先秦音乐与儒家的礼乐理想

中国古代音乐的基本理论在先秦时期已初具系统。从音律上看,先秦音乐与现代音乐或西方古代音乐不存在本质上的不同,但在音阶的选用上,人们把“五声”视为最理想的音阶,所追求的音乐意念是“和”。先秦儒家在继承周代礼乐制度的基础上提出了“礼以别宜、乐以敦和”的礼乐理想作为治国平天下的基本途径,不仅使礼乐之间的互补关系得到进一步发展,还使“乐”的含义发生了深刻的转化。所谓乐,不仅指声音的和谐,更重要的是内心的愉悦,即“无声之乐”。它所强调的是个人对差别性社会规范即礼的发自内心的认同,并从生活践履中获得和乐的内在体验。     

The relation between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and substance abuse: what role does conduct disorder play?

This paper presents a comprehensive review of the literature examining the relation between childhood attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and substance abuse. A number of researchers have statistically controlled for conduct disorder (CD) when examining the ADHD—substance-abuse relation. These studies have generally found that the ADHD—substance-abuse relation disappears when the high overlap between ADHD and CD is taken into account. On this basis, one may conclude that ADHD is unimportant to substance abuse. However, there is some evidence from both empirical studies and related fields that ADHD and CD may interact to afford a higher risk for substance abuse than may either disorder alone. Thus, ADHD appears to be important to substance abuse in that it interacts with CD to increase the risk. This paper calls for more research that directly examines the joint effects of ADHD and CD on risk for substance abuse. There is also a need for more research that examines gender differences, and mechanisms of the relations among ADHD, CD, and substance abuse.     

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: autobiographical memory predicts the course of depressive affect after nCPAP therapy

Although nCPAP therapy has proven to be efficient at removing symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), recovery from depression frequently remains unsatisfactory. Other studies have shown that recall of autobiographical memories (AM) is a psychological vulnerability marker for depression, and also have shown its predictive power for the course of depression. It is therefore hypothesized that AM also predict the course of depressive affect in OSAS patients. Fifty-four consecutively admitted OSAS patients received standard nCPAP therapy. Specificity of AM assessed at the beginning of treatment was used as a predictor in a regression analysis, and the extent of recovery from depression over a follow-up period of between six to nine weeks served as the criterion variable. The results supported the hypothesis that patients who were able to recall more specific AM in response to positively valenced cue words showed a more substantial recovery from depression. This has important treatment implications.     

An ERP study of sensory mismatch expressions in Japanese

Combinations of different sensory words produce mismatch expressions like smooth color and red touch in contrast to normal expressions like red color and smooth touch. Concerning these sensory mismatch expressions, results of three experiments are reported. Experiment 1 revealed that (i) mismatch expressions were less comprehensible than normal expressions, and that (ii) there were two patterns among mismatch expressions: the high-comprehensible mismatch expression (HighCME, e.g., smooth color) and the low-comprehensible mismatch expression (LowCME, e.g., red touch). Experiment 2 revealed that the mismatch expressions produced a significantly greater N400 amplitude than the normal expressions. Experiment 3 implied that the difference between High/LowCME was reflected in a later latency band or in a topographical difference of N400, although the statistical significance was marginal. It is argued that the processes to integrate linguistic elements (e.g., combining adjectives and nouns) are not homogeneous.     

Septal infusions of glucose or pyruvate,but not fructose,produce avoidance deficits when co-infused with the GABA agonist muscimol

Although glucose typically enhances memory or reverses memory deficits, glucose can also produce memory deficits when co-infused with the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonist muscimol into the medial septum (Parent & Gold, 1997; Parent, Laurey, Wilkniss, & Gold, 1997). To date the mechanisms underlying the memory-impairing interaction between GABA and glucose remain unknown. Here we investigate whether this effect is the result of hyperosmolar conditions or may involve glucose metabolism. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were given one-trial inhibitory avoidance training after receiving septal infusions of vehicle (phosphate-buffered saline, 0.5 microl), the GABA(A) agonist muscimol (3 nmol), glucose (16.5, 33, or 66 nmol), fructose (33 nmol), pyruvate (33 nmol), or a solution containing muscimol combined with glucose, fructose, or pyruvate. Retention performance was tested 48 h later. Infusions of glucose, pyruvate, fructose, or muscimol alone did not affect retention performance. However, co-infusions of all doses of glucose (16.5, 33, or 66 nmol) or the glycolytic end product pyruvate with muscimol impaired retention performance. Co-infusions of fructose with muscimol did not affect retention performance. These results suggest that the memory-impairing interaction between glucose and muscimol does not result from hyperosmolar conditions, because equiosmolar concentrations of fructose do not mimic the effects of glucose and the memory deficits do not vary as a function of glucose concentration. The finding that pyruvate mimicked the effects of glucose and impaired memory when combined with muscimol suggests that glucose metabolism may be involved in the memory-impairing interaction between glucose and GABA(A) receptors in the medial septum.     

On-line story representation in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) face an increased risk of poor achievement in school. Thus, knowledge of the cognitive processing abilities of children with ADHD is critical to understanding and improving their academic performance. Although many studies have focused on the specific nature of the attention deficit experienced by children with ADHD, few have examined higher order cognitive processing such as comprehension of stories. The present study examined the processes of encoding story information, building a story representation, and modifying a story representation in boys with ADHD and nonreferred boys. Boys were asked to narrate a story from a picture book twice. Boys with ADHD showed deficits in representing goals and goal plans in their narrations, as compared to nonreferred boys. Boys with ADHD also committed more errors than nonreferred boys, but did correct certain types of errors on their second telling. Implications are discussed in terms of future research needed to identify the cognitive deficits that account for these narrative deficits.     

Continuous Performance Test Performance in a Normative Epidemiological Sample

A 14-min continuous performance test (CPT) requiring a high rate of responding was administered to a probability-weighted random sample of 816 9–17-year-old children drawn from a population of 17,117 children in an ongoing epidemiological and longitudinal study in Western North Carolina. Systematic main effects of improved performance with older age were found in this age range for all variables, including reaction time (RT), RT standard error, errors of omission, errors of commission, and signal detection parameters (d' and ). Significant gender main effects included more impulsive errors, less variability, and faster RT by males, with no interactions between age and gender. There were no main effects of ethnicity or interactions of ethnicity with age and/or gender. Large main effects of interstimulus interval (ISI; 1, 2, or 4-s intervals) and time block were present for most CPT performance measures. The normative data from the CPT should provide a useful framework for interpreting similar data in future studies of child and adolescent psychopathology.