Bring Race to the Center: The Importance of Race in Racially Diverse Religious Organizations

In recent decades we have witnessed increased interest in racially diverse religious organizations. Similar trends are occuring in other institutions, like education and business. In this article I discuss the importance of understanding the role that race, as a system that advantages whites, plays in the congregational life of racially integrated churches. Drawing upon the critical race literature, I propose that because race is central to how our society is organized, interracial chruches will need to placate white members' and affirm their religiocultural preferences and interests in order to sustain a racially diverse congregation. I offer some evidence supporting this claim. I also discuss the strengths and limitations of other perspectives used to explain racially diverse religious organizations.     

Cognition and hearing aids

The perceptual information transmitted from a damaged cochlea to the brain is more poorly specified than information from an intact cochlea and requires more processing in working memory before language content can be decoded. In addition to making sounds audible, current hearing aids include several technologies that are intended to facilitate language understanding for persons with hearing impairment in challenging listening situations. These include directional microphones, noise reduction, and fast-acting amplitude compression systems. However, the processed signal itself may challenge listening to the extent that with specific types of technology, and in certain listening situations, individual differences in cognitive processing resources may determine listening success. Here, current and developing digital hearing aid signal processing schemes are reviewed in the light of individual working memory (WM) differences. It is argued that signal processing designed to improve speech understanding may have both positive and negative consequences, and that these may depend on individual WM capacity.     

Cognition and aided speech recognition in noise: Specific role for cognitive factors following nine-week experience with adjusted compression settings in hearing aids

The working memory model for Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) proposes that language understanding under taxing conditions is related to explicit cognitive capacity. We refer to this as the mismatch hypothesis, since phonological representations based on the processing of speech under established conditions may not be accessed so readily when input conditions change and a match becomes problematic. Then, cognitive capacity requirements may differ from those used for processing speech hitherto. In the present study, we tested this hypothesis by investigating the relationship between aided speech recognition in noise and cognitive capacity in experienced hearing aid users when there was either a match or mismatch between processed speech input and established phonological representations. The settings in the existing digital hearing aids of the participants were adjusted to one of two different compression settings which processed the speech signal in qualitatively different ways ("fast" or "slow"). Testing took place after a 9-week period of experience with the new setting. Speech recognition was tested under different noise conditions and with match or mismatch (i.e. alternative compression setting) manipulations of the input signal. Individual cognitive capacity was measured using a reading span test and a letter monitoring test. Reading span, a reliable measure of explicit cognitive capacity, predicted speech recognition performance under mismatch conditions when processed input was incongruent with recently established phonological representations, due to the specific hearing aid setting. Cognitive measures were not main predictors of performance under match conditions. These findings are in line with the ELU model.     

Human Relations Training for the Elderly

The authors desribe a structured group experience designed to improve communication and to encourage support among a population of elderly persons residing in a retirement community. Group activities and suggestions for counselors are provided.     

Feminism and Religion

Religion—capital R—effectively eliminated the feminine experience in its process of institutionalization as church; religion—small r—the whole human view, cannot be adequately reflected through such a myopic institution. All humans will not be equally respected, given unequal status. Thus, the church becomes a powerful contributor to inherently unjust social, legal, and economic systems. Feminism, negated as a philosophical and religious world view by Western religions, challenges the status quo insofar as it calls for endorsement of full human equality.