Postmodern Illusions and the Challenges of African Theology: The Ecclesial Tactics of Resistance

Contemporary African theological reflection has not sufficiently paid attention to the reality of postmodernism in general, its cultural expressions in particular. In this essay, I depict some of the illusions of a postmodern culture and how their power to shape the economic, cultural and imaginative visions of Africans remains one of the key theological challenges. Accordingly, the crucial test for African theology today will be whether it can generate enough critical skills and inspire new forms of community, which are capable of challenging, as well as offering alternatives to, the dangerous and playful nihilism of a postmodern culture.     

Using mnemonic images and explicit sound contrasting to help Japanese children learn English alphabet sounds

Although mnemonics have been shown to be effective in remembering letter-sound associations, the use of foreign words as cues for English phonemes had not been investigated. Learning phonemes in Japan is challenging because the Japanese language is based on a different sound unit called mora (mostly consonant-vowel combinations). This study investigated the effectiveness of using mnemonic images utilizing Japanese words as cues for the phonemes, and explicit sound contrasting of phonemic sounds with morae they could be confused with, in facilitating children's acquisition of knowledge about alphabet letter-sound correspondence. The participants were 140 6th-grade Japanese students who were taught phoneme-consonant correspondence, with or without the use of mnemonics or explicit sound contrasting. Analysis of the students’ pre- and post-instruction assessments revealed significant interaction effects between types of instruction provided and instruction phase, indicating better performance in letter-sound association as a consequence of the inclusion of both mnemonics and explicit sound contrasting.     

The primate working memory networks

Working memory has long been associated with the prefrontal cortex, since damage to this brain area can critically impair the ability to maintain and update mnemonic information. Anatomical and physiological evidence suggests, however, that the prefrontal cortex is part of a broader network of interconnected brain areas involved in working memory. These include the parietal and temporal association areas of the cerebral cortex, cingulate and limbic areas, and subcortical structures such as the mediodorsal thalamus and the basal ganglia. Neurophysiological studies in primates confirm the involvement of areas beyond the frontal lobe and illustrate that working memory involves parallel, distributed neuronal networks. In this article, we review the current understanding of the anatomical organization of networks mediating working memory and the neural correlates of memory manifested in each of their nodes. The neural mechanisms of memory maintenance and the integrative role of the prefrontal cortex are also discussed.     

Variations in EEG coherence as an index of the affective content of dreams from REM sleep: relationships with face imagery

EEG coherence was examined in relation to four measures of socioemotional dream content, including a new measure--the proportional representation of a character's face. Twenty-four healthy subjects, recorded for sleep stages and EEG activity, were awakened from REM sleep to report dream mentation and to rate it on these variables. Coherence scores were calculated for homologous interhemispheric electrode pairs (Fp1-Fp2, F3-F4, F7-F8, C3-C4, P3-P4, O1-O2, T3-T4, T5-T6) and for left and right intrahemispheric pairs for delta, theta, alpha, beta1, and beta2 frequencies. These were correlated with the mentation measures. Positive correlations were found between average interhemispheric coherence in most bands and the character face measure. A breakdown by gender revealed that this relationship was most evident for women, whereas for men positive correlations were observed between coherence and negative self-feeling. That similar relationships also obtained for both left and right intrahemispheric coherence is consistent with the hypothesis that dreamed socioemotional interactions reflect the integrative functioning of many brain regions in both hemispheres.