Evidence For Such Influences Research Articles

The Role of Case Syncretism in Agreement Attraction: A Comprehension Study.

Many production and comprehension experiments have studied attraction errors in agreement, primarily in number (e.g., “The key to the cabinets were rusty”). Studies on gender agreement attraction are still sparse, especially in comprehension. We present two self-paced reading experiments on Russian focusing on the role of syncretism in this phenomenon. Russian nouns are inflected for case and number, and some forms have the same inflections (are syncretic). In several experiments on Slovak, it was shown that both head and attractor syncretism play a role for gender agreement in production. We demonstrate for the first time that this is also the case in comprehension. The role of head noun syncretism has not been analyzed in any previous comprehension studies, also for number agreement. We conclude that syncretic forms create uncertainty, which is crucial for agreement disruption. These results are better compatible with retrieval approaches to agreement attraction. We discuss the implications of our findings for the nature of the retrieval cues used to establish morphosyntactic dependencies. The question whether case marking modulates agreement attraction in comprehension has also been addressed in a study on Armenian, and it found no evidence of such influence. We offer an explanation of the conflicting findings from several studies based on the syntactic constructions they used as materials.

Blackface minstrelsy en Buenos Aires: Las actuaciones de Albert Phillips en 1868 y las visitas de los Christy's Minstrels en 1869, 1871 y 1873 (y una discusión sobre su impacto en la cultura local)

American blackface minstrels began to perform for local audiences in Buenos Aires between 1868 and 1873, beginning with Albert Phillips and followed by two different companies of Christy's Minstrels. This article describes the performances that they presented—the songs, dances and sketches, melodies and rhythms, instruments, and costumes—and their reception by porteño audiences. It also considers their legacy in local theatrical traditions and considers possible connections between local and translational forms of blackface. It is often assumed that the dozens of carnival ensembles of "fake blacks" that paraded in Buenos Aires after 1865 were inspired by American minstrelsy. This article shows that there is actually no evidence of such influence and proposes that local carnival customs may have found inspiration in other transnational groups such as the Spanish zarzuela companies that visited the city from the mid-19th century onwards.

The Pentateuch: Exodus–Deuteronomy

The PentateuchExodus–Deuteronomy Christopher T. Begg, Patrick Pouchelle, Fred W. Guyette, Paul R. Redditt, William J. Urbrock, and John M. Halligan ________ 389. [Exodus; Leviticus; Deuteronomy] Michael Konkel, “Wie und wann kamm die Tora an den Sinai? Neuere Kommentare zu Exodus, Leviticus und Deuteronomium,” VF 64 (2019) 33–49. K.’s contribution focuses on the legal corpora in the Pentateuch as these are treated in more recent commentaries on the books of Exodus (G. Fischer/D. Markl and R. Albertz), Leviticus (T. Hieke), and Deuteronomy (E. Otto). In a brief summation of his findings he comes to the conclusion that the Book of the Covenant was, at a secondary stage but still prior to the insertion of the Decalogue, inserted into a narrative sequence which would have contained a theophany and sacrificial festival (Exodus 19*; 20:18, 20; 24:4aβ-5) such [End Page 116] that the Book of the Covenant as the oldest biblical lawbook was also the first legal corpus to become part of the Sinai pericope. K.’s discussion is of interest not only with regard to the literary criticism of the Pentateuch, but also for what concerns the question of how exegesis ought to deal with “difficult” biblical texts. [Translated and adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 390. [Moses in Exodus] Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, “Au delà de Sargon: Influences syro-mésopotamiennes dans la construction littéraire de l’histoire de Moïse dans le livre de l’Exode,” Figures de Moïse, 15–28 [see #769]. The Syro-Mesopotamian influence on the OT is obvious. The discoveries of the tablets of Ugarit offered further evidence of such influence. Comparison of the biblical Moses figure with the Syro-Mesopotamian evidence sheds some light on who Moses is not. Even if Moses could be compared to a Mesopotamian king and even to a storm god, Moses is never explicitly qualified as such in the Bible. The Book of Exodus tends to make him disappear behind his function.—P.P. 391. [Exodus] Kathleen Rochester, “Reading the Exodus Story Alongside Case Studies of Abuse and Betrayal in Family Relationships,” Expository Times 129 (2018) 158–64. By paying attention to the emotional aspects of the key characters in the Exodus story, we can discover stories in the midst of trauma that can be helpful to people of faith today who have suffered trauma. People who are victims of abuse and betrayal may find a carefully guided reading of texts like the Exodus story prove therapeutic. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 392. [Exodus 1–18] Thomas Römer, “Auszug aus Agypten oder Pilgerreise in die Wüste? Überlegungen zur Konstruktion der Exodustradition(en),” Tradition(en) im alten Israel, 89–107 [see #774]. In the OT, one finds a dominant tradition of an “exodus,” in which, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron, the Israelites definitively leave Egypt for the land promised them by their God, Yhwh. In both the exodus story of Exodus 1–18 and other OT contexts, there are, however, also traces of an alternative account of Israel’s departure from Egypt, i.e. as a “pilgrimage” into the desert to offer sacrifice to Yhwh who dwelt there; in this form of the tradition the role of the Israelite overseers of their enslaved compatriots in initiating the process is highlighted as well (see, e.g., Exodus 5). As R. further points out, the account of Exodus 1–18 preserves traces of still other variants to the dominant exodus tradition with, e.g., the reference to Pharaoh’s fear that the Israelites might join themselves to other enemies of Egypt in attacking their host country (see 1:10) and the allusion to Moses’ (temporary) leprosy in 4:6–9, motifs that were subsequently picked up by the Egyptian author Manetho and given an anti-Jewish character by him.—C.T.B. 393. [Exodus 1–2; Genesis 6–9, etc.] Konrad Schmid, “Moses Geburt und ihr literarisches Nachleben. Die innerbiblische Rezeptionsgeschichte von Ex 2,1–10 in Ex 1 und Gen 6–9,” Schriftgelehrte Fortschreibungs- und Auslegungsprozesse, 159–77 [see #773]. According to S., Exodus...

Bistable Perception Is Biased by Search Items but Not by Search Priming.

During visual search, selecting a target facilitates search for similar targets in the future, known as search priming. During bistable perception, in turn, perceiving one interpretation facilitates perception of the same interpretation in the future, a form of sensory memory. Previously, we investigated the relation between these history effects by asking: can visual search influence perception of a subsequent ambiguous display and can perception of an ambiguous display influence subsequent visual search? We found no evidence for such influences, however. Here, we investigated one potential factor that might have prevented such influences from arising: lack of retinal overlap between the ambiguous stimulus and the search array items. In the present work, we therefore interleaved presentations of an ambiguous stimulus with search trials in which the target or distractor occupied the same retinal location as the ambiguous stimulus. Nevertheless, we again found no evidence for influences of visual search on bistable perception, thus demonstrating no close relation between search priming and sensory memory. We did, however, find that visual search items primed perception of a subsequent ambiguous stimulus at the same retinal location, regardless of whether they were a target or a distractor item: a form of perceptual priming. Interestingly, the strengths of search priming and this perceptual priming were correlated on a trial-to-trial basis, suggesting that a common underlying factor influences both.

How Do Crowdworker Communities and Microtask Markets Influence Each Other? A Data-Driven Study on Amazon Mechanical Turk

Crowdworker online communities — operating in fora like mTurkForum and TurkerNation — are an important actor in microwork markets. Albeit central to market dynamics, how the behavior of crowdworker communities and the dynamics of online marketplaces influence each other is yet to be understood. To provide quantitative evidence of such influence, we performed an analysis on 6-years worth of mTurk market activities and community discussions in six fora. We investigated the nature of the relationships that exist between activities in fora, tasks published in mTurk, requesters for such tasks, and task completion speed. We validate -- and expand upon — results from previous work by showing that (i) there are differences between market demand and community activities that are specific to fora and task types; (ii) the temporal progression of HIT availability in the market is predictive of the upcoming amount of crowdworker discussions, with significant differences across fora and discussion categories; (iii) activities in fora can have a significant positive impact on the completion speed of tasks available in the market.

La entonación interrogativa del español en la frontera México-EEUU de América: comparación de tres corpus de habla de informantes texanos con estudios superiores

AbstractThe objective of this work is analysing absolute interrogative sentences from the Spanish of San Antonio de Texas using three corpus featuring different levels of spontaneity (formal ad hoc, situational and conversational), and uttered by native speakers with superior studies. The choice of these corpus and their acoustic analyses have been performed according to the methodology established by the international project AMPER (Atlas Multimédia Prosodique de l’Espace Roman). Furthermore, we have undertaken the phonetic-phonological labelling of the boundary tones and of initial and nuclear pitch accents within the framework of the autosegmental-metrical model. This study has been carried out with the aim of contributing to the knowledge of Texan intonation, in order to make comparisons with other varieties of Spanish language as well as to include it in the international Atlas AMPER. We hypothesize that interrogatives from the informants considered follow the patterns described for Mexican interrogatives (Sosa, 1999; Ávila, 2003; Martín Butragueño, 2004, among others), taking into account the geographical location of San Antonio de Texas in relation to Mexico and the influence of Mexican immigration, which has a strong presence in San Antonio. Results provide evidence of such influence, particularly in the final ascent of the F0.

Order effects and multi-city visits: tour guides’ perspectives

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the order in which a set of cities are visited to ascertain the effects of position on group tourists’ recall and evaluations.Design/methodology/approachUsing a questionnaire, the views of highly experienced tour guides were analysed to provide preliminary insights about the likely occurrence of position effects. The topic was studied in Iran where a natural variation in the order of visiting cities on guided tours exists.FindingsCredible and consistent evidence was found for the perceived effects of recency when considering tourists’ recall and evaluations. In particular, the influence was seen as clearly enhancing the recall and positive evaluation for the most high profile cities in the set of visited locations.Research limitations/implicationsReplications of the position effect in other countries and for other kinds of tourism cities needs to be pursued, desirably by direct assessments of tourist’ views to buttress the present views held by guides.Practical implicationsDesigning itineraries by making imaginative use of the effects of order on the tourists’ sequence of city visits should facilitate the memorability of destinations for tourists and benefit businesses.Originality/valueEmpirical evidence about order effects in multi-city tour itineraries has never been established. The study provides foundation evidence for such influences through a non-reactive and naturalistic assessment by tour guides who are in contact with varied itineraries and who regularly consider the experiences of diverse and large numbers of tourists.

Influence of Suboptimally and Optimally Presented Affective Pictures and Words on Consumption-Related Behavior.

Affective stimuli can influence immediate reactions as well as spontaneous behaviors. Much evidence for such influence comes from studies of facial expressions. However, it is unclear whether these effects hold for other affective stimuli, and how the amount of stimulus processing changes the nature of the influence. This paper addresses these issues by comparing the influence on consumption behaviors of emotional pictures and valence-matched words presented at suboptimal and supraliminal durations. In Experiment 1, both suboptimal and supraliminal emotional facial expressions influenced consumption in an affect-congruent, assimilative way. In Experiment 2, pictures of both high- and low-frequency emotional objects congruently influenced consumption. In comparison, words tended to produce incongruent effects. We discuss these findings in light of privileged access theories, which hold that pictures better convey affective meaning than words, and embodiment theories, which hold that pictures better elicit somatosensory and motor responses.

Megafaunal Impacts on Structure and Function of Ocean Ecosystems

Here, we identify the extant species of marine megafauna (>45 kg maximum reported mass), provide a conceptual template for the ways in which these species influence the structure and function of ocean ecosystems, and review the published evidence for such influences. Ecological influences of more than 90% of the 338 known species of extant ocean megafauna are unstudied and thus unknown. The most widely known effect of those few species that have been studied is direct prey limitation, which occurs through consumption and risk avoidance behavior. Consumer-prey interactions result in indirect effects that extend through marine ecosystems to other species and ecological processes. Marine megafauna transport energy, nutrients, and other materials vertically and horizontally through the oceans, often over long distances. The functional relationships between these various ecological impacts and megafauna population densities, in the few well-studied cases, are characterized by phase shifts and hysteresis.

Reflections of Buddhist Thought in Kagura Dance, Song, and Structure

Abstract The influence of Buddhist thought, cosmologies and practices on the formation of folk kagura and other minzoku geinō (folk performing arts) forms in medieval Japan is widely recognized. The Buddhist worldview was often spread through the ritual performing arts of the yamabushi (Shugendō practitioners) of medieval times. Today the evidence for such influences is relatively obscure, due to the impact of Shintō policies since the nineteenth century. However, traces of Buddhist cosmologies, ideas and practices can still be found, to a greater or lesser degree, in most forms of kagura. Such ‘traces’ may range from but a preserved memory of abandoned practices in some schools, to explicit Buddhist texts in others. This paper presents examples of Buddhist ‘echoes’ in a number of kagura schools from around Japan. These serve to illuminate the extant to which Buddhist ideas and practices were imbedded in the ritual texts and kami uta of the various kagura schools, in their dance choreographies, and in the structures of their kagura spaces. A special characteristic common to all (otherwise extremely variegated) kagura forms is the construction of the kagura space as a symbolic universe. This paper argues for a probable Buddhist origin of the kagura stage-universe.

Increased one week soybean consumption affects spatial abilities but not sex hormone status in men

Background Increased soybean intake is often recommended for the prevention of hormone-dependent cancer, cardiovascular diseases and age-related cognitive decline. Although isolated phytoestrogens have shown these positive effects, the evidence for such influence of increased consumption of soybeans is lacking.Aim To prove the effects of short-term increased soybean intake on sex hormone levels and spatial cognitive parameters in men.Subjects and methods Seven young healthy men were asked to eat 900 g soybeans during 1 week. Sex hormone levels were determined in saliva and plasma, and mental rotation and spatial visualization were quantified by standard psychometric tests. All parameters were assessed before and after the study.Results Plasma estradiol, total and free testosterone, as well as salivary testosterone and estradiol remained unchained. Spatial cognitive performance was improved after increased soybean intake when considering spatial visualization (P=0.03). The results for mental rotation showed similar dynamics, but the changes were not significant.Conclusion Short-term increased soybean intake does not affect sex hormone status, but improves spatial cognitive performance in young healthy men.

The Four Sources of Law in Zoroastrian and Islamic Jurisprudence

AbstractIt is "only our lack of familiarity with Sasanian law," von Grunebaum opined (1970: 37), "that prevents us from uncovering its traces in the fiqh". And Joseph Schacht argued that Sasanian law did have an influence on Islamic law. But neither Schacht nor any other modern scholar has provided persuasive evidence for such influence. In this article I argue that the influence of Sasanian legal theory on Islamic legal theory in the formative period was minimal, at best. It is true that, like Islamic law, Sasanian law was based on four sources: (1) The Awesta or holy book of the Zoroastrians; (2) oral law; (3) the consensus of the sages; and (4) the judicial practice of the courts (kardag). However, the possibility of Iranian influence on early Islamic jurisprudence is limited by historical, cultural, geographical and chronological factors, and the evidence of the sources suggests that Sasanian legal thinking was distinctive from that of the Sunni usulis.

Tuning Nanoparticle Properties—The X‐ray Absorption Spectroscopic Point of View

A key requirement for the realization of nanotechnology's technological potential is the ability to produce nanoparticles with well defined, tailored properties in a cheap and reproducible way. For numerous materials, wet‐chemical approaches with scale‐up potential exist which allow to synthesize stabilized particles of a given size, but it turns out that control of these two parameters is not sufficient to control particle properties completely. This suggests that the exact way of stabilization and the course of the synthesis may exert notable influence on particle properties. This work reviews experimental evidence for such influence with a focus on the perspective of x‐ray absorption spectroscopy. The thus obtained results indicate that not only size‐dependent phase transitions, but also chemical interaction between the core of the nanoparticle and its surfactant molecules are responsible for the observed spectral changes, which can be explained when constructing detailed models of core‐surfactant interaction. Also, it is observed that the surfactant can influence the course of the synthesis of a given nanoparticle notably. All of these results suggest a possibility to refine the finetuning of particle properties by exerting influence on synthesis and surface‐matrix interaction by suitable choice of surfactant molecules.

Pictet’s Du Beau (1856) and the crystallisation of saussurean linguistics

Summary The key formative figure in the intellectual life of the young Ferdinand de Saussure was Adolphe Pictet (1799–1875), a family friend best remembered for his Les origines indo-européennes, ou Les Aryas primitifs: Essai de paléontologie linguistique (1859–1863). A review of its second edition written by Saussure two years after Pictet’s death contains a wealth of information about his life and work, including a description of his book Du beau, dans la nature, l’art et la poésie: Etudes esthétiques (1856). In it, Pictet makes clear that aesthetics is principally centred on the problem of the meaning of the word beauty, and that within this problem are to be found all the tensions between the rational and sensible, the intellectual and emotional, the subjective and objective, and intention and reaction, that are at the heart of the whole Enlightenment discourse on the nature of language. A number of remarks on regularity of form in nature, for example in crystallisation, find echoes in Saussure’s later characterisation of the language system, as do Pictet’s assertions about the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign and about the signified being not a thing but a concept. Indeed, a number of ‘influences’ on Saussure which Aarsleff (1982) credited to Hippolyte Taine (1828–1893) – for whom we have no independent evidence of such influence – can more convincingly be ascribed to his early mentor Pictet. Du beau moreover provides a ‘missing link’ between the Enlightenment philosophers whose aesthetic views it details, and the traces of their philosophical positions that have repeatedly been detected in the Cours de linguistique générale.

Marketing's influence on manufacturing practices

This paper investigates a straightforward proposition. If there is to be meaningful coordination between the sales/marketing function and manufacturing, there should be means by which marketing can have an impact on manufacturing practices. This research seeks evidence that marketing does influence the manufacturing practices of companies in four regions of the world. Evidence of such influence is found when marketing participates in the planning of manufacturing activities, sales sets priorities for production of products or changes in production reflect changes in the market place. To see what empirical evidence there might be for this level of involvement, data from the Global Manufacturing Research Group were compiled on forecasting, production planning and shop floor execution. The data contain a sample of manufacturing practices in each of these areas from North America, western Europe, South Korea, and the People's Republic of China. Effective coordination of sales, marketing and manufacturing should involve a marketing presence in all areas right down to the production of the product on the factory floor. The results of the study do not provide a lot of evidence of marketing influence. The presence of marketing is greatest at the forecasting stage, which is not surprising. Forecasts are important components of production planning, but almost no other sales or marketing input is used at this stage. Evidence of marketing's influence is weakest on the shop floor, perhaps at the stage where it is most critical. There are signs that changes do take place in response to sales' needs, and there are differences between the different regions of the world, but they are weak. More understanding of the mechanisms for coordinating sales, marketing and manufacturing is necessary and a specific study to gain a deeper understanding of the realities of the coordination actually practiced today would be valuable.

The polemic about thekarāmāt al-awliyā’ and the development of Ṣūfism in al-Andalus (fourth/tenth–fifth/eleventh centuries)

The flourishing of Ṣūfism in al-Andalus during the first half of the sixth/twelfth century with mystics like Ibn al-‘Arīf, Ibn Barrajān (who both died in 536/1141) and Ibn Qasī(d. 546/1151) has been interpreted in different ways. For M. Asín Palacios it reflects the influence of the mystical tradition initiated by Ibn Masarra in the second half of the third/ninth century, although he himself does not fail to mention the impossibility of providing evidence for such influence. For other scholars, it was mainly due to the influence of al-Ghazālī's works and thought. D. Urvoy, for his part, has shown how in the ‘image’ of Andalusian Islam during the fifth/eleventh-seventh/thirteenth centuries presented by scholars like Ibn Bashkuwāl and Ibn al-Abbār, Ṣūfism appears to be almost non existent. The question of what religious, intellectual and sociopolitical background allowed figures like Ibn al-‘Arīf, Ibn Barrajān and Ibn QasīT to appear, is still to be answered.

Effects of growth factors on the differentiation of neural crest cells and neural crest cell-derivatives.

During neurulation, neural crest cells migrate to many regions of the body to give rise to a wide variety of cell types. Many premigratory neural crest cells are pluripotent, their potency for differentiation being gradually restricted as they migrate along definite pathways and interact with factors present in the microenvironment. Effects of growth factors on these cells have been discussed in the present review. Mediation of growth factors in differentiation varies with the cell type. Growth factors exert a direct influence on the differentiation of neural and other related neural crest-derived tissues such as endocrinal tissues but evidence for such influences on neural crest-derived mesenchymal tissues is limited. For example, NGF, BDNF, and other factors present in neural tube extracts and glioma cell conditioned medium are essential for the differentiation of sensory neurons. Similarly, NGF, insulin, IGFs and possibly other undescribed factors are necessary for the differentiation of sympathetic neurons. IGFs also enhance the proliferation of mesenchymal derivatives of both neural crest and mesodermal origin. Glucocorticoid-mediated differentiation of neural crest-derived chromaffin endocrine cells that are ontogenetically closely related to sympathetic neurons can be inhibited by NGF, and chromaffin cells can be induced to express the neuronal phenotype by NGF. Some growth factors, such as NGF, act on neural crest- and not on placodally-derived neurons, whether the former are sensory or sympathetic. Placodal sensory neurons possess NGF receptors, but only display a limited response to NGF, perhaps because of low affinity of the receptors. Other growth factors, such as BDNF, selectively act upon sensory neurons, whether neural crest- or placodally-derived. Although extracellular matrix products play a role in initiating the differentiative process, signals from growth factors are necessary for the establishment of the functionally competent phenotype of neural crest-derived neurons, a situation that does not apply for neural crest-derived mesenchymal cells. It is interactions with ECM components deposited by epithelia that govern the differentiation of mesenchymal derivatives. Growth factors do effect proliferation of mesenchymal derivatives and inhibit mesenchymal differentiation. Although direct involvement of single growth factors in transformation o f one mesenchymal phenotype to another has not been reported so far, their localization at sites of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in palate teeth and mandible, and the ability of excess growth factors to interrupt normal development is suggestive of their possible involvement. One group of growth factors, BMPs, can influence differentiation of cartilage, including those of neural crest origin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Ioannes Sartorius (ca. 1500-1557), Gymnasiarch Te Amsterdam En Noordwijk, Als Erasmiaan En Spiritualist*

AbstractThe identity of Joannes Sartorius has long been a subject of controversy. As the old bio-bibliographies disagree about the year of his death (the dates range from 1557 to 1575), Henry de Vocht suggested that there might have been two Sartorii: 1. a humanist ludimagister (died 1557), the author of books on Latin grammar and style, the translator of Erasmus' Adagia into Dutch; 2. a protestant zealot (died after 1557), who in writing his heretical works may even have hidden behind the name of the respectable ludimagister. This assumption, however, is connected with De Vocht's anti-protestant bias, which kept him from accepting that humanist and protestant tendencies could coexist in one person (as in e.g. Sartorius' friend Gnapheus, author of the Acolastus). Nevertheless, the outline of the life and works of Sartorius, the heretical ludimagister, could not have been written without De Vocht's numerous and thorough publications. Sartorius worked as a teacher of Latin in Amsterdam and Noordwijk. He is certain to have stayed in Emden and is said to have lived in Basle. His religious convictions got him into trouble several times. Unfortunately, the precise course of Sartorius' life is not yet clear and the greater part of his writings seems to have been lost. The only works we have at our disposal are: 1. a grammar (editio princeps 1533, written ca. 1527); 2. a syntax (ed. pr. 1530, written ca. 1528); 3. Selectissimarum orationum germanice redditarum ... exereitus (ed. pr. ca. 1540), a work on Latin expressions with their Dutch translations; 4. The Adagia, a rich collection of some 3000 proverbs, taken from Erasmus, with their Dutch equivalents added. The Adagia were published posthumously in 1561. In 1530, Sartorius had already published about 300 adages (Latin and Dutch) in an appendix to his syntax. Sartorius was interested in Dutch proverbs and phrases both as an aid in teaching Latin and for their own sake. 5. Paraphrases on the Major and Minor prophets, as well as Sapientia Salomonis (finished 1553, published 1558 in Basle). In this work, Sartorius proves himself a pronounced spiritualist rather than an Erasmian. He must have been familiar with the work of Sebastian Franck. Undoubtedly, he had read at least Franck's Verbutschiert Buch (1539) and his Sechshundert Dreyzehn Gebot und Verpot der Juden (1537). Already in the Exercitus traces of Franck's influence may be detected. There is, incidentally, little other evidence of such influence in the Netherlands in the first half of the 16th century.

The Genetics of Alcoholism

This paper reviews the evidence for genetic influences in the etiology of alcoholism. The evidence for such influences, from studies in biologic and adoptive families of alcoholics and from twin st...

Behavioral and environmental aspects of hypertension.

Relationships of behavioral and environmental influences on the development and maintenance of hypertension have been reviewed. The evidence for such influences arises from studies in five areas, namely, retrospective correlations between emotional events and hypertensive disease; acute changes in blood pressure with stress in animals and man; chronic blood pressure change following stress in animals and man; changes in blood pressure produced by behavioral modifications; and the personality patterns and particular behaviors of hypertensive subjects. Data from these studies have been briefly but critically reviewed with emphasis on the interreactive nature of the environmental, behavioral, genetic and other biological factors which eventuate in hypertension. It is emphasized that the issue for the future is not whether behavioral factors play any role in hypertension but rather to what extent, under what circumstances, and in which individuals behavioral factors are acting as important pressor stimuli in the overall homeostatic distortions that result in hypertension.