M. A. Van Selst, E. Ruthruff, and J. C. Johnston (1999) found that practice dramatically reduced dual-task interference in a Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm with 1 vocal response and 1 manual response. Results from 3 further experiments using the highly trained participants of M. A. Van Selst et al. (1999) support 4 main conclusions: (a) A processing bottleneck exists even after ...

The apparently deleterious effect of aging on dual-task performance is well established, but there is little agreement about the source of this effect. Studies of the psychological refractory period (PRP) indicate that young adults can flexibly control dual-task performance through task-coordination strategies. Thus, the performance of older adults might differ from young adults because older a...

Why is the human brain fundamentally limited when attempting to execute two tasks at the same time or in close succession? Two classical paradigms, psychological refractory period (PRP) and task switching, have independently approached this issue, making significant advances in our understanding of the architecture of cognition. Yet, there is an apparent contradiction between the conclusions de...

The authors describe 10 cases of osteosarcoma of the spine treated between January 1951 and December 2010, and obtained from the Tumour Registry of their hospital. The mean age at presentation was 38.8 years (range: 16-73 years); the mean duration of symptoms was 5.1 months (range: 3 weeks-1 year). Pain was the commonest complaint (9 patients), followed by neurological compromise (6 patients). ...

In this paper, I want to characterize Wittgenstein’s epistemology, namely his contextualism, presented in his notes published under the title On Certainty. This characterization will be made in terms of a comparison with four control points in order to put into light the peculiarities of Wittgenstein’s epistemological position. The markers I will use for that purpose will give an indication of ...

Every so often in the history of medicine, events occur which in retrospect seem to mark a defining moment. For psychiatry, the decade of the 1950s uses one such 'moment.' On 28 December 1951, J. Sigwald started solo chlorpromazine treatment of a 57-year-old psychotic lady and, thereby, it might be argued, began the modern era of psychopharmacology.