A modified proportional change model of attitude change by group discussion

The data of two experiments of dyadic group discussion have been reanalysed. An extended proportional change model was designed to explain the actual process of attitude change. The model is defined by two parameters. The first represents the impact of single pro-arguments and single con-arguments on the attitude or decision preference. The second describes the resistance to further change that increases with the distance from the initial position. It was hypothesized that the first parameter should be higher and the second lower, with a similar partner than with a dissimilar one. The prediction was confirmed for the first parameter only. A comparison of the extended proportional change model to related models concludes the report.     

Looking behaviour and preference for artworks: The role of emotional valence and location

The position of an item influences its evaluation, with research consistently finding that items occupying central locations are preferred and have a higher subjective value. The current study investigated whether this centre-stage effect (CSE) is a result of bottom-up gaze allocation to the central item, and whether it is affected by item valence. Participants (n = 50) were presented with three images of artistic paintings in a row and asked to choose the image they preferred. Eye movements were recorded for a subset of participants (n = 22). On each trial the three artworks were either similar but different, or were identical and with positive valence, or were identical and with negative valence. The results showed a centre-stage effect, with artworks in the centre of the row preferred, but only when they were identical and of positive valence. Significantly greater gaze allocation to the central and left artwork was not mirrored by equivalent increases in preference choices. Regression analyses showed that when the artworks were positive and identical the participants' last fixation predicted preference for the central art-work, whereas the fixation duration predicted preference if the images were different. Overall the result showed that item valence, rather than level of gaze allocation, influences the CSE, which is incompatible with the bottom-up gaze explanation. We propose that the centre stage heuristic, which specifies that the best items are in the middle, is able to explain these findings and the centre-stage effect.     

Psychosomatische Rehabilitation

Besides inpatient and outpatient treatment, rehabilitation represents the third column of the German healthcare system. The goal for the persons concerned is the conservation of activity and participation in the professional and social life. This article shows the importance and development of German psychosomatic rehabilitation in contrast to regular inpatient treatment. It also explains its place in the whole healthcare concept of rehabilitation and the basic principles of sociomedical assessment, followed by practical advice for the indications and the rehabilitation application process. Compared with other countries Germany has a very well-established system of psychosomatic rehabilitation but this resource is often used too late in the course of treatment, mostly not until severe chronification has occurred and in addition there are also problems with points of interaction concerning the subsequent outpatient treatment. The aim of this article is therefore to contribute to an improved cross-linking of the different areas in the healthcare system.     

Psychotherapie in Westdeutschland nach 1945

Protagonists during the formation of post-World War II medical psychotherapy (e.g. Ernst Speer, Berthold Kihn) had been involved in Nazi selection and ??hereditary health?? policies and continued to express related attitudes and views in the post-war period. To contextualize and analyze these findings, the broader institutional structures and dynamics in psychotherapy before and after 1945 are described. It is argued that for gaining attention, acceptance and resources, psychotherapy and psychiatry are much more dependent on the specific political and economic contexts than somatic medical disciplines, due to the focus on experiences and behavior of human beings. This is related to the fact that such political and economic contexts are themselves bound to anthropological conceptions and norms of behavior. In a further step three paradigms of dealing with the Nazi past are identified for post-World War II psychotherapy and psychiatry: the isolation paradigm, the continuity paradigm and the localizing-complex paradigm.     

Electrophysiological evidence for late maturation of strategic episodic retrieval processes

Improvement in source memory performance throughout development is thought to be mediated by strategic processes that facilitate the retrieval of task-relevant information. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we examined developmental changes in these processes during adolescence. Adolescents (13-14 years) and adults (19-29 years) completed a memory exclusion task which required the discrimination between words studied in one color ('targets') and words studied in the alternative color ('non-targets') under two conditions that put different demands on strategic control. Memory accuracy improved with age and also increased with decreasing control demands in both age groups. The parietal old/new effect, an ERP correlate of recollection, was reliable for targets across conditions in both age groups. By contrast, ERP correlates of non-target recollection were present in adolescents across conditions but not in adults. This suggests that adults implemented a strategy to prioritize recollection of target information with greater success than adolescents regardless of control demands, presumably reflecting maturational differences in cognitive control. In support of this view, the ERP amplitude difference between targets and non-targets was positively correlated with a measure of working memory capacity (WMC) in adults but not in adolescents. A further age-related difference was that ERP correlates of post-retrieval processing, including late right-frontal old/new effects and late posterior negativities, were observed in adults only. Together, our data suggest protracted maturation in the strategic processes that underlie selective recollection and post-retrieval control.     

Priming of plane-rotated objects depends on attention and view familiarity

Three experiments investigated the role of attention in visual priming across rotations in the picture plane. Experiment 1 showed that naming latencies increased with the degree of misorientation for objects commonly seen in an upright view (base objects) but not for objects seen familiarly from many views (no-base objects). In Experiment 2, no-base objects revealed a priming pattern identical to that observed previously for left–right reflections (Stankiewicz, Hummel, & Cooper, 1998 Stankiewicz, B. J., Hummel, J. E. and Cooper, E. E. 1998. The role of attention in priming for left–right reflections of object images: Evidence for a dual representation of object shape. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24(3): 732–744. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]): Attended objects primed themselves in the same and rotated views, whereas ignored images primed themselves only in the same view, with additive effects of attention and orientation. In Experiment 3 ignored base objects only primed themselves in a familiar (upright) view, indicating that priming only obtains when that image makes contact with object memory. These data challenge theories of object recognition that rely on any single representation of shape and contribute to evidence suggesting holistic (view-like) representations for ignored and analytic (view-insensitive) representations for attended objects.     

Luther: A Mystic

Understanding Martin Luther means looking at a medieval monk heavily influenced by his confessor, John of Staupitz. Staupitz inspired Luther and his friends to read the sermons of the late medieval mystic John Tauler. Here Luther found a theology of grace, the idea that faith is the only remaining point to a grace‐full God. Tauler's most obvious influence, his understanding of penance, shaped the first and second of Luther's Ninety‐five Theses. Another influence, that of passion mysticism, Luther explored and developed in his early tracts. Over the years, while Luther would stress the importance of Scripture over mystical experience, this was more a slight but meaningful transformation rather than a complete break with mysticism.     

The complexity of satisfiability for fragments of hybrid logic—Part I

The satisfiability problem of hybrid logics with the downarrow binder is known to be undecidable. This initiated a research program on decidable and tractable fragments.In this paper, we investigate the effect of restricting the propositional part of the language on decidability and on the complexity of the satisfiability problem over arbitrary, transitive, total frames, and frames based on equivalence relations. We also consider different sets of modal and hybrid operators. We trace the border of decidability and give the precise complexity of most fragments, in particular for all fragments including negation. For the monotone fragments, we are able to distinguish the easy from the hard cases, depending on the allowed set of operators.     

Multiple family therapy for anorexia nervosa: concepts, experiences and results

Multiple family therapy (MFT) is an increasingly popular treatment approach for adolescents suffering from anorexia nervosa and their families. This paper describes the ingredients and different phases of this treatment, and outlines its indications and contra‐indications. Relationship patterns in families containing anorectic teenagers are examined, with a special emphasis on identifying areas for change in family relationships. Results with regard to the overall acceptability of the approach are presented.