Valence specific laterality effects in prosody: expectancy account and the effects of morphed prosody and stimulus lead

The majority of studies have demonstrated a right hemisphere (RH) advantage for the perception of emotions. Other studies have found that the involvement of each hemisphere is valence specific, with the RH better at perceiving negative emotions and the LH better at perceiving positive emotions [Reuter-Lorenz, P., & Davidson, R.J. (1981) Differential contributions of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to the perception of happy and sad faces. Neuropsychologia, 19, 609-613]. To account for valence laterality effects in emotion perception we propose an 'expectancy' hypothesis which suggests that valence effects are obtained when the top-down expectancy to perceive an emotion outweighs the strength of bottom-up perceptual information enabling the discrimination of an emotion. A dichotic listening task was used to examine alternative explanations of valence effects in emotion perception. Emotional sentences (spoken in a happy or sad tone of voice), and morphed-happy and morphed-sad sentences (which blended a neutral version of the sentence with the pitch of the emotion sentence) were paired with neutral versions of each sentence and presented dichotically. A control condition was also used, consisting of two identical neutral sentences presented dichotically, with one channel arriving before the other by 7 ms. In support of the RH hypothesis there was a left ear advantage for the perception of sad and happy emotional sentences. However, morphed sentences showed no ear advantage, suggesting that the RH is specialised for the perception of genuine emotions and that a laterality effect may be a useful tool for the detection of fake emotion. Finally, for the control condition we obtained an interaction between the expected emotion and the effect of ear lead. Participants tended to select the ear that received the sentence first, when they expected a 'sad' sentence, but not when they expected a 'happy' sentence. The results are discussed in relation to the different theoretical explanations of valence laterality effects in emotion perception.     

Are our moral responsibility practices justified? Wittgenstein,Strawson and justification in ‘Freedom and Resentment’

D. Justin Coates argues that, in ‘Freedom and Resentment’, P. F. Strawson develops a modest transcendental argument for the legitimacy of our moral responsibility practices. I disagree with Coates’ claim that Strawson’s argument provides a justification, in Wittgenstein’s and/or Strawson’s sense of that term, of our responsibility practices. I argue that my interpretation of Strawson solves some difficulties with Coates’ argument, while retaining its advantages.     

腹膜间皮细胞EMT在腹膜纤维化中的研究进展及意义

腹膜透析是终末期肾衰患者肾脏替代治疗的重要手段,腹膜纤维化导致腹透效能下降及超滤衰竭,制约着腹膜透析的应用。腹膜间皮细胞上皮细胞间充质转化是腹膜纤维化的起始和可逆环节,因此预防和逆转EMT的发生发展可能是阻止和延缓腹膜纤维化、超滤衰竭的最佳策略,并将带来巨大的社会和经济效益。     

Constraint Respecters, Constraint Challengers, and Crisis Decision Making in Democracies: A Case Study Analysis of Kennedy versus Reagan

Models linking domestic political constraints (audience costs, pressures for the diversionary use of force, democratic norms and institutions) to foreign policy behavior generally assume that leaders simply recognize and submit to constraints in their domestic environments—a strong structural argument. In contrast, research on political leadership and decision making suggests that leaders vary systematically in their orientations toward constraints: "constraint respecters" tend to internalize potential constraints, while "constraint challengers" are more likely to view them as obstacles to be overcome. This article develops an integrative theoretical framework that explicitly incorporates these insights and applies them to the domain of crisis decision making. After identifying leaders' expected orientations toward constraints via at-a-distance methods, the plausibility of hypotheses derived from this framework is examined through case studies that explore the decision-making processes employed by President Kennedy (a "constraint respecter") and President Reagan (a "constraint challenger") during international crises. The results suggest that there is important variation in how leaders perceive and respond to domestic constraints, and that leadership style is one—though not the only—important source of this variation.     

MMPI-215中F量表的特性及其影响因素

使用MMPI—215在全国18个省市对7073名应征青年进行测试,探讨F量表分数的相关和影响因素。结果：1．F分在正常人群与异常人群中有各自不同分布特点;其应答率存在有显著差异;2．F分与其它分量表呈显著性相关;3F分受年龄、文化程度、生长地等多因素影响,低学历,生长地靠北方和农村、年龄偏小的应征青年F分数较高。     

Sher’s defense of blame

In his In Praise of Blame, George Sher aims to provide an analysis and defense of blame. In fact, he aims to provide an analysis that will itself yield a defense by allowing him to argue that morality and blame “stand or fall together.” He thus opposes anyone who recommends jettisoning blame while preserving (the rest of) morality. In this comment, I examine Sher’s defense of blame. Though I am much in sympathy with Sher’s strategy of defending blame by providing an analysis that shows its connection to our commitment to morality, I question his execution of this strategy. Sher hopes to defend our blaming practices by showing our dispositions to them to be a merely contingent consequence of a belief–desire pair that is itself justified by whatever justifies our commitment to morality. I doubt our blaming practices can be defended in this way. In explaining my doubts, I provide a short comparison of Sher’s approach with that of P. F. Strawson in “Freedom of Resentment.” I suggest that we might do better by exploring the connection between our commitment to morality and our blaming practices themselves.

Approaching Terra Incognita with James F. T. Bugental: An Interview and an Overview of Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapy

The purpose of this article is to report on the existential-humanistic approach to psychotherapy advanced by James F. T. Bugental. A brief biography is presented, along with an overview of the method, followed by an interview conducted with Dr. Bugental in November of 2002. Included is a discussion of key concepts such as subjectivity, presence, and the living moment. The major goals of this approach are outlined, along with suggestions and contraindications for use. Directions for future research and consideration are offered.     

β受体阻滞剂是冠心病中的重要一线治疗药物

冠心病的治疗包括三个层面:血管重建治疗解决局部狭窄;改善生活方式是基础;全面合理的药物治疗是核心.而β受体阻滞剂又是重要的一线治疗药物,不仅能降低动脉粥样硬化及急性冠脉综合征的发生发展,还能有效预防、缓解心绞痛发生,改善梗死后左室重构和心功能;降低心肌再梗死率,降低心性猝死和病死率.临床上应用β受体阻滞剂的时机和剂量非常重要.     

What the classical aphasia categories can't do for us, and why

A good deal of activity in contemporary aphasia research goes under the label "neurolinguistics." What characterizes this enterprise is, among other things, its goal of identifying neurally realized computational subsystems that support language processing. In this essay the thesis is put forward that this goal will not be served by the continued exploitation of the classical (Wernicke-Lichtheim) taxonomic categories. These categories, it is argued, cannot by virtue of their "polytypic" structure support the relevant neurolinguistic generalizations.     

Implicit rewards as reinforcers and extinguishers

Previous studies of implicit reinforcement with children have presented the implicit reward phase after baseline conditions. The present study replicated this design and compared these effects within a design where implicit rewards were presented after direct rewards to both targets and peers. Thirty-two fourth grade children copied the letters of the alphabet under varying reward conditions. Data indicated the presence of reinforcement effects when presented after baseline, and extinction effects when presented after direct reward conditions.