The Holocaust and Its Effects on Survivors: An Overview

The Nazi Holocaust has had continuing and widely reverberating consequences not only for the Jewish survivors but for the world at large. These consequences are detailed, first through a personal account of an Auschwitz survivor, and then through a discussion of the adaptive measures of concentration camp inmates and the long-term psychiatric and psychological effects on survivors and their families. The Survivor or Concentration Camp Syndrome and its relationship to the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is described. Indirect effects of the Holocaust have been manifested in various ways, particularly through various levels of psychologic denial displayed by Holocaust criminals and (at least during the early postwar period) by the German public. The Holocaust has had profound effects on the ways the Jewish people regard themselves and are seen by others. Finally, the Holocaust can be seen as offering a kind of paradigmatic signature to the worldview of the end of the 20th century, emphasizing the persistence of evil and the limitations of the idea of progress.     

The effects of polydrug use with and without cocaine on mother-infant interaction at 3 and 6 months

The face-to-face interactions of 43 polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers and their infants at 3 and 6 months were compared to 17 non-cocaine-but other-drug-using mothers and 21 mothers who used no drugs during their pregnancy. Coders blind to mothers' drug use status scored 3 min of face-to-face interactions for 16 measures of maternal and infant interactive behaviors. A principal component of 7 behaviors formed a measure of maternal attentiveness; a principal component of 5 behaviors formed a measure of mother-infant dyadic organization; and a principal component of 4 behaviors formed a measure of infant readiness to interact. A measure of maternal interruption was computed as the mean standard score of 3 additional interruptive behaviors. At 3 and 6 months, polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers were less attentive to interactions, and polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers and their infants engaged in fewer dyadic interactions than either non-cocaine or non-drug-using mothers. Compared to 3 months, polydrug-with-cocaine-using mothers at 6 months were less attentive to interactions and more frequently interrupted interactions by looking away, redirecting the infant, or withdrawing, whereas non-cocaine-using and non-drug- using mothers showed no change or an improvement in attentiveness to interactions and a decrease in interruptions. No differences emerged in the interactive behaviors of the infants of polydrug- with-cocaine-using, non-cocaine-using, or non-drug-using mothers. Cocaine use represents a significant risk for diminished parental attentiveness and responsiveness to infants and for diminished interactiveness in infants.     

Computational and reasoning abilities in arithmetic: Cross-generational change in China and the United States

A Chinese advantage over Americans was found for economically relevant computational and reasoning abilities in arithmetic for groups of 6th- and 12th-grade students matched or equated on general intelligence. No cross-national difference for computational or reasoning abilities was found for samples of older (60- to 80-year-old) Chinese and American adults equated on general intelligence. The pattern of change in arithmetical competencies across cohorts suggests that the Chinese advantage in 6th and 12th grade is due to a cross-generational decline in competencies in the United States and a cross-generational improvement in China.     

What is the pronunciation for -ough and the spelling for /u/? A database for computing feedforward and feedback consistency in English

Recent studies suggest that performance attendant on visual word perception is affected not only by feedforward inconsistency (i.e., multiple ways to pronounce a spelling) but also by feedback inconsistency (i.e., multiple ways to spell a pronunciation). In the present study, we provide a statistical analysis of these types of inconsistency for all monosyllabic English words. This database can be used as a tool for controlling, selecting, and constructing stimulus materials for psycholinguistic and neuropsychological research. Such large-scale statistical analyses are necessary devices for developing metrics of inconsistency, for generating hypotheses for psycholinguistic experiments, and for building models of word perception, speech perception, and spelling.     

Spline smoothing with model-based penalties

Nonparametric regression techniques, which estimate functions directly from noisy data rather than relying on specific parametric models, now play a central role in statistical analysis. We can improve the efficiency and other aspects of a nonparametric curve estimate by using prior knowledge about general features of the curve in the smoothing process. Spline smoothing is extended in this paper to express this prior knowledge in the form of a linear differential operator that annihilates a specified parametric model for the data. Roughness in the fitted function is defined in terms of the integrated square of this operator applied to the fitted function. A fastO(n) algorithm is outlined for this smart smoothing process. Illustrations are provided of where this technique proves useful.     

Internalizing and externalizing characteristics of sexually and/or physically abused children

This study evaluates the behavioral consequences of childhood abuse (sexual, physical, or both), with particular focus on prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Three abuse type groups and nonabused controls were contrasted on behavioral rating scales and on structured psychiatric interview data. The participants (109 abused children and 16 normal control children) were recruited from Arkansas Children’s Hospital and local agencies for abused children. As expected, proportionately more females than males were sexually abused. Overall, males were rated as more disturbed than females. Type of abuse did not consistently influence behavioral ratings. Externalizing scores were significantly higher than internalizing scores in all abused groups. PTSD was diagnosed in 50% of the abused children, with a higher rate for boys who had been sexually abused as opposed to physically abused only (58% versus 13%). The most frequent comorbid condition with PTSD was Separation Anxiety. Sexually abused boys were hospitalized for psychiatric treatment at a higher rate than were other abused children.     

The organization of multidimensional selection on the basis of color and shape: An event-related brain potential study

In this paper, we examine whether color and shape, tied to a single object in space, (1) are identified and selected in series or in parallel, (2) are identified and selected in a dependent, self-terminating manner or in an independent and exhaustive manner, and (3) are conjoined by a feature integration process before or only after an initial stage of separate attribute analyses has finished. We measured response time and the selection negativity (SN) derived from event-related brain potentials when participants responded to a unique conjunction of color and shape in a go/no-go target detection task. The discriminability of the color and the shape of the conjunction was manipulated in three conditions. When color and shape were easy to discriminate, the SNs to color and shape started at the same time. When one attribute was less discriminable, the SN to that attribute started later, but not the SN to the complementary attribute. This suggests that color and shape are identified and selected in parallel. In all three discriminability conditions, the SNs to color and shape were initially independent but later interacted. This suggests that color and shape are initially selected independently and exhaustively, after which their conjunction is analyzed. The SN to local shape features started later than that to the conjunction of color and global shape features, which suggests that feature integration can start before the analyses of the separate attributes have finished.     

False Consensus,Stereotypic Cues,and the Perception of Integrative Potential in Negotiation1

We argue that negotiators' fixed-sum perceptions are caused by the same judgment process that creates false consensus. Bargainers' reliance on their own preferences as a cue to others' preferences leads them to anticipate a fixed-sum conflict. When presented with stereotypic cues, subjects in a negotiating experiment anticipated the variable-sum nature of the task and subsequently realized highly efficient settlements extremely quickly. Surprisingly, even when the party's preferences were unrepresentative of the stereotype, agreements were no less efficient than in the absence of the cue. The implications of these findings for bargaining research and practice are discussed.     

Causal Attributions for Poorly Performing Projects: Their Effect on Project Continuation Decisions

This study examined the escalation problem within an attribution theory framework. Students read a case scenario containing causal attribution information that described a poorly performing project under their supervision. They made estimates of its future success, as well as a decision whether to continue it. Perceived stability of causality had the primary effect on expectancy of success. A project whose performance downturn was attributed to a stable cause had a lower expectancy. Locus of causality had a smaller but still significant effect. Project downturns attributed to internal causes had a lower expectancy. Expectancy of success was significantly correlated with project continuation decisions. Discrepancies between these results and those reported by Staw and Ross (1978) are accounted for in terms of Weiner's (1985, 1986) attributional analysis.     

Fractal Images of Formal Systems

Formal systems are standardly envisaged in terms of a grammar specifying well-formed formulae together with a set of axioms and rules. Derivations are ordered lists of formulae each of which is either an axiom or is generated from earlier items on the list by means of the rules of the system; the theorems of a formal system are simply those formulae for which there are derivations. Here we outline a set of alternative and explicitly visual ways of envisaging and analyzing at least simple formal systems using fractal patterns of infinite depth. Progressively deeper dimensions of such a fractal can be used to map increasingly complex wffs or increasingly complex value spaces, with tautologies, contradictions, and various forms of contingency coded in terms of color. This and related approaches, it turns out, offer not only visually immediate and geometrically intriguing representations of formal systems as a whole but also promising formal links (1) between standard systems and classical patterns in fractal geometry, (2) between quite different kinds of value spaces in classical and infinite-valued logics, and (3) between cellular automata and logic. It is hoped that pattern analysis of this kind may open possibilities for a geometrical approach to further questions within logic and metalogic.\looseness=-1