Grammatical aspect,lexical aspect,and event duration constrain the availability of events in narratives

The present study investigates how readers’ representations of narratives are constrained by three sources of temporal information; grammatical aspect, lexical aspect, and the duration of intervening events. Participants read short stories in which a target event with an intrinsic endpoint or not (lexical aspect: accomplishments/activities) was described as ongoing or completed (grammatical aspect: imperfective/perfective). An intervening sentence described either a long or short duration event before the target situation was reintroduced later in the story. The electroencephalogram time-locked to the reintroduction of the target event elicited a larger N400 for perfective versus imperfective accomplishments, and this effect occurred only after short intervening events. Alternatively, the N400 to targets in the activity condition did not vary as a function of grammatical aspect or duration of intervening events. These results provide novel insight into how the temporal properties of events interact to constrain the availability of concepts in situation models.     

Bereavement and Religion Online: Stillbirth,Neonatal Loss,and Parental Religiosity

Stillbirth and neonatal death often trigger immense and long‐lasting grief in parents. These life‐altering losses both call upon and call into question parents’ religious beliefs and practices. This qualitative research examines the impact of stillbirth and neonatal death on parental religiosity, broadly conceived to include personal spirituality and any religious affiliation, including atheism. It examines religion online, a nontraditional but important social context for grief, especially regarding statistically rare tragedies such as stillbirth and neonatal death. Content analysis of postings on a hub website for “babyloss” parents yields four major themes: religious disorientation, religious reorientation, changed relationships with others, and a quest for meaning.     

The publication of Salomon Reinach's ‘Orpheus’ and the question of Christian origins

A covert reason for the decline of ritual wailing among Yemenite-Jewish women in Israel is the community's memory of its stay in Yemen as a period of ‘exile’ manifested in dhimmi status. According to respondents’ oral history, Jewish lamentation was exploited by members of the majority Muslim population to compel Jews – mostly men – to wail in honor of Muslim dead. The article makes its main contribution by revealing this historical episode and analyzing the standing of women's lamentation in the context of religio-political tension. The respondents' narrative reveals that although the wailers mitigated the humiliating effects of this spectacle, the appropriation of their community custom impaired Jewish men's gender status and ability to perform religious differentiation. This, coupled with changes caused by their relocation to Israel, has made women's lament the commemoration of a practice that evokes shame among members of this community, abetting its decline in the past decade.     

Women Living with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Women living with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) typically experience social and emotional sequelae that can be effectively addressed in the context of a psychotherapeutic relationship. Traumatic Brain Injuries can affect the full range of human functioning, from activities of daily living to experiencing a coherent sense of self. In this article, we focus on two issues, social isolation and emotional functioning, that encompass a number of key challenges facing women with TBI and are common and fruitful foci of psychotherapy. Social isolation includes marginalization in multiple communities, the invisibility of cognitive disabilities, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, and difficulties in employment and access to transportation. Emotional functioning includes posttraumatic stress symptoms, loss of self-esteem, anxiety, depression, anger, and shame. Two exemplary cases are used to illustrate the themes and underscore the complexities and realities of adjusting to TBI. Recommendations for therapists and consumers are woven throughout the paper.     

Cognitive reserve as a moderator of responsiveness to an online problem-solving intervention for adolescents with complicated mild-to-severe traumatic brain injury

Children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience behavior difficulties that may arise from problem-solving deficits and impaired self-regulation. However, little is known about the relationship of neurocognitive ability to post-TBI behavioral recovery. To address this question, we examined whether verbal intelligence, as estimated by Vocabulary scores from the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, predicted improvements in behavior and executive functioning following a problem-solving intervention for adolescents with TBI. One hundred and thirty-two adolescents with complicated mild-to-severe TBI were randomly assigned to a six-month Web-based problem-solving intervention (CAPS; n = 65) or to an Internet resource comparison (IRC; n = 67) group. Vocabulary moderated the association between treatment group and improvements in metacognitive abilities. Examination of the mean estimates indicated that for those with lower Vocabulary scores, pre-intervention Metacognition Index scores from the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) did not differ between the groups, but post-intervention scores were significantly lower (more improved) for those in the CAPS group. These findings suggest that low verbal intelligence was associated with greater improvements in executive functioning following the CAPS intervention and that verbal intelligence may have an important role in response to intervention for TBI. Understanding predictors of responsiveness to interventions allows clinicians to tailor treatments to individuals, thus improving efficacy.     

Detecting performance invalidity in children: Not quite as easy as A,B, C, 1, 2, 3 but automatized sequences appears promising

In adult populations, embedded performance validity indicators are well established, as they are time efficient, resistant to coaching, and allow for more continuous monitoring of effort than standalone measures. Although several recent studies have demonstrated the appropriateness of using standalone validity tests with school-age children, a paucity of pediatric work has examined embedded indicators. The present study investigated the value of a simple automatized sequences task to detect performance invalidity in 439 clinically referred patients with mild head injury aged 8 through 17 years. Sixteen percent of the participants failed the Medical Symptom Validity Test (MSVT). Thirteen percent failed the MSVT and also performed below established cutoffs on either the Test of Memory Malingering or Wechsler Digit Span subtest. The group classified as providing invalid data performed significantly worse than the group passing the MSVT across all sequencing conditions. Sensitivity and specificity for the total time on the sequencing task compared favorably to data produced for many respected adult-based embedded indicators (i.e., sensitivity around 50% when specificity ≥ 90%). Classification statistics for any embedded performance validity test can be expected to be worse in more severely affected populations; however, the current sequencing task appears to have value in detecting invalid performance in relatively high-functioning older children and adolescents. The fact that the task takes less than a couple of minutes to administer makes it especially appealing.     

‘A Compound Wholly Mortal’: Locke and Newton on the Metaphysics of (Personal) Immortality

In this paper I consider a cluster of positions which depart from the immortalist and dualist anthropologies of Rene Descartes and Henry More. In particular, I argue that John Locke and Isaac Newton are attracted to a monistic mind-body metaphysics, which while resisting neat characterization, occupies a conceptual space distinct from the dualism of the immortalists, on the one hand, and thoroughgoing materialism of Thomas Hobbes, on the other. They propound a sort of property monism: mind and body are distinct, with distinct characteristics and functions, but are, nevertheless, ontologically interdependent. Consciousness – the locus of personhood, and thus, a necessary condition for personal immortality – is an embodied phenomenon; its preservation requires the life and proper functioning of the body. Dying with the dissolution of his body, then, man is a compound wholly mortal. Nevertheless, both Locke and Newton accepted the possibility of personal immortality; with Hobbes, both looked to the Biblical promise of bodily resurrection. For with the re-vitalization of the body – and a subsequent restoration of consciousness and memory – personal identity is preserved, even beyond the grave.     

Heidegger's Reception of Kierkegaard: The Existential Philosophy of Death

After briefly drawing attention to two key strains in the history of philosophy's dealings with death, the Platonic and the Epicurean, I describe a more recent philosophical alternative to viewing death in terms of this ancient dichotomy. This is the alternative championed by the likes of Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard's despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth century Dane. By exploring this influence, a deep connection between them on the topic of death becomes apparent. Although both of these thinkers arise from the Platonic/Christian tradition, I discuss how they handle Epicurean insights about death in their work, and thereby prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that falls somewhere in between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains. This way of approaching life through death, in which Kierkegaard and Heidegger show signs of reaction to (and in some cases, influence from) both strains, is what I call the ‘existential philosophy of death’.     

How is Philosophy Possible? Blanchot on Secrecy,Ambiguity and the Care for Death

Abstract

I examine the contribution that the first part of Maurice Blancot’s recit Death Sentence makes to his understanding of the relationship between philosophy and literature. I use a reading of the Kantian, transcendental account of literature in “How is Literature Possible” as the starting point for an analysis of the way in which Blanchot uses secrets in describing J.’s death in Death Sentence, linking secrecy up with the imaginary, ambiguity and dissimulation. The purpose for this refinement is to challenge the philosophical tradition’s self‐understanding, particularly as exhibited in Hegel. This challenge is seen by reading the account of grief in the first part of Death Sentence as a parody of Hegel’s interpretation of Antigone.     

Time's wingèd chariot: Short-term psychotherapy in later life

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the appropriateness of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy with older adults, a client group which has historically been neglected in psychotherapeutic practice. Drawing on the case study of a fourteen-session therapy with a woman in her seventies, it is argued that brief exploratory work can be of particular value to people nearing the end of their lives. The nearness of death gives a special urgency and motivation to the work and a time-limited therapeutic contract mirrors the reality of having only a short time left. Making psychotherapy available to older people also represents an important valuing and validation of their experience.