EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF ADULT PARTICIPATION IN PLAYFUL ACTIVITIES

Playfulness in adulthood has been shown to be un-researched scientific issue. We believe that it is because of earlier non-recognition of this issue as a special field of study, but also the existence of a popular belief that the playful activities are reserved only for children. Just because of the lack of initiative and coherent researches that take into account playful activities in adulthood and characteristic of playfulness as a personal trait this research can be considered as the first research of that kind in the Republic of Serbia. The aim of this research is to determine adult perceptions of their playfulness and dominant cognitive qualities of playfulness. Adult Playfulness Trait Scale was used (APTS, Shen, Chick & Zin, 2014) to explore adult playfulness and inherent cognitive characteristic of this personal trait. Research sample consists of 1234 adult individuals aged from 18 to above 60 years from a cities and villages of Serbian area. The results of this research show that respondents recognize and highly value all tree sub-dimensions of playfulness trait: fun-seeking motivation, uninhibitedness and spontaneity. An important finding of this research is one that indicates on the characteristics of fun-seeking motivation sub-dimension as dominant one.

Varia: Cognitive aspects of the sentence definition

The analysis is based on the cognitive reading of the definitive sentence characteristics ‘predicativity’, ‘modality’, ‘intonational completeness’ and ‘grammatical formation’. The article presents the cognitive characteristic of achieving the subject-predicate structure of the sentence and hence – the predicative as its definitive characteristic. As a result of this approach to the analysis, the terminological paradigm requires appropriate specification.

EXTRACTION OF COGNITIVE CHARACTERISTIC FUNCTIONS ACCORDING TO VARIOUS PARAMETER CHANGES OF VIBRATORY STIMULATION

In this study, vibratory stimuli with various intensities (four levels) and frequencies (10, 50, 100, 150, 200, 225, 250 and 300[Formula: see text]Hz) were applied to the right index finger to extract cognitive characteristic functions for the intensity and frequency. For subjective assessment, an experiment was conducted with 30 healthy adults in their twenties who were right-handed and had normal cognitive function. One trial of the experiment was composed of a vibration phase (0.1 s) and a rest phase (10 s). After vibration simulation was applied once for each intensity and frequency, the participants filled out a subjective assessment form. After extracting the score of each word, the cognitive characteristic function was derived through discriminant analysis and regression analysis according to the frequency and intensity. Through the cognitive characteristic function, the level of cognitive characteristics of each word can be investigated according to the influence of the frequency and intensity. The results observed through the cognitive characteristics function of each word showed that the words affected by the frequency and intensity were “light,” “thick,” “heavy,” “blunt,” “vibrating,” “fast” and “weak.” “Itchy” and “slow” were cognitive characteristics affected only by the frequency, and “strong” and “push” were affected only by the intensity. Through the vibratory stimulation presentation parameters, i.e., frequency and intensity, the results capable of predicting the degrees of various cognitive characteristics were presented.

Neuropharmacological Interventions and Event File Coding in Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome

Alterations in the integration of perception and action have been proposed as a core cognitive characteristic of GTS. However, to date it is unknown how neuropharmacological interventions used to treat GTS affect the neural systems related to perception and action integration. Here, we introduce an integrated neuropsychopharmacological perspective to address this question. Specifically, we consider the relevant abnormalities in cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical circuits. Furthermore, we highlight how GTS medication might affect the integration of perception and action in the context of event file coding.

Feeling Empathically Toward Other People and the Self: The Role of Perspective Shifting in Emotion Sharing and Self-Reassurance

Feeling one’s own emotions empathically when negative thoughts about the self arise, a defining element of self-reassurance, promotes resilience to prolonged emotional reactivity. We propose that feeling empathically toward the self is accomplished by first stepping into the shoes of an objectified, undesired self-aspect, after which the process of perspective shifting should be completed by reengaging the self to experience the moment in the first person. We hypothesize that the resumption of the egocentric perspective in perspective shifting, a cognitive characteristic of sharing other people’s emotions, is crucial for self-reassurance as well. The relationships among flexibility in perspective shifting, self-reassurance, and emotion sharing were examined in community participants. Our results show that quickly switching back to a visuospatial egocentric perspective after adopting an opposing perspective relates to self-reassurance and emotion sharing. We conclude that both reassuring the self and empathizing with other people involve flexibility in perspective shifting.