Longitudinal study of striatal activation to reward and loss anticipation from mid-adolescence into late adolescence/early adulthood

Adolescent risk-taking behavior has been associated with age-related changes in striatal activation to incentives. Previous cross-sectional studies have shown both increased and decreased striatal activation to incentives for adolescents compared to adults. The monetary incentive delay (MID) task, designed to assess functional brain activation in anticipation of reward, has been used extensively to examine striatal activation in both adult and adolescent populations. The current study used this task with a longitudinal approach across mid-adolescence and late adolescence/early adulthood. Twenty-two participants (13 male) were studied using the MID task at two time-points, once in mid-adolescence (mean age = 16.11; SD = 1.44) and a second time in late adolescence/early adulthood (mean age = 20.14; SD = .67). Results revealed greater striatal activation with increased age in high- compared to low-incentive contexts (incentive magnitude), for gain as well as for loss trials (incentive valence). Results extend cross-sectional findings and show reduced striatal engagement in adolescence compared to adulthood during preparation for action in an incentive context.     

Evaluating the Factor Structure of the MIDI Personality Scale Using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling

This study investigated the factor structure of the 26‐item Midlife Development Inventory (MIDI) Personality Scale in a sample of 2,720 Americans. It was found that whereas confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) did not provide an acceptable fit to the data, exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) provided an acceptable fit. The results of ESEM revealed that the a priori five‐factor structure of personality was generally consistent with the data, and all items had salient loadings on their target factors. ESEM also revealed that some of the items contributed significantly to more than one personality factor. The results are in line with previous research, and indicate that ESEM is more suitable than CFA for the study of personality traits.     

A unitary Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian model of development: Fundamental assumptions and meta-issues

The article briefly reviews a stage model of change in human development that integrates a Neo-Piagetian model and a Neo-Eriksonian model into one unitary stage model across the lifespan (as presented in Young, 2011). The model suggests a generic model of stages in change. The article explores the fundamental assumptions underlying the model as well as considering meta-issues. The article adds to the book by describing the Neo-Eriksonian stages as reflections of a social “participatory” process. It adds to the change process in development by describing it as possibly reflecting “punctuated disequilibrium.” Finally, it adds a “multiple psychodynamics” model.     

宗教与全球发展:一种对话路径

宗教与全球发展成为当代社会的一个重要议题,一个标志在于联合国千禧年发展目标的提出及世界宗教和精神领袖千禧年和平高峰会议。其中,由前世界银行行长及当时的坎特伯雷大主教联合发起的世界信仰发展对话,即为推动类似目标的一个重要机构。发展的目的在于人。贫困不仅包括物质的层面,也包括精神的层面。全球经济的发展需要一种伦理和价值的支撑。文化应该作为一种创新机制,参与并影响全球发展的过程。在中国,宗教是建设社会主义和谐社会的重要因素。中共十七大明确指出,要发挥宗教在社会经济发展中的重要作用。十七届六中全会则明确提出文化体制改革的目标。随着中国改革开放的进一步深入,中国对世界的影响日益加强,文化和精神的维度在社会发展和国家建设方面将扮演更重要的作用。中国模式也将对世界论坛的讨论产生一定影响。     

Supporting Implementation: The Role of Community Development Teams to Build Infrastructure

Evidence-based methods for assisting consumers, such as counties, in successfully implementing practices are lacking in the field of implementation science. To fill this gap, the Community Development Teams (CDT) approach was developed to assist counties in developing peer networks focused on problem-solving and resource sharing to enhance their possibility of successful implementation. The CDT is an interactive, solution-focused approach that shares many elements of the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF) for Dissemination and Implementation. An ongoing randomized implementation trial of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) was designed to test the hypothesis that such interactive implementation methods are more successful at helping counties achieve successful and sustainable MTFC programs than standard individualized implementation methods. Using the Stages of Implementation Completion measure, developed for this study, the potential benefit of these interactive methods is examined at different stages of the implementation process ranging from initial engagement to program competency.     

Cross-channel amplitude sweeps are crucial to speech intelligibility

Classical views of speech perception argue that the static and dynamic characteristics of spectral energy peaks (formants) are the acoustic features that underpin phoneme recognition. Here we use representations where the amplitude modulations of sub-band filtered speech are described, precisely, in terms of co-sinusoidal pulses. These pulses are parameterised in terms of their amplitude, duration and position in time across a large number of spectral channels. Coherent sweeps of energy across this parameter space are identified and the local transitions of pulse features across spectral channels are extracted. Synthesised speech based on manipulations of these local amplitude modulation features was used to explore the basis of intelligibility. The results show that removing changes in amplitude across channels has a much greater impact on intelligibility than differences in sweep transition or duration across channels. This finding has severe implications for future experimental design in the fields of psychophysics, electrophysiology and neuroimaging.     

Stopping speech suppresses the task-irrelevant hand

Some situations require one to quickly stop an initiated response. Recent evidence suggests that rapid stopping engages a mechanism that has diffuse effects on the motor system. For example, stopping the hand dampens the excitability of the task-irrelevant leg. However, it is unclear whether this ‘global suppression’ could apply across wider motor modalities. Here we tested whether stopping speech leads to suppression of the task-irrelevant hand. We used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation over the primary motor cortex with concurrent electromyography from the hand. We found that when speech was successfully stopped the motor evoked potential from the task-irrelevant hand was significantly reduced compared to when the participant failed to stop speaking, or responded on non stop signal trials, or compared to baseline. This shows that when speech is quickly stopped, there is a broad suppression across the motor system. This has implications for the neural basis of speech control and stuttering.     

The cortical organization of lexical knowledge: a dual lexicon model of spoken language processing

Current accounts of spoken language assume the existence of a lexicon where wordforms are stored and interact during spoken language perception, understanding and production. Despite the theoretical importance of the wordform lexicon, the exact localization and function of the lexicon in the broader context of language use is not well understood. This review draws on evidence from aphasia, functional imaging, neuroanatomy, laboratory phonology and behavioral results to argue for the existence of parallel lexica that facilitate different processes in the dorsal and ventral speech pathways. The dorsal lexicon, localized in the inferior parietal region including the supramarginal gyrus, serves as an interface between phonetic and articulatory representations. The ventral lexicon, localized in the posterior superior temporal sulcus and middle temporal gyrus, serves as an interface between phonetic and semantic representations. In addition to their interface roles, the two lexica contribute to the robustness of speech processing.