Pragmatic encroachment,stakes, and religious knowledge

It is commonly held that epistemic standards for S’s knowledge that p are affected by practical considerations, such as what is at stake in decisions that are guided by that p. I defend a particular view as to why this is, that is referred to as “pragmatic encroachment.” I then discuss a “new argument against miracles” that uses stakes considerations in order to explore the conditions under which stakes affect the level of epistemic support that is required for knowledge. Finally, I generalize my results to include other religiously significant propositions such as “God exists” and “God does not exist.”     

Anatomic Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Developing Child and Adolescent Brain and Effects of Genetic Variation

Magnetic resonance imaging studies have begun to map effects of genetic variation on trajectories of brain development. Longitudinal studies of children and adolescents demonstrate a general pattern of childhood peaks of gray matter followed by adolescent declines, functional and structural increases in connectivity and integrative processing, and a changing balance between limbic/subcortical and frontal lobe functions, which extends well into young adulthood. Twin studies have demonstrated that genetic factors are responsible for a significant amount of variation in pediatric brain morphometry. Longitudinal studies have shown specific genetic polymorphisms affect rates of cortical changes associated with maturation. Although over-interpretation and premature application of neuroimaging findings for diagnostic purposes remains a risk, converging data from multiple imaging modalities is beginning to elucidate the influences of genetic factors on brain development and implications of maturational changes for cognition, emotion, and behavior.     

PyParse: A semiautomated system for scoring spoken recall data

Studies of human memory often generate data on the sequence and timing of recalled items, but scoring such data using conventional methods is difficult or impossible. We describe a Python-based semiautomated system that greatly simplifies this task. This software, called PyParse, can easily be used in conjunction with many common experiment authoring systems. Scored data is output in a simple ASCII format and can be accessed with the programming language of choice, allowing for the identification of features such as correct responses, prior-list intrusions, extra-list intrusions, and repetitions.     

Kafka,paranoic doubles and the brain: hypnagogic vs. hyper-reflexive models of disrupted self in neuropsychiatric disorders and anomalous conscious states

Kafka's writings are frequently interpreted as representing the historical period of modernism in which he was writing. Little attention has been paid, however, to the possibility that his writings may reflect neural mechanisms in the processing of self during hypnagogic (i.e., between waking and sleep) states. Kafka suffered from dream-like, hypnagogic hallucinations during a sleep-deprived state while writing. This paper discusses reasons (phenomenological and neurobiological) why the self projects an imaginary double (autoscopy) in its spontaneous hallucinations and how Kafka's writings help to elucidate the underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. I further discuss how the proposed mechanisms may be relevant to understanding paranoid delusions in schizophrenia. Literature documents and records cognitive and neural processes of self with an intimacy that may be otherwise unavailable to neuroscience. To elucidate this approach, I contrast it with the apparently popularizing view that the symptoms of schizophrenia result from what has been called an operative (i.e., pre-reflective) hyper-reflexivity. The latter approach claims that pre-reflective self-awareness (diminished in schizophrenia) pervades all conscious experience (however, in a manner that remains unverifiable for both phenomenological and experimental methods). This contribution argues the opposite: the "self" informs our hypnagogic imagery precisely to the extent that we are not self-aware.     

Elements of male body image: Prediction of depression,eating pathology and social sensitivity among gay men

The aim of the current study was to assess the relative uniqueness of three components of male body image (i.e., muscle, body fat, and height dissatisfaction) in the prediction of indices of psychological distress (i.e., depression, eating restraint, eating concerns, and social sensitivity) among a community sample of 228 gay men. Results indicated that body fat dissatisfaction was predictive of all four criterion variables (controlling for muscle dissatisfaction). Conversely, muscle dissatisfaction was only associated with social sensitivity, while height dissatisfaction failed to significantly predict any of the criterion variables. These findings highlight the relative importance of body fat dissatisfaction among gay men and suggest that researchers and clinicians working with this population should utilize measures which include assessment of both muscularity and body fat.     

Hating the One You Love

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person that they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, as how can one love and hate the same person at the same time? A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychologically compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.     

Prior knowledge enhances the category dimensionality effect

A study of the combined influence of prior knowledge and stimulus dimensionality on category learning was conducted. Subjects learned category structures with the same number of necessary dimensions but with more or fewer additional, redundant dimensions and with either knowledge-related or knowledge-unrelated features. Minimal-learning models predict that all subjects, regardless of condition, either should learn the same number of dimensions or should respond more slowly to each dimension. Despite similar learning rates and response times, subjects learned more features in the high-dimensional than in the low-dimensional condition. Furthermore, prior knowledge interacted with dimensionality, increasing what was learned, especially in the high-dimensional case. A second experiment confirmed that the participants did, in fact, learn more features during the training phase, rather than simply inferring them at test. These effects can be explained by direct associations among features (representing prior knowledge), combined with feedback between features and the category label, as was shown by simulations of the knowledge resonance, or KRES, model of category learning.     

Immediate and delayed effects of causal uncertainty inductions on uncertainty accessibility

Previous research has focused on enhanced processing as a response to causal uncertainty (CU), but relatively little empirical attention has been given to how CU is activated and the temporal unfolding of this activation. The current research investigates the counterintuitive idea that people inhibit causal uncertainty immediately after its activation. We find that this inhibition weakens over time. Study 1 demonstrates this inhibition effect with self-report uncertainty. Study 2 demonstrates this effect with an implicit accessibility measure. Temporary inhibition of uncertainty may be a general response when uncertainty is activated.     

God and the government: testing a compensatory control mechanism for the support of external systems

The authors propose that the high levels of support often observed for governmental and religious systems can be explained, in part, as a means of coping with the threat posed by chronically or situationally fluctuating levels of perceived personal control. Three experiments demonstrated a causal relation between lowered perceptions of personal control and the defense of external systems, including increased beliefs in the existence of a controlling God (Studies 1 and 2) and defense of the overarching socio-political system (Study 4). A 4th experiment (Study 5) showed the converse to be true: A challenge to the usefulness of external systems of control led to increased illusory perceptions of personal control. In addition, a cross-national data set demonstrated that lower levels of personal control are associated with higher support for governmental control (across 67 nations; Study 3). Each study identified theoretically consistent moderators and mediators of these effects. The implications of these results for understanding why a high percentage of the population believes in the existence of God, and why people so often endorse and justify their socio-political systems, are discussed.