Useful Field of View and Other Neurocognitive Indicators of Crash Risk in Older Adults

Older adults represent a rapidly growing segment of the driving population. Although most older drivers are safe, research has shown that this group has more crashes per mile driven than most other age groups. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the utility of a set of commonly used neuropsychological/cognitive tests in comparison to a newer measure of visual attention (Useful Field of View; UFOV®) in predicting state-recorded, at-fault crashes over the previous five years in a group of older adult drivers. Participants (N = 239) completed tests of mental status, visual attention, memory, and UFOV®. Results show that among all cognitive tests administered, UFOV® was most strongly related to crash involvement, with high levels of sensitivity (86.3%) and specificity (84.3%) at the standard cutoff score of 40% reduction. Practical implications for the assessment of crash risk are discussed.     

Peer teaching: Students teaching students to increase academic performance

Peer teaching among students has a powerful role in the learning process and has been studied and recognized as an effective teaching method. Research on peer teaching applied in different contexts has shown that learning through the process of teaching others increases students' academic performance. In Indonesia, some research on peer teaching has been conducted, but there has been no research on peer teaching in the context of theological studies. Hence, this empirical study aims to verify whether peer teaching is effective when applied in a theological school setting. In this study, students of a homiletics course were the research sample. Results show that peer teaching had a positive effect on students' academic performance. However, further research is recommended on the application of peer teaching in other subject areas to confirm the effectiveness of peer teaching in a theological school context.     

Individual Differences in Religious Motivation Influence How People Think

Motives matter and may have implications for how people cognitively experience meaning through religion and spirituality. Specifically, intrinsically motivated people perceive religion and spirituality are more central to meaning in life, which should promote a tendency to adopt more coherent, expansive cognitive representations. In contrast, extrinsically motivated people may adopt narrower cognitive representations since their motivation is more proximally oriented. The present study tests these possibilities by examining how religious motivation relates to action identification (tendency to use coherent, higher‐level cognitive representations). Results from 630 participants revealed that among religious people, intrinsic and extrinsic‐personal religious motivations indirectly influence higher‐level action identification through strength of spiritual beliefs. These relationships were not evident among nonreligious people. Furthermore, extrinsic‐social religious motivation and religious service attendance did not relate to action identification. These findings demonstrate that religious motivation differences are consequential for the action identities people rely upon to form a sense of meaning.     

CONFESSIONS OF A LATE‐BLOOMING, “MISEDUCATED” PHILOSOPHER OF SCIENCE

This article provides a survey of Walker Percy's criticism of what Pope Benedict XVI calls “scientificity,” which entails a constriction of the dynamic interaction of faith and reason. The process can result in the diminishment of ethical considerations raised by science's impact on public policy. Beginning in the 1950s, Percy begins speculating about the negative influence of scientificity. The threat of a political regime using weapons of mass destruction is only one of several menacing developments. The desacrilization of human life from cradle to grave leads Percy to assert that modern science's impact is often radically incoherent. In The Moviegoer, Percy finds his existential and theistic voice that would enable him to advance his critique of science.     

APORETIC POSSIBILITIES IN CATHERINE KELLER'S CLOUD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

In stressing the beauty of ignorance, of not knowing in the usual manner, Catherine Keller's Cloud of the Impossible evokes the death of a metaphysical (A)uthorial presence and the dissolution of closed systems of meaning. In this article, I view her text as part of a crisis of modernity that challenges dominant theological pathways, on which certain problematic views of the human have been constructed. In my reading, Keller's Cloud enriches humanistic thinking in the West and I explore the themes it shares with my own work in religious naturalism: there is no escape from the radical relationality and the irreducible materiality that structure human existence. I also emphasize that textual strategies are mere seductive, disembodied abstractions without acknowledging the force of materiality. Materiality matters; and I explore ways in which religious naturalism demonstrates how it does. In light of Keller's rich analysis, I focus on a “learned ignorance” that accompanies all of our limited interpretations emerging from the shifting, precarious positionalities as we rethink our relationality to each other and to all that it is.     

Ramadan in Iceland: A Tale of Two Mosques

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims are required to fast from dawn to the beginning of the night. During summers in Nordic states, this means daily fasts of more than 18 hours. Two religio-juristic opinions have emerged regarding this challenge: one requires strict adherence to the commands of the Qur'an so long as night and day are distinguishable; the other encourages fasting the same number of hours as in Mecca and Medina or a nearby country where the duration of the day is moderate. This article offers an overview of these opinions, their development and how they resist common distinctions between ‘pragmatic' and ‘strict' juristic panels. On the basis of a field study conducted during 2015 in two mosques in Reykjavik, it also explores the division among Iceland's tiny minority of devout Muslims over this issue, and the contesting justifications given by leaders and attendees of the two mosques for their respective views. The discussion demonstrates the conflation of transnational and local influences (including satellite television channels) that contribute to the diffusion of fatwās in Europe, and the limited utility of the labels wasa?ī and salafī in predicting the actual practices of individuals and communities.     

The decapitation of Slovenia’s Catholic Church: social factors and consequences

This article discusses the financial collapse of Slovenia’s Catholic Church, a scandal which resulted in the deposition of the country’s archbishops, and its impact on religious belief and on the relations within the Slovenian Catholic establishment and community. Trust in the Church and religious participation have dropped markedly in Slovenia over recent years. While there are no significant changes in religious belief, other religious indicators continue to reflect an ongoing moderate trend towards secularisation that is characteristic of Slovenia in the post-socialist era. The public discourse of the Church’s leadership and lay Catholics reveals tensions on the reasons behind the fall of the Church’s financial empire and on the question of responsibility in the removal of Slovenia’s archbishops. Two general types of reactions were identified in a content analysis of texts from a five-month period after the last depositions. Views within the Slovene Catholic Church, which uphold the institution’s traditional stance, tend to explain these developments as part of a conspiracy against the Church. Others that are more open and reflective are critical towards the actions of the Church and demand change from within the institution.     

Reassessing women,religion and the Turkish secular state in the light of the professionalisation of female preachers (vaizeler) in Istanbul

Since 2003 the Turkish Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has increased the number of female preachers (vaizeler). These state appointed professional female preachers are engaged in illuminating women and providing them with an appropriate religious education. Within the frame of Turkish state’s regulation of religious affairs, this phenomenon is important since it calls into question both the state’s monopoly over religious officers and women’s access to the religious public realm. The article casts light on these issues by addressing the following questions: what does the Diyanet’s increase in female preachers reveal about the intertwined relationship between women, religion and the state in contemporary Turkey? Or, in other words, what does it reveal about the transformation of Turkey’s assertive secularism? Following year-long ethnographic observations of the vaizeler’s daily activities in three Istanbul districts (Bahçelievler, Üsküdar and Be?ikta?), this paper analyses the evolution of female religious engagement in Turkey. The concluding remarks highlight the trend of professionalisation and standardisation in the traditional activity of female preaching. The vaizeler’s sessions are also extremely telling of a broader and complex redefinition of Turkish secularism.