When self comes to a wandering mind: Brain representations and dynamics of self-generated concepts in spontaneous thought

Self-relevant concepts are major building blocks of spontaneous thought, and their dynamics in a natural stream of thought are likely to reveal one's internal states important for mental health. Here we conducted an fMRI experiment (n = 62) to examine brain representations and dynamics of self-generated concepts in the context of spontaneous thought using a newly developed free association-based thought sampling task. The dynamics of conceptual associations were predictive of individual differences in general negative affectivity, replicating across multiple datasets (n = 196). Reflecting on self-generated concepts strongly engaged brain regions linked to autobiographical memory, conceptual processes, emotion, and autonomic regulation, including the medial prefrontal and medial temporal subcortical structures. Multivariate pattern-based predictive modeling revealed that the neural representations of valence became more person-specific as the level of perceived self-relevance increased. Overall, this study provides a hint of how self-generated concepts in spontaneous thought construct inner affective states and idiosyncrasies.

COVID EPIDEMIC PERCEPTION THROUGH UKRAINIAN-TURKISH СONTEXT (SOCIO-PSYCHOLINGUISTIC APPROACH)

The article depicts the perception of the concept of «coronavirus» in the linguistic consciousness of native speakers of Ukrainian and Turkish concerning the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on students in higher education. Using the methods of free association test, and SPSS handling of data 20 associative fields to the stimuli specifying the concept of coronavirus: «Coronavirus, Covid-19, pandemic, social distance, lockdown quarantine, mask, tests, self-isolation, vaccine» are obtained. The data provides the clear picture with what the coronavirus concept associates in the mentality of Ukrainian and Turkish students. The negative stimuli linked with danger, uncertainty, disaster and illness prevail in both samples.

Evaluation of a braille-based colour code proposal for people with visual impairment

People with visual impairment (PVI) are a group that have some sort of visual loss, including individuals with low vision and blindness. As colour is one of the most important elements in transmitting visual information, its lack of access can be configured as an information and communication barrier, which impacts daily routines and social inclusion. The present study evaluates the suitability of a braille-based colour code proposal for PVI called Universal Colour Code (UCC). Based on user experience methods, exploratory interviews, free association of words, effectiveness tests, and assessment of code were conducted. The results show that UCC has potential for PVI who master braille.

Extensions of Psychoanalytic Technique: The Mutual Influences of Standard Psychoanalysis and Transference-Focused Psychotherapy

The author describes the differences between standard psychoanalysis and transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) and reviews particular difficulties that psychodynamically trained clinicians have in learning TFP. In delineating differences between standard psychoanalysis and TFP, the author discusses mutual influences between standard psychoanalytic techniques and techniques of TFP. TFP is an extension and modification of standard psychoanalysis, but with quantitative modifications geared to the treatment of the most severe segment of personality disorders that tend not to be treatable by standard analysis. TFP includes some features that are directly facilitated by psychoanalytic education, such as the importance of free association and the organization of interpretations in terms of the analysis of defense, motivation, and impulse. On the other hand, TFP provides new strategies, enhancing standard psychoanalytic treatment, when it modifies technical neutrality under certain circumstances, allows for the analysis of “incompatible realities,” and accelerates interventions under conditions of severe acting out when technical neutrality is not possible to maintain. The author demonstrates the advantages of systematic training in TFP within psychoanalytic institutes as a true enrichment of technical training. He proposes that psychoanalysis as a profession consists of a broad spectrum of treatment approaches based upon the combined utilization of psychoanalytic techniques, with specific modifications to be organized in specific forms of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. TFP may be the closest modification to standard psychoanalysis proper and is clearly defined and manualized. This has permitted empirical research that has already demonstrated the effectiveness of TFP.

Striking a Balance between Free Association and Regulating Membership of a ‘Community’: Exploring s 235 of the Constitution of South Africa

Section 235 of the Constitution of South Africa contains a promise of potential self-determination of language and cultural communities. An essential question arising from this promise is how an individual’s freedom of association interacts with the ability of a community to determine its membership. This article reflects on this question with reference to standards developed in international law and practices in the constitutional law of selected case studies. Whereas international law sets a universal standard of free association, states have developed practices whereby the individual’s right to free association is recognised, but where there are also some measures allowed to ensure that an individual is indeed accepted by and part of the community. Any conflicts that arise are, generally speaking, subject to a form of judicial review.

Decolonisation and Free Association: The Relationships of the Cook Islands and Niue with New Zealand

<p>The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand. The free association arrangements met United Nations decolonisation requirements. They reflected the needs and wishes of the Cook Islands and Niue, and the interests of New Zealand. Views are divided on what influenced the emergence of the arrangements for free association, whose interests they represented, and whether they have fulfilled the expectations of the Governments involved. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the formative influences shaping self-government in free association of these two states, and to reach a conclusion on how effective the free association arrangements have been in fulfilling initial expectations. The first half of this thesis draws on primary and secondary sources to establish what influenced the offer of self-determination, the options available, the choice made, the free association arrangements that emerged and whose interests these represented. The second half of this thesis turns to fulfilment of those expectations. It explores the flexibility of free association – the ability of the Cook Islands and Niue to make constitutional change. It examines each of the major elements of free association: holding New Zealand citizenship, New Zealand provision of necessary economic and administrative assistance and New Zealand responsibility for external affairs and defence. The conclusion is that the free association arrangements have been of mixed effectiveness in meeting the Governments’ initial expectations.</p>

Decolonisation and Free Association: The Relationships of the Cook Islands and Niue with New Zealand

<p>The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states in free association with New Zealand. The free association arrangements met United Nations decolonisation requirements. They reflected the needs and wishes of the Cook Islands and Niue, and the interests of New Zealand. Views are divided on what influenced the emergence of the arrangements for free association, whose interests they represented, and whether they have fulfilled the expectations of the Governments involved. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the formative influences shaping self-government in free association of these two states, and to reach a conclusion on how effective the free association arrangements have been in fulfilling initial expectations. The first half of this thesis draws on primary and secondary sources to establish what influenced the offer of self-determination, the options available, the choice made, the free association arrangements that emerged and whose interests these represented. The second half of this thesis turns to fulfilment of those expectations. It explores the flexibility of free association – the ability of the Cook Islands and Niue to make constitutional change. It examines each of the major elements of free association: holding New Zealand citizenship, New Zealand provision of necessary economic and administrative assistance and New Zealand responsibility for external affairs and defence. The conclusion is that the free association arrangements have been of mixed effectiveness in meeting the Governments’ initial expectations.</p>

Skojarzenia werbalne w Narodowym Korpusie Języka Polskiego: przyczynek do badań nad werbalnym stereotypem "inwalidy"

Verbal Associations in the National Corpus of Polish: A Contribution to the Study of the Verbal Stereotype of inwalida ‘an invalid’ The role of corpus research in linguistics and in related fields of study has increased in recent decades. Searching for and analysis of collocations and concordances of a lexical unit, which makes it possible to determine its semantic preferences and semantic prosody, can be a tool for studying stereotypes, understood as overly generalized and simplified evaluative and affective images of a fragment of reality named by the lexical unit. The aim of this article is to verify the validity of supplementing studies based on the analysis of corpus resources with data obtained in free association tests. The study focuses on the lexical unit inwalida ‘an invalid’ as the name of a concept which may be subject to strong stereotyping. The resources of the balanced sub-corpus of the National Corpus of Polish, consisting of about 250 million words, were searched for associative responses to the word inwalida given by at least 2 people from a group of 40 Polish speakers. In the corpus, the co-occurrence of the word inwalida was checked with each of the 33 obtained associations, using a search tool to identify the contexts (concordances) containing both words – inwalida and the association – with an interval of 0 and ≤5. The results of the study indicate that an association test can be a significant complement to corpus data analyses: it can provide important elements of semantic prosody which are not found in corpus analysis results, it can guide concordance search and it can indicate the elements which are the most important for the meaning of the examined word. Skojarzenia werbalne w Narodowym Korpusie Języka Polskiego: przyczynek do badań nad werbalnym stereotypem inwalidy W ostatnich dziesięcioleciach wzrasta rola badań korpusowych w językoznawstwie i naukach pokrewnych. Wyszukiwanie i analiza kolokacji i konkordancji określonej jednostki leksykalnej, pozwalające na określenie jej preferencji semantycznej i prozodii semantycznej, mogą stanowić narzędzie badania stereotypów, rozumianych jako nadmiernie uogólnione i uproszczone oceniająco-afektywne obrazy fragmentu rzeczywistości nazywanego przez daną jednostkę leksykalną. Celem analizy przedstawionej w artykule jest weryfikacja zasadności uzupełniania badań opartych na analizie zasobów korpusowych danymi uzyskanymi w teście skojarzeń swobodnych. Przeprowadzona analiza dotyczy jednostki leksykalnej inwalida, jako nazwy pojęcia podlegającego silnej stereotypizacji. W zasobach liczącego około 250 milionów słów podkorpusu zrównoważonego Narodowego Korpusu Języka Polskiego poszukiwano reakcji skojarzeniowych na hasło inwalida podanych przez minimum 2 osoby z 40-osobowej grupy użytkowników języka polskiego. Sprawdzono w korpusie współwystępowanie wyrazu inwalida kolejno z każdym z 33 uzyskanych skojarzeń, używając do tego celu narzędzia szukającego kontekstów (konkordancji) zawierających oba wyrazy – inwalida i skojarzenie – w odstępie 0 oraz ≤5. Wykazano, że test skojarzeniowy może w sposób istotny uzupełniać analizy korpusowe poprzez: dostarczanie ważnych elementów prozodii semantycznej, których nie ma w wynikach analiz korpusowych, ukierunkowanie wyszukiwania konkordancji oraz wskazywanie elementów najważniejszych dla znaczenia badanego wyrazu.

Pemberdayaan Siswa sebagai Peer Educator Pencegahan Perilaku Seksual Beresiko di SMK Negeri 28 Kabupaten Tangerang:

Seksualitas merupakan salah satu resiko yang sering dihadapi oleh remaja. Perubahan gaya pacaran remaja yang lebih permisif terhadap seks seperti lebih suka menunjukkan rasa kasih sayang terhadap pasangannya, tidak hanya sebatas mengobrol saja namun lebih cenderung mengarah pada pergaulan bebas. Hal tersebut dapat memunculkan penyimpangan reproduksi, seperti seks pranikah, aborsi, dan HIV/AIDS. Namun untuk mencegah terjadinya penyimpangan seksual pada remaja, diperlukan upaya pemberian informasi yang benar pada remaja, Saat menghadapi kehidupan reproduksi remaja lebih banyak memilih teman sebagai sumber informasi. Kegiatan pengabdian ini bertujuan untuk membentuk dan meningkatkan pengetahuan remaja peer educator. Metode yang digunakan yaitu bina suasana. Adapun kegiatan pengabdian meliputi 1) pengisian kuesioner, 2) Penyuluhan kesehatan terkait pencegahan perilaku seksual beresiko, 3) pelatihan sebagai peer educator dan melakukan role play, 4) melakukan focus group discussion (FGD) dengan pembahasan masalah yang sering terjadi pada remaja tentang perilaku seksual beresiko, 4) melakukan simulasi kepada teman sebaya. Hasil yang diperoleh adalah semakin meningkat pengetahuan peserta peserta, memahami mekanisme menjadi peer educator dan mampu mempraktekkan menjadi peer educator bagi teman sebayanya terkait pencegahan perilaku seksual beresiko.Kata kunci: peer educator; perilaku seksual beresiko; remajaEmpowering Students as Peer Educators to Prevent Risky Sexual Behavior at Public Vocational School 28 Tangerang Regency ABSTRACTSexuality is one of the risks often faced by adolescents. The dating habits of adolescents who are more focused on sexual behavior are more likely to express affection towards their partner and are more inclined towards free association behavior. There can lead to reproductive abnormalities, such as premarital sex, abortion, and HIV/AIDS. However, to prevent sexual misconduct in adolescents, it is necessary to provide the correct information in adolescents. The more preferred source of information in dealing with reproductive life is peers.There service activity aims to form and increase the knowledge of peer educators. The method used is atmosphere building. The service activities include 1) filling out a questionnaire, 2) health counseling related to the prevention of risky sexual behavior, 3) training as a peer educator and doing role play, 4) conducting focus group discussions (FGD) by discussing problems that often occur in adolescents about sexual behavior. at risk, 4) conducted simulations to peers. The results obtained are that the participants' knowledge increases, understand the mechanism of being a peer educator, and are can practice being a peer educator for their peers regarding the prevention of risky sexual behavior. Keywords: adolescent; peer educator; risky sexual behavior

Royal Polis Policy in the Seleukid Heartland

<p>In the Hellenistic Period most of the Greek poleis (city-states) came under the control of the Greco-Macedonian kings. The ideology of the poleis, which stressed the importance of autonomy, conflicted with the reality of royal domination. In Western Asia Minor, this conflict was resolved by presenting the relationship between king and polis as one of free association, in which the poleis were allowed a large amount of autonomy. The kings used ideas of reciprocity to tie the poleis to them and worked to make their rule as amenable as possible, while the poleis of Western Asia Minor continued to aspire to complete independence. This was not the only possible resolution of the conflict between polis autonomy and royal dominance, however. In the Seleukid heartland of Syria and Mesopotamia the Seleukids founded and maintained new poleis. By means of names, myths, and symbols, the identities of these poleis were closely linked to the Seleukid dynasty. As a result, expressions of polis identity were expressions of loyalty to the dynasty, rather than of opposition. Their internal structures were based around an alliance between the royally-appointed epistatēs and the magistrates of the city, who represented a small civic elite. Royal support was thus important to the internal power structure of these poleis. The poleis of the Seleukid heartland did not pursue full independence, even when the Seleukid royal power collapsed at the end of the Hellenistic period because, entirely unlike the poleis of Western Asia Minor, submission to a higher power was a central part of their identities and internal structures.</p>