Tool use in neurodegenerative diseases: Planning or technical reasoning?

Recent works showed that tool use can be impaired in stroke patients because of either planning or technical reasoning deficits, but these two hypotheses have not yet been compared in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. The aim of this study was to address the relationships between real tool use, mechanical problem‐solving, and planning skills in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 32), semantic dementia (SD, n = 16), and corticobasal syndrome (CBS, n = 9). Patients were asked to select and use ten common tools, to solve three mechanical problems, and to complete the Tower of London test. Motor function and episodic memory were controlled using the Purdue Pegboard Test and the BEC96 questionnaire, respectively. A data‐transformation method was applied to avoid ceiling effects, and single‐case analysis was performed based on raw scores and completion time. All groups demonstrated either impaired or slowed tool use. Planning deficits were found only in the AD group. Mechanical problem‐solving deficits were observed only in the AD and CBS groups. Performance in the Tower of London test was the best predictor of tool use skills in the AD group, suggesting these patients had general rather than mechanical problem‐solving deficits. Episodic memory seemed to play little role in performance. Motor dysfunction tended to be associated with tool use skills in CBS patients, while tool use disorders are interpreted as a consequence of the semantic loss in SD in line with previous works. These findings may encourage caregivers to set up disease‐centred interventions.     

Effects of Bilingual Tact Instruction for a Child with Communication Disorder

We evaluated the effects of tact training when instruction was presented in English only compared to tact training in a bilingual format (in English and the home language, Portuguese) for a participant diagnosed with a communication disorder. The participant’s parents completed a questionnaire describing his exposure to both languages prior to the start of the study. We also conducted formal language assessments to determine the participant’s preexisting language abilities. An adapted alternating treatment design was used to compare the rate of acquisition in the two training conditions. Results show the participant emitted more correct responses during tact training in English than during the bilingual tact training. Generalization and maintenance of acquired tact responses for stimuli trained in the bilingual condition were greater than for stimuli trained in the English-only condition. These results are discussed with respect to implications for language-training programs for children with language delays and developmental disabilities, and we outline suggestions for future research in this area.     

Applying the SIDE model to brainwriting: The impact of intergroup comparison and anonymity on creative performance

According to the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects, intergroup comparison under anonymity accentuates social identity salience, potentially increasing motivation to work for one's group. The present experiment aimed to examine whether intergroup comparison and anonymity could boost creative performance in a brainwriting task. Sixty participants, randomly assigned to groups, wrote their ideas on sticky notes of the same (anonymity) or different color (individuation). To reinforce social identity salience, half the groups were told that their performance would be compared with other groups. As predicted, anonymity and intergroup comparison boosted both the number of nonredundant ideas produced by group members (fluency), and diversity of ideas pertaining to different categories (flexibility). By contrast, when social identity was not salient, anonymity led to an increase in the originality of ideas.     

Self-compassion and Students' Well-Being Among Vietnamese Students: Chain Mediation Effect of Narcissism and Anxiety

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - The positive psychology that increases mental health is referred to "health assets." Among those assets, self-compassion...     

为什么和声能诱发音乐情感?——音乐协和性的作用及其认知机制

音乐是高级意识活动产生的声音艺术, 对人类的情感表达和交流具有重要意义。作为连接音乐与情绪的核心要素, 协和性的形成原理至今仍然未有定论。人类如何加工多个音符构成的和声?为什么一些和声听起来协和(愉悦), 一些和声听起来不协和(不愉悦)?协和感究竟是自下而上的声学感知还是自上而下的审美体验?从古希腊时代至今, 这些问题就一直吸引着学者的目光。物理学家从协和与不协和的声学区别中寻找答案, 生理学家从听觉生理机制方面分析协和感的产生, 心理学家研究协和音程偏好是与生俱来的还是后天形成的。目前, 音乐协和性的理论内容主要以西方音乐为主, 中国传统民族音乐迫切需要开展相关的实证研究。     

A Puzzle Concerning Time Perception

According to a plausible and influential account of perceptual knowledge, the truth-makers of beliefs that constitute perceptual knowledge must feature in the causal explanation of how we acquire those beliefs. However, this account runs into difficulties when it tries to accommodate time perception – specifically perception of order and duration – since the features we are apparently tracking in such perception are (it is argued) not causal. The central aim of the paper is to solve this epistemological puzzle. Two strategies are examined. The first strategy locates the causal truth-makers within the psychological mechanism underlying time perception, thus treating facts about time order and duration as mind-dependent. This strategy, however, is problematic. The second strategy modifies the causal account of perceptual knowledge to include a non-causal component in the explanation of belief-acquisition, namely chronometric explanation. Applying this much more satisfactory approach to perceptual knowledge of time, we can preserve the mind-independence of order and duration, but not that of time's flow.     

理性事实与自然主义谬误——兼论摩尔对康德道德哲学的误读

论文以摩尔自然主义谬误概念为出发点,指出摩尔对康德道德哲学的批评是不恰当的,并分析了摩尔对康德的误解及其原因;进而提出康德以理性事实概念为基础,解决了关于善与道德法则的关系,并为善的概念之阐明开辟了新的视野;康德的理性事实概念学说超越了从"是"到"应该"规范伦理学的思路,以及自然主义谬误所指出的错误路径,指出"应该"作为定言命令是被给予的而非被推导的,从而为规范伦理学开辟了新的境界.     

Syntactic transfer in artificial grammar learning

In an artificial grammar learning (AGL) experiment, participants were trained with instances of one grammatical structure before completing a test phase in which they were required to discriminate grammatical from randomly created strings. Importantly, the underlying structure used to generate test strings was different from that used to generate the training strings. Despite the fact that grammatical training strings were more similar to nongrammatical test strings than they were to grammatical test strings, this manipulation resulted in a positive transfer effect, as compared with controls trained with nongrammatical strings. It is suggested that training with grammatical strings leads to an appreciation of set variance that aids the detection of grammatical test strings in AGL tasks. The analysis presented demonstrates that it is useful to conceptualize test performance in AGL as a form of unsupervised category learning.     

The Lived Experience of Religiosity and Stress among Middle-Aged Vietnamese American Catholic Immigrants

Pastoral Psychology - Based on findings from an interpretative phenomenological study, this article reports the lived experiences of religiosity and stress among six middle-aged Vietnamese-born...