Personality features and cognitive level in patients at an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease

In this cross-sectional study, we explored the relationship between premorbid personality and its changes over 5 years, and cognitive deterioration in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease. The cognitive level of 54 patients was compared with that of 64 control subjects using the Mini Mental State (MMSE). Family members completed the NEO-PI-R (form R) twice, once to evaluate the participants’ current personality and again to assess personality traits as they were remembered to be 5 years earlier. Furthermore, the family filled in the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline (IQCODE), the Activities of Daily Living (ADL), and the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scales to assess their proxies’ cognitive level and daily living functioning. Regarding the relationship between personality characteristics and cognitive status, we observed trends for premorbid personality and significant links for personality changes in the clinical group. Thus, changes in neuroticism and conscientiousness were associated with cognitive deterioration, whereas decreased openness to experience and conscientiousness over time predicted loss of independence in daily functioning in the clinical group. Our study suggests that premorbid features can be considered as latent traits linked to the neuropathology underlying the disease process, while personality changes are probably the consequences of the pathological process.     

Audiovisual synchrony and temporal order judgments: effects of experimental method and stimulus type

When an audio-visual event is perceived in the natural environment, a physical delay will always occur between the arrival of the leading visual component and that of the trailing auditory component. This natural timing relationship suggests that the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) should occur at an auditory delay greater than or equal to 0 msec. A review of the literature suggests that PSS estimates derived from a temporal order judgment (TOJ) task differ from those derived from a synchrony judgment (SJ) task, with (unnatural) auditory-leading PSS values reported mainly for the TOJ task. We report data from two stimulus types that differed in terms of complexity--namely, (1) a flash and a click and (2) a bouncing ball and an impact sound. The same participants judged the temporal order and synchrony of both stimulus types, using three experimental methods: (1) a TOJ task with two response categories ("audio first" or "video first"), (2) an SJ task with two response categories ("synchronous" or "asynchronous"; SJ2), and (3) an SJ task with three response categories ("audio first," "synchronous," or "video first"; SJ3). Both stimulus types produced correlated PSS estimates with the SJ tasks, but the estimates from the TOJ procedure were uncorrelated with those obtained from the SJ tasks. These results suggest that the SJ task should be preferred over the TOJ task when the primary interest is i n perceived audio-visualsynchrony.     

From Speculative Nanoethics to Explorative Philosophy of Nanotechnology

In the wake of the emergence and rapid development of nanoethics there swiftly followed fundamental criticism: nanoethics was said to have become much too involved with speculative developments and was concerning itself too little with actually pending questions of nanotechnology design and applications. If this diagnosis is true, then large parts of nanoethics are misguided. Such fundamental criticism must surely either result in a radical reorientation of nanoethics or be refuted for good reasons. In this paper, I will examine the critics’ central arguments and, building on this scrutiny, formulate an answer to these alternatives. The results lead to conclusions which allow explaining and unfolding the thesis of this paper that instead of speculative nanoethics we should better speak of and develop explorative philosophy of nanotechnology.     

The maintenance of fluency after intensive in-patient therapy: Long-term follow-up

Maintenance of fluency after intensive in-patient treatment was studied in eight male stammerers. Reasons for success and failure are discussed in relation to objective and subjective data collected at the final follow-up interview.     

Quantifying temporal ventriloquism in audiovisual synchrony perception

The integration of visual and auditory inputs in the human brain works properly only if the components are perceived in close temporal proximity. In the present study, we quantified cross-modal interactions in the human brain for audiovisual stimuli with temporal asynchronies, using a paradigm from rhythm perception. In this method, participants had to align the temporal position of a target in a rhythmic sequence of four markers. In the first experiment, target and markers consisted of a visual flash or an auditory noise burst, and all four combinations of target and marker modalities were tested. In the same-modality conditions, no temporal biases and a high precision of the adjusted temporal position of the target were observed. In the different-modality conditions, we found a systematic temporal bias of 25–30 ms. In the second part of the first and in a second experiment, we tested conditions in which audiovisual markers with different stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) between the two components and a visual target were used to quantify temporal ventriloquism. The adjusted target positions varied by up to about 50 ms and depended in a systematic way on the SOA and its proximity to the point of subjective synchrony. These data allowed testing different quantitative models. The most satisfying model, based on work by Maij, Brenner, and Smeets (Journal of Neurophysiology 102, 490–495, 2009), linked temporal ventriloquism and the percept of synchrony and was capable of adequately describing the results from the present study, as well as those of some earlier experiments.     

How Interpersonal Coordination Affects Individual Behavior (and Vice Versa): Experimental Analysis and Adaptive HKB Model of Social Memory

How one behaves after interacting with a friend may not be the same as before the interaction. The present study investigated which spontaneous coordination patterns formed between 2 persons and whether a remnant of the interaction remained (“social memory”). Pairs of people sat face-to-face and continuously flexed index fingers while vision between partners was manipulated to allow or prevent information exchange. Trials consisted of 3 successive 20-s intervals: without vision, with vision, and again without vision. Steady, transient, or absent phase coupling was observed during vision. In support of social memory, participants tended to remain near each other's movement frequency after the interaction ended. Furthermore, the greater the stability of interpersonal coordination, the more similar partners' postinteractional frequencies became. Proposing that social memory resulted from prior frequency adaptation, a model based on Haken–Kelso–Bunz (HKB) oscillators reproduced the experimental findings, even for patterns observed on individual trials. Parametric manipulations revealed multiple routes to social memory through the interplay of adaptation and other model parameters. The experimental results, model, and interpretation motivate potential future research and therapeutic applications.