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PubMed1991

Automatic and effortful processing of emotional intonation after right or left hemisphere brain damage.

This study assessed the effects of unilateral right (RHD) or left hemisphere brain damage (LHD) on the knowledge and processing of emotional information imparted by vocal intonation. Semantically neutral statements that conveyed a mood through prosody were used as targets in a mood priming task. These targets were preceded by story primes. The events described in the primes were either congruent with the mood conveyed by the intonation of a target phrase, incongruent with target mood, or emotionally neutral. Prime-target pairs were presented in two attention conditions designed to favor either relatively automatic or effortful mental processing. Response time (RT) data were recorded for accurate judgments of target moods. In the automatic condition, there were no qualitative differences between RHD, LHD, or normally aging control subjects. In the effortful condition, RTs for each group were similarly improved by congruent primes (relative to neutral primes), but RHD subjects were disproportionately slower when targets were preceded by incongruent primes. Results indicate that brain-damaged adults retain knowledge of emotional meanings, and use that knowledge to facilitate effective interpretations in some circumstances. Demands for emotional inference revision were not exclusively responsible for RHD adults' poor performance with incongruent primes, as they successfully revised initial predictions in other conditions. Rather, these subjects' difficulties arose when increased processing demands converged with decreased availability of mental resources. These findings are integrated with those from a related study of lexical metaphor, and are interpreted within a cognitive resource framework.

Aged↗
PubMed1995

To drive or not to drive: neuropsychological assessment for driver's license among stroke patients.

Seventy-two stroke patients, 43 with right hemisphere (RHD) and 29 with left hemisphere damage (LHD), and 7 coronary infarct controls with no evidence of cerebral damage, were neuropsychologically tested as part of an assessment program for driver's license. Mean age in the group was 53 years. Stroke patients were tested on average 4 months post injury. The groups did not differ on major demographic variables except that RHD patients were more often hemiplegic than LHD patients. The test battery was factor analyzed into 4 valid principal components: (I) visual perception, (II) spatial attention, (III) visuospatial processing, and (IV) language/praxis. The presence of hemianopia (factor I) excludes driving. In addition, measures of neglect and reduced speed of mental processing from factor II, III and IV, were found to be the most discriminating variables when classifying patients for driving. Even though neglect was more frequently observed among RHD than LHD patients, the two hemisphere groups did not differ significantly in number of patients denied driving, 58% RHD compared to 41% LHD patients. The need for comprehensive neuropsychological assessment is underlined.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

[Living and being health in human aging contextualized through oral history].

This is a qualitative study with a focus on aging in the healthy living process, through the Thematic Oral History. Eight interviews were conducted with elderly people, four of them belonging to the UNIVIDA extension project at UNIVALI and the other to the SESC elderly group-Florianópolis (SC). The spiritual dimensions, of gender, work, esthetics and the art of aging emerged from the narratives, allowing to contextualize the healthy aging process. This group of elderly people managed to break stereotypes or prejudices existing in our society, becoming agents of the changing mentality process.

Aging↗
PubMed2006

[Post traumatic stress disorder in developmental age].

This paper has been designed to provide an overview of research results concerning the impact of war stress on the genesis of psycho trauma in developmental age. The objective was to assess the effectiveness of psychotherapy in concrete clinical cases. In particular, the prognosis of psycho trauma in the given sub-population is discussed, while recognizing the generally accepted premise that each person in developmental age who has been exposed to severe stress is psycho traumatized. A comparison is made with other research results available in the literature dealing with the subject of war psycho trauma. A particular emphasis is placed on the genesis and specificity of manifestation of psycho trauma in adolescents who were actively involved in the army during the war. The excerpts from the adolescent soldiers' diaries are intended to show in the original form the mental process of elaborating psycho traumatic experience transfer. The paper ends with the conclusion that professionals who work in the area of mental health protection should pay greater attention to so-called trans-generational trauma.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

[Selection of the information for solving medical diagnostic problems with "diagnostic games" (the example of predicting the time of sinus rhythm maintenance after eliminating atrial fibrillation)].

A new method is proposed for data selection with respect to solving medical diagnosis problems. It reduces the scope of information, leaving for further processing only the facts the physician actually needs for problem-solving. The protocols of "diagnostic games" reflect the physician's mental process and can be used in the development of a physician model.

Atrial Fibrillation↗
PubMed1996

Negative priming and mental retardation: the processing of distractor information.

Negative priming was assessed to investigate what information persons with and without mental retardation access from distractors. Subjects viewed displays of one blue and one red letter and were instructed to identify the blue letter. A prime display followed a probe display at intervals varying from 100 to 500 msec. At the short time interval, all subjects exhibited facilitation to identifying targets in the probe that were the same as the target or distractor of the prime, indicating the automatic activation of both letters. At the long interval, only the subjects without mental retardation exhibited inhibition of the distractors. The subjects with mental retardation did not suppress responding to the distractor to facilitate their performance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Erythrocyte ITP pyrophosphohydrolase deficiency in a psychiatric population.

A higher incidence of erythrocyte ITP pyrophosphohydrolase deficiency was found among a psychiatric population when compared to a nonpsychiatric group of subjects. Although the incidence was highest among schizophrenics, particularly those diagnosed as paranoid, the majority of the patients did not show such deficiency. The parallelisms between ITP pyrophosphohydrolase and hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyl transferase deficiencies, both characterized by the lack of availability of IMP, and correlated to behavioral disorders, suggest that irregularities of hypoxanthine nucleotides may be implicated in abnormal mental processes.

Erythrocytes↗
PubMed1977

Hermann von Helmholtz and the empiricist vision.

The philosophical convictions of Hermann von Helmholtz and the empiricist psychology he developed have been extensively discussed in historical literature. This literature has not usually emphasized the tacti assumptions about human physiology that underlaid these convictions nor the way in which Helmholtz's epistemology served as a methodological directive in his research. Helmholtz assumed nerve transmission between sense organs and the mind to be a passive process. Distortion in stimulus patterns occurs physically in the sense organs, which can therefore be treated through mechanical analogies. Stimuli become converted to the perceptions of consciousness through mental processes that are essentially analogous to conscious, inductive inference and that are therefore susceptible, in principle, to introspective investigation. This view of mental function reflected Helmholtz's intellectual debt to German idealism, especially to the philosophical views of J.G. Fichte.

Germany↗
PubMed1992

Mental terms in mothers' and children's speech: similarities and relationships.

In this study, mental terms in mothers' and their children's speech at two and three years of age were studied in order to examine the relationships between maternal and child use. Nineteen mother and child dyads were videotaped for one hour on each of two days when the children were 2;0 and again for two one-hour sessions on separate days when they were 3;0, and mental terms were noted. The utterances in which mental terms were used were coded for function. Results supported the existing picture of children's mental term use. Few terms appeared at 2;0, but many were used at 3;0 with think and know predominating. Mental terms occurred more commonly in utterances used to regulate the interaction between the participants than in utterances referring to mental states. Children's mental term use mirrored that of their mothers. Further, mothers' use of mental terms for particular functions when their children were 2;0 predicted their children's use at 3;0. While allowing no conclusions about causation, our findings suggest that the development of mental state language, and thus presumably a theory of mind, is fostered by the linguistic environment. Specifically, it is argued that the tendency of mothers to focus their children's attention on mental processes by talking about them and, more importantly, by using utterance types which conceivably direct the children to reflect on their own mental states, is associated with children's use of mental terms.

Cognition↗
PubMed2003

Efforts to preserve the mind in contemporary hospital treatment.

The author proposes a restructured and refocused extended length-of-stay inpatient treatment program designed to maintain an emphasis on the whole person. He suggests that the conditions for implementing a genuine biopsychosocial approach to treatment are now more possible than ever before. Note is made of the evolution of the new structures, the change in treatment constraints, and the type of patient currently presenting for inpatient treatment. Modifications of traditional and current inpatient treatment strategies, especially the formal inclusion of the patient on the multidisciplinary treatment team, enable the restructuring to focus on treatment recalcitrance, on establishing and reestablishing flexible mental processes, and on promoting community reintegration and tenure.

Health Services↗
PubMed1989

Developmental levels of processing in metaphor interpretation.

We outline a theory of metaphor interpretation. The theory posits varying levels of semantic processing and formalizes them in terms of kinds of semantic-mapping operators that transform properties of the metaphoric vehicle (i.e., predicate) into properties of the metaphoric topic (i.e., subject). We used cognitive-developmental theory to estimate the mental-processing complexity of the various mapping operators, and thereby to predict the timing of their emergence in childhood, and to construct a measure of the metaphoric-processing levels. Metaphor interpretations collected from children (aged 6-12 years) and adults were coded and scored according to the processing levels. In two separate developmental studies, processing score increased with age in a predictable way. Growth in a mental-attentional resource accounted for much of the developmental variance in metaphor interpretation. Possible moderating effects of knowledge and context are discussed.

Child↗
PubMed2005

Anxiety, attributional thinking,and the primary process.

In earlier publications, experimental evidence was provided for the existence of the primary vs. secondary process mental organization posited by Freud. A well-established cognitive categorization test based on attributional and relational similarity was found to map on to primary and secondary principles of mental organization respectively, thus offering the opportunity to test hypotheses drawn from psychoanalytic theory independent of the clinical situation. In prior work, primary process shifts occurred under three different conditions--all predicted by psychoanalytic theory: (1) when stimuli were (subliminal) unconscious; (2) when participants were 3-5 years of age; and (3) when tasks were implicit. In the current study, a fourth condition is examined dealing with the relationship of conscious anxiety to primary and secondary processes. In a naturalistic study, 120 patients waiting in medical center waiting rooms rated how anxious they felt on a 10-point scale and then completed a version of the categorization test alluded to above. Those who reported any anxiety at all showed a significant shift toward primary process categorization over those participants who rated themselves as calm. The implications of this fourth finding are discussed with respect to signal anxiety and symptom formation.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Social information processing in mild mentally retarded children.

This study examined the social information processing (SIP) skills of mild mentally retarded (MR) children using Dodge's model. Six sets of pictures depicting provocation situations were used to elicit measures of accuracy of interpretation to accidental and hostile cues, attribution of ambiguous cues, and hostile and nonhostile behavior responses to all three types of cues. MR children were compared to nonretarded groups matched for chronological age (CA-matched) and mental age (MA-matched) on these variables. Compared to both nonretarded groups, the MR group was less accurate in interpretation of accidental cues and more hostile in their responses to the ambiguous cues. The latter finding remained even after partialing out externalizing behavior problems. The results are discussed in terms of factors associated with SIP skills, and the assessment and treatment of MR children.

Aggression↗
PubMed1990

[Pain and suffering in animals].

The perception of pain stimuli by nociceptors and their conduction to the diencephalon are approximately identical processes in higher animals and in man. There are however differences between man and animal as well as between the species of animals concerning mental processing and assessing of pain. The importance of fear must be taken into regard. At the moment a scientific assessment of pain and suffering in animals is not possible.

Animal Welfare↗
PubMed2000

[Mental anorexia in aging. Report of a case].

Elderly subjects who refuse to eat, and thus develop malnutrition, can be observed both in institutional and community settings. Causes include physiological changes related to the aging process, mental disorders and environmental factors. Most cases of anorexia nevrosa begin in adolescence but a sizeable number may develop at a later age. The term anorexia nevrosa in the elderly is proposed to describe this clinical entity observed in a woman who developed anorexia nevrosa at the age of 76 years. This entity is examined in comparison with prolonged earlier-onset anorexia nevrosa and late-onset anorexia.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2006

Complementing behavioral measures with electrophysiological measures in diagnostic evaluation: a case study in two languages.

This case study focuses on a bilingual, older man who spoke Polish and English and showed weaknesses on clinical measures of dichotic listening in English. It was unclear whether these test results were influenced by the participant's facility with his second language or by other nonauditory factors. To elucidate the nature of this deficit, the authors examined behavioral and electrophysiological responses during dichotic-listening tasks involving linguistic processing in both languages. A diotic (control) condition was included to examine whether nonauditory factors, such as language familiarity, memory, or decline in speed of mental processing, might explain the dichotic results. The results from this participant were compared with those obtained from a bilingual young adult who also spoke both Polish and English. Results showed a substantial left-ear deficit for the older individual on both behavioral and electrophysiological measures of dichotic listening. The pattern of results is consistent with previous findings in demonstrating that the left-ear deficit in this patient derived from an auditory-specific defect rather than from any of the extra-auditory factors associated with language facility or cognitive decline.

Acoustic Stimulation↗
PubMed1995

Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension.

Psycholinguists have commonly assumed that as a spoken linguistic message unfolds over time, it is initially structured by a syntactic processing module that is encapsulated from information provided by other perceptual and cognitive systems. To test the effects of relevant visual context on the rapid mental processes that accompany spoken language comprehension, eye movements were recorded with a head-mounted eye-tracking system while subjects followed instructions to manipulate real objects. Visual context influenced spoken word recognition and mediated syntactic processing, even during the earliest moments of language processing.

Cognition↗
PubMed1985

Cognition and states of consciousness: the necessity for empirical study of ordinary and nonordinary consciousness for contemporary cognitive psychology.

Recent criticisms of the place and function of "consciousness" in "cognitive science" are considered and rejected. Contrary to current orthodoxy subjective experience during abstract cognitive activity, especially when placed in its natural series with phenomenal accounts of so-called "altered states of consciousness," can provide unique and crucial evidence concerning just that core of "semantics" which eludes the automatized "syntax" of computer simulation. The "noetic" aspect of extreme altered states can be placed in relation to introspective descriptions of "insight." Various altered state features--synaesthesias, geometric/mandala imagery, reorganizations of "perceptual" dimensions and enhanced "self-reference"--can be taken as direct "exteriorizations" of abstract symbolic processes as discussed by Neisser, Geschwind, Mead, and Arnheim. A genuine cognitive psychology cannot continue to ignore the qualitative-experiential bases of symbolization. More specifically, the sense that insight just comes to us as if from "outside," its preliminary microgenetic processes masked, does not show the failure of introspective phenomenology but rather offers a unique and positive clue to the imaginal dialogic structure of higher mental processes. Thinking, as one phase of imaginal "conversation," must be "sent" from the phenomenal "other" to an attenuated, receptive phenomenal "self." A reconsideration of the Würzburg controversy, adding closely related altered state phenomena to the transitional series between "impalpable awareness" and specific imagery, suggests that the normally masked processes underlying the "felt meaning" or "insight" state are most directly exteriorized as what Klüver termed "complex" or geometric-dynamic synaesthesias. Finally, a reinterpretation of classical introspectionism's "sensation" shows the "mechanism" by which the metaphorical/synaesthetic processes of cognition are generated. Titchener's "sensation" plays the crucial role in metaphor it so conspicuously lacked in functional perception.

Awareness↗