Failure to Obtain Reinstatement of an Olfactory Representation

It has long been suspected that attentional processes differ between olfaction and the other senses. Here, we test whether voluntary dishabituation, seen, for example, when we re‐attend to the ticking of a clock, can occur in olfaction. Participants were seated in an odorized room, where at various intervals they had to evaluate what they could smell. An experimental group had one nostril open and the other closed, except during the evaluations, so that the closed side was subject to centrally driven habituation, but not peripheral adaptation. A control group had both nostrils closed except during evaluations. Following exposure, the experimental group could not report the room's odor in either the centrally habituated nostril (i.e., that remained closed) or the nostril that remained open, while the control group could. This effect could result from a number of causes, including olfaction's unique neuroanatomy, functional constraints imposed by detecting volatile chemicals, and as a consequence of limited cortical resources, with implications for the functional value of consciousness.     

A comparison of the effects of providing activity and material choice to children with autism spectrum disorders

The present study compares the effects of providing choice between activities or between materials for completion of activities on the on-task behavior of 4 boys with autism spectrum disorders. Results showed that the participants displayed higher levels of on-task behavior during the choice conditions than in the no-choice condition. However, the type of choice opportunity did not seem to have a differential effect.     

Identifying distinct sets of predictors of specific functions of autobiographical memory

ABSTRACT

Grounded in the ecological approach, research has charted several adaptive functions of autobiographical remembering. Each represents a rather different psychosocial domain (i.e., self, social, directive). The goal of this research was to determine the contributions of each of a set of variables, controlling for all others, in predicting use of autobiographical memory to serve each specific function. In two studies, participants (N?=?100; N?=?195) rated frequency of functional use of specific event memories and completed a brief battery of memory-related measures. Most Study One results were replicated in Study Two. Self-relevance of memories was related to their functional use regardless of domain. Each function was also, however, predicted by a unique set of variables consistent with its use in a given psychosocial domain. Findings emphasise how a combination of factors come into play to allow humans to use autobiographical memory to serve various different functions in navigating daily life.     

Michael Jackson,Bin Laden and I: Functions of positive and negative,public and private flashbulb memories

This study examined the perceived psychosocial functions of flashbulb memories: It compared positive and negative public flashbulb memories (positive: Bin Laden's death, negative: Michael Jackson's death) with private ones (positive: pregnancy, negative: death of a loved one). A sample of n = 389 young and n = 176 middle-aged adults answered canonical category questions used to identify flashbulb memories and rated the personal significance, the psychological temporal distance, and the functions of each memory (i.e., self-continuity, social-boding, directive functions). Hierarchical regressions showed that, in general, private memories were rated more functional than public memories. Positive and negative private memories were comparable in self-continuity and directionality, but the positive private memory more strongly served social functions. In line with the positivity bias in autobiographical memory, positive flashbulb memories felt psychologically closer than negative ones. Finally, middle-aged adults rated their memories as less functional regarding self-continuity and social-bonding than young adults. Results are discussed regarding the tripartite model of autobiographical memory functions.     

Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey

This article examines the effectiveness of religion as a solution to ethno-nationalist conflicts, drawing on the case of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan [PKK]) in Turkey. We utilize an original data set that contains data on Turkey's state-sponsored mosques between 1980 and 2016 to test for the purported peacemaking potential of religion. Results from this data set, coupled with an alternative measure of the state's involvement in religion, show that increased Islamization has no discernible impact on lowering support for the ethno-nationalist Kurdish political parties or insurgency.     

Turkish Imams’ Experience with and Their Attitudes Toward Suicide and Suicidal Persons

This study investigated the experience with and attitudes toward suicide and suicidality in 70 consenting imams serving in mosques in the province of Aydin which is located at the southwest part of Turkey. A self-report questionnaire was used to collect the data. Attitudes of imams to suicide and suicidality were compared with attitudes of male university students. Only 4 imams (5.7 %) reported having had suicidal thoughts in past, and none reported having attempted suicide. Almost 50 % said that someone in communities they serve has commited suicide and nearly 40 % reported leading funeral ceremony for someone who committed suicide. Majority of imams (64.3 %) were of the opinion that a funeral ceremony should be arranged for people who suicide and 87.1 % were of the opinion that people who suicide can be buried in a common cemetery, but only 21.4 % said that someone who attempted suicide can be appointed as imam. Compared to male medical students, imams saw suicide as an unacceptable option and those engaging in suicidal behavior to be punished after death. But they displayed socially accepting and helping reactions to an imagined close friend who attempted suicide. Therefore, it was concluded that imams might exhibit preventive reactions to suicide when they offer counseling for persons from their congregations during times of suicidal crises.     

Comprehension of Idioms in Turkish Aphasic Participants

Brain damaged participants offer an opportunity to evaluate the cognitive and linguistic processes and make assumptions about how the brain works. Cognitive linguists have been investigating the underlying mechanisms of idiom comprehension to unravel the ongoing debate on hemispheric specialization in figurative language comprehension. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the comprehension of idiomatic expressions in left brain damaged (LBD) aphasic, right brain damaged (RBD) and healthy control participants. Idiom comprehension in eleven LBD aphasic participants, ten RBD participants and eleven healthy control participants were assessed with three tasks: String to Picture Matching Task, Literal Sentence Comprehension Task and Oral Idiom Definition Task. The results of the tasks showed that in overall idiom comprehension category, the left brain-damaged aphasic participants interpret idioms more literally compared to right brain-damaged participants. What is more, there is a significant difference in opaque idiom comprehension implying that left brain-damaged aphasic participants perform worse compared to right brain-damaged participants. On the other hand, there is no statistically significant difference in scores of transparent idiom comprehension between the left brain-damaged aphasic and right brain-damaged participants. This result also contribute to the idea that while figurative processing system is damaged in LBD aphasics, the literal comprehension mechanism is spared to some extent. The results of this study support the view that idiom comprehension sites are mainly left lateralized. Furthermore, the results of this study are in consistence with the Giora’s Graded Salience Hypothesis.     

Validating the factor structure of the Self-Report Psychopathy scale in a community sample

Currently, there is no standard self-report measure of psychopathy in community-dwelling samples that parallels the most commonly used measure of psychopathy in forensic and clinical samples, the Psychopathy Checklist. A promising instrument is the Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP), which was derived from the original version the Psychopathy Checklist. The most recent version of the SRP (SRP-III; D. L. Paulhus, C. S. Neumann, & R. D. Hare, in press) has shown good convergent and discriminate validity and a factor structure similar to the current version of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991, 2003). The analyses in the current study further investigated the viability of the SRP-III as a PCL-R-analogous measure of psychopathy in nonforensic and nonclinical samples by extending the validation process to a community sample. Using confirmatory factor analyses and logistic regressions, the results revealed that a four-factor oblique model for the SRP-III was most tenable, congruent with the PCL-R factor structure of psychopathy and previous research in which the SRP-III was administered to a student sample.     

An analytic tableau calculus for a temporalised belief logic

A tableau is a refutation-based decision procedure for a related logic, and is among the most popular proof procedures for modal logics. In this paper, we present a labelled tableau calculus for a temporalised belief logic called TML⁺, which is obtained by adding a linear-time temporal logic onto a belief logic by the temporalisation method of Finger and Gabbay. We first establish the soundness and the completeness of the labelled tableau calculus based on the soundness and completeness results of its constituent logics. We then sketch a resolution-type proof procedure that complements the tableau calculus and also propose a model checking algorithm for TML⁺ based on the recent results for model checking procedures for temporalised logics. TML⁺ is suitable for formalising trust and agent beliefs and reasoning about their evolution for agent-based systems. Based on the logic TML⁺, the proposed labelled tableau calculus could be used for analysis, design and verification of agent-based systems operating in dynamic environments.     

Experience dependent changes in odour-viscosity perception

One consequence of experiencing flavour — the combination of taste, smell and somatosensation that occurs during ingestion — is that it can result in perceptual changes for the odour component, when this is later smelled alone. One such change is the acquisition of taste-like properties, but whether odours can also acquire somatosensory-like qualities is largely unknown. Participants here were exposed to one odour sampled in a viscous solution, another sampled in a sweet/viscous solution, and a further odour sampled in water. The odour sampled in the sweet/viscous solution was, when later sniffed alone, judged to smell thicker and sweeter, than the other two odours. Similarly, when the sweet/viscous paired odour was added to a viscous solution, the combination was judged as more viscous, than the other two odours — and sweeter when added to a sweet solution. This experiment suggests that odours can acquire tactile-like somatosensory qualities and this may best occur when a taste is present during learning. Recent work indicates that tastes may be superior to somatosensory stimuli alone in promoting flavour binding, a seeming precondition for this type of learning.