Bimanual and Unimanual Convergent Goal-Directed Movement Times

Three experiments are reported, investigating the effects of using 1 or 2 hands when making convergent low index of difficulty (ID) and visually controlled movements (2 hands meeting together). The experiments involved movements in four different cases—a probe held in the right hand and moved to a target held in the stationary left hand, vice versa of this arrangement, both hands moving with the probe in the right hand and target in the left hand, and vice-versa of this arrangement. Experiments were the standard Fitts’ paradigm, moving a pin into a hole and a low-ID task. In Fitts’ task, 2-hand movements were faster than 1 hand only at higher IDs; this was also the case in the pin-to-hole transfer task and the movement times were lower when the pin was held in the preferred hand. Movements made with low ID showed a small effect of 1- or 2-handed movements, with the effective amplitude of the movement being reduced by about 20% when 2 hands were used.     

Influence of Instruction on Velocity and Accuracy in Soccer Kicking of Experienced Soccer Players

ABSTRACT. The authors’ aim was to investigate the speed-accuracy tradeoff in soccer kicking with the dominant and nondominant foot by using different types of instructions prioritizing speed or accuracy in experienced soccer players. Ten male soccer players were randomly given 1 of the 4 instructions that differed in aspects of the kick they should emphasize and what the secondary aim would be (speed or accuracy). It was found that ball velocity was affected by instruction in the expected way: emphasis on accuracy and ball velocity reduced for both kicking feet. In addition kicking accuracy increased when emphasizing this, but only with the dominant foot indicating that Fitts’ law only was found in kicks with the dominant foot.     

Fitts’ Theorem in Oculomotor Control: Dissociable Movement Times for Amplitude and Width Manipulations

The authors examined whether movement times (MT) for discrete saccades are constant given equivalent index of difficulty (ID) values (i.e., unitary nature of Fitts’ theorem). To that end, we contrasted ID/MT relations for saccades equated for ID but differing with respect to their target amplitudes and widths. Results showed that MT increased with increasing ID within amplitude and width conditions; however, the ID/MT slope was markedly steeper in the former condition. Thus, the amplitude condition imposed greater information processing demands than the width condition—a result indicating that the constituent elements of Fitts’ theorem are dissociable (i.e., nonunitary). Further, examination of saccade kinematics demonstrated that the optimal MT for a given target amplitude was largely independent of target width.     

Checking the heavenly ‘bank account of karma’: cognitive metaphors for karma in Western perception and early Theravāda Buddhism

To visualize the accumulation of good and bad karma in terms of credit or debt in a bank account is a common feature in works on Buddhism and other Indian traditions. Applying conceptual metaphor theory, this article tracks the metaphorical framework of understanding karma as a kind of ‘heavenly bank account’ back to its roots in early European scholarship. Based on a comparison with metaphors for karma to be found in Pāli texts of the Theravāda tradition, namely, the analogies of ripening, inheritance, and the dark/bright dichotomy, this article argues that the ‘bank-account’ imagery differs in significant – if subtle – respects from these emic metaphors, displaying certain Judeo-Christian preconceptions of moral bookkeeping, sin, and salvation.     

Buddhist prajÑĀ and Greek sophia

The present review examines five books, one by a non-Baha'i, three by a Baha'i academic, and one by a Baha'i non-academic. The non-Baha'i volume, which is very short, is by a Danish sociologist of religion, Margit Warburg. It forms a solid explanatory text informed by a lengthy experience of the Baha'is both in Denmark and abroad. This review discusses, inter alia, three volumes by a Baha'i sociologist, Peter Smith. While the three titles are very different books, taken together they form an intelligent presentation of the religion from the perspective of a thoughtful insider. Finally, the article looks at a completely different sort of book, an intelligent portrayal of Baha'ism from its spiritual and moral perspectives by Moojan Momen. This last brings readers closest to typical fare for believers and new converts.     

Engagement with meditation as a positive health trajectory: Divergent narratives of progress in male meditators

Objective: Studying personal narratives can generate understanding of how people experience physical and mental illness. However, few studies have explored narratives of engagement in health positive behaviours, with none focusing on men specifically. Thus, we sought to examine men’s experiences of their efforts to engage in and maintain healthy behaviours, focusing on meditation as an example of such behaviour.

Design: We recruited 30 male meditators, using principles of maximum variation sampling, and conducted two in-depth interviews with each, separated by a year. Main outcome measures: We sought to elicit men’s narratives of their experiences of trying to maintain a meditation practice.

Results: We identified an overall theme of a ‘positive health trajectory,’ in particular, making ‘progress’ through meditation. Under this were six main accounts. Only two articulated a ‘positive’ message about progress: Climbing a hierarchy of practitioners, and progress catalysed in other areas of life. The other four reflected the difficulties around progress: Progress being undermined by illness; disappointment with progress; progress ‘forgotten’ (superseded by other concerns); and progress re-conceptualised due to other priorities.

Conclusion: Men’s narratives reveal the way they experience and construct their engagement with meditation – as an example of health behaviour – in terms of progress.     

The role of verbal and nonverbal memory in the Family Pictures Subtest: Data from children with specific language impairment

This study examined the contribution of verbal and visual memory to performance on the Family Pictures subtest of the Children’s Memory Scale. This subtest purports to assess declarative memory functioning in the visual/nonverbal domain. A total of 115 nine-year-old children participated in this study. Fifty-eight had specific language impairment (SLI), whilst the remaining 57 were typically developing (TD), with no history of language difficulties. Results showed that the children with SLI, who had intact declarative memory for visual but not verbal information, obtained significantly lower scores on the Family Pictures subtest when compared to the TD group. Regression analyses revealed that across the entire sample, individual differences on the Family Pictures subtest was best predicted by a measure of verbal working memory. These results question whether the Family Pictures subtest can be considered a measure of visual memory in pediatric populations. These results have implications for the interpretation of scores on this subtest regarding the nature of the types of neurocognitive difficulties children may exhibit.     

Christianity in Iran: A Brief Survey

This article reviews the long and varied history of Christianity in the country now known as Iran. The historical emphasis is on the Assyrian Church of the East, although other churches are also mentioned. The relationship, successively, with Zoroastrianism and with Islam, as the dominant religious traditions, is discussed, as are its implications for the wider Islamic world. Western contacts with Iran, and, in particular, those of western churches, are also examined. In the light of this historical analysis, and from discussion of the situation since the Islamic Revolution, some conclusions are advanced about the prospects for Christianity in the new contemporary context.     

The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI

The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the ‘Idea of Europe’ in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI.     

Samoa and the Christian state ideal

This article explores the notion of a Christian state in the context of the South Pacific island nation of Samoa. Samoa is not a Christian state in the constitutional de jure sense. There is no formal entrenchment of establishment of Christianity as the official religion. But it is a de facto Christian state in that the substance of its laws reflects Christian beliefs. The article also considers whether it is a Christian nation. In many cultural and sociological senses it is. In terms of Christian practice however, an affirmative verdict is highly doubtful. Finally, the article suggests that asking the Christian nation question might be misplaced, for no nation can be a ‘chosen’, covenantal nation, à la Israel, in the New Testament era.