Cause as an implication

An appropriately unprejudiced logical investigation of causation as a type of implication relation is undertaken. The implication delineated is bounded syntactically. The developing argument then leads to a very natural process analysis, which demonstrably captures the established syntactical features. Next relevantly-based semantics for the resulting logical theory are adduced, and requisite adequacy results delivered. At the end of the tour, further improvements are pointed out, and the attractive terrain beyond present developments is glimpsed.This paper was presented at the 1986 Annual Conference of the Australasian Association of Logic in Auckland, 9–12 July, 1986.     

Illiteracy and brain damage. 2. Manifestations of unilateral neglect in testing "auditory comprehension" with iconographic materials

This report concerns the sentence-picture matching behavior of 100 neurologically healthy and 169 brain-damaged subjects, all of whom were unilingual adult right-handers. Within this population, 144 subjects were totally unschooled illiterates and the remaining 125 had received school education and thereafter had retained writing skills and reading habits. Brain-damaged subjects were tested less than 2 months after a first left- or right-hemisphere stroke. All subjects were administered an aphasia screening battery including, among other subtests, a set of six sentence-picture matching stimuli. For each of these six stimuli, subjects heard a sentence uttered by the examiner and were then requested to match this sentence with one of four drawings presented within a single display divided into four quadrants of equal surface. Three sentences were syntactically "simple" (noun subject + verb) and three were relatively more "complex" (noun subject + verb + one or two noun complements). Evidence of unilateral neglect was found in both left- and right-brain-damaged illiterates and literates. Moreover, the right neglect of left-brain-damaged subjects was manifest mostly when target sentences were relatively "complex" whereas the left neglect of right-brain-damaged subjects was manifest irrespective of the syntactic complexity of target sentences. Our data are interpreted as indicative of an interaction between two cognitive disorders resulting from dysfunctions of asymmetrically represented cognitive mechanisms. The implications of these findings with respect to clinical and research aphasia testing are discussed.     

The effects of metabolic stress and vagotomy on emotional learning in an animal model of anxiety

The aim of the present study is to evaluate the role of the blood glucose (BG) level in emotional learning in the elevated plus maze (EPM), an animal model of anxiety. In Experiment 1, male Wistar rats were submitted to different EPM trial lengths (1- or 5-min). Blood samples were withdrawn before and after the maze exploration, through a polyethylene cannula chronically implanted into the jugular vein. In Experiment 2, the animals received either saline or 2-deoxy-D-glucose, a glucoprivic drug (2-DG, 250 or 500 mg kg(-1)) by i.p. route, 30 min before a 5-min EPM exposure and were retested in the maze (Trial1/Trial2 EPM procedure) 24 h later. In an independent group of rats, blood samples were withdrawn 0, 5, 15, and 30 min after 2-DG administration, through the jugular vein, to determine BG. In Experiment 3, the animals underwent a vagotomy and were tested in a Trial1/Trial2 EPM procedure four weeks later. The results showed that rats exploring the EPM for 5 min displayed increased fear and higher hyperglycemia than those exploring the EPM for 1 min. In addition, rats submitted to 5-min EPM Trial1 length displayed higher level of fear on Trial2, as well as higher percentage of shortening of the %Open arm entries and %Open arm time from Trial1 to Trial2, which characterizes the occurrence of emotional learning. In contrast, rats previously vagotomized or treated with 2-DG (500 mg kg(-1)) showed the same level of fear on both EPM trials and a low percentage of shortening, from Trial1 to Trial2, of the %Open arm entries and %Open arm time, indicating poor emotional learning. The data is discussed regarding the role of glycaemia in emotional learning in the EPM.     

Predicting cognitive control from preschool to late adolescence and young adulthood

In this longitudinal study, the proportion of time preschoolers directed their attention away from rewarding stimuli during a delay-of-gratification task was positively associated with efficiency (greater speed without reduced accuracy) at responding to targets in a go/no-go task more than 10 years later. The overall findings suggest that preschoolers' ability to effectively direct their attention away from tempting aspects of the rewards in a delay-of-gratification task may be a developmental precursor for the ability to perform inhibitory tasks such as the go/no-go task years later. Because performance on the go/no-go task has previously been characterized as involving activation of fronto-striatal regions, the present findings also suggest that performance in the delay-of-gratification task may serve as an early marker of individual differences in the functional integrity of this circuitry.     

Reexamining personal, social, and cultural influences on compliance behavior in the United States, Poland, and Hong Kong

Researchers have extended the literature on strategies of gaining compliance with a request to incorporate cultural variations into the analytic framework. In the present investigation, the authors sought to go beyond previous studies of the factors increasing compliance rates by reexamining how researchers conceptualize and measure personal, social, and cultural influences on compliance behavior in the United States, Poland, and Hong Kong. The authors found that different levels of compliance were affected by culture, principles of influence, and the individual's personal orientation of idiocentrism/allocentrism (I/A). In the present study, the authors extended previous cross-cultural work by decomposing the I/A into 2 separate individual difference variables: normative perceptions and evaluative perceptions. The interaction of person and situation on compliance showed the power of situational demands and the strength of different aspects of personal collectivism. Different patterns of compliance at the culture level revealed the importance of culture in shaping this behavioral tendency. Thus, the authors' integration of personal, social, and cultural influences provided an interactive model to help researchers explain compliance more comprehensively.     

Do automatic reactions elicited by thoughts of romantic partner, mother, and self relate to adult romantic attachment?

Three studies tested the expectation that automatic reactions elicited by the mental representation of one's current romantic partner, mother, and self relate to adult romantic attachment. Adult romantic attachment was assessed using multiple measures, and individual differences in automatic reactions were assessed by the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Studies 1 and 2 showed that automatic reactions elicited by thoughts of current romantic partner, but not by thoughts of self, were related to adult romantic attachment assessed at a specific (i.e., within one's current romantic relationship) and general level (i.e., across all romantic relationships). The pattern of results was stronger among individuals identified as attachment-schematic. Studies 2 and 3 showed that automatic reactions elicited by thoughts of one's mother were related to adult romantic attachment assessed at a general level. In all three studies, results did not differ depending on how adult romantic attachment was conceptualized (four styles vs. two dimensions).     

Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity is reduced in hippocampus of rats submitted to an experimental model of depression: effect of chronic lithium treatment and possible involvement in learning deficits

This study was undertaken to verify the effects of chronic stress and lithium treatments on the hippocampal Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity of rats, as well as to investigate the effects of stress interruption and post-stress lithium treatment on this enzyme activity and on spatial memory. Two experiments were carried out; in the first experiment, adult male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: control and submitted to a chronic variate stress paradigm, and subdivided into treated or not with LiCl. After 40 days of treatment, rats were killed, and Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity was determined. In the second experiment, rats were stressed during 40 days, and their performance was evaluated in the Water Maze task. The stressed group was then subdivided into four groups, with continued or interrupted stress treatment and treated or not with lithium for 30 additional days. After a second evaluation of performance in the Water Maze, rats were killed and Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity was also measured. Results showed an impairment in Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity and in Water Maze performance of chronically stressed rats, which were prevented by lithium treatment and reversed by lithium treatment and by stress interruption. These results suggest that the modulation of Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity may be one of the mechanisms of action of lithium in the treatment of mood disorders.