Can expectation enhance response to suggestion? De-automatization illuminates a conundrum

Disparate theoretical viewpoints construe hypnotic suggestibility either as a stable trait, largely determined by underlying cognitive aptitude, or as a flexible skill amenable to attitudinal factors including beliefs and expectations. Circumscribed findings support both views. The present study attempted to consolidate these orthogonal perspectives through the lens of expectancy modification. We surreptitiously controlled light and sound stimuli to convince participants that they were responding strongly to hypnotic suggestions for visual and auditory hallucinations. Extending our previous findings, we indexed hypnotic suggestibility by de-automatizing an involuntary audiovisual phenomenon-the McGurk effect. Here we show that, regardless of expectancy modification, the experimental procedure led to heightened expectations concerning future hypnotic response. We found little effect of expectation, however, on actual response to suggestion. Our findings intimate that, at least in the present experimental context, expectation hardly correlates with--and is unlikely to be a primary determinant of--high hypnotic suggestibility.     

Differential brain shrinkage over 6 months shows limited association with cognitive practice

The brain shrinks with age, but the timing of this process and the extent of its malleability are unclear. We measured changes in regional brain volumes in younger (age 20–31) and older (age 65–80) adults twice over a 6 months period, and examined the association between changes in volume, history of hypertension, and cognitive training. Between two MRI scans, 49 participants underwent intensive practice in three cognitive domains for 100 consecutive days, whereas 23 control group members performed no laboratory cognitive tasks. Regional volumes of seven brain structures were measured manually and adjusted for intracranial volume. We observed significant mean shrinkage in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the caudate nucleus, and the cerebellum, but no reliable mean change of the prefrontal white matter, orbital-frontal cortex, and the primary visual cortex. Individual differences in change were reliable in all regions. History of hypertension was associated with greater cerebellar shrinkage. The cerebellum was the only region in which significantly reduced shrinkage was apparent in the experimental group after completion of cognitive training. Thus, in healthy adults, differential brain shrinkage can be observed in a narrow time window, vascular risk may aggravate it, and intensive cognitive activity may have a limited effect on it.     

Saving or Subordinating Life? Popular Views in Israel and Germany of Donor Siblings Created through PGD

To explore how cultural beliefs are reflected in different popular views of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for human leukocyte antigen match (popularly known as “savior siblings”), we compare the reception and interpretations, in Germany and Israel, of the novel/film My Sister’s Keeper. Qualitative analysis of reviews, commentaries and posts is used to classify and compare normative assessments of PGD for HLA and how they reproduce, negotiate or oppose the national policy and its underlying cultural and ethical premises. Four major themes emanated from the comparison: loss of self-determination and autonomy; loss of dignity through instrumentalization; eugenics and euthanasia; and saving life. In both countries, most commentaries represented a dominant position, with a few negotiated positions. We also highlight the decoding of a relatively less explored bioethical aspect of My Sister’s Keeper’s narrative, namely the meaning of euthanasia. We conclude by discussing how the findings relate to attempts of providing cultural explanations for the regulation of HLA-PGD.     

Experimentally Increasing Self-Continuity Improves Subjective Well-Being and Protects against Self-Esteem Deterioration from an Ego-Deflating Task

‘Self-continuity,’ or ‘continuous identity’ is the sense of cross-temporal persistence of identity and is associated with positive mood and decreased suicidality. Few studies have examined whether self-continuity is affected by reviewing cross-temporal patterns of personality traits and if increasing self-continuity improves subjective well-being. Study 1 examined the effects of writing about patterns of cross-temporal personality traits and found that this led to increased future self-continuity and reported life satisfaction. Study 2 examined the effects of a structured interview about cross-temporal personality traits and visualizing past/future selves and found that this led to increased future self-continuity, satisfaction with life, positive mood, and less deterioration in self-esteem after an impossible anagram task. These results suggest that increasing self-continuity may improve psychological health and well-being by increasing identity stability.     

The authorship of Uri Zohar: the ethics and aesthetics of the Archimedean lever

This article discusses Zohar’s subversive reflexive aesthetics, termed the “Archimedean-lever ethics,” comprised of three stages: the world rendered from one perspective; the same world rendered from a different perspective, challenging or destroying the first; and awareness of the shift of perspectives. It argues that Zohar’s creative energy, imbued with male sexuality, derives from this collision, and examines its ethical aspect in relation to Zionist values during the 1950s and 1960s. Zionism and Israel should always consider more than one perspective, being able not only to build but also to destroy (convictions, territories) in order to bring change, with destruction thus becoming a particular form of creation. However, in Zohar’s films made during the 1970s, the male sexual energy becomes an endless sexual appetite, expressed mostly through coveting gazes, which is no more than a cover up for male impotency, tantamount to Israel’s endless appetite for land.     

Measuring attention in the hemispheres: the lateralized attention network test (LANT)

The attention network test (ANT) is a brief computerized battery measuring three independent behavioral components of attention: Conflict resolution (ability to overcome distracting stimuli), spatial Orienting (the benefit of valid spatial pre-cues), and Alerting (the benefit of temporal pre-cues). Imaging, clinical, and behavioral evidence demonstrate hemispheric asymmetries in these attentional networks. We constructed a lateralized version of the ANT (LANT), with brief targets flashed in one or the other visual hemifield. We also modified the tests by including invalid spatial cues in order to measure the cost component of Orienting. In a series of experiments, we investigated the efficiency of the attention networks separately in each hemisphere. Participants exhibited significant estimates of all networks measured by the LANT, comparable to the ANT. The three networks were represented in each hemisphere separately and were largely comparable across the two hemispheres. We suggest that the LANT is an informative extension of the original ANT, allowing for measurement of the three attention networks in each hemisphere separately.     

Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions: Co‐construction of narratives in light of maternal trauma

The article focuses on detailed examination of the co‐construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6‐year‐old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co‐construction processes. To better understand these difficulties, the article also provides vignettes from interviews with mothers about children's inner worlds and show how examining the interviews may help explain the unfolding of the dialogues and particularly points of difficulty. The dialogues between the mothers and their children were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue procedure (Koren‐Karie, Oppenheim, Chaimovich, & Etzion‐Carasso, 2000). The maternal interviews were obtained using the Insightfulness Assessment procedure (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The discussion focuses on the significance of mother–child dialogues in shaping children's inner world, and points to the importance of providing intervention for adults who experienced childhood traumas that address not only their own personal issues but also their functioning as parents.     

Age-related deficits in generation and manipulation of mental images: II. The role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

The authors investigated neural substrates of age-related declines in mental imagery. Healthy adult participants (ages 19 to 77) performed a series of visual-spatial mental imagery tasks that varied in apparent difficulty and involved stimuli of varying graphic complexity. The volumes of the dorsolateral frontal cortex (DLPFC) and posterior visual processing areas were estimated from magnetic resonance imaging scans. The volume of the DLPFC and the fusiform cortex, working-memory capacity, and performance on the tasks involving image generation and manipulation were significantly reduced with age. Further analyses suggested that age-related deficits in performance on mental imagery tasks may stem in part from age-related shrinkage of the prefrontal cortex and age-related declines in working memory but not from age-related slowing of sensorimotor reaction time. The volume of cortical regions associated with modality-specific visual information processing did not show a consistent relationship with specific mental imagery processes.