Response Timing Accuracy as a Function of Movement Velocity and Distance

In two experiments, patterns of response error during a timing accuracy task were investigated. In Experiment 1. these patterns were examined across a full range of movement velocities, which provided a test of the hypothesis that as movement velocity increases, constant error (CE) shifts from a negative to a positive response bias, with the zero CE point occurring at approximately 50% of maximum movement velocity (Hancock & Newell, 1985). Additionally, by examining variable error (VE), timing error variability patterns over a full range of movement velocities were established. Subjects (N = 6) performed a series of forearm flexion movements requiring 19 different movement velocities. Results corroborated previous observations that variability of timing error primarily decreased as movement velocity increased from 6 to 42% of maximum velocity. Additionally, CE data across the velocity spectrum did not support the proposed timing error function. In Experiment 2, the effect(s) of responding at 3 movement distances with 6 movement velocities on response timing error were investigated. VE was significantly lower for the 3 high-velocity movements than for the 3 low-velocity movements. Additionally, when MT was mathematically factored out. VE was less at the long movement distance than at the short distance. As in Experiment 1, CE was unaffected by distance or velocity effects and the predicted CE timing error function was not evident.     

Education for Vocation in Public Life USA1

Abstract : The Lutheran sensibility is that life is a paradox, a dialectical tension, in the midst of which one must act and live. This sensibility informs an open and dialectical educational model for liberal arts education, which encourages a dynamic interaction of faith and learning. It supports a vocational understanding of public life that cultivates critical analysis while seeking to encourage citizenship for the common good.     

The Gift-Giver as Social Deviant: Recipient Perceptions of a Monetary Gift

Over a decade ago, Heckert and Heckert (2002) proposed a model of norm violation that identified four deviance typologies: negative deviance, rate busting, deviance admiration, and positive deviance. Using that model, 51 narrative accounts provided by 29 student volunteers were analyzed in which volunteers recollected their first-hand experiences of offering a small monetary gift to both an acquaintance and a stranger. As called for by Heckert and Heckert (2002), our findings provide additional theoretical insights into these deviance typologies by considering the situational contexts under which the actions of the gift-givers were perceived as positive or negative by recipients.     

The Perils of Shape Shifting: Harry Potter and Christian Fundamentalism

Some conservative Christians have condemned the Harry Potter series, claiming that the stories lure children into witchcraft and contain a completely relative morality. In this article, I posit that both of these concerns are deeply related to fundamentalist Christians’ perceptions of appropriate selfhood. Employing Robert Jay Lifton’s work on the evolving shape of postmodern personalities, I demonstrate that J. K. Rowling’s portrayal of magic is what Lifton would call “symbolic self-projection.” In so doing, I will show that these fundamentalist concerns are really objections to the notion that a “centered self” is the locus of moral control. The divide between the world of Harry Potter and that of fundamentalist Christians is really a struggle over the appropriate shape of the human personality.     

Individual differences in the perception of similarity and difference

Thematically related concepts like coffee and milk are judged to be more similar than thematically unrelated concepts like coffee and lemonade. We investigated whether thematic relations exert a small effect that occurs consistently across participants (i.e., a generalized model), or a large effect that occurs inconsistently across participants (i.e., an individualized model). We also examined whether difference judgments mirrored similarity or whether these judgments were, in fact, non-inverse. Five studies demonstrated the necessity of an individualized model for both perceived similarity and difference, and additionally provided evidence that thematic relations affect similarity more than difference. Results suggest that models of similarity and difference must be attuned to large and consistent individual variability in the weighting of thematic relations.     

Observed maternal responses to adolescent behaviour predict the onset of major depression

Two mechanisms have been proposed regarding relations between parental responses to adolescent affective behaviours and the development of depression: the elicitation of parental negativity and the suppression of parental aggression. This study aimed to investigate the boundary conditions under which these two mechanisms operate in relation to the prospective prediction of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) onset in adolescence. A community sample of 159 adolescents (aged 11–13 years) with no history of MDD completed a family interaction assessment with their mothers, and were followed-up with a diagnostic interview 2–3 years later. Results showed that onset of MDD was prospectively predicted by the elicitation of maternal aggression in response to adolescent aggression (in girls only) and maternal dysphoria in response to adolescent aggression, as well as the suppression of maternal aggression and dysphoria in response to adolescent dysphoria. Thus, support was obtained for both the elicitation of negativity mechanism in relation to maternal responses to adolescents’ aggressive behaviours, and the suppression of aggression mechanisms in relation to maternal responses to adolescents’ dysphoric behaviours. Mothers’ responses to adolescents’ aggressive and dysphoric behaviours may differentially influence the risk of MDD onset for adolescents over time.     

Vanishing Boundaries: When Teaching About Religion Becomes Spiritual Guidance in the Classroom

Abstract. This article revisits the pedagogical dilemma of maintaining neutrality in the religious studies/theology classroom. I argue that if the boundary between teaching about religion and actually teaching spirituality seems to be vanishing, it is because the boundary was inappropriately constructed in the first place. To the extent that the religious concepts, even when compressed into religious studies categories, inherently inspire personal transformation, how can a boundary exist between the ideas students encounter and the power of those ideas to transform? Spiritual guidance emerges naturally in the academic study of religion, and those of us who teach in the field might as well get used to it. In explaining my position, I draw on my experience as a teaching assistant in Professor Walter Capps's course, “Religion and the Impact of the Vietnam War.” I, then, develop a pragmatic teaching strategy, neutral enthusiasm, which preserves the important neutrality of classroom presentation in religious studies courses, yet recognizes the unavoidable evocative power present in the intellectual territory that is religion. Neutral enthusiasm allows the content to do the work.     

The influence of object size and surface shape on shape constancy from stereo

The failure of shape constancy from stereoscopic information is widely reported in the literature. In this study we investigate how shape constancy is influenced by the size of the object and by the shape of the object's surface. Participants performed a shape-judgment task on objects of five sizes with three different surface shapes. The shapes used were: a frontoparallel rectangle, a triangular ridge surface, and a cylindrical surface, all of which contained the same maximum depth information, but different variations in depth across the surface. The results showed that, generally, small objects appear stretched and large objects appear squashed along the depth dimension. We also found a larger variance in shape judgments for rectangular stimuli than for cylindrical and ridge-shaped stimuli, suggesting that, when performing shape judgments with cylindrical and ridge-shaped stimuli, observers rely on a higher-order shape representation.