The Familial Context of Creativity: Patterns of Nurturance in Families of Creative Children

This article presents the results of a longitudinal research study undertaken to understand the familial context of creative children. The objective was to identify commonalities and specifics in patterns of nurturance present in the home environments of creative children. The participants, identified using intensity sampling, comprised four children in the age group three to 16 years at the time of selection, who had received public recognition for their creative pursuits; their families, and each child’s guru/coach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations were used to understand the dynamic nature of the relationships within the family setting that led to the discovery of the child’s creativity and its subsequent nurturance. Detailed case profiles were developed over a three year period. The case profiles reflected commonalities in the basic processes of nurturance. All the families were cohesive, with the members sharing a commonality of purposes. Parents actively fostered their children’s creativity by allocating resources—money, time and effort; introducing the child to the domain and the field; being closely involved in the learning process; and expressing praise. The uniqueness of the cases lay in the specifics – in the quality of cultural capital available to the families, in the parents’ experiences as children which were the motivational source for parenting. The key feature in nurturance was the synchronicity of purpose created by strong parental motivation to nurture their child’s creativity and the strong internal motivation of the child to persevere in the creative domain.     

The roles of MAPK cascades in synaptic plasticity and memory in Aplysia: facilitatory effects and inhibitory constraints

Synaptic plasticity is thought to contribute to memory formation. Serotonin-induced facilitation of sensory-motor (SN-MN) synapses in Aplysia is an extensively studied cellular analog of memory for sensitization. Serotonin, a modulatory neurotransmitter, is released in the CNS during sensitization training, and induces three temporally and mechanistically distinct phases of SN-MN synaptic facilitation. The role of protein kinase A and protein kinase C in SN-MN synaptic facilitation is well documented. Recently, it has become clear that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascades also play a critical role in SN-MN plasticity. Here, we summarize the roles of MAPK cascades in synaptic plasticity and memory for sensitization in Aplysia.     

Principles of cross-modal competition: Evidence from deficits of attention

How does the attentional system coordinate the processing of stimuli presented simultaneously to different sensory modalities? We investigated this question with individuals with neurological damage who suffered from deficits of attention. In these individuals, we examined how the processing of tactile stimuli is affected by the simultaneous presentation of visual or auditory stimuli. The investigation demonstrated that two stimuli from different modalities are in competition when attention is directed to the perceptual attributes of both, but not when attention is directed to the perceptual attributes of one and the semantic attributes of the other. These findings reveal a differentiated attentional system in which competition is modulated by the level of stimulus representation to which attention is directed.     

Jivanmukti in Neo‐Hinduism: The case of Ramana Maharsi

Jivanmukti or ‘living liberation’ has been identified as a distinguishing feature of Indian thought; or, upon drawing a narrower circle, of Hindu thought; and upon drawing an even narrower cocentric circle of Vedānta—of Advaita Vedānta. In some recent studies the cogency of its formulation within Advaita Vedānta has been questioned—but without reference to the testimony of its major modem exemplar, Ramana Maharsi (1879–1950). This paper examines the significance of the life and statements of Ramana Maharsi for the current debate in the context of neo‐Hinduism     

Accuracy and Confidence in Person Identification: The Relationship Is Strong When Witnessing Conditions Vary Widely

We hypothesized that both accuracy and confidence in suspect identifications depend, in part, on participants' ability to identify the target, and that both accuracy and confidence therefore tend to be higher under conditions that lead to good memory for the target than under conditions that lead to poor memory for the target. Furthermore, we hypothesized that a substantial correlation between accuracy and confidence will be observed if, because of variations in conditions, there is considerable variability across participants in ability to identify the target. Consistent with these hypotheses, manipulations that affected accuracy also affected confidence in the same direction, and when data were collapsed across conditions the accuracy-confidence correlation was substantial (mean r = .59).     

Sex differences in performance on a combined manual and decision task.

This report describes results of an experimental study of the differences in response time between 10 male and 10 female undergraduate operators performing a combined manual and decision task. Analysis indicated that the performance times of women on such tasks were shorter than those of the men as expected.     

A connectionist model of visual-word recognition that accounts for interactions between mask size and word length

Summary A connectionist model is described, which accounts for data showing a mask appropriateness effect in word and letter recognition. In a backward-masking paradigm, if the letter fragment masks that are used are of a similar size to the word or word fragment they are masking, performance is better than if the masks are longer or discontinuous (Jordan, 1990). The model simulates these effects by adding to the familiar architecture of the interactive activation model length units, which are stimulated whenever word units of a particular letter length are active, and mask units, which are stimulated by masks of particular sizes and in turn stimulate length units. Detailed predictions of the model are examined for both forward and backward masking, and are found to be in good accord with the data.