Identity and spirituality: a psychosocial exploration of the sense of spiritual self

The authors examined the structure and content of adults' sense of spiritual identity by analyzing semistructured interviews with 13 spiritually devout men and 15 devout women, ages 22 to 72. Individuals' responses to the Role-Related Identity Interview (G. T. Sorell, M. J. Montgomery, & N. A. Busch-Rossnagel, 1997b) were content analyzed and rated on the role-related spiritual identity dimensions of role salience and flexibility. Individuals were categorized as spiritually foreclosed, achieved, or in moratorium, on the basis of their motivational, affective, self-evaluative, and behavioral investments in spiritually defined roles and their reflectiveness about and behavioral changes in role-related spiritual identity. Similarities and differences within and between spiritual identity status groups were observed, suggesting a variety of ways that spiritual identity provides a sense of continuity as well as a domain for adult developmental change.     

The soft constraints hypothesis: a rational analysis approach to resource allocation for interactive behavior

Soft constraints hypothesis (SCH) is a rational analysis approach that holds that the mixture of perceptual-motor and cognitive resources allocated for interactive behavior is adjusted based on temporal cost-benefit tradeoffs. Alternative approaches maintain that cognitive resources are in some sense protected or conserved in that greater amounts of perceptual-motor effort will be expended to conserve lesser amounts of cognitive effort. One alternative, the minimum memory hypothesis (MMH), holds that people favor strategies that minimize the use of memory. SCH is compared with MMH across 3 experiments and with predictions of an Ideal Performer Model that uses ACT-R's memory system in a reinforcement learning approach that maximizes expected utility by minimizing time. Model and data support the SCH view of resource allocation; at the under 1000-ms level of analysis, mixtures of cognitive and perceptual-motor resources are adjusted based on their cost-benefit tradeoffs for interactive behavior.     

Eye-hand interactions in tracing and drawing tasks

We report a preliminary analysis of the interactions between eye and hand during tracing and drawing of four simple shapes. Eye and hand movements were recorded using the ASL 504 system and the Flock of Birds system, respectively. During tracing, pen tip and eye were tightly coupled, with participants making a series of small saccades just in front of the moving pen, interspersed with periods of smooth pursuit. During drawing, saccades were fewer and larger and pursuit was less frequent. Observed eye-hand interactions suggested a bidirectional relationship between the eye and hand. These findings are explained in terms of the differing degree that the two tasks employ visual detail, external or internal cues and eye-hand coordination.     

Distinctive features hold a privileged status in the computation of word meaning: Implications for theories of semantic memory

The authors present data from 2 feature verification experiments designed to determine whether distinctive features have a privileged status in the computation of word meaning. They use an attractor-based connectionist model of semantic memory to derive predictions for the experiments. Contrary to central predictions of the conceptual structure account, but consistent with their own model, the authors present empirical evidence that distinctive features of both living and nonliving things do indeed have a privileged role in the computation of word meaning. The authors explain the mechanism through which these effects are produced in their model by presenting an analysis of the weight structure developed in the network during training.     

Attention speeds binocular rivalry

During binocular rivalry, incompatible images presented dichoptically compete for perceptual dominance. It has long been debated whether binocular rivalry can be controlled by attention. Most studies have shown that voluntary control over binocular rivalry is limited. We sought to remove attention from binocular rivalry by presenting a concurrent task. Diverting attention slowed the rivalry alternation rate, and did so in proportion to the difficulty of the concurrent task. Even a very demanding distractor task, however, did not arrest rivalry alternations completely. Given that diverting attention was equivalent to lowering the contrast of the rival stimuli, the ability of attention to speed binocular rivalry is most likely due to an increase in the effective contrast of the stimuli through boosting the gain of the cortical response. This increase in effective contrast will ultimately lead to a perceptual switch, thereby limiting voluntary control. Thus, attention speeds rivalry alternations, but has no inherent control over the rivalry process.     

Forward blocking in human learning sometimes reflects the failure to encode a cue-outcome relationship

In two “allergist” causal judgement experiments, participants were trained with a blocking design (A + |AB+). The procedure allowed different food cues to be paired with different fictitious allergic reactions. On test, participants were asked to rate the causal efficacy of the target cues and to recall the particular allergic reaction (outcome) that had followed each cue during training. Forward blocking was observed on the causal judgement measure and on the outcome recall measure in both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. A backward blocking contingency was also trained in Experiment 2 (AB + |A+). Backward blocking was not observed either on the causal judgement or on the outcome recall measure. The evidence from the recall measure suggests that forward blocking in this task results from a failure to encode the B-outcome relationship during training. Associative and nonassociative mechanisms of forward blocking are discussed.     

NUANCE: Naturalistic University of Alberta Nonlinear Correlation Explorer

In this article, we describe the Naturalistic University of Alberta Nonlinear Correlation Explorer (NUANCE), a computer program for data exploration and analysis. NUANCE is specialized for finding nonlinear relations between any number of predictors and a dependent value to be predicted. It searches the space of possible relations between the predictors and the dependent value by using natural selection to evolve equations that maximize the correlation between their output and the dependent value. In this article, we introduce the program, describe how to use it, and provide illustrative examples. NUANCE is written in Java, which runs on most computer platforms. We have contributed NUANCE to the archival Web site of the Psychonomic Society (www.psychonomic.org/archive), from which it may be freely downloaded.     

Remembering the time: a continuous clock

The neural mechanisms for time measurement are currently a subject of much debate. This article argues that our brains can measure time using the same dorsolateral prefrontal cells that are known to be involved in working memory. Evidence for this is: (1) the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is integral to both cognitive timing and working memory; (2) both behavioural processes are modulated by dopamine and disrupted by manipulation of dopaminergic projections to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; (3) the neurons in question ramp their activity in a temporally predictable way during both types of processing; and (4) this ramping activity is modulated by dopamine. The dual involvement of these prefrontal neurons in working memory and cognitive timing supports a view of the prefrontal cortex as a multipurpose processor recruited by a wide variety of tasks.     

Aging and Old Age in Medieval Society and the Transition of Modernity

This article addresses the way that old age was represented within medieval European society and how that changed as the Middle Ages evolved into modernity. I argue that medieval society drew heavily upon the classical theme of the ages of life, embellishing them with a more explicit moral framework. Within this remoralized lifecourse, old age played a central part—whether framed as the end of life's journey toward wisdom and redemption, or as the eventual demise of all worldly success. As the economic and moral order of medieval society declined in the face of the new intellectual currents of the Renaissance and the rising commercialization of sixteenth century Europe, the moral identity of old age was gradually replaced with a social identity framed around lack and neediness.