Universal Self Consciousness mysticism and the physical completeness principle

Philosophers promoting a version ofUniversal Self Consciousness mysticism(including Wainwright, Alston, Hick, Wilber andForman) take it that their interpretations ofmysticism are consistent with currentscientific findings. However, their theorieshave been implicitly or explicitly against thecentral claim arising from science, namely, thephysical causal completeness principle. Thereis strong ground to accept physical causalcompleteness for human functioning, and theassessment of physical completeness isindependent of the phenomenology of UniversalSelf Consciousness mystical experience.Further, there is a positive account ofUniversal Self Consciousness mysticism thataccepts physical causal completeness. Such anaccount is preferable to the many accounts thatboth require its denial and yet give nobasically satisfactory evidence to ground thatdenial.     

Racial Stereotypes and Gender in Context: African Americans at Predominantly Black and Predominantly White Colleges

In this study, relationships among stereotype expectations, gender, and academic self-concept and performance of African American students in predominantly White and predominantly Black college contexts were examined. Stereotype expectations are students' perceptions of biased treatment and evaluation within their major classroom settings (SE). Findings indicated that students' majors were related to stereotype expectations, as well as to their academic competence. Our results also provide evidence of gender and institutional interactions in the relationships between stereotype expectations and academic outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the need to examine issues of race and gender in the academic experiences of African Americans, as well as how their specific school and classroom contexts may influence their experiences.     

Bibliometric Review of the Repertory Grid Technique: 1998–2007

This bibliometric review covers the scientific production with or about the repertory grid technique (RGT; Kelly, 1955/1991) between 1998 and 2007. An analysis of previous reviews suggests the need for a more careful and broad process of bibliographic research. With this aim, 24 bibliographic sources were used to cover a wide range of specialties. We began by drawing up an explicit protocol in which the research terms were detailed. Then we consulted the bibliographic sources, taking into account a specification of inclusion and exclusion criteria. As a result of this process, 973 references were obtained: 468 journal papers, 335 book chapters, 108 doctoral theses, and 62 books. The review also evaluates the types of documents found, the evolution of the number of works published, the repertory grid's fields of application, and the degree of openness to other disciplines. The most relevant authors, their affiliations, countries, and the publication language are also revealed in this article, as well as the major journals contributing to dissemination of the work done with this technique.     

Distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood,arousal, and their interaction on human recognition memory

The two dimensions of emotion, mood valence and arousal, have independent effects on recognition memory. At present, however, it is not clear how those effects are reflected in the human brain. Previous research in this area has generally dealt with memory for emotionally valenced or arousing stimuli, but the manner in which interacting mood and arousal states modulate responses in memory substrates remains poorly understood. We investigated memory for emotionally neutral items while independently manipulating mood valence and arousal state by means of music exposure. Four emotional conditions were created: positive mood/high arousal, positive mood/low arousal, negative mood/high arousal, and negative mood/low arousal. We observed distinct effects of mood valence and arousal in parietal substrates of recognition memory. Positive mood increased activity in ventral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and orbitofrontal cortex, whereas arousal condition modulated activity in dorsal PPC and the posterior cingulate. An interaction between valence and arousal was observed in left ventral PPC, notably in a parietal area distinct from the those identified for the main effects, with a stronger effect of mood on recognition memory responses here under conditions of relative high versus low arousal. We interpreted the PPC activations in terms of the attention-to-memory hypothesis: Increased arousal may lead to increased top-down control of memory, and hence dorsal PPC activation, whereas positive mood valence may result in increased activity in ventral PPC regions associated with bottom-up attention to memory. These findings indicate that distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interplay during recognition memory.     

A new approach for differential item functioning detection using Mantel-Haenszel methods. The GMHDIF program

To date, the statistical software designed for assessing differential item functioning (DIF) with Mantel-Haenszel procedures has employed the following statistics: the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square statistic, the generalized Mantel-Haenszel test and the Mantel test. These statistics permit detecting DIF in dichotomous and polytomous items, although they limit the analysis to two groups. On the contrary, this article describes a new approach (and the related software) that, using the generalized Mantel-Haenszel statistic proposed by Landis, Heyman, and Koch (1978), permits DIF assessment in multiple groups, both for dichotomous and polytomous items. The program is free of charge and is available in the following languages: Spanish, English and Portuguese.     

A category-overshadowing effect in pigeons: support for the Common Elements Model of object categorization learning

A model proposing error-driven learning of associations between representations of stimulus properties and responses can account for many findings in the literature on object categorization by nonhuman animals. Furthermore, the model generates predictions that have been confirmed in both pigeons and people, suggesting that these learning processes are widespread across distantly related species. The present work reports evidence of a category-overshadowing effect in pigeons' categorization of natural objects, a novel behavioral phenomenon predicted by the model. Object categorization learning was impaired when a second category of objects provided redundant information about correct responses. The same impairment was not observed when single objects provided redundant information, but the category to which they belonged was uninformative, suggesting that this effect is different from simple overshadowing, arising from competition among stimulus categories rather than individual stimuli during learning.     

Psychometric properties of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in Spanish child and adolescent population

This article analyses the dimensions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980). The sample comprised 721 Spanish participants between 9 and 16 years old. Diverse exploratory factor analyses were conducted as the basis for the final confirmatory factor analysis, through self-report. The results supported a structure with 5 first-order main factors (Intellectual empathy, Positive emotional empathy, Disorganized emotional empathy, Virtual empathy, and Impassiveness), where the two first factors are nested in a second-order dimension: "Considerate Social Style". The psychometric characteristics of the instrument were adequate. The proposed model is a new alternative to conceptualize the factor structure of empathy.     

Incidental retrieval-induced forgetting of location information

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) has been studied with different types of tests and materials. However, RIF has always been tested on the items' central features, and there is no information on whether inhibition also extends to peripheral features of the events in which the items are embedded. In two experiments, we specifically tested the presence of RIF in a task in which recall of peripheral information was required. After a standard retrieval practice task oriented to item identity, participants were cued with colors (Exp. 1) or with the items themselves (Exp. 2) and asked to recall the screen locations where the items had been displayed during the study phase. RIF for locations was observed after retrieval practice, an effect that was not present when participants were asked to read instead of retrieving the items. Our findings provide evidence that peripheral location information associated with an item during study can be also inhibited when the retrieval conditions promote the inhibition of more central, item identity information.