科学对“后世”声称的检验（一）

后世存在有证据吗？我们能否与亡者进行沟通？他们的存在是否具有一定的形式呢？是“脱离肉体的灵魂”或是“无实体的精神”？这是个古老的问题,它事关信仰永生和强烈的对不朽的渴望。科学能否调查和揭示那些基于有神论信仰者利益的声明吗？回答是肯定的。科学在尽其所能来回应这些声称时要面对不仅仅是宗教学家们所倡导的灵魂不朽和天堂许诺等内容对人们的深刻影响,还要迎接来自媒体和公众的艰巨的挑战,媒体不断追求轰动效应,庞大的公众群体迷恋于此类现象。     

Some comments on the distinction between intention and intentionality

The topic of intention has recently received attention from behavior analysts (Hineline, 2003; Neuman, 2004). From a behavior-analytic perspective, it is important to identify the circumstances in which people utter such terms, and to identify the potential circumstances that maintain such utterances. It follows that from a behavior-analytic perspective, the focus is primarily on those who observe behavior and attribute intentions to that behavior. However, there has not been a distinction between intention and intentionality. The current analysis stresses the distinction between the two terms, both from a traditional point of view (psychologist and layperson) and from a behavior-analytic point of view. From a behavior analyst's perspective, the distinction is important because observers may be responding to distinct functional relations when they attribute intention or intentionality to behavior.     

Life events as predictors of mania and depression in bipolar I disorder

To date, few prospective studies of life events and bipolar disorder are available, and even fewer have separately examined the role of life events in depression and mania. The goal of this study was to prospectively examine the role of negative and goal-attainment life events as predictors of the course of bipolar disorder. One hundred twenty-five individuals with bipolar I disorder were interviewed monthly for an average of 27 months. Negative and goal-attainment life events were assessed with the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. Changes in symptoms were evaluated using the Modified Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Bech-Rafaelsen Mania Scale. The clearest results were obtained for goal-attainment life events, which predicted increases in manic symptoms over time. Negative life events predicted increases in depressive symptoms within regression models but were not predictive within multilevel modeling of changes in depressive symptoms. Given different patterns for goal attainment and negative life events, it appears important to consider specific forms of life events in models of bipolar disorder.     

Framing effects under cognitive load: The role of working memory in risky decisions

Framing effects occur in a wide range of laboratory and natural decision contexts, but the underlying processes that produce framing effects are not well understood. We explored the role of working memory (WM) in framing by manipulating WM loads during risky decisions. After starting with a hypothetical stake of money, participants were then presented a lesser amount that they could keep for certain (positive frame) or lose for certain (negative frame). They made a choice between the sure amount and a gamble in which they could either keep or lose all of the original stake. On half of the trials, the choice was made while maintaining a concurrent WM load of random letters. In both load and no-load conditions, we replicated the typical finding of risk aversion with positive frames and risk seeking with negative frames. In addition, people made fewer decisions to accept the gamble under conditions of higher cognitive load. The data are congruent with a dual-process reasoning framework in which people employ a heuristic to make satisfactory decisions with minimal effort.     

What is Classical Mereology?

Classical mereology is a formal theory of the part-whole relation, essentially involving a notion of mereological fusion, or sum. There are various different definitions of fusion in the literature, and various axiomatizations for classical mereology. Though the equivalence of the definitions of fusion is provable from axiom sets, the definitions are not logically equivalent, and, hence, are not inter-changeable when laying down the axioms. We examine the relations between the main definitions of fusion and correct some technical errors in prominent discussions of the axiomatization of mereology. We show the equivalence of four different ways to axiomatize classical mereology, using three different notions of fusion. We also clarify the connection between classical mereology and complete Boolean algebra by giving two “neutral” axiom sets which can be supplemented by one or the other of two simple axioms to yield the full theories; one of these uses a notion of “strong complement” that helps explicate the connections between the theories.     

Self-Reported Cognitive Inconsistency in Older Adults

ABSTRACT

Insight into one's own cognitive abilities, or metacognition, has been widely studied in developmental psychology. Relevance to the clinician is high, as memory complaints in older adults show an association with impending dementia, even after controlling for likely confounds. Another candidate marker of impending dementia under study is inconsistency in cognitive performance over short time intervals. Although there has been a recent proliferation of studies of cognitive inconsistency in older adults, to date, no one has examined adults' self-perceptions of cognitive inconsistency. Ninety-four community-dwelling older adults (aged 70–91) were randomly selected from a parent longitudinal study of short-term inconsistency and long-term cognitive change in aging. Participants completed a novel 40-item self-report measure of everyday cognitive inconsistency, including parallel scales indexing perceived inconsistency 5 years ago and at present, yielding measures of past, present, and 5-year change in inconsistency. The questionnaire showed acceptable psychometric characteristics. The sample reported an increase in perceived inconsistency over time. Higher reported present inconsistency and greater 5-year increase in inconsistency were associated with noncognitive (e.g., older age, poorer ADLs, poorer health, higher depression), metacognitive (e.g., poorer self-rated memory) and neuropsychological (e.g., poorer performance and greater 5-year decline in global cognitive status, vocabulary, and memory) measures. Correlations between self-reported inconsistency and neuropsychological performance were attenuated, but largely persisted when self-rated memory and age were controlled. Observed relationships between self-reported inconsistency and measures of neuropsychological (including memory) status and decline suggest that self-perceived inconsistency may be an area of relevance in evaluating older adults for memory disorders.     

Missiological Framework in Africa

This article has three parts. First, it deals with the understanding of mission in the context of Namibia. Second, it offers a profile of African spirituality and its politico‐socio‐economic implications, or with the missionary orthopraxis, in light of the African parable of the awakening giant. And third, it focuses on the African missional church and its missionary praxis. The paper argues that the triune God creates the church and sustains it through the gifts of word and sacrament by the power of the Spirit. Such a missional church understands its participation in God's mission (missio Dei) as contextual by addressing faithfully the challenges in a comprehensive and holistic way.     

Living toward the end

Human beings look to the end as terminus, a passing away when the individual's life story will be complete. Against a cultural tendency to deny death, Christians—claiming a Creator God who does not die—can accept their finitude in principle and aspire to a “high definition” ending. That hope is threatened by the devastating reality of dementia. But Kierkegaard reminds us that the “positive third” of selfhood is not to be identified with mentality and Whitehead stresses that the reception of the inrushing world does not depend on conscious mentality. Against the prevalent culture of individualism, a person of faith can recognize the constitutive role of community past and present. She can find in her terminus a telos, a passing on of life to the others as she steps aside. Is there more? The Newer Testament proclaims a new creation in which life's ending is transformed by the sense of end as beginning, end as advent. This omega as alpha entails both continuity and discontinuity. As to discontinuity, the Christian envisions a life “beyond Eden,” where the perilous gift of freedom is transformed in an integrating knowledge of self, world, and God—fulfilling the calling given to all as created in God's image. This sense of end does not function as an “escape to a transcendent elsewhere,” but motivates and empowers the believer to care for the suffering victims of this volatile and violent age.     

Further indications on the validity and usefulness of the Jones Irrational Beliefs Test

Markedly different profiles on the Jones Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT) were obtained from a sample of mental health professionals, of clients in psychotherapy, and of women college students, and the differences were clearly interpretable. In a second study those with high (more irrational) scores on each scale were compared with those with low (more rational) scores on indicators of physical (psychosomatic) illness. On five of the scales as well as for the total score the more irrational groups had significantly more physical symptoms of illness. And, finally, tension headache frequency was found to be related to the total IBT score.It is argued that these findings offer further evidence for the validity of the IBT, and its use in research and clinical practice is encouraged. A reporting booklet for bibliotherapy use with clients is described.Paul J. Woods, Ph.D., co-editor of this journal, is an associate fellow of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, a professor of psychology at Hollins College, and is engaged in private practice in Roanoke, Virginia.     

Kaufalit?t, biologie und pfychologie

Ohne Zusammenfassung