Vibration-Induced Kinesthetic Illusions and Corticospinal Excitability Changes

The authors' aim was to investigate the changes of corticospinal excitability during kinesthetic illusions induced by tendon vibration. Motor-evoked potentials in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation were recorded from the vibrated flexor carpi radialis and its antagonist, extensor carpi radialis. The illusions were evoked under vision conditions without feedback for the position of the wrist (open or closed eyes). In these two conditions motor-evoked potential changes during vibration in the antagonist were not identical. This discrepancy may be a result of 2 simultaneously acting, different and opposite influences and the balance between them depends on visual conditions. Thus, the illusion was accompanied by the facilitation of corticospinal excitability in both vibrated muscle and its antagonist.     

How to Increase Vaccination Acceptance Among Apostolic Communities: Quantitative Results from an Assessment in Three Provinces in Zimbabwe

A worldwide increasing trend toward vaccine hesitancy has been reported. Measles outbreaks in southern Africa in 2009–2010 were linked to objections originating from Apostolic gatherings. Founded in Zimbabwe in the 1950s, the Apostolic church has built up a large number of followers with an estimated 3.5 million in Zimbabwe in 2014. To inform planning of interventions for the 2015 measles–rubella vaccination campaign, we assessed vaccination status and knowledge, attitudes and practices among purposive samples of Apostolic caregivers in three districts each in Harare City, Manicaland and Matabeleland South in Zimbabwe. We conducted structured interviews among 97 caregivers of children aged 9–59 months and collected vaccination status for 126 children. Main Apostolic affiliations were Johanne Marange (53%), Madida (13%) and Gospel of God (11%) with considerable variation across assessment areas. The assessment also showed considerable variation among Apostolic communities in children ever vaccinated (14–100%) and retention of immunization cards (0–83%) of ever vaccinated. Overall retention of immunization cards (12%) and documented vaccination status by card (fully vaccinated = 6%) were low compared to previously reported measures in the general population. Mothers living in monogamous relationships reported over 90% of all DTP-HepB-Hib-3, measles and up to date immunizations during the first life year documented by immunization card. Results revealed opportunities to educate about immunization during utilization of health services other than vaccinations, desire to receive information about vaccinations from health personnel, and willingness to accept vaccinations when offered outside of regular services. Based on the results of the assessment, specific targeted interventions were implemented during the vaccination campaign, including an increased number of advocacy activities by district authorities. Also, health workers offered ways and timing to vaccinate children that catered to the specific situation of Apostolic caregivers, including flexible service provision after hours and outside of health facilities, meeting locations chosen by caregivers, using mobile phones to set up meeting locations, and documentation of vaccination in health facilities if home-based records posed a risk for caregivers. Coverage survey results indicate that considerable progress has been made since 2010 to increase vaccination acceptability among Apostolic communities in Zimbabwe. Further efforts will be needed to vaccinate all Apostolic children during routine and campaign activities in the country, and the results from our assessment can contribute toward this goal.     

ERP correlates of auditory negative priming

Negative priming refers to slowed down reactions when the distractor on one trial becomes the target on the next. Following two popular accounts, the effect might be due either to inhibitory processes associated with the frontal cortex, or to an ambiguity in the retrieval of episodic information. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to identify the processing stage primarily associated with negative priming. In an auditory categorization task, reactions in negative priming trials were compared to reactions in a standard control (unrelated primes and probes) and a repetition control (attended prime=ignored probe) condition. Reactions were slower for negative priming than for standard control (Delta32 ms) and repetition control trials (Delta64 ms). The corresponding ERP effect was reflected in an attenuation of a sustained parietal positivity extending from 300 to 600 ms. Because corresponding ERP components were found to be sensitive to stimulus recognition and familiarity, the results may be interpreted to support an episodic retrieval account of negative priming.     

EQUIWORD: A software application for the automatic creation of truly equivalent word lists

Word lists are most commonly used in the investigation of human memory. To prevent transfer effects, repeated measures of memory for words require multiple lists of different words. Yet, the psycholinguistic properties of all word lists employed should match as closely as possible to avoid confounding with the independent variable(s) in question. Although comprehensive databases for word norms exist, to our knowledge no tool is available that automates the creation of such equivalent word lists. Instead, matching different lists is often accomplished prima facie. We have therefore developed a Windows program called EQUIWORD that completely automates the creation of word lists that are truly parallel with respect to a wide range of attributes. EQUIWORD takes psycholinguistic databases of different formats as input and computes several coefficients of distance for every possible word pairing. Program output consists of a list of all word pairs sorted according to their distance. On that basis, creating equivalent word lists is simply done by selecting the pairs with the lowest distance coefficients.     

An alternative perspective on von Winterfeldt et al.'s (1997) test of consequence monotonicity

D. von Winterfeldt, N.-K. Chung, R. D. Luce, and Y. Cho (1997) provided several tests for consequence monotonicity of choice or judgment, using certainty equivalents of gambles. The authors reaxiomatized consequence monotonicity in a probabilistic framework and reanalyzed von Winterfeldt et al.'s main experiment via a bootstrap method. Their application offers new insights into consequence monotonicity as well as into von Winterfeldt et al.'s 3 experimental paradigms: judged certainty equivalents (JCE), QUICKINDIFF, and parameter estimation by sequential testing (PEST). For QUICKINDIFF, the authors found no indication of violations of "random consequence monotonicity." This sharply contrasts the findings of von Winterfeldt et al., who concluded that axiom violations were the most pronounced under that procedure. The authors found potential evidence for violations in JCE and certainty equivalents derived from PEST.     

Mathematical Proof Theory in the Light of Ordinal Analysis

We give an overview of recent results in ordinal analysis. Therefore,we discuss the different frameworks used in mathematical proof-theory, namely subsystem of analysis including reversemathematics, Kripke–Platek set theory, explicitmathematics, theories of inductive definitions,constructive set theory, and Martin-Löfs typetheory.     

Temporal order relations in language comprehension

The role of temporal orientation (chronological or reverse) and chronological distance (close, intermediate, or distant) in general event knowledge on language comprehension was examined. Experiment 1 used a relation-recognition paradigm in which the comprehension of a target event could be facilitated or disrupted by the temporal orientation implied by the prior information. Experiments 2 and 3 used a sentence-probe-recognition paradigm in which the temporal orientation, the stimulus onset asynchrony, and the chronological distance between the sentence event and the probe event were manipulated. The results demonstrated that readers used temporal information conveyed by their knowledge to construct situation models while comprehending sentences. The internal temporal dimension appeared to be directional and reflected the chronological distance between everyday events.     

Transformationsprozesse in der Traumatherapie und die Technik der Prozessdeutung

This article first describes some of the general principles by which according to the latest concepts mental processing is accomplished: a transformative, self-organizational approach driven by emotion and is intersubjective.From this the basic principles for the treatment technique can be derived, which systematically differentiates between content interpretation and process interpretation. Objects of process interpretation are observable transformation events of the traumatic material during consultations, their success and destruction. Process interpretations restore the blocked processing abilities of the patient and in this way also prepare for the possibility to work with content interpretation.