Relative alpha desynchronization and synchronization during perception of music

Relative desynchronization (ERD) and synchronization (ERS) of the 8–10 Hz and 10–12 Hz alpha freqency bands elicited by music were studied in ten musically untrained right-handed subjects. The subjects listened to two five-minute musical excerpts representing two different musical genres, popular and classical, presented both foward and backward. ERD/ERS of the two alpha frequency bands was examined during the first four minutes of stimulus presentation using one-minute time windows. The results demonstrated that both the 8–10 Hz and the 10–12Hz frequency band exhibited reactivity to musical stimuli. The responses of the 8–10Hz and 10–12 Hz alpha frequency bands were dissimilar, dymanic and dependent on both time and stimulation type. The dynamics of these changes over time may explain some discrepancies in earlier EEG studies during listening to music.     

论医学创新中的灵感思维

灵感是一种奇妙的创新思维方式。通过对古今中外医学史上运用灵感思维完成创新的实践过程进行考察、说明灵感思维可以划分为酝酿－－顿悟－－验证在阶段基核心是顿悟阶段。在此阶段中有自悟型和外引整两大类,主要是十种形式。人类即将进入２１世纪,与之相适应的医学领域地出现惊人的创新,研究医学创新中的灵感思维,有助于我们探讨和认识新思维的机制和规律,用以启迪和培养全民族的创新能力,为人类飞向未来插上金翅。     

Internet Discussion Forum Summary

Articles Discussed in this forum:
'Symbolic attitude and reverie: problems of symbolization in children and adolescents' by Gustav Bovensiepen and 'Response to Gustav Bovensiepen' by Donald Kalsched     

音乐、时间与人的存在--对儒家"成于乐"的现代理解

也子曾经说过：“兴于诗,立于礼,成于乐”。这就是说,一个人只有通过音乐才能真正完成自身,成为一个真正成熟了的人,但是,究竟为什么呢？本文试图回 一问题,论文的观点是,音乐使人摆脱了以视觉为中心的空间视野,把人的完成安置在时间的视域中,这样,“成于乐”就意味着成为一个“即从即成”（即始始终）的“时者”（时间人）。因此,“成于乐”也就是说人的存在成为一项永远都不能完成和终结,到死都在寻求某种新的开始的无尽的事业,换言之,通过“成于乐”,人的存在获得了时间性的维度。     

The Contribution of Music to Positive Aging: A Review

Many people value music as an important part of their everyday lives. The published literature reveals that the role of music in life is varied: it can be recreational, educational, social, emotional, therapeutic, and spiritual. The importance and relevance of music depends on the life needs and interests of the individual and the social group within which he/she lives. It is now widely recognized that music for many older people is crucial in supporting a sense of well-being. The article reviews the evidence on the role of music in promoting health and well-being, and how it can produce positive psychological and physiological benefits for individuals. The aim of this article is to increase awareness among health professionals of the importance of music and discuss how it can be used to add to older people's lives.     

Flight into Security: A New Approach and Measure of the Authoritarian Personality

A basic pattern of human response to stressful and uncertain situations which provoke anxiety and insecurity is to seek security and shelter. Those who provide support become by a process of psychological attribution authorities. Therefore the mechanism of seeking support and shelter under strained conditions might be called an "authoritarian reaction." Socialization involves a negotiation with this basic reaction of flight in situations of uncertainty. As individuals develop, they learn to overcome the authoritarian reaction by formulating their own strategies to cope with reality. The authoritarian personality emerges out of an inability to generate such individual coping strategies. Authoritarian personalities defer to the dictates and control of others who offer them the certainty and comfort they cannot provide for themselves. Extensions of this basic authoritarian response are the rejection of the new and the unfamiliar, rigid adherence to norms and value systems, an anxious and inflexible response to new situations, suppressed hostility, and passive aggression. A new measure based on items on one's own behavior, feelings, motivation, and the individual's concept of the self was developed and tested in several empirical studies. It obtained a good reliability and proved to be valid by correlating to measures of right-wing extremism, negative attitudes toward immigrants and women.     

双语存贮模型的研究

关于双语的存贮,一直存在着单独存贮说与共同存贮说之争。本文经理论分析和实证研究,认为：双语,是共同存贮,而不是单独存贮;并提出双语的新共同存贮模型。     

Worlds within Worlds: Kabbalah and the New Scientific Paradigm

Beginning with relativity and quantum theory, the deterministic view that has dominated and shaped Western culture for more than 2,500 years has begun to unravel, leading to the emergence of a new paradigm. This new paradigm effectively reformulates the project of science, conceiving of existence as an interpenetrating web of coevolving, cocreative relationships. By exploring Kabbalah and the new scientific paradigm within the context of shared evolutionary principles, I seek to demonstrate a viable alternative to the prevailing deterministic worldview. By going beyond the limits of determinism and re–visioning existence as an evolutionary, emergent phenomenon, we can establish a new basis for an authentic dialogue between science and religion.     

Off the beaten track: Freud,sound and music.Statement of a problem and some historico‐critical notes1

The authors note that the element of sound and music has no place in the model of mental functioning bequeathed to us by Freud, which is dominated by the visual and the representational. They consider the reasons for this exclusion and its consequences, and ask whether the simple biographical explanation offered by Freud himself is acceptable. This contribution reconstructs the historical and cultural background to that exclusion, cites some relevant emblematic passages, and discusses Freud’s position on music and on the aesthetic experience in general. Particular attention is devoted to the relationship between Freud and Lipps, which is important both for the originality of Lipps’s thinking in the turn‐of‐the‐century debate and for his ideas on the musical aspects of the foundations of psychic life, at which Freud ‘stopped’, as he himself wrote. Moreover, the shade of Lipps accompanied Freud throughout his scientific career from 1898 to 1938. Like all foundations, that of psychoanalysis was shaped by a system of inclusions and exclusions. The exclusion of the element of sound and music is understandable in view of the cultural background to the development of the concepts of the representational unconscious and infantile sexuality. While the consequences have been far reaching, the knowledge accumulated since that exclusion enables us to resume, albeit on a different basis, the composition of the ‘unfinished symphony’ of the relationship between psychoanalysis and music.     

MUSIC AND METAPHYSICS

Abstract: In this article, I assume that musical works are abstract types, and I raise and address a new question concerning musical ontology that may take the types view at least a step further: When do musical works cease to exist? I then propound my view about musical works as types, which is somewhat like the Aristotelian Realist position concerning universals. Next, I address some objections to that view. Finally, I provide some grounds for rejecting alternative views that see Western classical musical works before 1950 (the sorts of musical works the discussion here is restricted to) either as classes or else as kinds.