Laterality in metaphor processing: lack of evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging for the right hemisphere theory

We investigated processing of metaphoric sentences using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Seventeen healthy subjects (6 female, 11 male) read 60 novel short German sentence pairs with either metaphoric or literal meaning and performed two different tasks: judging the metaphoric content and judging whether the sentence has a positive or negative connotation. Laterality indices for 8 regions of interest were calculated: Inferior frontal gyrus (opercular part and triangular part), superior, middle, and inferior temporal gyrus, precuneus, temporal pole, and hippocampus. A left lateralised network was activated with no significant differences in laterality between the two tasks. The lowest degree of laterality was found in the temporal pole. Other factors than metaphoricity per se might trigger right hemisphere recruitment. Results are discussed in the context of lesion and hemifield studies.     

Programming tool-use actions

When humans plan to execute a tool-use action, they can only specify the bodily movement parameters by taking into account the external target or goal of the tool-use action and the target-movement mapping implemented by the tool. In this study, the authors used the movement precuing method to investigate how people prepare for actions made with tools. More specifically, they asked whether people would be able to specify the spatial target and the target-movement mapping of the tool-use action independently of each other, and to what degree they would be able to prepare these components in advance. In 3 experiments, they precued either the target or the target-movement mapping of tool-use actions involving either a compatible or an incompatible target-movement mapping. Results indicate that participants benefit from partial advance information about the target-movement mapping, whereas no significant effects were found for precuing the spatial target of the action. These results occurred regardless of whether the target-movement mapping was compatible or incompatible and provide evidence for the notion that the target-movement mapping of a tool-use action is part of its cognitive representation.     

Patterns of attachment and parents' adjustment to the death of their child

The impact of adult attachment on psychological adjustment among bereaved parents and the mediating effect of relationship satisfaction were examined among a sample of 219 couples of parents. Data collection took place 6, 13, and 20 months after loss. Use of the actor partner interdependence model in multilevel regression analysis enabled exploration of both individual as well as partner attachment as predictors of grief and depression. Results indicated that the more insecurely attached parents were (on both avoidance and anxiety attachment), the higher the symptoms of grief and depression. Neither the attachment pattern of the partner nor similarity of attachment within the couple had any influence on psychological adjustment of the parent. Marital satisfaction partially mediated the association of anxious attachment with symptomatology. Contrary to previous research findings, avoidant attachment was associated with high grief intensity. These findings challenge the notion that the avoidantly attached are resilient.     

Freges Erläuterung des Urteils

According to Frege the notion of judgement cannot be defined, but must be explicated by referring to natural language. Frege uses a subjective and an objective notion of judgement: on the one hand a judgement is an inner mental process, on the other hand judging is explained as advancing from the thought to the truth-value. The subjective notion of judgement logically depends on the objective conception of a judgement, but nevertheless remains indispensable. To clarify the objective notion of judgement, the relation of thought and truth must be explicated by using Frege's theory of sense and reference. Only an intersubjective and action-guiding knowledge of the way in which the truth-value of a sentence is determined can make it possible to advance from the thought and the understanding of a sentence to the acknowledgement of its truth. Since by this advance a sentence receives a cognitive value, Frege's theory of sense and reference makes a contribution not only to semantics but also to epistemology.     

Interpersonal determinants of attitude change following counterattitudinal behavior

In a test of predictions derived from an identity-analytic model of self-presentational behavior, individuals who privately endorsed positive or negative attitudes about sexual behavior were asked to deliver a prosexuality speech while alone, while watched by observers, or while being watched by observers who questioned the morality of the subject’s actions. Subsequent attitude measures indicated that the subjects who initially adopted negative attitudes justified their behavior by expressing more favorable attitudes about sexuality, but only when no audience witnessed their speech. When an audience was present, these individuals emphasized their lack of choice. In contrast, subjects who privately endorsed positive attitudes publicly expressed less favorable attitudes when their morality was challenged by the observers. These findings suggest that attitude change following counterattitudinal behavior (a) stems from private image-maintenance needs as well as public self-presentational concerns, and (b) is sometimes designed to secure an image of morality as well as an image of consistency.     

On the assessment of genetic technology: Reaching ethical judgments in the light of modern technology

The “Model for Reaching Ethical Judgments in the context of Modern Technologies — the Case of Genetic Technology”, which is presented here, has arisen from the project “Ethical Criteria bearing upon Decisions taken in the field of Biotechnology”. This project has been pursued since 1991 in the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Technikforschung (ZIT) of the Technical University of Darmstadt, with the purpose of examining decision-making in selected activities involving the production of transgenic plants that have a useful application. The model is the basis of an outline for interviews to investigate how far decisions concerning the development of such plants with genetic techniques take ethical criteria into account. It was necessary to design this new model because other models for reaching judgments of this kind were not conceptually suited for concrete application. This model represents a problem related approach and combines methodological with substantive typology. In this it differs from comparable models for reaching ethical judgments.     

Ästhetische Befriedigung und Unbestimmtheitsreduktion

Zusammenfassung Vpn mußten unter standardisierten Bedingungen zweidimensionale Farbmuster herstellen, die ihrer Meinung nach ästhetisch maximal befriedigend, bzw. maximal unbefriedigend waren. Die beiden Gruppen von Bildern wurden untersucht, wobei sich eine Gruppe von ästhetisch befriedigenden und zwei Gruppen von ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Bildern zeigten. Eine weitere Analyse ergab, daß sich die ästhetisch befriedigenden Bilder von den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden statistisch darin unterscheiden, daß bei den ästhetisch befriedigenden Bildern die Farbelemente in hohem Maße zum Aufbau komplizierter und tiefer Hierarchien von Zeichen höherer Ordnung verwendet wurden, wohingegen bei den ästhetisch unbefriedigenden Mustern übergeordnete Konfigurationen entweder nur in einfacher Form und flachen Hierarchien auftreten (1. Gruppe) oder Zeichen höherer Ordnung gar nicht vorhanden sind (2. Gruppe). Aufgrund der empirischen Ergebnisse wird die Hypothese aufgestellt, daß ästhetische Befriedigung auf Unbestimmtheitsreduktion gegen Widerstand zurückgeführt werden kann. In einem nachfolgenden Experiment wurde diese Hypothese geprüft und bestätigt.

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Aesthetical appreciation and the reduction of uncertainty

Summary Subjects were asked to construct colored pictures which they considered to be aesthetically maximally pleasing or unpleasing. These two groups of pictures were analyzed and it was found that the aesthetically pleasing pictures showed a statistically significant increase in the number of higher order configurations of color elements and a greater hierarchical organization of such configurations. Furthermore, the higher order configurations of the aesthetically pleasing pictures were of a more complicated structure than the higher order configurations of the aesthetically unpleasing pictures. Considering these results, the hypothesis was raised that aesthetical appreciation may be based on the reduction of uncertainty against the resistance of a complicated system of ordering relations within a stimulus. This hypothesis was tested and verified in a subsequent experiment.

     

Primate learning tasks reveal strong impairments in patients with presenile or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type

Eight subjects with the likely diagnosis of presenile or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type were tested on two frequently used primate learning tasks: a concurrent object discrimination task and a delayed non-match-to-sample task. In addition, various tests for cognitive, mnemonic, perceptual, and language functions were applied. The results suggest a severe decline of the Alzheimer subjects in all measures when compared with 10 control subjects matched for age, gender, and education. The two animal learning tasks revealed strong impairments, thus demonstrating a high sensitivity for the detection and assessment of human amnesic disorders. Implications of these findings for human neuropsychological, and especially comparative neuropsychological, research are discussed.