How is God-talk logically possible? A sketch for an argument on the logic of ‘God’

In this paper I want to argue for the optimal way to characterise the logical and semantical behaviour of the singular term ‘God’ used in religious language. The relevance of this enterprise to logical theory is the main focus as well. Doing this presupposes to outline the two rivaling approaches of well-definition of singular terms: Kripke’s (“rigid designators”) and Hintikka’s (“world-lines”). ‘God’ as a “rigid designator” is purified from all real-life-language-games of identification and only spells out a metaphysical tag, which favours the view of “anything goes”. Instead, ‘God’ as a “world-line,” plus two ways of quantification, is much more flexible to theological traditions, teachings of the church, religious practices and personal feelings. Thus, it provides a sufficiently well-defined singular term for the purposes of logical theory. The whole sketch is based on Jaakko Hintikka’s logical ideas, mainly on his responses to different authors in PJH. I have systematically omitted direct references to his texts because I have modified considerably his ideas for my own purposes.     

Lateralization of speech processing in the brain as indicated by mismatch negativity and dichotic listening

The goal of the present study was to evaluate the differences between dichotic listening and mismatch negativity as measures of speech lateralization in the human brain. For this purpose, we recorded the magnetic equivalent of the mismatch negativity, elicited by consonant-vowel syllable change, and tested the same subjects in the dichotic listening procedure. The results showed that both methods indicated left-hemisphere dominance in speech processing. However, the mismatch negativity, as compared to the right-ear advantage, suggested slightly stronger left-hemisphere dominance in speech processing. No clear correlation was found between the laterality indexes of mismatch negativity and right-ear advantage calculated from dichotic listening results. The possible explanation for this finding would be that these two measures reflect different stages of speech processing in the human brain.     

Networking Psychology in Finland: New Collaboration Between Research and Profession

A firmly structured collaborative scheme was created in Finland during the 1990s, involving all psychology departments and national scientific as well as professional societies. The experiences have been very rewarding. This article reports the main events, crucial strategies and decisions, and evaluates the reasons for success and the dangers to be avoided in such a project.     

Brain Slow Potentials and Postural Sway Behavior During Sharpshooting Performance

In the present study, the relation of preparatory brain slow potentials (SPs) to postural body sway during sharpshooting performance was examined. SPs from frontal, left-central, and right-central areas were recorded from 6 elite and 6 non-elite sharpshooters during a realistic simulated shooting task. A force platform technique was used in the recording of postural sway. The results showed that body sway, as indexed by sway amplitude and mean velocity, was associated with the concomitant SP changes. That relationship was dependent on the shooter's expertise level, however. The main finding among the elite shooters was that the reduced amplitude of body sway coincided with reduced frontal positivity, whereas in the non-elite shooters, the amplitude of sway and the mean sway velocity in the anteroposterior direction were typically accompanied by the lateralization of central negativity. Those findings offer some new insights for evaluating the functional significance of preparatory brain SPs associated with psychomotor processing in sharpshooting. The results from the present study also have implications for the understanding of the postural strategies employed by shooters of different expertise levels.     

Communication Deviances and Clarity Among the Mothers of Normally Achieving and Learning-Disabled Boys.

The main purpose of the study was to reexamine the association between maternal communication deviances and learning disabilities in children. In this study, we adapted and extended the procedure used b Ditton, Green, and Singer (1987). A two-part experimental task was used: one in which the child could not request any clarification of mother's insruction, and another in which the mother and child could communicate. Both communication deviances and the clarity of mother's communication were analyzed. The subjects were 60 mother-child paires in which half of the children had learning disabilities and the other haalf were normally achieving children matched for age and parents' SES. The dyads were vedetaped in a laboratory setting. The mothers o f learning-disabled (LD) children were found to give less exact instructions and to present more ambiguous messages to the child than the mothers of non-LD children.     

Bilingualism Is Associated with a Delayed Onset of Dementia but Not with a Lower Risk of Developing it: a Systematic Review with Meta-Analyses

Neuropsychology Review - Some studies have linked bilingualism with a later onset of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Not all studies have observed...     

On the Genus and Species of Recognition

This article makes several conceptual proposals for a closer analysis of recognition more or less in line with Axel Honneth's account of recognition: (1) a proposal as to the genus of recognitional attitude and recognition, (2) a sketch of an analytical scheme intended to be heuristically useful for analysing the different species of recognitional attitude and recognition, (3) some proposals as to the precise contents of self-conceptions involved in each species and subspecies of recognition, and (4) suggestions as to the relation of the species of recognitional attitude to social settings and concrete personal relationships as well as to the totalities of attitudes instantiated in these settings and relationships. A guiding idea is that the somewhat mechanistic Meadian vocabulary of 'urges' and 'internalizations' of Honneth's original formulations should be replaced with formulations where recognition is consistently conceptualized as consisting of attitudes with propositional or judgmental content.     

Long-term associations of stress and chronic diseases in ageing and retired employees

Long-term associations of prolonged stress symptoms and work-related stressors with chronic diseases were assessed in a sample of ageing and retired food industry workers (N = 100, mean age 62 years) using independent samples t-test, chi-squared test and binary logistic regression analyses. Data was gathered at health checkups and using self-report questionnaires in 1989 and 2000. Prolonged stress symptoms were associated with overall morbidity. Higher scores of stress symptoms predicted musculoskeletal disorders, diseases of the nervous system, eye and ear, endocrine and metabolic diseases, and mental disorders. Of work-related stressors, only job dissatisfaction had a long-term association with endocrine and metabolic diseases. Importantly, prolonged stress symptoms could not be explained by job strain and demands. Identification of prolonged stress symptoms along with traditional and potential risk factors, and combining this knowledge with stress reduction and management is essential for disease prevention and in postponing subsequent onset of disease.     

The effects of different intensity levels of background noise on dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables

It has previously been shown that the right ear advantage in dichotic listening to consonant-vowel syllables is affected if a background noise is presented at the same time as the dichotic stimuli. What is not known is, however, if there is also an effect of varying the intensity level of the background noise. We therefore presented conversation or traffic noise background noise simultaneously with the dichotic syllable stimuli to healthy adult subjects. The intensity of the background noises varied between 50-65 dB in steps of 5 dB. The results showed that the right ear correct reports decreased, while left ear correct reports increased as a consequence of increasing background noise intensity. The effects were also stronger for the right ear, and for the traffic background noise condition, particularly at the two highest intensity levels. The results are discussed in terms of alertness and attentional mechanisms.     

Does traffic congestion increase driver aggression?

In his recent article about aggressive driving, David Shinar proposed that the classical frustration-aggression hypothesis (Dollard, J., Doob, L., Miller, N., Mowrer, O. & Sears, R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CN: Yale University Press) provides a useful tool for understanding driver aggression (Shinar, D. (1998). Aggressive driving: the contribution of the drivers and situation. Transportation Research Part F, 1, 137–160). According to Shinar's (1998) application of the frustration–aggression hypothesis, driver aggression is caused by frustration because of traffic congestion and delays. In the present study, the relationships between exposure to congestion (rush-hour driving) and aggressive violations (DBQ) were investigated in Great Britain, Finland and the Netherlands. Partial correlations showed that the frequency of rush-hour driving did not correlate statistically significantly with driver aggression. Correlations between driving during rush-hour and aggression did not differ in magnitude from those between driving on country roads and aggressive violations. In addition, correlations between exposure to congestion and aggressive violations in countries with large number of vehicles per road kilometre (UK, Netherlands) were not higher than those in a sparsely populated country (Finland). These results from three countries suggest that congestion does not increase driver aggression as directly as suggested by Shinar (1998).