Cognitive functions of gamma-band activity: memory match and utilization

Oscillatory neural activity in the gamma frequency range (>30Hz) has been shown to accompany a wide variety of cognitive processes. So far, there has been limited success in assigning a unitary basic function to these oscillations, and critics have raised the argument that they could just be an epiphenomenon of neural processing. We propose a new framework that relates gamma oscillations observed in human, as well as in animal, experiments to two underlying processes: the comparison of memory contents with stimulus-related information and the utilization of signals derived from this comparison. This model attempts to explain early gamma-band responses in terms of the match between bottom-up and top-down information. Furthermore, it assumes that late gamma-band activity reflects the readout and utilization of the information resulting from this match.     

Coaching

Coaching ist in Wirtschaftsunternehmen weit verbreitet. Angesichts der stetig steigenden Ver?nderungsgeschwindigkeit der Arbeits- und pers?nlichen Lebenswelten suchten zun?chst Führungskr?fte professionelle Coaches, die ihnen als vertraute Gespr?chspartner zur Seite standen. Coachingma?nahmen werden aber auch zunehmend von Politikern, Medienvertretern, Künstlern und Freiberuflern nachgefragt. Die derzeitigen Coachingkonzepte enthalten zumeist eine Kombination von allgemein-psychologischen, kognitiv-verhaltensorientierten, psychodynamischen und systemischen Techniken, modifiziert durch die Lebenserfahrung und Weltanschauung der Coaches. Es existiert eine Vielzahl eklektischer Praktiken, die theoretisch nicht koh?rent begründet und wissenschaftlich nicht verl?sslich evaluiert sind. Da Coaching in der Praxis h?ufig eine Form von Psychohygiene und Psychotherapie für Gesunde darstellt, ist es nahe liegend die Ergebnisse psychotherapeutischer Theoriebildung, Praxiserfahrung und Forschung als Grundlage des Coaching zu nutzen. Drei wissenschaftlich fundierte Aspekte des Coaching lassen sich herausstellen: Die hilfreiche Beziehung, kognitiv-verhaltensorientiertes Training und psychodynamisches Verstehen. Darüber hinaus ist es viel versprechend die Methoden der Psychotherapieforschung zur Untersuchung von Ergebnis und Prozess von Coachingma?nahmen anzuwenden.     

Psychodynamik und neurophysiologischer Befund bei einem Patienten mit einer zwanghaften Lesestörung

The present single case study is aimed to investigate neuro-physiological correlates of checking and ordering compulsions in a 40 years old patient suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by means of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) method. After the presentation of the psychogenesis and psychodynamic of the OCD case, the cardinal symptom, a compulsive reading disturbance, is described in detail. Based on the symptom analysis eight different texts, hierarchically arranged by their degrees of difficulty were composed and presented to the patient for reading during fMRI. The results of the fMRI during symptom provocation display significant increase of activation in fronto-thalamic-cortical neural circuits with the occurence of compulsive reading disturbances compared with unproblematic texts and with the reading of a control subject. The findings are discussed in relation to the neurobiologic literature as well as to an object-psychological model of the OCD.     

Coaching

Zusammenfassung Coaching ist in Wirtschaftsunternehmen weit verbreitet. Angesichts der stetig steigenden Ver?nderungsgeschwindigkeit der Arbeits- und pers?nlichen Lebenswelten suchten zun?chst Führungskr?fte professionelle Coaches, die ihnen als vertraute Gespr?chspartner zur Seite standen. Coachingma?nahmen werden aber auch zunehmend von Politikern, Medienvertretern, Künstlern und Freiberuflern nachgefragt. Die derzeitigen Coachingkonzepte enthalten zumeist eine Kombination von allgemein-psychologischen, kognitiv-verhaltensorientierten, psychodynamischen und systemischen Techniken, modifiziert durch die Lebenserfahrung und Weltanschauung der Coaches. Es existiert eine Vielzahl eklektischer Praktiken, die theoretisch nicht koh?rent begründet und wissenschaftlich nicht verl?sslich evaluiert sind. Da Coaching in der Praxis h?ufig eine Form von Psychohygiene und Psychotherapie für Gesunde darstellt, ist es nahe liegend die Ergebnisse psychotherapeutischer Theoriebildung, Praxiserfahrung und Forschung als Grundlage des Coaching zu nutzen. Drei wissenschaftlich fundierte Aspekte des Coaching lassen sich herausstellen: Die hilfreiche Beziehung, kognitiv-verhaltensorientiertes Training und psychodynamisches Verstehen. Darüber hinaus ist es viel versprechend die Methoden der Psychotherapieforschung zur Untersuchung von Ergebnis und Prozess von Coachingma?nahmen anzuwenden.      

Law and Force: 20th Century radical legal philosophy,post-modernism and the foundations of law

The foundations of law have been the object ofintense philosophical scrutiny since antiquity.Most importantly, it has been asked whetherthere are really any foundations other thansheer force to be found once more comfortingillusions are abandoned. This paperinvestigates four influential theorists ofradical legal philosophy and postmodern thought(Benjamin, Schmitt, Luhmann, Derrida) who dealwith this problem in comparable ways despitetheir different theoretical outlooks. Themerits of these theories having been assessed,mentalism in ethics and law is introduced as apossible alternative to both the widespreadfoundationalism of the past and theanti-foundationalism of the postmodern present.     

Using Response Times to Model Not-Reached Items due to Time Limits

Missing values at the end of a test typically are the result of test takers running out of time and can as such be understood by studying test takers’ working speed. As testing moves to computer-based assessment, response times become available allowing to simulatenously model speed and ability. Integrating research on response time modeling with research on modeling missing responses, we propose using response times to model missing values due to time limits. We identify similarities between approaches used to account for not-reached items (Rose et al. in ETS Res Rep Ser 2010:i–53, 2010) and the speed-accuracy (SA) model for joint modeling of effective speed and effective ability as proposed by van der Linden (Psychometrika 72(3):287–308, 2007). In a simulation, we show (a) that the SA model can recover parameters in the presence of missing values due to time limits and (b) that the response time model, using item-level timing information rather than a count of not-reached items, results in person parameter estimates that differ from missing data IRT models applied to not-reached items. We propose using the SA model to model the missing data process and to use both, ability and speed, to describe the performance of test takers. We illustrate the application of the model in an empirical analysis.

     

Media use and school achievement – boys at risk?

In work done at the German Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN) various methods have been used to investigate how specific inappropriate media usage patterns affect academic performance in children and adolescents. The findings are paralleled by current international research indicating a negative relationship between these two variables. Based on a cross‐sectional survey of 5,529 fourth grade students and a longitudinal panel study with 1,157 primary schoolchildren, a key finding can be demonstrated: the more time students spend on consuming media and the more violent its contents are, the worse are their marks at school, even when controlling for vital factors such as family, educational, or immigrant background. In particular, boys who gender‐specifically are better equipped with electronic media devices, who partially have extensive media usage times and who strongly prefer violent media content, are at the risk of showing poor school performance. In fact, a decrease in academic performance of boys can be observed in German school statistics. By presenting first results of a school‐based intervention programme, a promising approach to the reduction of detrimental effects of electronic media use on school performance is introduced.