Anonymous Skeptics: Swinburne, Hick, and Alston

Book reviewed:
Lance Ashdown. Anonymous Skeptics: Swinburne, Hick, and Alston. Reviewed by John H. Whittaker     

Intelligence and reaction times in the Hick, Sternberg and Posner paradigms

The relationship between psychometric intelligence and reaction times (RTs) in three well-known elementary cognitive tasks (Hick simple and choice reaction time task, Sternberg's short-term memory scanning, Posner's letter matching) was studied in a sample of 116 participants. In conformity with other studies mean RTs and intraindividual variabilities (SDs) of RT were correlated significantly with Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). On the basis of the mental speed theory the processing measures or component scores (like slopes in the Hick and Sternberg paradigm and the NI-PI measure in the Posner task) should give the most substantial relationships with intelligence. However, as in other previous studies these measures displayed rather low, albeit significant, relationships with intelligence, which was probably due to the low reliability of these parameters. For the Posner paradigm, we proposed alternative approaches to compute an indicator for long-term memory (LTM) access that gave substantial correlations with intelligence. We conclude that LTM access is significantly associated with psychometric intelligence, whereas up to now there has been no unequivocal evidence for a substantial relationship between short-term memory access in the Sternberg task and intelligence.     

John Hick, Philosophy of Religion, and the Clarity of God's Existence

Book reviewed in this article:
David Cheetham, John Hick: A Critical Introduction and Reflection     

John Hick on religious experience and perception

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Kenneth Rose,Knowing the Real: John Hick on the Cognitivity of Religions and Religious Pluralism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

John Hick,A Christian Theology of Religions: The Rainbow of Faiths

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Jensen's use of the Hick paradigm: Visual attention and order effects

Longstreth (1984, 1986) and Carroll (1987) have recently raised questions concerning the effects of practice and order and retinal displacement in Jensen's use of the Hick paradigm. The results of this study indicate that the effect of practice and order is nonsignificant. The effect of retinal displacement, although significant, accounts for such a small amount of the variance as to be of little practical or theoretical importance in Jensen's investigations with the Hick paradigm.