Individuation experience predicts other-race effects in holistic processing for both Caucasian and Black participants

Same-race (SR) faces are recognized better than other-race (OR) faces, and this other-race effect (ORE) is correlated with experience. SR faces are also processed more holistically than OR faces, suggesting one possible mechanism for poorer performance on OR faces. Studies of object expertise have shown that individuating experiences are necessary for holistic processing to develop; yet thus far no studies have investigated the role of quality of experience and the ORE for holistic processing. In the present study, we found a strong negative correlation between a self-report of individuating experience and the ORE in holistic processing in both Caucasian and Black participants, indicating that the more individuating experience a person has, the less ORE in holistic processing. This confirms the critical role of individuating experience in development of holistic processing for faces and suggests that quality of experience is a key determinant of the manner in which OR faces are processed.     

Rethinking fideism through the lens of Wittgenstein’s engineering outlook

Careful readers of Wittgenstein tend to overlook the significance his engineering education had for his philosophy; this despite Georg von Wright’s stern admonition that “the two most important facts to remember about Wittgenstein were, firstly, that he was Viennese, and, secondly, that he was an engineer.” Such oversight is particularly tempting for those of us who come to philosophy late, having first been schooled in math and science, because our education tricks us into thinking we understand engineering by extension. But we do not. I will illustrate this common tendency to misread Wittgenstein by examining three engineering concepts that have little significance for science but played important roles in Wittgenstein’s philosophical thinking. These are: method of projection, dynamical similarity, and satisfactoriness. The upshot of this analysis will be a strong challenge to the myth of his putative fideism because neither fideism nor its contrary simply would have occurred to Wittgensteinthe-engineer.     

D. Z. Phillips’ contemplations on religion and literature

This paper critically discusses D. Z. Phillips’ use of literary works as a resource for philosophical reflection on religion. Beginning by noting Phillips’ suggestion, made in relation to Waiting for Godot, that the possibilities of meaning that we see in a literary work can reveal something of our own religious sensibility, I then proceed to show what we learn about Phillips from his readings of certain works by Larkin, Tennyson, and Wharton. Through exploring alternative possible readings, I argue that, although Phillips’ discussions are of considerable philosophical interest, they undermine his claim to be deploying a purely contemplative hermeneutical method.     

Three Models of Clergy Systems: Analysis of Couple Processes and Spiritual Meaning

This study explores how parts of the clergy system interact in response to congregational and familial demands. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with twenty-four clergy and their spouses identified three clergy system models based on the spiritual meaning and relational dynamics between the clergy, their spouses, and the congregations: The living sacrifice model emphasizes service to the congregation at the expense of personal and familial needs; the faithful spouse and parent model focuses on family needs over the congregation and practices several disciplines to maintain such a focus; and the peacemaker model seeks as much as possible to satisfy their congregation and their family by intentionally juggling their demands. Results illustrate how relational processes and spiritual meaning contribute to how clergy systems respond to systemic demands and pressures.     

The Interprofessional Collaborative Practice: Clergypersons and Mental Health Professionals

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among variables identified in research literature as obstacles and benefits to interprofessional collaboration-- academic education, interprofessional education, teamwork and communication skills, and trust---as it relates to the participation of clergypersons in interprofessional collaborative practice. The sample consisted of ordained Christian clergypersons in Florida who voluntarily completed a survey questionnaire. Standard and stepwise multiple regression was applied to analyze the data. The model accounts for 25% of the variation of interprofessional collaborative practice. Results also revealed that the education variables explained significantly 20% of the variance of interprofessional collaborative practice.     

Movin’ on up: higher-level requirements and inferential justification

Does inferential justification require the subject to be aware that her premises support her conclusion? Externalists tend to answer “no” and internalists tend to answer “yes”. In fact, internalists often hold the strong higher-level requirement that an argument justifies its conclusion only if the subject justifiably believes that her premises support her conclusion. I argue for a middle ground. Against most externalists, I argue that inferential justification requires that one be aware that her premises support her conclusion. Against many internalists, I argue that this higher-level awareness needn’t be doxastic or justified. I also argue that the required higher-level awareness needn’t be caused in some appropriate way, e.g. by a reliable or properly functioning faculty. I suspect that this weaker higher-level requirement is overlooked because, at first glance, it seems absurd to allow nondoxastic, unjustified, and unreliably-caused higher-level awareness to contribute to inferential justification. One of the central goals of this paper is to explain how such weak awareness can make an essential contribution to inferential justification.     

Mentalist evidentialism vindicated (and a super-blooper epistemic design problem for proper function justification)

Michael Bergmann seeks to motivate his externalist, proper function theory of epistemic justification by providing three objections to the mentalism and mentalist evidentialism characteristic of nonexternalists such as Richard Feldman and Earl Conee. Bergmann argues that (i) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that justification depends on mental states; (ii) mentalism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of an epistemic input to a belief-forming process must be due to an essential feature of that input, and, relatedly, that mentalist evidentialism is committed to the false thesis that the epistemic fittingness of doxastic response B to evidence E is an essential property of B–E; and (iii) mentalist evidentialism is “unmotivated”. I object to each argument. The argument for (i) begs the question. The argument for (ii) suffers from the fact that mentalist evidentialists are not committed to the consequences claimed for them; nevertheless, I show that there is, in the neighborhood, a substantive dispute concerning the nature of doxastic epistemic fittingness. That dispute involves what I call “Necessary Fittingness”, the view that, necessarily, exactly one (at most) doxastic attitude (belief, or disbelief, or suspension of judgment) toward a proposition is epistemically fitting with respect to a person’s total evidence at any time. Reflection on my super-blooper epistemic design counterexamples to Bergmann’s proper function theory reveals both the plausibility of Necessary Fittingness and a good reason to deny (iii). Mentalist evidentialism is thus vindicated against the objections.     

“Socializing” Achievement Goal Theory: The Need for Social Goals

Cultures shape the types of goals that students pursue in the classroom. However, research in achievement goal theory seems to have neglected this cultural aspect with its exclusive focus on individualistically-based goals such as mastery and performance goals. This emphasis on mastery and performance goals may reflect Western individualist psychological thinking. Thus, social goals, which may be more salient in collectivist cultures, are relatively neglected. There is a dearth of studies investigating the role of social goals in academic motivation, and the few studies that did explore them are somewhat problematic. This paper reviews research done within the achievement goal theory, considers the need for more studies on social goals, and concludes with the argument that social goals are important in understanding student motivation especially in collectivist cultures.     

The informational constraints of behavioral distraction by unexpected sounds: The role of event information

Sounds deviating from an otherwise repeated stream of task-irrelevant auditory stimuli (deviant sounds among standard sounds) are known to capture attention and impact negatively on ongoing behavioral performance (behavioral oddball distraction). Traditional views consider such distraction as the ineluctable consequence of the deviant sounds' low probability of occurrence relative to that of the standard. Contrary to this contention, recent evidence demonstrates that distraction by deviant sounds is not obligatory and occurs only when sounds (standards and deviants), though to be ignored, act as useful warning cues by providing information as to whether and when a target stimulus is to be presented (Parmentier, Elsley, & Ljungberg, 2010). The present study aimed to extend this finding by disentangling the roles of event information (target's probability of occurrence) and temporal information (target's time of occurrence). Comparing performance in a cross-modal oddball task where standard and deviant sounds provided temporal information, event information, both, or none, we found that distraction by deviant sounds emerged when sounds conveyed event information. These results suggest that unexpected changes in a stream of sounds yield behavioral distraction to the extent that standards and deviants carry relevant goal-directed information, specifically, the likelihood of occurrence of an upcoming target. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Psychosis: A Synthesis of Motivational and Defect Perspectives

Based on the evolution of human intelligence and the tremendous cognitive capacities arising from it, we have an innate tendency for the extreme thought content, thought form, and sensory perceptions of psychosis. During the conscious and awake state, cognitive regulatory control processes block these more extreme variants to facilitate reality congruency necessary for adaptive functioning. While asleep there is no need for reality congruency and the cognitive regulatory control processes are deactivated allowing psychotic equivalents to be expressed in dreams. This paper helps synthesize the two dominant perspectives regarding the etiology of psychosis: the neuroscience defect perspective and the psychoanalytic motivational perspective. Regarding the former, defective cognitive regulation arising from certain conditions, such as the deficit state of schizophrenia, allows extreme cognitive distortions, thought form variants, and sensory perceptual experiences to intrude into the conscious and awake state, thereby producing psychosis. Consistent with the psychoanalytic motivational perspective, defensive processes can motivate extreme cognitive distortions, thought form variants and sensory perceptual experiences, and also facilitate their expression by deactivating the relevant cognitive regulatory control processes.