God's Mission as Word Event in an Age of World Christianity: An Asian Linguistic‐Transcultural Model

Christian community lives according to the Word of God, inspiring the church to be in ecumenical fellowship and to be amenable to the act of God's speech in an age of world Christianity. The Word of God is able to be translated transculturally in different times and places, while keeping the transversal, irregular horizon of God's discourse. In view of the rise of world Christianity much has been said about the indigenization of the Christian narrative that challenges the western concept of missio Dei. To renew God's mission in an East Asian configuration, a linguistic‐transcultural model is proposed for a public theology of mission that promotes the full humanity of those on the underside of history and acknowledges religious outsiders. A public mission of God's narrative takes seriously the project of interculturation and emancipation in the post‐western Christian era.     

Form and depth in global stereopsis

Three experiments were performed to investigate the role of vergence and the relationship between form and depth processes in global steropsis by comparing global and classical stereopsis. In the first experiment, the speed of stereoscopic resolution as a function of initial fixation-target distance was measured to discover the role of vergence in stereopsis with the random-dot and contoured stereograms. In the second experiment, the accuracy of form and depth discrimination as a function of fixation-target distance was measured using brief stimulus exposure (150 ms) to examine the nature of form and depth processing in global stereopsis. In the third experiment, the speed of resolving random-dot stereograms in the presence or absence of juxtaposed contoured stereograms was observed to examine the interaction of global stereopsis and classical stereopsis. The conclusions of these studies are summarized as follows: First, vergence plays a critical role in the solution of the random-dot stereograms but not in the solution of contoured stereograms. Second, performance with the contoured stereograms is better than with the random-dot stereograms in terms of both speed and accuracy. Third, in random-dot stereograms, discrimination of form is independent of and more accurate than discrimination of depth. Fourth, again for random-dot stereograms, the disparity of target relative to fixation systematically affects discrimination of form but not discrimination of depth. Fifth, a rapid reduction in reaction time over practice occurs for both types of stereograms. Finally, strong interference with the solution of the random-dot stereograms by the monocular contour occurs when the two kinds of stimuli are present simultaneously.     

Dual-process models of associative recognition in young and older adults: evidence from receiver operating characteristics

In 3 experiments, young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs and were given confidence-rated item and associative recognition tests. Several different models of recognition were fit to the confidence-rating data using techniques described by S. Macho (2002, 2004). Concordant with previous findings, item recognition data were best fit by an unequal-variance signal detection theory model for both young and older adults. For both age groups, associative recognition performance was best explained by models incorporating both recollection and familiarity components. Examination of parameter estimates supported the conclusion that recollection is reduced in old age, but inferences about age differences in familiarity were highly model dependent. Implications for dual-process models of memory in old age are discussed.     

Mindfulness and Burnout in Elite Junior Athletes: The Mediating Role of Experiential Avoidance

Previous research suggests that mindfulness and experiential avoidance are negatively and positively related to athlete burnout, respectively. It is unknown, however, whether experiential avoidance functions as a mediator between mindfulness and athlete burnout. To address this gap, 387 elite Chinese junior athletes (M = 15.44 years, SD = 1.42) completed self-report measures of mindfulness, experiential avoidance, and athlete burnout. Findings provided cross-sectional evidence that experiential avoidance mediated the inverse association from mindfulness to each of the three burnout dimensions. No gender difference of these indirect effects was revealed. This study is the first to test the theoretical sequence in which mindfulness is associated with athlete burnout via experiential avoidance and provide additional support the adaptive nature of mindfulness.     

Effects of repetition and response deadline on item recognition in young and older adults

In the present study, we examined the joint effects of aging, repetition, and response deadline in a plurality discrimination task. Young and older adults studied lists of unrelated singular and plural nouns, with half presented once (weak items) and half presented five times (strong items). Test lists contained old (same) nouns, plurality-reversed nouns (changed lures), and unstudied nouns (new lures), and the participants were asked to respond old only to same items. In Experiment 1, the participants were tested with both short and long deadlines. In Experiment 2, the tests were unpaced. In both experiments, repetition increased hit rates for young and older adults. Young adults tested with a long deadline or no deadline showed invariant (Experiment 1) or reduced (Experiment 2) false alarms to changed lures when the nouns were studied more often. Young adults tested with a short deadline and older adults tested with both long and short deadlines had increased false alarm rates for strong changed lures; without time pressure to respond, older adults did not have a significant increase in false alarms for changed lures. Implications of these results for theories of cognitive aging are explored.     

Language transfer and blocking in second language vocabulary learning

The influence of different vocabulary instructional techniques upon the acquisition of different language words was examined in two experiments. In Experiment 1, comparisons were made between the learning of Chinese and French words employing both paired-associate presentations and spacing procedures. The results supported the view that language transfer affects the acquisition of second language words, with more French words being learned than Chinese words. The superiority of the spacing procedure over the paired-associate presentation found in these results suggested that the spacing method diminished the adverse effects of blocking and thus enhanced learning. However, no significant interaction between the teaching procedures and different language words was detected. That is, under the spacing procedure, greater improvement in learning of Chinese words was not found. The experiment was thus modified by substituting the spacing procedure with aural feedback in Experiment 2. In this experiment, a significant interaction between these two factors was detected. That is, the recall for French was more than Chinese in the paired-associate condition, however, under the aural feedback, performance in Chinese was statistically equivalent to that in French. Hence, these findings may contradict the prediction of language transfer. It appears that the phenomenon of language transfer may be far less important in vocabulary learning than the use of a method of instruction which neutralises the negative effects of blocking.     

Quasi-reinforcement: control of responding by a percentage-reinforcement schedule

When a variable-interval schedule of reinforcement was segmented into small fixed-interval components, with reinforcements following some components and brief blackouts following the others, rate of responding doubled and a positively accelerated pattern within each component was obtained. Presented according to this percentage reinforcement paradigm, the blackouts approximated the functions of a food reinforcer. These effects occurred only when the behavior sequence required to produce reinforcement was identical to that required to produce blackout. The quasi-reinforcing effects of these blackout stimuli suggest that a neutral stimulus need not occasion or accompany a primary reinforcer to acquire reinforcing properties.