Conceptual fluency selectively influences knowing

Research shows that Remember and Know judgments are effective measures of recollective experience. This article shows that Know responses can be selectively affected by fluency of processing that is created using a conceptual manipulation. In a recognition test, studied and nonstudied words were preceded by semantically related or unrelated primes. Participants gave significantly more Know judgments to items with related primes than unrelated primes but Remember responses were unaffected. Know responses are discussed in terms of familiarity assumed to arise from fluency of processing which, in turn, may be created through various sources including conceptual processes.     

Response strategies and the Simon effect

The study investigated whether the Simon effect, and its facilitation and interference components, shows up in reaction time (RT) or in movement time (MT), depending on the response strategy. Experiment 1 replicated a study by Hietanen and Rämä. Subjects had to press one of two lateralised keys in response to one of two stimuli. The stimuli were presented in the center (neutral condition) or to the left or right side (corresponding or non-corresponding conditions). To press the response key, a reaching movement was necessary, and both RT and MT were recorded. One group of subjects showed an RT facilitation effect and an MT interference effect. Another group of subjects showed both MT facilitation and MT interference effects. It was hypothesized that the two groups used different response strategies. In Exps. 2 and 3, the subjects were explicitly instructed to use the two strategies that were hypothesized for Exp. 1. The results showed that whether facilitation and interference manifest themselves in RT or MT depends on the response strategy adopted by the subjects.     

The Factor Structure of the Beavers Interactional Scales

Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analyses of the Beavers Interactional Scales did not appear to support the model offered by its developers, namely, several specified family attributes contributing respectively to two global factors of Family Competence and Family Style. Moreover, regression analysis indicated that only three of 12 items predicted raters' assessments of Global Family Health, and one of seven items predicted Global Family Style. Individuals interested in the family dynamic centripetal/centrifugal might best think of that as a unitary entity and rate it accordingly.     

Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology: What’s the Question?

Alvin Plantingas Warranted Christian Belief is without questionone of the central texts of the Reformed epistemology movement. Critiques of Plantingas defence have been both multiple and varied. As varied as these responses are, however, it is my contention that many of them amount to the same thing. It is the purpose of this paper to offer an overview of the main lines of attack that have been directed as Plantingas project, and thereafter to show how many, if not most, of these objections can be understood as versions or aspects of the same criticism, what I call the Inadequacy Thesis.     

Bioethics and Christian Theology

The authors of this essay suggest that the field of bioethics and Christian theology have a great deal to offer to each other. The authors first argue that representatives from both fields must first make sure that they fully and correctly represent their respective position. In other words, scientists, ethicists, and theologians alike must make sure that they present their fields and not use their knowledge merely for personal gain at the stake of misguiding people. Once this is established, the authors then proceed to show the intimate relationship between Christianity and medicine that has existed throughout the ages. It is a call for a continuation of such a relationship that the authors suggest between bioethics and theology. Through an integration of bioethics and Christian theology, both scientists/physicians and theologians are able to gain greater insight into the human person—a focus in both fields.     

Concordant Spiritual Orientations as a Factor in Physician--Patient Spiritual Discussions: A Qualitative Study

Objectives: To understand the impact of physicians and patients religious/spiritual orientation on discussions of spiritual issues. Methods: We performed semi-structured interviews of 10 Missouri family physicians and 10 patients of these physicians, selecting subjects nonrandomly to represent a range of demographic factors, practice types, and chronic or terminal illness. We coded and evaluated transcribed interviews for themes. Results: Respondents expressed that similar belief systems facilitate patient–physician spiritual interactions and bring confidence to their relationships. Those holding dissimilar faiths noted limited ability to address spiritual questions directly. They cited significant barriers to spiritual interaction but considered that ecumenism, use of patient-centered care, and negotiation skills lessen these barriers. Conclusions: Our respondents view spirituality similarly to other aspects of the physician–patient relationship involving differing viewpoints. Where discordance exists, cross-cultural, patient-centered, diplomatic approaches facilitate spiritual discussions.     

Boundary extension: the role of magnification, object size, context, and binocular information

Boundary extension is a tendency to remember close-up scenes as if they extended beyond the occluding boundaries. The authors explored the contributing factors using brief retention intervals and computer-generated images. Boundary extension turns out to be more complex than previously thought and is not linked to the effects of image magnification and field-of-view changes. Although this is consistent with the idea that boundary extension is the product of the activation of a mental schema that provides information of what is likely to exist outside the picture boundaries, the authors also found that properties of the object at the center of the picture can affect boundary extension independently of the information at the boundaries. In a test of boundary extension using stereograms, the effect does not seem to depend on amount of perceived depth, suggesting a weaker link to perception of space than previously hypothesized.     

Artificial Intelligence &; Games: Should Computational Psychology be Revalued?

The aims of this paper are threefold: To show that game-playing (GP), the discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) concerned with the development of automated game players, has a strong epistemological relevance within both AI and the vast area of cognitive sciences. In this context games can be seen as a way of securely reducing (segmenting) real-world complexity, thus creating the laboratory environment necessary for testing the diverse types and facets of intelligence produced by computer models. This paper aims to promote the belief that games represent an excellent tool for the project of computational psychology (CP).  To underline how, despite this, GP has mainly adopted an engineering-inspired methodology and in doing so has distorted the framework of cognitive functionalism. Many successes (i.e. chess, checkers) have been achieved refusing human-like reasoning. The AI has appeared to work well despite ignoring an intrinsic motivation, that of creating an explanatory link between machines and mind.  To assert that substantial improvements in GP may be obtained in the future only by renewed interest in human-inspired models of reasoning and in other cognitive studies. In fact, if we increase the complexity of games (from NP-Completeness to AI-Completeness) in order to reproduce real-life problems, computer science techniques enter an impasse. Many of AI’s recent GP experiences can be shown to validate this.  The lack of consistent philosophical foundations for cognitive AI and the minimal philosophical commitment of AI investigation are two of the major reasons that play an important role in explaining why CP has been overlooked.     

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.     

Early computation of contour curvature and part structure: evidence from holes

We used holes to study unilateral border ownership and in particular the information carried by the sign of the curvature along the contour (ie the difference between convex and concave regions). When people perceive a hole, its shape has a reversed curvature polarity (ie a changed sign of curvature) compared to the same region perceived as an object. Bertamini (2001 Perception 30 1295-1310), and Bertamini and Croucher (2003 Cognition 87 33-54) suggested and found evidence to support the hypothesis that, because convex regions are perceived as parts, positional information is more readily available for convex regions. Therefore a change is predicted when a given region is perceived as either a hole or a figure. We confirm that finding in this study, using holes defined by binocular disparity. We conclude that a change from figure to hole always reverses the encoding of curvature polarity. In turn, polarity obligatorily affects perceived part structure and the processing of position.