Assessing performance upon abrupt awakening from naps during quasi-continuous operations

Quasi-continuous work settings often involve sleep loss and requirements to perform at unpredictable times. Napping may alleviate some of the sleep-loss problems, but it increases the risk that the person will have difficulty functioning upon abrupt awakening. This paper describes an experimental approach, techniques, and analyses for investigating performance upon abrupt awakening from 2 h naps placed near either the circadian peak (P) or trough (T) in body temperature and preceded by 6, 18, 30, 42, or 54 h of sleep deprivation. Five groups of healthy young adults performed quasi-continuously for 54 h and were permitted a 2-h nap at one of five times. Reaction time (RT) to answer a phone terminating the nap, subjective estimates, and performance of a brief, challenging cognitive task were related to nap-sleep parameters of each group. Sleep deprivation increased the amount of deep sleep in the naps, and this was associated with greater postnap cognitive performance decrements; subjective estimates were unaffected, and RT performance was related simply to stage of sleep prior to awakening. Circadian placement of the naps also modulated the postnap cognitive decrement: T naps produced greater cognitive decrements than P naps, even when the latter involved more prior sleep loss. These findings have both practical and theoretical significance for evaluating the awakening process, and would not have been possible without the approach, techniques, and procedures described.     

The Consubstantial Otherness of God: Divine Simplicity and the Trinity in Hans Urs von Balthasar

Martin explores divine simplicity according to the twentieth‐century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. She grants that Balthasar does not provide a traditional presentation of the attribute of divine simplicity. In his doctrine of the Trinity, Balthasar emphasizes such themes as distance, “hiatus,” and infinite difference, none of which seems to promise a robust doctrine of divine simplicity. Indeed, some have suggested that Balthasar's Trinitarian theology does not allow for traditional claims about divine simplicity. Martin argues, however, that one finds in Balthasar's Trinitarian theology the doctrine of divine simplicity, assumed as an internalized starting point and rooted in his understanding of the analogia entis. This can be seen, for example, in his various engagements with Aquinas as well as with contemporary thinkers such as Gustav Siewerth and Erich Przywara. Likewise, when addressing the issue of whether the Trinitarian Persons can be “counted” according to our normal understanding of number, he insists with Evagrius that God is simple. In the same context, he similarly draws upon Plotinus, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Aquinas. Martin therefore gives particular attention to the Theo‐Logic and to Balthasar's affirmation in his Trinitarian theology of the points that the divine Persons are fully God, the divine attributes are identical with each other in God, and the distinction of Persons has to do not with three parts of God but with opposed subsistent relations.     

Novel Labels Increase Category Coherence,But Only When People Have the Goal to Coordinate

From infancy, we recognize that labels denote category membership and help us to identify the critical features that objects within a category share. Labels not only reflect how we categorize, but also allow us to communicate and share categories with others. Given the special status of labels as markers of category membership, do novel labels (i.e., non‐words) affect the way in which adults select dimensions for categorization in unsupervised settings? Additionally, is the purpose of this effect primarily coordinative (i.e., do labels promote shared understanding of how we categorize objects)? To address this, we conducted two experiments in which participants individually categorized images of mountains with or without novel labels, and with or without a goal of coordination, within a non‐communicative paradigm. People who sorted items with novel labels had more similar categories than people who sorted without labels only when they were told that their categories should make sense to other people, and not otherwise. We argue that sorters' goals determine whether novel labels promote the development of socially coherent categories.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SALARY EXPECTATIONS WHEN CURRENT SALARY INFORMATION IS PROVIDED

It was hypothesized that current gender differences in salary expectations arise from women's lack of accurate salary information. Current salary information was provided for a sample of upcoming university graduates. Contrary to expectations, large gender differences in salary expectations continued in spite of subjects' knowledge of current salary data. Alternative explanations are discussed.