Spaces of the Religious Economy: Negotiating the Regulation of Religious Space in Singapore

Over the past three decades, the theory of religious economy has been established, applied, debated, developed, and rejected. It has proven to be as divisive as any "general theory" of religion should be, and yet its core tenets continue to engage and unite scholars around the world. In response to broader shifts within the sociology of religion, this article reframes religious economy by advancing a spatial approach to its theorization. A spatial approach can help develop new perspectives on the regulation of religion, and the resistant agency of religious groups. With a focus on the "secular monopoly" of Singapore, it demonstrates how the restricted supply of land for religious purposes increases competition between religious groups. To overcome restrictions, religious groups pursue strategies of spatial and organizational boundary crossing. This has led to the closer regulation of space, and highlights the recursive interplay between the regulation and praxis of religion in Singapore.     

Mood and Creativity over Time in a Bipolar Participant

When depression alternates with mania, as in a bipolar affective disorder, creativity might be enhanced. To investigate this, we employed a single‐subject design, looking at both affective space and the spectral covariation of mood and creativity in a participant presenting with bipolar affective disorder. The study was conducted over a period of 54 days, and employed a standard measure of mood (the Brief Mood Introspection Scale) and a standard task of creativity (Alternative Uses Task). Both positive affect and negative affect appear to be somewhat undifferentiated for this participant, and her mood space does not conform to that described by the accepted major dimensions of Arousal and Pleasure. Conceivably, this is because of her rapid mood fluctuations. A 2.7‐day periodicity was found for Tired, Peppy, Nervous, and Calm, on the one hand, and ideational fluency, ideational flexibility, and originality, on the other. In addition, a 9‐day periodicity was common to Happy, Sad, and Gloomy—all three affects clustering in the same affective space—together with both ideational flexibility and originality. This finding brings into question the relationship between creativity and both positive and negative mood.     

可预测性和空格对中文阅读影响的眼动研究

实验采用EyeLink II 眼动仪,以30名大学生为被试,采用2（预测性：高、低）×3（空格：正常无空格、词间空格、非词空格）被试内设计,考察了预测性和空格对中文阅读影响,探讨了模块化理论和相互作用理论的争论。结果发现：词的预测性和空格两因素的主效应显著,但二者之间无交互作用,符合模块化理论的预期。     

颜色偏好研究进展

颜色偏好是人在心理上所喜爱或偏好的颜色。人们对抽象颜色、具体物色都会表现出偏好;性格、性别、年龄、文化等因素会影响颜色偏好。以往研究者在研究内容、研究材料、研究条件尚存不足,这正是今后研究的方向。     

Oneness Experience: Looking Through Multiple Lenses

This article defines healthy oneness experience and establishes the progressive, life enhancing components of the experience. The author clarifies the paradox that a cohesive, well-integrated self allows unitive, non-self-definitional experiences. The author attempts to work the cultural/clinical border by exploring oneness phenomena as they occur in art, religion, literature and the clinical consulting room. The author uses psychoanalytic tools to understand non-clinical experiences of oneness. Through compelling accounts of such experiences as described by artists, writers and meditators, psychoanalytic theorizing about oneness is illumined further.     

Technological Other/Quasi Other: Reflection on Lived Experience

This reflection focuses on lived experience with the Technological Other (Quasi-Other) while pursuing creative video and film activities. In the last decade work in the video and film industries has been transformed through digital manipulation and enhancement brought about by increasingly sophisticated computer technologies. The rules of the craft have not changed but the relationship the artist/editor experiences with these new digital tools has brought about increasingly interesting existential experiences in the creative process. How might this new way of being with technology change the craft and the crafter? Through a phenomenological understanding of Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Don Ihde, and their contributions to the human-technology conversation, this essay moves to reveal the lived experiences of artists/editors who use computers to create by means of film and digital video formats. Exploring notions of lived space, lived body, lived time, and lived relation through the computer interface allows for digging deeper into inhabiting technology and experiencing the Technological Other.     

Color term knowledge does not affect categorical perception of color in toddlers

Categorical perception of color is shown when colors from the same category are discriminated less easily than equivalently spaced colors that cross a category boundary. The current experiments tested various models of categorical perception. Experiment 1 tested for categorical responding in 2- to 4-year-olds, the age range for the onset establishment of color term knowledge. Experiment 2 tested for categorical responding in Himba toddlers, whose language segments the color space differently from the way in which the English language does so. Experiment 3 manipulated the conditions of the task to explore whether the categorical responding in Experiments 1 and 2 was equivalent to categorical perception. Categorical perception was shown irrespective of naming and was not stronger in those children with more developed color term knowledge. Cross-cultural differences in the extent of categorical perception were not found. These findings support universalistic models of color categorization and suggest that color term knowledge does not modify categorical perception, at least during the early stages of childhood.     

Identifying neural correlates of consciousness: the state space approach

This article sketches an idealized strategy for the identification of neural correlates of consciousness. The proposed strategy is based on a state space approach originating from the analysis of dynamical systems. The article then focuses on one constituent of consciousness, phenomenal awareness. Several rudimentary requirements for the identification of neural correlates of phenomenal awareness are suggested. These requirements are related to empirical data on selective attention, on completely intrinsic selection and on globally unconscious states. As an example, neuroscientific findings on synchronized gamma activity are categorized according to these requirements.     

The Space of Argumentation: Urban Design, Civic Discourse, and the Dream of the Good City

In this paper, I explore connections between two disciplines not typically linked: argumentation theory and urban design. I first trace historical ties between the art of reasoned discourse and the idea of civic virtue. I next analyze discourse norms implicit in three theories of urban design: Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), and Peter Katz's The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community (1994). I then propose a set of settlement issues of potential interest to both urban designers and argumentation theorists: size, density, heterogeneity, publicity, security, and identity. I conclude by suggesting that the good city be seen as both a spatial and a discursive entity. From such a perspective, good public discourse is dependent, at least in part, on good public space; and good public space is defined, at least in part, as a context conducive to good public discourse.