Lifting weights in neonates: Developing visual control of reaching

To test whether newborn babies take account of external forces in moving their limbs, spontaneous arm-waving movements were measured while the baby lay supine with its head turned to one side. Free-hanging weights, attached to each wrist by strings passing over pulleys, pulled on the arms in the direction of the toes. The results showed the babies applied compensatory forces to keep the hand they faced moving in the same region. In contrast, the (invisible) contra-lateral hand was pulled down by the weights. In a second experiment, where the arms were occluded, both arms were pulled down, suggesting that sight of the arm was necessary in compensating for the weight. In a third, conclusive experiment the babies viewed the arm they were not facing on a small video-monitor and this time the babies kept the visible contra-lateral hand up despite the weights. The results challenge the general view that spontaneous arm movements of neonates are purposeless and either reflexive or due to spontaneous patterned efference to the muscles. Instead, the findings suggest that in waving their arms, neonates are developing visual control of reaching.     

Reliability, Justification, and the Problem of Induction

According to the main tradition in epistemology, knowledge is a variety of justified true belief, justification is an undefinable normative concept, and epistemic principles (principles about what justifies what) are necessary truths. According to the leading contemporary rival of the tradition, justification may be defined or explained in terms of reliability, thus permitting one to say that knowledge is reliable true belief and that epistemic principles are contingent. My aim here is to show that either of these approaches will yield a solution to the problem of induction. In particular, either of them makes it possible to ascertain the reliability of induction through induction itself. Such a procedure is usually dismissed as circular, but I shall argue that it cannot be so dismissed if either approach is correct.
As one would expect, the solution based on the traditional approach differs from the one based on the reliabilist alternative, but they have important features in common. The common elements are presented in sections I, II, and III, the elements specific to the reliabilist approach in sections IV, V, and VI, and those specific to the traditional approach in section VII.     

Near-Death Experience,Consciousness, and the Brain: A New Concept about the Continuity of Our Consciousness Based on Recent Scientific Research on Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest

In this article first some general aspects of near-death experience will be discussed, followed by questions about consciousness and its relation to brain function. Details will be described from our prospective study on near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest in the Netherlands, which was published in the Lancet in 2001. In this study it could not be shown that physiological, psychological, or pharmacological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest. Neurophysiology in cardiac arrest and in a normal functioning brain will be explained. Finally, implications for consciousness studies will be discussed, and how it could be possible to explain the continuity of our consciousness. Scientific study of NDE pushes us to the limits of our medical and neurophysiologic ideas about the range of human consciousness and mind–brain relation.     

The adaptation of non‐western and Muslim immigrant adolescents in the Netherlands: An immigrant paradox?

van Geel, M. & Vedder, P. (2010). The adaptation of non‐western and Muslim immigrant adolescents in the Netherlands: An immigrant paradox? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 398–402. This article addresses the possible existence of an immigrant paradox in a sample of immigrant adolescents attending vocational schools in the Netherlands. An immigrant paradox is the finding that first generation immigrants show a more positive pattern of adaptation than nationals despite poorer economic conditions. Second generation immigrants regress to the nationals in terms of adaptation. A sample of 152 first generation immigrant adolescents, 285 second generation immigrant adolescents and 406 national adolescents completed self‐reports about socio‐economic status, psychological problems, behavioral problems and self‐esteem. The results supported the existence of an immigrant paradox in this sample. This indicates that further assimilation among immigrant adolescents does not necessarily lead to increased well being.