Lateralized Changes in Regional Cerebral Blood Flow during Performance of Verbal and Facial Recognition Tasks: Correlations with Performance and “Effort”

Functional neuroimaging has been used to investigate neural substrates of mnemonic processes, and cerebral blood flow (CBF) measures have been sensitive to activation with memory tasks. Studies of memory with two-dimensional¹³³Xenon clearance techniques found that word and face recognition tasks produced contralateral CBF changes in mid-temporal cortical regions. This study replicated the activation paradigm, expanding to the three-dimensional resolution of positron emission tomography (PET). Word and face recognition, and a control baseline task were administered to 19 healthy right-handed volunteers (11 men, 8 women) during successive 10 min PET¹⁵O-water measures of CBF. Quantitative CBF rates were calculated with the arterial input function and the equilibrium model. Redistributions of blood flow were compared across tasks using both absolute and relative (region/whole brain) CBF.Replicating the¹³³Xenon clearance findings, CBF was “appropriately” lateralized during task performance (left–right for words > left–right for faces) in the mid-temporal region. Contrary to predictions, the recognition tasks did not activate expected mesolimbic or prefrontal areas. The task-induced CBF changes also correlated with performance. Bilateral CBF in mid-temporal and parahippocampal gyrus regions of interest correlated with the ability to correctly identify word targets (sensitivity). Left-lateralized CBF in the amygdala and hippocampus correlated with better word sensitivity as well as specificity (ability to correctly reject foils). Complementally, right-lateralized CBF in the parahippocampal gyrus correlated with better face specificity performance. In addition, left-lateralized CBF in the amygdala and right-lateralized CBF in the parahippocampal gyrus and hippocampus correlated with “mental effort” indices (task performance relative to basal ability) for word and face memory tasks, respectively. Thus, whereas this recognition task showed the expected lateralized increase in the mid-temporal region and not in frontal and limbic areas, lateralized activation in some of these areas was associated with better performance. Exploratory analyses on other regions showed lateralized changes in one additional temporal region, the occipital-temporal, and several limbic regions.     

“Yours,Thirsty for Honesty,Ferenczi”: Some Background to Sandor Ferenczi's Pursuit of Mutuality

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Worldly and workaday worries: Contemporary concerns of children and young adolescents

Top-of-the-head worries were elicited from young people, grades 4 to 8, both before and after they completed quantitative risk assessments of specific health and environmental problems. Results revealed that many students carry a substantial worry burden that includes not only personal matters such as grades and social relations, but also concerns about death and about global issues such as homelessness and environmental degradation. The gender and grade differences that emerged were consistent with a developmental extension from self to societal perspectives. Differences in worry profiles from before to after the risk assessment interviews revealed some impact of recent exposure, as illustrated by a pre—post increase from 7% to 30% in students spontaneously expressing AIDS-related concerns. Implications of the breadth and severity of young people's concerns are discussed, as are the ambiguities inherent in standard assessment approaches.This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD27035) and the University of California Universitywide AIDS Research Program (R901040). We very much appreciate the cooperation of Sally Snyder and the Irvine Unified School District, Amy Watson and the Corinne A. Seeds University Elementary School, Trina Panaqua and the Bruin Kids of UCLA, and the Fernald Child Study Center. Special thanks are due to the 4th- through 8th-grade student participants. We are also grateful to Ellen Dellis, Virginia Elderkin-Thompson, Judy Hollingshead, Alison Holman, Judy Koch-Jones, and Kim Witte for their help with the interviews and to Tammy Merlo, Shealen Nash, and Beth Twambley for competent coding assistance. Finally, we thank the anonymous editorial reviewers for constructive comments on the nature of fear and worry.     

The perestroika of the family? Gender and occupational differences in family values in modern day Russia

The recent dramatic changes in the political and economic structures of Eastern Europe have focused interest on the position of women in Russia, where a greater openness in discussing inequalities has been accompanied by a more regressive harkening back to traditional gender roles. The study reported in this paper examines gender and occupational differences in general attitude toward the family, disclosure to family members, and child-rearing values. Three hundred sixty-eight students, 179 manual workers, and 160 entrepreneurs completed a structured measure of family orientation and replied to open-ended questions on family taboos and child-rearing practices, while a subsample (N = 475) completed a family disclosure inventory. Multivariate analyses of variance analyses revealed women to be more family oriented than men, while gender and occupation interacted in producing family disclosure rates. HILOGLINEAR analyses found that the topics suitable for family discussion, as well as the child-rearing values promoted by our respondents, were also best predicted by considering the interaction between both gender and occupation. The implications of these findings for the future shape of Russian family relations is discussed.     

DECONSTRUCTING THE MYTH OF THE NONAGGRESSIVE WOMAN

One of the most pervasive and undisputed gender stereotypes is that men are more aggressive than women. However, this stereotype has, until recently, led researchers to conclude that women are nonaggressive and, therefore, to ignore the topic of female aggression as a distinct phenomenon. The basis of the myth, factors supporting its maintenance, and theories of female aggression are examined. A feminist reinterpretation of aggression that views women's and men's aggressive behavior within social structural arrangements that create and sustain differential power relations is presented.     

A Longitudinal Study Examining the Psychological Reactions of Job Relocation

A longitudinal study is reported of relocating employees ( n = 51) and their partners ( n = 31) who relocated between two cities in England. A nonmoving comparison group of employees from the same organization ( n = 58) was included. The subjects completed a questionnaire before (approximately 6 weeks) and after (approximately 10 weeks) the relocation. Results showed that relocating employees' pre-move general stress was similar to that of nonmoving employees. Moreover, male relocators' stress reduced significantly following the move, while female relocators stayed the same. Stress specific to relocation was very high for relocating employees and partners, and remained so following the move. Evidence was found to show a relationship between attributions of the causes of relocation problems and the experience of stress.     

Spatial frequency content of visual imagery

Three experiments employing the McCollough paradigm were conducted to determine the spatial-frequency content of visual imagery. In Experiment 1, large and reliable pattern-contingent color aftereffects were obtained after adaptation to visual imagery. The direction of the aftereffects indicated that subjects were adapting to higher spatial frequencies in their imagery. These results contrast with the data of Experiment 2, which demonstrate that color aftereffects obtained with adaptation to physically present stimuli are mediated by the fundamental spatial frequency components. The magnitude of the imagery-induced aftereffects in Experiment 1 equaled the magnitude of the externally induced aftereffects obtained in Experiment 2 with the same subjects. By blurring the to-be-imaged patterns (Experiment 3), the fundamental Fourier components became the salient perceptual features of the stimuli, and the direction of the imagery-induced aftereffects was reversed from that of Experiment 1, indicating that the spatial frequency content of the imagery had changed from higher to lower frequencies. Under normal viewing conditions, subjects use the higher spatial frequencies associated with the perceptually salient edges of stimuli to construct their images. The results of Experiments 1 and 3 are discussed in light of a current controversy over the nature of information representation in imagery, and it is concluded that support has been obtained for the analog model of visual imagery.