The role of regional heterogeneity in age-related differences in functional hemispheric asymmetry: an fMRI study

Neuroimaging literature has documented age-related hemispheric asymmetry reduction in frontal regions during task performances. As most studies employed working memory paradigms, it is therefore less clear if this pattern of neural reorganization is constrained by working memory processes or it would also emerge in other cognitive domains which are predominantly lateralized. Using blocked functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study used a homophone judgment task and a line judgment task to investigate age-related differences in functional hemispheric asymmetry in language and visuospatial processing respectively. Young and older adults achieved similar task accuracy although older adults required a significantly longer time. Age-related functional hemispheric asymmetry reduction was found only in dorsal inferior frontal gyrus and was associated with better performance when the homophone condition was contrasted against fixation, and not line condition. Our data thus highlights the importance of considering regional heterogeneity of aging effects together with general age-related cognitive processes.     

Summarization of videos by analyzing affective state of the user through crowdsource

Video summarization is one of the key techniques to access and manage a huge chunk of videos. Video summarization is used to extract the effective contents of a video sequence to generate a concise representation of its content. The involvement of crowdsourcing models in recent years is effectively used by researchers in E-commerce domain to increase the quality of the data contents. In this paper, we present a video summarization framework based on users emotion while they watch videos by analyzing cerebral activities through Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. Three emotions, namely happy, sad and neutral have been extracted from the EEG signals. Video frames have been synchronized with EEG signals and tagged with various emotions. Finally, a crowdsourcing model has been used for effective summarization of the videos. The qualitative assessment of video summarization has been conducted with the help of user ratings using online Google Forms application. EEG signals of 28 users have been recorded while video streams of different emotions. An average accuracy of 83.93% has been recorded in emotion classification using crowdsourcing. Output summarized videos include dynamic video skims and the corresponding audio stream for better understanding.     

The Moscow Council of 1917–1918

Following a period of decline beginning in the early eighteenth century, the Orthodox Church in Russia held a general council in Moscow from August 1917 to September 1918. More than 500 clergy and laity met, prayed and discussed numerous issues relating to the church’s life and witness. The Moscow Council was prompted by various trends of renewal which were growing ever stronger among the clergy and laity. Political circumstances at the time also made the Council possible: a preparatory preconciliar process was initiated in 1905, in parallel with the first revolution against Emperor Nicholas II, and the Council itself was convened in 1917, in parallel with the establishment of a Provisional Government. However, it was precisely such political events which led to the premature interruption of the Council. The main items on the Council’s agenda were linked to the reformation of church structures and the implementation of conciliar provisions at every level of church life: parish, deanery, diocese and autocephalous church. Special attention was given to the renewal of the pastoral ministries of priests and bishops, and to that of committed laity. In a way, the Moscow Council was a kind of ‘first encounter’ of Orthodoxy with contemporary societies, secularised or on the road to secularisation. Its legacy is therefore of great interest to all Christianity today. This article aims to analyse the Council and the main decisions made, in the light of ecclesiology, and to provide a primary bibliography at the end of the text.     

A new look at the schema therapy model: organization and role of early maladaptive schemas

This study reexamined the organization of Young’s 18 early maladaptive schemas and their hypothesized associations with experiences of need-thwarting parental experiences in childhood and the “vulnerable child” mode of emotional distress in adulthood. A large Danish sample (N = 1054) of 658 clinical- and 391 nonclinical adults completed measures of early maladaptive schemas, parenting styles, and the vulnerable child mode. We identified four higher-order schema domains as most appropriate in terms of interpretability and empirical indices (“Disconnection & Rejection”, “Impaired Autonomy & Performance”, “Excessive Responsibility & Standards”, and “Impaired Limits”). All four schema domains were differentially associated with conceptually relevant need-thwarting parental experiences. Apart from “Impaired Limits”, the schema domains meaningfully accounted for the association between need-thwarting parental experiences in childhood and emotional states of feeling like a “vulnerable child” in adulthood. We conclude that four domains of early maladaptive schemas are empirically and conceptually consistent with Young’s schema therapy model of personality pathology and longstanding emotional disorders. Findings warrant replication using different populations and if possible a prospective multi-method design. A scoring key for computing the four schema domains is provided.     

The Caregivers' Attachment and Relationship Education Class: A New and Promising Group Therapy for Caregivers of Individuals with Parkinson's Disease

The authors examined whether a newly developed group therapy, based on principles of attachment theory and emotionally focused couples therapy, can potentially address the unique mental health and relationship difficulties in caregivers of individuals with Parkinson's disease. A comprehensive outreach effort, involving a review of 251 military veterans' medical records, yielded enrollment of seven spousal caregivers in the group therapy. At 1-month follow-up, caregivers who initially reported mild or greater levels of caregiver burden demonstrated statistically reliable declines in psychological distress, relationship distress, or both. Posttreatment surveys indicated positive perceptions in overall helpfulness of treatment goals, as well as positive changes in insight (e.g., greater understanding of the patient's attachment needs) and behaviors (e.g., greater social contact and self-care of the caregiver). Results are considered in the context of inadequate access to treatment for caregivers of spouses with Parkinson's disease or other major medical issues.     

负性情绪强度对双加工再认提取的影响

双加工理论认为再认提取存在回想和熟悉性两种认知加工过程。本研究采用修正的“记得/知道”范式,考察不同强度的负性情绪对这两种再认提取过程的影响。结果发现：（1）在记得反应上不同负性情绪强度的材料呈现出以下模式：高度负性 > 中度负性 > 轻度负性 > 中性;（2）在知道反应上,不同负性情绪强度的材料呈现出以下模式：中性 > 轻度负性 > 中度负性 > 高度负性。这些结果表明,不同强度的负性材料对情绪记忆的影响表现为两条途径：依赖于回想的再认随着负性情绪强度的增加而逐步提高,另外一个依赖于熟悉性的再认随着负性情绪强度的增加而逐步降低。     

负性情绪对注意促进效应的调节

近期研究发现,目标探测性质的注意分散并不会削弱,甚至会提高与之同时进行的记忆任务成绩,表现出注意促进效应（ABE）,但该效应可能会受到记忆材料独特性的调节。为了验证该假设,本文采用负性刺激为记忆材料,以目标探测任务为干扰任务,探讨负性情绪对ABE的调节。结果发现,与中性材料相比,负性材料的ABE有所减弱;而高唤醒的负性材料则没有表现出任何的ABE。可见目标探测所产生的促进作用会受到背景材料是否具有独特性的限制。     

非工作时间使用通信技术处理工作的“双刃剑”效应及心理机制

在当前的互联网时代下,个体“在非工作时间使用通信技术处理工作”的现象已经非常普遍,并因其对个体日常工作生活适应可能产生的深远影响而受到研究者的广泛关注。基于对该领域已有研究文献的全面回顾,本文着重探讨了非工作时间使用通信工具处理对个体工作生活适应的“双刃剑”效应及效应发生的心理机制,并对该领域未来的研究方向进行了针对性的展望。     

The Trait Anxiety Scale for Children: A validation study for European Portuguese children and adolescents

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children is a self-report instrument inspired on the State-Trait theory extended by Spielberger that measures a momentary state of anxiety (state) and a stable tendency to experience anxiety (trait). This study presents an exploratory adaptation of the Trait Scale and provides its psychometric properties for European Portuguese children and adolescents. The influence of sex and age were also explored. Our sample, composed of 402 participants aged 8–14 years, revealed a mean anxiety value of 28.37 (SD = 5.99). As expected, females revealed higher levels of anxiety than boys. Higher anxiety was obtained in our youngest group as compared to the oldest group. The exploratory factor analysis led to retaining only 16-items that presented acceptable adjustment to a one-factorial solution. Good indexes were obtained in the confirmatory analysis. The results also revealed good internal consistency and good test-retest reliability. Our results provide initial evidence that this scale is adequate to measure trait-anxiety in European Portuguese young people.     

Anticipatory attention during the sleep onset period

To examine whether anticipatory attention or expectancy is a cognitive process that is automatic or requires conscious control, we employed a paired-stimulus event-related potential (ERP) paradigm during the transition to sleep. The slow negative ERP wave observed between two successive stimuli, the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV), reflects attention and expectancy to the second stimulus. Thirteen good sleepers were instructed to respond to the second stimulus in a pair during waking sessions. In a non-response paradigm modified for sleep, participants then fell asleep while tones played. As expected, N1 decreased and P2 increased in amplitude systematically with the loss of consciousness at sleep onset; the CNV was increasingly more positive. Sleep onset latency was correlated with the amplitude of the CNV. The systematic attenuation of the CNV waveform at sleep onset and its absence in sleep indicates that anticipatory attention requires endogenous conscious control.