Patterns of Religious Education Policy in Switzerland: The Long Arm of Distanced Christians?

In spite of its different cantonal jurisdictions and traditions, the development of religious education in Switzerland over the past decade has taken a common direction: the state has assumed a more active role in the field of religious education in public (state‐run) schools. In this article, we ask the question: How do key social actors interpret these reforms and how do these interpretations relate to the social structure of religion in Switzerland, in particular with respect to the majority category of the so‐called distanced Christians? Drawing on qualitative interviews with members of the schools’ teaching staff, school administrators, and church representatives, the article highlights a dominant interpretative pattern that frames the socially accepted representation of religion in public schools. Thus, rather than addressing the pedagogical dimension of religious education, we discuss the significance of this pattern for the debate on the public presence of religion in Switzerland and Europe.     

Where the brain appreciates the final state of an event: The neural correlates of telicity

In this study we investigated whether the human brain distinguishes between telic events that necessarily entail a specified endpoint (e.g., reaching), and atelic events with no delimitation or final state (e.g., chasing). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the patterns of neural response associated with verbs denoting telic and atelic events, and found that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), an area consistently engaged by verb processing tasks, showed a significantly higher activation for telic compared with atelic verbs. These results provide the first evidence that the human brain appreciates whether events lead to an end or a change of state. Moreover, they provide an explanation for the long-debated question of which verb properties modulate neural activity in the left pMTG, as they indicate that, independently of any other semantic property, verb processing and event knowledge in this area are specifically related to the representation of telicity.     

The pernicious influence of mathematics upon philosophy

We shall argue that the attempt carried out by certain philosophers in this century to parrot the language, the method, and the results of mathematics has harmed philosophy. Such an attempt results from a misunderstanding of both mathematics and philosophy, and has harmed both subjects.Portions of the present text have previously appeared inThe Review of Metaphysics 44 (1990), 259–271, are reprinted with permission.     

Women's communication in Mexican organizations

This study attempts to derive a communication profile of women in Mexican organizations of the private sector. The questions that guided the study were the following: (1) Do women perceive their communication behaviors as similar to or different from those of men at their same organizational level? (2) If women do perceive differences, what is their nature? (3) Do perceived similarities to and differences from men vary by organizational level? Forty-five women in 14 Mexican organizations were intensively interviewed in the winter of 1980. The interviews were distributed equally at three organizational levels—secretarial, middle management, and upper management. It was found that women respondents perceive themselves to differ from men on 18 of 40 verbal and nonverbal communication variables. The average woman in this study perceived that verbally she is more courteous, cheerful, assertive, careful, likely to talk with males, self-confident, and directive than men, and that she expresses less agreement than men. Nonverbally, the average woman was found to look more at the eyes, smile more, give more attention to dress, be more punctual and flexible than men, and to be less rigid in posutre, touch less, invite co-workers to her home less, and take less work home. Organizational level differences were also found. The results are discussed in the light of the theoretical paradigms presented in the study.     

The categorization effect in hedonic contrast: Experts differ from novices

Test stimuli are rated as less “good” when they follow very good context stimuli than when they are presented alone. This diminution in rating is called hedonic contrast. Contrast is attenuated if the context and the test stimuli are perceived as being in different categories. Because experts use as their basic-level categories what are the subordinate levels for novices, they will categorize when novices do not. Therefore, in the following studies, both experts and novices showed hedonic contrast when attractive context orchids preceded more neutral test orchids. However, only the novices showed hedonic contrast when attractive context irises preceded the test orchids. Novices viewed the irises and the orchids as “flowers” and therefore members of the same category, resulting in contrast. Experts, however, viewed the irises and the orchids as being in different categories; therefore, hedonic contrast did not occur.     

Reorganization of functional and effective connectivity during real-time fMRI-BCI modulation of prosody processing

Mechanisms of cortical reorganization underlying the enhancement of speech processing have been poorly investigated. In the present study, we addressed changes in functional and effective connectivity induced in subjects who learned to deliberately increase activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), and improved their ability to identify emotional intonations by using a real-time fMRI Brain-Computer Interface. At the beginning of their training process, we observed a massive connectivity of the rIFG to a widespread network of frontal and temporal areas, which decreased and lateralized to the right hemisphere with practice. Volitional control of activation strengthened connectivity of this brain region to the right prefrontal cortex, whereas training increased its connectivity to bilateral precentral gyri. These findings suggest that changes of connectivity in a functionally specific manner play an important role in the enhancement of speech processing. Also, these findings support previous accounts suggesting that motor circuits play a role in the comprehension of speech.