ISSN : 1229-067X
Exciting developments of neuroscience in recent years have brought not only a better understanding of the brain function, but also new ideas on humanity such as origins of self, free will, and mind. While innovative neurotechnologies based on these developments have opened the possibility for applications unforeseeable in the past, new concerns of ethical, philosophical, legal, and social implications associated with these trends have appeared. In the current article, we review the concerns and trends of the neuroethics, which has emerged in recent years to deal with ethical and legal issues related to neuroscience and its applications. We mainly discuss ethical issues that accompany applications of neurotechnologies, and philosophical challenges of how we can understand the new findings in neuroscience.
Cognitive architectures as unified cognitive theories can produce an integrated explanation of human mind and behaviors. The definitions of a cognitive architecture, fundamental characteristics of prominent architectures(Soar, EPIC, and ACT-R), modeling paradigm using ACT-R, and application areas of ACT-R were introduced and reviewed. The purpose of this study was to examine the modeling of a visual processing in ACT-R, which has been evolved as an unified cognitive theory, to suggest developmental directions in ACT-R. For this purpose, enumeration time of stimuli set size was measured(the enumeration task was adopted because it contains every default productions in ACT-R models established using visual stimuli). The results showed that the knowledge of set size affected on counting strategy which in turn reduced counting time for relatively larger set size of 7 to 9 items. However, the use of the strategy in enumeration appeared to be overlooked in the current cognitive architectures, especially in ACT-R. Based on the results of empirical data, a new ACT-R algorithm on visual stimuli process was proposed. Finally, the implication of the present study on the future cognitive architecture was discussed.
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the comprehensive approach of previous studies on child and adolescent psychopathy. Suggestion was made to help activate further studies on theses issue. This studies focused on childhood and adolescent psychopathy features, the measurement of child and adolescent psychopathy, childhood risk factors for psychopathy, and the prevention of adolescent psychopathy. Based on the trend, developmental variables, like attachment, temperament, and so on were reviewed. Therefore, it is suggested that psychologists should give close attention to the challenges of future researches for child and adolescent psychopathy.
There are many people who compare psychotherapy to a journey toward one's inner world. The reason this figurative expression is commonly used is that the patient extensively explore various aspects of his or her self, which are not fully identified before, in the process of psychotherapy. Probably, the construct of self which is not only the object of awareness but also the agency of it has been mostly highlighted in psychology and psychotherapy. In this article, authors reviewed the concepts of 'schema' and 'mode' what are developed respectively to understand or comprehend the construct of self in three major psychotherapies(i.e., Aaron T. Beck's Cognitive Therapy ; Leslie S. Greenberg's Emotion-Focused Therapy ; Jeffrey E. Young's Schema Therapy). In addition, authors discussed the similarities and differences of the suggested concepts. Finally the implications of this study were discussed and further suggestions were made.
The aim of this study is to investigate the voice and speech of deception. Participants were induced to tell a spontaneous lie of cheating. Participants were assigned to 3 groups: lie group(20 peoples), true group(5 peoples), and control group(15 peoples). All of participants were asked questions relevant to the cheating and questions irrelevant to the cheating. The measurement of voice and speech were mean of syllable number, mean of response latency period, mean of total pause period, mean of pause frequency, mean of pause rate, mean of total speech duration, mean of speech rate, mean of articulation rate and mean of speech error frequency. We conducted repeated measures ANOVA to investigate the effect of group and response content condition on the voice and speech character. Results showed that in the lie and the true group, total pause period of relevant condition was longer, pause frequency, pause rate and speech error frequency of relevant condition were higher than them of irrelevant condition. Speech rate of relevant condition was lower than them of irrelevant condition in lie group, but faster in true group. But in control group, there was no difference between relevant and irrelevant conditions. Results indicate that there are useful of a lie detector using voice variances in criminal investigation agency. However, similarities between the lie group and true group suggest that there are probably the effect of committing a crime on voice and speech variances as well as deception. Finally, the limitations of this study were discussed with suggestions for the future study.
College students are exposed to a broad array of social interaction and social performance. During college years, socially anxious students experience various difficulties while transiting from adolescence to adulthood. Fueled by the importance of social anxiety level in adulthood adjustment, the present study explored attachment style and gender differences in a sample of college students with an emphasis on the perceived level of social anxiety. The results revealed that there were significant differences in the perceived levels of social anxieties(social interactive anxiety, social phobia, presentation anxiety) according to differential adult attachment style. Post hoc analyses showed that (1) secure students were less anxious than dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful students in social interaction and that (2) secure students reported lower levels of anxiety than preoccupied and fearful students on social phobia, and presentation anxiety. Interestingly, gender differences were found only in presentation anxiety in that female students reported higher levels of presentation anxiety compared to male students. Adult attachment style and gender did not interact in all of three social anxieties. The current findings suggest that in exploring social anxiety, individual differences such as adult attachment style and gender should be fully considered.
Recently, sex offences against children are sharply increasing in Korea. This study reviewed the various concepts related to this matter, specifically pedophilia. Based on empirical data, comparisons were made between pedophiliac sex offenders and incest sex offenders and rapists general sex offenders. Pedophiliac sex offenders were defined by victims' age under 13. Demographic and criminogenic variables presented pedophiliac sex offenders and incest sex offenders were older than rapists and more members got marriage experiences. Pedophiliac sex offenders' age when they start crime was higher than that of rapists and they commit crime by themselves and they use weapon during crime. Incest sex offenders acquired lower score on Static-99, a sex offender risk assessment tool followed by Pedophiliac sex offenders and rapists.
This study examined inhibition of return(IOR) and response inhibition deficits in adults with ADHD tendency using three web-based neuropsychological experiments. Specifically, using an IOR task in Exp. 1., we tested whether the amount of IOR in adults with ADHD would be decreased compared to control group. In Exp. 2 and 3, we also examined whether adults with ADHD tendency would show deficits in response inhibition compared to control group, using a continuous performance test(CPT) and a Stroop task. As results, 1) we found that ADHD tendency group showed less IOR compared to control group. 2) ADHD tendency group showed less response accuracy than control group. We then compared ADHD tendency group with controls performance in the CPT task. As a result, the ADHD tendency group showed more commission errors than the control group. Finally, the amount of stroop interference in Stroop task was not significant, while there was an interesting three-way interaction among the stroop, IOR and group conditions. These results suggest that ADHD tendency group had difficulties in efficient employment-deployment of attention, as shown in the IOR task. Moreover, the group difference in commission error obtained in CPT suggests that adults with ADHD tendency have deficits in response inhibition. Taken together, the result of the present study may be useful in understanding the characteristic of specific symptoms in adults with ADHD tendency. Further research is needed to generalize these results to clinically diagnosed patients with ADHD.
Repression, a defense mechanism rejecting and keeping something out of consciousness, is generally regarded as maladaptive. However, recent studies in Korea have reported adaptive characteristics of repressor. This study investigated whether this difference is due to cultural contexts, or low validity of the repression measurement. In Study 1, the validity of repression related to avoidance and minimization of emotional experience was investigated. A total of 454 college students (281 women and 173 men) were allocated into four groups (repressor, truly low-anxious Ss, high-anxious Ss, defensive high-anxious Ss) based on the scores of the Manifest Anxiety Scale and MCSDS. The results showed no significant hypothetic group differences. The repressor presented higher affect intensity, similar level of emotional attention, and lower experiential avoidance compared to the truly low-anxious Ss. In other words, the validity of the distinction of repressor was not confirmed. In Study 2, to exclude the possibility of self-deception involved in repressors' self-report, the group differences in psychophysiologic reactivity [Heart Rate Variability(HRV) that reflects autonomic nervous system reactivity] to stressors were examined. The results indicated no significant hypothetic group differences on psychophysiologic reactivities in both of implicit stress condition (taking ability test) and explicit stress condition (bogus failure feedback), nor on pre- and post- mood changes. In sum, the validity of the above repressor measurement was not supported in Korea, This suggests the need of including behavioral and physiological measurement to study how repression functions in Korea.
The purpose of present study was to develop the Stop-Signal Task and to investigate its reliability and validity. Stop-Signal Task provides a measure of the efficiency of response inhibition deficit. Adults with ADHD tendencies and the control group completed ADHD scales(current symptoms scales, childhood symptoms scale), and impulsivity scales. Then the two groups performed the Stop-Signal Task and the Continuous Performance Test. The results were as follows. First, SSRT positively correlated with adult ADHD scores, Barratt impulsivity scores, and Dickman impulsivity scores. Second, in the case of the Stop-Signal Task, Delay and GORT of the ADHD group were shorter than delay and GORT of the control one, and SSRT of the ADHD group was longer than that of the control one. In other words, adults with ADHD tendencies have response inhibition deficit compared with the control group. In contrast, on Continuous Performance Test(CPT), there was no difference between the ADHD group and the control one. Third, alternate-form reliability of the Stop-Signal Task was significantly moderate. In conclusions, Stop-Signal Task appears to be a highly reliable and valid measure to assess the efficiency of response inhibition. Finally, clinical implication and limitations of this study were discussed, and the suggestions for future study were also discussed.
The present study developed a posttrauma risk checklist (PRC) for adults and tested its validity. PRC was developed for those who have experienced a trauma in order to examine risk factors in several areas that affect the incidence and severity of PTSD within a month after from the traumatic incident and to predict the possibility of developing PTSD. In order to develop the questions in PRC, we reviewed literature on risk factors that cause, prolong and worsen PTSD (PTSD risk factors). PTSD risk factors were extracted for the personal area (before, during and after the trauma), the trauma area and the recovery environment area. From the extracted PTSD risk factors were drafted preliminary questions. Then the questions were verified by a group of specialists that resulted in a total of 93 questions. Because PRC is a test to be used for those who have experienced a traumatic incident, the subjects for the development of PRC were selected from adults aged over 18 who had experienced a trauma, and as a result, a total of 442 adults were sampled. The subjects were divided into an asymptomatic group, a partial PTSD group and a full PTSD group depending on the severity of symptoms. Through analyzing the questions (the discriminant index of each question and the correlation between the totals of a pair of questions), we excluded 40 out of the 93 preliminary questions, and developed the final PRC consisting of the 53 questions. The sub‐areas of PRC are the personal area (before, during and after the trauma), the trauma area and the recovery environment area. Based on the total score of PRC, the low risk level was set at 16 points or less (i.e., expected possibility of recovery without PTSD symptoms), the moderate risk level was set between 17 and 26 (i.e., expected possibility of developing into partial or full PTSD with a light to moderate symptoms). The high risk level was set at 27 points or higher (i.e., highly possible for developing into partial or full PTSD with a severe symptoms). The classification into the low risk, moderate risk and high risk groups according to risk level in PRC was clear in the score of each sub area and the total score except the area of perceived threat to life. PRC showed high correlations with PDS (.72, p<01), with BAI (.65, p<01) and with BDI (.52, p<01), confirming that it has concurrent validity.
Present research was planned for validating the concept of Shinmyeong. Three studies were conducted to achieve those purposes. First, study 1, the Shinmyeong experience scale was developed by factor analysis with data of 333 participants. The scale was made of 68 items(16 items for causal conditions, 9 items for contextual conditions, 15 items for emotion, 7 items for behavior, 21 items for effects). Second, study 2, the structural equation model of Shinmyeong was verified by path analysis with data of 230 participants. All path coefficients except for one(from ‘feeling of departure from everyday life’ to ‘behavior’) were significant, so hypothetical relations of variables which derived from qualitative analysis were verified by quantitative analysis. Third, correlation analyses were conducted to validate the concept of Shinmyeong by relations between positive variables and Shinmyeong experience. Shinmyeong experience has positive correlations with self esteem, self resiliency, subjective wellbeing, and satisfaction of life.