THE ROLE OF COGNITION AND FEELING IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Abstract Inquiry into religious experience is informed by conceptualizations of emotion. Although a long history of theoretical and empirical work has provided considerable insight into the philosophical, psychological, and (more recently) neurobiological structure of emotion, the role of cognition and feeling in religious emotional states remains poorly conceived, and, hence, so does the concept of religious experience. The lack of a clear understanding of the role of emotion in religious experience is a consequence of a lack of an adequate interdisciplinary account of emotions. Our primary aim here is to examine the consequences of a properly interdisciplinary understanding of emotions for the analysis of religious experience. To this end, we note points of convergence between psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific accounts of emotion and between such accounts and reports on the neurobiology of religious experience, in particular two recent human brain imaging studies. We conclude that emotions are richer phenomena than either pure feeling or pure thought and that, rightly understood, emotion affords religious experience its distinctive content and quality. Accordingly, we argue that religious experience cannot be reduced to pure feeling or pure thought. Rather, on our analysis, religious experience emerges as “thinking that feels like something.”     

Problems and results for logics about imperatives

Deviating from standard possible-worlds semantics, authors belonging to what might be called the ‘imperative tradition’ of deontic logic have proposed a semantics that directly represents norms (or imperatives). The paper examines possible definitions of (monadic) deontic operators in such a semantics and some properties of the resulting logical systems.     

Context Specificity of Excitation and Inhibition in Ambiguous Stimuli

Two experiments examined the susceptibility of excitation and inhibition to contextual change when the conditioned stimulus (CS) was ambiguous using an appetitive conditioning paradigm. In Experiment 1, excitation to a CS was lost with a context switch when inhibition had been learned to the CS in a prior feature-negative (FN) discrimination. Control groups that had received either more or less excitatory conditioning in the absence of inhibitory pretraining showed no loss. In Experiment 2 inhibition was lost with a context switch in a group that had received excitatory and then inhibitory conditioning with the CS. No loss was observed in a group that had not received excitatory pretraining. The results suggest that contexts are especially likely to control performance to ambiguous CSs when they can modulate the second of two learned associations. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for occasion setting and modern conditioning theory.     

Exasperations as Blessings: Meaning-Making and the Caregiving Experience

This study examines the process of how caregivers can shape the frustrations and exasperations of caring for a family member with Alzheimer's disease into blessings. Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenological perspective is used to interpret a caregiver's narrative, in which she describes caring for her husband with Alzheimer's disease. The interpretive analysis focuses specifically on how the caregiver finds meaning in the caregiving process. The analysis reveals that the caregiver constructs meaning by emphasizing particular aspects of her experiences, including cherished memories, creating a happy life by living life intensely, and counting her blessings. While some caregivers naturally find such meaning, this study suggests that reading the narratives of others as well as writing about one's own thoughts and feelings can facilitate this meaning-making process. Structured written emotional expression, in particular, fosters meaning-making, diminishes psychological distress, improves immune function, and promotes health and well-being.     

易学与晚明小品

易学是晚明小品最重要的文化资源之一。晚明小品家的人生观、生活情趣,晚明小品理论强调小品短小、简易、新奇、独抒性灵、自然而然,皆直接或间接地吸取易学理论资源。晚明小品创作多方面受到易学的深刻影响。晚明小品兴盛也促进了易学的“小品”化。     

成就与不足——浅议郭沫若的《周易》研究

郭沫若的《周易》研究以“新兴科学的观点”来审视《周易》,在古史辩派的基础上,深入到了古代的思想及制度,使传统的经学研究一变而为社会的、文化的和哲学的研究,他不仅开辟了《周易》研究的新领域,而且也成为用《周易》打开认识“古代真实”大门的第一人。这也正是郭沫若《周易》研究的价值所在。但同时郭沫若的《周易》研究也存在不足,如对材料的时代性未能划分清楚,得出了错误的结论;以传解经的错误;疏于考证,有臆测成分及趋时、片面的批评,这也是评价郭沫若的《周易）研究时不可回避的部分。     

清代学者焦循独特的易学构架

本文考述了焦循的旁通、相错、时行三说,并在此基础之上提出了一系列看法：1．焦循以普遍联系和爻位运动的观点研究《周易》,把《周易》六十四卦视为具有内在联系的“生生不息”的动态系统,比之孤立、静止地研究《周易》一卦一爻,更有意义。2．焦循独特的易学构架是建立在客观分析的考据基础之上,不宜武断否定。3．焦循易学构架并非纯象数的研究,而是以象数为载体,阐发儒家的道德义理和自己“修齐治平”的政治理想。4．焦循以“声训”为媒介的两卦或数卦之间的关联是否《周易》本义值得讨论,其“声训”缺乏充分的文献旁证是一大缺憾。     

CTPI和CTA在椎底动脉系统TIA诊断中的互补性

研究CT灌注成像（CTPI）和CT血管造影（CTA）对椎底动脉系统短暂性脑缺血发作（TIA）的诊断价值。采用64排螺旋CT对30例患者进行常规CT、CT灌注成像和CT血管造影检查。30例CT平扫无责任病灶。CT灌注成像正常14例,异常16例。CTA正常4例,异常26例。CT灌注成像和CT血管造影联合应用有利于椎底动脉系统短暂性脑缺血发作的诊断和治疗方案的选择。     

情绪加工老化效应的神经机制

行为学研究发现,老年人对消极情绪的辨别、注意和记忆都有所下降,而对积极情绪并未表现出类似的现象。情绪加工老化效应的神经影像学研究发现,老年人在情绪加工过程中边缘系统（尤其杏仁核）的激活强度低于年轻人,但额叶皮层区域的激活却有所增强。研究者对该结果提出了两种假说,一种是功能代偿假说,另一种是策略改变假说。功能代偿假说认为老年人额叶皮层区域的激活增强是为了弥补边缘系统功能的下降,反映了大脑功能的代偿;策略改变假说认为老年人主动使用了不同于年轻人的策略,情绪加工方式的不同导致了两组人群大脑活动的差异。未来这方面研究可以从研究层面、研究方法、研究问题等方面逐步完善     

视觉掩蔽研究现状及展望

视觉掩蔽是指某个物体因另一在空间或时间上与其相邻的物体的呈现而导致可见度降低的现象。目前,掩蔽的研究集中于那些涉及到特征、目标和场景表征,注意控制机制,以及现象知觉有关的加工等。该综述主要介绍了视觉掩蔽的概念和范式,研究的典型现象及参数,并介绍了相关的神经科学研究,概述并评论了4类重要的视觉掩蔽理论模型：知觉修正、双通道、边界轮廓系统以及目标替换。最后讨论了目前视觉掩蔽研究遇到的一些困难和挑战,包括刺激与任务的不统一带来的影响、神经科学方法的局限性以及模型模拟的复杂性,并从神经意识相关、功能性观点与模型发展三方面对视觉掩蔽未来的研究方向进行了展望。