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Human social interactions in daily life involve sharing various types of rewards. Previous research evolving around issues of selfish versus altruistic behavior indicates that when individuals share rewards like money with powerless others, some are purely selfish while a substantial number shares evenly. It is, however, mostly unknown how they share primary rewards like water, compared to secondary rewards like money. We adopt the widely studied Dictator Game for comparing water to be divided among study participants with a monetary reward. We show that thirsty participants share water more often equally with powerless, anonymous others than they do money. This is the case even when they earned both types of rewards in a preceding task. Results indicate that altruistic behavior is more likely to occur when it comes to sharing primary rewards. The ecologically more valid scenario employed in this study provides initial evidence that the concept of a self-interested homo economicus might not apply to everyday social interactions involving rewards other than money.

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BACKGROUND: Medical students present higher numbers of physician relatives than expectable from the total population prevalence of physicians. Evidence for such a familial aggregation effect of physicians has emerged in investigations from the Anglo-American, Scandinavian, and German-speaking areas. In particular, past data from Austria suggest a familial aggregation of the medical, as well as of the psychological and psychotherapeutic, professions among medical and psychology undergraduates alike. Here, we extend prior related studies by examining (1) the extent to which familial aggregation effects apply to the whole nation-wide student census of all relevant (eight) public universities in Austria; (2) whether effects are comparable for medical and psychology students; (3) and whether these effects generalize to relatives of three interrelated health professions (medicine, psychology, and psychotherapy). METHODS: We investigated the familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists, based on an entire cohort census of first-year medical and psychology students (n = 881 and 920) in Austria with generalized linear mixed models. RESULTS: For both disciplines, we found strong familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists. As compared with previous results, directionally opposite time trends within disciplines emerged: familial aggregation of physicians among medical students has decreased, whilst familial aggregation of psychologists among psychology students has increased. Further, there were sex-of-relative effects (i.e., more male than female physician relatives), but no substantial sex-of-student effects (i.e., male and female students overall reported similar numbers of relatives for all three professions of interest). In addition, there were age-benefit effects, i.e., students with a relative in the medical or the psychotherapeutic profession were younger than students without, thus suggesting earlier career decisions. CONCLUSIONS: The familial aggregation of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists is high among medical and psychology undergraduates in Austria. Discussed are implications of these findings (e.g., gender equity, feminization of the medical field, ideas for curricular implementation and student counselling), study limitations, and avenues for future research.

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While inattentional blindness is a modern classic in attention and perception research, analogous phenomena of inattentional deafness have been widely neglected. We here present the first investigation of inattentional deafness in and with music under controlled experimental conditions. Inattentional deafness in music is defined as the inability to consciously perceive an unexpected musical stimulus when attention is focused on a certain facet of the piece. Participants listened to a modification of the first 1'50″ of Richard Strauss' Thus Spake Zarathustra; while the control group just listened, the experimental group had to count the number of timpani beats. An e-guitar solo served as the unexpected event. In Study 1, experimental data from n = 115 participants were analyzed. Non-musicians were compared with musicians to investigate the impact of expertise. In Study 2 (n = 47), the scope of the inattentional deafness effect was investigated with a more salient unexpected stimulus. Results demonstrate an inattentional deafness effect under dynamic musical conditions. Quite unexpectedly, the effect was structurally equivalent even for musicians. Our findings clearly show that sustained inattentional deafness exists in the musical realm, in close correspondence to inattentional blindness with dynamic visual stimuli.

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Although cognitive music psychology has a long tradition of expert-novice comparisons, experimental training studies are rare. Studies on the learning progress of trained novices in hearing harmonic relationships are still largely lacking. This paper presents a simple training concept using the example of tone/triad similarity ratings, demonstrating the gradual progress of non-musicians compared to musical experts: In a feedback-based "rapid learning" paradigm, participants had to decide for single tones and chords whether paired sounds matched each other well. Before and after the training sessions, they provided similarity judgments for a complete set of sound pairs. From these similarity matrices, individual relational sound maps, intended to display mental representations, were calculated by means of non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), and were compared to an expert model through procrustean transformation. Approximately half of the novices showed substantial learning success, with some participants even reaching the level of professional musicians. Results speak for a fundamental ability to quickly train an understanding of harmony, show inter-individual differences in learning success, and demonstrate the suitability of the scaling method used for learning research in music and other domains. Results are discussed in the context of the "giftedness" debate.

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BACKGROUND: Altered immunologic parameters are found in symptomatic depressed patients relative to remitted depressed patients and healthy controls. We investigated whether tryptophan depletion and catecholamine depletion induce alterations in immunologic parameters in patients with seasonal affective disorder remitted on light therapy, and whether these changes are associated with changes in mood. METHODS: Remitted patients with seasonal affective disorder underwent tryptophan depletion, catecholamine depletion, and sham depletion in a prospective randomized, double-blind crossover design. Measures of depression, plasma levels of tryptophan and catecholamine metabolites, and plasma levels of cytokines (sIL-4, IL-6, neopterin, sTNF-R1 and sTNF-R2) were obtained at baseline, and 7, 24, and 30 hours after monoamine depletion. RESULTS: Tryptophan depletion decreased plasma total and free tryptophan levels; catecholamine depletion decreased plasma 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylethyleneglycol and homovanillic acid levels. Tryptophan depletion and catecholamine depletion, but not sham depletion, induced a transient exacerbation of depressive symptoms (p <.001); plasma neopterin levels increased during tryptophan depletion and catecholamine depletion (p <.05). Tryptophan depletion and catecholamine depletion induced a transient reduction of plasma sIL-4 levels (p <.05). A significant correlation was found between sIL-4R levels and depression ratings after tryptophan depletion (r = -.61, p <.05). CONCLUSIONS: The monoamine depletion-induced alterations of humoral and cellular immunity suggest a potential role of immunologic parameters in the pathophysiology of seasonal affective disorder; however, the results must be considered preliminary and require further study.

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BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that serotonin transporter gene promoter polymorphism (5HTTLPR)-dependent low transcriptional activity of the human serotonin transporter gene may be a genetic susceptibility factor for depression. We studied the behavioral responses to tryptophan depletion (TD) in healthy women with and without a first-degree family history of depression and examined the relationship to 5HTTLPR alleles. METHODS: Twenty-four healthy women with a negative family history of depression and 21 women with a positive family history of depression were genotyped for the polymorphism of the 5HTTLPR and then entered a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover TD study. The effects of these interventions were assessed with measures of depression and plasma tryptophan levels. RESULTS: The TD induced a robust decrease of plasma tryptophan levels in all women irrespective of family history of depression or 5HTTLPR genotypes. The s/s genotype of the 5HTTLPR was associated with an increased risk of developing depressive symptoms during TD irrespective of family history. In contrast, individuals with the l/l genotype did not develop depressive symptoms, irrespective of family history. Finally, s/l subjects without family history showed a mood response that was intermediate between the s/s and l/l subjects, while s/l subjects with a family history of depression showed the same depressiogenic effect of TD as seen in the s/s subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study suggest that the s-allele of the 5HTTLPR and a positive family history of depression are additive risk factors for the development of depression during TD.

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