Book review\ud Andre, J., Owens, D. A., & Harvey, Jr., L. O. (Eds.). (2003). Visual perception: The influence of H. W. Leibowitz. Washington, DC: APA.

In the edifice of visual psychology there are many mansions. This book comes from one of the finest in it.\ud The influence of Herschel Leibowitz has been immense (e.g., teaching in four languages and publishing\ud more than 250 papers) blending rigorous inquiry with inspirational teaching and dedicated public\ud service. This “Decade of Behavior” festschrift is exemplary in many respects, such as giving a readable\ud account of complicated vision problems, as bridging applied and theoretical questions, as to the\ud productiveness of cross-disciplinary collaboration, and, last but not least, to the significance of an\ud inspirational teacher, mentor, and colleague. Reading the book will give you a kind of immersion experience,\ud typical in style of the man himself. The book primes the pump and lets the reader go on an inspirational journey

Medizinstudierende Eltern : die Dichotomie der Erfahrungswelten

Einleitung: In dem vorliegenden Artikel wird die persönliche Studien- und Lebenssituation von Studierenden mit Kindern am Fachbereich Medizin der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main beleuchtet. Der spezielle Fokus liegt auf den Themen "Studium mit Kind" sowie "familiengerechte Hochschule", welche in Deutschland in der letzten Dekade sehr präsent sowohl in der Hochschulforschung als auch im akademischen Alltag sind. Hier versucht die Arbeitsstelle "Individuelle Studienbegleitung" am FB Medizin der Goethe-Universität durch ein neues Beratungs- und Servicekonzept mit wissenschaftlicher Begleitforschung den individuellen Studienverläufen gerecht zu werden und den Studienerfolg zu fördern. Methoden: In erster Linie stammen die hier beschriebenen Erfahrungen der Medizinstudierenden mit Kind aus qualitativen Leitfadeninterviews (Stand April 2010), die im Rahmen des Modellprojektes Teilzeitstudium Medizin durchgeführt wurden. Ergänzend wurden die Studienergebnisse des Fachbereichs Medizin der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main herangezogen und eine Literaturanalyse einbezogen. Ergebnisse: Als Ergebnis kann festgehalten werden, dass die bereits seit mehreren Jahren erhobenen Forderungen und gewünschten Unterstützungsleistungen zwar zum Teil umgesetzt, aber noch nicht ausreichend an allen Fachbereichen implementiert wurden. Somit ist die aktuelle Situation von Studierenden mit Kindern in der Medizin nach wie vor schwierig und stellt für alle Beteiligten eine große Herausforderung dar. Lösungsansatz: Im Rahmen der Arbeitsstelle "Individuelle Studienbegleitung" konnte im November 2009 das "Modellprojekt Teilzeitstudium Medizin" aufgebaut werden. Nur durch neue, unkonventionelle und innovative Ideen kann man die Sicherstellung der medizinischen Ausbildung erreichen und die heutige heterogene Studierendenschaft adäquat ansprechen sowie Studierende erfolgreich durch ihr Studium begleiten

Parents Studying Medicine – the dichotomy of studying with a family

Introduction: In this article the personal study and life situation of parents who are also medical students at the Medical School of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main is discussed. There is a special focus on the topics “studying with children” and “family-friendly university”, which have been present in discussions about university development and in the daily life of academics, especially during the last decade. The workgroup “Individual Student Services” at the medical faculty at the Goethe University tries to meet the necessities of the individual study courses and to support the study success with a new counselling and student service concept

Cognitive performance and specific deficits in OCD symptom dimensions : II. Spatial memory and impaired recognition of visuospatial object locations

Authors retain copyright. 'The German Journal of Psychiatry is an online journal that covers all fields of psychiatry. Downloading of articles is free.'Objective : To investigate spatial recognition abilities and working memory in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients grouped according to their primary symptom dimensions. Memory has always occupied a central position in OCD research, mainly because of the notion that faulty memory processes could mediate many of the repetitive compulsive rituals. However, the role of different memory systems is not yet fully understood. Methods : There were 68 OCD patients and 65 healthy controls who completed two tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB); a) spatial recognition memory, b) spatial working memory. Standard clinical and psychological background measures were also employed. Results : The OCD patients were impaired in spatial recognition memory whereas spatial working memory was spared regarding performance accuracy. Selective deficits in visuospatial recognition memory were associated with patients in all symptom dimensions while patients in the dimension contamination were the only ones impaired in both recognition accuracy and recognition time. Conclusion : It is suggested that spatial memory impairments may be secondary to an inability to apply efficiently elaborated attentional and goal-oriented strategies as part of the executive system to support visuospatial recognition memory in addition to experiences of incompleteness. The clinical relevance of the findings is discussed.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Cognitive performance and specific deficits in OCD symptom dimensions : III. Decision-making and impairments in risky choices

Authors retain copyright. The German Journal of Psychiatry is an online journal that covers all fields of psychiatry. Downloading of articles is free.Objective : To investigate ambiguous and risky decision-making in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients grouped according to established primary symptom dimensions. The difficulties of OCD patients in real-life quite often seem related to situations of decision-making, for example, whether to check the door or clean the house. Decisionmaking appears on the face of it impaired in the clinical OCD setting in the context of doubting and uncertainty. Methods : The participants were administered the Iowa Gambling Task and the Cambridge Gambling Task, reputed to be established measures of ambiguous and risky decision-making respectively. Background measures included assessments with standard clinical and psychological questionnaires. The OCD patients (n=72) were grouped according to their primary symptom dimensions using the Dimensional Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and compared with a healthy control group (n=66). Results : Risky decision-making related to rationality was impaired for patients in the dimensions symmetry/order and sexual/religious, and the deliberation time to make a decision was particularly slow for patients in the dimensions safety and contamination. A deficit in ambiguous decision-making was found in patients showing aggressive and symmetry/ order symptoms. Conclusion : This study is believed to be the first to present selective deficits in different OCD symptom dimensions related to decision-making. The data confirm the necessary role of intact interactions between cognitive and emotional processing.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Is the monkeys' world scientifically impenetrable?

Cheney & Seyfarth (C&S) argue for a hybrid approach which 'place (empiricistic findings) tentatively within the framework of a more mentalistic approach'(p.9). The book is an important contribution to clarify the value and limits of the intentional approach in interpreting monkey behaviour, particularly C&S's excellent field work with vervets. But, unintentionally, it also demonstrates that cognitive science is more a perspective than a scientific discipline. In order to illustrate this, I shall consider the following topics: evolution of intelligence, concept formation, philosophy of scienc

Cognitive Performance in a Subclinical Obsessive-Compulsive Sample 1: Cognitive Functions

Individuals who are not clinically diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) but still display obsessive-compulsive (OC) tendencies may show cognitive impairments. The present study investigated whether there are subgroups within a healthy group showing characteristic cognitive and emotional performance levels similar to those found in OCD patients and whether they differ from OCD subgroups regarding performance levels. Of interest are those cases showing subclinical symptomatology. The results revealed no impairments in the subclinical OC participants on the neuropsychological tasks, while evidence suggests that there exist high and low scores on two standardised clinical instruments (Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale and Cognitive Assessment Instrument of Obsessions and Compulsions) in a healthy sample. OC symptoms may diminish the quality of life and prolong sustainable return to work. It may be that occupational rehabilitation programmes are more effective in rectifying subclinical OC tendencies compared to the often complex symptoms of diagnosed OCD patients. The relationship between cognitive style and subclinical OC symptoms is discussed in terms of how materials and information might be processed. Although subclinical OC tendencies would not seem to constitute a diagnosis of OCD, the quality of treatment programmes such as cognitive behavioural therapy can be improved based on the current investigation

Norms and situational rules of address in English and Norwegian speakers

The proposed universal relationship between status and solidarity in address exchange is revisited and a novel methodology applied. Forms of address were investigated in Norwegian and English usage based on Brown's (1965) theory of the invariant norm of address. Address exchanges and politeness measures were elicited in Norway and England. The degree of reciprocity, solidarity, and inequality in dyadic address exchange were analyzed and using a statistical approach allowed to directly compare the linguistic patterns of expected and observed values in two languages. The address exchange showed no consistency with expected theoretical values for certain categories of Brown's (1965) theory. Differences in politeness were found between the two countries. Effects of cultural differences and social change governing the pragmatics of communication are suggested to explain the findings. A cognitive concept of politeness to explain forms of address usage is emphasized

Clinical and neurocognitive changes with modafinil in obsessive–compulsive disorder : a case report

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com Copyright SpringerThere are limited treatment options for co-occurring sleep disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We postulated that Modafinil (Provigil) [2-{(diphenylmethyl) sulfinyl acetamide}] a non-amphetamine wakefulness-promoting agent, might be of value in patients with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). Randomized double-blind placebo controlled depression trials have investigated the effects of modafinil co-administered with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and found improvement in clinical global scores and, aside from effects on sleep and mood, modafinil has exhibited cognitive enhancing effects in some subjects (Minzenberg and Carter, 2008). In a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover challenge, Turner et al. (2004) demonstrated decreased motor impulsivity as measured on laboratory tests in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder patients treated with single doses of modafinil (100 mg and 200 mg). To date, studies examining the neuropsychological effects of treatment are rare in OCD and have generally failed to show a positive effect of SSRI treatment on cognition (Nielen and den Boer 2003). In this context, we considered a new approach for treating neurocognitive impairments in treatment-resistant OCD. Modafinil’s effects on clinical symptoms and on a selected range of neurocognitive functions previously reported to be impaired in OCD (Chamberlain et al. 2005) are examined. We report the case of a patient with treatment-resistant OCD and EDS treated with adjunctive modafinil.Peer reviewe