COSMOLOGY FROM ALPHA TO OMEGA

Abstract. This paper focuses on four passages in the journey of the universe from beginning to end: its origin in the Big Bang, the production of heavy elements in first generation stars, the buzzing symphony of life on earth, and the distant future of the cosmos. As a physicist and a Christian theologian, I will ask how each of these passages casts light on the deepest questions of existence and our relation to God, and in turn how these questions are being explored through ongoing research into the interaction between Christian theology and the natural sciences.     

Visual field differences in verbal tasks: Effects of task familiarity and sex of subject

Four experiments using normal subjects investigated differences in magnitude of the right visual field (RVF) superiority as a function of word material (frequency and concreteness/imageability status), nonword letter strings (some of which were homophonic with nonpresented real words), and type of task (overt naming or lexical decision with discriminatory manual responses) as well as sex of the subject and the subject's familiarity with the material. Both latency and error measures showed that RVF superiority was more consistent when overt naming was required and with male subjects. For female subjects engaged in lexical decisions, a left visual field (LVF) superiority was often apparent, especially in the first half of an experimental sequence; when actually naming the items aloud, they showed field asymmetries similar to males. Except from an analysis of errors, there was little evidence to support differential right hemisphere mediation of high frequency concrete/imageable materials. It is suggested that in females, right hemisphere space normally reserved for visuospatial processing may have been invaded by secondary speech mechanisms. These mechanisms appear to operate at an essentially lexical level and may act in a supportive or auxiliary capacity for difficult or unfamiliar material; they seem to be equally concerned with both phonological and graphological processing and may account for the well-known female superiority in verbal tasks and inferiority in visuospatial tasks. Other findings are discussed such as the degree of consistency of the field differences, both for the same subjects and for the same stimulus materials under different task requirements and experimental conditions.     

Field articulation and working memory

This experiment assessed the proposal that performance differences associated with field independence/field articulation reflect differential efficiency in the use of a limited capacity information-processing system termed working memory. Extreme scores on a group-administered version of the embedded figures test were used to identify subjects “high” and “low” in degree of field articulation. The task required that a subject retain a series of digits for subsequent report while performing a semantic modification of a target phrase. Concurrent information load on working memory was varied in two ways: by increasing memory load from 3 to 6 digits, and by increasing the complexity of the semantic processing required. In low information load conditions no differences were found between high FA and low FA groups. In high information load conditions low FA subjects made more errors in digit recall and took longer to perform the difficult semantic modification.     

Posthypnotic amnesia for recently learned material: Interactions with “episodic” and “semantic” memory

In two experiments, posthypnotic amnesia was suggested for a word list memorized during hypnosis. After an initial test of amnesia the subjects gave word associations (Experiment 1) or category instances (Experiment 2) to stimuli intended to elicit the critical (word list) items covered by the amnesia. The extent of initial amnesia observed was strongly associated with measured hypnotic susceptibility. Even among the most hypnotizable subjects, however, the dense amnesia did not prevent the critical items from being elicited by the semantic memory tasks, nor did it modulate the priming which these associations received by virtue of the prior learning experience. Moreover, production of the critical items did not, in general, remind the amnesic subjects of those items which they had previously learned, but could not now remember. Full memory was restored after the amnesia suggestion was canceled by a prearranged cue. Posthypnotic amnesia appears to represent a temporary dissociation of episodic features from memory traces, so that the subject has difficulty in reconstructing the context in which the target events occurred.     

Right-hemisphere language: Familial and nonfamilial sinistrals,cognitive deficits and writing hand position in sinistrals,and concrete-abstract,imageable-nonimageable dimensions in word recognition. A review of interrelated issues

While left-hemisphere language dominance is more general than dextrality, and reversed dominance is less frequent than sinistrality, there are disputes in both the clinical and the experimental literature on a number of related issues which pertain to a possible language contribution from the minor hemisphere. These issues include the nature and extent of bilaterality in sinistrals, whether this is more pronounced in the strongly or weakly sinistral, and in those with or without other sinistral close relatives, whether sinistrality is largely or at all a consequence of birth stress, whether sinistrals differ from dextrals in visuospatial or even verbal skills, Levy's (1978) hypothesis that a knowledge of the hand position employed in writing (hooked or noninverted) may accurately predict language lateralization in sinistrals, and the possible extent of a minor hemisphere contribution to the recognition of high frequency, concrete, or imageable nouns. Findings relating to the above issues are reviewed, and it is concluded that much of the current confusion stems from poor control of subject factors such as sex, strength and family history of handedness, and nature of stimuli and their mode of presentation.     

Performance of dyslexic children on speech perception tests

Several researchers who have compared the performance of dyslexic and normal-reading children on a variety of different tasks have suggested that dyslexic children may have subtle deficits in the phonemic analysis of spoken as well as written language. Thus it is of interest to know how children who have extraordinary difficulty learning to read can perform explicity auditory-phonetic tasks. Seventeen dyslexic children (10 years of age) and a group of 17 controls were administered tests of identification and discrimination of synthesized voiced stop consonants differing in place of articulation. These were tests of the type used to study categorical perception in adults, adapted for use with young children. Significant differences between dyslexics and controls were found in both kinds of tasks; the pattern of identification and discrimination differences suggests an inconsistency in the dyslexics' phonetic classification of auditory cues. A significant relationship was found between reading level and speech discrimination.     

The effect of modification of expressive displays on vicarious emotional arousal

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that modulation of the facial expressive response is accompanied by changes in autonomic arousal and subjective response to painful stimuli. The present study asked whether facial self-regulation may also bring about changes in covert vicarious emotional experience. Three groups of subjects were exposed to a videotaped model displaying intermittent pain to shock in a differential vicarious autonomic conditioning paradigm. Subjects in the inhibit and amplify groups were asked, respectively, (a) to inhibit their facial muscles or (b) to pose a facial response of pain when the model was shocked. It was predicted that the inhibit group would show less autonomic arousal to the model's expressive display (empathy) and less conditioning (as measured by skin conductance and heart rate change), and the amplify group more empathy and conditioning, than a third group who was given no facial instruction. In fact, the amplify group showed more skin conductance arousal, heart rate acceleration, and activity in response to the model's expressive display of pain than did the other two groups (which were not different from each other), but no more autonomic or facial conditioning. The overall pattern of physiological data is interpreted as generally supportive of a facial feedback theory of emotion: where significant between-groups' differences were obtained in facial activity, as in vicarious instigation, autonomic arousal differences also emerged; where no expressive differences were obtained, as in vicarious conditioning, no differences in autonomic arousal were found.