Lateral-frontal slow potential shifts preceding language acts in deaf and hearing adults

Slow potential EEG shifts (SPSs) recorded over Broca's area and the paired contralateral site preceding cued language acts have been reported to identify the language-dominant hemisphere. A contingent negative variation paradigm SPS method was applied to the comparative study of 10 hearing adults and of 10 adult prelingually deaf persons whose first learned language was American Sign Language. Volunteers performed both language and non-language acts in both oral and manual expressive modes. The hearing group showed no lateralized SPS, failing to replicate previous reports. The deaf group showed a nonsignificant trend opposite in laterality to that of hearing groups in previous reports.     

The effects of didactic classroom instruction versus field exposure on career maturity

This study tested two types of career training (field exposure and didactic classroom) to determine which is more effective in bringing about the development of career maturity. Forty-six first-year Upward Bound students were assigned to either a field exposure or a didactic group by the use of a stratified random assignment technique. A pretest/post-test design was utilized with the Career Maturity Inventory as the data-collecting instrument. The data were analyzed by analysis of covariance. The results of the study indicate that field exposure career training is an effective method to increase career maturity.     

Rhythm and dominance

Subjects were tested by a short experimental procedure involving tapping of a rhythm with one limb with a simultaneous regular beat with another limb. Informal observations had suggested a rhythm dominance effect—that is was dramatically easier with some limb combinations. Notably it was easy when the right hand tapped the rhythm and the left hand the beat but almost impossible the other way round. Equally, both hands dominated both feet. Our tests revealed enormous individual differences, subjects separating neatly into three groups. Some people could not do the task at all, some could do it with any limb combination, the latter group including all the serious musicians tested. For the remainder the rhythm dominance effect was clear. However, the laterality effect was the same (right hand advantage) for a majority (60%) of left handers. We conclude, then, that this effect is linked to language dominance and not handedness. In addition it seems there is a task scheduler which imposes its own view in combining this laterality effect with the dominance of hands over feet.     

A mathematical model for social influences on perceptual judgments

A mathematical model based upon signal detection theory is developed that characterizes social influences upon judgments of a stimulus. A social influence cue and the physical aspects of the stimulus were assumed to have independent effects upon performance. A visual movement discrimination task was employed in which subjects could make their judgment either before or after a cue that they had been led to believe was the response of another subject. The accuracy of this “response” was varied. The model provided a good account of the data. A model-based estimate of the magnitude of the influence effect indicated that this effect was greater when the “other” was highly accurate. The model provided an interpretation of social influences on perceptual judgments in which influence pressures have their effects only when subjects' sensory impressions are ambiguous.     

Jung Among the Physicists: A Review Essay of Dual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning

This essay reviews the recent book by Harald Atmanspacher and Dean Rickles, Dual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning. The essay aims to contextualize and clarify the book’s core argument about the theoretical and empirical fruitfulness of decompositional dual-aspect monism as an intervention into the mind-body problem that ascribes a pivotal role to meaning. The variants of dual-aspect monism discussed were developed primarily by physicists, but the essay also highlights the crucial contributions to the argument by the one non-physicist involved, Carl Gustav Jung, as well as noting the significance of dual-aspect monism and of the reviewed book for analytical psychology.     

The Life and Works of a Bottom-Up Thinker

A brief account is given of the author's life as a physicist and then a priest. The twin foundations of the author's theological endeavors have been a respect for traditional Christian thinking, though not exempting it from revision where this is needed, and a style of argument termed bottom-up thinking, which seeks to proceed from experience to understanding. The diversity of the world faith traditions is perceived as a major source of perplexity. A revised and modest natural theology and the issue of divine action have been at the top of a science and theology agenda. A defense is sketched in realist terms of the metaphysical strategy of using an ontological interpretation of the unpredictabilities of chaos theory to support a notion of top-down causality through active information. The success of Christian theology as a resource of total explanation depends on a credible account of eschatological hope. Reference is made to practical experience of ethics in the public square.     

Higher Pantheism

Romantic sensibility and political necessity led Humphry Davy, Britain's most prominent scientist in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, to pantheism: nature worship, involving for him a fervent belief in the immortality of the soul. Rapt with a vision of sublimity, from mountain tops or balloons, men of science in succeeding generations also found in pantheism a reason for their vocation and a way of making sense of their world. It should be seen as an alternative both to active participation in church life (like Faraday's) and to a gritty agnosticism (like Huxley's), indicating again how subtle and complex relationships were between science and religion in the nineteenth century.     

Mission,Reconciliation, and the Politics of Place

Through the retelling of some familiar biblical stories – Jonah, Acts 1, Acts 10 – and gospel narratives of inclusion, this paper looks at the transformation of politics and identities made possible by the sending of the Holy Spirit and the mission of reconciliation to which Christians are called. Through an examination of the themes of power, prejudice, partnership, and identity, the paper aims to offer a concrete approach to rethinking the spaces and places where a reconciling mission can be enacted. Central to an understanding of reconciliation are the disruption and transgressing of boundaries in which Jesus engaged. In addition to this, Jesus creates these unique spaces for reconciliation around his very person, and the Spirit leads the church into these same contexts. Finally, selections of John 17 are examined through a biographical lens in order to offer a new understanding of the politics of identity and the surprising contexts where God’s Spirit reconciles all things in Christ.     

What We Owe to the Global Poor

This essay defends an account of the duties to the global poor that is informed by the empirical question of what makes countries rich or poor, and that tends to be broadly in agreement with John Rawlss account in The Law of Peoples. I begin by introducing the debate about the sources of growth and explore its implications for duties towards the poor. Next I explore whether (and deny that) there are any further-reaching duties towards the poor. Finally, I ask about the moral foundations for the duties to the poor of the sort that earlier parts argue there are.     

Thinking about the Needy, Justice, and International Organizations

This article has three main parts, Section 2 considers the nature and extent to which individuals who are well-off have a moral obligation to aid the worlds needy. Drawing on a pluralistic approach to morality, which includes consequentialist, virtue-based, and deontological elements, it is contended that most who are well-off should do much more than they do to aid the needy, and that they are open to serious moral criticism if they simply ignore the needy. Part one also focuses on the United States, and illustrates both how incredibly wealthy the U.S. is and some of the spending habits of its citizens; however, its considerations apply to the well-off generally. Section 3 considers whether justice provides reasons for helping the needy. Noting that justice in an extremely complex notion, it discusses numerous considerations relevant to justices scope and implications, including an extended Rawlsian conception of justice, an absolute conception, a comparative conception, the distinction between natural and social justice, and various elements of common-sense morality. Section 2 also distinguishes between agent-relative justice-based reasons, which are relevant to whether we act justly, and agent-neutral justice-based reasons, which are relevant to whether we have reasons of justicefor acting. Correspondingly, it argues that even if one can ignore the needy without acting unjustly, as philosophers like Robert Nozick and Jan Narveson contend, there may be powerful reasons of justicefor addressing their plight. Section 4 briefly address the responsibilities of international organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Trade Organization (WTO). Drawing on Section 2, it is suggested that in addition to standard reasons to act justlytowards needy members of the worlds community, there will be reasons of justicefor such organizations to aid the needy in both present, and future, generations. The article concludes by contending that the well-off in countries like the U.S. have reason to view international organizations like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO as their agents, and to seek to insure that they alleviate misfortunes amongst the worlds needy.