Is history important for a historical argument in religious studies?

This review article addresses the historical argument of Norenzayan's Big Gods. It questions the claim that there is enough historical evidence to support the thesis that gods, who are observing human behaviour from high, enable societies to grow beyond the stage of face-to-face groups.     

Representations of interobject spatial relations in long-term memory

A growing body of evidence has indicated that human spatial memory is organized in terms of a small number of reference directions and that interobject spatial relations are represented in terms of these directions (e.g., McNamara, 2003). The goal of the present experiments was to investigate whether the selection of reference directions also affects the fidelity with which interobject spatial relations are represented in memory. In two experiments, participants memorized a layout of nine objects and then performed judgments of relative direction (e.g., “Imagine you are standing at the clock, facing the book. Point to the phone.”) at a remote location. Imagined heading (e.g., at the clock, facing the book) and allocentric target direction (e.g., the direction from clock to phone in the allocentric frame of reference used to define imagined heading) were manipulated independently. The results of both experiments showed that the same directions that were benefited in imagined headings were also benefited in allocentric target directions. These findings indicate that interobject spatial relations are preferentially represented when they coincide with a reference direction.     

Frege's Logic

MEDIEVAI AND RENAISSANCF LOGIC

WILLIAM OFOCKHAM, Ockham's theory of propositions. Part I1 of Summa logicae. Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso and Henry Schuurman, with an introduction by Alfred J. Freddoso. University of Notre Dame Press, 1980. viii + 212 pp. £ 12.00.

WILHELM RISSE, Bibliagraphia Logica. Verzeichnis der Handschriften zur Logik. Band IV. Hildesheim, New York: Georg 0lm.s Verlag, 1979. vii + 390pp. DM 98.

G. W .F. H EGEL, Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Band. Die objektive Logic (l812/1813) (Gesammelte Werke, Hand 11) Herausegeben von F. Hogemannund W. Jaeschhc. Hamburg: Felix hleiner Verlag, 1978. xii + 441 S. DM 118.

G.W.F. HEGEI., Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Band. Die subjektive Logik (1816). (Gesammelte Werke, Band 12.) Herausgegeben von F. Hogemann und W. Jaeschke. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1981. viii + 358 S. DM 122.

G. GUNTHER, Idee und Grundriss einer nicht-aristotelischen Logik. Die Idee und ihre philosophischen Voraussetzungen. Appendix by R. Kaehr. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag,1978,xxx + 417 + 117 pp. DM 84.

LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY

BFN-AMI SCHARFSTEI N, The philosophers: their lives and the nature of their thought. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 486 pp. £18.00.

DESMONDLEE (ed.), Wittgenstein's lectures: Cambridge 1930 - 1932. From the notes of John King and Desmond Lee. Oxford: Blackwell, 1980. xix + 124 pp. £7.95.

0. HANFLING, Logical positivism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981. viii + 181 pp. £14.00 (cloth)/£5.50 (paper).

0. HANFLING(ed.),Essenliai readings in iogicai podivihrn. Oxford: Basil Biackwell, 1981. viii + 248 pp. £5.95(paper).     

Task set flexibility and feature specificity modulate the limits of temporal attention

The consequences of maintaining a task set in the context of the (speeded) attentional blink were investigated in a series of experiments. Observers were asked to either attend or ignore the first of two target stimuli (T1 and T2). The results showed that when T1 and T2 shared a task relevant feature that was unique to T2, but not to T1, a shallow attentional blink was observed, as well as a lack of Lag 1 sparing. In comparison, when the targets shared a feature that was uniquely task relevant to both targets, the blink could not be avoided. Conversely, when no feature was shared between targets, ignoring T1 was successful and virtually no attentional costs were apparent. A similar lack of costs was also observed when targets shared a task relevant feature that was unique to T1 but not to T2. Finally, matching the feature dimension of a target feature that was unique to T2, but not T1, also strongly attenuated the blink. However, it did not completely abolish Lag 1 sparing. The results are interpreted in the context of current models of the attentional blink.     

Enhanced Cardiac Perception Is Associated With Increased Susceptibility to Framing Effects

Previous studies suggest in line with dual process models that interoceptive skills affect controlled decisions via automatic or implicit processing. The “framing effect” is considered to capture implicit effects of task‐irrelevant emotional stimuli on decision‐making. We hypothesized that cardiac awareness, as a measure of interoceptive skills, is positively associated with susceptibility to the framing effect. Forty volunteers performed a risky‐choice framing task in which the effect of loss versus gain frames on decisions based on identical information was assessed. The results show a positive association between cardiac awareness and the framing effect, accounting for 24% of the variance in the framing effect. These findings demonstrate that good interoceptive skills are linked to poorer performance in risky choices based on ambivalent information when implicit bias is induced by task‐irrelevant emotional information. These findings support a dual process perspective on decision‐making and suggest that interoceptive skills mediate effects of implicit bias on decisions.     

Social criticism in the process of interpretation (discussion)

Abstract

The author comments on Horst Petri's case presentation and gives reasons why he sees social criticism within the process of interpretation as inappropriate. Firstly he contradicts Petri's view of the severity of his patient's illness. He thinks a supportive therapy was not appropriate and he would have treated her by using conflict centered interpretations. Secondly he assumes that the analyst's social criticism forms an alliance with the analysand which excludes essential issues from the analytic work. And thirdly he reminds us that psychoanalysis doesn't spare a supposedly progressive attitude from criticism. Within the framework of psychoanalytic theory, the relativity of all value judgements forbids the analyst to tie himself down in the way Petri suggests.     

Lay concepts of health and illness from a developmental perspective

Abstract

The concepts of children, adolescents and their mothers with regard to different aspects of health and illness in general and five specific diseases were explored in this study. An exploration with fully standardised questions and open answers was subjected to a content analysis. A reliable rating system was developed to score the sophistication of the answers. The study included 99 Ss of the age groups 5, 8, 12 and 16 years, as well as 48 mothers of the children. Many children and adolescents were able to define health positively (well-being) and not merely as the absence of illness. The definition of illness in general was frequently composed of somatic symptoms and disorders, feeling poorly and things one would like to accomplish but can't. The causality explanations of illness in general were dominated by contagion. The concepts of the older children and the mothers were richer, more elaborated, less concrete and less action-oriented than those of the younger children. However, abstract formulations and complex aspects of illness were very rarely expressed. In addition, concepts regarding the characteristics (definition, symptoms, causality, treatment and prevention) of five diseases (cold, measles, heart infarction, cancer and AIDS) were measured. The pattern of results was strongly influenced by age. By and large, the development of most disease concepts was linear with significant differences between age groups. Conversely, within a given age group, significant differences were found in the cognitive level of disease characteristics, either with respect to the same disease or between different diseases (“horizontal shifts”).