Duration of cats' (Felis catus) working memory for disappearing objects

This study explored the duration of cats' working memory for hidden objects. Twenty-four cats were equally divided into four groups, which differed according to the type of visual cues displayed on and/or around the hiding boxes. During eight sessions, the four groups of cats were trained to locate a desirable object hidden behind one of the four boxes placed in front of them. Then, the cats were tested with retention intervals of 0, 10, 30 and 60 s. Results revealed no significant differences between the groups during training or testing. In testing, the cats' accuracy to locate the hidden object rapidly declined between 0 and 30 s but remained higher than chance with delays of up to 60 s. The analysis of errors also indicated that the cats searched as a function of the proximity of the target box and were not subjected to intertrial proactive interference. This experiment reveals that the duration of cats' working memory for disappearing objects is limited and the visual cues displayed on and/or around the boxes do not help the cats to memorize a hiding position. In discussion, we explore why the duration of cats' working memory for disappearing objects rapidly declined and compare these finding with those from domestic dogs. The irrelevance of visual cues displayed on and around the hiding boxes on cats' retention capacity is also discussed.     

Visual statistical learning in infancy: evidence for a domain general learning mechanism

The rapidity with which infants come to understand language and events in their surroundings has prompted speculation concerning innate knowledge structures that guide language acquisition and object knowledge. Recently, however, evidence has emerged that by 8 months, infants can extract statistical patterns in auditory input that are based on transitional probabilities defining the sequencing of the input's components (Science 274 (1996) 1926). This finding suggests powerful learning mechanisms that are functional in infancy, and raises questions about the domain generality of such mechanisms. We habituated 2-, 5-, and 8-month-old infants to sequences of discrete visual stimuli whose ordering followed a statistically predictable pattern. The infants subsequently viewed the familiar pattern alternating with a novel sequence of identical stimulus components, and exhibited significantly greater interest in the novel sequence at all ages. These results provide support for the likelihood of domain general statistical learning in infancy, and imply that mechanisms designed to detect structure inherent in the environment may play an important role in cognitive development.     

The ethics activities of the World Medical Association

Since its formation in 1947, the World Medical Association (WMA) has been a leading voice in international medical ethics. The WMA’s principal ethics activity over the years has been policy development on a wide variety of issues in medical research, medical practice and health care delivery. With the establishment of a dedicated Ethics Unit in 2003, the WMA’s ethics activities have intensified in the areas of liaison, outreach and product development. Initial priorities for the Ethics Unit have been the review of paragraph 30 of the Declaration of Helsinki, the expansion of the Ethics Unit section of the WMA website and the development of an ethics manual for medical students everywhere. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an international conference, “The Ethics of Intellectual Property Rights and Patents,” held in Warsaw, Poland on 23–24 April, 2004.     

Contribution of acetylcholine to visual cortex plasticity

Acetylcholine is involved in a variety of brain functions. In the visual cortex, the pattern of cholinergic innervation varies considerably across different mammalian species and across different cortical layers within the same species. The physiological effects of acetylcholine in the visual cortex display complex responses, which are likely due to cholinergic receptor subtype composition in cytoplasm membrane as well as interaction with other transmitter systems within the local neural circuitry. The functional role of acetylcholine in visual cortex is believed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of cortical neurons during visual information processing. Available evidence suggests that acetylcholine is also involved in experience-dependent visual cortex plasticity. At the level of synaptic transmission, activation of muscarinic receptors has been shown to play a permissive role in visual cortex plasticity. Among the muscarinic receptor subtypes, the M(1) receptor seems to make a predominant contribution towards modifications of neural circuitry. The signal transduction cascade of the cholinergic pathway may act synergistically with that of the NMDA receptor pathway, whose activation is a prerequisite for cortical plasticity.     

A review of processing and analysing visual metaphors in psychology

IntroductionA visual metaphor is an image depicting an incongruity in the spatial distribution of visual elements, which is not consistent with reality. In this paper, we present an overview of theoretical and empirical studies on visual metaphor processing.ObjectiveFirstly, attention is given to the spatial distribution of visual elements, which defines the type of visual metaphors as well as the meaning operations required to understand the communicative message. The paper then reviews several empirical studies that collect behavioural measures for assessing visual metaphor processing using questionnaires and exploring the role played by cognitive abilities. In line with the contemporary literature, we then present three semiotic dimensions for visual metaphor processing, namely the expression, conceptualisation, and communication. We then present a pilot study that focusses on these three dimensions. Few research studies have collected behavioural data for visual metaphors processing. This may be due to the lack of theoretical framework in the corresponding field of research. These three semiotic dimensions highlight the value of pursuing research on visual metaphors in the scope of psychology. The presented pilot study could be a starting point for the investigation of visual metaphors in the framework of psychology.ConclusionWe propose future avenues of research that consider the visual structure of metaphors and meaning operations while assessing the influence of cognitive abilities in visual metaphor processing.     

Greeting of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches

This is the text of the greetings of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, from 31 August to 8 September 2022.     

Address of the Federal President to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Karlsruhe, 2022

This is the text of the address of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the opening of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches on 31 August 2022, in Karlsruhe.     

Message from the Just Community of Women and Men Pre-Assembly Meeting

This is the message of the meeting on the Just Community of Women and Men held prior to the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, which met in Karlsruhe, Germany, in August–September 2022. The pre-assembly noted the continuing and even exacerbated tragedy of gender-based violence and abuse in multiple forms, in all regions, and within and outside churches. The report acknowledges that sociocultural realities that impose themselves on religious lives distort God's vision of life in fullness, abundance, and love. In this context, patriarchy hurts and exploits women, men, and people of all genders.     

La perception multisource : une nouvelle approche de la perception de scènes

Research conducted these last years in the field of spatial cognition report empirical findings that are difficult to account for with the traditional visual cognitive model of scene perception. One of the major contributions of these findings has been to invite rethinking scene perception, which would benefit from not being apprehended as centered mainly on the sensory modality considered. On the contrary, the Multisource model of scene perception developed by Intraub et al. offers an alternative theoretical framework considering visual perception as an act of spatial cognition, with spatial information at its core. According to this model, during the initial understanding of a view, the cognitive system would be elaborating a multisource representation, with spatial information constituting an egocentric framework that conveys to the observer a sense of the environment in which he/she is embedded. Scene representation would be organized around an amodal spatial structure combining different sources of information: a bottom-up and external source of information derived from different modalities (e.g., visual, haptic), as well as internal sources of high-level information (i.e., amodal, conceptual and contextual information). These different sources of information would work together to create a simulation of the likely environment, integrating the perceived view into a broader spatial context. Beyond rethinking scene perception, one of the advances of the model is to unify different fields of cognition apprehended until then in isolation. The current paper aims to present this model and some of the results it allows to account for.