Relation between Stress Conditions, Uncertainty and Incongruity Intolerance, Rigidity and Mental Health: Experimental Demonstrations

An innovative critique of existing studies on creativity has revealed the opportunity of distinguishing between different varieties of creative tasks, and namely creativity for “Continuity”, “Opposition” and “Detachment”, considering relations between products and perceived models. This theoretical contribution has led to a specific evaluation procedure: the COD Creativity test. Considering the influences of dynamic processes on creative processes, it is worth experimentally studying the effects of short-term stress or comfort treatments. The similarities and differences between various existing studies are examined. A non-invasive but effective procedure, compared to classic techniques, is described: the “drawing recall” of stressful or relaxing real experiences, accompanied by detailed evaluations of the emotional sphere. In a specific investigation, creativity turned out to be significantly lower after acute stress with respect to comfort treatment. In conclusion, the cognitive, decisional and activity processes involved in creativity operations can be considered as strictly reflecting emotional dynamic processes, as well as the experiences gained during the stress or comfort treatments. Results are explained considering the role of conflict overload in stress as a factor of incongruity and uncertainty intolerance, inhibiting the production of bizarre and unusual ideas and configurations, and thus reducing essential aspects relevant to the evaluation of creativity levels. From clinical point of view, we underline that decades of research has generally shown that being more rigid is associated with poorer mental health. Our experimental study gives confirmation of the link between stress and intolerance of uncertainty and incongruity;this correlation could augment the negative impact of stressors on anxiety levels. In summary, people with high level of intolerance of uncertainty and, generally, with high level of intolerance of incongruity, develop mental rigidity, and this traits constellation represent a risk for mental health.

An Appreciation of Black Humor in Animal Farm

Animal Farm,which is written by the British writer George Orwell,is famous for its incisive satiric writing style and has been considered as an actual political allegory.This paper intends to re-read it from a different point of view—to appreciate its black-humorous characteristics from the following five aspects—language games,detached narrative,circular structure,open ending and comic incongruity in characterization.

Improvements after mod Quad and triangle tilt revision surgical procedures in obstetric brachial plexus palsy

AIM To compare outcomes of our revision surgical operations in obstetric brachial plexus palsy(OBPP) patients to results of conventional operative procedures at other institutions. METHODS We analyzed our OBPP data and identified 10 female and 10 male children aged 2.0 to 11.8 years(average age 6.5 years), who had prior conventional surgical therapies at other clinics. Of the 20 patients, 18 undergone triangle tilt, 2 had only mod Quad. Among 18 patients, 8 had only triangle tilt and 10 had also mod Quad as revision surgeries with us. We analyzed the anatomical improvements and functional modified Mallet statistically before and after a year post-revision operations.RESULTS Pre-revision surgery average modified Mallet score was 12.0 ± 1.5. This functional score was greatly improved to 18 ± 2.3(P < 0.0001) at least one-year after revision surgical procedures. Radiological scores(PHHA and glenoid version) were also improved significantly to 31.9 ± 13.6(P < 0.001),-16.3 ± 11(P < 0.0002), at least one-year after triangle tilt procedure. Their mean pretriangle tilt(yet after other surgeon's surgeries) PHHA, glenoid version and SHEAR were 14.6 ± 21.7,-31.6 ± 19.3 and 16.1 ± 14.7 respectively.CONCLUSION We demonstrate here, mod Quad and triangle tilt assuccessful revision surgical procedures in 20 OBPP patients, who had other surgical treatments at other clinics before presenting to us for further treatment.

Dissociation of the N400 component between linguistic and non-linguistic processing: A source analysis study

The N400 component is commonly associated with the detection of linguistic incongruity. A few studies have shown that the N400 can also be elicited by non-linguistic stimuli. Different spatiotemporal patterns were observed between the typical Linguistic N400 and the Non-linguistic N400, suggesting distinct brain generators. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of an N400 in response to linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli, and to specify anatomical sources of both N400s using a novel analysis method: the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) distributed source model. Picture-word and environmental soundpicture associations, either congruent or incongruent, were presented to ten young healthy adults while highdensity ERP recordings were made. Standard electrophysiological analyses confirmed that the N400 was not specific to linguistic incongruity but was also elicited by environmental sound-picture incongruities. Different topographic distributions were obtained for the Linguistic N400 and Non-linguistic N400. BMA analysis showed that the Linguistic N400 generators were mostly located in the left superior temporal gyrus, whereas the sources of the Non-linguistic N400 were identified mostly in the right middle and superior temporal gyri. Detection of linguistic incongruities recruited cerebral areas commonly associated with language processing, whereas non-linguistic incongruities recruited right cerebral regions usually associated with auditory processing of non-linguistic stimuli. The Linguistic and Non-linguistic N400s appear to be elicited by similar cognitive mechanisms assumed by different cerebral areas depending on the type of material to be processed. The present findings support the existence of parallel pathways for the processing of linguistic and non-linguistic incongruities.

The Humorous but Coherent Characterization of the Little Man in "The Egg", "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "Shiloh"

Though with different times and backgrounds,these three masterpieces-"The Egg","The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"and"Shiloh"all humorously characterize the same type protagonist-the"little man".Penetrating the humorous characterization,the three works on the one hand present the rational question of the mainstream society and the serious critique of the dominant forces,on the other hand,they also offer the humanistic affirm and concern of the marginalized little man.Thus,bundle these three master pieces together,this paper makes an effort to analyze the humorous characterization of the little man;the comic gender relationships so as to figure out the coherent thematic significance as well as the philosophical seriousness of humor in these three masterpieces.

A Cognitive Interpretation of Verbal Humor

In this paper,verbal humor is interpretated from the appreciator's perspective of cognitive linguistics,precisely,the combination of Relevance Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory,which is a relatively new model,in hope to better understanding verbal humor.

Hydrothermal Alteration Zoning and Kinetic Process of Mineral-Water Interactions

This study reports the kinetic experimental results of albite in water and in KCl solution at 22 MPa in the temperature range of 25 to 400(C. Kinetic experiments have been carried out in an open flow-through reaction system (packed bed reactor). Albite dissolution is always incongruent in water at most temperatures, but becomes congruent at 300(C (close to the critical point 374(C). At temperatures from 25 to 300(C, the incongruent dissolution of albite is reflected by the fact that sodium and aluminum are easily dissolved into water; from 300 to 400(C it is reflected by silicon being more easily dissolved in water than Al and Na. Maximum albite dissolution rates in the flow hydrothermal systems have been repeatedly observed at 300(C, independent of flow rates.The kinetic experiments of albite dissolution in a KCl aqueous solution (0.1 mol KCl) indicate that the dissolution rate of albite increases with increasing temperature. Maximum silicon release rates of albite have been observed at 400(C, while maximum aluminum release rates of albite at 374(C. The reaction rates of albite also depend on the potassium concentration in the aqueous solution.These results can be used to interpret the mechanism for forming hydrothermal alteration. The kinetic experiments of mineral-aqueous solutions interactions in the hydrothermal system from 25 to 400(C and at 22 MPa indicate that the formation of the feldspar-mica-kaolinite zoning occurring in some ore deposits may depend not only on the mineral stability but also on the kinetics of feldspar hydration, which is affected by the water property variation when crossing the critical point.

Phylogenomic analyses reveal intractable evolutionary history of a temperate bamboo genus (Poaceae: Bambusoideae)

Shibataea is a genus of temperate bamboos(Poaceae:Bambusoideae)endemic to China,but little is known about its phylogenetic position and interspecific relationships.To elucidate the phylogenetic relationship of the bamboo genus Shibataea,we performed genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of all seven species and one variety of the genus using double digest restriction-site associated DNA sequencing(dd RAD-seq)and whole plastid genomes generated using genome skimming.Our phylogenomic analyses based on dd RAD-seq and plastome data congruently recovered Shibataea as monophyletic.The nuclear data resolved S.hispida as the earliest diverged species,followed by S.chinensis,while the rest of Shibataea can be further divided into two clades.However,the plastid and nuclear topologies conflict significantly.By comparing the results of network analysis and topologies reconstructed from different datasets,we identify S.kumasasa as the most admixed species,which may be caused by incomplete lineage sorting(ILS)or interspecific gene flow with four sympatric species.This study highlights the power of dd RAD and plastome data in resolving complex relationships in the intractable bamboo genus.

The Effect of Emotional Conflict on Attention Allocation: An Event-Related Potential Study

Attention allocation research frequently focuses on the valence of emotion. However, there is increasing evidence to indicate that arousal may be more relevant at some stages of affective processing. The present study employed a combined priming and cue-target paradigm and examined event-related potentials (ERPs) in order to explore the effects of emotional conflict of arousal on attention allocation. The background context of arousal was manipulated (using photos of facial expressions) while subjects performed a cognitive task in which a central arrow cue indicated the location of a peripheric target square, and a response was made according to the direction of the square. There was no main effect between incongruent emotion and congruent emotion in the response time, which means the resolution of the emotional conflict facilitate the participant behavioral response. There was a main effect of different emotional states on ERP component. In the present study, incongruent arousal also triggered greater positive potential compared with congruent arousal.

Emotion recognition and inhibitory control in manifest and pre-manifest Huntington’s disease: evidence from a new Stroop task

Huntington’s disease(HD)is a genetic neurodegenerative disorder that affects not only the motor but also the cognitive domain.In particular,cognitive symptoms such as impaired executive skills and deficits in recognizing other individuals’mental state may emerge many years before the motor symptoms.This study was aimed at testing two cognitive hypotheses suggested by previous research with a new Stroop task created for the purpose:1)the impairment of emotion recognition in HD is moderated by the emotions’valence,and 2)inhibitory control is impaired in HD.Forty manifest and 20 pre-manifest HD patients and their age-and gender-matched controls completed both the traditional“Stroop Color and Word Test”(SCWT)and the newly created“Stroop Emotion Recognition under Word Interference Task”(SERWIT),which consist in 120 photographs of sad,calm,or happy faces with either congruent or incongruent word interference.On the SERWIT,impaired emotion recognition in manifest HD was moderated by emotion type,with deficits being larger in recognizing sadness and calmness than in recognizing happiness,but it was not moderated by stimulus congruency.On the SCWT,six different interference scores yielded as many different patterns of group effects.Overall our results corroborate the hypothesis that impaired emotion recognition in HD is moderated by the emotions’valence,but do not provide evidence for the hypothesis that inhibitory control is impaired in HD.Further research is needed to learn more about the psychological mechanisms underlying the moderating effect of emotional valence on impaired emotion recognition in HD,and to corroborate the hypothesis that the inhibitory processes involved in Stroop tasks are not impaired in HD.Looking beyond this study,the SERWIT promises to make important contributions to disentangling the cognitive and the psychomotor aspects of neurological disorders.The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the“Istituto Leonarda Vaccari”,Rome on January 24,2018.

Increased Cortical Thickness in Male-to-Female Transsexualism

Background: The degree to which one identifies as male or female has a profound impact on one’s life. Yet, there is a limited understanding of what contributes to this important characteristic termed gender identity. In order to reveal factors influencing gender identity, studies have focused on people who report strong feelings of being the opposite sex, such as male-to-female (MTF) transsexuals. Method: To investigate potential neuroanatomical variations associated with transsexualism, we compared the regional thickness of the cerebral cortex between 24 MTF transsexuals who had not yet been treated with cross-sex hormones and 24 age-matched control males. Results: Results revealed thicker cortices in MTF transsexuals, both within regions of the left hemisphere (i.e., frontal and orbito-frontal cortex, central sulcus, perisylvian regions, paracentral gyrus) and right hemisphere (i.e., pre-/post-central gyrus, parietal cortex, temporal cortex, precuneus, fusiform, lingual, and orbito-frontal gyrus). Conclusion: These findings provide further evidence that brain anatomy is associated with gender identity, where measures in MTF transsexuals appear to be shifted away from gender-congruent men.

Dysregulation within the Prefronto-Parietal Background-Monitoring Network in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia patients have difficulties in focusing their attention, when distracting information must be ignored. Although it is adaptive in some situations to monitor the background for potentially relevant changes to a certain degree, voluntary attentional processes seem to be more severely disrupted by distracting information in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. Reorienting processes associated with the detection of potentially relevant information outside the current focus of attention have previously shown to activate a bilateral prefronto-parietal network. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether this network is dysregulated in schizophrenia patients using fMRI during the performance in a combined oddball-incongruence task, in which relevant processing must be shielded from distracting irrelevant salient or conflicting information. During the occurrence of both oddballs and incongruence patients exhibited an increased activation of the intraparietal cortex—a saliency sensitive part of the prefronto-parietal network associated with background-monitoring. As this hyperactivation was accompanied by an increased activation in the dopaminergic midbrain, the results of our study link the finding of a hyperactive salience sensitive cortical region to the finding of the hyperdopaminergic state in schizophrenia, supporting the predominant view of psychosis as a state of aberrant salience.