The nature of music from a biological perspective

Music, as language, is a universal human trait. Throughout human history and across all cultures, people have produced and enjoyed music. Despite its ubiquity, the musical capacity is rarely studied as a biological function. Music is typically viewed as a cultural invention. In this paper, the evidence bearing on the biological perspective of the musical capacity is reviewed. Related issues, such as domain-specificity, innateness, and brain localization, are addressed in an attempt to offer a unified conceptual basis for the study of music processing. This scheme should facilitate the study of the biological foundations of music by bringing together the fields of genetics, developmental and comparative research, neurosciences, and musicology.     

Fifty years on: a training for the 21 century, from couple to community

The paper describes the gradual transformation of the structures, process and content of the adult training at the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) from 1997 when the potential for individuation had gone awry through lack of a culturally relevant and coherent programme until 2005 when trainees' professional and personal individuation could be enhanced by a process and a curriculum representing fairly the interests and beliefs of the range of different approaches to Jungian psychology that are to be found in the SAP. The process has taken eight years to complete and in the paper, the authors, two successive Directors of Training, describe the persistent resistances to necessary change from within their Society, focusing in particular on the key role of the founder member; the privileging of the internal world at the expense of significant external factors; a confusion of roles among members between volunteers and professionals and last, but by no means least, the contamination of the educative task and the creation of a training community by fantasies of the mother/infant couple.     

Qualia im Knotenpunkt zwischen Leib und Seele: „Argumentatives“ Dilemma in der gegenwärtigen Diskussion über die Subjektivität mentaler Zustände

Qualia in the node-point between mind and body: Dilemma of present discussion about the subjectivity of mental states. The present discussion about qualia shows a bewildering variety of different positions. We show implicit assumptions about brain, subject, and qualia of this complex discussion. By means of three assumptions we divide the discussion about qualia into three different positions (proposition, opposition, intermediate solutions). These positions and their exemplaric authors are briefly presented along the lines of the three assumptions. The next step shows how each position solves the dilemma which arises if one relates all three assumptions by eliminating at least one of the three assumptions. Finally, general problems in the discussion of qualia are shown by means of which the dilemma of the relation between brain, subject and qualia may be brought closer to a solution without eliminating one assumption.     

A scale-invariant treatment for recursive path models

A reparameterization is formulated that yields estimates of scale-invariant parameters in recursive path models with latent variables, and (asymptotically) correct standard errors, without the use of constrained optimization. The method is based on the logical structure of the reticular action model.     

Using an AI creativity system to explore how aesthetic experiences are processed along the brain’s perceptual neural pathways

With the increased sophistication of AI techniques, the application of these systems has been expanding to ever newer fields. Increasingly, these systems are being used in modeling of human aesthetics and creativity, e.g. how humans create artworks and design products. Our lab has developed one such AI creativity deep learning system that can be used to create artworks in the form of images and videos. In this paper, we describe this system and its use in studying the human visual system and the formation of aesthetic experiences. Specifically, we show how time-based AI created media can be used to explore the nature of the dual-pathway neuro-architecture of the human visual system and how this relates to higher cognitive judgments such as aesthetic experiences that rely on these divergent information streams. We propose a theoretical framework for how the movement within percepts such as video clips, causes the engagement of reflexive attention and a subsequent focus on visual information that are primarily processed via the dorsal stream, thereby modulating aesthetic experiences that rely on information relayed via the ventral stream. We outline our recent study in support of our proposed framework, which serves as the first study that investigates the relationship between the two visual streams and aesthetic experiences.     

The Latin American contribution to the psychoanalytic concept of phantasy

The author argues that the ubiquity of phantasies at various levels of mental functioning is undisputed in the current schools of psychoanalytic thought; however, she demonstrates some variations in their understanding of how the psychotherapeutic access to different configurations occurs. In the process of examining and acknowledging the central role played by unconscious phantasies in his patients’ symptoms, Freud gradually broadened the vernacular meaning of the German word ‘Phantasie’ that refers to imagination and the world of imagination, conferring on it the specific features that came to characterize its use in the psychoanalytic vocabulary. Later, the expansion of the concept derived from Melanie Klein’s clinical material obtained from child analyses gave rise to important debates. The author discusses the main points of disagreement that led to these debates, as well as their various theoretical and technical implications. Psychoanalytic associations in Latin America were strongly influenced by Klein and her followers. Thus, most of their scientific writings use the concept of unconscious phantasy put forward by the Kleinian school. Taking Kleinian principles as their starting point, Baranger and Baranger made the most original Latin American contribution to the concept of unconscious phantasy with their works on the unconscious phantasies generated by the analytic pair.     

汉语儿童词语结构意识在阅读理解中的预测作用

以382名小学一、三、五年级学生为被试,进行为期一年的追踪研究,通过分层回归,探索了词语结构意识在儿童阅读理解中作用的发展性变化。结果发现：（1）在控制了性别、瑞文推理、汉字识别、口语词汇以及快速命名和语音意识之后,在三年级T2、五年级和五年级T2发现了词语结构意识对同期阅读理解有独特解释作用,而在一年级、一年级T2和三年级均未发现词语结构意识对同期阅读理解的独特贡献;（2）在控制了性别、瑞文推理、自回归效应以及其他相关变量的作用后,三年级和五年级时的词语结构意识分别对一年后的阅读理解具有独特的预测作用。结果表明,在小学低年级阶段,词语结构意识在阅读理解中的作用还未显现,在小学中高年级阶段,词语结构意识对儿童阅读理解有显著的预测作用。     

Prospective associations between physical fitness and executive function in adolescents: The UP&DOWN study

IntroductionThe objective of the present work is to investigate the prospective associations between physical fitness components (cardiorespiratory fitness, motor fitness, and muscular strength) and two domains of executive function (working memory and inhibitory control) in adolescents.MethodsA total of 422 Spanish adolescents (13.35 ± 1.54 years, at baseline) from the UP&DOWN study with assessments at baseline and at 2-year follow-up were included in the analysis. Physical fitness was assessed using the ALPHA Fitness Test Battery. Working memory was measured by the n-back task and inhibitory control by the go/no-go task. Relationships of physical fitness components with working memory and inhibitory control were examined using linear regression models, adjusted for confounders.ResultsHigher baseline levels of the three physical fitness components (cardiorespiratory fitness, motor fitness, and muscular strength) individually predicted better performance on the working memory (β_ranged, from .159 to .207; all p < .012) and inhibitory control (β_ranged, from 0.168 to 0.263; all p < .004) tasks at the 2-year follow-up. Muscular strength was the only component associated with inhibitory control independent of the other 2 physical fitness components (β = 0.266; p = .005).ConclusionsAll components of adolescents’ physical fitness at baseline were individually associated with better working memory and inhibitory control at 2-year follow-up. Specifically, our results revealed that muscular strength was the component showing the strongest association with executive function, and even the only fitness component associated with inhibitory control independent of the other fitness components. These findings may have important public health and educational implication, since promoting exercise programs that improve physical fitness, and particularly, muscular strength, may positively influence cognitive health.     

Cerebral cortical activity associated with non-experts’ most accurate motor performance

This study’s specific aim was to determine if non-experts’ most accurate motor performance is associated with verbal-analytic- and working memory-related cerebral cortical activity during motor preparation. To assess this, EEG was recorded from non-expert golfers executing putts; EEG spectral power and coherence were calculated for the epoch preceding putt execution; and spectral power and coherence for the five most accurate putts were contrasted with that for the five least accurate. Results revealed marked power in the theta frequency bandwidth at all cerebral cortical regions for the most accurate putts relative to the least accurate, and considerable power in the low-beta frequency bandwidth at the left temporal region for the most accurate compared to the least. As theta power is associated with working memory and low-beta power at the left temporal region with verbal analysis, results suggest non-experts’ most accurate motor performance is associated with verbal-analytic- and working memory-related cerebral cortical activity during motor preparation.