The primacy of cognition in schizophrenia

Cognitive tasks and concepts are used increasingly in schizophrenia science and treatment. Recent meta-analyses show that across a spectrum of research domains only cognitive measures distinguish a majority of schizophrenia patients from healthy people. Average effect sizes derived from common clinical tests of attention, memory, language, and reasoning are twice as large as those obtained in structural magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography studies. Chronic stress, genes, brain disturbances, task structure, gender, and sociocultural background may all enhance the sensitivity of cognitive performance to schizophrenia. At the same time, disease heterogeneity and the presence of endophenotypes and subtypes within the patient population may place upper limits on the strength of any specific cognitive finding. Schizophrenia is a complex biobehavioral disorder that manifests itself primarily in cognition.     

Decomposing intuitive components in a conceptual problem solving task

Research into intuitive problem solving has shown that objective closeness of participants' hypotheses were closer to the accurate solution than their subjective ratings of closeness. After separating conceptually intuitive problem solving from the solutions of rational incremental tasks and of sudden insight tasks, we replicated this finding by using more precise measures in a conceptual problem-solving task. In a second study, we distinguished performance level, processing style, implicit knowledge and subjective feeling of closeness to the solution within the problem-solving task and examined the relationships of these different components with measures of intelligence and personality. Verbal intelligence correlated with performance level in problem solving, but not with processing style and implicit knowledge. Faith in intuition, openness to experience, and conscientiousness correlated with processing style, but not with implicit knowledge. These findings suggest that one needs to decompose processing style and intuitive components in problem solving to make predictions on effects of intelligence and personality measures.     

The Character of Yhwh and the Ethics of the Old Testament: is Imitatio Dei Appropriate?

The aim is to examine the character of the God of the Old Testament,principally in the Pentateuch, to discover whether it providesan appropriate basis for the imitatio dei that a number of writershave argued is prominent in Old Testament ethics. The articlebegins with a survey of this literature and opposing arguments.Texts then, first, that explicitly recommend the imitation ofGod are studied, then ones that imply it, mainly concerningdistributive justice. It is shown that the moral role of YHWHmay reflect one of two roles in human society, as king (of theworld) or as patron (of Israel), thus providing models for humanbeings playing such roles. A discussion of Exod. 34:5–6shows that forgiveness is for human beings as for God a rightrather than an obligation in the Old Testament. It is finallyshown that YHWH behaves in the story of the Exodus in ways which,whether justifiable (in the role of king) or not, would be inappropriatefor imitation. It is concluded that while YHWH may often beunderstood as offering a role for imitation, imitatio dei isnot the key to all Old Testament ethics.     

The relationship of body dysmorphic disorder and eating disorders to obsessive-compulsive disorder

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and eating disorders are body image disorders that have long been hypothesized to be related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Available data suggest that BDD and eating disorders are often comorbid with OCD. Data from a variety of domains suggest that both BDD and eating disorders have many similarities with OCD and seem related to OCD. However, these disorders also differ from OCD in some ways. Additional research is needed on the relationship of BDD and eating disorders to OCD, including studies that directly compare them to OCD in a variety of domains, including phenomenology, family history, neurobiology, and etiology.