Executive dysfunction affects word list recall performance: Evidence from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) is widely used in clinical practice to evaluate verbal episodic memory. While there is evidence that RAVLT performance can be influenced by executive dysfunction, the way executive disorders affect the serial position curve (SPC) has not been yet explored. To this aim, we analysed immediate and delayed recall performances of 13 non‐demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with a specific mild executive dysfunction (ALSci) and compared their performances to those of 48 healthy controls (HC) and 13 cognitively normal patients with ALS. Moreover, to control for the impact of a severe dysexecutive syndrome and a genuine episodic memory deficit on the SPC, we enrolled 15 patients with a diagnosis of behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and 18 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Results documented that, compared to cognitively normal subjects, ALSci patients had a selective mid‐list impairment for immediate recall scores. The bvFTD group obtained low performances with a selectively increased forgetting rate for terminal items, whereas the AD group showed a disproportionately large memory loss on the primary and middle part of the SPC for immediate recall scores and were severely impaired in the delayed recall trial. These results suggested that subtle executive dysfunctions might influence the recall of mid‐list items, possibly reflecting deficiency in control strategies at retrieval of word lists, whereas severer dysexecutive syndrome might also affect the recall of terminal items possibly due to attention deficit or retroactive interference.     

Ethnography and Subjectivity in Comparative Religious Ethics

The ethnographic turn in religious studies has responded to important developments, such as the rejection of value neutrality and the need to better address the lived experience of individuals and communities. In this essay, I affirm the value of ethnography as a method in comparative religious ethics, but distinguish between two ways of framing ethnography in relation to ethics. The first way insists on the hard limits of translating values across cultures, and tends to marginalize or dismiss normative inquiry. The second way allows for the interpretation of practices of ethical justification in diverse cultural contexts. I argue that this second category of ethnography is more congenial to the work of comparative religious ethicists, since an integral part of ethical inquiry involves reflecting on, and making arguments about, social norms and practices.     

Do Politicians Take Risks Like the Rest of Us? An Experimental Test of Prospect Theory Under MPs

Political psychologists have been quick to use prospect theory in their work, realizing its potential for explaining decisions under risk. Applying prospect theory to political decision‐making is not without problems, though, and here we address two of these: (1) Does prospect theory actually apply to political decision‐makers, or are politicians unlike the rest of us? (2) Which dimension do politicians use as their reference point when there are multiple dimensions (e.g., votes and policy)? We address both problems in an experiment with a unique sample of Dutch members of parliament as participants. We use well‐known (incentivized) decision situations and newly developed hypothetical political decision‐making scenarios. Our results indicate that politicians’ deviate from expected utility theory in the direction predicted by prospect theory but that these deviations are somewhat smaller than those of other people. Votes appear to be a more important determinant of politicians’ reference point than is policy.     

THE PROBLEM OF “GOD” IN PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION: LONERGAN'S “COMMON SENSE” (RELIGION) VERSUS “THEORY” (THEOLOGY)

The emphasis on God in American psychology of religion generates the problem of explaining divine‐versus‐natural causality in “spiritual experiences.” Especially “theistic psychology” champions divine involvement. However, its argument exposes a methodological error: to pit popular religious opinions against technical scientific conclusions. Countering such homogenizing “postmodern agnosticism,” Bernard Lonergan explained these two as different modes of thinking: “common sense” and “theory”—which resolves the problem: When theoretical science is matched with theoretical theology, “the God‐hypothesis” explains the existence of things whereas science explains their natures; and, barring miracles, God is irrelevant to natural science. A review of the field shows that the problem is pervasive; attention to “miracles”—popularly so‐named versus technically—focuses the claims of divine‐versus‐natural causality; and specifications of the meaning of spiritual, spirituality, science, worldview, and meaning itself (suffering that same ambiguity: personal import versus cognitive content) offer further clarity. The problem is not naturalism versus theism, but commonsensical versus theoretical thinking. This solution demands “hard” social science.     

基于行动者-对象相互依赖模型探究牺牲动机对亲密关系满意度的影响

目的:探究牺牲动机对亲密关系满意度的影响以及知觉到对方牺牲动机的中介作用。方法:对168对情侣采用亲密关系满意度、牺牲动机和知觉到对方的牺牲动机量表来测量,并运用行动者-对象相互依赖模型进行分析。结果:行动者效应:知觉到对方的牺牲趋近动机是牺牲趋近动机和关系满意度的中介变量。对象效应:只发现女性的牺牲趋近动机通过正向影响男性知觉到的牺牲趋近动机从而正向影响男性的关系满意度。结论:本研究有助于理解恋人双方做出牺牲行为背后的动机对于双方关系满意度的影响。     

Semantics and the sacred

ABSTRACT

This article looks at four different scholarly perspectives on ‘sacred’ – the ineffable sacred, the experienced sacred, the polarized sacred and the contextualized sacred – in order to draw out their implicit presuppositions about meaning. The first two stances presuppose that meaning depends on what bits of language are about (referentialism), and the other two stances presuppose that meaning depends on relations between bits of language (holism). The article concludes three things: these prominent views of ‘sacred’ rest on usually implicit or unrecognized assumptions about the nature of meaning; some of those assumptions explain why certain theories are contentious and problematic and others ground more promising and productive approaches.     

Knowledge central: A central role for knowledge attributions in social evaluations

Five experiments (N?=?1710) demonstrate the central role of knowledge attributions in social evaluations. In Experiments 1–3, we manipulated whether an agent believes, is certain of, or knows a true proposition and asked people to rate whether the agent should perform a variety of actions. We found that knowledge, more so than belief or certainty, leads people to judge that the agent should act. In Experiments 4–5, we investigated whether attributions of knowledge or certainty can explain an important finding on how people act based on statistical evidence, known as “the Wells effect”. We found that knowledge attributions, but not certainty attributions, mediate this effect on decision making.     

A Better Look at Intelligence

The Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) model is offered as an alternative to the unidimensional conceptualization of intelligence as a general ability. The unidimensional conceptualization has not helped researchers and clinicians understand variations of cognitive functions within special populations such as individuals with learning disabilities, disorders of attention, or mental retardation. Neither has this conceptualization aided in program planning for these individuals. PASS is a model of cognitive function based on contemporary research in both cognition and neuropsychology and provides a theory for both assessment and intervention. This article reviews concepts and examples of PASS theory and its application to reading disabilities and mental retardation. For example, the article links dyslexia with a deficit in successive processing. It also identifies the major difficulties of individuals with Down syndrome in phonological memory and articulation. Further research on successive processing, and planning as it relates to language, is suggested.     

Personal Contact with Refugees is Key to Welcoming Them: An Analysis of Politicians' and Citizens' Attitudes Towards Refugee Integration

Politicians are influential both in directing policies about refugees and in framing public discourse about them. However, unlike other host country residents, politicians' attitudes towards refugees and integration are remarkably understudied. We therefore examine similarities and differences between politicians' attitudes towards refugee integration and those held by citizens. Based on the stereotype content model, we expect that political ideology informs stereotypes about refugees, which subsequently shape attitudes towards refugee integration. Based on the Contact Hypothesis, we further argue that personal contact with refugees reduces negative stereotypes about them—in particular for those endorsing a right-wing ideology. We draw on data collected via two surveys with 905 politicians and 8013 citizens in the Netherlands to show that (1) unlike those with a left-wing orientation, residents (i.e., both politicians and citizens) with a right-wing orientation hold more negative stereotypes about refugees, which in turn relate to more negative attitudes towards refugee integration; (2) personal contact with refugees is associated with less negative stereotypes among residents; and (3) politicians, compared to citizens, report less negative stereotypes and more positive attitudes towards refugee integration. The practical implication of fostering residents' contact with refugees as well as the implications for future research are discussed.     

贬损型幽默:笑声能化解敌意吗?

贬损型幽默指包含贬损意味同时令人发笑的信息。释放论、优越论、失谐?解决理论与良性进犯理论尝试解释了其心理机制。贬损不一定好笑,群体身份和态度、接收者与贬损对象的心理距离以及人格、文化差异等均会影响幽默效果。贬损型幽默可以起到释放偏见与表达社会支配倾向的作用,对人际交往的作用则不一致。贬损型幽默的整合性过程模型串联描述了贬损型幽默的机制、前因和后效,可作为未来研究的框架。未来亦可继续探讨贬损型幽默的消极影响,以及其对群际关系和社会公平的潜在积极作用,并关注到中国社会文化背景下的贬损型幽默。