The involuntary nature of music-evoked autobiographical memories in Alzheimer's disease

The main objective of this paper was to examine the involuntary nature of music-evoked autobiographical memories. For this purpose, young adults, older adults, and patients with a clinical diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were asked to remember autobiographical events in two conditions: after being exposed to their own chosen music, and in silence. Compared to memories evoked in silence, memories evoked in the "Music" condition were found to be more specific, accompanied by more emotional content and impact on mood, and retrieved faster. In addition, these memories engaged less executive processes. Thus, with all these characteristics and the fact that they are activated by a perceptual cue (i.e., music), music-evoked autobiographic memories have all the features to be considered as involuntary memories. Our paper reveals several characteristics of music-evoked autobiographical memories in AD patients and offers a theoretical background for this phenomenon.     

A Case of Partial Biotinidase Deficiency Associated With Autism

We report the case of a child with partial biotinidase deficiency and autistic developmental disorder. We arrived at the diagnosis of biotinidase deficiency when the child was almost 4 years of age. Consequently, he began cofactor biotin treatment (10 mg daily) which did not resolve his autistic behavior. His younger brother was affected by partial biotinidase deficiency diagnosed at birth through our neonatal screening program. He was precociously treated with cofactor biotin therapy (10 mg daily) and did not show any behavioral abnormality or developmental delay. Since the brain is quite vulnerable to biotin deficiency, delayed biotin therapy could result in neurological damage. Our patient is the first case of partial biotinidase deficiency associated with autism. We hypothesize that the low biotinidase activity could have caused biotin deficiency in his brain and cerebrospinal fluids and consequently serious neurological problems, such as stereotyped and autistic behaviors, which were irreversible in spite of biotin supplementation.     

The Dyadic Relationships Test: Creation and Validation of a Model-Derived,Visual-Verbal Instrument to Evaluate Couple Relationships. Part II

The second part of this article adds evidence to support the psychometric properties of the Dyadic Relationships Test (DRT), designed to evaluate dyadic relationships from a theoretical Selfhood model. This model was presented in an early publication (Cusinato & L'Abate, 2003) and in the first part of this article.     

Likeness: A Hidden Ingredient in Family Therapy

The purpose of this paper is to show how one can progress from a validated theoretical model to its practical application in family therapy. The model applied in this case is the Likeness Continuum consisting of six degrees of Likeness: symbiosis, sameness, similarity, differentness, oppositeness, and alienation. A formal Task to evaluate this model in family therapy is attached to provide a basis for the evaluation of this model in the laboratory and in the therapy office.     

Exploring the memory advantage for moving scenes

Recognition memory is better for moving images than for static images (the dynamic superiority effect), and performance is best when the mode of presentation at test matches that at study (the study–test congruence effect). We investigated the basis for these effects. In Experiment 1, dividing attention during encoding reduced overall performance but had little effect on the dynamic superiority or study–test congruence effects. In addition, these effects were not limited to scenes depicting faces. In Experiment 2, movement improved both old–new recognition and scene orientation judgements. In Experiment 3, movement improved the recognition of studied scenes but also increased the spurious recognition of novel scenes depicting the same people as studied scenes, suggesting that movement increases the identification of individual objects or actors without necessarily improving the retrieval of associated information. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results and highlight directions for future investigation.     

Mirroring Activity in the Brain and Movement Determinant in the Rorschach Test

Human movement (M) responses to the Rorschach are related to cognitive sophistication, creativity, and empathy. Recent studies also link Ms to EEG-mu suppression, an index of mirroring activity in the brain. In this article, we further investigate the link between Ms and mu suppression by testing some clinical interpretative distinctions. Previously collected EEG data recorded during the administration of the Rorschach were reanalyzed. We hypothesized that (a) among several responses investigated, only M would be associated with mu suppression, and (b) Ms with active movement, ordinary form quality, or whole human figures would be most strongly associated with mu suppression. Hypothesis 1 was fully confirmed, thus supporting that the traditional interpretation of M has a neurobiological foundation. Hypothesis 2 was partially confirmed; that is, active Ms were associated with mu suppression more strongly than passive Ms (p < .05), but no other significant differences emerged. Clinical implications are discussed.     

An Inter-Rater Reliability Study for the Rorschach Performance Assessment System

Summary: Presented definitions for the construct of ambiguity tolerance. The measun: of ambiguity tolerance (MAT-50) had high internal reliability (r = .88) and high test-retest reliability (r = .86) over a 10-to-12 week period. A content analysis of the measure and a subjective imalysis by 20 graduate students indicated adequate content validity. A multivariate comparison with two other ambiguity measures, two rigidity measures, and a short dogmatism measure provided strong evidence for criteria-related validity. Finally, four independent empirical studies showed good construct validity.     

What is A Philosophical Question?

There are many ways of understanding the nature of philosophical questions. One may consider their morphology, semantics, relevance, or scope. This article introduces a different approach, based on the kind of informational resources required to answer them. The result is a definition of philosophical questions as questions whose answers are in principle open to informed, rational, and honest disagreement, ultimate but not absolute, closed under further questioning, possibly constrained by empirical and logico‐mathematical resources, but requiring noetic resources to be answered. The article concludes with a discussion of some of the consequences of this definition for a conception of philosophy as the study (or “science”) of open questions, which uses conceptual design to analyse and answer them.     

Introduction

This introduction presents the project of a one‐day meeting on the future of philosophical research, hosted by the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, on 13 January 2012. The meeting brought together several distinguished philosophers and scholars in their roles as journal editors and publishing experts, in order to clarify and discuss the future of philosophical research. This symposium in Metaphilosophy collects a selection of the papers presented at the meeting and some invited articles.