The Glasgow Face Matching Test

We describe a new test for unfamiliar face matching, the Glasgow Face Matching Test (GFMT). Viewers are shown pairs of faces, photographed in full-face view but with different cameras, and are asked to make same/different judgments. The full version of the test comprises 168 face pairs, and we also describe a shortened version with 40 pairs. We provide normative data for these tests derived from large subject samples. We also describe associations between the GFMT and other tests of matching and memory. The new test correlates moderately with face memory but more strongly with object matching, a result that is consistent with previous research highlighting a link between object and face matching, specific to unfamiliar faces. The test is available free for scientific use.     

Neuroticism and extraversion share genetic and environmental effects with negative and positive mood spillover in a nationally representative sample

Work-family spillover research focuses on how negative and positive moods in one life domain carry over to another. Domain-specific etiologies (e.g., family conflict) are often emphasized to explain spillover. Yet, strong correlations exist between spillover variables of the same emotional valence but originating from different domains, suggesting individual differences in the tendencies to prolong mood-states. The current study (N = 1143 individuals) examined whether these general tendencies are associated with neuroticism and extraversion and how genetic and environmental effects contribute to these associations. Findings revealed that neuroticism and extraversion are related to these tendencies through both genetic and environmental pathways.     

The early Russell on the metaphysics of substance in Leibniz and Bradley

While considerable ink has been spilt over the rejection of idealism by Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore at the end of the 19th Century, relatively little attention has been directed at Russell’s A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, a work written in the early stages of Russell’s philosophical struggles with the metaphysics of Bradley, Bosanquet, and others. Though a sustained investigation of that work would be one of considerable scope, here I reconstruct and develop a two-pronged argument from the Philosophy of Leibniz that Russell fancied—as late as 1907—to be the downfall of the traditional category of substance. Here, I suggest, one can begin to see Russell’s own reasons—arguments largely independent of Moore—for the abandonment of idealism. Leibniz, no less than Bradley, adhered to an antiquated variety of logic: what Russell refers to as the subject-predicate doctrine of logic. Uniting this doctrine with a metaphysical principle of independence—that a substance is prior to and distinct from its properties—Russell is able to demonstrate that neither a substance pluralism nor a substance monism can be consistently maintained. As a result, Russell alleges that the metaphysics of both Leibniz and Bradley has been undermined as ultimately incoherent. Russell’s remedy for this incoherence is the postulation of a bundle theory of substance, such that the category of “substance” reduces to the most basic entities—properties.     

Longitudinal associations among quality of life and its predictors in patients treated for prostate cancer: the moderating role of age

This study examined moderating effects of age on longitudinal associations among quality of life (QOL) and its demographic (e.g., age), clinical [e.g., prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level], and affective and cognitive predictors (i.e., distress, worries about recurrence, decisional regret, subjective life expectancy) in prostate cancer patients treated with external beam radiation (N = 391). Demographic and clinical characteristics were assessed at diagnosis, affective and cognitive variables at 6 months after diagnosis, and QOL at 12 months after diagnosis. Multiple-group analyses showed that among younger patients (< or =68 years old, n = 199), lower levels of decisional regret were associated with better functional QOL, and lower Gleason scores and PSA levels were associated with lower levels of distress and longer expected survival time, respectively. Being employed was related to higher levels of functional QOL and frequent worries about recurrence. Among older patients (>68 years old, n = 192), lower levels of distress were associated with higher levels of functional QOL, and longer expected survival time was associated with better functional and physical QOL.     

POSSIBLE EVILS

I consider an objection to Lewisian modal realism: the view entails that there are a great many real evils that we ought to care about, but in fact we shouldn’t care about these evils. I reply on behalf of the modal realist – we should and do care about possible evils, and this is shown in our reactions to fictions about evils, which (plausibly, for the modal realist) are understood as making certain possible evils salient.¹     

Biblical criticism and cultural Zionism prior to the first world war*

This essay examines the initial stages of the relationship between Jewish nationalism and modern biblical criticism. Its point of departure is Ahad Ha’am, the founder of cultural Zionism, who kept his distance from biblical criticism, and proceeds with Joseph Klausner, Ahad Ha’am’s successor as the editor of Ha-shiloah, who moved in the opposite direction by incorporating biblical criticism into his own writing and teaching. After examining the opposition to Klausner, the essay turns to the work of Ben-Zion Mossinson, who introduced the results of biblical criticism into the teaching of the Bible in the modern schools of the Yishuv. This initiative generated controversy and broad opposition, especially in the European Hebrew press. Shortly before World War I, and in this controversy’s immediate aftermath, Joseph Klausner, then in Palestine, published a small pamphlet in Hebrew making the case for biblical criticism. At about the same time, in Russia, Max Soloveitchik made a similar argument in a book of his own. Neither of these two works had resounding significance, but each testifies to the growing self-confidence of the exponents of cultural Zionist in promoting modern biblical criticism in the Jewish school. *Research for this easy was completed with generous support from a 2003 Harry Starr Fellowship in Jewish Studies at Harvard University.     

Social networks in borderline personality disorder

The interpersonal dysfunction that characterizes borderline personality disorder (BPD) has generally been studied using broad global measures, leading to a lack of precision. We report on a novel methodology using social network analysis (SNA) to quantify interactions with others in the patient's social world. We assessed the social networks of 22 clinical patients, diagnosed with either BPD (N = 11) or no personality disorder (No PD; N = 11). The social networks of patients with BPD contained a greater number of former romantic partners, and a greater number of relationships that had been terminated. Mixed model analyses found that the No PD group reported higher levels of positive relationships (e.g., trust, social support) with more central members of their social networks, whereas the BPD group did not discriminate among members of their networks. Results suggest deficits in social cognition for positive relations, but not for negative relations such as interpersonal conflict.     

Paranoid delusions and threatening hallucinations: a prospective study of sleep paralysis experiences

Previously we reported a three-factor structure for hallucinations accompanying sleep paralysis (SP). These earlier analyses were, however, based on retrospective accounts. In a prospective study, 383 individuals reported individual episodes online providing further evidence for the three-factor structure as well as clearer conceptually meaningful relations among factors than retrospective studies. In addition, reports of individual episodes permitted a more fine-grained analysis of the internal structure of factors to assess predictions based on the hypothesis that a sensed or felt presence (FP) is a core experience affecting other SP hallucinations. Results were generally consistent with this hypothesis. In particular, associations among, and temporal stability of, sensory hallucinations were largely explained by their common association with FP. The findings are consistent with REM initiation of a threat activated vigilance system with pervasive effects on the SP experience and suggest a potential model for the thematic organization of nightmares and dreams more generally.     

The nature and varieties of felt presence experiences: A reply to Nielsen

Nielsen [Nielsen, T. (2007). Felt presence: Paranoid delusion or hallucinatory social imagery? Consciousness and Cognition, 16(4), 975–983.] raises a number of issues and presents several provocative arguments worthy of discussion regarding the experience of the felt presence (FP) during sleep paralysis (SP). We consider these issues beginning with the nature of FP and its relation to affective-motivational systems and provide an alternative to Nielsen’s reduction of FP to a purely spatial hallucination. We then consider implications of the “normal social imagery” model. We can find only one specific empirical hypothesis articulated within this framework and it turns out to be one that we explicitly addressed in our original paper. We also review our position regarding the possible relation of FP during SP to a number of related anomalous experiences and contrast FP to anomalous vestibular-motor (V-M) phenomena. We review our position that the neuromatrix concept, in the light of available evidence, is more appropriately applied to V-M experiences than FP. Finally, we pursue speculations, raised in Nielsen’s commentary, on the wider implications of FP.     

Dream content: Individual and generic aspects

Dream reports were collected from normal subjects in an effort to determine the degree to which dream reports can be used to identify individual dreamers. Judges were asked to group the reports by their authors. The judges scored the reports correctly at chance levels. This finding indicated that dreams may be at least as much like each other as they are the signature of individual dreamers. Our results suggest that dream reports cannot be used to identify the individuals who produced them when identifiers like names and gender of friends and family members are removed from the dream report. In addition to using dreams to learn about an individual, we must look at dreams as telling us about important common or generic aspects of human consciousness.