轻度认知损伤重复效应脑电研究：范式及应用

“语义一致性加重复”范式（congruity-plus-repetition paradigm）在早前重复范式的基础上增加了早期语义情境用以控制重复效应的前期成份N400和后期成份P600之间的相互干扰。作者回顾了这种范式在轻度认知损伤（mild cognitive impairment,MCI）的事件相关电位研究领域的应用,并分析了该范式在MCI的识别及预测其向痴呆转归方面的优越性。提示效应的组合更能标记正常认知老化向痴呆的动态过渡;能产生两个或多个效应组合的实验范式将是该领域未来研究方向之一。     

积极情绪调节的ERP研究

利用ERP技术研究认知重评对积极情绪调节及后续认知任务的影响。先呈现积极图片,要求被试被动观看或认知重评。接着呈现情绪词,要求被试进行效价判断。结果显示,在情绪调节阶段,与被动观看或评价忽视相比,评价重视调节下的LPP更大。在词呈现阶段,被试的反应时受情绪调节的影响,表现为:评价忽视>评价重视>被动观看。在160-720ms期间,认知重评之后词汇所诱发的ERP与被动观看后词汇的ERP有显著差异,支持情绪调节损耗认知资源的观点。     

Eavesdropping on character: Assessing everyday moral behaviors

Despite decades of interest in moral character, comparatively little is known about moral behavior in everyday life. This paper reports a novel method for assessing everyday moral behaviors using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR)—a digital audio-recorder that intermittently samples snippets of ambient sounds from people’s environments—and examines the stability of these moral behaviors. In three samples (combined N = 186), participants wore an EAR over one or two weekends. Audio files were coded for everyday moral behaviors (e.g., showing sympathy, gratitude) and morally-neutral comparison language behaviors (e.g., use of prepositions, articles). Results indicate that stable individual differences in moral behavior can be systematically observed in daily life, and that their stability is comparable to the stability of neutral language behaviors.     

The Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised: Factor structure in a culturally and sociodemographically diverse sample in the United States

The recommended factor structure for the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R), a widely used parent-report measure of infant temperament, has limited empirical support. Moreover, the recommended factors were developed using homogenous samples not representative of current United States (U.S.) sociodemographics. The objective of this study was to examine the factor structure of the IBQ-R in a culturally and sociodemographically diverse U.S. cohort (N = 380 mother-infant dyads). Mothers were assessed during pregnancy on a range of cultural and sociodemographic characteristics and completed the IBQ-R when their infants were 6 months of age. The sample was diverse on maternal marital status, educational attainment, household income, race/ethnicity, primary language spoken, and country of birth. Initial confirmatory factor analysis for the recommended three-factor model yielded a poor fit. Modifications employed in other studies failed to improve model fit. An exploratory factor analysis revealed an acceptable model fit for a three-factor solution that showed similarities to as well as differences from the originally proposed factor structure. Additional analyses suggested lack of invariance on several factor and scale scores by maternal country of birth, race/ethnicity, and household income. The findings suggest that the commonly used IBQ-R factor structure may need to be adjusted for diverse samples and deserves further study.     

Unus Mundus: A New Approach to The Reading of Complexity

In the last decades of the twentieth century, there was quite a change in the scientific approaches as far as humankind and nature are concerned. The recent discoveries of quantum physics with the phenomenon of entanglement and of the neurosciences with the holographic theory of mind have furthermore amplified the epistemological perspectives of complexity, introducing completely new and amazing hypotheses concerning the human­–universe relationship. Therefore, on the basis of these quantum specifications by Bohm, we can postulate the hypothesis that if all the matter of the universe is also entangled, living matter and the cognition entangled to it, which are at the basis of the network of life, do not represent but a giant living hologram provided with specific information prerogative which, generally speaking, can flow by means of the continuous interaction of the corporeal matter of humankind together with the wider network of the whole. This interaction of humankind with the universe is studied by Ecobiopsychology, which qualifies in the “panorama” of complexity like a new discipline, which relates the informative codes of the living world and their specific languages (the ecological aspect) to the analogous languages of the human body, which sediments in itself the phylogenesis of the world (the biological aspect), to then recover the relationship between the “world” and the human “bios” in its psychological and cultural aspects expressed in myths, in the history of religions, and in the collective images of humanity (the psychological aspects). Ecobiopsychology, referring to the most recent developments of complexity, considers humankind as an organized totality provided with a meaning that can be justified only if contextualized in the relationships with its body, its mind, and its social and cultural dynamics without any of these aspects being privileged the human being, the human unit is to be seen as a node within a broader network. The human­-unity is provided with a specific organization, schema, structure, and process, the outcome of that manifestation of strength and information flowing in a continuous dynamism. The ecobiopsychological model focusing on the constant relationship between the unconscious and the body, in referring to the information “physicality” of the archetype and in evaluating the importance of the synchronicity as a rule able to bind among themselves the information of existential events together with the categories of the different forms of the universe, by means of the vital analogies and the symbols, proposes a holistic Weltanschauung of humankind. This is similar to the most modern conceptions of quantum physics.     

A new diagnosis of complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,PTSD – a window of opportunity for the treatment of patients in the NHS?

The concept of complex trauma has been around for a long time and in 2018, it’s expected to become a new diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases eleventh revision, ICD-11, the World Health Organisation, WHO, manual used formally in the NHS. Psychiatric diagnosis often does not sit well with psychoanalysis, which is at least as interested in unconscious phantasy as it is in symptoms. But as psychodynamically-trained practitioners in the NHS we need to engage with ICD-11 and apply our own understanding to service design so that patients have access to treatment which works for them. The service where I work (a secondary mental health team in the London borough of Lewisham) has already been receiving referrals for ‘complex trauma’ for some time, despite its not being formally classified. Patients so described are most often those with a history of childhood sexual abuse, and refugees with a history of brutality and torture. Differential diagnosis includes personality disorder since many have difficulties with interpersonal issues. In this paper I want to discuss how we might understand the new diagnosis of complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, and its implications for treatment in the NHS.     

SEARCHING FOR ANOTHER EARTH: THE RECENT HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF EXOPLANETS

The discovery of exoplanets is a small part of the array of scientific arguments for and against the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Yet the recent stunning achievement of this program of observational astronomy has had a significant effect on scientific opinion and public interest. It also raises some key theological questions. New observing techniques are leading to the discovery of extrasolar planets daily. Earth‐like planets outside of our Solar System can now be identified and in future years explored for signs of life. This article maps the history of these discoveries and highlights some of the theological issues which are important to bring into dialogue with these scientific insights.     

From criticism to approval: A reconsideration of Ji’s Yogācāra position on Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka and Yogācāra are two Mahāyāna schools which have distinct systems. In the seventh century East Asia, the doctrinal distinction between the two schools was received as doctrinal contrast in the polemic circumstance of Emptiness-Existence (C. kongyou 空有) controversy. In this context, Ji 基 (632–682), the putative founder of East Asian Yogācāra school, has been normally considered by scholars to have advocated ‘Existence’ (viz., Yogācāra) in opposition to ‘Emptiness’ (viz., Madhyamaka). It is problematic, however, to brand Ji’s Yogācāra position simply as anti-Madhyamaka. Although Ji evidently expresses evident criticism on such a Madhyamaka exegete as Bhāvaviveka (ca. 500–570) in some of his works, he also describes Bhāvaviveka in an amicable or even respective way in other works. By analyzing Ji’s extant works, this article argues that Ji’s scholastic attitude toward Madhyamaka changed from criticism to approval.