"Sex in a Relationship" versus "Sex During a One-Night Stand": The Link Between Mental Representations of Consensual Sexuality, Mating Strategies, and Sexual Experience in Heterosexual Women and Men.

Sexual scripts, that is, the mental representations of sexual behavior, are highly influenced by mating strategies and sexual experience. The relationship between these factors and sexual scripts is, however, poorly understood. Therefore, we assessed how long-term (e.g., "sex in a relationship") and short-term (e.g., "one-night stand") strategies, as well as experience with highly scripted sexual practices (BDSM: bondage-discipline, dominance-submission, sadism-masochism), influence verbalized sexual script composition and detailedness. To this end, 204 heterosexual men and women generated both a "sex in a relationship" and a "one-night stand" script. Regarding mating strategies, both men and women generated shorter "sex in a relationship" scripts than "one-night stand" scripts, due to a shorter approach (flirting) phase. In addition, in the "sex in a relationship" script, women generated longer foreplay phases than men. Regarding sexual experience, in the "sex in a relationship" script, individuals with high-BDSM experience generated longer foreplay phases than individuals with middle- or low-BDSM experience. This pattern was reversed in the "one-night stand" script. These results provide empirical support for interactions between mating strategies and individual experience with regard to the mental representations of sexual activity and gender behavior. Understanding this relationship may enable us to better predict sexual encounters and may help to prevent conflicting or abusive situations.

Discerning temporal expectancy effects in script processing: evidence from pupillary and eye movement recordings.

Accessing the temporal position of events (early or late in the event sequence) can influence the generation of predictions about upcoming events. However, it is unclear how the temporal position is processed strategically. To investigate this, we presented event pairs to 23 healthy volunteers manipulating temporal order (chronological, inverse) and temporal position (early, late). Pupil dilation, eye movements, and behavioral data, showed that chronological and early event pairs are processed with more ease than inverse and late event pairs. Indexed by the pupillary response late events and inversely presented event pairs elicited greater cognitive processing demands than early events and chronologically presented event pairs. Regarding eye movements, fixation duration was less sensitive to temporal position than to temporal order. Looking at each item of the event sequence only once was behaviorally more effective than looking multiple times at each event regardless of whether temporal position or temporal order was processed. These results emphasize that accessing temporal position and temporal order information results in dissociable behavioral patterns. While more cognitive resources are necessary for processing late and inverse items, change of information acquisition strategies turns out to be most effective when temporal order processing is required.

Effective connectivity of the multiplication network: a functional MRI and multivariate Granger Causality Mapping study.

Developmental neuropsychology and functional neuroimaging evidence indicates that simple and complex mental calculation is subserved by a fronto-parietal network. However, the effective connectivity (connection direction and strength) among regions within the fronto-parietal network is still unexplored. Combining event-related fMRI and multivariate Granger Causality Mapping (GCM), we administered a multiplication verification task to healthy participants asking them to solve single and double-digit multiplications. The goals of our study were first, to identify the effective connectivity of the multiplication network, and second, to compare the effective connectivity patterns between a low and a high arithmetical competence (AC) group. The manipulation of multiplication difficulty revealed a fronto-parietal network encompassing bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS), left pre-supplementary motor area (PreSMA), left precentral gyrus (PreCG), and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). The network was driven by an intraparietal IPS-IPS circuit hosting a representation of numerical quantity intertwined with a fronto-parietal DLPFC-IPS circuit engaged in temporary storage and updating of arithmetic operations. Both circuits received additional inputs from the PreCG and PreSMA playing more of a supportive role in mental calculation. The high AC group compared to the low AC group displayed a greater activation in the right IPS and based its calculation more on a feedback driven intraparietal IPS-IPS circuit, whereas the low competence group more on a feedback driven fronto-parietal DLPFC-IPS circuit. This study provides first evidence that multivariate GCM is a sensitive approach to investigate effective connectivity of mental processes involved in mental calculation and to compare group level performances for different populations.

Alertness can be improved by an interaction between orienting attention and alerting attention in schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Attention is impaired in schizophrenia. Early attention components include orienting and alerting, as well as executive control networks. Previous studies have shown mainly executive control deficits, while few of them found orienting and alerting abnormalities. Here we explore the different attentive networks, their modulation and interactions in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Twenty-one schizophrenic patients (DSMIV), compared to 21 controls, performed a modified version of the Attention Network Task, in which an orienting paradigm (with valid, invalid and no cues) was combined with a flanker task (congruent/incongruent) and an alerting signal (tone/no tone), to assess orienting, executive control and alerting networks independently. RESULTS: Patients showed an abnormal alerting effect and slower overall reaction time compared to controls. Moreover, there was an interaction between orienting and alerting: patients are helped more than controls by the alerting signal in a valid orientation to solve the incongruent condition. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have altered alerting abilities. However, the orienting and alerting cues interact to improve their attention performance in the resolution of conflict, creating possibilities for cognitive remediation strategies.

Integral calculus problem solving: an fMRI investigation.

Only a subset of adults acquires specific advanced mathematical skills, such as integral calculus. The representation of more sophisticated mathematical concepts probably evolved from basic number systems; however its neuroanatomical basis is still unknown. Using fMRI, we investigated the neural basis of integral calculus while healthy participants were engaged in an integration verification task. Solving integrals activated a left-lateralized cortical network including the horizontal intraparietal sulcus, posterior superior parietal lobe, posterior cingulate gyrus, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Our results indicate that solving of more abstract and sophisticated mathematical facts, such as calculus integrals, elicits a pattern of brain activation similar to the cortical network engaged in basic numeric comparison, quantity manipulation, and arithmetic problem solving.

Shielding voices: The modulation of binding processes between voice features and response features by task representations.

Vocal events offer not only semantic-linguistic content but also information about the identity and the emotional-motivational state of the speaker. Furthermore, most vocal events have implications for our actions and therefore include action-related features. But the relevance and irrelevance of vocal features varies from task to task. The present study investigates binding processes for perceptual and action-related features of spoken words and their modulation by the task representation of the listener. Participants reacted with two response keys to eight different words spoken by a male or a female voice (Experiment 1) or spoken by an angry or neutral male voice (Experiment 2). There were two instruction conditions: half of participants learned eight stimulus-response mappings by rote (SR), and half of participants applied a binary task rule (TR). In both experiments, SR instructed participants showed clear evidence for binding processes between voice and response features indicated by an interaction between the irrelevant voice feature and the response. By contrast, as indicated by a three-way interaction with instruction, no such binding was found in the TR instructed group. These results are suggestive of binding and shielding as two adaptive mechanisms that ensure successful communication and action in a dynamic social environment.

The Seduction Script: Psychological and Cultural Norms of Interpersonal Approaches As Markers for Sexual Aggression and Abuse.

Hardly any subjects enjoy greater - public or private - interest than the art of flirtation and seduction. However, interpersonal approach behavior not only paves the way for sexual interaction and reproduction, but it simultaneously integrates non-sexual psychobiological and cultural standards regarding consensus and social norms. In the present paper, we use script theory, a concept that extends across psychological and cultural science, to assess behavioral options during interpersonal approaches. Specifically, we argue that approaches follow scripted event sequences that entail ambivalence as an essential communicative element. On the one hand, ambivalence may facilitate interpersonal approaches by maintaining and provoking situational uncertainty, so that the outcome of an action - even after several approaches and dates - remains ambiguous. On the other hand, ambivalence may increase the risk for sexual aggression or abuse, depending on the individual's abilities, the circumstances, and the intentions of the interacting partners. Recognizing latent sequences of sexually aggressive behavior, in terms of their rigid structure and behavioral options, may thus enable individuals to use resources efficiently, avoid danger, and extricate themselves from assault situations. We conclude that interdisciplinary script knowledge about ambivalence as a core component of the seduction script may be helpful for counteracting subtly aggressive intentions and preventing sexual abuse. We discuss this with regard to the nature-nurture debate as well as phylogenetic and ontogenetic aspects of interpersonal approach behavior and its medial implementation.

"To see or not to see: that is the question." The "Protection-Against-Schizophrenia" (PaSZ) model: evidence from congenital blindness and visuo-cognitive aberrations.

The causes of schizophrenia are still unknown. For the last 100 years, though, both "absent" and "perfect" vision have been associated with a lower risk for schizophrenia. Hence, vision itself and aberrations in visual functioning may be fundamental to the development and etiological explanations of the disorder. In this paper, we present the "Protection-Against-Schizophrenia" (PaSZ) model, which grades the risk for developing schizophrenia as a function of an individual's visual capacity. We review two vision perspectives: (1) "Absent" vision or how congenital blindness contributes to PaSZ and (2) "perfect" vision or how aberrations in visual functioning are associated with psychosis. First, we illustrate that, although congenitally blind and sighted individuals acquire similar world representations, blind individuals compensate for behavioral shortcomings through neurofunctional and multisensory reorganization. These reorganizations may indicate etiological explanations for their PaSZ. Second, we demonstrate that visuo-cognitive impairments are fundamental for the development of schizophrenia. Deteriorated visual information acquisition and processing contribute to higher-order cognitive dysfunctions and subsequently to schizophrenic symptoms. Finally, we provide different specific therapeutic recommendations for individuals who suffer from visual impairments (who never developed "normal" vision) and individuals who suffer from visual deterioration (who previously had "normal" visual skills). Rather than categorizing individuals as "normal" and "mentally disordered," the PaSZ model uses a continuous scale to represent psychiatrically relevant human behavior. This not only provides a scientific basis for more fine-grained diagnostic assessments, earlier detection, and more appropriate therapeutic assignments, but it also outlines a trajectory for unraveling the causes of abnormal psychotic human self- and world-perception.

A clinical and demographic comparison between a forensic and a general sample of female patients with schizophrenia.

Diagnoses of psychiatric diseases do not include criminal behavior. In schizophrenia, a non-negligible subgroup is incarcerated for capital and other crimes. Most studies that compared offender and non-offender patients with schizophrenia have only focused on male patients. With this study, we compared demographic and disease-related characteristics between 35 female incarcerated forensic patients (fSZ) and 35 female inpatients with schizophrenia (SZ). Basic clinical documentation and basic forensic clinical documentation revealed significant clinical and demographic differences between the two groups. Compared to SZ, fSZ were more severely clinically impaired, showing higher rates of comorbid alcohol and substance disorder, more suicide attempts, had more previous hospitalizations, and were younger at disease onset. Regarding demographic variables, fSZ showed a higher rate of unemployment and homelessness and had to rely more often on housing and legal guardianships compared to SZ. These results suggest that female forensic patients with schizophrenia are more severely affected by clinical and non-clinical variables requiring an adapted intervention program. These results may also indicate two developmental trajectories for criminal and non-criminal schizophrenia in females.

Impact of phonological processing skills on written language acquisition in illiterate adults.

Illiteracy remains a world-wide problem not only for children but also for adults. Phonological processing has been defined as a crucial factor for the acquisition of written language, which usually occurs in childhood. However, it is unclear to what extent phonological processing is necessary in order for adults to acquire written language skills. We tested 47 illiterate adults before and after a one-year alphabetization course in several cognitive domains relevant to phonological processing and compared their results to 41 matched controls who did not take part in the alphabetization course. Phonological awareness in the narrower sense (e.g., phoneme association) was a stronger predictor of alphabetization outcome than demographic variables such as years of education. In addition, despite improvement of illiterate individuals in phonological awareness, short-term memory, and visual attention from before to after the alphabetization course, they did not reach the phonological processing level of literate controls. Our results confirm that the alphabetization of adults requires and enhances phonological processes similar to those of children. Nevertheless, specific aspects, such as improvements in short-term memory or visual attention, need to be considered in order to improve and optimize alphabetization programs for adults.

Inflexible information acquisition strategies mediate visuo-spatial reasoning in stabilized schizophrenia patients.

OBJECTIVES: Cognitive deficits are of fundamental importance to the clinical picture of schizophrenia and are on the verge to be included as diagnostic criteria in the DSM-V. While focusing on information processing deficits, no emphasis has been put on whether patients' deficits can be accounted for by maladaptive information acquisition strategy deployment. METHODS: We tested 24 stabilized patients with schizophrenia and 25 matched controls in a visuo-spatial analogy task with graded difficulty. Eye movement recordings served to identify information acquisition strategies. RESULTS: Patients compared to healthy controls showed slower reaction times in the easiest condition and higher error rates in the more difficult conditions. Eye movement recordings illustrated that overall mean fixation duration increased with increasing task difficulty in healthy controls only. Further, patients deployed a more efficient strategy ("constructive matching") less often than healthy controls in the easier conditions. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that information acquisition strategies mediate visuo-spatial cognitive performance in schizophrenia. Patients adopt a less efficient strategy independently of task difficulty indicated by a characteristic behavioural pattern. Our results point to a powerful tool of improving patients' performance in cognitively demanding tasks by training them in more flexible cognitive (e.g., information acquisition) strategy deployment.

Temporal information processing in short- and long-term memory of patients with schizophrenia.

Cognitive deficits of patients with schizophrenia have been largely recognized as core symptoms of the disorder. One neglected factor that contributes to these deficits is the comprehension of time. In the present study, we assessed temporal information processing and manipulation from short- and long-term memory in 34 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 34 matched healthy controls. On the short-term memory temporal-order reconstruction task, an incidental or intentional learning strategy was deployed. Patients showed worse overall performance than healthy controls. The intentional learning strategy led to dissociable performance improvement in both groups. Whereas healthy controls improved on a performance measure (serial organization), patients improved on an error measure (inappropriate semantic clustering) when using the intentional instead of the incidental learning strategy. On the long-term memory script-generation task, routine and non-routine events of everyday activities (e.g., buying groceries) had to be generated in either chronological or inverted temporal order. Patients were slower than controls at generating events in the chronological routine condition only. They also committed more sequencing and boundary errors in the inverted conditions. The number of irrelevant events was higher in patients in the chronological, non-routine condition. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia imprecisely access temporal information from short- and long-term memory. In short-term memory, processing of temporal information led to a reduction in errors rather than, as was the case in healthy controls, to an improvement in temporal-order recall. When accessing temporal information from long-term memory, patients were slower and committed more sequencing, boundary, and intrusion errors. Together, these results suggest that time information can be accessed and processed only imprecisely by patients who provide evidence for impaired time comprehension. This could contribute to symptomatic cognitive deficits and strategic inefficiency in schizophrenia.

Real world referencing and schizophrenia: are we experiencing the same reality?

Psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia patients encompass the difficulty to distinguish between the respective points of view of self and others. The capacity to adopt and switch between different perspectives is, however, fundamental for ego- and allocentric spatial referencing. We tested whether schizophrenia patients are able to adopt and maintain a non-egocentric point of view in a complex visual environment. Twenty-four chronic schizophrenic outpatients (11 females) and 25 controls matched for age, gender, years of education and handedness were recruited from a population-based sample. In a virtual environment, participants had to make a decision as to which of two trash cans was closest to themselves (viewer-centered, egocentric), to a ball (object-centered, unstable allocentric), or to a palace (landmark-centered, stable allocentric). Main outcome measures were reaction time, error rate, learning rate and local task switch cost. While egocentric reaction time was preserved, patients showed an increased reaction time in both allocentric referencing conditions (stable and unstable) and an overall increased error rate. Switch cost was diminished in patients when changing from the egocentric to the landmark-centered condition and elevated when changing from the landmark-centered to the egocentric condition. The results imply that schizophrenia patients' adoption of an egocentric perspective is preserved. However, adopting an allocentric point of view and switching between egocentric and landmark-centered perspectives are impaired. Perturbations in non-egocentric referencing and transferring efficiently between different referential systems might contribute to altered personal and social world comprehension in schizophrenia.

Correlates between neurological soft signs and saccadic parameters in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Neurological Soft Signs (NSS) and impairments in oculomotor saccadic paradigms are both frequent in patients with schizophrenia but their correlation has never been explored. METHODS: 78 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia (including 43 non-treated) and 41 matched healthy controls were tested for NSS, and on three saccadic tasks: prosaccades, predictive saccades and memory-guided saccades) using infrared oculometry. We analyzed correlations between NSS scores and latencies in all three tasks, rate of errors in memory-guided saccades, and rate of anticipated predictive saccades. RESULTS: No correlations were found in healthy controls. In the patient group, the NSS total and motor coordination scores were positively correlated with three saccadic variables: the latency of prosaccades (r=0.36, p<0.01 and r=0.36, p<0.01 respectively), of memory-guided saccades (r=0.35, p<0.01 and r=0.32, p<0.05 respectively) and, negative correlations were found, with the rate of anticipated predictive saccades (r=-0.33, p<0.01; r=-0.35, p<0.01 respectively). NSS total, motor coordination and sensory integration scores were correlated to the latency of non-anticipated predictive saccades (r=0.34, p<0.01; r=0.24, p<0.05 and r=0.40, p<0.001 respectively). The NSS total, motor integration and sensory integration scores were correlated with the rate of errors in memory-guided saccades (r=0.38, p<0.01; r=0.37, p<0.01 and r=0.34, p<0.01 respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These results support a common pathological mechanism with partial overlapping neural substrates between NSS and saccades in schizophrenia.

Predictive saccades are impaired in biological nonpsychotic siblings of schizophrenia patients.

OBJECTIVE: Although impairments in predictive saccades have been reported in patients with schizophrenia, this has never been explored in their biological relatives. We examined predictive saccades in age-and sex-matched siblings of patients with schizophrenia. METHOD: Thirty siblings of schizophrenia patients, 30 healthy matched control subjects and 30 patients with schizophrenia performed a predictive saccades paradigm. Nonanticipated and anticipated saccades were analyzed separately. RESULTS: Compared with control subjects, primary saccades and final eye position were hypometric (they undershot the target) in siblings, as in patients. The proportion of anticipated saccades and latencies did not differ between the 3 groups. The maximum velocity was decreased only in patients. CONCLUSION: Alterations in predictive saccades observed in biological siblings are similar to those seen in patients, although they tend to be of a lesser degree. This finding supports predictive saccades as a valid endophenotypic marker. Further research is necessary to understand the physiopathological value of these disturbances and their link to a visuospatial representation deficit.