German Subjects Research Articles

The Ideal Type of Authority in the United States and Germany

Using affect control theory, an ideal type of authority is developed from the literature identifying three dimensions of meaning. This ideal type is then used to compare U.S. and German subjects. Because their power is legitimated by cultural rules, authorities are positively evaluated despite their ability to coerce. Because it is understood, authorities need not engage in expressive action to demonstrate their power. The affective meaning of role identities reflects their structural meaning, such as authority. Role identities, rated on three-dimensional semantic differential scales of affective meaning, are classified using a K-means clustering algorithm to empirically generate clusters of structural meaning. The cluster discussed here corresponds to the ideal typical authority category of potent, positively evaluated, and not expressive role identities. In the two studies reported here involving more than 1,700 U.S. and German subjects, I find a high degree of cross-cultural agreement on what is classified as authority. However, U.S. and German youth differ significantly in confirming the ideal type of authority. German youth dislike the power potential of authorities more than their U.S. counterparts do.

‘Der Staat, Dem Ich Jetzt Angehöre…’ Thomas Mann and Czechoslovakia

Thomas Mann was closely linked with Czechoslovakia through family ties, including his brother Heinrich's marriage to a Czech Jewish actress, and literary connections, making frequent lecture tours to Prague from 1905 onwards. Although he never mastered Czech, he enjoyed its literature in translation, and a letter exists to Bedřich Fučik, director of the Melantrich publishing house which issued the Czech translations of his works, discussing Mann's knowledge of Czech culture. He was also a friend of Karel Čapek.When Mann was about to be stripped of German citizenship in 1939, Rudolf Fleischmann, president of the Prague Thomas Mann-Gesellschaft, organized residence rights in Proseč u Skutče, enabling him and his family, like Heinrich Mann, to acquire Czech citizenship. Although he had to relinquish this on becoming an American citizen, he was deeply touched when in 1952 it was restored to both brothers as a mark of honour. His obituary of President Masaryk, correspondence with his successor Beneš and intervention on behalf of German subjects trapped in Czechoslovakia in 1938 testify to his admiration for his adopted people and their integrity under political intimidation.

Other Germans: black Germans and the politics of race, gender, and memory in the Third Reich

It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity. Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with Important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-Semitism. She also provides an oral history as background for her study, interviewing two Black German subjects for her book. In the end the author comes face to face with an inevitable question: Is there a relationship between the history of Black Germans and those of other black communities? The answers to Campt's questions make Other Germans essential reading in the emerging study of what it means to be black and German in the context of a society that looked at anyone with non-German blood as raclally impure at best.

Brain mapping of evoked potential correlates of semantic meaning—cross-cultural studies

According to the “semantic differential technique” the affective meaning of words can be quantified in statistically defined, independent dimensions where every word is located on the three dimensions evaluation (“good–bad”), potency (“strong–weak”), and activity (“active–passive”). We studied how affective meaning of words is reflected in brain electric activity in German and Chinese subjects (a total of 52 German and 55 Chinese adults were investigated). Two experiments were performed on both subjects groups: (1) a list of words was rated on 12 adjective scales. All words had a comparable number of letters and frequency of occurrence in the Chinese or German language. Factor analysis followed by varimax rotation yielded three semantic dimensions. The correlation between languages ranged from 0.83 to 0.92. For each dimension, words were selected which scored highly positive or highly negative on one of the three dimensions, and had small scores on the others. This resulted in six semantically “clear” word classes. (2) Electrophysiological experiments were performed with 22 German and 23 Chinese healthy, right-handed adults. Stimuli were presented sequentially on a computer monitor in random order, and EEG was recorded from 29 channels. Evoked potentials were computed off-line for each semantic class. Significant differences in scalp topography between semantic word classes were not restricted to late “cognitive” components, but brain activity at latencies as early as 80 ms after stimulus onset was affected by semantic meaning of the stimuli in both groups. Comparison of the potential fields and spatial principal components analysis revealed very similar topographical components in German and Chinese subjects. These results show that early language-related neural activation occurs in subjects of different language and culture.

Multi-dimensional contributions to garden path strength: Dissociating phrase structure from case marking

Psycholinguistic investigations of reanalysis phenomena have typically focused on revisions of phrase structure. Here, we identify a further subcomponent of syntactic reanalysis, namely the revision of case marking. This aspect of reanalysis was isolated by examining German subject–object ambiguities that require a revision towards a dative-initial order. Since dative-initial orders are potentially unmarked, no phrase structure corrections are required, but the original, preference-based nominative assignment must be revised. Experiment 1, an ERP study, revealed an N400 component for reanalysis of case marking, which contrasted with a P600 component for phrase structure revisions. The ‘reanalysis N400’ was replicated in Experiment 2, which also showed that direct lexical support for a dative-initial order leads to a reduction of the effect. Finally, in Experiment 3, direct time course measures provided by the speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) procedure supported the case reanalysis account by showing that conditions hypothesized to involve case reanalysis (dative-initial structures) require longer computation times than their nominative-initial counterparts. Lexeme-specific support for the dative-initial reading, however, does not lead to a faster computation of the target structure, but rather increases the likelihood that the correct interpretation will be computed. We interpret these findings as evidence for the general availability of an unmarked dative–nominative word order in German, the accessibility of which may be increased by lexical information. Moreover, the data show that syntactic reanalysis is not a homogeneous process, but may rather be subdivided along several dimensions that interact in determining overall garden path strength.

Lexical memory search during N400: cortical couplings in auditory comprehension.

In this study, we applied partial-directed EEG-coherence analysis to assess regional changes in neuronal couplings and information transfer related to semantic processing. We tested the hypothesis whether (and which) processing differences between spoken words and pseudowords are reflected by changes in cortical networks within the time window of a specific event related potential (ERP) component, the N400. Fourteen native speaking German subjects performed a lexical decision paradigm, while being confronted sequentially with two-syllabic nouns and phonologically legal pseudowords. Using ERP analysis, we defined the time window of the N400 effect, known to reflect semantic processing, and, subsequently, we examined the coupling differences. Lexico-semantic memory search appears to be subserved by a network between temporal, parietal and frontal areas, particularly restricted to the left hemisphere.

Vox Electronica: Nostalgia, Irony and Cyborgian Vocalities in Kraftwerk’s Radioaktivität and Autobahn

This paper takes a close look at the music of Kraftwerk, perhaps the best known of the ‘electronic’ groups of former West Germany’s so-called neue Welle, in order to raise some fundamental questions about the politics of elektronische Musik before the dawn of the digital age and, in particular, how constructions and performances of the voice in late analogue technology rehearse new and critical strategies of resistance in the aftermath of 1968.It is a commonplace of recent cultural-theoretical considerations of digital technology to ascribe to it a fundamental re-positioning of imaginations of the subject, of authorship and of agency in the broadest sense. What has never really been fully worked through in this (usually utopian) figuration of digital technology is the extent to which technology can be conceived as ‘autonomous’ (as Rosie Braidotti would have it) or whether new technologies in themselves are a guarantor of new cultural formations. In particular, this paper seeks to test the extent to which Kraftwerk’s pre-digital imagination can be read as an expression of the politics of the so-called Tendenzwende (a ‘turning inwards’ from explicitly activist politics to a more diffuse politics of the personal) of the Schmidt- and early Kohlzeit. The article looks in particular at Kraftwerk’s use of what might be termed the ‘electronic sublime’ as a way of disengaging the music from the ego-centred practices of earlier German rock music and as a way of anticipating new German subject positions and political identities in the light of de-industrialization and globalization.

Value structure at an early age

Research with adult subjects has provided evidence for the validity of Schwartz’ (1992) theory on the structure of values. However, information about children and adolescents is scarce. Using the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ-29) to test the applicability of Schwartz’ values theory to this population, a sample of 1555 German subjects aged 10 to 17 was investigated. Value structure was analyzed for the whole sample and for different age groups. Results broadly confirm the validity of Schwartz’ theory. They do not show the hypothesized correspondence between age and structural complexity, as operationalized by the number of distinct value types. Rather, the value structure of 10 to 12 year olds is nearly as differentiated as that of 15 to 17 year olds.

Cross‐cultural tourist behaviour: a replication and extension involving Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension

AbstractHofstede's five cross‐cultural dimensions have been broadly applied in the literature. Money and Crotts recently applied the dimension of uncertainty avoidance to a matched sample comprised of low uncertainty avoidance German and high uncertainty avoidance Japanese tourists, finding their behaviours consistent with those behaviours predicted by Hofstede. This study both replicates and extends their research across a representative sample of first time leisure visitors to the USA representing 58 nations. It was found that visitors from high uncertainty avoidance cultures exhibited behaviours consistent with those of the Japanese in the Money and Crotts research, whereas visitors from low‐uncertainty avoidance cultures behaved similarly to their German subjects. Such findings, across a broad sample population, validate the original research through a more rigorous test of its propositions, provide increased confidence regarding their generalisability, and further contribute to our understanding of the influence of national culture on tourist behaviour. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

Importance of genetic effects for characteristics of the human iris.

The relative importance of genetic influences (heritability) on five general textural quality characteristics of the human iris was assessed using sex and age limitation models. Colour photographs of irises were available from 100 monozygotic twin pairs, 99 dizygotic twin pairs, and 99 unrelated randomly paired age-matched German subjects. Comparative scales were constructed and two judges who were blind to zygosity independently rated five characteristic of the subjects' left iris. Inter-rater reliabilities were larger than.90 for all five scales. The heritabilities for the five iris characteristics ranged from.51-.90. No sex-specific genetic factors were found for the iris characteristics. Age-group differences in heritability were found for one of the five iris characteristics - "distinction of white dot rings". Heritability was greater for the older cohort (90%) than the younger (73%). The iris characteristics that showed the next highest additive-genetic effect were "contractional furrows" (78%) and "frequency of crypts" in the main stroma leaf (66%).

Self-attribution, sun-sign traits, and the alleged role of favourableness as a moderator variable: long-term effect or artefact?

The process of self-attribution is an important factor in the development of beliefs in the validity of presented personality descriptions. Hamilton (2001) proposed that the relative favourableness of astrologically derived personality descriptions is a moderator variable for long-term self-attribution effects based on knowledge of the astrological sun-sign symbolism. Because the sets of traits associated with some sun-signs are thought to be more favourable than those of other sun-signs, she predicts that natives born under a more favourable sign should show a stronger belief in astrology than subjects born under less favourable signs. To test this hypothesis, we studied 1700 German subjects, to see if their belief in astrology varied with respect to their sun-sign. But the mean belief scores were almost exactly the same for all sign groups, providing strong evidence against Hamilton's hypothesis. It is proposed that the conflicting empirical findings of Hamilton (2001) are probably artefacts of the experimental setting, and not long-term effects of self-attribution.

Dimensions of affective semantic meaning — behavioral and evoked potential correlates in Chinese subjects

The affective meaning of words can be quantified statistically by the ‘semantic differential technique’. We studied a total of 55 Chinese adults in two experiments: first, 210 nouns were rated by 32 subjects. Factor analysis on these data yielded three independent semantic dimensions. Semantically unique words were used in electrophysiological experiments in another group of 23 healthy right-handed adults. Words of similar physical appearance belonging to different semantic classes were presented visually in random order. The electrocardiogram was recorded in 32 channels. Evoked activity was computed for each semantic class. Significant differences in electrical brain activation between semantic word classes were seen as early as 80 ms after stimulus onset confirming related findings in German subjects. These results illustrate similar early neural activation in subject groups of different language and culture.

Functional vitamin B12 deficiency and determination of holotranscobalamin in populations at risk.

The prevalence of a sub-clinical functional vitamin B12 deficiency in the general population is higher than previously expected. Total serum vitamin B12 may not reliably indicate vitamin B12 status. To get more specificity and sensitivity in diagnosing vitamin B12 deficiency, the concept of measuring holotranscobalamin II (holoTC), a sub-fraction of vitamin B12, has aroused great interest. HoloTC as a biologically active vitamin B12 fraction promotes a specific uptake of its vitamin B12 by all cells. In this study we investigated the diagnostic value of storage (holoTC) of vitamin B12 and functional markers (methylmalonic acid (MMA)) of vitamin B12 metabolism in populations who are at risk of vitamin B12 deficiency. Our study included 93 omnivorous German controls, 111 German and Dutch vegetarian subjects, 122 Syrian apparently healthy subjects, 127 elderly Germans and finally 92 German pre-dialysis renal patients. Serum concentrations of homocysteine (Hcy) and MMA were measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, folate and vitamin B12 by chemiluminescence immunoassay, and holoTC by utilizing a RIA test. High Hcy (>12 micromol/l), high MMA (>271 nmol/l) resp. low holoTC (vitamin B12) in serum were detected in 15%, 8% resp. 13% (1%) of German controls, 36%, 60%, resp. 72% (30%) of vegetarians, 42%, 48% resp. 50% (6%) of Syrians, 75%, 42%, resp. 21% (7%) of elderly subjects and 75%, 67% resp. 4% (2%) of renal patients. The lowest median levels of holoTC were observed in vegetarians, followed by the Syrian subjects (23 and 35 pmol/l, respectively). Renal patients had significantly higher levels of holoTC compared to the German controls (74 vs. 54 pmol/l). In the vitamin B12 range between 156 pmol/l (conventional cut-off level) and 241 pmol/l, both mean concentrations of holoTC and MMA were in the pathological range. HoloTC was the earliest marker for vitamin B12 deficiency followed by MMA. Vitamin B12 deficiency causes folate trapping. A higher folate level is required to keep Hcy normal. The relationship between MMA and holoTC seemed dependent on renal function. In renal patients with a glomerular filtration rate below 36 ml/min, a significantly lower mean level of MMA was detected within the highest tertile of holoTC concentration, compared to the lowest tertile. Thus, in renal patients, a higher serum concentration of circulating holoTC is required to deliver sufficient amounts of holoTC into the cells. Our data support the concept that the measurement of holoTC and MMA provides a better index of cobalamin status than the measurement of total vitamin B12. HoloTC is the most sensitive marker, followed by MMA. The use of holoTC and MMA enables us to differentiate between storage depletion and functional vitamin B12 deficiency. Renal patients have a higher requirement of circulating holoTC. In renal dysfunction, holoTC cannot be used as a marker of vitamin B12 status.

Der Eutiner Dichterkreis und der Nationalsozialismus 1936-1945: Eine Dokumentation by Lawrence D. Stokes (review)

240 Reviews Der Eutiner Dichterkreis und der Nationalsozialismus ig^6-ig4^: Eine Dokumentation. By Lawrence D. Stokes. (Quellenund Forschungenzur Geschichte SchleswigHolsteins , 111) Neumunster: Wachholtz. 2001. 470 pp. ?36. ISBN 3-5290221 i-x (pbk). In its finest moments Lawrence D. Stokes's book succeeds as a microstudy of Na? tional Socialist Kulturschaffen in that it demonstrates the mechanics of the symbiotic interplay between the interests of the state and those of individual writers. It was in fact a politician who played a significant role in the foundation of the 'Eutiner Dichterkreis' in 1936. This was a man who had earned himself the moniker 'Lattenbohmcker ' in street brawls and who had a tendency to pour beer into pianos at SA festivities. It was precisely to rid himself of the reputation as a philistine that Regierungsprasident Bohmcker supported the initiative of the ambitious failed author Jochen Schmidt, whose aim was to bring together 'eine Reihe von bedeutenden niederdeutschen Dichtern und Erzahlern im norddeutschen Raum'. And ofcourse the authors were happy to accept invitations to weekends with free concerts, excursions, readings, Kajfee undKuchen, and all the rest of it. The better-known members ofthe circle (altogether about thirty) were Hans Friedrich Blunck, Hermann Claudius, Edwin Erich Dwinger, Gustav Frenssen, and Georg von der Vring; other members were successful authors ofMundartliteratur of all genres, but were largely unknown outside the realms of Plattdeutsch. Everyone involved benefited from the arrangements: the politician appeared as cultural benefactor, the ambitious Schmidt had a meaningful cause, the state retained its cultural facade, and the poets?what did they actually get out of it? The committed Nazis were a small minority: almost always the motivations were a mixture of opportunism, idealism, sympathy with certain National Socialist ideas, and pride inspired by recognition from above. It is one of the strengths of the book that in the short biographies, which constitute its longest chapter, Stokes emphasizes the contradictions so characteristic of artists' careers in Germany in the 1930s. The book begins with a brilliant essay by Kay Dohnke (Hamburg), who traces the development of 'norddeutsche Regionalliteratur zwischen Heimatkunstbewegung und Nationalsozialismus'. It has to be said, however, that Dohnke's intro? duction constitutes the only reliable theoretical component in the whole book, for Stokes himself too often fails to analyse the phenomena he documents. Thus the aim to establish 'ob der Eutiner Kreis zu Recht als nationalsozialistische Einrichtung bezeichnet werden kann oder ob er lediglich mit gewissen Zielen des Nationalsozia? lismus ubereinstimmte' (p. 65) is a false distinction which fails back behind research standards and even behind what the book itself demonstrates. It is also disastrously wrong to state that the imperfections of National Socialist control mechanisms, resulting from personal, institutional, and ideological frictions within the state apparatus, should have led to an 'erhebliches MaB an Freiheit fur literarischen Ausdruck'. Lack of totalitarian control must not be confused with individual liberty. It is hardly surprising that the Eutiner Dichterkreis presented itselfas the continuation ofthe Eutiner Kreis around 1800 when Graf Stolberg, Voss, Nicolovius, and Jacobi established a formidable intellectual circle. By devoting twelve irrelevant pages to this group Stokes appears to give the self-legitimization of its Nazi successors serious consideration, thus lowering himself to the level of Heimatforschung in the worst sense of the word. It gets outright ridiculous when Stokes claims that the 'grundlegenste' difference between the two Eutin circles was of a political nature because Stolberg, Voss, and the others, in contrast to their dubious successors, were 'Rassensklaverei, Ausrottungsfeldzugen und Klassenherrschaft gegenuber ablehnend eingestellt'. This is at best anachronistic, at worst it illustrates the abuse of language described by Victor Klemperer in Chapter 23 of LTI (3rd edn, Halle: Niemeyer, 1957). As a documentation, MLRy 98.1, 2003 241 Stokes's book is an achievement, but it is at times marred by embarrassing theoretical and linguistic blunders. The Queen's College, Oxford Stefan Busch German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile ig33-ig^o: Biographies and Biblio? graphies. By ZlataFussPhillips. Munich: Saur. 2001.318pp. ?110. ISBN3598 -11569-5. In the last few years there have been two major exhibitions devoted to the subject of German and Austrian children's and young people's literature, written, illustrated and...

German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile 1933-1950: Biographies and Bibliographies by Zlata Fuss Phillips (review)

MLRy 98.1, 2003 241 Stokes's book is an achievement, but it is at times marred by embarrassing theoretical and linguistic blunders. The Queen's College, Oxford Stefan Busch German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile ig33-ig^o: Biographies and Biblio? graphies. By ZlataFussPhillips. Munich: Saur. 2001.318pp. ?110. ISBN3598 -11569-5. In the last few years there have been two major exhibitions devoted to the subject of German and Austrian children's and young people's literature, written, illustrated and published in exile after 1933, the firstin Leipzig in 1995, the second in Vienna in 1999. Before then, as the author of this volume rightly indicates, the whole area of children's literature in exile had been ignored or overlooked. One of the firststudies of exile literature, F. C. Weiskopf's Unter fremdem Himmel: ein Abrifi der deutschen Literatur im Exil ig33~ig47 (Berlin: Dietz, 1948), had one chapter entitled 'Fiirs Kind und ftirdie reifere Jugend'. Weiskopf listed twelve authors and a few of their best-known works for children. Although in the intervening years various studies appeared in the two Germanies and in Austria, the leap from twelve authors to the 101 emigres represented in this handbook is enormous. About fortyof these authors and illustrators settled in the USA, twenty in the UK. The range of countries of exile identified thereafter is vast: many moved to Continental Europe, many to central and South America. Some well-known publishers were involved, but the compiler has shown admirable assiduity in discovering children's literature in the most unlikely places. Switzerland tops the list, the Sauerlander Verlag being the publisher with the largest number of books listed in this handbook. Each entry consists of a biography of the author or illustrator and bibliographical descriptions of his or her books. Where possible, a summary is given of the plot. The compiler has also hunted out photographs of the authors. Some entries may come as a surprise: Bertolt Brecht, for example, as a writer of children's literature? But, of course, he was the author of the 'Kinderlieder' in the Svendborger Gedichte (London: Malik, 1939) and of the 'Kinderkreuzzug 1939' (The German American (New York), 1, no. 8 (1942), 8-9). The very next entry is for Willi Bredel, better known for his concentration-camp novel Die Prufung than for his work for children. Few authors were particularly successful in this genre, but there were exceptions, such as Bettina (properly Bettina Ehrlich), the wife of the sculptor and artist Georg Ehrlich. Erna Pinner too became enormously successful as a result of her illustrations for Felix Salten's Bambi's Children, translated by Barthold Fles, edited by R. Sugden Tilly, firstpublished in New York and Indianapolis by Bobbs-Merrill (c. 1939). Another blessed with success was Walter Trier, memorable for his association with Erich Kastner. Trier settled in England and became a cartoonist and illustrator; he later died in Canada. The longest entry is that for Rafaello Busoni (born into a family of famous musicians), who reached the USA by way of Sweden. All works listed in this handbook are given a location and for him, as for so many others, it is the Walter Library at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Writers and illustrators in exile had to find a means of survival. Some listed here had been involved in children's literature before, some discovered this market niche in exile. Clearly for many the training they had received in the arts and crafts of design in the colleges of Germany and Austria proved an excellent grounding and a saleable skill gratefully received in their countries of asylum. Zlata Fuss Phillips 242 Reviews is to be commended for the immaculate manner in which she has recorded all the wonderful work of the authors and illustrators in this corner of the world of exile. Institute of Germanic Studies, London J. M. Ritchie Am stiirzenden Pfad: Gesammelte Gedichte. By Franz Baermann Steiner. Ed. by Jeremy Adler. (Veroffentlichungen der Deutschen Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung Darmstadt, 76) Gottingen: Wallstein. 2000. 493 pp. ?35. ISBN 389244 -411-0 (hbk). The poetry of Franz Baermann Steiner (1909-52), an exile from Prague who taught...

A common haplotype for the 677T thermolabile variant of the 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase gene in thrombophilic patients and controls.

The common polymorphic transition 677C>T in the 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) gene causes a thermolabile enzyme variant. This variant is associated with moderate hyperhomocysteinemia, a risk factor for vascular disease and thrombophilia. Up to now, it remained unclear if the thermolabile MTHFR variant either directly predisposes to vascular disease, or if 677T is only a genetic marker for another causative genetic alteration in cis. Aim of this study was to characterize the genetic background of 677T-alleles by haplotype analysis. We analyzed 25 individuals of German descent homozygous for 677T: nine young patients, who had suffered from thromboembolic events, and 16 healthy controls. The results of this study demonstrate that the 677T alleles are associated with a common haplotype most likely due to a founder effect and that the 677T haplotype was the same in the healthy and the thrombophilic German subjects.

Are obese adolescents and young adults at higher risk for mental disorders? A community survey.

Associations between body mass index (BMI) and mental disorders meeting Axis-I diagnoses according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) were investigated in The Early Developmental Stages of Psychopathology Study in a large population-based sample, which included adolescents and young adults of both genders for the first time. A total of 3021 German subjects ranging from 14 to 24 years of age were assessed for specific DSM-IV diagnoses derived from a modified version of the standardized Composite International Diagnostic Interview, and general psychological disturbances, using the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised. BMI percentiles for age and gender were calculated to avoid systematic bias in the BMI distribution resulting from the young age range represented in the sample. Additionally, subjects with a lifetime diagnosis of any eating disorder were excluded from statistical analysis to control the confounding effect of body weight-related eating disorders on associations between BMI and psychopathology. The results based on logistic regression analyses and MANOVAs demonstrate that the BMI is not associated with mental disorders or general psychopathologies. There were no significant associations between BMI and mood, anxiety, substance, and somatoform disorders, a result that contrasts with almost all previous clinical studies. Additionally, in contrast to clinical investigations and most epidemiological studies, neither obesity nor underweight was significantly associated with any kind of general psychopathology. The overall finding that obesity is not significantly related to marked psychopathology in the general German population of adolescents and young adults has important clinical implications.

Plasticity of the human auditory cortex induced by discrimination learning of non-native, mora-timed contrasts of the Japanese language.

In this magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study, we examined with high temporal resolution the traces of learning in the speech-dominant left-hemispheric auditory cortex as a function of newly trained mora-timing. In Japanese, the "mora" is a temporal unit that divides words into almost isochronous segments (e.g., na-ka-mu-ra and to-o-kyo-o each comprises four mora). Changes in the brain responses of a group of German and Japanese subjects to differences in the mora structure of Japanese words were compared. German subjects performed a discrimination training in 10 sessions of 1.5 h each day. They learned to discriminate Japanese pairs of words (in a consonant, anni-ani; and a vowel, kiyo-kyo, condition), where the second word was shortened by one mora in eight steps of 15 msec each. A significant increase in learning performance, as reflected by behavioral measures, was observed, accompanied by a significant increase of the amplitude of the Mismatch Negativity Field (MMF). The German subjects' hit rate for detecting durational deviants increased by up to 35%. Reaction times and MMF latencies decreased significantly across training sessions. Japanese subjects showed a more sensitive MMF to smaller differences. Thus, even in young adults, perceptual learning of non-native mora-timing occurs rapidly and deeply. The enhanced behavioral and neurophysiological sensitivity found after training indicates a strong relationship between learning and (plastic) changes in the cortical substrate.

Deviant olfactory experiences, magical ideation, and olfactory sensitivity: a study with healthy German and Japanese subjects

Little is known about the relationship between olfactory hallucinations and olfactory sensitivity in psychiatric populations. However, in healthy subjects, a ‘psychotic-like’ feature, namely magical ideation, has been linked to deviant olfactory experiences. We thus assessed olfactory sensitivity, magical ideation and deviant olfactory experiences in 42 healthy subjects (21 Germans and 21 age- and gender-matched Japanese). The results show that: (1) Germans had significantly higher magical ideation scores and a higher frequency of deviant olfactory experiences than Japanese, and more Germans than Japanese reported having had deviant olfactory experiences at least once in their lives; (2) in Germans, the occurrence of deviant olfactory experiences was correlated with higher magical ideation scores; and (3) there was no relationship between olfactory sensitivity (olfactory thresholds) and either deviant olfactory experiences or magical ideation, respectively. We conclude that: (1) the lack of deviant olfactory experiences in Japanese may best be explained by cultural differences in the response attitude towards questionnaires requiring self-disclosure; (2) the positive relationship between magical ideation and deviant olfactory experiences strengthens the supposed link between ‘psychotic-like’ features in healthy populations and real hallucinations of psychiatric patients; and (3) the absence of a relationship between olfactory sensitivity and deviant olfactory experiences suggests that their anatomical-functional correlates within temporo-limbic regions may differ.

Separating syntactic memory costs and syntactic integration costs during parsing: the processing of German WH-questions

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants processed case-unambiguous German subject and object WH-questions with either a long or a short distance between the WH-filler and its gap. A sustained left anterior negativity was observed for object questions with long filler-gap distance but not for short object questions. This negativity was modulated by individual differences in working memory capacity. No comparable negativity was elicited by WHETHER-questions which did not contain a filler-gap dependency. A positive-going ERP effect was observed for short and long object WH-questions at the position of the second noun phrase. We interpret the sustained negativity as reflecting working memory processes required for maintaining the dislocated object in memory. Processing costs associated with integrating the stored element into the phrase structure representation are indicated by the local positivity. These results support the notion of separable syntactic working memory and syntactic integration cost components as causes of processing difficulty in complex sentences.