Application of the rubber hand illusion paradigm: comparison between upper and lower limbs

The “rubber hand illusion (RHI)” is a perceptual illusion, which allows the integration of artificial limbs into the body representation of a person by means of combined visual and tactile stimulation. The illusion has been frequently replicated but always concerning the upper limbs. The present study verified an analog illusion that can be called the “rubber foot illusion” (RFI). In a conjoint experiment using both a rubber hand and a rubber foot, brushstrokes were applied to the respective real and rubber limb placed alongside the real one. However, only the artificial limb’s handling was visible. The brushstrokes were given either synchronously, with a delay of ±0.5 s, or without tactile stimulation of the real limb. Questionnaire data and the proprioceptive drift towards the rubber limb (determined by calling on the subjects to show where they locate their unseen limb) defined the illusion strength. Results revealed that the illusion was induced in both limbs with comparable strength, but only in the synchronous condition.     

Entwicklung und Stand des psychiatrischen Maßregelvollzugs (§ 63 StGB)

Psychiatric forensic commitment is at the interface between psychiatry and criminal justice. Both fields are subject to societal and political influences, which are not to be underestimated and have undergone many changes since the introduction of the catalogue of penal measures in 1933. This article provides a summarizing overview of the development of psychiatric penal measures in the 8 decades since its inception. The various developmental phases are chonologically presented and analyzed, in some cases with reference to the international situation. The main transition is the change from custodial detention up to modern treatment enforcement, even if many different factors influence the certainly to be strived for further development. Finally, the complex topics of “forensic psychiatry and the public” as well as the influence of the media on this aspect are briefly discussed.     

The Accuracy of Retrospective Recall of Childhood ADHD: Results from a Longitudinal Study

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a childhood-onset condition that may continue into adulthood. When assessing adult patients, clinicians usually rely on retrospective reports of childhood symptoms to evaluate the age-of-onset criterion. Since inaccurate symptom recall may impede the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, knowledge about the factors influencing retrospective reports is needed. This longitudinal study investigated (a) the accuracy of retrospective symptom ratings by adult participants with a childhood diagnosis of ADHD (self-ratings) and parents or significant others (proxy ratings), and (b) the influence of current ADHD symptom severity and ADHD-associated impairments on retrospective symptom ratings. Participants (N =?55) were members of the Cologne Adaptive Multimodal Treatment (CAMT) study who had been referred and treated for ADHD in childhood and were reassessed in adulthood (average age 27 years). Participants’ retrospective self-ratings were substantially lower than, and did not correlate with, parents’ ADHD symptom ratings provided at study entry, while retrospective symptom ratings provided by proxy respondents correlated moderately with parents’ childhood ratings. In addition, participants were more likely to underreport childhood symptoms (79%) and more frequently denied the presence of three or more childhood symptoms (17%) compared to proxy respondents (65% underreporting, 10% false-negative recall). Proxy respondents’ symptom recall was best predicted by childhood ADHD, while participants’ symptom recall was best predicted by current ADHD symptom severity. ADHD-associated impairments were not correlated with symptom recall after controlling for childhood ADHD. Together, these findings suggest a recall bias in adult patients and question the validity of retrospective reports, even in clinical samples.

     

Spatial orienting of attention in stereo depth

The aim of this study was to investigate the spatial orienting of visual attention in depth under purely stereoscopic viewing conditions. Random-dot stereograms were used to present disparity-defined target stimuli that were either validly or invalidly cued in depth. In separate tasks, participants responded either to the relative depth of the target (protruding vs. receding) or to its shape (square vs. diamond). Stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between an uninformative exogenous cue and target were varied from 250 to 600?ms. For both tasks, mean response times (RTs) were shorter for validly than invalidly cued target depths and this RT advantage was essentially restricted to the shortest SOA of 250?ms. These results indicate that attention can be reflexively allocated to locations in stereo depth under conditions of low perceptual load, and independent of whether depth is relevant to the task or not.     

Non-Language Thinking in Mathematics

After a brief outline of the topic of non-language thinking in mathematics the central phenomenological tool in this concern is established, i.e. the eidetic method. The special form of eidetic method in mathematical proving is implicit variation and this procedure entails three rules that are established in a simple geometrical example. Then the difficulties and the merits of analogical thinking in mathematics are discussed in different aspects. On the background of a new phenomenological understanding of the performance of non-language thinking in mathematics the well-known theses of B. L. van der Waerden that mathematical thinking to a great extent proceeds without the use of language is discussed in a new light.     

Temporal discounting of monetary rewards in children and adolescents with ADHD and autism spectrum disorders

It has been difficult to differentiate attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of some aspects of their cognitive profile. While both show deficits in executive functions, it has been suggested that they may differ in their response to monetary reward. For instance, children with ADHD prefer small immediate over large delayed rewards more than typically developing controls. One explanation for this is that they discount the value of rewards to a higher degree as they are moved into the future. The current study investigated whether children with ADHD can be differentiated from those with ASD in terms of reward discounting. Thirty‐nine children (8–16 y) with ADHD, 34 children with ASD and 46 typically developing controls performed a hypothetical monetary temporal discounting task. Participants were instructed to make repeated choices between small variable rewards (0, 5, 10, 20, 30€) delivered immediately and large rewards delivered after a variable delay. Children with ADHD but not ASD discounted future rewards at a higher rate than typically developing controls. These data confirm steeper discounting of future rewards in ADHD and add to a small but growing literature showing that the psychological profile of ADHD can be distinguished from that of ASD in terms of disrupted motivational processes.     

The Effects of Risk-Promoting Media on Inclinations Toward Risk Taking

Three experiments examined whether exposure to risk-promoting media increases risk-related thoughts and behavioral inclinations. Participants were exposed to risk-promoting pictures (Study 1), movies (Study 2), and video games (Study 3) or a risk neutral control condition. Subsequently to exposure, accessibility of risk-taking cognitions and participants' inclinations to act in a risk-seeking manner was measured. In line with our expectations, all three studies revealed that risk-promoting media content increases the accessibility of risk-taking cognitions (Studies 1 and 3), risk taking in a computer-based driving simulator (Study 2), as well as risk taking in decision making scenarios (Study 3). Mediational analyses clarified the underlying psychological process: Risk-promoting media content increases the accessibility of risk-promoting cognitions, which in turn results in increased risk-taking inclinations. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Physically Attractive Social Information Sources Lead to Increased Selective Exposure to Information

The present research investigated the impact of a social information source's physical attractiveness on selective exposure to decision-relevant information. In two studies, support was found for the hypothesis that physically attractive information sources lead decision makers into being more selective in both searching for (Studies 1 and 2; selective exposure) and evaluating (Study 2; biased assimilation) decision-relevant information. In both studies, the effect was driven by differences in the selection and evaluation of decision-consistent information, that is, physically attractive information sources led to increases in the perceived quality of decision-consistent information as well as increased selective exposure to this information. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Higher levels of depression are associated with reduced global bias in visual processing

Sleep-related attentional bias is a well-documented finding in patients with primary insomnia. To address the question of whether attentional preference for sleep-related stimuli is due to sleepiness (as measured by the Stanford Sleepiness Scale; SSS) or sleeplessness (as measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index; PSQI) we investigated 105 non-clinical participants with two attentional bias tasks, an emotional Stroop task and a newly introduced mixed-modality task. The emotional Stroop task revealed significant positive linear relationships between sleep-related attentional bias and both poor sleep quality and sleepiness. Additionally, we found a significant negative interaction effect between these two variables on the cognitive bias. This means that attentional bias scores are reduced when poor sleep quality is associated with high sleepiness and high sleep quality is associated with low sleepiness. We did not find any significant result in the mixed-modality task. The results suggest that sleep-related attentional bias can be elicited by both sleepiness and sleeplessness.     

Visual search for dimensionally redundant pop-out targets: Redundancy gains in compound tasks

Two visual search experiments investigated the detection of odd-one-out feature targets redundantly defined on multiple dimensions. Targets differed from the distractors in either orientation or colour or both (redundant targets). In Experiment 1, the three types of target were presented either in separate trial blocks or randomized within blocks, and the task involved either a simple target detection response or a “compound” response based on the position of dials inside the target. Mean reaction times (RTs) were faster to redundant targets than to singly defined targets, with greater gains in simple detection than in compound tasks. Further, simple detection RTs to redundant targets were faster than the fastest RTs to singly defined targets, violating Miller's (1982) “race model inequality” (RMI). Experiment 2 showed that, with compound tasks, mean RT redundancy gains (and violations of the RMI) depend on practice. The results suggest that separate colour and orientation feature contrast signals coactivate perceptual mechanisms involved in target detection.