Manipulating noise frequencies alters hemispheric contributions to decision making

Participants listened to the Asian disease problem framed in terms of either gains or losses and chose between two plans to combat the disease. All participants heard the problem embedded in other sounds; for some it was the relatively lower-frequency information, and for others it was the relatively higher-frequency information. The classic framing effect appeared only for those participants for whom the problem was the relatively lower-frequency information (p<.05). These results suggest that mixing filtered speech signals and noise may be a way to assess the role of the left and right hemisphere in various aspects of decision making.     

Children as Religious Resources: The Role of Children in the Social Re-Formation of Class, Culture, and Religious Identity

Based on observations and interviews in two churches representing two different strands of American Protestantism, I assess the ways in which children contribute to the social construction of class, culture, and religious identity for adults. Evidence comes from observing how congregations incorporate children into adult worship services and talk about them in texts and programs, and from the ways in which newer and long-term congregation members describe valuing and understanding children's ministries. These styles and their meanings reflect the history, heritage, and theological distinctives of these two strands of American Protestantism. Religion, I suggest, is not just good for children; children themselves are a religious resource whose presence in worship, service, and discourse helps to create and maintain a sense of identity, place, and meaning in the lives of worshipping adults.     

Genetic background differences and nonassociative effects in mouse trace fear conditioning

Fear conditioning, including variants such as delay and trace conditioning that depend on different neural systems, is widely used to behaviorally characterize genetically altered mice. We present data from three strains of mice, C57/BL6 (C57), 129/SvlmJ (129), and a hybrid strain of the two (F(1) hybrids), trained on various versions of a trace fear-conditioning protocol. The initial version was taken from the literature but included unpaired control groups to assess nonassociative effects on test performance. We observed high levels of nonassociative freezing in both contextual and cued test conditions. In particular, nonassociative freezing in unpaired control groups was equivalent to freezing shown by paired groups in the tests for trace conditioning. A number of pilot studies resulted in a new protocol that yielded strong context conditioning and low levels of nonassociative freezing in all mouse strains. During the trace-CS test in this protocol, freezing in unpaired controls remained low in all strains, and both the C57s and F(1) hybrids showed reliable associative trace fear conditioning. Trace conditioning, however, was not obtained in the 129 mice. Our findings indicate that caution is warranted in interpreting mouse fear-conditioning studies that lack control conditions to address nonassociative effects. They also reveal a final set of parameters that are important for minimizing such nonassociative effects and demonstrate strain differences across performance in mouse contextual and trace fear conditioning.     

Teaching for Religious Literacy

Stephen Prothero's Religious Literacy makes a strong case that minimal religious literacy is an essential requirement for contemporary U. S. citizens. He argues further that high schools and colleges should offer required courses in the study of religion in order to help students reach that baseline literacy. Beyond the general recommendation that such courses focus on biblical literacy and the history of Christianity, however, Prothero does not sketch out his proposal for teaching religious literacy. This essay argues that in addition to providing factual knowledge, teaching for religious literacy needs to involve sustained attention to how religious people use that factual information to orient themselves in the world, express their individual and group self‐understanding, and give their lives direction and meaning. Such attention to the dynamics of religious life can also help students understand why human beings have persisted in this mode of behavior.     

Posttraumatic Stress in Survivors of Childhood Cancer and Mothers: Development and Validation of the Impact of Traumatic Stressors Interview Schedule (ITSIS)

This study presents initial data validating the use of a new instrument, the Impact of Traumatic Stressors Interview Schedule (ITSIS), to assess the occurrence of cancer-related posttraumatic stress in childhood cancer survivors and their mothers. Sixty-six child/adolescent cancer survivors and 64 of their mothers, as well as 130 young adult survivors, completed the ITSIS and other measures of posttraumatic stress and general distress. Five ITSIS factors were identified for the mothers and for the young adult survivors, and three ITSIS factors were identified for the child/adolescent survivors. Factors in all three samples reflected symptoms of posttraumatic distress, concern over medical late effects, communication, and changes in self due to cancer. Only young adult survivors had a factor reflecting a positive engagement with the cancer history. Factors correlated with validation measures in predicted ways. The findings further the conceptualization of posttraumatic stress in pediatric cancer by describing the traumatic experience for survivors and mothers. Comparing factors across samples allows an examination of different influences of cancer within families and over the course of development.     

Effect of beta-funaltrexamine on retention of passive-avoidance conditioning

Rats received administration of an opiate antagonist immediately following single-trial passive-avoidance training. Retention of passive-avoidance conditioning was assessed 1 week after training. Compared to noninjected and vehicle-injected control groups, post-training naloxone (2.0 mg/kg) administration significantly increased retention. A comparable facilitation of retention was also observed when animals received post-training administration of beta-funaltrexamine (40 mg/kg). These data provide additional support for mu opiate receptor activity in the regulation of memory processes.     

Dissociation in self-narrative

We review different analytic approaches to narratives by those with psychopathological conditions, and we suggest that the interpretation of such narratives are complicated by a variety of phenomenological and hermeneutical considerations. We summarize an empirical study of narrative distance in narratives by non-pathological subjects, and discuss how the results can be interpreted in two different ways with regard to the issue of dissociation.     

Centrality preferences in choices among similar options

Three explanations were explored for the finding that people prefer the middle option rather than the extremes when choosing from an array of similar options. In Study 1, 68% chose the middle item from a set of three highlighters and three surveys, whereas 32% chose an item from either end, p < .0001. In Study 2, 71% selected the middle chair from a row of three chairs that were either all empty, or had a backpack occupying either one of the two end chairs, p < .0001. These results support a minimal mental effort principle rather than a preference for symmetry rule. In Study 3, 54.2% recalled more graphic items from the center poster of a 3-poster collage, whereas 31.3% and 14.5% recalled more items from the left and right posters, respectively, p < .004. These findings lend additional support to a focus of attention explanation.