WIEMAN'S MISUNDERSTANDING OF DEWEY: THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY DISCUSSION

Abstract. An important issue in the development of the American school of philosophy known as critical naturalism was whether the naturalistic vision implied a humanistic or a theistic interpretation of religion. Is the divine a creativity within nature but more than human effort, or is it the human vision of ideal possibilities and the effort to realize them? This issue is clarified through a study of the concept of the divine developed by the leading naturalist John Dewey in A Common Faith, the misunderstanding of this book by Henry Nelson Wieman, and the discussion of this misunderstanding in the pages of Christian Century. The essay concludes that Wieman's misunderstanding of Dewey is instructive in that it reveals unintended possibilities in Dewey's thought.     

Lateral asymmetry in subgroups of dyslexic children

It has been proposed that in examining hemispheric dominance in dyslexics, investigators must make a distinction between subtypes of the disorder. Using the Denver Reading and Spelling Test, 72 dyslexics were divided into three groups: dysphonetics, dyseidetics, and nonspecifics. Three measures of hemispheric dominance were administered: a dichotic listening test, a hemiretinal test with linguistic stimuli, and a hemiretinal test with spatial stimuli. Results indicated that the three subgroups of dyslexics did not differ from one another on measures of hemispheric dominance. Dyslexics, taken as a group, tended to show an exaggerated right ear advantage on the dichotic listening test, in comparison with that of controls. It was proposed that the dichotic listening test may be confounded by attentional deficits in the dyslexics.     

Celebrity and Political Psychology: Remembering Lennon

This article is a contribution toward the task of constructing a distinctive political psychology and social theory of celebrity. The article begins by noting some recent approaches to the analysis of mass communications in political theory, and moves to consider what these theories mean for the conceptual analysis of celebrity. A substantive example of the political construction of celebrity is given in a case study of the ex-Beatle, John Lennon—specifically, the social drama surrounding his death in 1980. A number of issues, ranging from the denial of death in modernity to the multiplex modes of cultural remembering, are discussed as they relate to celebrity.     

Effect of preacquisition UCS exposure on classical conditioning of the rabbit's nictitating membrane response

Conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response was found to be inversely related to the number (0, 50, 200, 350) and intensity, (0, 1, 3, 5 mA) of preacquisition UCS exposures and directly related to the interval between preexposure and acquisition (0 or 24 hr). The results were discussed in terms of sensory adaptation, habituation, blocking, and emotional reactivity.     

The effect of a low rate of regular signals upon the reaction times of introverts and extraverts

In an RT (reaction time) task involving responding to infrequent, regular signals, extraverts produced higher proportions of missed signals and lengthened RT's than introverts did. This result was only obtained after some time on task and is evidence that inhibitory states are formed more rapidly in extraverted subjects under low stimulation conditions. In a more extended version of the task, mean RT was found to be longer in extraverted than introverted subjects in the second half of the experiment though there was no significant difference between the groups in the first half. These findings are complementary to data from previous studies showing that extraverts generate stronger inhibitory potential in continuous responding tasks, or that their characteristic arousal level may be lower than that of introverted subjects. The need to distinguish between the different explanatory constructs is discussed and a simple model amalgamating the major theoretical positions is outlined.     

Developmental changes in conditional reasoning: Linguistic or logical?

This study investigated reasoning with abstract conditional sentences as a function of age. Subjects from third-grade to eleventh-grade were required to evaluate the conclusion of several conditional arguments. The results confirmed the previously established finding that performance improves with age, particularly between 11 and 15 years. This finding could be interpreted to indicate that individuals become more logical as they get older. However, another possible interpretation is that the meaning of a conditional sentence like pthenq for naive Ss may not always be given by the truth function pq true, $\text{p}\text{q}$ false, $\text{p}\text{q}$ true, and $\text{p}\text{q}$ true. Further analysis suggested that at 9 years individuals treat the connective in the sentence, ifpthenq, as if it were either a conjunctive or a biconditional, that the conjunctive meaning disappears with increasing age and after 13 years is gradually superceded by the conditional.