The Development of Spatial-Temporal, Probability, and Covariation Information to Infer Continuous Causal Processes.

This paper considers how 5- to 11-year-olds' verbal reasoning about the causality underlying extended, dynamic natural processes links to various facets of their statistical thinking. Such continuous processes typically do not provide perceptually distinct causes and effect, and previous work suggests that spatial-temporal analysis, the ability to analyze spatial configurations that change over time, is a crucial predictor of reasoning about causal mechanism in such situations. Work in the Humean tradition to causality has long emphasized on the importance of statistical thinking for inferring causal links between distinct cause and effect events, but here we assess whether this is also viable for causal thinking about continuous processes.

The role of spatial and spatial-temporal analysis in children's causal cognition of continuous processes.

Past research has largely ignored children's ability to conjointly manipulate spatial and temporal information, but there are indications that the capacity to do so may provide important support for reasoning about causal processes. We hypothesised that spatial-temporal thinking is central to children's ability to identify the invisible mechanisms that tie cause and effect together in continuous casual processes, which are focal in primary school science and crucial to understanding of the natural world. We investigated this in two studies (N = 107, N = 124), employing two methodologies, one shorter, the other more in depth.

Children's reasoning about continuous causal processes: The role of verbal and non-verbal ability.

Background: Causes produce effects via underlying mechanisms that must be inferred from observable and unobservable structures. Preschoolers show sensitivity to mechanisms in machine-like systems with perceptually distinct causes and effects, but little is known about how children extend causal reasoning to the natural continuous processes studied in elementary school science, or how other abilities impact on this.

Aims: We investigated the development of children's ability to predict, observe, and explain three causal processes, relevant to physics, biology, and chemistry, taking into account their verbal and non-verbal ability.

Causation without realism.

Current theories of causality from visual input predict causal impressions only in the presence of realistic interactions, sequences of events that have been frequently encountered in the past of the individual or of the species. This strong requirement limits the capacity for 1-shot induction and, thus, does not sit well with our abilities for rapid creative causal learning, as illustrated, for example, by the effortless way we adapt to new technology. We present 4 experiments (N = 720) that reveal strong causal impressions upon first encounter with collision-like sequences that the literature typically labels "noncausal.

What's fair? How children assign reward to members of teams with differing causal structures.

How do children reward individual members of a team that has just won or lost a game? We know that from pre-school age, children consider agents' performance when allocating reward. Here we assess whether children can go further and appreciate performance in context: The same pattern of performance can contribute to a team outcome in different ways, depending on the underlying rule framework. Two experiments, with three age groups (4/5-year-olds, 6/7-year-olds, and adults), varied performance of team members, with the same performance patterns considered under three different game rules for winning or losing.

Domain-specific perceptual causality in children depends on the spatio-temporal configuration, not motion onset.

Humans, even babies, perceive causality when one shape moves briefly and linearly after another. Motion timing is crucial in this and causal impressions disappear with short delays between motions. However, the role of temporal information is more complex: it is both a cue to causality and a factor that constrains processing.

Emerging perception of causality in action-and-reaction sequences from 4 to 6 months of age: is it domain-specific?

Two experiments (N=136) studied how 4- to 6-month-olds perceive a simple schematic event, seen as goal-directed action and reaction from 3 years of age. In our causal reaction event, a red square moved toward a blue square, stopping prior to contact. Blue began to move away before red stopped, so that both briefly moved simultaneously at a distance.

Forecasting the Population of Census Tracts by Age and Sex: An Example of the Hamilton-Perry Method in Action.

Small area population projections are useful in a range of business applications. This paper uses a case study to show how this type of task can be accomplished by using the Hamilton-Perry method, which is a variant of the cohort-component projection technique. We provide the documentation on the methods, data, and assumptions used to develop two sets of population projections for census tracts in Clark County, Nevada, and discuss specific factors needed to accomplish this task, including the need to bring expert judgment to bear on the task.

Goal attribution to schematic animals: do 6-month-olds perceive biological motion as animate?

Infants are sensitive to biological motion, but do they recognize it as animate? As a first step towards answering this question, two experiments investigated whether 6-month-olds selectively attribute goals to shapes moving like animals. We habituated infants to a square moving towards one of two targets. When target locations were switched, infants reacted more to movement towards a new goal than a new location - but only if the square moved non-rigidly and rhythmically, in a schematic version of bio-mechanical movement older observers describe as animal-like (Michotte, 1963).

Unimpaired perception of social and physical causality, but impaired perception of animacy in high functioning children with autism.

We investigated perception of social and physical causality and animacy in simple motion events, for high-functioning children with autism (CA = 13, VMA = 9.6). Children matched 14 different animations to pictures showing physical, social or non-causality.

[Dysphagia after ventral spondylodesis].

Background: Complications caused by osteosynthetic material after cervical spine surgery are rare.

Patient And Method: The case of a 36-year-old patient is reported, who suffered the extrusion of a screw and migration through the hypopharynx after ventral spondylodesis of a cervical spine fracture.

Result: Dysphagia occurred shortly after spinal surgery.

Causal perception of action-and-reaction sequences in 8- to 10-month-olds.

Four experiments with 202 8- to 10-month-old infants studied their sensitivity to causation-at-a-distance in schematic events seen as goal-directed action and reaction by adults and whether this depends on attributes associated with animate agents. In Experiment 1, a red square moved toward a blue square without making contact; in "reaction" events blue moved away while red was approaching, whereas in "delay" events blue started after red stopped. Infants were habituated to one event and then tested on its reversal.

[Fluorescence of the middle ear].

Background: Discussions of the detection of fluorescein in the perilymph after intravenous (IV) administration have been contradictory. Differentiating between the fluorescence of mucosa and fluorescence signals of extravasation or perilymph fistulas seems to be rather difficult.

Patients And Methods: We performed fluorescence endoscopy of the middle ear after IV administration of fluorescein, twice after intrathecal application, in 53 patients suffering functional cochleovestibular disturbances without improvement by infusion therapy or together with a tympanoplasty or tympanotomy.

[Sinonasal sarcoidosis].

Background: The sinonasal system is rarely involved in the clinical picture of sarcoidosis. In the absence of pulmonary disease, sinonasal sarcoidosis is extremely rare.

Patients And Methods: Four patients with isolated sarcoidosis of the nose and the sinuses are reported; in one of these patients the histological evidence was found in the mucosa of the nasopharynx.

Perceived physical and social causality in animated motions: spontaneous reports and ratings.

Michotte argued that we perceive cause-and-effect, without contributions from reasoning or learning, even in displays of two-dimensional moving shapes. Two studies extend this line of work from perception of mechanical to social causality. We compared verbal reports with structured ratings of causality to gain a better understanding of the extent to which perceptual causality occurs spontaneously or depends on instruction or context.

[24-hour pH monitoring of the hypopharynx in 545 patients with special regard to a critical data evaluation].

Background: Although a number of reports exist on 24-hour pH monitoring of the hypopharynx, no consensus has been reached about evaluation standards. In particular the influence of food and beverages is still different estimated. The parameters which are used to analyze the data of pharyngeal pH monitoring are not consistent.

[Prolonged healing process after endonasal nasal sinus surgery. Gastroesophageal reflux as a cause?].

Background: The healing process after functional endoscopic sinus surgery (FESS) normally takes weeks to months under an intensive therapy regime. Occasionally, symptomatic failures and local problems occur despite extensive follow-up treatment.

Patients And Methods: Over a 3-year period 900 patients underwent FESS in our department.

A temporally asymmetric Hebbian rule governing plasticity in the human motor cortex.

Synaptic plasticity is conspicuously dependent on the temporal order of the pre- and postsynaptic activity. Human motor cortical excitability can be increased by a paired associative stimulation (PAS) protocol. Here we show that it can also be decreased by minimally changing the interval between the two associative stimuli.

Perceptual causality in children.

Three experiments considered the development of perceptual causality in children from 3 to 9 years of age (N = 176 in total). Adults tend to see cause and effect even in schematic, two-dimensional motion events: Thus, if square A moves toward B, which moves upon contact, they report that A launches B--physical causality. If B moves before contact, adults report that B tries to escape from A--social or psychological causality.

Children's probability intuitions: understanding the expected value of complex gambles.

Two experiments used Information Integration Theory to study how children judge expected value of complex gambles in which alternative outcomes have different prizes. Six-year-olds, 9-year-olds and adults (N = 73 in Study 1, N = 28 in Study 2) saw chance games that involved shaking a marble in a bicolored tube. One prize was won if the marble stopped on blue, another if it stopped on yellow.

[Rupture of the round window--detection with fluorescence endoscopy].

Rupture of the round window membrane as a special cause of inner ear deafness is widely accepted after changing pressure levels, e.g. in diving.

[Diagnosis and therapy of laryngitis gastrica].

We treated 64 patients with the diagnosis of laryngitis gastrica with Antra (Omeprazol) in doses of 10, 20, and 40 mg. To determine the success of the therapy, pH monitoring of the esophagus and hypopharynx, the voice status and measurement of vocal penetrating capacity were used. The results prove that a 20-mg dose of Antra is suitable for the therapy of laryngitis gastrica with a high rate of success.