Teaching in the Global Village: Notes Towards a Religious Studies Rhetoric

The author describes her participation in a religious studies teaching workshop where she was asked to think creatively about the art of teaching, what implications result from changes in the field, and the relationship of religious studies to other fields. General conclusions endorse pedagogies that are dialogic, participatory, and experiential and invite possibilities provided by changes in the field that encourage courses that are more inclusive of marginal voices and attentive to multicultural inflections. In assessing the relationship of religious studies to other fields, the author draws on her interdisciplinary background in religion and literature to apply Aristotelian rhetoric to the interpretation of a short story, thereby providing an actual model of how disciplines can complement each other while also highlighting aspects of the pedagogical and multicultural principles endorsed by the workshop participants. The application of Aristotelian principles of logos, ethos, and pathos becomes for the workshop participants a religious studies rhetoric: a provisional model for how to interpret classroom conduct.     

How schemas affect eyewitness memory over repeated retrieval attempts

After observing a crime eyewitnesses are typically interviewed many times over an extended period of time. We examined how schema for a crime influenced the types of information eyewitnesses remembered and forgot across multiple interviews. People's schema for a bank robbery were identified, and recall of schema‐consistent, schema‐inconsistent and schema‐irrelevant information was extracted from eyewitness interviews conducted in two experiments which manipulated retention interval (3 days–12 weeks) and number of interviews (2–4). Consistent with fuzzy‐trace and associative network theories, schemas preserved accuracy for information central to the crime (schema‐consistent and inconsistent) at the expense of schema‐irrelevant information. Schema‐consistent intrusions did not increase across interviews. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial coordinates and reading: Comments on Monk (1985)

Subjects are able to process some texts when they are presented, word-by-word, in a single physical location. As differential spatial information is not available in this task, Monk (1985a) argues that it need not be derived in normal reading. We suggest this conclusion is unwarranted, because subjects make large and very accurate regressive saccades to regions of previously fixated text. Without a representation of spatial coordinates this should not occur.     

Neurocognitive Function and Suicide in U.S. Army Soldiers

This prospective cohort study used administrative data from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers to examine associations between neurocognitive functioning and subsequent suicidal events among Regular Army enlisted soldiers during the years 2004–2009. Cases were all soldiers who completed the Army's Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM) computerized testing battery prior to documented suicide attempt (n = 607), ideation (n = 955), or death (n = 57). Controls were an equal‐probability sample of 9,893 person‐months from other soldiers. Exploratory factor analysis of five ANAM tests identified a general neurocognitive factor that excluded the mathematic processing test (MTH). When examined separately in logistic regression analyses that controlled for sociodemographics and prior mental health diagnosis, both the general neurocognitive factor (logit [β] = ?.197 to ?.521; p < .01) and MTH (β = ?.024 to ?.064; p < .05) were associated with all outcomes. When both predictors were examined simultaneously, the general neurocognitive factor continued to be associated with all outcomes (β = ?.164 to ?.417; p < .05) and MTH continued to be associated with suicide attempt (β = ?.015; p = .046) and ideation (β = ?.014; p = .018). These small but robust associations suggest that future research must continue to examine the extent to which objective neurocognitive tests may enhance understanding and prediction of suicide risk.     

Mental Disorders,Comorbidity, and Pre‐enlistment Suicidal Behavior Among New Soldiers in the U.S. Army: Results from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS)

We examined the associations between mental disorders and suicidal behavior (ideation, plans, and attempts) among new soldiers using data from the New Soldier Study (NSS) component of the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS; N = 38,507). Most new soldiers with a pre‐enlistment history of suicide attempt reported a prior mental disorder (59.0%). Each disorder examined was associated with increased odds of suicidal behavior (ORs = 2.6–8.6). Only PTSD and disorders characterized by irritability and impulsive/aggressive behavior (i.e., bipolar disorder, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder) predicted unplanned attempts among ideators. Mental disorders are important predictors of pre‐enlistment suicidal behavior among new soldiers and should figure prominently in suicide screening and prevention efforts.     

Children's judgments about their own self‐knowledge: The role of disclosure to other

Previous research has suggested that children of 5/6 years fail to understand that they are the authority on their own self‐knowledge. That is, when asked questions like, ‘Who knows best when you are feeling tired?’, they tend to cite their mother rather than themselves. Here we report a study that, rather than asking about generalities (‘Who knows best what you are thinking?’), presented 5‐, 7‐ 9‐ and 11‐year‐children with hypothetical vignettes about specific circumstances in which they were described as either disclosing or not disclosing a specified state to their mother. Children were subsequently asked to judge who would best know the state. Over all age groups children were significantly more likely to identify themselves as authorities on their own self‐knowledge when states had not been disclosed to mother than when they had. However, in the case of disclosed states, young children (though not older ones) asserted that, ‘mum knows best’. These findings are interpreted as suggesting not that young children entirely fail to understand first person authority, but instead that they make the relatively sophisticated assumption that mothers' interpretive competence is greater than their own.