Thatcher's children: development and the Thatcher illusion

Children do not show the same recognition disadvantage for inverted faces as adults do. It has been suggested that this is because the configural encoding (which is disrupted by inversion) becomes more useful or available as we get older. The distinction between configural processing and featural processing, however, is not always clear--it may be a dichotomy or a continuum. The perceived normal-to-grotesque switch in the Thatcher illusion was investigated, as the image was rotated, by people aged between 6 and 75 years. No effect of age was found, with young children showing the same effects as adults--the switch occurring at about 72 degrees. The development of face processing and the nature of facial configural encoding are discussed in the light of this result.     

Robert Boyle and the Machine Metaphor

The seventeenth–century chemist and philosopher Robert Boyle argued that the world is like a clockwork machine. This led to the problems of the place of a Creator and of how one can explain the directed, "final–cause" nature of organisms. Boyle thought that he could wrap everything up in one neat package, with a clear place for a designing God, but of course the coming of Darwinism casts doubt on this. Nevertheless, Boyle's thinking does have some very interesting implications for the way in which we today should consider the science/religion relationship.     

Critical issues in construct validation: Comment on Boyle and Lennon (1994)

In a recent article in this journal, Boyle and Lennon (1994) examined the reliability and validity of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). However, several methodological and conceptual limits of their study suggest numerous alternative interpretations of their data. Methodological problems include a confounding of age and clinical status in their study, their inclusion of invalid PAI profiles, and use of an unusual sample for their purposes. Conceptual issues raised address the nature of a moderator variable, the interpretation of coefficient alpha, the stability of psychopathology, and the application of factor analysis to address construct validation issues.     

Boyle,Bentley and Clarke on God,necessity, frigorifick atoms and the void

In this paper I look at two connections between natural philosophy and theology in the late 17th century. In the last quarter of the century there was an interesting development of an argument, earlier but sketchier versions of which can be found in classical philosophers and in Descartes. The manoeuvre in question goes like this: first, prove that there must, necessarily, be a being which is, in some sense of "greater", greater than humans. Second, sketch a proof that such a being is necessary. Move from the fact that there must be at least one such being to the conclusion that there is precisely one such being. Raise the question: could this necessary being be matter, the entire material universe, or must it be God? Produce an argument from natural philosophy to show that matter cannot be the required necessary being. Either explicitly or implicitly run the obvious disjunctive syllogism and conclude with a few remarks about the foolishness of atheism. The argument, which has classical roots, found a number of 17th-century exponents. Cudworth provided the most important version, and Locke, Bentley and Clarke adapted Cudworth's version with varying success. The argument touches on natural philosophy in two ways. First, the basis of the argument invites consideration of a problem in the philosophy of science - the relation between micro properties and macro properties - which was seen clearly enough in some contexts but which was overlooked in others, particularly when the theological aspect was uppermost. The second point of contact involves a direct application of a scientific result - the existence of a vacuum - to the theological issue.     

Hobbes's Challenge to Descartes,Bramhall and Boyle: A Corporeal God

This paper brings new work to bear on the perennial question about Hobbes's atheism to show that as a debate about scepticism it is falsely framed. Hobbes, like fellow members of the Mersenne circle, Descartes and Gassendi, was no sceptic, but rather concerned to rescue physics and metaphysics from radical scepticism by exploring corporealism. In his early letter of November 1640, Hobbes had issued a provocative challenge to Descartes to abandon metaphysical dualism and subscribe to a ‘corporeal God’; a provocation to which the Frenchman angrily responded, but was perhaps importantly influenced. Hobbes's minimal realism was consonant with atheism, to which Descartes felt he was being forced. Moreover, Hobbes was unrelenting in his battle against Cartesian dualism, for which he saw Robert Boyle's experimental science as a surrogate.     

Working memory and intelligence--their correlation and their relation: comment on Ackerman, Beier, and Boyle (2005)

On the basis of a meta-analysis of pairwise correlations between working memory tasks and cognitive ability measures, P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005; see record 2004-22408-002) claimed that working memory capacity (WMC) shares less than 25% of its variance with general intelligence (g) and with reasoning ability. In this comment, the authors argue that this is an underestimation because of several methodological shortcomings and biases. A reanalysis of the data reported in Ackerman et al. using the correct statistical procedures demonstrates that g and WMC are very highly correlated. On a conceptual level, the authors point out that WMC should be regarded as an explanatory construct for intellectual abilities. Theories of working memory do not claim that WMC is isomorphic with intelligence factors but that it is a very strong predictor of reasoning ability and also predicts general fluid intelligence and g.     

Working memory capacity and fluid intelligence are strongly related constructs: comment on Ackerman, Beier, and Boyle (2005)

The authors agree with P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005; see record 2004-22408-002) that working memory capacity (WMC) is not isomorphic with general fluid intelligence (Gf) or reasoning ability. However, the WMC and Gf/reasoning constructs are more strongly associated than Ackerman et al. (2005) indicate, particularly when considering the outcomes of latent-variable studies. The authors' reanalysis of 14 such data sets from 10 published studies, representing more than 3,100 young-adult subjects, suggests a strong correlation between WMC and Gf/reasoning factors (median r=.72), indicating that the WMC and Gf constructs share approximately 50% of their variance. This comment also clarifies the authors' "executive attention" view of WMC, it demonstrates that WMC has greater discriminant validity than Ackerman et al. (2005) implied, and it suggests some future directions and challenges for the scientific study of the convergence of WMC, attention control, and intelligence.     

Jewish Courts in Medieval England

Basing their conclusions on Latin documents, historians have painted the Jewish courts of medieval England as limited and haphazard affairs, their jurisdiction limited mostly to family law. They have also assumed that rabbinic courts ceased their activity in England after 1242. Hebrew rabbinic sources from the same period—some of which have never been published—provide more detailed information. These sources describe several professional courts staffed by learned scholars and adjudicating a range of legal issues. These courts existed throughout the thirteenth century—until the Expulsion of 1290—and included some of the leading rabbis in medieval England: Benjamin of Cambridge, Moses of London, and Moses’s son Elijah Menahem. The London court of Rabbi Elijah Menahem in particular possessed significant powers and utilized Elijah’s royal connections to enforce its rulings. Besides correcting the scholarly perception of rabbinic courts in medieval England, this article demonstrates how crucially important rabbinic texts and responsa are for historians as a source alongside other types of medieval documentation.     

Self-category constructions in political rhetoric; an analysis of Thatcher's and Kinnock's speeches concerning the British miners' strike (1984–5)

This paper examines the way in which different speakers may construe both the context and the categories involved in a single event. This is achieved through an analysis of Margaret Thatcher's and Neil Kinnock's leadership speeches to their respective party conferences during the British miners' strike of 1984–5. The analysis shows that both speakers construe the nature of the event such that their party is representative of an ingroup which encompasses almost the entire population and such that their policies are consonant with the definition of the ingroup identity. Thus their category constructions mirror the ways in which the respective leaders seek to mobilize the electorate during the strike. This analysis is used for two purposes: firstly, to argue for an integration of self-categorization theory with rhetorical/discursive psychologies and hence for further research into the ways in which self-categories may be contested in argument rather than determined by cognitive computations; secondly, to argue for further research into how political rhetoric may affect mass action through the ways in which collectivities are defined.