Perspective-Taking from a Social Neuroscience Standpoint

A primary focus of research undertaken by social psychologists is to establish why perceivers fail to accurately adopt or understand other people's perspectives. From overestimating the dispositional bases of behavior to misinterpreting the motivations of out-group members, the message that emerges from this work is that social perception is frequently imperfect. In contrast, researchers from disciplines outside social psychology seek to identify the strategies and skill sets required to successfully understand other people's perspectives. These investigations attempt to identify the mechanisms through which perceivers intuit mental states that underlie behavior (e.g. wants, motivations, beliefs). In this article, we review findings from perspective-taking research in developmental psychology, primatology (i.e. primate cognition) and cognitive neuroscience. We then discuss why understanding how accurate perspective-taking occurs may inform understanding of when and why this process fails

Identification of the growth arrest and DNA damage protein GADD34 in the normal human heart and demonstration of alterations in expression following myocardial ischaemia

Growth arrest and DNA damage protein 34 (GADD34) is a multifunctional protein upregulated in response to cellular stress and is believed to mediate DNA repair and restore protein synthesis. In the present study we have examined GADD34 immunoreactivity in human myocardial tissue at defined survival times following cardiac arrest and determined alterations in expression following ischaemia. In the normal human heart, GADD34 immunoreactivity was generally intense and present within most cells. GADD34 immunoreactivity was downregulated in tissue displaying ischaemic damage and remained intense in adjacent non-infarcted tissue. Unlike brain, GADD34 was not found to be upregulated in the peri-infarct zone. Cells displaying apoptotic changes were located in regions displaying reduced GADD34 immunoreactivity. In the brain, it is thought that GADD34 supports re-initiation of protein synthesis following ischaemia. Similarly, GADD34 may perform important functions in cardiac tissue in response to ischaemia

Effects Of Column Splice Properties On Seismic Demands In Steel Moment Frames

Dynamic inelastic response history analysis of a 2-D model of a nine storey steel frame were carried out with different column splice strengths and stiffnesses using a suite of 20 MCE level earthquake records. Splices were located every 2nd storey at one third of the storey height up from the column below. It was shown that (i) the presence of even very flexible splices increased the frame period by less than 3%, (ii) flexible splices increased storey drift ratios by up to 27%, (iii) splice stiffnesses of zero to infinity had no effect on frame displacements, (iv) the splice moment demand increased with increasing splice stiffness on the frame and was as high as 99% of the column flexural capacity