DIVINE ACTION: IS IT CREDIBLE?

Abstract. The concept of God's acting in the world has been seen to be problematic in light of the claims of scientific knowledge that the regularity of a law like universe rules out divine action. There are resources in both scientific knowledge and religion that can render meaningful and credible divine action. The new physics, chaos theory, cognitive psychology, and the concept of top-down causation are used to understand how God acts in the world. God's action is not an intervention, but is understood on the model of how the mind influences the brain in a downward causative manner. Suggestions for imagining God's actions are discussed.     

Maternal attitudes during pregnancy predict mother-infant physical proximity six months after birth

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument for assessing maternal attitudes. Three photographs representing infants or mother-infant dyads were presented to 26 mothers in the second half of pregnancy and six months after birth. Nine mothers were clinical cases, seventeen mothers were nonpathological controls. Thirty-three semantic categories were used to code the mothers' responses to the pictures. Mothers' responses were coded independently by two researchers. The factor analysis of the codes yielded an ‘attraction to, vs rejection of, children’ factor. Compared with the control group, the mean factor score of the clinical group was significantly lower, i. e. reflected less attraction (p < 0.01). To study the relation between the attraction factor and the physical proximity of mothers and infants, 21 of these mother-infant dyads were videotaped in a semi-structured play interaction six months after birth. Recordings were coded independently by two researchers for various indices of proximity (spatial proximity, kisses, embraces, touches). The factor analysis of the codes yielded a factor contrasting distant vs close and tender interaction. A significant correlation was found between the attraction scores of pregnant women and the proximity scores of mother-infant interaction (r = 0.46; p < 0.05). These results suggest that this instrument is useful in assessing maternal attitudes of psychiatrically disturbed pregnant women and that maternal attitudes of pregnant women are significant predictors of physical proximity in motherinfant interaction at the end of the first semester.     

“Hey mom, look at me!”

The degree to which infant and maternal characteristics were related to maternal psychological distress and play competence was examined in 40 mother preterm and full-term dyads. Measures of maternal psychological distress, self-efficacy, infant temperament, and mother-infant interaction in a play situation, were obtained at 4 months corrected for prematurity. Results revealed that maternal self-efficacy was the strongest correlate of maternal psychological distress but was not related to maternal play competence. Interaction effects for unadaptable temperament and infant behavioral involvement were found in the regressions predicting both maternal psychological distress and maternal play competence. Mothers of more adaptable and less behaviorally involved infants reported greater psychological distress and exhibited greater play competence than mothers of more adaptable and involved infants. The results suggest that a lack of concordance between mothers' perceptions of their infants' behavior and actual behavioral experiences adversely affects mothers' affect and the quality of their play interactions.     

小规模群体开放式与封闭式讨论任务的工作特性比较

１４个小组的大学生共６８人参加两种不同的群体工作,其中７组进行开放式问题的讨论,７组进行封闭式问题的讨论。从工作进程、工作模式和工作特点等方面记录群体工作行为：工作进程各阶段所用时间,发言的针对性,发言的连续性,说明问题的方式和深度,群体的意见分歧与支持行为和表达方式。结果表明：封闭式问题需要更多的时间澄清问题并且更多引用例子来阐述观点;讨论开放式问题多采用归纳推理而封闭式问题多采用演绎推理;无论在哪种问题的讨论中,针对个体的发言都显著多于针对整体的发言,而且人们更多地以非言语的方式而不是口头方式表示赞成。本文对以上结果在电视、电话和计算机辅助会议系统设计中的应用作了进一步讨论     

The development of infants' preference for motherese

Generally, infants prefer infant-directed (ID) to adult-directed (AD) speech. Mostly, researchers have used unfamiliar female voices in these studies. We investigated preferences for maternal ID speech in 1- and 4-month-olds. Using a procedure in which infants controlled access to voices by fixating a visual display, infants listened to recordings of natural female ID and AD speech. In Experiment 1, 1-month-olds heard recordings of maternal ID and AD speech, but these infants showed no preference for maternal ID speech. In Experiment 2, 1-month-olds heard the same ID and AD speech tapes but were not familiar with the speakers. Contrary to Experiment 1, these infants preferred ID speech. In Experiment 3, 4-month-olds heard recordings of maternal ID and AD speech and showed a significant preference for ID speech. Collectively, these results suggest that infant attention to ID speech depends on both speaker-general and speaker-specific characteristics, with interesting developmental changes occuring during early infancy.     

Control by the auditory or the visual element of a compound discriminative stimulus: effects of feedback.

Groups of pigeons were trained to depress a treadle in the presence of a compound stimulus consisting of a tone and a red houselight (a) to avoid electric shock, or (b) to obtain grain. Immediate, exteroceptive feedback was equated for avoidance and appetitive groups within an experiment, but varied across experiments from elevation of a nonilluminated feeder to darkening of the chamber, termination of the tone, and elevation of an illuminated feeder. Responding in the absence of the compound stimulus postponed its next occurrence. After performance had stabilized, the degree to which each element controlled treadle pressing was determined. Generally, in the appetitive tests, the red light controlled much more responding than did the tone, but in the avoidance tests, the tone controlled more responding than did the red light.