Divergent thinking and the core executive functions: a state-of-the-art review

Cognitive Processing - The study of the relationships between divergent thinking and the core executive functions is long standing. However, the literature on this topic is not conclusive. The...     

Metarelational models: Configurations of social relationships

Beyond cognizing persons and social relationships, people also think about combinations of relationships: metarelational models (MeRMs). If relationships are words, then MeRMs are syntax; if relationships are atoms, MeRMs are chemical compounds. MeRMs are the motivated, emotionally experienced, morally directive models for generating, understanding, coordinating, planning, evaluating, modulating, sanctioning, and redressing configurations of social relationships. Previous research and theory on triads and balance, networks, cross‐cutting ties, and kinship systems has explored the causal connections among social relationships, but MeRM theory posits something more: shared, culturally informed MeRMs that people use to jointly construct meaningful coordinated action. The social interactions of nonhuman animals and pre‐verbal infants indicate that they use MeRMs, supporting the contention that core innate cognition includes the basic structures of MeRMs. There are six elementary kinds of MeRMs, and recursive linking of relational models (RMs) generates indefinitely more. MeRMs shape individual psychology, relationships, groups, institutions, and cultures. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Language, perception, and the schematic representation of spatial relations

Schemas are abstract nonverbal representations that parsimoniously depict spatial relations. Despite their ubiquitous use in maps and diagrams, little is known about their neural instantiation. We sought to determine the extent to which schematic representations are neurally distinguished from language on the one hand, and from rich perceptual representations on the other. In patients with either left hemisphere damage or right hemisphere damage, a battery of matching tasks depicting categorical spatial relations was used to probe for the comprehension of basic spatial concepts across distinct representational formats (words, pictures, and schemas). Left hemisphere patients underperformed right hemisphere patients across all tasks. However, focused residual analyses using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) suggest that (1) left hemisphere deficits in the representation of categorical spatial relations are difficult to distinguish from deficits in naming these relations and (2) the right hemisphere plays a special role in extracting schematic representations from richly textured pictures.     

School barricaded captive-taking: A literature review and critique

Although schools are among the safest places for children and youth, they are the occasional site of violent behavior. One form of violence is the barricaded-hostage event. In this article, the authors review the research literature pertaining to these events. Specifically, studies examining the impact on direct and indirect victims, and responders to these events, are presented and critiqued. Recommendations for future research are also made, followed by a summary and conclusions.     

Randomised trial of expressive writing for distressed metastatic breast cancer patients

Women with metastatic breast cancer and significant psychological distress (N?=?87) were assigned randomly to engage in four home-based sessions of expressive writing or neutral writing. Women in the expressive writing group wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings regarding their cancer, whereas women in the neutral writing group wrote about their daily activities in a factual manner. No statistically significant group differences in existential and psychological well-being, fatigue and sleep quality were found at 8-weeks post-writing. However, the expressive writing group reported significantly greater use of mental health services during the study than the neutral writing group (55% vs. 26%, respectively; p?<?0.05). Findings suggest that expressive writing may improve the uptake of mental health services among distressed cancer patients, but is not broadly effective as a psychotherapeutic intervention.     

An explanation of the indentation size effect in ceramics

Abstract

A quantitative model is proposed to explain the indentation size effect (ISE) often observed in the hardness response of hard brittle materials, namely that hardness is observed to increase with decreasing indentation size. The model is based on a mixed elastic/plastic materials deformation response whereby plastic deformation occurs in a discrete manner progressively to relieve stresses created by elastic flexure of the surface at the edges of the indentation. During unloading of the indenter, recovery of the elastic increment of deformation, which precedes each new band of plastic deformation, results in the indentation appearing smaller than expected, particularly as the indentation sizes decrease to approach the scale of the plastic deformation band spacing. The model fits observed experimental data well and analysis of hardness/size data in this way is shown to allow both a bulk hardness value and a characteristic deformation band scale to be calculated for a given sample.     

Increased susceptibility to proactive interference in adults with dyslexia?

Recent findings show that people with dyslexia have an impairment in serial-order memory. Based on these findings, the present study aimed to test the hypothesis that people with dyslexia have difficulties dealing with proactive interference (PI) in recognition memory. A group of 25 adults with dyslexia and a group of matched controls were subjected to a 2-back recognition task, which required participants to indicate whether an item (mis)matched the item that had been presented 2 trials before. PI was elicited using lure trials in which the item matched the item in the 3-back position instead of the targeted 2-back position. Our results demonstrate that the introduction of lure trials affected 2-back recognition performance more severely in the dyslexic group than in the control group, suggesting greater difficulty in resisting PI in dyslexia.     

Changing Their Minds: Enhancing Poststroke Occupational Performance Using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Stroke remains a leading cause of disability, with survivors experiencing long-term decrements in independence and quality of life. Occupational therapists (OTs) employ numerous neurorehabilitative treatment approaches to remediate impairments that are impeding performance. OTs also use physical agent modalities to facilitate increased participation and success in therapy. One such modality is transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a form a noninvasive brain stimulation that can be overlaid onto task practice and delivers a constant, low intensity current into the brain. tDCS is safe, portable, and efficacious in remediating a variety of deficits, yet is not consistently incorporated into clinical practice. The authors discuss the mechanisms, safety, evidence, and potential applications of tDCS to enhance outcomes for this growing population.     

Listeners influence speakers’ perceived communication effectiveness

People have an exaggerated sense of self-efficacy. This paper investigates the mechanism behind speakers’ tendency to overestimate their communication efficacy. Two competing mechanisms were tested: intrapersonal and interpersonal. Speakers communicated a series of ambiguous statements to a co-present or absent listener and then estimated their success. Speakers overestimated their ability to communicate their intended message (relative to listeners’ actual comprehension of their message) when a listener was co-present, but not when a listener was absent. Our findings support an interpersonal explanation of speakers’ perceived communication efficacy.     

MIND‐INDEPENDENCE DISAMBIGUATED: SEPARATING THE MEAT FROM THE STRAW IN THE REALISM/ANTI‐REALISM DEBATE

The notion of mind‐independence plays a central role in the contemporary realism/anti‐realism debate, but the notion is severely ambiguous and consequently the source of considerable misunderstanding. In this paper, four kinds of mind‐independence are distinguished: ontological, causal, structural, and individuative independence. Appreciating these distinctions entails that one can reject the individuative independence of the natural world, and still maintain that the natural world is causally and structurally independent of us. This paper argues that so‐called anti‐realists, especially Rorty, Putnam, and Goodman, are not opposed to the causal and structural independence of the natural world, as is frequently alleged, but rather its individuative independence. An acceptance of these points will hopefully put an end to the prevalence of strawmen in the debate, and focus attention on meatier issues.