Bizarre Actions Research Articles

Criticism Towards the Ruler: Illustrations From the Letter of the Law and the Practice of the Polish Constitutional State

The publication is devoted to several examples of the practice of criticism of the Head of State and executive power in Polish history. The authors have chosen three moments of interest: the first one is the first decade of the “Congress” Polish Kingdom established in 1815, and the second refers to the Second Polish Republic in the period after the coup d’État by Józef Piłsudski in 1926. Finally, the authors refer to some practical aspects of criticism of the authority in the public space in recent times, also recalling the high-profile criminal trial that reached the highest instance – the Supreme Court in 2023. In these examples, the authors focus on aspects of the permissibility of criticism, its specific forms and the reaction of the executive in the early history of the constitutional state and camouflaged criticism of power respectively, through the interwar liberal model of protection of freedom of speech and of the press, which failed in the face of authoritarian changes and the political will to protect the good name of one particular individual; after the death of Piłsudski, the lack of adequate legal protection post mortem was finally “remedied” by a particular repressive law. The last section of the discussion refers to the contemporary Polish state of law, and here the focus is on the faces of criticism and the forms of its suppression. In particular, attention was paid to the problem of the extensive use of means used by the police against criticism particularly unpleasant to the power camp (up to the bizarre action with the hiring of a jib) and the question of maintaining specific protection of the Head of State against defamation in the Criminal Code.

Impact of School’s Violence on Educational Career of Female Students with Hearing Impairment in Federal College of Education Pankshin, Plateau State, Nigeria

Students in schools often experience physical violence such as; teasing, stigmatization, psychological, verbal abuse and sexual harassment, including rape. Fear of violence attack prevents many girls with hearing impairment from attending social gathering due to their communication and language problems. This study examined the impact of school’s violence on educational career of female students with hearing impairment in federal college of education Pankshin, plateau, Nigeria. The main objectives of the research are to find out the types of violence experienced by female students with hearing impairment studying in Federal College of education Pankshin and examine the impact of violence on education of female students with hearing impairment after experiencing the trauma of violence. The following research questions were also formulated to guide the study. What types of violence commonly experienced by girls with hearing impairment studying in FCE Pankshin? To what extent has violence affected academic achievement of girls with hearing impairment in FCE Pankshin. Qualitative design was used to conduct the study. The population of the study consisted of 21 female students with hearing impairment in special education department Federal College of Education Pankshin, Plateau State Nigeria. A sample of eight (8) females with hearing impairment was randomly selected from the study. All the eight girls in the department were interviewed to find out if they have ever been a victim of violence. The responses of the students were grouped into four themes. Namely; physical, psychological, sexual and verbal abuse. The results showed that sexual abuse at school affects students with hearing impairment mental health and self-esteem. It leads to drop-out from school. The study researcher concluded that all types of violence have negative effects on the overall personality and in particular academic performance of victim. It was recommended that special education teachers should collaborate with the counsellors to maintain a supportive school environment for students hearing impairment through enlightenment campaign of the need to effectively implement the objectives of inclusive education in the college. Female students, especially those with any form of disabilities must be empowered to speak against such bizarre actions.

Dopamine Adjustment Difficulties in Special Pathophysiological Conditions

Dopamine is a commonly used drug but its biology and cellular action is not well known, its bizarre actions in neonates back to different pattern of receptors on vascular and metabolic excretion rate especially in preterm babies.[1] Dopamine’s physiological action is dose dependent and give maximum diuresis and natriuresis at the dose of 2 micrograms/kg/min compared to 4 micrograms/ kg/min in neonates.[2] Such physiological properties back to immature norepinephrine stores that halt inotropic effects and longer elimination half time related to age that accentuate side effects of dopamine such as tachycardia.[3] Such side effects may accentuate in renal and hepatic deficiency because of lower clearance of dopamine and risk of toxicities in usual doses administration.[4] The other challenging factor for easy administration of dopamine is various inter individual pharmacokinetics property of dopamine especially in seriously ill patients.[5] Cochran study in small sample of selected asphyxiated neonate cases showed low dose dopamine as low as 2.5 micrograms/kg/min cannot decrease mortality and morbidity compared to placebo[6] and doses as low as 7 micrograms/kg/min make pulmonary vasoconstriction in critically ill case and infusion rate of 5 micrograms/kg/min cannot bring target hemodynamic indices in a great proportion of patients (9 of 25) inspite of tachycardia occurred in them as a side effect without increase in stroke volume and modest reduction in systemic vascular resistance.[7-8] Dopamine, efficacy, decrement during lactic acidosis is another challenge in spite of the plasma norepinephrine level was elevated dramatically during severe lactic acid acidosis in compared to normal acidosis.[9]

Creating nonbelieved memories for bizarre actions using an imagination inflation procedure

SummaryThe current experiments examined the creation of nonbelieved true and false memories after imagining bizarre and familiar actions using the imagination inflation procedure (Goff & Roediger, 1998). In both experiments, participants took part in three sessions. In Session 1, participants had to perform or imagine simple familiar actions (e.g., “stir the water with the spoon”) and bizarre actions (e.g., “balance the spoon on your nose”). A day later, participants needed to imagine simple actions of which some were new actions, and some were old actions that appeared in the first session. After a week, the participants completed a recognition task. For those actions that were correctly or incorrectly remembered as having been performed, the participant was challenged that the action was not performed in order to evoke nonbelieved true and false memories. In general, we found that the imagination inflation procedure can successfully induce participants to produce nonbelieved memories. In Study 1, we successfully induced nonbelieved memories for bizarre actions, although in general nonbelieved memory rates were low. In Study 2, more participants formed nonbelieved memories for bizarre actions than for familiar actions. Also, we found that especially belief was more susceptible to revision when memories were challenged than recollection. In two experiments, we showed that nonbelieved memories can successfully be induced for both familiar and bizarre actions.

The Representation of Gender and Discourses of Gender Discrimination in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus

This paper discusses the problems involved in the representation of women and the negative aspects of the patriarchal system and its failure represented in Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare reveals the negative aspects of the patriarchy through bizarre actions of revenge practiced by the oldest male in the family. The play represents male violence on women through the rape of Lavinia and the extreme view of patriarchy as obsessed with women’s modesty. Moreover, it dramatizes distorted patriarchal perception viewing women in the virgin/whore dichotomy. Tamora is portrayed as an adulterate whore, while Lavinia is represented as a sacred virgin. The patriarchal pressure given to raped Lavinia is a problem. It was not conceived as legitimate for Shakespeare to represent women on the patriarchal premises that discriminate against women and deny their autonomy. His criticism of the patriarchy is revealed in his representation of Titus Andronicus. He is the paterfamilias who embodies Roman ideals. The failure of Titus represents the failure of patriarchy. He commits significant errors and mistakes. He kills his youngest son Mutius, Tamora’s sons, Lavinia as a way of getting rid of ‘shame.’ These processes reveal the abused use of the paterfamilias’ power. Titus Andronicus gives the negative aspects of the patriarchy and gender discrimination against women in the form of revenge tragedy.

Narrations of Magical Power in Ancient Egypt or: A Counter-Narrative to "Witchcraft" Concepts

Narrations of Magical Power in Ancient Egypt or:A Counter-Narrative to "Witchcraft" Concepts Svenja Nagel 1. introduction: finding "witchcraft" and "witches" in egypt In Heliodorus's late antique Greek romance, Aithiopika, a scene of witchcraft is described in expressive language rich in pejorative terms: 1 she [Charikleia] found herself witnessing a performance which, abominable as it may be, is common practice among the women of Egypt. [. . .] the old woman began by digging a pit, to one side of which she lit a fire. After positioning her son's body between the two, she took an earthenware bowl from a tripod [. . .] and poured a libation of honey into the pit [. . .]. Finally [. . .], in an access of feverish ecstasy, she invoked the moon by a series of grotesque and outlandish names [. . .]. There followed a number of other bizarre actions, after which she knelt over the dead body of her son and whispered certain incantations into his ear, until she woke the dead man and compelled him by her magic arts to stand upright.2 This literary piece testifies to a typical imperial-period concept of a "witch" who is practicing necromancy with "bizarre" rituals, and since her actions are deemed impious and abominable, is shortly thereafter punished by violent [End Page 11] death.3 Her actions are at the same time characterized as "common practice among the women of Egypt," and thus as typical of indigenous Egyptian female practice. However, since this is a work of relatively late date from the Greco-Roman literary tradition, does it represent just an outsider view of native Egyptian practice; or does it reflect any aspect of reality in ancient Egypt, perhaps including a continuity of traditions about "witches" reaching into the Greco-Roman period? What is its relationship to comparable Egyptian narratives about practitioners of magical rituals? Are they, for instance, also characterized as impious and female? In this article I will explore the emic Egyptian tradition behind magical practices (foremost malign magic), and their representation in narratives. Special attention will be given to questions of gender and the (emic) moral evaluation of the practitioners, as well as to possible changes in their conception throughout Egyptian history. It will be demonstrated that it is only through the cultural lenses of the Greeks and Romans that magical practices that were in their original Egyptian context deemed a natural and generally neutral, or even positive, part of life, developed into a controversial issue rendered increasingly problematic in the eras of Greek, and more markedly, Roman, rule over Egypt. From an emic point of view, there is in fact no such thing as "witchcraft" in ancient Egypt throughout its entire history, since there is no specific terminology for it, nor is there written evidence of any kind thematizing corresponding practices in a generally pejorative light or describing accusations or trials specifically for witchcraft.4 Accordingly, in Egyptological scholarship dealing with ancient sources in which "supernatural" abilities and practices [End Page 12] displayed by mortal men and women appear, the terms "witch" and "witchcraft" are almost never used.5 For example, concerning the Demotic narrative literature in which tales of magic and wondrous deeds feature prominently (cf. section 3), Joachim Friedrich Quack states: "There is no stereotypical figure of the sorcerer/witch as someone on the margins of society who harms other people."6 Instead, the tradition of the discipline has only established the employment of the more general "magic" terminology, using this to describe a variety of ideas and ritual techniques present in ancient Egyptian texts. The term "magic" in this case should be generally understood as a translation of the emic term and related concepts (more on which below). It is not being used in its modern sense that includes the legacy of Greco-Roman culture or Christian pejorative understandings and deployments of this term as a means of "othering" and even "demonizing."7 For this reason, my article about an Egyptian perspective on "Narrating Witchcraft" might well have ended here. Nevertheless, there definitely are a number of powers and activities that closely resemble those labeled as "witchcraft" in various other cultural and historical contexts. Therefore, I would like to create a common base by selecting, from...

Sir Gowther: Table Manners and Aristocratic Identity

The anomalous verse romance of Sir Gowther (ca. 1400) has long perplexed critics with its insistent anti-heroism and spectacular violence. Rather than seek resolution in penitential ideology, this article looks to the secular practices of aristocratic table manners as an important context of the romance's bizarre action. This context was immediately available to fifteenth-century readers of the romance in one of its manuscripts, the "Heege Manuscript," which links Sir Gowther to a conduct poem called the "Urbanitatis." The strictures of personal comportment provide a standard of normative behavior, which provides a foundation for Sir Gowther's imaginative, satirical exploration of romantic humanity.

Delirium due to Scopolamine Patch in a 4-Year-Old Boy

The scopolamine patch is usually used to reduce postoperative nausea and vomiting associated with anesthesia and/or surgery. It is also commonly used for the prevention of motion sickness. Transdermal scopolamine patches have been used for decades and there are few reports in the literature of toxic psychosis associated with the product. Most documented cases of acute psychosis following administration of scopolamine or other anticholinergic agents have been from the adult population. Here we present a 4-year-old boy with deteriorated cognitive function and changed mental status acutely. Besides flushing skin and psychotic behaviors including bizarre actions, hallucinations, aggressive behavior, hyperactivity, and incoherent speech were also noticed. Symptoms and signs were resolved after removal of scopolamine patch and conservative management. This case is possibly one of the youngest patients to exhibit such toxic effects. We hope to relay information about common agents with anticholinergic effects to clinical practitioners and remind that drug-induced psychosis should be considered in children with acute changes in behavior.

Did we see someone shake hands with a fire hydrant?: Collaborative recall affects false recollections from a campus walk

An experimenter presented familiar and bizarre action statements (e.g., "Rest on the fire hydrant" vs. "Shake hands with the fire hydrant") to a participant and confederate during a campus walk. They watched the experimenter perform half the actions and imagined the experimenter performing the other half. One day later, they took a second walk where actions were only imagined. Some actions from the first walk were repeated, and new actions were added. Two weeks later, the participant and confederate collaboratively recalled whether specific actions were presented in the first walk and, if so, whether they were imagined or performed. For different actions, the confederate was accurate, was inaccurate, or provided no information. When later tested individually, participants demonstrated imagination inflation by falsely remembering familiar and bizarre actions as performed on the first walk that were merely imagined on the second. These memory errors were greatly reduced if the confederate was accurate during collaborative recall.

Federated States of Micronesia

Federated States of Micronesia John R. Haglelgam (bio) The beginning of this review period was particularly busy. The new national administration led by President Emanuel Mori had just been inaugurated and the political watchers were focusing on nominations for department heads. The first batch of nominees the president submitted included his uncle for secretary of resources and development, and his brother-in-law for FSM ambassador to the United States. The respective congressional committees favorably recommended the nominations for approval. However, the whole congress rejected both. Neither the reports of the jurisdictional committees nor the floor debates addressed the issue of nepotism, which was foremost in everyone's mind. Regardless, the political pundits knew that the two nominations were rejected because the nominees are close relatives of the president, who is from Chuuk State. In this particular case, the FSM public can heave a sigh of relief that the built-in checks and balances at the national level worked. The president nominated Makato Robert from Chuuk as his attorney general. At the time of his nomination, Robert was still facing charges of unethical practices in the FSM Supreme Court. In its report, the Judiciary and Governmental Operation Committee criticized the court for not acting promptly on the nominee's application for reinstatement to the FSM bar, but ignored the fact that the nominee still cannot appear before the FSM Supreme Court. Regardless of the deficiency in Robert's credentials, the FSM Congress took the bizarre action of approving his nomination. It is not clear how the new attorney general will represent the nation before the FSM Supreme Court, and how much damage this action has done to the reputation, image, and legitimacy of the national government. At the time of this writing, the Mori administration has filled almost all the major overseas posts with new ambassadors. Yosiwo George, the former governor and chief justice of Kosrae and most recently the manager of MiCare, the national government health insurance program, is the new FSM ambassador to the United States. John Fritz, a Japanese-educated Chuukese and longtime staff member of the embassy in Tokyo, has taken over from Kasio Mida as the ambassador to Japan. The former counsel general in Guam, Samson Pretrick, has become the new ambassador to Fiji. Masao Nakayama remains the head of the FSM Permanent Mission at the United Nations. Beijing is the only unfilled overseas post, but Carl Apis, a Pohnpeian, has been appointed as deputy chief of mission there. The consul general positions in Guam and [End Page 114] Honolulu are filled respectively by Gersen Jackson of Kosrae and Akilino Susaia of Pohnpei. Jackson is a former lieutenant governor of Kosrae, and Susaia served as the secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs under former President Joseph Ursemal. It is interesting to note that Masao Nakayama is the only remaining member of the old FSM diplomatic corp. Yosiwo George served a couple of years as head of the FSM mission at the United Nations in New York. Pretrick and Fritz are new in their posts but they are experienced diplomats. The two consul generals are new to diplomacy, but they are experienced administrators. The FSM president's cabinet consists almost entirely of new members. Finley Perman, a former official of the Pohnpei state government, now heads the Department of Finance and Administration; Lorin Robert, the former deputy secretary of foreign affairs, became the head of that department. Vita Skilling, a physician at the Kosrae state hospital, became the secretary of the new Department of Health and Social Affairs. The head of the newly renamed Department of Resources and Development is Peter Christian, the former Speaker of the national congress. Casiano Shoniber, the former Pohnpei state director of education, took over the new Department of Education. Francis Itimai, the former director of planning and budget in Yap, became secretary of transportation, communication, and infrastructure; the former head of that department, Andrew Yatilmal, now heads the Office of Environment and Emergency Management. Dr Rufino Mauricio remains the director of the newly expanded Office of National Archives, Culture, and Historic Preservation. Fabian Nimea, former manager of the Pohnpei Branch of the Bank of the FSM, becomes the director...

Making Babies in the South Seas

Making Babies in the South Seas Jonathan Lamb (bio) This is a short argument in favor of the proposition that under emotional pressure things—literal things—change so drastically that they can no longer be represented in a factual account. Indeed it becomes a question whether their metamorphosis will fit any narrative framework. My chief example is James Cook, whose bizarre actions in the months before his death have presented problems for all his biographers, most recently Anne Salmond and Nicholas Thomas. His extravagances occurred most often because things belonging to his ship went missing. Cook's attempts to recover them, or in some way supply their loss, were fraught with difficulties, not least the difficulty of saying exactly what had happened to them and to him. Cook's legacy is observable in a number of European stories of the South Seas told the next century, where the transformation and accumulation of things overwhelm the narrative. It is still with us as a narrative challenge no one seems sure of meeting. I begin with a maritime fable from the twentieth century devoted to this transformation. In Richard Hughes's pirate story A High Wind in Jamaica (1929), the mysterious death of a ship's captain becomes entangled in the problems of owning things and providing them with a narrative history. In this strangely incoherent tale of a group of children on the Spanish Main, ships are taken, their holds rifled, and, as a result, things and people are "changed," as the children put it. Dimly aware of the importance of maintaining the integrity of property, two of the children—sisters Rachel and Emily—readily own the truth of owning things. Rachel collects oakum, mop-heads, marlinspikes, and bits of rag, calling them her "babies" and placing these around the ship, appropriating the windlass or the bosun's chair, for example, as their "beds" and "houses." Emily owns things by setting [End Page 483] loose strings of words—"a sort of narrative noise" (184), as the narrator calls it—and so prepares herself for the arrival of real narrative substance. Neither she nor her sister succeeds in owning anything, however, for things keep getting lost or escaping in a manner that is not (at least from their point of view) accountable. In one instance, the marlinspike falls out of Rachel's grasp while she is nursing it in the rigging and wounds Emily in the leg. While Emily is recovering, a knife comes into her hands which later stabs and kills a tied-up Dutch skipper, an event that remains unexplained in the narrative. Describing Rachel and her collection of babies, the narrator says: "To parody Hobbes, she claimed as her own whatever she had mixed her imagination with; and the greater part of her time was spent in angry or tearful assertions of her property-rights" (Hughes 156). It is not Hobbes, of course, but Locke who makes this claim for property obtained by labor. However, Hobbes does acknowledge the enormous power imagination may wield over things, and he also demonstrates how fictions breeding in the mind may conspire to build utopias, romances, pantheons, and lies in which objects acquire an agency of their own. From a naval standpoint in the eighteenth century, narratives were formed out of inventories of property. In his three voyages to the Pacific, Cook was responsible for everything on his ship: naval stores, food and drink, trade goods, astronomical equipment, and weapons. Before he could be paid upon his return, over sixty accounts had to be accepted by the Navy Board; and these accounts formed only part of the required account of the voyage. Cook's instructions directed him: You are, by all opportunities to send to our Secretary, for our information, Accounts of your Proceedings, and Copies of the Surveys and Drawings you shall have made; and upon your arrival in England, you are immediately to repair to this Office in order to lay before us a full Account of your Proceedings in the whole course of your Voyage; taking care before you leave the Sleep to demand from the Officers & Petty Officers the Log Books & Journals they may have kept, & to seal them...

Do you remember proposing marriage to the Pepsi machine? False recollections from a campus walk

During a campus walk, participants were given familiar or bizarre action statements (e.g., "Check the Pepsi machine for change" vs. "Propose marriage to the Pepsi machine") with instructions either to perform the actions or imagine performing the actions (Group 1) or to watch the experimenter perform the actions or imagine the experimenter performing the actions (Group 2). One day later, some actions were repeated, along with new actions, on a second walk. Two weeks later, the participants took a recognition test for actions presented during the first walk, and they specified whether a recognized action was imagined or performed. Imagining themselves or the experimenter performing familiar or bizarre actions just once led to false recollections of performance for both types of actions. This study extends previous research on imagination inflation by demonstrating that these false performance recollections can occur in a natural, real-life setting following just one imagining.

The development of the memorability-based strategy: Insight from a training study

We investigated whether the memorability-based strategy, a process supporting the rejection of nonexperienced event occurrence, could be promoted through training. The performance of children who received memorability-based training was compared with that of (a) children who received source-monitoring training and (b) children who did not receive any specific training but were instructed to be as accurate as possible. Participants (142 6- to 10-year-olds) enacted common and bizarre actions. Eighteen days later, participants received misinformation about the first session. Five days after being misinformed, children were questioned about the first session. Compared with children in the no training condition, those in both training conditions reported significantly more true events, but only older children who received the memorability-based training were more likely to reject bizarre suggested events. Age interacted with action type when metacognitive assessments about false event rejection were examined, consistent with the idea that the use of the memorability-based strategy develops late during the elementary school years.

Creating bizarre false memories through imagination.

The present study explored memory for familiar or usual actions (e.g., flip the coin) and bizarre or unusual actions (e.g., sit on the dice). In Session 1, action statements were presented to 210 participants, who had to either perform or imagine those actions. In Session 2, 24 h later, participants imagined performing various actions, some presented in the first session and others totally new. Finally, in Session 3, 2 weeks later, participants were tested on their memory for the original actions. We found that as the number of imaginings increased in Session 2, so did the proportion of did responses to actions that were only imagined or not even presented. This pattern was present for both bizarre and familiar actions. These results demonstrate that bizarre actions may lose the item distinctiveness that is used to make accurate memory decisions after repeated imagination.

Event-related Brain Potentials During Recognition of Ordinary and Bizarre Action Phrases Following Verbal and Subject-performed Encoding Conditions

Recognition performance of ordinary and bizarre action phrases was compared under two encoding conditions: In a verbal condition (V), participants learned the phrases by passively listening to them; in a subjectperformed condition (SP), participants learned the phrases by actively performing the denoted actions with imaginary objects. Recognition performance was better in condition SP than V. Moreover, recognition was better for bizarre than for ordinary phrases but only in condition V. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the recognition test. In condition SP a larger fronto-central negativity was found. This confirms the hypothesis that the SP advantage is due to the reactivation of motor information. Additionally, the later part of the recognition memory ERP effect was analysed. This effect reflects the overall familiarity of items in a recognition test. The amplitude increases with decreasing familiarity. In the present study, an enlarged amplitude was found for bizarre phrases in both conditions, V and SP. This suggests that recognition knowledge is present after SP and V. Moreover, according to the behavioural data, this knowledge seems to improve recognition performance only in condition V.

Dose-dependent enzyme suppression in spleen induced by GM1 (monosialoganglioside 1) administration to mice.

Our previous studies suggested that the administration of exogenous gangliosides to the body modulates enzymatic networks in the brain. In the present study, we tested whether that is the case with another organ, spleen. By testing the dose response relationship, we found that there is a optimum dose for the effect of enzymatic modulation of GM1 (monosialoganglioside 1) administration. Although the optimum level varied depending on each of the examined hydrolytic enzymes, it usually fell in the range around 50 micrograms/kg body weight. The findings led us to conclude that the enzyme-modulating actions of gangliosides come not merely from the bizarre actions in vivo of high molecular exogenous substances.

Effect of lidocaine on the electrophysiological properties of ventricular muscle and purkinje fibers.

Preparations of right ventricular papillary muscle and false tendon (Purkinje fiber) were obtained from dog hearts, placed in a bath perfused with Tyrode solution, and observed both under control conditions and during exposure to lidocaine in concentrations from 1 x 10(-7) to 5 x 10(-4) mole/liter. Transmembrane voltages were recorded from both ventricular muscle (VM) and Purkinje fibers (PF) of spontaneously beating and electrically driven preparations. Low concentrations (1 x 10(-6) and 1 x 10(-5) mole/liter) attenuated or abolished phase 4 (diastolic) depolarization and spontaneous firing in PF without decreasing their diastolic excitability. Concentrations of 1 x 10(-5) mole/liter produced maximal shortening of both action potential duration (APD) and effective refractory period (ERP) and made the ERP long relative to APD; the latter alteration was more prominent in VM. At concentrations </= 1 x 10(-5) mole/liter, lidocaine either caused a slight increase or no change in peak maximum rate of phase 0 depolarization (V(max)) and membrane responsiveness, the relationship between transmembrane activation voltage (MAV) and V(max) of the resultant action potential; these concentrations had no significant effect on resting potential (RP) in VM, maximal diastolic transmembrane voltage (DTMV(max)) in PF, or action potential amplitude in either fiber type. High (toxic) concentrations (>/= 1 x 10(-4) mole/liter) did not cause further shortening of APD or ERP in either VM or PF but did produce a decrease in peak V(max) of phase 0 and membrane responsiveness. In most cases, these concentrations also caused a decrease in RP or DTMV(max) and action potential amplitude, with progression to bizarre action potential depolarization and inexcitability. These properties of lidocaine are strikingly different from those of quinidine or procaine amide. The mechanisms responsible for lidocaine's in vivo antiarrhythmic action are discussed.