Pacinian representations of fine surface texture

Subjects were presented with pairs of finely textured stimuli and were instructed to rate their dissimilarity, using free magnitude estimation. The subjects also rated the stimuli along each of four textural continua: roughness, hardness, stickiness, and warmth. In subsequent experimental sessions, we used a Hall effect transducer to measure the vibrations produced in the subjects' fingertip skin as the stimuli were scanned across it. We wished to assess the extent to which the perceptual dissimilarity of the textures could be explained in terms of the perceptual dissimilarity of the vibrations they elicited in the skin. To that end, we invoked a model characterizing the Pacinian representation of a vibratory stimulus. From the model, we computed the difference in the vibratory representations of the two stimuli in each pair. We found that the bulk of the variance in perceived dissimilarity of the textures was accounted for by differences in the Pacinian representations of the vibrations they produced. Our results further suggested that the textural information conveyed by the Pacinian system concerns surface roughness and, possibly, stickiness.     

AIDS and Its Treatments: Two Doctors' Narratives of Healing, Desire, and Belonging

In this essay, I analyze two memoirs--Rafael Campo's The Poetry of Healing: A Doctor's Education in Empathy, Identity, and Desire and Abraham Verghese's My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of AIDS--which describe the effects of treating HIV/AIDS on each doctor's identity, on his desire for community and belonging, and on his identification and/or disidentification with the medical profession in the United States. My readings of Campo and Verghese revolve around three key terms provided by Campo's subtitle: identity, empathy, and desire. I shift the order of these terms in Campo's subtitle because I want to read identity, empathy, and desire in Campo and Verghese through and along with the theoretical "pragmatics" of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.     

Cholinergic septo-hippocampal innervation is required for trace eyeblink classical conditioning

We studied the effects of a selective lesion in rats, with 192-IgG-saporin, of the cholinergic neurons located in the medial septum/diagonal band (MSDB) complex on the acquisition of classical and instrumental conditioning paradigms. The MSDB lesion induced a marked deficit in the acquisition, but not in the retrieval, of eyeblink classical conditioning using a trace paradigm. Such a deficit was task-selective, as lesioned rats were able to acquire a fixed-interval operant conditioning as controls, and was not due to nonspecific motor alterations, because spontaneous locomotion and blink reflexes were not disturbed by the MSDB lesion. The deficit in the acquisition of a trace eyeblink classical conditioning was reverted by the systemic administration of carbachol, a nonselective cholinergic muscarinic agonist, but not by lobeline, a nicotinic agonist. These results suggest a key role of muscarinic denervation on the acquisition of new motor abilities using trace classical conditioning procedures. It might also be suggested that muscarinic agents would be useful for the amelioration of some associative learning deficits observed at early stages in patients with Alzheimer's disease.     

Positive emotions in volunteerism

Volunteerism is a well consolidated social phenomenon in our society. However, its rapid growth in the last few years has complicated the integration of theoretical knowledge and its application in organizational settings. Taking into account that nowadays, one of the chief problems of volunteer organizations is sustained volunteer service, the object of this work is to verify, within the context of the psychosocial model of sustained volunteerism (Vecina, 2001), the type of relation between the experience of positive emotions in volunteers and their intention of remaining in the organization. This work was carried out on a sample of volunteers who had been in service for less than one year prior to this study.     

Some variables associated with psychologists' appraisal of psychotherapy in Argentina

The purpose of this research is to provide information about the state of psychotherapy in Argentina, as well as to study some variables involved in psychologists' evaluation of psychotherapy. A survey of 14 items was elaborated ad-hoc for this purpose, and administered to 226 psychologists from all over the country by mail and, in some cases, personally. Results suggest that the predisposition to apply techniques from different frameworks is associated with the amount of experience and with the perception of a bias concerning other theoretical focuses, although it is not related to the evaluation of the state of psychotherapy. On the other hand, in the view of psychologists, personal aspects of the therapeutic relationship are believed to be the most important factor in patients' change and effective progress.     

Exploring the effects of a youth enrichment program on academic motivation and engagement

This study explores the effects of a youth enrichment program on academic motivation and engagement. Fifty-three students aged 14–16 years participated in the Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment (RYPEN). Embedded within the program were workshops revolving around the Student Motivation and Engagement Wheel [Martin (2003a). How to motivate your child for school and beyond. Sydney: Bantam] and strategies aimed at enhancing students’ academic motivation and engagement. Motivation was measured using the Student Motivation and Engagement Scale [Martin (2001). Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling 11, 1–20; Martin (2003b) Australian Journal of Education, 14, 34–49] at the outset of the program, towards the end of the program, and again 6–8 weeks later. Data showed that there were gains on key facets of students’ motivation by the end of the program – gains that were sustained 6–8 weeks later. These gains were demonstrated by boys and girls. Moreover, when compared to a larger weighted sample (2769 high school students), by Time 2 and also by Time 3, significant declines in motivation had been reversed and any pre-existing advantages or parallel strengths of the RYPEN sample over the weighted sample were maintained. Five facets of the program proposed to have contributed to its effectiveness are: the optimistic expectations held by adults, the program’s focus on mastery, the climate of cooperation and the ensuing sense of belonging, the positive relationships that developed amongst students and between students and adults, and embedding school-related elements within a broader enrichment program. Each of these is discussed.     

Innovation across cultures: Connecting leadership,identification, and creative behavior in organizations

Innovation is considered essential for today's organizations to survive and thrive. Researchers have also stressed the importance of leadership as a driver of followers' innovative work behavior (FIB). Yet, despite a large amount of research, three areas remain understudied: (a) The relative importance of different forms of leadership for FIB; (b) the mechanisms through which leadership impacts FIB; and (c) the degree to which relationships between leadership and FIB are generalizable across cultures. To address these lacunae, we propose an integrated model connecting four types of positive leadership behaviors, two types of identification (as mediating variables), and FIB. We tested our model in a global data set comprising responses of N = 7,225 participants from 23 countries, grouped into nine cultural clusters. Our results indicate that perceived LMX quality was the strongest relative predictor of FIB. Furthermore, the relationships between both perceived LMX quality and identity leadership with FIB were mediated by social identification. The indirect effect of LMX on FIB via social identification was stable across clusters, whereas the indirect effects of the other forms of leadership on FIB via social identification were stronger in countries high versus low on collectivism. Power distance did not influence the relations.     

Changes in religious attitudes and behaviors of Euro-Turk students with theology education

This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five-year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and if yes to what extent did these changes occur? A panel survey is conducted on these students in pre-education and post-education periods to answer this question. Without ignoring the effect of the social environment outside of education on religious attitudes, we found that students exhibit a more tolerant, nonstrict attitude toward both their coreligionists and those who have negative attitudes toward their religion. Additionally, in parallel with the deepening of religious knowledge, a questioning and critical perspective was formed with a decrease in superstitions. We found that the attitude change in female students was generally higher than that of male students.