Going beyond the Human: Christians and Other Transhumanists

Transhumanism is a Christian concept. Although today's transhumanism has secularized the original Christian promise for divinization or theosis by adding evolution and technological progress, Christians should critically re‐take ownership of the role transhumanism plays in the sanctification process.     

经济伦理道德建设：对市场经济的适应和超越

社会主义市场经济发展的现实要求我们必须加强经济伦理学道德建设。经济伦理道德建设必须建立在对市场经济的适应和超越这两个层面上 ,实现构想一种最低要求和最高要求相结合、广泛性和先进性相结合、现实性和理想性相结合的经济伦理道德价值体系 ,为进一步完善和发展社会主义市场经济体系 ,为实现社会主义四个现代化提供坚实的经济伦理保障。     

Individual differences in preschoolers' physiological and verbal responses to videotaped angry interactions

Individual differences in selection of intensity of angry interactions and physiological and self-reported responses to interadult anger were examined in preschoolers (N=34). Children watched two videotaped angry interactions between adults, while their heart rates and skin conductance responses and levels were monitored; then they were interviewed. Before the second argument, children were given the perceived choice of watching an intense or mild angry exchange. Individual differences in responding to the angry interactions were found. Both (a) children with relatively higher externalizing behavior problems and (b) boys who chose to watch intense anger had lower tonic heart rates; 80% of boys with externalizing problems chose to watch intense anger. Further, children who chose to watch intense anger (a) exhibited lower declines in heart rates upon the presentation of the argument, (b) perceived the actors as more angry, and (c) reported lower amounts of distress during the argument than those who chose mild anger.     

Going beyond the facts: Young children extend knowledge by integrating episodes

The major question posed in this research was whether 4- and 6-year-olds productively extend their knowledge by integrating information acquired in separate episodes. The vehicle was a read-aloud activity during which children were presented with a novel fact in each of two passages. In Experiment 1, both age groups showed evidence of integration between the passages. For the 6-year-olds, the evidence came in the form of responses to open-ended questions. The 4-year-olds recognized the correct answers but did not generate them in the open-ended question format. The 6-year-olds who generated the correct answers also were likely to recall both of the individual facts presented in the passages. In Experiment 2, we tested whether the 4-year-olds’ integration performance would improve if their memory for the individual facts improved. Extra exposure to the individual facts resulted in higher levels of integration performance in both recall and recognition testing. The roles of memory and other potential sources of age-related differences in integration performance are discussed.     

The association between personality and cognitive ability: Going beyond simple effects

To examine the relationship between the Big Five and cognitive ability, we investigated whether we could replicate in a heterogeneous population sample the positive association between cognitive ability and Openness and Emotional Stability and its negative association with Conscientiousness. Besides analyzing the pure associations, we shed further light on sources of these associations by investigating potential moderating effects of education and labor force participation. Our results clearly replicate the previously found positive association between cognitive ability and Emotional Stability and Openness and the negative relationship between Conscientiousness and cognitive ability. The correlation between cognitive ability and Openness was found to be moderated by educational attainment, the negative association between Conscientiousness and cognitive ability was moderated by labor force participation.     

Going beyond heart rate: autonomic space and cardiovascular assessment of mental workload

Psychophysiological assessment of pilot mental workload using heart rate should be augmented with an autonomic space model of cardiovascular function. This model proposes that autonomic nervous system influences on the heart may change with psychological processing in ways that are not evident in heart rate. A method of mental-workload assessment was proposed that used multiple psychophysiological measures of cardiovascular responsivity to derive the underlying sympathetic and parasympathetic information needed to represent the autonomic space for heart rate. Principal-components analysis was used to extract Sympathetic and Parasympathetic components from heart period, residual heart period. respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and Traube-Hering-Mayer wave in three experiments that manipulated perceptual/central processing and physical task demands. This initial evaluation of the method concluded that the autonomic components were valid and that the components had greater diagnosticity, and for some manipulations greater sensitivity, than heart rate. These results support the contention that the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic components provided increased precision for mental-workload assessment.     

Effect of maltreatment on preschoolers' narrative representations of responses to relieve distress and of role reversal

A total of 80 low-socioeconomic status maltreated preschoolers were contrasted with 27 nonmaltreated preschoolers on their narrative representations. The children completed story stems, taken from the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB; I. Bretherton, D. Oppenheim, H. Buchsbaum, R. N. Emde, & the MacArthur Narrative Group, 1990), that introduced stressful family situations. Using the MacArthur narrative coding manual (J. Robinson, L. Mantz-Simmons, J. Macfie, & the MacArthur Narrative Group, 1992), coders rated portrayals of parental and child character responses, as well as participant responses, to relieve children's distress. They also rated role reversal (children caretaking their parents) from the narrative emotion coding manual (S. L. Warren, L. Mantz-Simmons, & R. N. Emde, 1993). Maltreated preschoolers portrayed parents and children as responding less often--yet themselves as stepping into the story more often to relieve children's distress--than did nonmaltreated preschoolers. Abused children (sexually, physically, or both) portrayed the most participant responses, and neglected children (with no abuse) portrayed the fewest child responses. Role reversal was associated with physical abuse.     

Young children's free responses to anomalous commands

Twelve children, 21–34 months old, six in R. Brown's Stage I and six in Stages II and III, responded to commands varying in length, grammaticality, and meaning. All of the children responded significantly less often when the commands were situationally anomalous and/or ungrammatical. Results failed to replicate the results of E. Shipley, E. Smith, and L. Gleitman (Language, 1969, 44, 332–342) and J. Wetstone and B. Friedlander (Child Development, 1973, 44, 743–750). The results also suggest that young children rely heavily upon situational cues in their earliest comprehension of adult speech, and this supports arguments made by J. Strohner and K. Nelson (Child Development, 45, 567–576) and R. Chapman and J. Miller (Journal of Speech and Hearing, 1975, 18, 355–371). Since subjects rely upon nonlinguistic cues to respond appropriately, syntactic competence cannot be inferred from apparent comprehension.     

Word learning is 'smart': evidence that conceptual information affects preschoolers' extension of novel words

We examined electrophysiological correlates of conscious change detection versus change blindness for equivalent displays. Observers had to detect any changes, across a visual interruption, between a pair of successive displays. Each display comprised grey circles on a background of alternate black and white stripes. Foreground changes arose when light-grey circles turned dark-grey and vice-versa. Physically stronger background changes arose when all black stripes turned white and vice-versa. Despite their physical strength, background changes were undetected unless attention was directed to them, whereas foreground changes were invariably seen. Event-related potentials revealed that the P300 component was suppressed for unseen background changes, as compared with the same changes when seen. This effect arose first over frontal sites, and then spread to parietal sites. These results extend recent fMRI findings that fronto-parietal activation is associated with conscious visual change detection, to reveal the timing of these neural correlates.     

Going beyond a single list: Modeling the effects of prior experience on episodic free recall

We present an extension of the search of associative memory (SAM) model that simulates the effects of both prior semantic knowledge and prior episodic experience on episodic free recall. The model incorporates a memory store for preexisting semantic associations, a contextual drift mechanism, a memory search mechanism that uses both episodic and semantic associations, and a large lexicon including both words from prior lists and unpresented words. These features enabled the model to successfully account for the effects of prior semantic knowledge and prior episodic learning on the pattern of correct recalls and intrusions observed in free recall experiments.     

The comprehension of anomalous sentences: evidence from structural priming

We report three experiments investigating how people process anomalous sentences, in particular those in which the anomaly is associated with the verb. We contrast two accounts for the processing of such anomalous sentences: a syntactic account, in which the representations constructed for anomalous sentences are similar in nature to the ones constructed for well-formed sentences; and a semantic account, in which the representations constructed for anomalous sentences are erroneous, or altogether missing, and interpretation is achieved on the basis of semantic representations instead. To distinguish between these accounts, we used structural priming. First, we ruled out the possibility that anomaly per se influences the magnitude of the priming effect: Prime sentences with morphologically incorrect verbs produced similarly enhanced priming (lexical boost) to sentences with the same correct verbs (Exp. 1). Second, we found that prime sentences with a novel verb (Exp. 2) or a semantically and syntactically incongruent verb (Exp. 3) produced a priming effect, which was the same as that produced by well-formed sentences. In accord with the syntactic account, we conclude that the syntactic representations of anomalous sentences are similar to those constructed for well-formed sentences. Our results furthermore suggest that lexically-independent syntactic information is robust enough to produce well-formed syntactic representations during processing without requiring aid from lexically-based syntactic information.     

The abstract selection task: new data and an almost comprehensive model

A complete quantitative account of P. Wason's (1966) abstract selection task is proposed. The account takes the form of a mathematical model. It is assumed that some response patterns are caused by inferential reasoning, whereas other responses reflect cognitive processes that affect each card selection separately and independently of other card selections. The model parameters assess the contributions of different interpretational, inferential, and heuristic factors that jointly determine performance in the selection task. The interpretation of most of the model parameters in terms of these different factors is validated experimentally. This model of the selection task is the first to account for the observed frequencies of all 16 possible response patterns that can arise.     

Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect

The term psi denotes anomalous processes of information or energy transfer that are currently unexplained in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms. Two variants of psi are precognition (conscious cognitive awareness) and premonition (affective apprehension) of a future event that could not otherwise be anticipated through any known inferential process. Precognition and premonition are themselves special cases of a more general phenomenon: the anomalous retroactive influence of some future event on an individual's current responses, whether those responses are conscious or nonconscious, cognitive or affective. This article reports 9 experiments, involving more than 1,000 participants, that test for retroactive influence by "time-reversing" well-established psychological effects so that the individual's responses are obtained before the putatively causal stimulus events occur. Data are presented for 4 time-reversed effects: precognitive approach to erotic stimuli and precognitive avoidance of negative stimuli; retroactive priming; retroactive habituation; and retroactive facilitation of recall. The mean effect size (d) in psi performance across all 9 experiments was 0.22, and all but one of the experiments yielded statistically significant results. The individual-difference variable of stimulus seeking, a component of extraversion, was significantly correlated with psi performance in 5 of the experiments, with participants who scored above the midpoint on a scale of stimulus seeking achieving a mean effect size of 0.43. Skepticism about psi, issues of replication, and theories of psi are also discussed.     

Oculomotor responses of stereo‐anomalous observers to pulse and ramp disparities

We examined oculomotor responses to binocular disparities of one stereo‐normal and three stereo‐anomalous observers, who were identified through a stereoscopic depth‐discrimination task, in two experimental conditions. In the pulse disparity condition, crossed and uncrossed disparities (1–6°) were briefly presented (for .25–2.0 s). In the ramp disparity condition, disparities were varied continuously with constant velocities (.7–2.0°/s) and with an amplitude of 10°. The stereo‐normal observer showed vergence responses to both pulse and ramp disparities. The three stereo‐anomalous observers showed a marked reduction or absence of vergence responses to pulse disparities but showed vergence responses to ramp disparities. The results suggest the existence of separate sub‐systems mediating disparity vergence eye movements.     

Modularity beyond perception: evidence from single task interference paradigms

We combine the Dimension-Action (DA) model with translational models to account for both the Stroop and the flanker effects. The basic assumption of the model is that there are distinct visual modules, each of which is endowed with both perception and response selection processes. We contrast this model with an alternative widespread view, the standard view, according to which the same response selection processes are shared by all tasks. The two views have different predictions concerning the flanker and Stroop tasks. Seven experiments test these predictions. The first five experiments show that there is a fundamental difference between the typical Stroop and flanker effects. Moreover, these experiments show that words denoting colors can affect print colors only when they are required for naming or when participants verbally mediate the print color task. Experiments 6 and 7 show that an analogous interaction between color and shape exists in the flanker task. These experiments as well as previous studies are consistent with the DA model and the modular view and pose serious difficulties for the standard view. Wider implications of a visual modular architecture are discussed as well.     

The link between speech perception and production is phonological and abstract: evidence from the shadowing task

This study reports a shadowing experiment, in which one has to repeat a speech stimulus as fast as possible. We tested claims about a direct link between perception and production based on speech gestures, and obtained two types of counterevidence. First, shadowing is not slowed down by a gestural mismatch between stimulus and response. Second, phonetic detail is more likely to be imitated in a shadowing task if it is phonologically relevant. This is consistent with the idea that speech perception and speech production are only loosely coupled, on an abstract phonological level.     

Differential susceptibility experiments: going beyond correlational evidence: comment on beyond mental health, differential susceptibility articles

Reviewing the studies on differential susceptibility presented in this section, we argue that the time is ripe to go beyond correlational designs to differential susceptibility experiments. In such experiments, randomization prevents hidden moderator effects on the environment and guarantees the independence of moderator and outcome, while the environment is manipulated and assessed in standard ways. Correlational studies generate a priori expectations about crucial moderators (e.g., temperament, biological sensitivity, and genetics). We discuss the differential susceptibility experiments available up until now and conclude that these experiments are feasible and contribute in unique ways to our conceptions of differential susceptibility.