Implications for the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life: A Theological Approach

Abstract

Recent remarks of Pope Francis spark anew an important discussion: are we alone in the Universe? The article follows traces of the idea of extraterrestrial life throughout philosophy, evaluates the current considerations about the probability of extraterrestrial life and discusses the potential implications for the discovery of such life from a theological point of view. This “thought experiment” covers basic insights on creation, revelation and redemption.     

The modulatory impact of reward and attention on global feature selection in human visual cortex

Reward powerfully influences human behaviour and perception, with reward effects being observed already on the level of basic sensory processing. Although reward-related modulations generally resemble those related to attentional selection, it is debated whether these effects indeed reflect the same selection operations. Here we focus on neuromagnetic indices of global colour-based attention in visual cortex, and ask whether reward elicits the same or separable underlying modulation effects. Observers performed a colour/orientation selection task where colour served to define the target as well as reward prospect. On each trial a target containing the target colour and one other colour was presented in the left visual field (VF) together with a bicoloured distractor in the right VF. Reward was delivered on correctly performed trials when the reward colour appeared in the target but not when it appeared in the distractor. The effect of global colour selection was assessed by comparing the brain response to the distractor depending on whether it contained the target colour, the reward colour, both, or neither. We observed that both the reward and target colour led to similar increases of the neuromagnetic response between ~200–260 ms originating from the same ventral extrastriate visual cortex areas, albeit slightly temporally lagged. Importantly, the response to the target and reward colour alone always added up to match the response size of their combined presentation. These results suggest that while reward and attention recruit the same global feature selection effects in extrastriate visual cortex, they are likely controlled by independent top-down influences.     

Reliability of the M-FLEX™: equipment to measure palmar grasp strength in infants

The palmar grasp behavior investigation is frequent in evaluation routine of infants. The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of an instrument for measuring palmar grasp strength in infants from birth to four months of age. Thirty-nine healthy infants from both sexes from birth to four months of age were evaluated and divided into three groups (“SC”, “FR”, “BL”) according to the city they came from. The equipment under test is called M-FLEX^®, which provides maximum grasp strength (FMAX), mean grasp strength (FMEAN) and grasp time (GRT) values. The repeatability and reproducibility of measures produced by the M-FLEX™ were verified. Three measurements were obtained (M1, M2, M3) from both hands, with the infant's face turned to the right. To calculate the repeatability, the three measures were compared to themselves in each group. For reproducibility, the difference between the averages of M1 of the three variables provided by M-FLEX™ was verified in the three sampling sites. The statistical tests used were ANOVA, Pearson's correlation and calculation of the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) with their respective confidence intervals (CI). The M-FLEX™ proved to be an outfit that provides measures capable of characterizing the palmar grasp phenomenon in infants.     

Health Care Expenditure and Economic Growth in SAARC Countries (1995–2012): A Panel Causality Analysis

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between health care expenditure (HCE) and economic growth and to the causality between HCE and economic growth in the selected South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries by employing the Panel cointegration and panel causality analysis over the period 1995–2012. Per capita income, labor force, literacy rate, and elderly population of age 65 and above are used an independent variables, as these variables are considered as main indicator of human and physical capital. For examining the time series properties of the data and long run relationships between HCE and economic growth, the panel unit root and panel cointegration tests are employed. The panel Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares (DOLS) method is used to estimate long run parameters, whereas the Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) method is employed to estimate the short run parameters. For the panel causality among HCE and per capita GDP, a new technique developed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012) is used. The results reveal that income elasticity of HCE is less than unity in the long run as well as in the short run. Furthermore, there is an evidence of unidirectional causality running from per capita GDP to HCE in the South Asian countries in the short run. Two-way causation between per capita GDP, labor force, literacy rate, and elderly population of age 65 and above is also observed. We also found two-way causality between labor force, elderly population of age 65 and health care expenditure.     

Der Foto-Hand-Test

Projective psychological techniques might be useful for measuring forensically relevant constructs in the context of a multimodal assessment strategy but are often considered to be deficient concerning reliability and validity. The Photo Hand Test (FHT), a German version of the Hand Test, is a diagnostic tool aimed at measuring aggressive dispositions. It uses photographs of hand gestures which test persons are required to interpret. The answers are coded and an acting-out score is computed from diverse categories.A study on the reliability and validity of the FHT protocols from 98 offenders and a comparison group of 55 non-offenders was carried out. Internal consistency coefficients of the FHT scores were low and unsatisfactory. Offenders had higher acting-out scores than non-offenders, they did not give more aggression-prone interpretations but more interpretations coded as aggression-inhibiting. Correlations of the FHT scores with self-report scales from the Antisocial Personality Questionnaire did not show the expected patterns; however, they did suggest effects of a hostility bias: persons who interpreted many hand gestures as aggression-prone did not describe themselves as highly aggressive or impulsive but were more distrustful and paranoid. This indicates a projection mechanism different from the one postulated by the FHT authors.The results suggest that FHT measures should be interpreted with caution in forensic evaluations.     

Comparing effects of perceptual and reflective repetition on subjective experience during later recognition memory

Using the Remember/Know procedure, we compared the impact of a reflective repetition by refreshing (i.e., briefly thinking of a just-seen item) and a perceptual repetition (i.e., seeing an item again) on subjective experience during recognition memory. Participants read aloud words as they appeared on a screen. Critical words were presented once (read condition), immediately repeated (repeat condition), or followed by a dot signalling the participants to think of and say the just-previous word (refresh condition). In Experiments 1 and 2, Remember responses benefited from refreshing a word (in comparison with reading it). In Experiment 2, this benefit disappeared when participants had to refresh one of three active items. Perceptual repetition increased Remember responses in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2 regardless of whether participants had just previously seen 1- or 3-items. These findings indicate that under some circumstances, reflective and perceptual repetition may have different consequences for later subjective experience during remembering, suggesting differences in their underlying functional mechanisms.     

Reducing excessive questions in adults at adult-day training centers using differential-reinforcement-of-low rates

Differential-reinforcement-of-low rate (DRL) schedules are often used to reduce, not eliminate, behavior. We systematically replicated Austin and Bevan (2011) to determine whether the number of questions asked by two adults with intellectual disabilities working at adult-day-training centers could be reduced using a full-session DRL. The full-session DRL involved delivery of a reinforcer at the end of the day if the number of questions asked was less than a specified number during the entire session. Questions, up to a specified number, were also reinforced within-session. The full-session DRL reduced the number of questions asked by both participants and increased duration of task engagement for one participant.