Longitudinal Effects of OCB on Cadre Selection and Pursuing a Career as Militia Cadre in the Swiss Armed Forces

In the present investigation longitudinal data obtained from recruits undergoing basic military training in the Swiss Armed Forces were used to examine the effects of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) on a subsequent cadre selection and the willingness to voluntarily pursue a career as militia cadre. Results of the hierarchical logistic regression controlling for demographic variables, cadre recommendation, and allocation to the desired branch of service showed OCB predicted both the selection as cadre and the voluntariness to pursue a career as militia cadre. These effects show to what extent OCB may predict significant additional effort. Results are discussed with regard to further examination of the effects of OCB on career outcomes and selection decisions.     

White-matter microstructure and language lateralization in left-handers: A whole-brain MRI analysis

Most people are left-hemisphere dominant for language. However the neuroanatomy of language lateralization is not fully understood. By combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), we studied whether language lateralization is associated with cerebral white-matter (WM) microstructure. Sixteen healthy, left-handed women aged 20–25 were included in the study. Left-handers were targeted in order to increase the chances of involving subjects with atypical language lateralization. Language lateralization was determined by fMRI using a verbal fluency paradigm. Tract-based spatial statistics analysis of DTI data was applied to test for WM microstructural correlates of language lateralization across the whole brain. Fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity were used as indicators of WM microstructural organization. Right-hemispheric language dominance was associated with reduced microstructural integrity of the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and left-sided parietal lobe WM. In left-handed women, reduced integrity of the left-sided language related tracts may be closely linked to the development of right hemispheric language dominance. Our results may offer new insights into language lateralization and structure–function relationships in human language system.     

Multisensory integration and age-dependent sensitivity to body representation modification induced by the rubber hand illusion

The aim of the present study was to compare junior and senior healthy participants for their multimodal integration capability. The instrument used for the investigation was the rubber hand illusion (RHI) where synchronous and asynchronous multimodal stimulation were applied. The study focused on assessing the rate of integration for visuo-tactile and visuo-proprioceptive stimuli. Methods: From a large sample of right-handed volunteers, 50 senior employees (containing younger and middle age adults) and 51 senior retired (senior adults) participants were recruited. Results: The between-subject analyses revealed that individuals both the junior and the senior participants responded to induction of RHI with vivid ownership and disownership experiences and a higher mislocalization error in the synchronous condition. However, the between-group analysis showed that participants in the senior group reported less vivid ownership and less vivid total RHI experiences scores compared to members of the junior group, but no mislocalization error differences were found between the groups. Conclusion: The results indicated that when visuo-tactile stimuli synchronously presented, the gain in multisensory integration decreased in seniors group. In contrast, in the case of visuo-proprioceptive synchronous presentation, the efficiency of multisensory integration remained unchanged across the lifespan.