Time processing impairments in preschoolers at risk of developing difficulties in mathematics

The occurrence of time processing problems in individuals with Development Dyscalculia (DD) has favored the view of a general magnitude system devoted to both numerical and temporal information. Yet, this scenario has been partially challenged by studies indicating that time difficulties can be attributed to poor calculation or counting skills, which can support reasoning on time in school‐aged children and adults. Here, we tackle this debate by exploring the performance of young children before they fully develop the symbolic number system. Preschoolers at risk of developing DD were compared with typically developing children in a series of tasks investigating time processing and in their ‘sense of time’, evaluated by parents and teachers. Results yielded a poorer performance in time reproduction of 5‐second intervals and in time discrimination, as well as a weaker ‘sense of time’, in children at risk of DD. These findings provide evidence of a common magnitude system that would be responsible for deficits in both numerical and temporal domains, already at early stages of life.     

Short-term effects of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation programme on psychological well-being, exercise capacity and weight in a sample of obese in-patients with coronary heart disease: a practice-level study

Given that many patients referred to cardiac rehabilitation (CR) are obese, diet therapy, exercise training, nutritional and psychological counselling for both obesity and psychological distress should be included as important components in all CR programmes. In this practice-level, observational study we evaluated the short-term within-group effects of a four-week multi-factorial inpatient CR programme specifically addressed to weight loss, fitness improvement and psychological health increase on 176 obese in-patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). Outcome measures were exercise capacity measured with estimated metabolic equivalents (METs), body mass index (BMI) and psychological well-being (PGWBI). Results show statistically significant improvements in all the PGWBI sub-scales and total score, except in general health (p = 0.393). No moderation effects were found for BMI class, age, diabetes and ejection fraction (EF). METs significantly increased by 30.3% (p < 0.001) and BMI decreased by 1.37 points (p < 0.001). Significant correlations were found between BMI and weight reductions with PGWBI anxiety and total score improvements. This multi-disciplinary CR programme including diet therapy, exercise training and psychological counselling provides indication for short-term within-group effectiveness on functional exercise capacity, BMI and PGWBI in a sample of obese in-patients with CHD. However, controlled studies are needed to corroborate the results we found.     

Emotional reactions to scandals: When does moral character make a difference?

A scandal can evoke public outrage when it is widely publicized and involves an individual who is perceived to have a high level of cultural representativeness. Two experiments showed that when the scandalous target's moral character was highlighted, emotional responses towards the target were least negative when the scandal was widely circulated and when the target was seen as a representative of his culture. These results suggest that when a cultural symbol is implicated in a widely‐circulated scandal, the negative emotions directed towards the scandalous individual can be alleviated when the public remains confident in his or her commitment to morality.     

Homophonic context effects when naming Japanese kanji: evidence for processing costs?

The current study investigated the effects of phonologically related context pictures on the naming latencies of target words in Japanese and Chinese. Reading bare words in alphabetic languages has been shown to be rather immune to effects of context stimuli, even when these stimuli are presented in advance of the target word (e.g., Glaser & Düngelhoff, 1984 ; Roelofs, 2003 ). However, recently, semantic context effects of distractor pictures on the naming latencies of Japanese kanji (but not Chinese hànzì) words have been observed (Verdonschot, La Heij, & Schiller, 2010 ). In the present study, we further investigated this issue using phonologically related (i.e., homophonic) context pictures when naming target words in either Chinese or Japanese. We found that pronouncing bare nouns in Japanese is sensitive to phonologically related context pictures, whereas this is not the case in Chinese. The difference between these two languages is attributed to processing costs caused by multiple pronunciations for Japanese kanji.     

Motor excitability is reduced prior to voluntary movements in children and adolescents with Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuro‐developmental disorder characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics: involuntary, repetitive, stereotyped behaviours that occur with a limited duration, often typically many times in a single day. Previous studies suggest that children and adolescents with TS may undergo compensatory, neuroplastic changes in brain structure and function that help them gain control over their tics. In the current study we used single‐pulse and dual‐site paired‐pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in conjunction with a manual choice reaction time task that induces high levels of inter‐manual conflict, to investigate this conjecture in a group of children and adolescents with TS, but without co‐morbid Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We found that performance on the behavioural response‐conflict task did not differ between the adolescents with TS and a group of age‐matched typically developing individuals. By contrast, our study demonstrated that cortical excitability, as measured by TMS‐induced motor‐evoked potentials (MEPs), was significantly reduced in the TS group in the period immediately preceding a finger movement. This effect is interpreted as consistent with previous suggestions that the cortical hyper‐excitability that may give rise to tics in TS is actively suppressed by cognitive control mechanisms. Finally, we found no reliable evidence for altered patterns of functional inter‐hemispheric connectivity in TS. These results provide evidence for compensatory brain reorganization that may underlie the increased self‐regulation mechanisms that have been hypothesized to bring about the control of tics during adolescence.     

The future of involuntary civil commitment in the U.S.A. after Kansas v. Hendricks

This article examines new sexual predator commitment laws enacted recently in the United States to civilly commit dangerous sex offenders after they have served their prison sentences. It then examines Kansas v. Hendricks, a Supreme Court case that upheld these laws as constitutionally permitted. The article next describes the broad parameters that demarcate the government's civil commitment authority identified by the Supreme Court in that case. The author concludes that Hendricks establishes that the state has expansive civil commitment power much greater than our previous understanding. The government may use civil commitment solely to protect the public from dangerous individuals without proving a medically recognized mental disorder, recent evidence of dangerousness, or a treatment purpose or possibility. Moreover, this quarantine system may be justified by proving the same unlawful behavior for which the individual has already been criminally punished.     

Third Men: The Logic of the Sophisms at Arist. SE 22, 178b36–170a10

This article aims at elucidating the logic of Arist. SE 22, 178b36–179a10 and, in particular, of the sophism labelled "Third Man" discussed in it. I suggest that neither the sophistic Walking Man argument, proposed by ancient commentators, nor the Aristotelian Third Man of the , suggested by modern interpreters, can be identified with the fallacious argument Aristotle presents and solves in the passage. I propose an alternative reconstruction of the Third Man sophism and argue that an explanation of the lines regarding the identity of Coriscus and Coriscus the musician (178b39–179a3) is indispensable for its correct understanding, since they hint at another sophism in some important aspects analogous. Finally, I show that two contradictions concerning spotted by scholars in the passage are only apparent and can be dissolved once the assumption that the anti-Platonic Third Man argument is at stake here is discarded, and once the passage is read in the light of its agonistic context.     

Stroop dilution but not word-processing dilution: evidence for attention capture

Stroop dilution refers to the observation that the impact of a color word on the naming of a color bar is reduced if another word-like object is displayed simultaneously. Recently, Brown, Roos-Gilbert, and Carr (1995) concluded that Stroop dilution is due to early-visual interference. This conclusion was evaluated in three experiments. Experiment 1 showed that, contrary to the predictions of an early-visual interference account, (a) diluters that are similar in terms of visual complexity induced different amounts of dilution and (b) the size of the dilution effect is proportional to the size of the Stroop interference effect when the diluters are used as single distractors. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that when the position of the color bar is pre-cued, Stroop dilution disappears. We argue that these findings support Van der Heijden's (1992) attention-capture account of Stroop dilution.     

Social Anxiety in Children with Anxiety Disorders: Relation with Social and Emotional Functioning

Investigated the psychometric properties of the Social Anxiety Scale for children-Revised (SASC-R) as well as relations between social anxiety and children's social and emotional functioning. Participants were a clinic sample of children, ages 6–11 with anxiety disorders (N = 154) who completed the SASC-R. For a subset of these children, parent ratings of social skills, and self-ratings of perceived competence and peer interactions were also obtained. Factor analysis of the SASC-R supported the original three-factor solution and internal consistencies were in the acceptable range. Among children with simple phobia, scores on the SASC-R differentiated those with and without a comorbid social-based anxiety disorder. Social anxiety was also associated with impairments in social and emotional functioning. Specifically, highly socially anxious children reported low levels of social acceptance and global self-esteem and more negative peer interactions. Girls with high levels of social anxiety were also rated by parents as having poor social skills, particularly in the areas of assertive and responsible social behavior.     

Reduction of epileptic seizures by reinforcement of bladder continence.

Epileptic seizures and resulting incontinence of urine were effectively reduced by reinforcement of incompatible behaviour with individual programming within a general token economy system. Two treatment phases, including token and social reinforcement, during an 11 week period resulted in significant seizure reduction. Therapeutic gains were maintained in a 6 month follow-up.