Oppositional Children Differ from Healthy Children in Frontal Brain Activation

An atypical EEG pattern of frontal brain activation, which has been found in children and adults with emotional disorders, also is hypothesized to be present in disruptive behavior disorders. One hundred nineteen children (4 $\frac{1}{2}$ and 8 years of age) were examined with regard to the following questions: (1) Do children who are diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) exhibit an atypical pattern of frontal brain activation? (2) Can this pattern be demonstrated in preschool children (4 $\frac{1}{2}$ years of age) as well as in school children (8 years)? (3) Are there gender differences in these patterns similar to those that have been demonstrated in adults? Spontaneous EEG activity was subjected to power spectral analysis. In oppositional preschool and elementary school girls, the well-known pattern of lower left frontal than right frontal activation emerged that has been found previously in emotionally disordered children. Healthy girls showed no frontal brain asymmetry at 4 $\frac{1}{2}$ years of age, and left frontal activation at 8 years. In contrast, healthy boys demonstrated a greater right than left frontal activation, whereas ODD boys did not display any frontal brain asymmetry. Thus, the pattern of frontal brain activation seems to be gender-specific. The atypical activation pattern in oppositional children is hypothesized to be a biological substrate of negative affective style.     

Extinction-like effects in normals: independence of localization and response selection

An extinction-like effect in normal subjects was previously elicited when a low-salience target in the left was simultaneously presented with a highly salient distractor in the right visual hemifield, but not vice versa (Pollmann, 1996). We investigated in four experiments whether this extinction-like effect depends on (a) explicit localization and (b) response competition. It was found that the extinction-like effect could be replicated in the absence of both. In contradistinction to our previous results, low-salience distractors had no effect on pop-out target search. This showed that explicit spatial localization demands lead to low-salience distractor interference on pop-out search.     

Attention maintains mental extrapolation of target position: irrelevant distractors eliminate forward displacement after implied motion

Observers' judgments of the final position of a moving target are typically shifted in the direction of implied motion ("representational momentum"). The role of attention is unclear: visual attention may be necessary to maintain or halt target displacement. When attention was captured by irrelevant distractors presented during the retention interval, forward displacement after implied target motion disappeared, suggesting that attention may be necessary to maintain mental extrapolation of target motion. In a further corroborative experiment, the deployment of attention was measured after a sequence of implied motion, and faster responses were observed to stimuli appearing in the direction of motion. Thus, attention may guide the mental extrapolation of target motion. Additionally, eye movements were measured during stimulus presentation and retention interval. The results showed that forward displacement with implied motion does not depend on eye movements. Differences between implied and smooth motion are discussed with respect to recent neurophysiological findings.     

Factor copula models for mixed data

We develop factor copula models to analyse the dependence among mixed continuous and discrete responses. Factor copula models are canonical vine copulas that involve both observed and latent variables, hence they allow tail, asymmetric and nonlinear dependence. They can be explained as conditional independence models with latent variables that do not necessarily have an additive latent structure. We focus on important issues of interest to the social data analyst, such as model selection and goodness of fit. Our general methodology is demonstrated with an extensive simulation study and illustrated by reanalysing three mixed response data sets. Our studies suggest that there can be a substantial improvement over the standard factor model for mixed data and make the argument for moving to factor copula models.     

Iki and Contingency: A Reconstruction of Shūzō Kuki’s Early Aesthetic theory

Iki is the key word of Shūzō Kuki’s The Structure of Iki, and it became one of the most widely recognized Japanese aesthetic categories mainly due to this work. However, in The Problems of Contingency, which is Kuki’s most important philosophical work, there is no discussion of iki again, and consequently, most commentators of Kuki fail to see the correlation between his theories of iki and contingency. This article, by contrast, intends to provide a new interpretation of iki in the light of Kuki’s theory of contingency. The specific thesis of this paper is that aesthetic phenomena categorized as subject to the principles of iki are positively evaluated in Japanese culture just because the consciousness of iki is just one form of the consciousness of contingency, in which the awareness of alternatives to the actual situation could produce considerable spiritual entertainment for aesthetic subjects.     

Twenty‐First‐Century Counseling Theory Development in Relation to Definitions of Free Will and Determinism

This article is a continuation of Wilks's ( 2003 ) review of the development of counseling theory in relation to definitions of free will and determinism. The original review showed that theoretical synthesis was in part achieved when causal events inherent in absolute determinism were incorporated into a soft self‐determinist process. This review traces three 21st‐century challenges to self‐determinism and provides evidence supporting the inclusion of both self‐determinism and indeterminate free will in a single but asymmetrical causal model.     

Subtasks affecting step-length asymmetry in post-stroke hemiparetic walking

This study was performed to investigate whether components from trunk progression (TP) and step length were related to step length asymmetry in walking in patients with hemiparesis. Gait analysis was performed for participants with hemiparesis and healthy controls. The distance between the pelvis and foot in the anterior-posterior axis was calculated at initial-contact. Step length was partitioned into anterior foot placement (AFP) and posterior foot placement (PFP). TP was partitioned into anterior trunk progression (ATP) and posterior trunk progression (PTP). The TP pattern and step length pattern were defined to represent intra-TP and intra-step spatial balance, respectively. Of 29 participants with hemiparesis, nine participants showed longer paretic step length, eight participants showed symmetric step length, and 12 participants showed shorter paretic step length. For the hemiparesis group, linear regression analysis showed that ATP asymmetry, AFP asymmetry, and TP patterns had significant predictability regarding step length asymmetry. Prolonged paretic ATP and shortened paretic AFP was the predominant pattern in the hemiparesis group, even in participants with symmetric step length. However, some participants showed same direction of ATP and AFP asymmetry. These findings indicate the following: (1) ATP asymmetries should be observed to determine individual characteristics of step length asymmetry, and (2) TP patterns can provide complementary information for non-paretic limb compensation.     

Obstacle Avoidance Increases Asymmetry of Crossing Step in Individuals With Parkinson's Disease and Neurologically Healthy Individuals

The authors' aim was to investigate gait asymmetry of crossing step during obstacle avoidance while walking in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) under and without the effects of dopaminergic medication. Thirteen individuals with PD and 13 neurologically healthy individuals performed 5 trials of unobstructed gait and 10 trials of obstacle crossing during gait (5 trials with each leg) and spatiotemporal parameters were analyzed. Obstacle crossing increased step duration of the crossing step for the most-affected or nondominant limb compared to the crossing step with the least-affected or dominant limb. Individuals with PD without the effects of medication increased step duration for the step with the least-affected limb compared to the step with the most-affected limb during obstacle crossing.