Teleology and Structural Directedness

This paper examines the argument that scientific thinkers who embrace a religious tradition can promote intellectual integration between religion and science rather than fragmented discourse. It is argued that God’s Word as an event and the concept of structural directedness, an organized movement toward a future that does not demand a consciously intended end, may be helpful in understanding God’s actions in an indeterminant way.     

It Is Time to Observe the Creative Process: How to Use a Creative Process Report Diary (CRD)

Although the first research on the creative process was based on interviews with the aim of identifying the main stages (macro‐process), in the last 50 years researchers have focused more on the analysis of micro‐processes, i.e., the mechanisms underlying the generation of ideas. This interest in the micro‐processes is partly a result of the tools available to researchers to carry out rigorous studies on the creative process. In this article, we present a useful and relevant analytical tool for macro‐processes to assess the creative process in a natural context and when it occurs. Here, the reader will find advice on establishing a research protocol for the creative process by using diaries. Examples of diaries and results are presented. The advantage of this tool is that it enables a direct, rich, and inexpensive assessment of the creative process. Thus, the ecological validity of the diary method is particularly high.     

The influence of T-shirt graphics on perceptions and behavioral intentions

Do graphics on clothing drive perceptions? We used a between group design to test if athletic, academic, or suggestive graphics on clothing differentially influence perceptions and behavioral intentions. In study 1, participants (N = 199) rated five female t-shirt models, and in study 2 and 3, participants rated five male t-shirt models (N = 120) or university students (N = 50). Analyses of variance controlling for sex (ANCOVA) showed participants were least likely to want to interact with models/students wearing sexually suggestive graphics: Study 1, F(3,165) = 30.263, p < .001, η_p ²  = .30, power = 1.00; Study 2, F (3,119) = 11.630, p < .000, η_p ² = .234, and Study 3, F(1, 42) = 12.578, p < .000. Participants did not rate models in the academic and athletic graphic shirts differently from models with plain white shirts. Results support the concept that people form different perceptions based upon the clothing a person wears, changing behavioral intentions. Neither sex role ideation (Study 1) or sexism (Study 2) were significant covariates of perceptions and intentions.     

The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on multitasking performance and oculometrics

Multitasking is the ability to perform more than one task simultaneously. The need to multitask is common in many industries especially within the military with tasks such as air traffic controllers, cyber defense operators and image analysts. However, as the time on task increases, information throughput can become overwhelming resulting in a performance decrement. Through task prioritizing, the operator is able to maintain performance on specific subtasks in which they selected as high importance while other subtasks experience a decrement. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (ldLPFC) on information processing capabilities to improve individual and overall multitasking performance while performing the multi-attribute task battery (MATB). Two groups of 8 participants each received either 2 mA of anodal or sham tDCS while performing MATB. In addition, eye tracking was implemented to record eye movement patterns. In doing so, we were able to determine how much time the operator allocated to each of the subtasks within MATB and how their task priorities changed as workload demands increased. The findings provided evidence that 2 mA of anodal tDCS during MATB significantly improved overall information throughput compared to the sham group. With respect to the individual subtasks, communication and system monitoring displayed the greatest enhancement with anodal tDCS. Our data suggests that tDCS could be a useful tool to enhance information processing capabilities during a multitasking paradigm resulting in improved processing capabilities and information throughput.     

Organizational factors related to attracting job seekers higher in hardiness

Building an organization of workers who thrive in demanding environments begins with recruitment of workers with personality traits predictive of resilience. We integrate fit theories to determine how job advertisement information may attract job seekers higher in psychological hardiness (sense of control, feelings of commitment to many things in life, perceptions of challenge). Across two studies, we manipulated hypothetical job advertisements that were presented to current workers seeking new employment. Job seekers higher in hardiness were more attracted to working with hardy coworkers, less attracted to coping resources, and more attracted to high emotional labor demands compared to job seekers lower in hardiness. A discussion for how organizations may craft job advertisement content to improve their recruitment efforts is provided.     

The impact of individual trauma symptoms of deployed soldiers on relationship satisfaction.

Research traditionally has focused on the development of individual symptoms in those who experienced trauma directly but has overlooked the interpersonal impact of trauma. The current study reports data from 45 male Army soldiers who recently returned from a military deployment to Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) or Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) and their female spouses/partners. The results indicated that increased trauma symptoms, particularly sleep problems, dissociation, and severe sexual problems, in the soldiers significantly predicted lower marital/relationship satisfaction for both soldiers and their female partners. The results suggest that individual trauma symptoms negatively impact relationship satisfaction in military couples in which the husband has been exposed to war trauma.     

Ways an actualist might be

I discuss Stalnaker’s views on modality. In particular, his views on actualism, anti-essentialism, counterpart theory, and the Barcan formulas.

How implicitly activated and explicitly acquired knowledge contribute to the effectiveness of retrieval cues

The extralist cued recall task simulates everyday reminding because a memory is encoded on the fly and retrieved later by an unexpected cue. Target words are studied individually, and recall is cued by associatively related words having preexisting forward links to them. In Experiments 1 and 2, forward cue-to-target and backward target-to-cue strengths were varied over an extended range in order to determine how these two sources of strength are related and which source has a greater effect. Forward and backward strengths had additive effects on recall, with forward strength having a consistently larger effect. The PIER2 model accurately predicted these findings, but a plausible generation-recognition version of the model, called PIER.GR, could not. In Experiment 3, forward and backward strengths, level of processing, and study time were varied in order to determine how preexisting lexical knowledge is related to knowledge acquired during the study episode. The main finding indicates that preexisting knowledge and episodic knowledge have additive effects on extralist cued recall. PIER2 can explain these findings because it assumes that these sources of strength contribute independently to recall, whereas the eSAM model cannot explain the findings because it assumes that the sources of strength are multiplicatively related.     

Age-related differences in immediate serial recall: Dissociating chunk formation and capacity

We assessed the contribution of two hypothesized mechanisms to impaired memory performance of older adults in an immediate serial recall task: decreased temporary information storage in a capacity-limited mechanism, such as the focus of attention, and a deficit in binding together different components into cohesive chunks. Using a method in which paired associations between words were taught at varying levels to allow an identification of multiword chunks (Cowan, Chen, & Rouder, 2004), we found that older adults recalled considerably fewer chunks and, on average, smaller chunks than did young adults. Their performance was fairly well simulated by dividing attention in younger adults, unlike what has been found for long-term associative learning. Paired-associate knowledge may be used in an implicit manner in serial recall, given that younger adults under divided attention and older adults use it well despite the relatively small chunk capacities displayed by these groups.