Concurrent Use of Cigarettes,Alcohol, and Coffee1

The interrelationships between cigarette, alcohol, and coffee use were examined in 307 U.S. army trainees and 304 U.S. enlisted army personnel. Usage patterns indicated distinct gender differences in this occupational setting. Among women, cigarette use and alcohol consumption were positively correlated; whereas for men, cigarette and coffee use were positively related. For both males and females, alcohol and coffee use were only weakly correlated. As demonstrated in other studies, nonsmokers showed a consistent pattern of abstention from coffee and alcohol or moderate alcohol use.     

Novel visual stimuli activate a population of neurons in the primate orbitofrontal cortex

Neurons were found in the rhesus macaque anterior orbitofrontal cortex that respond to novel but not to familiar visual stimuli. Some of these neurons responded to all novel stimuli, and others to only a subset (e.g., to novel faces). The neurons have no responses to familiar reward- or punishment-associated visual stimuli, nor to taste, olfactory or somatosensory inputs. The responses of the neurons typically habituated with repeated presentations of a novel stimulus, and five presentations each 1s was the median number for the response to reach half-maximal. The neurons did not respond to stimuli which had been novel and shown a few times on the previous day, indicating that the neurons were involved in long-term memory. The median latency of the neuronal responses was 120 ms. The median spontaneous firing rate was 1.3 spikes/s, and the median response to novel visual stimuli was 6.0 spikes/s. These findings indicate that the long-term memory for visual stimuli is information that is represented in a region of the primate anterior orbitofrontal cortex.     

Economic inequality is linked to biased self-perception

People's self-perception biases often lead them to see themselves as better than the average person (a phenomenon known as self-enhancement). This bias varies across cultures, and variations are typically explained using cultural variables, such as individualism versus collectivism. We propose that socioeconomic differences among societies--specifically, relative levels of economic inequality--play an important but unrecognized role in how people evaluate themselves. Evidence for self-enhancement was found in 15 diverse nations, but the magnitude of the bias varied. Greater self-enhancement was found in societies with more income inequality, and income inequality predicted cross-cultural differences in self-enhancement better than did individualism/collectivism. These results indicate that macrosocial differences in the distribution of economic goods are linked to microsocial processes of perceiving the self.     

The benefit of symbols: monkeys show linear, human-like, accuracy when using symbols to represent scalar value

When humans and animals estimate numbers of items, their error rate is proportional to the number. To date, however, only humans show the capacity to represent large numbers symbolically, which endows them with increased precision, especially for large numbers, and with tools for manipulating numbers. This ability depends critically on our capacity to acquire and represent explicit symbols. Here we show that when rhesus monkeys are trained to use an explicit symbol system, they too show more precise, and linear, scaling than they do using a one-to-one corresponding numerosity representation. We also found that when taught two different types of representations for reward amount, the monkeys systematically undervalued the less precise representation. The results indicate that monkeys, like humans, can learn alternative mechanisms for representing a single value scale and that performance variability and relative value depend on the distinguishability of each representation.     

Images of politics: A multidimensional analysis of implicit representations of political parties in a newly emerging democracy

What sorts of features define people's implicit cognitive representations about the political domain in a newly emerging democracy, with no previous experience of multi-party politics? This study used a multidimensional scaling (MDS) approach to investigate the dimensional structure of, and individual differences in, cognitive representations of the party political space before the recent first free elections were held in Hungary. It was found that three cognitive dimensions explained subjects' intuitive view of political parties, evaluation, conservatism, and an urban–rural dimension. Significant individual differences in the use of these dimensions linked to gender, education, and city versus country background were also found. The relationship between implicit cognitive representations about parties and political attitudes and behaviour are discussed, and the implications of the findings for our understanding recent political developments in Eastern Europe are considered.     

Longitudinal analysis of the relationship between changes in smoking and changes in drinking in a community sample: the Winnipeg Health and Drinking Survey.

Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are positively correlated in cross-sectional studies of the general population. However, it is unclear whether changes in quantity of drinking over time are related to changes in amount of smoking over time. This investigation examined, with structural equation modeling, the relationship of changes in drinking to changes in smoking over 2 years among 344 adults who reported cigarette smoking and alcohol use at baseline in 1989-1990 or at follow-up in 1991-1992 or both. Surprisingly, no significant relationships were found between changes in smoking and changes in drinking. This lack of effect suggests that changes in the quantity or intensity of drinking and of smoking are not related in any important way in nonclinical populations.     

Sources of somatosensory input to the caudal belt areas of auditory cortex

The auditory cortex of nonhuman primates is comprised of a constellation of at least twelve interconnected areas distributed across three major regions on the superior temporal gyrus: core, belt, and parabelt. Individual areas are distinguished on the basis of unique profiles comprising architectonic features, thalamic and cortical connections, and neuron response properties. Recent demonstrations of convergent auditory-somatosensory interactions in the caudomedial (CM) and caudolateral (CL) belt areas prompted us to pursue anatomical studies to identify the source(s) of somatic input to auditory cortex. Corticocortical and thalamocortical connections were revealed by injecting neuroanatomical tracers into CM, CL, and adjoining fields of marmoset (Callithrix jacchus jacchus) and macaque (Macaca mulatta) monkeys. In addition to auditory cortex, the cortical connections of CM and CL included somatosensory (retroinsular, Ri; granular insula, Ig) and multisensory areas (temporal parietal occipital, temporal parietal temporal). Thalamic inputs included the medial geniculate complex and several multisensory nuclei (suprageniculate, posterior, limitans, medial pulvinar), but not the ventroposterior complex. Injections of the core (A1, R) and rostromedial areas of auditory cortex revealed sparse multisensory connections. The results suggest that areas Ri and Ig are the principle sources of somatosensory input to the caudal belt, while multisensory regions of cortex and thalamus may also contribute. The present data add to growing evidence of multisensory convergence in cortical areas previously considered to be 'unimodal', and also indicate that auditory cortical areas differ in this respect.     

State-Space Analysis of Working Memory in Schizophrenia: An FBIRN Study

The neural correlates of working memory (WM) in schizophrenia (SZ) have been extensively studied using the multisite fMRI data acquired by the Functional Biomedical Informatics Research Network (fBIRN) consortium. Although univariate and multivariate analysis methods have been variously employed to localize brain responses under differing task conditions, important hypotheses regarding the representation of mental processes in the spatio-temporal patterns of neural recruitment and the differential organization of these mental processes in patients versus controls have not been addressed in this context. This paper uses a multivariate state-space model (SSM) to analyze the differential representation and organization of mental processes of controls and patients performing the Sternberg Item Recognition Paradigm (SIRP) WM task. The SSM is able to not only predict the mental state of the subject from the data, but also yield estimates of the spatial distribution and temporal ordering of neural activity, along with estimates of the hemodynamic response. The dynamical Bayesian modeling approach used in this study was able to find significant differences between the predictability and organization of the working memory processes of SZ patients versus healthy subjects. Prediction of some stimulus types from imaging data in the SZ group was significantly lower than controls, reflecting a greater level of disorganization/heterogeneity of their mental processes. Moreover, the changes in accuracy of predicting the mental state of the subject with respect to parametric modulations, such as memory load and task duration, may have important implications on the neurocognitive models for WM processes in both SZ and healthy adults. Additionally, the SSM was used to compare the spatio-temporal patterns of mental activity across subjects, in a holistic fashion and to derive a low-dimensional representation space for the SIRP task, in which subjects were found to cluster according to their diagnosis.     

On Neat Reducts of Algebras of Logic

SC , CA , QA and QEA stand for the classes of Pinter's substitution algebras, Tarski's cylindric algebras, Halmos' quasipolyadic algebras, and quasipolyadic equality algebras of dimension , respectively. Generalizing a result of Németi on cylindric algebras, we show that for K {SC, CA, QA, QEA} and ordinals < , the class Nr K of -dimensional neat reducts of -dimensional K algebras, though closed under taking homomorphic images and products, is not closed under forming subalgebras (i.e. is not a variety) if and only if > 1.From this it easily follows that for 1 < < , the operation of forming -neat reducts of algebras in K does not commute with forming subalgebras, a notion to be made precise.We give a contrasting result concerning Halmos' polyadic algebras (with and without equality). For such algebras, we show that the class of infinite dimensional neat reducts forms a variety.We comment on the status of the property of neat reducts commuting with forming subalgebras for various reducts of polyadic algebras that are also expansions of cylindric-like algebras. We try to draw a borderline between reducts that have this property and reducts that do not.Following research initiated by Pigozzi, we also emphasize the strong tie that links the (apparently non-related) property of neat reducts commuting with forming subalgebras with proving amalgamation results in cylindric-like algebras of relations. We show that, like amalgamation, neat reducts commuting with forming subalgebras is another algebraic expression of definability and, accordingly, is also strongly related to the well-known metalogical properties of Craig, Beth and Robinson in the corresponding logics.     

In homage to Descartes and Spinoza: A cosmo‐ontological case for God

Integrating cosmological and ontological lines of reasoning, I argue that there is a self‐necessary being that (a) serves as the sufficient condition for everything, that (b) has the most perfect collection of whatever attributes of perfection there might be, and that (c) is an independent, eternal, unique, simple, indivisible, immutable, all‐actual, all‐free, all‐present, all‐powerful, all‐knowing, all‐good, and personal creator of every expression of itself that everything is. My cosmo‐ontological case for such a being, an everything‐maker with the core features ascribed to the God of classical theism, addresses the standard worries plaguing these lines of reasoning: (1) the richness required of such a being dissolves it into many beings; (2) the metaphysical possibility of such a being is assumed on insufficient grounds; (3) the features we ascribe to such a being are mere human‐all‐too‐human projections.