From <Emphasis Type="Italic">Pintele Yid to Racenjude</Emphasis>: Chaim Zhitlovsky and racial conceptions of Jewishness

The Russian Jewish intellectual, Chaim Zhitlovsky (1865–1943), a leading architect of secular Jewish culture and thought, was a central figure in the progressive Jewish intelligentsia of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In an essay written in 1927, Yidn un Yiddishkayt (Jews and Jewishness), he sought to define the secular essence of what he calls Yiddishkayt. This essay is not the first in Zhitlovskys long publicistic career in which he searches for new, secular definitions of Jewish identity and culture. But this essay differs, since it is marked by Zhitlovskys use of contemporary social scientific notions of race and racial traits to conceptualize what he believes constitutes Jewishness in a non-religious context, along with his adoption of the mystical Jewish concept of the pintele yid, the theory of an innate Jewishness embodied by a Jewish spark. Zhitlovskys desire to craft a truly secular theory of Jewish identity led him ironically to accept models of Jewish identity at odds with his stated larger vision. In turning to contemporary racial theory, as well as long nurtured mystical models of Yiddishkayt, Zhitlovsky reveals the wide range of ideological discourses that led him to innovative and controversial notions of modern Jewish identity.     

An fMRI study on conceptual, grammatical, and morpho-phonological processing

The aim of the present study was to determine whether processing of syntactic word information (lemma) is subserved by the same neural substrate as processing of conceptual or word form information (lexeme). We measured BOLD responses in 14 native speakers of German in three different decision tasks, each focussing specifically on one level of lexical processing (conceptual, syntactic, and morpho-phonological). The test parameters were natural gender, grammatical gender, and word form derivation, respectively. Discrimination between words played backwards and complex sounds served as control task. Complex contrasts revealed a functional fractionation of the left inferior frontal gyrus for each level of lexical processing.     

Index of suspicion: feeling not believing

Throughout the U.S., state laws require professionals who work with children to report cases of suspected child abuse to child protection services. Both practically and conceptually, however, significant problems arise from a lack of clarity regarding the threshold that has been set for reporting. Specifically, there is no consensus as to what constitutes reasonable suspicion, and little direction for how mandated reporters should gauge their legal and professional responsibilities when they harbor suspicion. In this paper we outline the context of the problem, discuss the nature and scope of its conceptual underpinnings, and offer recommendations for moving towards a concrete, practical solution.     

The activity of the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system in response to acute stressor exposure: neuroendocrine and electrophysiological observations

The present mini review focuses on stress-induced alterations of the electrical and secretory activity of vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OXT) neurones originating within the supraoptic nucleus (SON) and constituting the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system (HNS) in the male rat. Previously, it was thought that SON neurones are predominantly activated by osmotic and reproductive stimuli. However, recent findings also suggest a selective activation of AVP and/or OXT neurones in response to specific stressors. Inhibitory amino acids seem to participate at the level of the SON in the control of HNS activity during stress. Taurine, probably of glial origin, selectively inhibits the secretory activity of AVP neurones. In contrast, GABA, probably of neuronal origin, interferes with the release of OXT both from axon terminals into blood and from somata/dendrites into the extracellular fluid of the SON. Depending upon whether a defined stressor triggers taurine and/or GABA release within the SON the secretion of AVP and/or OXT from HNS neurones will be inhibited. These observations shed new light on the neurone-neurone and glial-neurone interactions that ensure an appropriate neuroendocrine stress response.     

Senior capstone design and ethics: A bridge to the professional world

A senior level capstone design experience has been developed and offered with a particular emphasis on many of the professional issues raised in Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Criterion IV. The course has sought to develop student awareness of the ethical foundation of the engineering profession, the global and societal framework within which engineers practice, and the environmental impact on engineering. The capstone design course also focused upon improving the technical communications skills of the graduating senior class with both extensive instruction in writing and multiple workshops dealing with the art of making an effective oral presentation. The effectiveness of the design course was assessed using Kirkpatrick’s model for evaluating training programs. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003.     

Object permanence in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

A series of 9 search tasks corresponding to the Piagetian Stages 3-6 of object permanence were administered to 11 common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). Success rates varied strongly among tasks and marmosets, but the performances of most subjects were above chance level on the majority of tasks of visible and invisible displacements. Although up to 24 trials were administered in the tests, subjects did not improve their performance across trials. Errors were due to preferences for specific locations or boxes, simple search strategies, and attentional deficits. The performances of at least 2 subjects that achieved very high scores up to the successive invisible displacement task suggest that this species is able to represent the existence and the movements of unperceived objects.     

Perceptions of Ethical Behaviour among Business Faculty in Canada

Faculty members at Canadian business schools were surveyed regarding their ethical perceptions of behaviours related to undergraduate instruction. Fifty-five behavioural statements were listed and respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they felt each behaviour was ethical or unethical. The only item that respondents endorsed as unequivocally unethical (90% indicated it was definitely unethical) was Becoming sexually involved with an undergraduate in one of your classes. We also compared the results of our sample to those of an American sample. Overall, an interesting pattern of differences emerged between the responses obtained in Canada and the U.S. In general, the direction of the significant differences was such that Canadian professors viewed the behaviours in question as less ethical than did their American counterparts.     

Pigeons use item-specific and category-level information in the identification and categorization of human faces

Three experiments examined the pigeon's ability to adapt to the specific tasks of identification and categorization of complex visual stimuli by attending to information at different levels of abstraction. In Experiment 1, pigeons were successively trained to discriminate first between pairs of human faces from the same sex and then between male and female faces. A final test revealed that the associations formed in the first training phase did not survive categorization training, indicating that the pigeons used item-specific information to discriminate faces of the same sex, but shifted their attention to category-level information for discriminating between the male and female categories. Two further experiments disproved alternative explanations. The results support the feature-learning account of open-ended categorization in animals.     

Information search in the laboratory and on the Web: With or without an experimenter

The focus of this study is the effect of the location (laboratory vs. Web) of experiments on active information searchin decision-making tasks. In two experiments, participants were confronted with two different search method versions (list vs. keyword) for acquiring information about a task from a database. The amount and type of information gathered and the time required for task completion were measured. In Experiment 1, significantly more information was searched for in the laboratory than on the Web when the list version was employed, whereas there was no difference between locations in the keyword version. In Experiment 2, the participants were assigned randomly to the Web or the laboratory condition. The results of Experiment 1 were replicated. Whereas location (and the presence or absence of an experimenter) had an effect on the absolute amount of information gathered in both experiments, the relative distribution and type of information items did not differ.     

Visual perspective taking for avatars in a Simon task

In modern digital applications, users often interact with virtual representations of themselves or others, called avatars. We examined how these avatars and their perspectives influence stimulus–response compatibility in a Simon task. Participants responded to light/dark blue stimuli with left/right key presses in the presence of a task-irrelevant avatar. Changes in stimulus–response compatibility were used to quantify changes in the mental representation of the task and perspective taking toward this avatar. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that perspective taking for an avatar occurred in orthogonal stimulus–response mappings, causing a compatibility effect from the avatar’s point of view. In the following two experiments we introduced a larger variety of angular disparities between the participant and avatar. In Experiment 3, the Simon effect with lateralized stimulus positions remained largely unaffected by the avatar, pointing toward an absence of perspective taking. In Experiment 4, after avatar hand movements were added in order to strengthen the participants’ sense of agency over the avatar, a spatial compatibility effect from the avatar’s perspective was observed again, and hints of the selective use of perspective taking on a trial-by-trial basis were found. Overall, the results indicate that users can incorporate the perspective of an avatar into their mental representation of a situation, even when this perspective is unnecessary to complete a task, but that certain contextual requirements have to be met.