Auditory food cue conditioning: Effects of spatial contiguity and taste quality

The effects of spatial location of an auditory stimulus and quality of a potentiating taste on the aversive conditioning of an auditory food cue were investigated. In Experiment 1 rats ate salty food activating a tone from a speaker either in (spatially contiguous with) or displaced from the food and were then made ill. It was found that spatial contiguity during conditioning resulted in avoidance of food with a contiguous or a displaced tone in testing, and spatial displacement during conditioning resulted in avoidance of food only if the tone was also displaced in testing. Experiment 2 was identical, except rats ate salty, bitter, or sweet food with a displaced tone during conditioning and testing. The salty and bitter food groups demonstrated an avoidance of noisy food relative to the sweet food group. These results indicate that spatial contiguity interacts with taste quality in the conditioning of nongustatory food cues.     

Pure optic ataxia and visual hemiagnosia – extending the dual visual hypothesis

Goodale and Milner's two visual system hypothesis is an influential model for the understanding of the primate visual system. Lesions of either the ventral (occipito‐temporal) or the dorsal (occipito‐parietal) stream produce distinct and dissociated syndromes in humans: visual agnosia is typical for ventral damage, whereas optic ataxia (OA) for dorsal damage. We studied the case of a 59‐year‐old left‐handed woman with a circumscribed lesion around the left posterior occipital sulcus, extending to the underlying white matter. Initially, she presented with a central visual field OA, which regressed to an OA to the right visual hemifield during the 3 months observation period. In addition, tachistoscopic experiments showed visual hemiagnosia to the right visual hemifield. In line with the findings of the neuropsychological experiments, the analysis of the structural MR data by means of a trackwise hodologic probabilistic approach revealed damage to the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and to the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus, indicating an impairment of both the dorsal and the ventral stream. The combination of OA and visual hemiagnosia in the same patient has never been previously described. The present case study thus provides further insights for the understanding of visual processing.     

Test-taking behaviors in a neurocognitive assessment: associations with school-age outcomes in a Finnish longitudinal follow-up

Test-taking behaviors (i.e., task focus, maintenance of attention, and cooperation) affect children's cognitive test performance, and, thus, it is critical to take test-taking behavior into account when drawing conclusions and making recommendations. Prior studies have evaluated test-taking behaviors at the end of the assessment; the present study focused on the fluctuation of cooperation and attention during a neuropsychological assessment. We examined the attention and cooperation of 5-year-old children in a test-taking situation; the associations between these aspects of their test-taking behavior and the children's concurrent neurocognitive test performance, IQ, and parent-rated behavior; and the associations with their IQ, behavioral outcomes, and academic achievement at 8 years of age. The data (for 76 boys and 63 girls) were drawn from the Jyv?skyl? Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (Lyytinen et al., 2001, 2004). All the children were Caucasian and spoke Finnish as their native language. As a whole, the 5-year-old children showed high cooperation and attention, but a slight decrement in test-taking behavior toward the end of the session was rather common. Three subgroups of children with different levels of cooperation and attention were identified. Children in the subgroup with nonoptimal attention and cooperation showed decreasing neurocognitive test performance toward the end of the assessment session. They also showed more inattentive behavior 3 years later. The findings imply that the examiner's observations of waning attention and cooperation during the assessment session are highly relevant, as these provide stable and clinically meaningful information about the child's behavioral tendencies.     

Complex Environmental Reactions,as a New Concept to Describe Spontaneous “Paranormal” Experiences

A systemic phenomenological model that assumes the movability of the Cartesian cut is proposed and elucidated by means of a single exploratory case study. The model assumes that a continuum from purely psychosomatic disorders to RSPK cases exists. The degree of externalization (locus of control) of the affected person serves as an ordering parameter for the location of the Cartesian cut. It turns out that the dynamics of the disorder develops in four phases, like in the RSPK-model of the MPI. However, in contrast to the decline phase of the RSPK cases (because of the NT-axiom), CER cases lead to petrification of the complaints.     

Cross-cultural comparison of drivers’ tendency to commit different aberrant driving behaviours

The first aim of the present study was to identify key items which are rated differently by drivers from Finland, Sweden, Greece and Turkey. The second aim was to examine how these key items relate to drivers’ self-reported accident involvement. Similar comparisons have previously been conducted in Europe but these have only included items classified as violations and errors, but not lapses. A sample of Finnish (N = 200), Swedish (N = 200), Greek (N = 200) and Turkish (N = 200) drivers completed the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) and reported their accident involvement during the previous 3 years. The results showed that nine key items (which drivers from different countries rated differently) could be identified. These items included two aggressive violations, four ordinary violations, three lapses, but no errors. Out of these nine items, five items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can, Disregard the speed limit on a motorway, Overtake a slow driver on the inside, Pull out of a junction so far that the driver with right of way has to stop and let you out and Get into the wrong lane approaching a roundabout or a junction) could explain differences in drivers’ self-reported yearly accident involvement when all four countries were taken together. At the same time, none of the items could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Finland and Sweden while one of the items (Overtake a slow driver on the inside) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Greece and two of the items (Become angered by a certain type of driver and indicate your hostility by whatever means you can and Disregard the speed limit on a residential road) could explain differences in self-reported yearly accident involvement in Turkey. This shows that different countries have different problems with regard to aberrant driving behaviours which need to be taken into account when promoting traffic safety interventions and the driver behaviour questionnaire (DBQ) can be used to diagnose risk areas and to better inform road safety practitioners within and between countries.     

Using mu rhythm desynchronization to measure mirror neuron activity in infants

The Mirror Neuron System hypothesis stating that observed actions are projected onto the observer’s own action system assigns an important role to development, because only actions mastered by the observer can be mirrored. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether there is evidence of a functioning mirror neuron system (MNS) in 8-month-old infants. High-density EEG was used to assess the mu rhythm desynchronization in an action observation task where the infants observed a live model. To reduce noise, ICA decompositions were used. The results show a higher desynchronization of the mu rhythm when infants observed a goal-directed action than when they observed a spatially similar non-goal-directed movement. The localizations of the sources are in agreement with those proposed by the MNS hypothesis. This indicates that the MNS is functioning at this age.     

Autonomy,decisions, and free will

Can humans make decisions? Can machines? What ethical questions arise from using robotics in the education of children? Or in elderly care? These were some of the topics of the interdisciplinary college (IK), which took place from the 25th of March to the 1st of April in Günne, next to Lake Möhne. During this one-week spring school, more than 40 well-known lecturers from around the globe gave 170 participants an insight into a cornucopia of topics surrounding “autonomy, decisions, and free will”.     

Why it is difficult to see the anima as a helpful object: critique and clinical relevance of the theory of archetypes

This paper is divided into three parts. The first deals briefly with more general aspects of the theory of archetypes (as conceived by Jung); the second examines the anima archetype in rather more detail, because it is, apart from the self, the main archetype in Jung's thought; and the third discusses the clinical repercussions of the anima theory and of the theory of the archetypes in general. The various references to Jung himself and certain circumstances of his life are included here on the assumption that personal problems in his biography contributed decisively to the constitution of his theory, so that deeper insights accure if they are taken into account.