Task-hemispheric integrity in dual task performance

A condition of task hemispheric integrity is predicted to result in a dual task situation when the central processing and response components of each task are associated exclusively with a given cerebral hemisphere. The prediction that this condition will generate more efficient time-sharing is tested in a series of four experiments. In experiment 1 the prediction is confirmed when a spatial (tracking) and verbal (letter memory search) task are time-shared, and the hand assignment to task responses is manipulated. In experiment 2 a spatial variant of the memory search is used instead of the verbal letter search, and hand assignment effects are not obtained, since when two spatial tasks are time-shared an integrity assignment is impossible. Experiment 3 validates the hemispheric lateralization of the two single task variants of the memory search task, while experiment 4 establishes the separate “spatial’ and “verbal” resource demands of the two variants by observing their differential interference with concurrent spatial and verbal tasks.     

Creativity and the artwork: the perspectives of a painter and a philosopher

Creativity in Robert Henri's view is a gratuitous act, shot through with mystery; what is left after such an act is the artwork itself as concrete evidence that such a heightened state of consciousness has been achieved. This paper will examine Henri's understanding of the nature of creativity from his perspective as a twentieth century New York painter, in conjunction with Eliot Deutsch's theoretical insights as a philosopher deeply interested in the nature of the experience of an artwork. In his Essays on the nature of art, Deutsch presents the view that the experience of an artwork involves the assimilation of the work's aesthetic force, the recognition of its meaning, the discernment of its formal dimensions, and ‘calls for a special appropriation that yields an integrated wholeness’. This paper presents commonalities between Henri's and Deutsch individual perspectives and discusses some value‐centred educational implications that could be drawn from these commonalities.     

Diachronic Dutch Books and Sleeping Beauty

Hitchcock advances a diachronic Dutch Book argument (DDB) for a 1/3 answer to the Sleeping Beauty problem. Bradley and Leitgeb argue that Hitchcock’s DDB argument fails. We demonstrate the following: (a) Bradley and Leitgeb’s criticism of Hitchcock is unconvincing; (b) nonetheless, there are serious reasons to worry about the success of Hitchcock’s argument; (c) however, it is possible to construct a new DDB for 1/3 about which such worries cannot be raised.     

Evolution,Suffering, and Eschatological Redemption: Sollereder,Southgate, and Russell on Theodicy

Two new books helpfully refine the position vaunted by Theistic Evolution. These two books will garner the interest especially of the proleptic school within Theistic Evolution, which affirms (1) the long history of evolution as God's creative work; (2) the Theology of the Cross wherein God shares in the sufferings and even death of all creatures, animals included; (3) Jesus’ Easter resurrection as a prolepsis of the eschatological new creation; and (4) the coincidence of creation with redemption. These two provocative new works are Bethany Sollereder's God, Evolution, and Animal Suffering: Theodicy without a Fall, along with Christopher Southgate's Theology in a Suffering World: Glory and Longing. This article tackles a problem surfacing in the work of both Sollereder and Southgate: when eliminating the fall, the combination of redemption and creation becomes incoherent. Robert John Russell's “fall without a fall” provides greater coherence in the proleptic version of Theistic Evolution.