How to Read the pseudo‐Denys Today?

Abstract:   Both modern and medieval commentators on the pseudo-Denys offer misreadings. With the exception of Aquinas, they fail to see the connection between mystical and liturgical strands of his thought, and so read him as offering an account of some generic religiosity. This history suggests a tension in the procedure of ressourcement : the better a theologian is placed within his intellectual and cultural context, the more difficult it is for him to be used to inform theology today. The process of tracing the theological tradition, however, is a process of retroactive comprehension.     

Is the concept of ‘personality’ relevant to the study of animal aggression?

Both theoretical considerations and methodological constraints explain why the experimental study of animal aggression does not often put much emphasis on individual differences and hardly uses the concept of ‘personality’. And yet, if neurobiologists consider those brain mechanisms that underlie the interpretation of a given situation and the anticipation of a method to cope with it, they are led to investigate mechanisms that underlie a number of behaviour dimensions which the psychologist would refer to as ‘personality’. The actual object considered in either case does not essentially differ. This is exemplified more concretely by examining the kind of factors—and the brain mechanisms involved in their very existence or in their processing—that contribute to determine the probability that in the face of a given situation, a given individual will adopt aggressive behaviour as the coping strategy.     

Languages on the screen: Is film comprehension related to the viewers’ fluency level and to the language in the subtitles?

This research aimed at studying the role of subtitling in film comprehension. It focused on the languages in which the subtitles are written and on the participants' fluency levels in the languages presented in the film. In a preliminary part of the study, the most salient visual and dialogue elements of a short sequence of an English film were extracted by the means of a free recall task after showing two versions of the film (first a silent, then a dubbed-into-French version) to native French speakers. This visual and dialogue information was used in the setting of a questionnaire concerning the understanding of the film presented in the main part of the study, in which other French native speakers with beginner, intermediate, or advanced fluency levels in English were shown one of three versions of the film used in the preliminary part. Respectively, these versions had no subtitles or they included either English or French subtitles. The results indicate a global interaction between all three factors in this study: For the beginners, visual processing dropped from the version without subtitles to that with English subtitles, and even more so if French subtitles were provided, whereas the effect of film version on dialogue comprehension was the reverse. The advanced participants achieved higher comprehension for both types of information with the version without subtitles, and dialogue information processing was always better than visual information processing. The intermediate group similarly processed dialogues in a better way than visual information, but was not affected by film version. These results imply that, depending on the viewers' fluency levels, the language of subtitles can have different effects on movie information processing.     

Participants' reactions to “Equity with the world”

According to traditional Equity theory, the injustices that an individual encounters in one relationship should not affect his other relationships. By definition, the equitableness of one relationship (say the AB relationship) depends entirely on how much Participants A and B contribute to the relationship and how much they get out of it.Austin, in Austin and Walster (1973), however, argues that Equity theory must make transrelational predictions. He argues that persons attempt to maintain both “Person-specific Equity” and “Equity with the World” (e.g., Equity with others in general). The authors predicted (and found) that whether a person focuses on “Person-specific Equity” or “Equity with the World” depends on whether or not he feels “accountable” for his behavior. When participants knew they could not be held accountable for their actions, they routinely sacrificed Person-specific Equity in order to maintain Equity with the World. However, when they knew they would have to confront their second partner eventually, they rarely sacrificed Person-specific Equity. (Evidently, they assumed their partners would not sympathize with their desire to maintain transrelational equity.)In this experiment, we predicted (and found) that such pessimism (by persons wishing to restore “Equity with the World”) is not justified. Inequitably treated partners' dissatisfaction and hostility were markedly blunted when individuals believed that their “unfair” partner was attempting to restore “Equity with the World“.     

The specificity of expertise: For whom is the clave pattern the “key” to salsa music?

Each Latin salsa music style is associated with a characteristic clave pattern that constitutes an essential structure for performers. In this article we asked what types of expertise are needed to detect the correct salsa–clave pairing. Using two clave patterns (the 3–2 and 2–3 son clave) and three manipulated alternatives, we asked listeners to choose the correct clave pattern for a variety of bomba, calypso, mambo and merengue excerpts. The results of Studies 1 and 2 show that listeners unfamiliar with salsa were unable to detect the correct salsa–clave pairing. Listeners who had some music training or were familiar with salsa detected the need for syncopation but not the specific pairing. Only musicians well-acquainted with salsa correctly detected the salsa–clave pairing. Studies 3 and 4 showed that incorrect choices were not due to an inability to distinguish between the alternatives: both adults and five-year-olds could easily tell apart the various patterns we used. We conclude that the distinction between the 2–3 and 3–2 claves is not inherent in the music itself, but rather is a convention to be learned through exposure and training. We discuss the results using an analogy to language learning.     

The “Poffenberger” and “Dimond” Paradigms: Interrelated Approaches to the Study of Interhemispheric Dynamics?

Brown and Jeeves (1993) found that an evoked potential estimate of interhemispheric transfer time, from the left to the right hemisphere, correlated negatively with a bilateral field advantage (BFA) in a response-choice letter matching task. We implemented a go no-go dot size matching task to determine whether the crossed-uncrossed difference (CUD) in reaction time, commission errors and omission errors (estimates of the “cost” of interhemispheric transfer) would correlate with BFAs in data from the same experiment and whether the type of decision (“same” versus “different”) would modulate the CUDs and/or BFAs. Sixteen normal right-handed subjects were tested. The CUDs were negatively correlated with the BFAs. Canonical correlation analysis of this set of relations was highly significant (r= .95). Estimates of left-to-right relay were far more strongly related to BFA (p= .0001) than were estimates of right-to-left relay (p= .03). “Same” decisions yielded a unilateral field advantage and “different” decisions a bilateral field advantage in omission error data, this crossed interaction reaching significance. More efficient interhemispheric relay favored BFAs, i.e., strongly suggesting in such cases an advantage of interhemispheric over intrahemispheric integration. This effect appeared to be markedly asymmetric. Furthermore, resource sharing within and between the hemispheres was a function of the “same” versus “different” dimensions of the decision to be made, especially in omission errors. The opposite dissociation occurred less markedly in the reaction times, this double dissociation reaching significance, revealing presence of a subtle speed–accuracy trade-off in interhemispheric dynamics.     

‘What works?’ Response to the paper by James Astor

Abstract :  A personal account of an analysis with Michael Fordham and subsequent conversations with James Astor. A number of themes are developed concerning the expression of feeling, use of language, and the relevance of aesthetic values to the practice and reporting of analysis.     

Teachers' observations on pupils' untruthfulness in relation to the ‘Lie’ scale

This study inspected the scores obtained on a ‘Lie’ scale in relation to teachers' observations on untruthful behaviour among four adolescent samples. The first and second groups were composed of 81 boys and 81 girls attending two comprehensive schools. The third group consisted of 81 boys who had been committed to a training school for delinquent boys and the fourth of 42 boys placed in a secure unit attached to the training school. The overall pattern of results suggested that the ‘Lie’ scale was associated with pupil characteristics of truthfulness and social conformity. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the meaning of the ‘Lie’ scale and its usefulness in practice.     

Bringing the behavioral sciences to the law: Tell it to the judge or talk to your legislator?

The empirical data generated by behavioral scientists is frequently targeted for presentation in courts in order to influence decision making. However, legislative bodies, rather than the courts, may be the most appropriate forum to consider such evidence. This article discusses the comparative reception of social science evidence in judicial versus legislative arenas.     

Extending the 3 × 2 achievement goal model to the sport domain: The 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport

In the present research, we sought to extend the 3 × 2 achievement goal model recently proffered in the school domain to the sport domain. We did so by conducting two studies focused on the development and initial validation of the 3 × 2 Achievement Goal Questionnaire for Sport (3 × 2 AGQ-S). Study 1 (n = 679), devised items for the questionnaire and demonstrated that data from the questionnaire nicely fit the proposed 3 × 2 model, showed a better fit to the 3 × 2 model than to alternative models, and indicated that each goal variable had good internal consistency. Study 2 again documented the strong psychometric properties of the measure, and additionally linked the goal variables to other constructs central to the achievement goal literature. The establishment of this measure allows extensive study of the 3 × 2 achievement goal model in the sport domain, and promises to yield deeper insights into the nature of achievement motivation in such contexts.     

Is the hand to speech what speech is to the hand?

Interference between the manual and the verbal performance on two types of concurrent verbal-manual tasks was studied on a sample of 48 female right-handers. The more complex verbal task (storytelling) affected both hands significantly, the less complex (essentially phonemic) task affected only the right hand, with insignificant negative influence on the left-hand performance. No significant reciprocal effects of the motor task on verbalization were found.     

Voice as Heuristic Device to Integrate Biological and Social Sciences. A Comment to Sidtis &; Kreiman’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">in the Beginning was the Familiar Voice</Emphasis>

Sidtis and Kreiman (2011) offer a two-sided approach to voice where the biological side is thought to support the psycho-social one. Linking psychological and biological sciences by the notion of “familiar voice” they introduce, Sidtis and Kreiman (2011) foster integration in science and offer a broad view on the voice phenomenon. The way this integration is conducted is closely observed in this comment. The conclusion is that a common point of departure which does not belong to the mainstream in present academic discourse can be ascribed to both sides invoked: a dialogic view of human beings. The social dimension of the neuropsychological social model of voice recognition the authors propose is then discussed. This is taken up in the closing considerations addressing the core notion of familiarity with regard to the conception of sociality it implies; this perspective raises also the issue of the relationship between (familiar) voice and language. In analogy to the dialogic view of human beings we advocate for in accordance with Sidtis and Kreiman (2011), a notion of language emphasizing the sensorily experienced performance of symbolic activity is put forth. In this, voice holds a core place .     

Cat Got Your Tongue? Using the Tip‐of‐the‐Tongue State to Investigate Fixed Expressions

Despite the fact that they play a prominent role in everyday speech, the representation and processing of fixed expressions during language production is poorly understood. Here, we report a study investigating the processes underlying fixed expression production. “Tip‐of‐the‐tongue” (TOT) states were elicited for well‐known idioms (e.g., hit the nail on the head) and participants were asked to report any information they could regarding the content of the phrase. Participants were able to correctly report individual words for idioms that they could not produce. In addition, participants produced both figurative (e.g., pretty for easy on the eye) and literal errors (e.g., hammer for hit the nail on the head) when in a TOT state, suggesting that both figurative and literal meanings are active during production. There was no effect of semantic decomposability on overall TOT incidence; however, participants recalled a greater proportion of words for decomposable rather than non‐decomposable idioms. This finding suggests there may be differences in how decomposable and non‐decomposable idioms are retrieved during production.     

“Ghosts in the Psychoanalytic Nursery”: Response to Lieberman & Harris

In this discussion, I elaborate on the question of why fear, per se, has been relatively absent from psychoanalytic dialogues, and of how to think about the relative primacy of fear, aggression, and infantile sexuality. In response to Harris, I consider some of the ways that contemporary neuroscience and evolutionary theory deepen this discussion. And, following Lieberman, I reflect on why it can be so difficult to hold and process our patients’ fear and trauma.     

An Attitude Towards an Artificial Soul? Responses to the “Nazi Chatbot”

The article discusses the case of Microsoft's Twitter chatbot Tay that “turned into a Nazi” after less than 24 hours from its release on the Internet. The first section presents a brief recapitulation of Alan Turing's proposal for a test for artificial intelligence and the way it influenced subsequent discussions in the philosophy of mind. In the second section, I offer a few arguments appealing for caution regarding the identification of an accomplished chatbot as a thinking being. These are motivated principally by Ludwig Wittgenstein's discussions of mind and soul and by some Wittgensteinian philosophers' criticisms of AI endeavours. I will try to show that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of AIs such as chatbots as thinking beings, rather independently of their technical perfection and accomplishment. In the third section, the case of the “Nazi chatbot” Tay will offer me material for some light to be shed on the peculiar (primitive) character of our interconnected concepts of thinking, soul and person and on the importance of their further ramified connections.     

Suffering by comparison: Twitter users’ reactions to the Victoria&#x27;s Secret Fashion Show

Social comparison theory suggests that evaluating the self in comparison with others (e.g., peers, celebrities, models) can influence body image. Experimental studies that have tested effects of viewing idealized images in the media often show that women feel worse about themselves after seeing images that illustrate the beauty ideal. Twitter presents a naturally occurring opportunity to study viewers’ reactions. An analysis was conducted of 977 tweets sent immediately before and during the 2011 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show that reference the show. Although the majority were idiosyncratic remarks, many tweets contain evidence of upward social comparisons to the fashion models. There were tweets about body image, eating disorders, weight, desires for food or alcohol, and thoughts about self-harm. The results support social comparison theory, and suggest that vulnerable viewers could experience negative affect, or even engage in harmful behaviors, during or after viewing the show or others like it.