Enriched housing reverses age-associated impairment of cognitive functions and tPA-dependent maturation of BDNF

Although tissue type plasminogen activator (tPA) and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) have been extensively described to influence brain outcomes in a number of disorders, their roles during physiological aging are poorly investigated. In the present study, we investigated whether maintenance of mice in different environmental conditions could influence age-associated changes in hippocampal tPA expression and BDNF maturation in relation with modifications of their cognitive performances. Our data indicate that maintenance in enriched housing led to a reversal of age-associated decrease in expression of hippocampal tPA. A subsequent increase in the level of mature BDNF and an improvement in emotional and spatial memories were observed. Taken together, these data suggest that the tPA–BDNF axis could play a critical role in the control of cognitive functions influenced both by the age and housing conditions.     

Increasing emotional competence improves psychological and physical well-being, social relationships, and employability

This study builds on earlier work showing that adult emotional competencies (EC) could be improved through a relatively brief training. In a set of 2 controlled experimental studies, the authors investigated whether developing EC could lead to improved emotional functioning; long-term personality changes; and important positive implications for physical, psychological, social, and work adjustment. Results of Study 1 showed that 18 hr of training with e-mail follow-up was sufficient to significantly improve emotion regulation, emotion understanding, and overall EC. These changes led in turn to long-term significant increases in extraversion and agreeableness as well as a decrease in neuroticism. Results of Study 2 showed that the development of EC brought about positive changes in psychological well-being, subjective health, quality of social relationships, and employability. The effect sizes were sufficiently large for the changes to be considered as meaningful in people's lives.     

Older adults' configural processing of faces: role of second-order information

Problems with face recognition are frequent in older adults. However, the mechanisms involved have only been partially discovered. In particular, it is unknown to what extent these problems may be related to changes in configural face processing. Here, we investigated the face inversion effect (FIE) together with the ability to detect modifications in the vertical or horizontal second-order relations between facial features. We used a same/different unfamiliar face discrimination task with 33 young and 33 older adults. The results showed dissociations in the performances of older versus younger adults. There was a lack of inversion effect during the recognition of original faces by older adults. However, for modified faces, older adults showed a pattern of performance similar to that of young participants, with preserved FIE for vertically modified faces and no detectable FIE for horizontally modified faces. Most importantly, the detection of vertical modifications was preserved in older relative to young adults whereas the detection of horizontal modifications was markedly diminished. We conclude that age has dissociable effects on configural face-encoding processes, with a relative preservation of vertical compared to horizontal second-order relations processing. These results help to understand some divergent results in the literature and may explain the spared familiar face identification abilities in the daily lives of older adults.     

“There is Nothing More…Than Dressing and Eating”: Li Zhi 李贄 and the Child-like Heart-Mind (Tongxin 童心)

This article examines the writings of the controversial 16th century thinker Li Zhi 李贄, also named (hao 號) Zhuowu 卓吾 (1527–1602), and argues that he articulates a coherent and compelling vision of a good life focused on the expression of genuine feelings distinctive to each individual. Through a study of literary texts and terms of art he refers to in his critical essay “On the Child-like Heart-mind” (Tongxin Shuo 童心說), as well as the metaphors and images he fleshes out throughout his writings, I characterize Li’s ethical vision and show that it is rooted in a particular loose and accommodating conception of human nature and centered on the simple and intuitive act of daily maintaining the birthright of our “child-like heart-mind.”     

The psychometric properties of several measures of body image

Despite the recent upsurge of interest in the construct of body image, there is relatively little information on the psychometric properties of the instruments used to measure it. This study investigated the reliability and validity of several measures of body image and compared bulimics and normals on these measures. One hundred ten normal weight females, half of whom were diagnosed as bulimic, were administered two measures of affect toward one's body, two measures of perceptions of one's entire body, and three measures of perceptions of the size of specific body sites (face, shoulders, waist, and hips). In themain, the measures provided reliable indices of body image. Examination of the correlation matrix for the measures disclosed convergence for the affective measures of body image and for all but one of the perceptual measures of body image. There was also significant covariation between the affective and the perceptual measures. The multitrait-multimethod technique was used to investigate the construct validity of the measures concerned with perceptions of the size of body sites. The multitrait-multimethod matrices disclosed substantial convergence between perceptions of face, shoulder, waist, and hip size across the three measures. However, the measure which used kinesthetic estimates of body-site size produced low reliabilities and all three of the measures showed substantial method variance. Bulimics and normals differed significantly on both the affective and the perceptual components of body image.This study is based on the first author's masters thesis. Portions of this study were represented at the 1986 meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association. A grant to the third author from the Anclote Psychiatric Center provided support for this research project.     

Pain expectation,negative affect,and angry aggression

An experiment was conducted to determine if the relatively strong negative affect generated by anticipation of pain from exposure to aversive stimulation would give rise to an instigation to aggression and accompanying feelings of annoyance-irritation-anger. The 45 undergraduate women in the study were required to immerse their nondominant hand in water as they administered reward and punishment to a fellow student, supposedly as an evaluation of that person's solutions to assigned problems. In two-thirds of the cases the water temperature was unpleasantly cold, while it was much more tolerable in temperature for the remaining subjects. Half of the participants in the cold water condition and all of those in the more tolerable water temperature group has been led to expect the possibility of pain as they kept their hand in the water, whereas the remaining women (exposed to the cold water) had been alerted only to the physical sensations they would have. In accord with the findings obtained in an earlier experiment by Leventhal, Brown, Sacham, and Enquist (1979), the subjects in the cold water group expecting that they might feel pain reported experiencing the greatest discomfort. Further, consistent with Berkowitz's analysis of anger and angry aggression, these participants also reported the strongest feelings of annoyance-irritation-anger and were most punitive to the available target even though they could not attribute their discomfort to this person.     

Gendered Constructions of Professionals in Daycare

In The Netherlands the boys’ problem debate in education has expanded to daycare, concerning the children between 0 and 4 years of age. Women daycare workers are blamed by mainstream media for frustrating boys’ need for physical activity and adventure. In 2004 we conducted a study, involving 96 daycare workers in 36 daycare centers in a Dutch city. We addressed the research question whether the stereotypical representation of women’s daycare work in the media is an adequate picture of these professionals’ perceptions of their work in daycare. Findings indicate that the stereotypical images of women daycare workers in the media-debates do not resemble the personal qualities and professional characteristics that these daycare workers ascribe to themselves.