The Enlightenment That Won't Go Away: Modernity's Crux

The Critical Process unleashed by the Enlightenment and endlessly resharpening itself to this day has mortally wounded the God of Deism, maybe also of theism, even of Christianity. A temptation of Christian theology is to retreat in denial into an updated version of Deism, seemingly granting full license to modern science but only so long as it does not impugn God's love. The alternative here proposed is to ride out The Critical Process, in fact to encourage it, all the way into modernity's crux: How can a design that is not benign still be divine? The Christian reply is: through a real death of God and of ourselves as well, and through resurrections beginning now, thus freeing The Critical Process from the illusion of insuring our survival and, instead, for the honest Enlightenment task of merely telling the truth.     

A behavior-based circuit model of how outcome expectations organize learned behavior in larval Drosophila

Drosophila larvae combine a numerically simple brain, a correspondingly moderate behavioral complexity, and the availability of a rich toolbox for transgenic manipulation. This makes them attractive as a study case when trying to achieve a circuit-level understanding of behavior organization. From a series of behavioral experiments, we suggest a circuitry of chemosensory processing, odor-tastant memory trace formation, and the "decision" process to behaviorally express these memory traces--or not. The model incorporates statements about the neuronal organization of innate vs. conditioned chemosensory behavior, and the types of interaction between olfactory and gustatory pathways during the establishment as well as the behavioral expression of odor-tastant memory traces. It in particular suggests that innate olfactory behavior is responsive in nature, whereas conditioned olfactory behavior is captured better when seen as an action in pursuit of its outcome. It incorporates the available neuroanatomical and behavioral data and thus should be useful as scaffold for the ongoing investigations of the chemo-behavioral system in larval Drosophila.     

Lexico-semantic processing in Williams syndrome

People with Williams syndrome, a neurodevelopmental genetic syndrome, typically have good language skills as compared to other cognitive abilities, as far as intellectual disability is concerned. They have a large vocabulary and they frequently use uncommon or rarely-used words. This has led some authors to consider that they have a peculiar semantic system, different from that of people with typical development. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by comparing the performance of a group of young adults with Williams syndrome to a control group using various lexico-semantic tasks, including semantic and phonological fluency. The results indicate that the semantic system of people with Williams syndrome does not seem to differ much from those in the control group because the words they produced were similar to those of the control group with regard to word frequency, length or the typicality of the responses within the categories.     

The role of strategies in deciding advantageously in ambiguous and risky situations

In decision situations of everyday life, the potential positive or negative consequences of a decision are often specified and the associated probabilities are known or they are principally calculable ("decisions under risk"). On the basis of correlations reported in patient studies, it has been recently proposed that decisions under risk involve strategic components, i.e. calculation of the risk, as well as emotional processes, i.e. processing feedback from previous decisions. However, the potential impact of calculative strategies on decision-making under risk has not been investigated systematically, so far. In the current study, we examined 42 healthy subjects (21 females) with the Game of Dice Task measuring decisions under risk, and a questionnaire assessing strategy application in items comparable to the choices in the Game of Dice Task. In addition, the subjects performed the Iowa Gambling Task, examining decision-making under ambiguity, and a neuropsychological test battery focusing on executive functions. Results indicate that deciding advantageously in a decision-making task with explicit and stable rules is linked to applying calculative strategies. In contrast, individuals who decide intuitively prefer risky or disadvantageous choices in the Game of Dice Task. Applying calculative strategies was correlated with executive functions but not with performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. The results support the view that calculative processes and strategies may improve decision-making under explicit risk conditions.     

Motivated Compliance With Bases of Social Power

This contribution examines the degree of compliance with hard and soft power bases ( Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998 ) as a function of target motivational and personal orientations. Four field studies were conducted in different European organizations where intrinsic–extrinsic motivational orientations, desire for control, self-presentational styles, and self-esteem were respectively considered as antecedents of employees' compliance with their supervisors' power strategies. Results show that compliance with soft power strategies is positively related to intrinsic motivation, desire for control, "getting-ahead" style, and self-esteem; and negatively related to the "getting-along" style. Compliance with hard power strategies is positively related to extrinsic motivation and to the getting-along style, but negatively related to intrinsic motivation, desire for control, and self-esteem.     

Understanding patterns of attitude change: When implicit measures show change, but explicit measures do not

A common assumption in research on attitudes is that indirect measures assess relatively stable implicit attitudes, whereas traditional self-report measures assess more recently acquired explicit attitudes that coexist with old, presumably stable implicit attitudes. This assumption seems difficult to reconcile with research showing experimentally induced changes on implicit but not explicit measures. The present research tested a process-account of such asymmetrical patterns. Specifically, we argue that implicit measures show experimental effects that do not emerge on explicit measures when (a) the pairing of an attitude object with positive or negative valence creates new automatic associations in memory, and, at the same time, (b) the consideration of additional information about the attitude object eliminates the impact of automatic associations on self-reported evaluative judgments. Results from three studies support these predictions. Implications for research on attitude change are discussed.     

Religious identity development of adolescents in religious affiliated schools. A theoretical foundation for empirical research

The question, how religious affiliated schools for secondary education shape religious education and what effects this education has on the religious identity development of pupils, is relevant in a time when the position of religious affiliated schools is highly disputable. In earlier empirical research on religious identity development of adolescence, hardly any attention was paid to the theoretical framework of this question. Therefore, connections are sought with the identity theory of Erikson and with operationalizations of his theory by Marcia and others. The key concepts are ‘exploration’ and ‘commitment’. Religious identity development is seen from a pragmatic perspective in which the transactional relation of individuals and environment is stressed.     

Cross-linguistic assessment of verbal production from a narrative task in Williams Syndrome

Williams Syndrome (WS) is a disorder caused by a delection in chromosome 7, with a cognitive profile characterised by mild to moderate mental deficiency and difficulties in visual-spatial processing, which contrasts with a relative preservation of linguistic functions and narrative production. In this study, verbal performance was analysed in two groups of participants (N = 3), Portuguese and Spanish, genetically diagnosed with WS. Scores were low in Verbal IQ, as in Performance IQ. Narrative performance showed low coherence with respect to structure, process, and content. WS verbal performance was affected and there was no difference between both groups. We could not find any dissociation between cognitive functioning and linguistic production.     

Natural variation in Drosophila larval reward learning and memory due to a cGMP-dependent protein kinase

Animals must be able to find and evaluate food to ensure survival. The ability to associate a cue with the presence of food is advantageous because it allows an animal to quickly identify a situation associated with a good, bad, or even harmful food. Identifying genes underlying these natural learned responses is essential to understanding this ability. Here, we investigate whether natural variation in the foraging (for) gene in Drosophila melanogaster larvae is important in mediating associations between either an odor or a light stimulus and food reward. We found that for influences olfactory conditioning and that the mushroom bodies play a role in this for-mediated olfactory learning. Genotypes associated with high activity of the product of for, cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG), showed greater memory acquisition and retention compared with genotypes associated with low activity of PKG when trained with three conditioning trials. Interestingly, increasing the number of training trials resulted in decreased memory retention only in genotypes associated with high PKG activity. The difference in the dynamics of memory acquisition and retention between variants of for suggests that the ability to learn and retain an association may be linked to the foraging strategies of the two variants.