The trauma of evil and the traumatological conception of forgiveness

In recent years there has been widespread interest in assimilating forgiveness into a rational conception of the moral life. This project usually construes forgiveness as a way of “moving past” evil and resuming the moral narrative it disrupted. But to develop a philosophical sound conception of forgiveness, we must recognize that moral evil is world-shattering and cannot be assimilated into the moral narrative of our lives. It is not an event that happens in one’s world but to one’s world. In this respect it is similar to death as Heidegger has described it. But, contrary to what Heidegger implies, evil is more traumatic than death because, unlike the latter, it shatters moral reasoning and moral narrative. Evil is a monstrosity; it traumatizes historical existence by impossibilizing the future. A philosophical account of forgiveness must therefore be traumatological: recognizing the traumatizing impact that evil has on historicity, it has provide us a heuristic that will help us to imagine the unimaginable possibility of transforming historical horror into good.     

Tone production deficits in nonfluent aphasic Chinese speech

Previous studies demonstrating a right hemisphere lateralization of musical, tonal, and intonational stimuli had suggested that in aphasic tone language speakers, the tonal phonemes might be subject to a lesser degree of deficit than consonantal phonemes. Using a word repetition task, this research demonstrates that left-damaged nonfluent aphasic speakers of Chinese experience a tonal production deficit which is both quantitatively and qualitatively equivalent to the deficit experienced by these speakers in the production of consonants. It is suggested that in tone languages, lexical specification of tone contour information results in left hemisphere lateralization of that information, thus making the tonal phonemes vulnerable to left hemisphere damage.     

Intensity and Interpretation of Competitive State Anxiety: Relationship to Performance and Repressive Coping

Abstract

This study examined (a) the predictions of multidimensional anxiety theory, (b) the effect of interpreting anxiety responses as having a debilitative or facilitative effect on performance, and (c) the influence of a repressive coping style on the relationship of anxiety to performance in recreational and semi-professional bowlers (N = 158). Regression analyses indicated cognitive intensity had an inverted-U relationship to performance that explained 4.1% of the variance (p < .05). The somatic direction subscale had a positive linear relationship to performance that explained 3.0% of the variance (p < .05). Removing bowlers with a repressive coping style resulted in a stronger and different anxiety-performance relationship. Cognitive intensity kept an inverted-U relationship, but increased the performance variance explained to 12.6%. Somatic intensity became significant, but with a negative linear relationship that explained 6.1% of performance variance. The findings did not support multi-dimensional anxiety theory and offered only limited support for inclusion of directional interpretation scales.     

CognitiveGenesis (CG): Assessing Academic Achievement and Cognitive Ability in Adventist Schools

CognitiveGenesis collected achievement and ability test data from 2006–2009 for all students in Seventh-day Adventist schools in North America. Students were above average in achievement compared to national norms and achieved above that predicted by their ability scores. The more years students attended Adventist schools, the higher they achieved, compared to the norm group. Change in students' achievement and ability over 1–3 years was greater than the change in the norm group for both males and females and students in all ethnic groups. Change in achievement and ability for students of all ability levels was equal to or greater than the change in the norm group.