Children’s Developing Understanding of the Cognitive Abilities of Supernatural and Natural Minds: Evidence from Three Cultures

Despite a wealth of research exploring developmental patterns of children’s understanding of the thoughts and desires of another (or, their theory of mind), relatively little research has explored children’s developing understanding of supernatural minds. Of the work that exists, very few studies have explored whether patterns are similar in other cultural contexts, or religious traditions outside of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies. To address this deficit, the present study recruited 2-to-5-year-old children from three countries (United Kingdom, Albania, and Israel) with different religious traditions (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish). Children completed two perception (audio and visual) tasks and one memory task assessing their understanding of natural and supernatural minds’ cognitive abilities. Analyses revealed different patterns for responses about human minds. However, there were similar results across samples for responses about God, suggesting a shared developmental pattern. We conclude that children from religious traditions with a High God (God, Allah, Ha-Shem) share a similar developing concept of God

Carbon isotope discrimination in leaves of the common paperbark tree, Melaleuca quinquenervia, as a tool for quantifying past tropical and subtropical rainfall

Quantitative reconstructions of terrestrial climate are highly sought after but rare, particularly in Australia. Carbon isotope discrimination in plant leaves (Δleaf) is an established indicator of past hydroclimate because the fractionation of carbon isotopes during photosynthesis is strongly influenced by water stress. Leaves of the evergreen tree Melaleuca quinquenervia have been recovered from the sediments of some perched lakes on North Stradbroke and Fraser Islands, south-east Queensland, eastern Australia. Here, we examine the potential for using M. quinquenervia ∆leaf as a tracer of past rainfall by analysing carbon isotope ratios (δ13C) of modern leaves. We firstly assess Δleaf variation at the leaf and stand scale and find no systematic pattern within leaves or between leaves due to their position on the tree. We then examine the relationships between climate and Δleaf for an 11 year timeseries of leaves collected in a litter tray. M. quinquenervia retains its leaves for 1-4 years; thus cumulative average climate data are used. There is a significant relationship between annual mean ∆leaf and mean annual rainfall of the hydrological year for 1-4 years (i.e. 365-1460 days) prior to leaf fall (r2=0.64, p=0.003, n=11). This relationship is marginally improved by accounting for the effect of pCO2 on discrimination (r2=0.67, p=0.002, n=11). The correlation between rainfall and Δleaf, and the natural distribution of Melaleuca quinquenervia around wetlands of eastern Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia offers significant potential to infer past rainfall on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales

Writing in Britain and Ireland, c. 400 to c. 800

No abstract available

Creating and curating an archive: Bury St Edmunds and its Anglo-Saxon past

This contribution explores the mechanisms by which the Benedictine foundation of Bury St Edmunds sought to legitimise and preserve their spurious pre-Conquest privileges and holdings throughout the Middle Ages. The archive is extraordinary in terms of the large number of surviving registers and cartularies which contain copies of Anglo-Saxon charters, many of which are wholly or partly in Old English. The essay charts the changing use to which these ancient documents were put in response to threats to the foundation's continued enjoyment of its liberties. The focus throughout the essay is to demonstrate how pragmatic considerations at every stage affects the development of the archive and the ways in which these linguistically challenging texts were presented, re-presented, and represented during the Abbey’s history

Parent And Provider Perceptions Of Suboptimal Communication In A Pediatric Intensive Care Unit: A Qualitative Investigation. Tyler L. Greenway, Kevin G. Couloures. Section Of Critical Care, Department Of Pediatrics, Yale University, School Of Medicine, New Haven, Ct.

Family perceptions of suboptimal communication within the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) are poorly understood. We designed a qualitative study to characterize the perspective and experiences of parents, guardians, and medical providers of critically ill children regarding how communication can be improved in a PICU setting. Semi-structured interviews were conducted from August 2017 to January 2018 in a PICU at a tertiary-care academic center. Participants included 42 parents and guardians whose children were admitted to the PICU and 12 interviews with nurses, residents, fellows, and attending intensivist staff. Interviews were conducted by an individual who was not part of the medical team and were audio-recorded and professionally transcribed verbatim. An inter-professional team of a physician, nurse manager, and medical student coded the transcripts. Interviewing continued until thematic saturation was reached. Codes were organized into common themes using a modified constant comparative method. The parents and guardians interviewed represented 16 acutely ill children with minimal past medical history, and 26 acutely ill children in the setting of a chronic health condition, while excluding patients being evaluated for end-of-life care. Staff interviewed included 3 residents, 3 fellows, 3 attending intensivists, and 3 nurses. Participants\u27 perceptions and experiences of suboptimal communication challenges included: 1) Frustration over coordination of care, 2) Rounds can be intimidating and are insufficient for effective communication, 3) Undervaluing the knowledge of families of children with chronic health conditions or special needs, 4) Communication breakdowns occur across provider hand-offs and 5) Miscommunications and misunderstandings arise navigating multiple levels of providers. Suboptimal communication has the potential to negatively impact the families\u27 PICU experience. Families identified suboptimal communication that was not perceived by PICU staff including the undervaluing of the knowledge of families of children with chronic health conditions. Interventions should be focused on these discrepancies in perception to see if they might improve patient care

The mnemonic of intuitive ontology violation is not the distinctiveness effect: evidence from a broad age spectrum of persons in the UK and China during a free-recall task

The typical formulation of Pascal Boyer’s counterintuitiveness theory asserts that concepts violating intuitive ontological-category structures are more memorable. However, Boyer’s () original claim centred on the transmission advantages of counter-ontological representations that were cultural. Nevertheless, subsequent studies focused on the recall of novel counterintuitive representations, and an “alternative account” of the memorability of counterintuitive concepts has emerged resembling the distinctiveness effect. Yet, experimental evidence shows that familiar concepts have memorability advantages over novel ones. This investigation of these pan-cultural transmission biases used a large age-representative sample (13–86 years; N = 365) in the UK and China. Results were analysed by hlm, with familiarity, counterintuitiveness, and delay as 2-level fixed factors, and age as a covariate. No support was revealed for the typical formulation of the hypothesis — however, a significant age effect and interaction of familiarity × counterintuitiveness were found

The underlying architecture of the creative worlds of children: young persons from the UK and China unwittingly generate more concepts that violate ontological category structure than do older adults during an exemplar‐generation task

Is our cognition the underlying architecture of the recurrent and pan‐cultural imaginative ideas of children and adolescents? Recent cross‐cultural studies show that children and adolescents recall proportionally more creative, counterintuitive concepts than older adults. One outstanding concern is that cultural transmission is also constrained by how concepts emerge into culture. Hence, a broad sample of age demographics in UK and China (10–58 years; N = 90) participated in an exemplar‐generation task where participants assembled statements exemplifying conceptual categories of positive and negative emotion, imagery, humor, and inferential potential. Multiple regression analysis considering counterintuitiveness and age revealed young persons generated significantly more imaginative, counterintuitive ideas than older adults, in both UK and China groups. This cross‐cultural support for an underlying cognitive architecture of human creativity builds on Ward's (1994) research on structured imagination

Is there a window of opportunity for religiosity? Children and adolescents preferentially recall religious-type cultural representations, but older adults do not

Is there a sensitive period in childhood and adolescence for acquiring religiosity? Does a cultural group’s familiarity with religious-type representations affect individuals’ memory for counterintuitive representations? Boyer’s theory asserts that concepts violating developmentally natural intuitive knowledge structures are more transmittable than other concepts. Counterintuitive representations are prevalent across cultures in religious materials, folktales, and children’s stories. A large age-representative sample in the UK and China was used to investigate the interaction of template- and schema-level effects for transmission biases endemic to cultural groups. The measure of free recall employed a mixing of presentation media for stimuli. Results were analyzed using a hierarchical linear model, with familiarity, counterintuitiveness, and delay as two-level fixed factors, and age and schema-level effects as covariates. Younger persons recalled significantly more counterintuitive stimuli than stimuli consistent with domain-specific intuitive assumptions – a trend reversed for older persons

Gods and talking animals: the pan-cultural recall advantage of supernatural agent concepts

Supernatural agent concepts are regarded as a defining trait of religion. The interaction of the minimally counterintuitive (MCI) mnemonic effect and the hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD) may be employed to explain the universal presence of concepts of gods and deities. Using the measure of free-recall, a broad model of cultural transmission investigated this pan-cultural transmission bias with a large age-representative sample (3 to 86 years; N = 764) in UK and China. Results were analyzed by four-way mixed ANOVA considering counterintuitiveness, familiarity, ontological category, and delay, and with age as a covariate. A significant interaction of counterintuitiveness × HADD was found for both UK and China samples. These findings support assertions that supernatural agent concepts are more easily transmitted than other concepts because the present study finds that concepts similar to supernatural agents were more readily recalled

Evaluation of Paper, Cotton, and Polyethylene-Film Bags for Packaging Cornmeal

Excerpts from the report: The purpose of this 24-week storage study was to observe and measure changes in the quality of degermed cornmeal stored in paper, cotton, and polyethylene-film bags under control, ambient, and high humidity conditions. The study was designed to answer the following questions: (1) How do polyethylene-film bags compare with paper and cotton bags for preserving the quality of cornmeal? (2) How well do the fat acidity values and oil content predict deterioration in stored cornmeal? (3) What role does moisture play in the deterioration of cornmeal? (4) What criteria can be used to define quality in cornmeal