If robots R–US,who am I: Online ‘Christian’ responses to artificial intelligence

In this paper, I present responses to GRIN technologies drawn from Christian posts on the Internet, to answer the following research questions: 1. Which approach to imago Dei informs the online Christian response to artificial intelligence and artificial life (AI/AL)? and 2. To what extent does the preference for a particular approach emerge from a desire to construct the Self? Drawing upon Herzfeld (2002) discussion of AI and theological approaches to understanding the meaning of imago Dei, or humankind made in the image of God, it is shown that the Christian response to AI and AL is elaborated mostly through the functionalist and substantive approaches. It also largely constructs the GRN future as a Hell scenario. With reference to Bhabha's postcolonial model of ambivalence, it is argued that this response is motivated by a desire to regain control over the discursive construction of the Self, which for some, is challenged by AI and AL.     

The influence of mother-child emotion regulation strategies on children's expression of anger and sadness

In a sample of 153 children from preschool through second grade, relations between the use of emotion regulation strategy and children's expression of anger and sadness were coded during an observational task in which children were intentionally disappointed in the presence of the mother. Multilevel modeling was used to examine strategy use and current and subsequent expressions of anger and sadness. Results indicate that mothers' use of attention refocusing and joint mother-child cognitive reframing lead to lower intensity of expressed anger and sadness. Younger children expressed more sadness than older children, and maternal attention refocusing was less successful among older children than younger ones. Implications of these results for assessing the socialization of emotion regulation in preschool and school-age children are discussed.     

The cost of being watched: Stroop interference increases under concomitant eye contact

Current models in social neuroscience advance that eye contact may automatically recruit cognitive resources. Here, we directly tested this hypothesis by evaluating the distracting strength of eye contact on concurrent visual processing in the well-known Stroop’s paradigm. As expected, participants showed stronger Stroop interference under concomitant eye contact as compared to closed eyes. Two control experiments allowed ruling out low-level account of this effect as well as non-specific effect of the presence of open eyes. This suggests that refraining from processing eye contact is actually as difficult as refraining from word reading in the Stroop task. Crucially, the eye contact effect was obtained while gaze was not under the direct focus of attention and the participants were faced with another powerful distracter (the incongruent word) in the task at hand. Thus, there is a cost of being watched even in circumstances where the processing of direct gaze is strongly disfavored. The present results emphasize the crucial status of eye contact in human cognition.     

Conjoint measurement of gloss and surface texture

The image of a material's surface varies not only with viewing and illumination conditions, but also with the material's surface properties, including its 3-D texture and specularity. Previous studies on the visual perception of surface material have typically focused on single material properties, ignoring possible interactions. In this study, we used a conjoint-measurement design to determine how observers represent perceived 3-D texture ("bumpiness") and specularity ("glossiness") and modeled how each of these two surface-material properties affects perception of the other. Observers made judgments of bumpiness and glossiness of surfaces that varied in both surface texture and specularity. We quantified how changes in each surface-material property affected judgments of the other and found that a simple additive model captured visual perception of texture and specularity and their interaction. Conjoint measurement is potentially a powerful tool for analyzing perception of surface material in realistic environments.     

How to learn the natural numbers: inductive inference and the acquisition of number concepts

Theories of number concepts often suppose that the natural numbers are acquired as children learn to count and as they draw an induction based on their interpretation of the first few count words. In a bold critique of this general approach, Rips, Asmuth, Bloomfield [Rips, L., Asmuth, J. & Bloomfield, A. (2006). Giving the boot to the bootstrap: How not to learn the natural numbers. Cognition, 101, B51-B60.] argue that such an inductive inference is consistent with a representational system that clearly does not express the natural numbers and that possession of the natural numbers requires further principles that make the inductive inference superfluous. We argue that their critique is unsuccessful. Provided that children have access to a suitable initial system of representation, the sort of inductive inference that Rips et al. call into question can in fact facilitate the acquisition of larger integer concepts without the addition of any further principles.     

Generation and associative encoding in young and old adults: the effect of the strength of association between cues and targets on a cued recall task

The generation effect (i.e., better recall of the generated items than the read items) was investigated with a between-list design in young and elderly participants. The generation task difficulty was manipulated by varying the strength of association between cues and targets. Overall, strong associates were better recalled than weak associates. However, the results showed different generation effect patterns according to strength of association and age, with a greater generation effect for weak associates in younger adults only. These findings suggest that generating weak associates leads to more elaborated encoding, but that elderly adults cannot use this elaborated encoding as well as younger adults to recall the target words at test.     

On psychoanalytic figures as transference objects

One of the tasks that analysts and therapists face at a certain stage in their career is how to develop a way of psychoanalytic thinking and practising of their own. To do this involves modifying or overcoming the transferences established during their training or early career. These transferences are to one's teachers or training analyst, investing them with authority and infallibility, and to received theory, which is treated as though it were dogma. The need to free oneself from such transferences has been discussed in the literature. There is, however, another kind of transference that the developing therapist also needs to resolve, which has received little attention. This is the transference made on to a key figure in the psychoanalytic tradition. Such a psychoanalytic figure will be seen as the originator of or embodiment of those theoretical ideas to which one becomes attached, and/or as standing behind one's training analyst or seminal teachers who become a representative of that figure. The value of an investigation of one's relationship to a psychoanalytic figure is that it is an excellent medium for revealing one's transference, as the figure in question is not a real person but only exists through his/her writings. The body of the paper consists of an extended example of such an analysis, that of my own transference on to the figure of Winnicott. In this example I illustrate how my evaluation of Winnicott's ideas changed from seeing them as providing answers to all my clinical questions to no longer satisfying me in some areas of my work. This change in my relationship to Winnicott's theory went hand in hand with a modification in my transference on to the figure of Winnicott, from seeing him as endowed with authority and goodness to an appreciation of him as a still sustaining figure but now with limits and flaws. In the final part of the paper several questions arising out of my analysis are posed. Can the pull of writing such an account in terms of dramatic rupture rather than gradual and partial change be avoided? Should my account be regarded purely as a form of self‐analysis or does it have anything to say about Winnicott himself and his theory? And do some psychoanalytic figures attract more intense or sticky transferences than others?