Semantic activation of noun concepts in context

A modified Stoop procedure was used to examine the role that context plays in guiding semantic access of unambiguous nouns in sentence contexts. The sentences either emphasized a high- or a low-dominant property of a noun that was the last word in the sentence or were control sentences. Each sentence was followed by the relevant high- or low-dominant property either immediately or after a 300-or 600-ms delay. There was significant color-naming interference (relative to control) for high-dominant properties regardless of biasing context in the immediate and delayed conditions. There was also significant color-naming interference for low-dominant properties in the immediate condition regardless of context. However, in the delayed conditions, the low-dominant properties led to color-naming interference only when preceded by sentence contexts biasing interpretation toward the low-dominant property. It was concluded that high-dominant properties function as core, or invariant, aspects of meaning and that initial semantic access is context independent.     

Continuity and change in children's longitudinal neural responses to numbers

Human children possess the ability to approximate numerical quantity nonverbally from a young age. Over the course of early childhood, children develop increasingly precise representations of numerical values, including a symbolic number system that allows them to conceive of numerical information as Arabic numerals or number words. Functional brain imaging studies of adults report that activity in bilateral regions of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) represents a key neural correlate of numerical cognition. Developmental neuroimaging studies indicate that the right IPS develops its number‐related neural response profile more rapidly than the left IPS during early childhood. One prediction that can be derived from previous findings is that there is longitudinal continuity in the number‐related neural responses of the right IPS over development while the development of the left IPS depends on the acquisition of numerical skills. We tested this hypothesis using fMRI in a longitudinal design with children ages 4 to 9. We found that neural responses in the right IPS are correlated over a 1–2‐year period in young children whereas left IPS responses change systematically as a function of children's numerical discrimination acuity. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that functional properties of the right IPS in numerical processing are stable over early childhood whereas the functions of the left IPS are dynamically modulated by the development of numerical skills.     

A Thematic Analysis of Spectator Violence at Sporting Events in North America

This study examines aggravating and mitigating circumstances surrounding spectator fights at stadiums and arenas in North America. Data were collected utilizing a sample of video recordings posted to a popular video-sharing website. A thematic analysis of the data reveals several influences including the role of team allegiances, alcohol use, security presence, and bystander behavior. Potential preventive and reactive interventions to discourage violence in this setting are discussed and evaluated.     

Psychosocial factors in heart surgery: presurgical vulnerability and postsurgical recovery

OBJECTIVE: Distress and low perceived social support were examined as indicators of psychosocial vulnerability in patients about to undergo heart surgery. Design: A total of 550 study patients underwent heart surgeries, including bypass grafting and valve procedures. Psychosocial interviews were conducted about five days before surgery, and biomedical data were obtained from hospital records. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sociodemographic, personality, religious, and biomedical factors were evaluated as predictors of psychosocial vulnerability, and all five sets of variables were evaluated as contributors to hospital length of stay (LOS). RESULTS: Patients scoring higher on one or more indicator of presurgical psychosocial vulnerability were younger, more likely to be female, less likely to be married, less well educated, lower in dispositional optimism, higher in trait anger, and lower in religiousness. Older age, depression, low support, and low trait anger each showed an independent, prospective association with greater LOS, and several other predictors had prospective relationships with LOS that were statistically mediated by depression or perceived support. CONCLUSION: Evidence that multiple psychosocial factors may influence adaptation to heart surgery has implications for understanding and ameliorating presurgical distress and for improving postsurgical recovery.     

Blood is thicker: moral spillover effects based on kinship

Three empirical studies document the intuitive spillover of moral taint from a person who engages in immoral acts to another individual who is related by ties of blood kinship. In Study 1, participants were more likely to recommend that the biological grandchild of a wrongdoer, compared to a non-biological grandchild, help the descendants of his grandfather's victims. In Study 2, participants were more willing to hold two long-lost identical twins in custody for a crime committed by one twin than to hold two perfect look-alikes for a crime committed by one look-alike. Study 3 provides direct evidence that spillover effects based on blood kinship are manifested in an intuitive sense of moral taint.     

On the number of gods

A god is a cosmic designer-creator. Atheism says the number of gods is 0. But it is hard to defeat the minimal thesis that some possible universe is actualized by some possible god. Monotheists say the number of gods is 1. Yet no degree of perfection can be coherently assigned to any unique god. Lewis says the number of gods is at least the second beth number. Yet polytheists cannot defend an arbitrary plural number of gods. An alternative is that, for every ordinal, there is a god whose perfection is proportional to it. The n-th god actualizes the best universe(s) in the n-th level of an axiological hierarchy of possible universes. Despite its unorthodoxy, ordinal polytheism has many metaphysically attractive features and merits more serious study.