Eckpunkte f��r den Vollzug der Sicherungsverwahrung

A working group from the states of Berlin and Brandenburg has worked out benchmarks for the structural organization of detention and reprimand for people who have been sentenced to preventive detention in addition to the actual punishment. Decisive for this from the very beginning was the idea to maintain the aim of social reintegration of convicted persons and to adapt the execution of preventive detention not only formally to the guidelines of the European Court of Human Rights.     

"Frog, where are you?" Narratives in children with specific language impairment, early focal brain injury, and Williams syndrome

In this cross-population study, we use narratives as a context to investigate language development in children from 4 to 12 years of age from three experimental groups: children with early unilateral focal brain damage (FL; N=52); children with specific language impairment (SLI; N=44); children with Williams syndrome (WMS; N=36), and typically developing controls. We compare the developmental trajectories of these groups in the following domains: morphological errors, use of complex syntax, complexity of narrative structure, and types and frequency of evaluative devices. For the children with early unilateral brain damage, there is initial delay. However, by age 10, they are generally within the normal range of performance for all narrative measures. Interestingly, there are few, if any, side specific differences. Children with SLI, who have no frank neurological damage and show no cognitive impairment demonstrate significantly more delay on all morphosyntactic measures than the FL group. Quantitatively, on morphosyntactic measures, the SLI group clusters with those children with WMS who are moderately retarded. Together these data help us to understand the extent and nature of brain plasticity for language development and those aspects of language and discourse that are dissociable.     

Acute stress impairs recognition for positive words--association with stress-induced cortisol secretion

Some studies suggest that stress-induced effects of cortisol on memory are modulated by the valence of the stimuli to be learned and retrieved. The present study investigated the effect of acute stress-induced cortisol secretion on acquisition and retrieval of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral words. Sixty healthy men were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental groups. Participants were either exposed to a standardized laboratory stressor (the Trier Social Stress Test) before learning a wordlist, or before retrieval, or were not stressed. Free recall and recognition were tested 24 h later. Free recall was not affected by stress exposure. For recognition, there was no main effect of the stressor, but a main effect of valence and a valence by group interaction emerged: recognition for positive words was significantly impaired when subjects were stressed before retrieval. In addition, a positive correlation between the cortisol response and errors of commission was found. The results suggest that acute stress impairs memory for positive stimuli and that stress-induced cortisol secretion interferes with accuracy of memory retrieval, i.e. the ability to discriminate true memories from false ones.     

A mind to go out of: reflections on primary and secondary consciousness

Dreaming and waking are two brain-mind states, which are characterized by shared and differentiated properties at the levels of brain and consciousness. As part of our effort to capitalize on a comparison of these two states we have applied Edelman's distinction between primary and secondary consciousness, which we link to dreaming and waking respectively. In this paper we examine the implications of this contrastive analysis for theories of mental illness. We conclude that while dreaming is an almost perfect model of organic psychosis, it is less so for schizophrenia and major affective disorder where it must serve a primarily heuristic role helping us to model hallucinations and delusions but not the diseases themselves.     

Can people really "laugh at themselves?"--experimental and correlational evidence

Laughing at oneself is considered a core component of the sense of humor in the theories of several authors. In McGhee's (1996) eight-step-training program of the sense of humor, laughing at oneself constitutes one of the most difficult levels. However, until now, only little empirical evidence on laughing at oneself exists. Using a multimethod approach, in the current study, 70 psychology students and a total of 126 peers filled in the Sense of Humor Scale (SHS, McGhee, 1996), containing as a subscale "Laughing at oneself". In addition, the participants answered the Trait and State forms of the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory (STCI, Ruch, K?hler, & van Thriel, 1996; Ruch, K?hler, & van Thriel, 1997). They then were confronted with six distorted images of themselves. Facial responses of the participants were videotaped and analyzed using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS, Ekman, Friesen, & Hager, 2002). Four indicators of exhilaration were examined: (a) experienced funniness, (b) AU12 smiles, (c) Duchenne displays, and (d) laughter. Furthermore, fake and masking smiles were studied. Results demonstrated that self- and peer reports of "laughing at oneself" converged moderately. All four indicators of exhilaration were shown, but funniness and laughter seemed to be the most strongly related indicators. Trait cheerfulness and (low) seriousness, and a cheerful mood state formed further characteristics of persons who laugh at themselves.     

Switching between filter settings reduces the efficient utilization of visual working memory

The capacity limitation of working memory requires that only relevant information gains access to the workspace, while irrelevant information is kept out. Thus, the ability to use attention to filter out irrelevant information is an important factor in how efficiently the limited storage space is used. Here, we examined to what degree the requirement to flexibly change filter settings affects filtering efficiency. Participants were presented with visual objects in different colors, and a cue presented in advance indicated which objects had to be stored. The contralateral delay activity, an event-related brain potential that reflects working-memory load was used to assess filtering efficiency during the retention interval. The data of two experiments showed that when filter settings had to be adjusted on a trial-by-trial basis, more irrelevant information passed the gate to working memory. Moreover, this switching-induced filtering deficit was restricted to those items that matched the previous, but currently irrelevant, filter settings. Thus, lingering effects of the selection history seem to counteract goal-directed encoding, and thus constitute an important attentional limitation for the efficient utilization of our limited workspace.     

Task selection cost asymmetry without task switching

The switch cost asymmetry (i.e., larger costs when switching from a nondominant into a dominant task than vice versa) has been explained in terms of the trial-to-trial carryover of activation levels required for the dominant versus the nondominant task. However, there is an open question about whether an actual switch in task is in fact necessary to obtain a “selection” cost asymmetry. In Experiments 1 and 2, we modified an alternatingruns paradigm to include either long or short response-to-stimulus intervals (RSIs) after each pair of trials (i.e., AA-AA-BB-BB), thereby inducing selection costs not only at the point of a task switch (i.e., AA-BB), but also between same-task pairs (i.e., AA-AA). Using spatially compatible versus incompatible response rules (Experiment 1) and Stroop word versus color naming (Experiment 2), we found asymmetric effects not only at task-change transitions, but also at task-repeat transitions when the RSI was long (presumably inducing frequent losses of set). In Experiments 3A and 3B, a cost asymmetry for long RSIs was obtained even when competing tasks were separated into alternating single task blocks, but not when the tasks were compared in a betweensubjects design. This general pattern cannot be explained by activation carryover models, but is consistent with the idea that the asymmetry arises as a result of interference from long-term memory traces.     

Time of day, Intellectual Performance, and Behavioral Problems in Morning Versus Evening type Adolescents: Is there a Synchrony Effect?

We administered measures of fluid and crystallized intelligence to Morning- and Evening-type adolescents who were tested either during a morning session or an afternoon session, at times chosen to reflect the limits of the average school day schedule. For the fluid intelligence measures, there was a synchrony effect, with better performance at times that matched individuals' preferences. A composite measure of the subtests used (block design, digit span, and vocabulary) computed to a 6 point difference in IQ estimates. We also assessed the behavioral adjustment of these participants and found heightened levels of maladaptive behavior for Evening-type adolescents. Adolescents tested at their nonoptimal times of day and adolescents who are Evening-types appear to be at risk for poor academic performance and Evening-types appear to be at risk for behavioral adjustment problems.     

On the Content and Structure of the Gender Role Self-Concept: Including Gender-Stereotypical Behaviors in Addition to Traits

The present study introduces a conceptualization of gender role self-concept that implies not only the commonly measured socially desirable expressive and instrumental traits (F+ and M+) but also feminine and masculine behaviors (FBehav and MBehav), and socially undesirable gender traits (F− and M−). Three different models were tested using structural equation modeling. For both men and women, F+ and FBehav load together on one dimension whereas M+ and MBehav load on a second dimension. F− and M− are conceptualized as independent dimensions that are mainly related to the cross-gendered latent factor. With the exception of these similarities, the self-concepts of men and women differed in several important aspects that point to a different meaning of gender roles for the two sexes.     

The Simulation of Smiles (SIMS) model: Embodied simulation and the meaning of facial expression

Recent application of theories of embodied or grounded cognition to the recognition and interpretation of facial expression of emotion has led to an explosion of research in psychology and the neurosciences. However, despite the accelerating number of reported findings, it remains unclear how the many component processes of emotion and their neural mechanisms actually support embodied simulation. Equally unclear is what triggers the use of embodied simulation versus perceptual or conceptual strategies in determining meaning. The present article integrates behavioral research from social psychology with recent research in neurosciences in order to provide coherence to the extant and future research on this topic. The roles of several of the brain's reward systems, and the amygdala, somatosensory cortices, and motor centers are examined. These are then linked to behavioral and brain research on facial mimicry and eye gaze. Articulation of the mediators and moderators of facial mimicry and gaze are particularly useful in guiding interpretation of relevant findings from neurosciences. Finally, a model of the processing of the smile, the most complex of the facial expressions, is presented as a means to illustrate how to advance the application of theories of embodied cognition in the study of facial expression of emotion.