Traumatische Trauer – ein eigenständiges Krankheitsbild?

Grief is a highly individualized process influenced by intrapsychic, interpersonal and social factors. The definition of normal and pathological grief is complicated by the variety of grief reactions. Empirical research indicates that pathological grief may be concerned considered as a separate entity. Two research groups developed empirically validated criteria with a special focus on the traumatic aspect of grief. The current state of research allows, however, in our opinion not the conclusion, that the proposed diagnostic criteria for complicated (Horowitz et al. 1997) or traumatic grief (Prigerson et al. 1999b) do not enclose all types of grief. Further empirical research on representative samples is necessary to validate previous findings and to differentiate specific subgroups of pathological grief.     

Strength of German accent under altered auditory feedback

Borden’s (1979, 1980) hypothesis that speakers with vulnerable speech systems rely more heavily on feedback monitoring than do speakers with less vulnerable systems was investigated. The second language (L2) of a speaker is vulnerable, in comparison with the native language, so alteration to feedback should have a detrimental effect on it, according to this hypothesis. Here, we specifically examined whether altered auditory feedback has an effect on accent strength when speakers speak L2. There were three stages in the experiment. First, 6 German speakers who were fluent in English (their L2) were recorded under six conditions—normal listening, amplified voice level, voice shifted in frequency, delayed auditory feedback, and slowed and accelerated speech rate conditions. Second, judges were trained to rate accent strength. Training was assessed by whether it was successful in separating German speakers speaking English from native English speakers, also speaking English. In the final stage, the judges ranked recordings of each speaker from the first stage as to increasing strength of German accent. The results show that accents were more pronounced under frequency-shifted and delayed auditory feedback conditions than under normal or amplified feedback conditions. Control tests were done to ensure that listeners were judging accent, rather than fluency changes caused by altered auditory feedback. The findings are discussed in terms of Borden’s hypothesis and other accounts about why altered auditory feedback disrupts speech control.     

Einige Gedanken zur Logik und ihrer Vermittlung aus gegebenem Anlaß

Journal for General Philosophy of Science - In logic books ordinary language examples are often thought to be easier to understand, as it is presupposed or suggested, that their logical structure...     

Reaction to Self-Attributed Victim Responsibility: A Comparative Analysis of Rape Crisis Counselors and Lay Observers1

This research examined observers' reactions to sexual assault victims engaging in different forms of self-attributed responsibility. Theory and research suggests that behavioral responsibility contributes positively to the coping process of victims, whereas characterological responsibility impedes it. For observers in the present study, the expression of either type of self-responsibility by a rape victim resulted in a more negative impression of the victim's emotional well-being and greater attribution of responsibility to the victim in comparison to a victim relying solely on chance explanations. Moreover, this bias was evident among rape crisis counselors as well as lay observers. Discussion considered the implications of such biased perceptions for sexual assault victims and the need for a fuller understanding of the nature of self-attributions of responsibility by victims.     

Situational Determinants of the Acceptability of Telling Lies1

It was tested whether the same factors people take into account when involved in the decision to lie apply to the evaluation of lies presented in scenarios. The scenarios represented 12 different situation categories formed by the crossing of the motive for lying (social. individualistic, egoistic), the relative importance of the situation (important matter, unimportant matter), and the closeness of the relation between the subject and the receiver of the lie (best friend, acquaintance). The acceptability of lying was evaluated from 2 perspectives (self, others) by 180 women of the general public. The results show that as the interest of the person that is lied to becomes greater, lying becomes more acceptable. As the interest of the liar becomes greater, lying becomes less acceptable. The systematically higher estimations of acceptability attributed to others indicate a false-uniqueness effect.     

System and flexibility in law

Usually, rhetoric is supposed to provide a model of law which describes legal interactions as volitive, arbitrary, and void of any system. However, the Mainz School, founded by Theodor Viehweg, proves the contrary: without referring to any metaphysics, such as consensus or auditoire universel, it seeks to discover the systematic character and the more or less flexible structures of legal rhetoric.     

Lesion-symptom mapping of language impairments in people with brain tumours: The influence of linguistic stimuli

People with tumours in specific brain sites might face difficulties in tasks with different linguistic material. Previous lesion-symptom mapping studies (VLSM) demonstrated that people with tumours in posterior temporal regions have more severe linguistic impairments. However, to the best of our knowledge, preoperative performance and lesion location on tasks with different linguistic stimuli have not been examined. In the present study, we performed VLSM on 52 people with left gliomas to examine whether tumour distribution differs depending on the tasks of the Aachen Aphasia Test. The VLSM analysis revealed that single-word production (e.g. object naming) was associated with the inferior parietal lobe and that compound and sentence production were additionally associated with posterior temporal gyri. Word repetition was affected in people with tumours in inferior parietal areas, whereas sentence repetition was the only task to be associated with frontal regions. Subcortically, word and sentence production were found to be affected in people with tumours reaching the arcuate fasciculus, and compound production was primarily associated with tumours affecting the inferior longitudinal and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Our work shows that tasks with linguistic stimuli other than single-word naming (e.g. compound and sentence production) relate to additional cortical and subcortical brain areas. At a clinical level, we show that tasks that target the same processes (e.g. repetition) can have different neural correlates depending on the linguistic stimuli used. Also, we highlight the importance of left temporoparietal areas.     

How to support learning with multimedia instruction: Implementation intentions help even when load is high

There is ample evidence that multimedia learning is challenging, and learners often underutilize appropriate cognitive processes. Previous research has applied prompts to promote the use of helpful cognitive processing. However, prompts still require learners to regulate their learning, which may interfere with learning, especially in situations where cognitive demands are already high. As an alternative, implementation intentions (i.e. if-then plans) are expected to help regulate behaviour automatically due to their specific wording, thereby offloading demands. Accordingly, this study aimed at investigating whether implementation intentions compared with prompts improve learning performance, especially under high cognitive load. Students (N = 120) learned either in a control condition without instructional support, with prompts, or with implementation intentions. Within each condition, half of the participants studied the multimedia instruction under conditions of either high or low cognitive load, which was experimentally manipulated by instructing them to perform one of two secondary tasks. In line with our hypotheses, the results showed that under low cognitive load, both prompts and implementation intentions led to better learning than the control condition. By contrast, under high cognitive load, only implementation intentions promoted learning. Thus, implementation intentions are an efficient means to promote learning even under challenging circumstances.     

Images of Women in General Interest and Fashion Magazine Advertisements from 1955 to 2002

This study was designed to examine the portrayal of women in advertisements in a general interest magazine (i.e., Time) and a women's fashion magazine (i.e., Vogue) over the last 50 years. The coding scheme used for this analysis was based on the one developed by sociologist Erving Goffman in the 1970s, which focuses primarily on the subtle and underlying clues in the picture content of advertisements that contain messages in terms of (stereotypical) gender roles. The results of this study show that, overall, advertisements in Vogue, a magazine geared toward a female audience,depict women more stereotypically than do those in Time, a magazine with the general public as a target audience. In addition, only a slight decrease in the stereotypical depiction of women was found over time, despite the influence of the Women's Movement.