Perceptual completion and object-based representations in short-term visual memory

Object-based representations in visual short-term memory (VSTM) were examined using a change detection memory task. A display comprising two rows of four differently colored elements was followed by a probe display in which only one of the rows reappeared. On same trials, the probed row was identical to the corresponding row in the memory display. On different trials, two of the elements in the probed row had their colors exchanged. In each memory display, a task-irrelevant visual element appeared between the two rows, with the potential to function as an occluder. Performance was enhanced when perceptual completion meant that four, rather than eight, objects were perceived in the memory display and when the probe display revealed that the occluded elements continued behind the occluder. It appears that several forms of representation can co-occur to support VSTM, one of which is object based.     

Homo Orans: Von Balthasar's Christocentric Philosophical Anthropology

Hans Urs von Balthasar's philosophical anthropology is the premise not only of his religious epistemology, but also of his whole theological enterprise. The importance of his anthropology to the rest of his theology is often overlooked, because its fundamentals are set out in an early work to which little critical attention has been given: Das Betrachtende Gebet – a work which emphasizes the "necessity of prayer". According to von Balthasar, in praying, one encounters God, and it is through this encounter that one can attain authentic personal identity and genuine fulfilment. In short, what this early work indicates is a conception of humanity as homo orans .     

Human holiness as religious shape apologia

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

The Importance of Knowing your History: Perceiving Past Women as less Agentic than Contemporary Women Predicts Impaired Quantitative Performance

Research on dynamic stereotypes of women has shown that women perceive large differences between contemporary women and women who lived in the past in terms of agentic (or masculine) traits. This temporal discrepancy in agentic attributes of women may suggest that agency is not a stable trait of women and may result in impaired performance in domains associated with agency, such as quantitative reasoning. We propose that women who think that agency has always characterized their gender group would perform better in quantitative tasks. Indeed, we found that as the difference between agency attributed to present and past women decreased, U.S. college women’s (n?=?80) accuracy in a quantitative test increased (Study 1). Further, reading a text about women’s achievements in the history of science reduced the discrepancy between agency attributed to past and present women and had an indirect positive effect on quantitative performance by 150 U.S. college women (Study 2). Findings suggest that women’s participation and performance in science could be improved by raising awareness of women’s historical achievements in male-dominated areas.     

Differential susceptibility in spillover between interparental conflict and maternal parenting practices: evidence for OXTR and 5-HTT genes

Guided by the affective spillover hypothesis and the differential susceptibility to environmental influence frameworks, the present study examined how associations between interparental conflict and mothers' parenting practices were moderated by serotonin transporter (5-HTT) and oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genes. A sample of 201 mothers and their 2-year old child participated in a laboratory-based research assessment. Results supported differential susceptibility hypotheses within spillover frameworks. With respect to OXTR rs53576, mothers with the GG genotype showed greater differential maternal sensitivity across varying levels of interparental conflict. Mothers with one or two copies of the 5-HTTLPR S allele demonstrated differential susceptibility for both sensitive and harsh/punitive caregiving behaviors. Finally, analyses examined whether maternal depressive symptoms and emotional closeness to their child mediated the moderating effects. Findings suggest that maternal emotional closeness with their child indirectly linked OXTR with maternal sensitivity. The results highlight how molecular genetics may explain heterogeneity in spillover models with differential implications for specific parenting behaviors. Implications for clinicians and therapists working with maritally distressed parents are discussed.     

Neural control of voluntary eye closure: a case study and an fMRI investigation of blinking and winking

The current paper describes a rare case of a patient who suffered from unilateral apraxia of eye closure as a result of a bilateral stroke. Interestingly, the patient's ability to voluntarily close both eyelids (i.e. blinking) was not affected, indicating that different neural mechanisms control each type of eye closure. The stroke caused damage to a large part of the right frontal cortex, including the motor cortex, pre-motor cortex and the frontal eye field (FEF). The lesion in the left hemisphere was restricted to the FEF. In order to further study the neural mechanisms of eye closure, we conducted an fMRI study in a group of neurological healthy subjects. We found that all areas of the oculomotor cortex were activated by both left and right winking, including the FEF, supplementary eye field (SEF), and posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Blinking activated FEF and SEF, but not PPC. Both FEF and PPC were significantly more active during winking than blinking. Together, these results provide evidence for a critical role of the FEF in voluntary unilateral eye closure.