uniform manner. We illustrate this by establishing the finite model property and proving invariance and definability results.