Emotion and object processing in Parkinson’s disease

The neuropsychological literature on the processing of emotions in Parkinson’s disease (PD) reveals conflicting evidence about the role of the basal ganglia in the recognition of facial emotions. Hence, the present study had two objectives. One was to determine the extent to which the visual processing of emotions and objects differs in PD. The other was to assess the impact of cognitive load on the processing of these types of information. Thirty-one patients with idiopathic PD (IPD) under dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) were compared to 30 control subjects on emotion and object recognition tasks. Recognition of objects was more accurate and faster than recognition of facial expressions of emotion, for both groups of subjects. In a second experiment using an N-back procedure with the same stimuli—a more demanding task with a higher cognitive load—patients with IPD were as accurate as control subjects in detecting the correct sequential presentation of stimuli, but were much slower in their decision responses. This indicates that IPD patients under DRT are not impaired in encoding emotion or object information, but that they have difficulty with the processing demands of the N-back task. Thus, patients with IPD appear to be more sensitive to cognitive load than to type of information, whether facial emotions or objects. In this perspective, one must consider that a deafferented dopaminergic system has problems processing more complex information before one can posit the existence of deficits affecting a specific type of information.     

G1agov——血管重构与传奇

美国病理学和血管外科学家Seymour Glagov教授在1987年首次提出了血管重构现象,确认斑块占血管的横截面积大约小于40％时动脉代偿性扩张,其理论影响至今。他的科学历程透射出20世纪80年代粥样硬化研究革命期的特点,能启示后来者。     

Alzheimer’s disease and impairment of the Self

Impairment of the Self has been described in frontal–temporal dementia but little research has been carried out in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Objective

The aim of this study was to explore changes in the self in patients with AD.

Method

Forty-seven patients with mild to moderate AD were examined using a semi-structured scale designed to assess the self-concept along three dimensions, namely, the Material Self, the Social Self and the Spiritual Self.

Results

The majority of patients (43 out of 47) presented impairment of at least one dimension of the Self. When only one dimension was affected, it was always the Social Self. The severity of impairment of the Self was correlated to the impairment of the semantic autobiographical memory and apathy.

Conclusion

The Self is impaired in AD and the Social Self dimension appears to be more vulnerable in AD than other dimensions.     

Meta‐Argumentation as An Argumentation Metatheory

This article shows that the Rhodian model of metatheory can be successfully applied to nonformal systems of a methodological rather than an axiological nature if the demands of the model are satisfied. This requires that we take into account the possible variations of Rhodian models of argumentation and choose the most effective of them. Plato's model of meta‐argumentation is only applicable to fields of argumentation that are completely formalized and could be presented as whole general theories.     

Minimizing gender differences in children's interest assessment: Development of the Inventory of Children's Activities-3 (ICA-3)

The focus of this study was on revising the Inventory of Children's Activities–Revised (ICA-R; Tracey & Ward, 1998) to enhance its psychometric properties while minimizing gender differences in scale scores. The original 30 ICA-R items and an additional 30 items were administered to 70,280 fifth-eighth grades students. The original scoring was compared to a revised scoring method based solely on the empirically best items and a scoring method balancing empirical scoring with minimizing gender differences. All three item sets (original, empirical, and combined empirical/gender balancing) resulted in strong internal consistency estimates and adequate fit to the circular structure, yet the combined empirical/gender method had much lower gender differences especially for the scales measuring Investigative and Social interests. The implications of using the revised scale with children is discussed.     

Fumerton's Puzzle for Theories of Rationality

Richard Foley has presented a puzzle purporting to show that all attempts in trying to find a sufficient condition of rationality are doomed. The puzzle rests on two plausible assumptions. The first is a level-connecting principle: if one rationally believes that one's belief that p is irrational, then one's belief that p is irrational. The second is a claim about a structural feature shared by all promising sufficient conditions of rationality: for any such condition, it is possible that one's belief satisfies it and yet one rationally believes that it doesn’t. With the two assumptions, Foley argues that a sufficient condition of rationality is impossible. I explain how exactly the puzzle goes and I try to offer a solution. If my solution works, all theorists of rationality who accept certain level-connecting principles need to add an extra condition to their favourite rationality-making condition.     

Inequality and the Altruistic Life: A Study of the Priestly Vocation Rate

This article takes the rate of new incorporations into the Catholic priesthood within national societies as a social fact revealing underlying societal tendencies of broad theoretical relevance extending well beyond the study of religion. Our emphasis lies on the impact of income inequality on the prevalence of altruistic life options. We examine cross‐national and time‐series variation in the priestly vocation rate as the empirical foundation to theorize social dynamics underpinning a life option that entails the renunciation of opportunities for individual material advantage alongside the commitment to serve a broader community. The article elaborates why we view the vocation rate as resting on a combination of piety and altruistic dispositions, and provides a theoretical rationale for expecting inequality to diminish this—and other—altruistic life options. We also examine the impact of other variables that have been theorized to influence the prevalence of Catholic clerical vocations and elaborate the broader theoretical relevance of our empirical findings.     

Another serious misunderstanding: Jung,Giegerich and a premature requiem

Barreto's paper, ‘Requiem for analytical psychology’ utilized Jung's dreams and visions to argue for the obsolescence of Jungian psychology. Its thesis rested upon the theoretical assumptions of Giegerich's psychology as a Discipline of Interiority, which he and Giegerich claim are themselves based in Jung's psychology. Here I argue that that claim is misplaced because it depends upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jung's psychological project. I shall further argue that Giegerich's arguments for a Jungian basis to his psychology rely upon misreadings and decontextualisations of Jung's original texts. Finally, I shall attempt to draw attention to the weaknesses and contradictions involved in Barreto's interpretations of Jung's dreams and visions.     

Heroes and Mentors: A Consideration of Relational-Cultural Theory and “The Hero’s Journey”

Derived from mythology around the world and over the ages, Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey” provides a conceptual roadmap for confronting life’s challenges. The way in which clients navigate these challenges may also have a profound effect on their relational development. This article examines The Hero’s Journey through the lens of relational-cultural theory and illustrates ways in which counselors can aid clients in making sense of the struggles they face on their own personal journeys.     

Word knowledge in the crowd: Measuring vocabulary size and word prevalence in a massive online experiment

We use the results of a large online experiment on word knowledge in Dutch to investigate variables influencing vocabulary size in a large population and to examine the effect of word prevalence—the percentage of a population knowing a word—as a measure of word occurrence. Nearly 300,000 participants were presented with about 70 word stimuli (selected from a list of 53,000 words) in an adapted lexical decision task. We identify age, education, and multilingualism as the most important factors influencing vocabulary size. The results suggest that the accumulation of vocabulary throughout life and in multiple languages mirrors the logarithmic growth of number of types with number of tokens observed in text corpora (Herdan's law). Moreover, the vocabulary that multilinguals acquire in related languages seems to increase their first language (L1) vocabulary size and outweighs the loss caused by decreased exposure to L1. In addition, we show that corpus word frequency and prevalence are complementary measures of word occurrence covering a broad range of language experiences. Prevalence is shown to be the strongest independent predictor of word processing times in the Dutch Lexicon Project, making it an important variable for psycholinguistic research.