The influence of theological attitudes upon evangelism

Pastoral Psychology -     

The pernicious influence of mathematics upon philosophy

We shall argue that the attempt carried out by certain philosophers in this century to parrot the language, the method, and the results of mathematics has harmed philosophy. Such an attempt results from a misunderstanding of both mathematics and philosophy, and has harmed both subjects.Portions of the present text have previously appeared inThe Review of Metaphysics 44 (1990), 259–271, are reprinted with permission.     

The influence of interpolated recall upon recognition

An experiment was designed to show how immediate recall may affect recognition. A number of subjects were shown a picture. Some were asked to recall it and were then given a recognition test. Others were given only the recognition test after the same interval. Only 4 of the 16 subjects who had recalled it identified it; whereas 14 of the 16 others did so. A second experiment gave similar results.

Recall was constructed round dominant items of the picture. This distribution of emphasis together with the acceptance of an invented detail as genuine were the common causes of errors in subsequent recognition. Both the dominant and invented items in recall were those which became most obviously merged into an organization of related experiences and in consequence those which militated against subsequent recognition.

The recognition test was applied in two further groups of 16 subjects with a change in one of the dominant details (i.e. the wording). The number of subjects who now correctly identified the remainder of the material was 9 when there was no intermediate recall, and nil when immediate recall of the original material was interposed.     

The influence of an interpolated experience upon recognition

It was demonstrated in a previous experiment that an experience interpolated between an original experience and its recall may bring about changes in the points of emphasis in the recall of the original experience. Moreover, details of the interpolated experience may be recalled as if they had formed part of the original experience. These results were taken to mean that two experiences of a related kind may become merged in memory into something akin to Bartlett's notion of an organized mass of past experiences. In the experiment here reported, the original experience was the hearing of a story, and the interpolated experience the seeing of a picture which illustrated part of the story. When in a recognition test subjects were asked to select from three alternatives (including the original) the one version which was “most like the original story,” a proportion of them preferred to the original story a version which differed from the original by including a number of details from the picture. Asked about details, all the subjects tended to place details from the picture in the story, even if they had not been mentioned there. The results of the two experiments are thought to show that irreversible changes are brought about in the memory of an experience by subsequent experiences of a related kind.     

The influence of sex bias upon compliance with expert power

The present study evolved from the belief that sex bias influences the degree of expert power which the expert has in relation to the perceiver. Therefore, the influence of level of expertise, sex of the expert, sex of the influencee, and sex domination of the expert's occupation upon compliance was examined. Separate experiments were conducted for the male- and female-dominated occupations. Subjects' degree of compliance was measured by their responses to three recommendations contained in an in-basket. The three-way analyses of variance revealed that only expertise significantly affected subjects' degree of compliance. Results are discussed in terms of the presence of outside recognition of competence and legitimate power.     

The influence of therapist experience upon evaluative perceptions of family members

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of experience in family therapy on therapists' evaluative perceptions of family members. Beginning students in family therapy, advanced students, and experienced staff rated members of 100 families according to the Semantic Differential technique. Contrary to expectations, beginning students did not evaluate identified patients more favorably than parents. Staff and advanced students, however, rated parents more favorably than identified patients. Beginning students were also found to evaluate all family members more favorably than staff and advanced students. These results were discussed in terms of experienced therapists initially taking the side of the parents and the effects this potential source of bias may have on the course of family therapy.     

The influence of stimulus scale-interval upon the assessment of pain threshold

An experiment concerning the influence of the scale of stimulus values upon the perception of heat-pain is reported in which it is found that the value of the threshold stimulus is dependent upon the size of the steps between successive stimuli.

The results are analysed in the light of a paper by Brown and Cane (1959) in which they point out that the value of a sensory threshold yielded by the Limiting Method is mathematically dependent upon the size of the steps between successive values of the variable stimulus. The threshold values reported here are found to be dependent on the step-size between stimuli to a greater extent than that which would be predicted by Brown and Cane.

In view of these results, an attempt is made to explain the wide variety of pain threshold values reported in the literature.     

The influence of an audience upon the reactions to filmed violence

In order to examine audience effects when viewing firmed violence, 5 to 6 year old pre-school boys who had been rated as submissive by their teachers watched an aggressive or a neutral movie either alone, accompanied by another submissive classmate, or a dominant one. Subsequent aggression against a frustrating, unknown and unseen boy was delivered via a modified Buss machine, especially adapted for children. Subjects accompanied by a dominant peer were more aggressive than the others but did not react differentially to the movies. Subjects tested alone were more aggressive after the violent film than after the neutral one and the opposite pattern occurred for the boys accompanied by a submissive classmate. These findings stress the importance of the social context when viewing filmed violence. It is suggested that the quality of the audience can have different directional (e.g. fear and aggression) as well as energizing properties. Links with the literature on social facilitation and audience effects are underlined.     

Hypatia's silence

Hartry Field distinguished two concepts of type‐free truth: scientific truth and disquotational truth. We argue that scientific type‐free truth cannot do justificatory work in the foundations of mathematics. We also present an argument, based on Crispin Wright's theory of cognitive projects and entitlement, that disquotational truth can do justificatory work in the foundations of mathematics. The price to pay for this is that the concept of disquotational truth requires non‐classical logical treatment.     

The influence of haptic size information upon visual judgments of absolute distance

When O views a blank triangle of light under completely reduced conditions, he is able to use information about the size of this visual stimulus conveyed via the haptic modality when he is attempting to judge the absolute distance of the visual stimulus. However, distance is consistently underesti-mated in this situation. When haptically-indicated size is held constant, judged distance varies inversely with retinalsubtense, even though the different retinal subtenses are viewed by different Os. A variant of the size-distance invariance hypothesis also appears to hold in these circumstances.     

The influence of meaningfulness upon intentional and incidental learning of verbal material

The present investigation concerned the relationship between intentional and incidental learning of verbal material. Both task meaningfulness (sequential dependency of the material) and shifts in performance over time were examined for differential patterns under both types of learning conditions. Cover task performance consisted of the search for typographical errors across four paragraphs of a narrative, learning the recall and recognition of examples of categories of objects in the text. There was lack of support for the argument that incidental and intentional learning represent two distinct types; rather Ss responded similarly to increased task meaningfulness under both learning conditions and evidenced identical performance patterns over time. Results were interpreted within an intentional-attentional hypothesis of incidental learning.