Conceptualizing and Measuring Historical Trauma Among American Indian People

This article reports on the development of two measures relating to historical trauma among American Indian people: The Historical Loss Scale and The Historical Loss Associated Symptoms Scale. Measurement characteristics including frequencies, internal reliability, and confirmatory factor analyses were calculated based on 143 American Indian adult parents of children aged 10 through 12 years who are part of an ongoing longitudinal study of American Indian families in the upper Midwest. Results indicate both scales have high internal reliability. Frequencies indicate that the current generation of American Indian adults have frequent thoughts pertaining to historical losses and that they associate these losses with negative feelings. Two factors of the Historical Loss Associated Symptoms Scale indicate one anxiety/depression component and one anger/avoidance component. The results are discussed in terms of future research and theory pertaining to historical trauma among American Indian people.     

Perceptual functions in prosopagnosia

Some patients with prosopagnosia may have an apperceptive basis to their recognition defect. Perceptual abnormalities have been reported in single cases or small series, but the causal link of such deficits to prosopagnosia is unclear. Our goal was to identify candidate perceptual processes that might contribute to prosopagnosia, by subjecting several prosopagnosic patients to a battery of functions that may be necessary for accurate facial perception. We tested seven prosopagnosic patients. Three had unilateral right occipitotemporal lesions, two had bilateral posterior occipitotemporal lesions, and one had right anterior-to-occipital temporal damage along with a small left temporal lesion. These lesions all included the fusiform face area, in contrast to one patient with bilateral anterior temporal lesions. Most patients had impaired performance on face-matching tests and difficulty with subcategory judgments for non-face objects. The most consistent deficits in patients with lesions involving the fusiform face area were impaired perception of spatial relations in dot patterns and reduced contrast sensitivity in the 4 to 8 cycles deg(-1) range. Patients with bilateral lesions were impaired in saturation discrimination. Luminance discrimination was normal in all but two patients, and spatial resolution was uniformly spared. Curvature and line-orientation discrimination were impaired in only one patient, who also had the most difficulty with more basic-level object recognition. We conclude that deficits in luminance, spatial resolution, curvature, line orientation, and contrast at low spatial frequencies are unlikely to contribute to apperceptive prosopagnosia. More relevant may be contrast sensitivity at higher spatial frequencies and the analysis of object spatial structure. Deficits in these functions may impair perception of subtle variations in object shape, and may be one mechanism by which the recognition defect in prosopagnosia can extend to other classes of object subcategorization.     

Suicidal behavior among inpatients with schizophrenia and mood disorders in Chengdu, China

This study evaluated the characteristics of suicidal behavior (suicide attempt or suicidal ideation) among 230 consecutively admitted inpatients with schizophrenia and mood disorders in a university hospital in China. The rate of lifetime suicidal behavior was found to be significantly higher in patients with mood disorders (62.4%) than in patients with schizophrenia (38.6%). The rate of suicidal behavior was significantly higher in patients with major depressive disorder (86.8%) than those with bipolar disorders (42.6%). Patients with schizophrenia attempted suicide for the first time earlier in life than the patients with mood disorders. Mood disorder patients, especially those with major depressive disorder, had more and more serious suicide attempts than the patients with schizophrenia.     

王阳明思想中的“身体”隐喻

本文首先揭示了王阳明对身体的两种基本样式的区分 ,然后从身体的七个具体的存在面向考察阳明身体隐喻的使用 ,以期通过此“第二序”的论说方式之反思 ,而阐发阳明乃至宋明儒家运思的能近取譬特征     

Spatial learning in rats is impaired by microinfusions of protein kinase C-gamma antisense oligodeoxynucleotide within the nucleus accumbens

The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) has been shown to play a role in motor and spatial learning. Protein kinase C (PKC) has been implicated in the mechanisms of initiation and maintenance of long-term potentiation that is thought to be involved in the storage of long-term memory. In the present study, the importance of de novo synthesis of PKC-gamma within the NAcc in the acquisition and retention of spatial discrimination learning was assessed using an antisense knockdown approach. Separate groups of Long-Evans rats were exposed to acute microinfusions (6microg/microl) of PKC-gamma antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (AS-ODN), control oligodeoxynucleotide (C-ODN) or vehicle into the NAcc at 24 and 3h before each training session. Behavioral findings showed that the blockade of NAcc-PKC-gamma translation caused impairments in the early phase of learning and retention of spatial information. Biochemical experiments showed that PKC-gamma expression was reduced and Ca(2+)/phospholipid-dependent protein kinase C (PKC) activity was blocked significantly in the AS-ODN-treated rats in comparison with control rats. The present findings suggest that NAcc-PKC-gamma plays a role during the early acquisition of spatial learning. Also, retention test results suggest that NAcc-PKC-gamma may be working as an intermediate factor involved in the onset of molecular mechanisms necessary for spatial memory consolidation within the NAcc.     

Auditory-oral matching behavior in newborns

Twenty-five newborn infants were tested for auditory-oral matching behavior when presented with the consonant sound /m/ and the vowel sound /a/ - a precursor behavior to vocal imitation. Auditory-oral matching behavior by the infant was operationally defined as showing the mouth movement appropriate for producing the model sound just heard (mouth opening for /a/ and mouth clutching for /m/), even when the infant produced no sound herself. With this new dependent measure, the current study is the first to show matching behavior to consonant sounds in newborns: infants showed significantly more instances of mouth opening after /a/ models than after /m/ models, and more instances of mouth clutching after /m/ models than after /a/ models. The results are discussed in the context of theories of active intermodal mapping and innate releasing mechanisms.     

语篇理解中背景信息的激活: 情景限制的共振过程

该研究采用双人物线索语篇材料,对语篇理解中背景信息激活过程的共振模型与剧景模型进行检验。实验一发现,如果主角和配角一直同时在故事情景中成为主线索,则目标句中主角的行为可以激活那些经过屏蔽的、与这一行为相关的配角特征。在实验二中,配角只是在特征描述段落中出现,而后通过适当的描述使其在故事情景中消失,使主角成为故事的主线索,结果发现,此时目标句中主角的行为并不会激活经过屏蔽的配角的特征描述。这些结果表明,背景信息的激活虽然具有共振的特点,但共振并不是无范围限制的,而是一种情景限制下的共振。     

The generality of working memory capacity: a latent-variable approach to verbal and visuospatial memory span and reasoning

A latent-variable study examined whether verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) capacity measures reflect a primarily domain-general construct by testing 236 participants in 3 span tests each of verbal WM. visuospatial WM, verbal short-term memory (STM), and visuospatial STM. as well as in tests of verbal and spatial reasoning and general fluid intelligence (Gf). Confirmatory' factor analyses and structural equation models indicated that the WM tasks largely reflected a domain-general factor, whereas STM tasks, based on the same stimuli as the WM tasks, were much more domain specific. The WM construct was a strong predictor of Gf and a weaker predictor of domain-specific reasoning, and the reverse was true for the STM construct. The findings support a domain-general view of WM capacity, in which executive-attention processes drive the broad predictive utility of WM span measures, and domain-specific storage and rehearsal processes relate more strongly to domain-specific aspects of complex cognition.     

Age differences in the correction processes of context-induced biases: when correction succeeds

Previous research has demonstrated that older adults are more susceptible than young adults to context-induced biases in social judgments. The primary goal of this study was to examine the conditions under which older adults could or could not correct their biases. Young and older adults completed a social judgment task that normally would produce contrast biases in 3 correction cue conditions: no cue, subtle cue, and blatant cue. It was found that both young and older adults corrected their biases in the blatant cue condition, but only young adults corrected in the subtle cue condition. The results suggest that older adults may need more environmental support in correcting their biases.     

A paradoxical dissociation in the effects of midazolam on recollection and automatic processes in the process dissociation procedure

This study used midazolam-induced amnesia to explore the plausibility of the estimates provided by the process dissociation procedure (PDP), which is designed to estimate the contributions of recollection (R) and automatic (A) processes to implicit memory performance. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject design with 24 participants, single midazolam doses were administered intravenously, and word stem completion performance was used to calculate PDP estimates. A dissociation was observed such that midazolam decreased R but increased A estimates relative to placebo. Given that a manipulation that induces amnesia would not be expected to facilitate a memory process, these results add to the accumulating body of evidence suggesting that PDP estimates are not always theoretically plausible. Such evidence raises important questions about the use of the PDP.