Our inalienable ability to sin: Peter Olivi’s rejection of asymmetrical freedom

From the time of Augustine to the late thirteenth century, leading Christian thinkers agreed that freedom requires the ability to make good choices, but not the ability to make bad ones. If freedom required the ability to sin, they reasoned, neither God nor the angels nor the blessed in heaven could be free. This essay examines the work of Peter Olivi, the first medieval philosopher known to reject the asymmetrical conception of freedom. Olivi argues that the ability to sin is essential to creaturely freedom and remains even in heaven. While Anselm is the nominal target of Olivi’s arguments on this topic, they form part of a wider critique directed even more at Aquinas and his followers. Olivi faults them for misunderstanding the nature of the created will and for failing to provide a foundation for a particular kind of moral responsibility: personal merit.     

The Hebb repetition effect as a laboratory analogue of novel word learning

The present study tests the hypothesis that a common ordering mechanism underlies both short-term serial recall of verbal materials and the acquisition of novel long-term lexical representations, using the Hebb repetition effect. In the first experiment, participants recalled visually presented nonsense syllables following a typical Hebb effect learning protocol. Replicating the Hebb repetition effect, we observed improved recall for repeated sequences of syllables. In the second experiment, the same participants performed an auditory lexical decision task, which included nonwords that were constructed from the syllables used in the first experiment. We observed inhibited rejection of nonwords that were composed of the repeated Hebb sequences, compared to nonwords that were built from nonrepeated filler sequences. This suggests that a long-term phonological lexical representation developed during Hebb learning. Accordingly, the relation between immediate serial recall and word learning is made explicit by arguing that the Hebb repetition effect is a laboratory analogue of naturalistic vocabulary acquisition.     

An Investigation of the Processes by Which Product Design and Brand Strength Interact to Determine Initial Affect and Quality Judgments

Prior research on product design has focused predominantly on the importance of product aesthetics in generating favorable consumer response. Interestingly, little attention has been given to the importance of aesthetics relative to product function (a fundamental component of product design) or to brand strength–two factors that are also considered to have a significant influence on consumers’ product evaluations and on product success. This study investigates how product design (conceptualized as product aesthetics and function) interacts with brand strength to influence consumers’ product liking and quality evaluations. Results suggest that design and brand strength differentially impact liking and quality judgments. In addition, judgments of liking and quality are found to be different in the way they are formed. Specifically, product liking appears to be readily formed through a process that integrates design information only; brand strength exhibits no significant influence. Quality judgments appear to take longer to process, and involve the integration of design and brand information.     

Functional-anatomical organization of predicate metaphor processing

The bulk of the research on the neural organization of metaphor comprehension has focused on nominal metaphors and the metaphoric relationships between word pairs. By contrast, little work has been conducted on predicate metaphors using verbs of motion such as “The man fell under her spell.” We examined predicate metaphors as compared to literal sentences of motion such as “The child fell under the slide” in an event-related, functional MRI study. Our results demonstrated greater activation in the left inferior frontal cortex and left lateral temporal lobe for predicate metaphors as compared to literal sentences, while no differences were seen in homologous areas of the right hemisphere. We suggest that the results support a neural organization principle for motion processing in which greater abstraction proceeds along a posterior-to-anterior axis within the lateral portion of the left temporal cortex.     

Greater Expectations: Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling to Examine Expectancy for Treatment Outcome as a Predictor of Treatment Response

A client's expectation that therapy will be beneficial has long been considered an important factor contributing to therapeutic outcomes, but recent empirical work examining this hypothesis has primarily yielded null findings. The present study examined the contribution of expectancies for treatment outcome to actual treatment outcome from the start of therapy through 12-month follow-up in a clinical sample of individuals (n = 72) treated for fear of flying with either in vivo exposure or virtual reality exposure therapy. Using a piecewise hierarchical linear model, outcome expectancy predicted treatment gains made during therapy but not during follow-up. Compared to lower levels, higher expectations for treatment outcome yielded stronger rates of symptom reduction from the beginning to the end of treatment on 2 standardized self-report questionnaires on fear of flying. The analytic approach of the current study is one potential reason that findings contrast with prior literature. The advantages of using hierarchical linear modeling to assess interindividual differences in longitudinal data are discussed.     

The encoding-retrieval relationship: retrieval as mental simulation

There is increasing evidence to suggest that mental simulations underlie many cognitive processes. We review results from three rapidly developing research areas suggesting that simulations underlie information retrieval. First, neuroimaging work indicates that cortical circuits that were activated during encoding are reactivated during retrieval. Second, retrieval is aided by behavioural re-enactment of processes involved in encoding, including re-enactment of encoding eye movements. Third, the time courses of encoding of visual features and the retrieval of information about those features are related. Overall, the evidence suggests that the often observed interactions between encoding and retrieval result from a cognitive system that, at least partially, reactivates processes that were involved in encoding to retrieve information.     

Wherein lies the debate? Concerning whether God is a person

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Within contemporary philosophy of religion there are three main ways in which God is conceptualised in relation to personhood: The first two of...     

Effects of Self‐Deceptive Enhancement on Personality–Job Performance Relationships

Theoretical and empirical evidence distinguishes between two types of response distortion: impression management (IM) and self‐deceptive enhancement (SDE), although most research in Industrial/Organizational Psychology has focused on the effects of IM. The present study compared the effects of IM and SDE on job performance and personality validity. Two‐hundred and sixty‐one managers completed Big Five Personality, SDE, and IM measures. The managers' supervisors, peers, and subordinates rated their job performance. In accordance with previous research, accounting for managers' IM scores did not increase prediction of job performance. On the other hand, accounting for SDE did increase prediction. Increased prediction was due to an interaction between Extraversion and SDE, and an increase in the predictive validity of Emotional Stability when SDE was held constant. Results suggested that findings from previous research demonstrating that IM does not affect job performance or personality validity cannot be extended to SDE.     

New Mothers’ Psychological Experience and Behavioral Interactions with their Infants in the First 12 Months

We examined the psychological dimensions of parents’ perceptions of their infant children and their own abilities as parents at two observation points in a racially and socio-economically diverse sample of 174 mothers. Parenting perceptions and life circumstances were hypothesized to predict interactive behavior observed in the home. Baseline assessments were conducted in hospital, within 36 hr of delivery. Follow-up assessments were conducted in their homes when the children were 6 to 12 months old. Of five major psychological constructs studied, only parents’ perceptions of children, represented particularly by empathic responsiveness and absence of role-reversal, predicted the quality of behavioral interactions in the home. Perceptions of children were themselves predicted by parents’ perceptions of the quality of care they themselves received from their own parents, and by lifestyle stress. Our findings suggest that clinical interventions with parents should include a focus on strengthening reflective capacities with respect to caregiving experiences, and empathic responsiveness to their children.