Topografie der Jugenddelinquenz

The article shows that the registered juvenile delinquency has decreased in recent years. Serious violent crime partially exists, but this is only a small part of the overall juvenile delinquency. Forms of appearance of these violent crimes are outlined. With the help of a dark field study it is illustrated that there is a great variety of delinquency among young people. There are young people showing mostly law-abiding behavior, infrequent offenders and a group with a significant burden of crimes.     

Processing load impairs coordinate integration for the localization of touch

To perform an action toward a touch, the tactile spatial representation must be transformed from a skin-based, anatomical reference frame into an external reference frame. Evidence suggests that, after transformation, both anatomical and external coordinates are integrated for the location estimate. The present study investigated whether the calculation and integration of external coordinates are automatic processes. Participants made temporal order judgments (TOJs) of two tactile stimuli, one applied to each hand, in crossed and uncrossed postures. The influence of the external coordinates of touch was indicated by the performance difference between crossed and uncrossed postures, referred to as the crossing effect. To assess automaticity, the TOJ task was combined with a working memory task that varied in difficulty (size of the working memory set) and quality (verbal vs. spatial). In two studies, the crossing effect was consistently reduced under processing load. When the load level was adaptively adjusted to individual performance (Study 2), the crossing effect additionally varied as a function of the difficulty of the secondary task. These modulatory effects of processing load on the crossing effect were independent of the type of working memory. The sensitivity of the crossing effect to processing load suggests that coordinate integration for touch localization is not fully automatic. To reconcile the present results with previous findings, we suggest that the genuine remapping process—that is, the transformation of anatomical into external coordinates—proceeds automatically, whereas their integration in service of a combined location estimate is subject to top-down control.     

Body ownership affects visual perception of object size by rescaling the visual representation of external space

Size perception is most often explained by a combination of cues derived from the visual system. However, this traditional cue approach neglects the role of the observer’s body beyond mere visual comparison. In a previous study, we used a full-body illusion to show that objects appear larger and farther away when participants experience a small artificial body as their own and that objects appear smaller and closer when they assume ownership of a large artificial body (“Barbie-doll illusion”; van der Hoort, Guterstam, & Ehrsson, PLoS ONE, 6(5), e20195, 2011). The first aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that this own-body-size effect is distinct from the role of the seen body as a direct familiar-size cue. To this end, we developed a novel setup that allowed for occlusion of the artificial body during the presentation of test objects. Our results demonstrate that the feeling of ownership of an artificial body can alter the perceived sizes of objects without the need for a visible body. Second, we demonstrate that fixation shifts do not contribute to the own-body-size effect. Third, we show that the effect exists in both peri-personal space and distant extra-personal space. Finally, through a meta-analysis, we demonstrate that the own-body-size effect is independent of and adds to the classical visual familiar-size cue effect. Our results suggest that, by changing body size, the entire spatial layout rescales and new objects are now perceived according to this rescaling, without the need to see the body.     

Antisocial behavior reduces the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use in a large population‐based sample of adolescents

The aim of this study was to investigate possible effects of antisocial behavior on reducing the association between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms (inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity) and alcohol use. Boys and girls were analyzed separately using a population‐based Swedish adolescent sample. A randomly selected cross‐sectional survey was performed in secondary and upper secondary schools in Västmanland County during 2010. Participants were a population of 2,439 15–16 year‐olds and 1,425 17–18 year‐olds (1,947 girls and 1,917 boys). Psychosocial adversity, antisocial behaviors, symptoms of ADHD and alcohol use were assessed by questionnaires. Except for girls' inattention, subdimensions of ADHD symptoms were not associated with alcohol use when variance due to antisocial behavior was accounted for. Among boys, instead of an indirect effect of antisocial behavior on the association between impulsivity and alcohol use, a moderating effect was found. Among girls, the inattention component of ADHD was independently associated with alcohol use even when adjusted for antisocial behavior. The reduced associations between symptoms of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and alcohol use for boys and girls after adjusting for antisocial behavior suggest a considerable overlap between hyperactivity, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. The direct pathway between inattention and alcohol use among girls suggests that girls with inattention symptoms are at risk of alcohol use regardless of antisocial behavior. Special attention should be given to these girls. Accounting for antisocial behavior reduced the relation between subdimensions of ADHD symptoms and alcohol use, and antisocial behaviors should therefore be screened for when symptoms of ADHD are present.     

Effects of testing on subsequent re‐encoding and long‐term forgetting of action‐relevant materials: On the influence of recall type

Testing one's memory of previously studied information reduces the rate of forgetting, compared to restudy. However, little is known about how this direct testing effect applies to action phrases (e.g., “wash the car”) – a learning material relevant to everyday memory. As action phrases consist of two different components, a verb (e.g., “wash”) and a noun (e.g., “car”), testing can either be implemented as noun‐cued recall of verbs or verb‐cued recall of nouns, which may differently affect later memory performance. In the present study, we investigated the effect of testing for these two recall types, using verbally encoded action phrases as learning materials. Results showed that repeated study–test practice, compared to repeated study–restudy practice, decreased the forgetting rate across 1 week to a similar degree for both noun‐cued and verb‐cued recall types. However, noun‐cued recall of verbs initiated more new subsequent learning during the first restudy, compared to verb‐cued recall of nouns. The study provides evidence that testing has benefits on both subsequent restudy and long‐term retention of action‐relevant materials, but that these benefits are differently expressed with testing via noun‐cued versus verb‐cued recall.     

Interoceptive sensitivity,body image dissatisfaction,and body awareness in healthy individuals

Relationships among interoceptive sensitivity (IS), body image dissatisfaction, body mass index (BMI), and self‐reported body awareness were investigated in a cross‐sectional study. Eighty‐two Norwegian high school students and 70 Hungarian undergraduate university students participated in the study. Subjects completed two questionnaires (Body Image Ideals Questionnaire – BIQ; Body Awareness Questionnaire – BAQ) followed by the assessment of interoceptive sensitivity using the Mental Tracking Method (MTM). An inverse, medium‐level relationship between body image dissatisfaction and IS was found in both the Norwegian and the Hungarian samples. The relationships between IS and self‐reported body awareness, and between body image dissatisfaction and BMI were uniformly non‐significant in both samples. Predictors of body image dissatisfaction were resting heart rate, gender, and IS in the regression analysis after controlling for BMI, age, and nationality. The negative relationship between IS and body image dissatisfaction described in patients with anorexia nervosa also exists in healthy individuals. There is no direct connection between IS and self‐reported body awareness.     

Approaching the rasa-lila of ‘great men': interlinking Western ‘intuitive’ theologies with traditions of Bengal in the Brahmo Samaj

Abstract

Among contemporary sociologists who critically analyze the specific structure and dynamics of current or ‘late-modern’ societies, it is very common to refer to processes of increasing individualization as an explanation for larger social trends. Presuming a Protestant Christian genealogy for processes of individualization they tend to underemphasize the extent to which modern constellations are indebted in various ways to imperialism and the colonial encounter. To approach the complicated issue of encounter and mutual interferences, first an understanding of the categories involved in the interaction from within the traditions of the colonized is necessary. Only then will we be able to determine the way in which concepts of the colonizers were interpreted, understood, and appropriated. This essay aims to show that links were drawn between the global discourse on an experiential approach to religion, emphasizing the ‘Self,' and regional Vaishnava bhakti traditions of Bengal in the Bharatbarsiya Brahmo Samaj. This phase of increasing religious individualization with its focus on reliance on the ‘Self’ also contributed to preparing the ground for nationalistic readings of Indian traditions.     

Religious agency,identity, and communication: reflections on history and theory of religion

Abstract

This paper discusses the applicability of recent theories of religion to the problem of describing and explaining religious transformation in the period between the final Bronze Age and Late Antiquity. Instead of evolutionist and cognitive approaches, it proposes a model of religion that tries to analyze religion in terms of its making by starting from the individual's appropriation and creation of religious tradition. Religion is understood as a strategy to attribute agency to agents that do not appear immediately plausible. Recent scholarly discussions on human agency suggest categorizing human religious agency into the three subsets, namely: (1) acting religiously with regards to past, present, and future; (2) collective religious identity; and (3) religious communication. These subsets are shown to produce fruitful questions for research on historical sources. Against this backdrop, religion is explained as a precarious cultural resource articulated through the agency of individuals and allowing changed attributions of individual agency.