Right hemispheric specialization for mental imagery: A review of the evidence

An implicit assumption in the literature on functional hemispheric asymmetry is that the right hemisphere plays a special role in mental imagery. Using a definition of mental imagery as quasi-perceptual experience, we draw distinctions among visual imagery, visual recognition memory, and visuospatial abilities. We then review the research literature to evaluate the hypothesis that mental imagery is a specialized function of the right cerebral hemisphere, and find that it receives little unambiguous support. Case reports of loss of imagery are no more frequent with right than with left unilateral brain damage. Systematic studies of brain-injured patients provide some support for the hypothesis, but are also consistent with the alternative hypothesis of bilateral representation of imagery. Commissurotomized patients report dreaming and being able to form visual images. Behavioral and psychophysiological studies of non-brain-injured patients either fail to provide evidence in favor of the hypothesis or can be interpreted as compatible with the alternate hypothesis of bilateral hemispheric involvement in imagery. We conclude that there is, presently, insufficient empirical basis for considering imagery a right hemispheric function. We then discuss implications of this conclusion for future research.     

Provider Perspectives on Disaster Mental Health Services in Oklahoma City

Abstract

Seven years after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 34 individuals affiliated with various organizations were interviewed about their experiences in providing disaster mental health services to victims and the community. Their perspectives elucidated the importance of preparedness, training and education, local control, interagency cooperation, and psychosocial support for providers. Significant conflicts emerged among providers about credentials, referrals, the quality of services provided, and the appropriateness, in this context, of basing services solely on a crisis counseling model. The lack of ongoing needs assessment or evaluation data further fueled the debates. On the basis of the findings, the authors outline several recommendations for planning mental health responses to future terrorist attacks.     

A Walk in the Invisible City

This essay discusses the performative interventions of the contemporary Belgian artist Francis Alÿs in Mexico City and how they create a critical focus on urban reality in the Latin American mega-cities, and outline ways of intervention and interaction in the modern disassociation of the city’s economical, social, and cultural levels, taking up the challenge to suggest their unity through imagination and art.     

Locale,Street, Square—a Naive Theory of the City

The paper outline three basic categories of urban phenomenology based upon the simple notion of a trajectory thorough a network of streets. This formal notion gives rise to three different phases of such a trajectory—where the movement stops, when it proceeds unproblematically, and when several possibilities for choosing the further trajectory present themselves; thus, the locale, the street, and the square, as indicated in the title. Based on the Peircean notions of First-, Second-, and Thirdness, the paper makes a first investigation as to which aspects of urban experience are connected to these three categories.     

AUGUSTINE AND THE LIMITS OF PREEMPTIVE AND PREVENTIVE WAR

While Michael Walzer's distinction between preemptive and preventive wars offers important categories for current reflection upon the Bush Doctrine and the invasion of Iraq, it is often treated as a modern distinction without antecedent in the classical Christian just war tradition. This paper argues to the contrary that within Augustine's corpus there are passages in which he speaks about the use of violence in situations that we would classify today as preemptive and preventive military action. While I do not claim that Augustine makes an explicit distinction between the two types of war (such would be anachronistic), I will argue that based on examinations of De libero arbitrio I.v.11–12 and De civitate Dei I.30 Augustine's discussions of hypothetical cases or actual wars in history provide insights helpful for contemporary reflection on preemptive and preventive wars.     

青州城历史城市地理的初步研究——以广县城与广固城为研究重心

青州城市建成区一带,历史时期曾经先后存在四座城市,即广县城——广固城——东阳城或南阳城——满城。广县城,西汉时期既已存在,之所以产生于下圈村一带,关键在于其地地处高阜,不宜受到洪水侵袭,且南倚含水丰富的岩层,无缺水之虞。广固城建于魏晋十六国时期,因时逢乱世,地理上重军事防御的色彩明显。由临淄城而广固城,历史时期青齐地区实现了第一次中心城市的转移,就魏晋十六国乱世而言,这一城市选择行为是相当成功的。进而论之,代广固城而兴的东、南两阳城及清代的青州满城,之所以均大体不出今天青州市区的范围,与它们均接近青齐地区几何中心的地理位置关系极大。     

Measuring Subjective Quality of Life: A Survey to Porto’s Residents

The evaluation of the urban quality of life has been an important aspect of the research concerning the contemporary city and an increasingly support to urban planning and management. As part of a project to monitor the quality of life in the city of Porto, a survey of the resident population was conducted in order to study the citizens’ perceptions of their local quality of life and its evolution in recent years. The opinions of individuals on their level of satisfaction with various fields of the urban quality of life are systematised, as well as their integrated assessment. This analysis is complemented by a multivariate analysis that allows the grouping of the interviewees in large homogenous groups and their social and economic characterisation. Based on the results achieved, we try to highlight the usefulness of the qualitative analysis of the quality of life to support the definition of urban policies.

Travel behavior as a driver of attitude: Car use and car pride in U.S. cities

Individuals attribute social status and personal image to owning and using a car (‘car pride’), which may interact with their travel behavior in complex ways. This study explores the multi-directional relations among car pride, car ownership, and car use for a sample of 1236 adult commuters in New York City, NY and Houston, TX. Applying multivariate structural equation modeling and incorporating instrumental variables, we find evidence of a feedback loop among car pride, car ownership, and car use. Our results suggest that an individual with higher car pride is more likely to own a vehicle, and, enabled with this ownership, use it more frequently. And individuals who use their car more frequently are likely to feel more pride in owning and using their vehicle.This exploration of causal multi-directionality in transportation attitude-behavior relations has important implications for behavioral research, model development, and policy interventions. For researchers, potential bidirectionality must be anticipated from the outset of research design and accounted for appropriately in modeling to address underlying endogeneity. For policymakers, our results suggest that there are multiple intervention points within the reinforcing cycle of attitudes and car consumption. Policies could directly target car ownership and use or could consider influencing behavior through attitude change.     

Hemiretinal differences in face recognition: accuracy versus reaction time

A face-recognition task involving monocular presentation of laterally displaced stimuli yielded a nasal hemiretinal advantage for reaction time for correct identifications, but a temporal hemiretinal advantage for accuracy (d'). These hemiretinal effects, in conjunction with eye dominance, could in principle distort or obscure interpretations of hemispheric processing differences obtained with binocular stimulation.     

Fear Associated With September 11 Television Coverage in Oklahoma City Bombing Survivors

This study explored television viewing of the September 11 attacks in 99 survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing and examined the relationships of event-related television viewing with concerns about safety and danger in survivors with and without bombing-related posttraumatic stress disorder. The number of hours of viewing September 11 television coverage was related to worry about personal and family danger and to increased checking on loved ones but not to September 11–related posttraumatic responses. Some bombing survivors discontinued September 11 media contact due to fear. The findings suggest the importance of monitoring television viewing in survivors of prior incidents.