bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Thecla
Authors: Kraemer Ross S.
Published: October 2019

Subsequent readers of the Pauline letters found much in them to support both celibacy and noncelibate marriage. A century or so later, someone formulated a tale of an elite young virgin named Thecla, who renounced her engagement and left her family to adopt an ascetic, celibate form of Christian practice preached by Paul. This essay analyzes the treatment of gender and sexuality in the Acts of Thecla with attention to both the ancient narrative itself and scholarly debates. Gender reversal is here central to the critique leveled by the text. Christian women are the ultimate exemplars of masculine morality and piety, compared to whom even Christian men are deficient in this regard—or at least less impressive. The essay also attends to the complex relationship between contemporary theological debates (especially with respect to women’s ordination) and the Thecla narrative as historical precedent.
Mary Magdalene
Authors: Brock Ann Graham
Published: October 2019

The New Testament gospels and numerous extracanonical texts portray Mary Magdalene as one of the most significant of Jesus’s disciples, present at Jesus’s crucifixion and primary among the resurrection witnesses. Moreover, many of these ancient sources portray Jesus or heavenly messengers or both commissioning her to tell the other disciples the good news. As a result, many claim apostolic authority for her, and some even call her “apostle of the apostles.” Among key texts that feature her are the Gospel of Philip, Pistis Sophia, and the Manichaean Psalms. She may also be the protagonist in the Gospel of Mary, although a few suppose her to be Mary the Mother or Mary of Bethany. The portrayals of Mary Magdalene often feature her as an especially prominent, outspoken, visionary leader, who, in postresurrection dialogues with Jesus, frequently demonstrates insights beyond other disciples, including Peter, who often challenges her.
Leadership Roles and Early Christian Communities
Authors: Osiek Carolyn
Published: October 2019

This essay analyzes evidence for leadership roles of women in early Christianity. Gendered cultural constraints were necessarily at play from the beginning and throughout the development and enactment of leadership structures. Yet women found ways to exercise leadership in a milieu of intertwined and pervasively patriarchal and androcentric cultures—Greek, Jewish, and Roman. The essay argues that any notion of linear development in either direction, toward the “liberation” of women or toward their containment and subordination, does not seem warranted. Rather, the dynamics of both “liberation” and “oppression” and everything in between are to be seen at every level and in every historical period. It explores early Christian women’s roles in the household, in the assembly, as apostles, prophets, and teachers, as martyrs, and as widows and deacons.
Material Culture and Historical Analysis
Authors: Nasrallah Laura Salah
Published: October 2019

This chapter outlines and argues for the vital importance of material culture in our historiographies of early Christianity in four parts. The chapter begins by defining material culture and then shows that material culture has long been included in the history of scholarship of the New Testament. Next, it surveys some of the key trends in the use of material culture for the study of women, gender, and sexuality in antiquity, and, finally, it suggests ways in which feminist materialist philosophy and history leads us to think more expansively about what is meant by material culture, focusing on the “matter” within it and harnessing theories of materiality to deepen our historical analysis of the context for the first production and reception of New Testament and other early Christian texts.
Masculinity Studies
Authors: Conway Colleen M.
Published: October 2019

This chapter traces the origins of critical masculinity studies of New Testament texts in poststructuralist gender theory, especially as this theory was carried into the study of masculinity in classical texts. It also points to the influence of sociological work on cultural masculinities, especially the idea of hegemonic and alternative masculinities. The idea of hegemonic masculinity provided a theoretical justification for bridging from classical texts, produced by elite men of Greece and Rome, to analysis of the relatively nonelite writings of the New Testament. In spite of the consistent comparative methodology for New Testament masculinity studies, conclusions from these studies vary because of theoretical differences around concepts of the body. Recent studies of masculinities in the New Testament show not only an ongoing interest in hegemonic forms of masculinity but also a turn to arguments for subversive and resistant masculinities. The chapter closes with a call for future work to be more thoroughgoing by including gender-critical analyses of the deity. It highlights calls for the work to be multidisciplinary and to do more to bring this critical work to the general public.
Parenting and Moral Development
Authors: Laible Deborah J. , Carlo Gustavo , Padilla-Walker Laura M.
Published: October 2019

This chapter provides an overview of the volume and lays out the ways in which both parenting and moral development are multidimensional constructs. Parenting, for example, includes both broad indices of dyadic relational quality (such as security and warmth) and more specific practices (including discipline/control, rewards, and parent-child conversations). Moral development is equally complex and involves a wide range of moral affects (e.g., empathy, guilt, forgiveness), moral cognition (e.g., moral reasoning, perspective-taking), and values/identity-related processes. Thus, we highlight the complex nature of both constructs and argue that researchers need to take a nuanced approach to understanding the interplay between parenting and moral development. Finally, we also explain how the interplay between parenting and moral development is further complicated by the transactional processes between the two constructs and by cultural influences. We then provide an overview of each of the sections of the volume.
Parenting, Neurobiology, and Prosocial Development
Authors: Miller Jonas G. , Hastings Paul D.
Published: October 2019

Children vary considerably in their propensities to orient toward, feel empathy for, and provide help to others in need or distress. This variability is rooted in a complex interplay between parenting factors, child neurobiology, and development. This chapter focuses on the two most common perspectives for studying and theorizing about this interplay. First, children’s experiences with compassionate and sensitive caregiving help to regulate and organize neurobiological systems related to affiliation, stress, and emotion in ways that prepare children to be prosocial. However, children also vary in their sensitivity to the effects of compassionate versus harsh caregiving. Thus, this chapter also considers how children’s neurobiology moderates the relation between parenting factors and prosocial development. These biopsychosocial perspectives expand our understanding of which children will be more or less prosocial as well as the mechanisms underlying these individual differences.
The Republic
Authors: Scott Dominic
Published: October 2019

This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Republic. The Republic is among Plato’s most complex works. From its title, the first-time reader will expect a dialogue about political theory, yet the work starts from the perspective of the individual, coming to focus on the question of how, if at all, justice contributes to an agent’s happiness. Only after this question has been fully set out does the work evolve into an investigation of politics—of the ideal state and of the institutions that sustain it, especially those having to do with education. But the interest in individual justice and happiness is never left behind. Rather, the work weaves in and out of the two perspectives, individual and political, right through to its conclusion. All this may leave one wondering about the unity of the work. The chapter shows that, despite the enormous range of topics discussed, the Republic fits together as a coherent whole.
The Theaetetus
Authors: Lee Mi-Kyoung
Published: October 2019

This chapter pursues two themes concerning the relation between epistemology and metaphysics in the Theaetetus. The first theme concerns Plato’s methodology: sometimes Socrates examines a thesis on its own, and sometimes he examines it by assuming premises on behalf of that thesis. These ancillary theses introduce metaphysical ideas and commitments that are meant to describe sufficient conditions under which the proposed definitions would be true. But they turn out to create problems for the very definitions they were meant to support. The second theme of the discussion concerns the kinds of objects of knowledge under consideration. For the reader of the Theaetetus, the theory of Forms is the elephant in the room—Socrates never mentions it, but that does not mean it has gone away.
Plato’s Philosophy of Language
Authors: Crivelli Paolo
Published: October 2019

Ideas in and problems of philosophy of language surface frequently in Plato’s dialogues. Some passages briefly formulate, or presuppose, views about names, signification, truth, or falsehood; others are extended discussions of important themes of philosophy of language. This chapter focuses on three topics. The first is the linguistic dimension of the theory of Forms; the second is the discussion of names in the Cratylus, Plato’s only dialogue almost completely dedicated to linguistic themes; the third is the examination of semantic and ontological issues in the Sophist, whose linguistic section (259d9‒264b10) presents Plato’s most mature reflections on statements, truth, and falsehood.
Plato and Aristotle in the Academy
Authors: Shields Christopher
Published: October 2019

This chapter considers Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato. Among these are (1) Aristotle raises doubts about and rejects aspects of Plato’s theory of Forms, (2) Aristotle dismisses Plato’s soul-body dualism, and (3) Aristotle expresses severe reservations about the tenability of Plato’s political philosophy. In an effort to come to appreciate some otherwise easily overlooked problems in Plato’s theory of Forms, the chapter focuses on one of Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato, one that seems initially intended to land Plato in a straightforward and inescapable contradiction. In the process of determining the actual force of Aristotle’s criticism, it is shown that this is less straightforward than it initially appears, and that Plato need hardly be bowed before it. By understanding Aristotle’s criticisms of his teacher in the context of their mutual association in the Academy, we will thus also come to appreciate that Aristotle has much of consequence to teach us about Plato.
The Phaedo on Philosophy and the Soul
Authors: Castagnoli Luca
Published: October 2019

This chapter presents a reading of the Phaedo. The Phaedo is more than an inquiry into the nature and destiny of the soul (psuchē). It also offers a “second defense” (apologia) of Socrates, his life and intellectual activity, and a philosophical tour de force that spans ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical method, and protreptic. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 1 offers a synopsis of the dialogue, outlining the interconnection of its main sections and themes. Section 2 engages with some central aspects of the Phaedo’s theory of the soul, in particular the nature of the soul-body “separation.” Section 3 examines one of Socrates’ arguments for the immortality of the soul, the “Recollection Argument.” Section 4 reconstructs the Phaedo’s subtle and pervasive reflection upon philosophy, its methods and goals, and especially upon philosophical argument.
A Liking Versus Wanting Perspective on Emotion and the Brain
Authors: Berridge Kent C.
Published: October 2019

Reward, pleasure, threat, fear, and disgust are emotional labels that we often use with confidence, as if we knew the identity of their corresponding psychological processes. Those psychological processes of emotion are quite real and deeply grounded in brain systems shared by humans with many animals. But, the identity of fundamental psychological components within emotion are sometimes mistaken because only the final products are experienced, losing the identity of important psychological components that arise en route. Some of those components can have counterintuitive psychological features. For example, the experience of pleasant rewards actually contains distinct psychological processes of “liking” (hedonic impact) and “wanting” (incentive salience). Experience of fear-evoking threats hides distinct psychological components of passive reaction and an actively coping form of fearful salience. Perhaps most counterintuitively, the component of “fear” salience in threat shares a hidden psychological and neural relationship to that of “wanting” for rewards. These psychological components have implications both for ordinary emotions and for pathological disorders ranging from addiction to paranoia. Affective neuroscience studies in this way can produce surprises and insights into the psychological structure of emotions.
Positive Emotion Regulation in Depression
Authors: Vanderlind W. Michael , Joormann Jutta
Published: October 2019

Depression is a disorder of emotion dysregulation. Indeed, emotion regulation difficulties are clearly evident in the hallmark features of the disorder: sustained negative affect and anhedonia. Whereas an abundance of research has focused on the downregulation of negative affect, only recently has empirical work begun to untangle depression-related difficulties experiencing and maintaining positive emotions. This chapter first reviews the phenomenology of positive emotion disruptions within major depression and then identifies emerging findings that highlight potential mechanisms of these disruptions. Various forms of methodology (e.g., self-report, behavioral tasks, psychophysiology, neuroimaging) are integrated to address the following questions: Where does positive emotion fall apart in depression and why? The chapter concludes by discussing implications for the assessment of major depression as well as the refinement of interventions aimed at treating this debilitating disorder.
Positive Affect and Biological Rhythms
Authors: Byrne Jamie , Murray Greg
Published: October 2019

In humans, positive affect is an indicator of activation of the reward system, a neurobiological adaptation guiding motivation and behavior in the context of incentive cues. Disturbances of positive affect and related reward function are defining features of mood disorders and other serious psychopathology, so there are calls for a deeper understanding of normal and abnormal operation of positive affect/reward. One potentially useful avenue of research seeks to understand internal and external modulators of reward function, and a key hypothesis in this domain posits that positive affect/reward is modulated by endogenous biological rhythms. The reward potential of the environment varies with the light–dark cycle, and the fitness of an organism is enhanced by its being primed for environmental engagement when the likelihood of rewards is high (daytime for diurnal species). In all species, the endogenous circadian system is adapted for this purpose. It has therefore been hypothesized that the human reward system not only is reactive to external cues but also is modulated by timing information from the circadian system. Consistent with this prediction, a range of evidence suggests that positive affect is partly controlled by the endogenous circadian system, and there is emerging evidence for a circular relationship between features of sleep and daytime positive mood states. This chapter critically reviews evidence for circadian and sleep modulation of positive affect and situates these findings in a broader understanding of positive affect as an indicator of reward motivation.
Positive Emotion Dysregulation in Eating Disorders and Obesity
Authors: Selby Edward A. , Panza Emily , Plasencia Maribel
Published: October 2019

Individuals diagnosed with eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder often experience a great deal of suffering and persistent reoccurrence of symptoms and engage in suicidal and self-harming behaviors. The bulk of psychological research on eating disorders has historically focused primarily on the experience of negative emotion, which has been well established as a problem across the eating disorders. Emerging evidence suggests that positive emotion dysregulation may also play an important and underappreciated role in eating disorders. The positive emotion dysregulation in eating disorders can take various forms, resulting in either a dearth of positive emotional experience or maladaptive elevations in positive emotion. Some eating-disordered behaviors, such as binge eating, may result in momentary elevations in positive emotion, while others, such as purging, may ameliorate negative emotion and simultaneously promote positive emotions such as relief. In contrast, anorexia nervosa is a disorder frequently characterized by rigid self-control; a growing body of evidence suggests that many anorexia nervosa weight loss behaviors may facilitate the experience and control of positive emotion. Importantly, the experiences of both negative and positive emotion dysregulation may contribute to challenges faced in treating eating disorders and issues with recurrence of symptoms, particularly for anorexia nervosa. Finding alternative methods for facilitating positive emotion in an adaptive manner may be critical for improving current eating disorder treatments. Thus, positive emotion dysregulation may contribute to both onset and maintenance of eating disorders; addressing these issues may provide a promising future direction for improving clinical interventions for eating disorders.
Why Do People Hurt Themselves?
Authors: Franz Peter J. , Kleiman Evan M. , Nock Matthew K.
Published: October 2019

The past two decades have seen a tremendous increase in research on nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), the act of intentionally damaging one’s own tissue without intent to die. This body of research indicated that NSSI may serve an emotion regulation function for those who engage in it, both in terms of reducing negative emotions, and as a means to achieve positive emotional states, such as “fun” or “excitement.” Succeeding in altering one’s emotional state by engaging in NSSI might therefore reinforce this self-injurious behavior. This chapter reviews theoretical and empirical work on the motivational forces shown to promote NSSI in order evaluate whether this research supports the notion of reinforcement-based motivation for NSSI. Particular attention in the chapter is given to how developmentally relevant correlates of reward and motivation (e.g., sensation seeking) might increase NSSI risk among adolescents. The chapter concludes by offering insights and recommendations for future research.
Augmenting Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Build Positive Mood in Depression
Authors: Dunn Barnaby D.
Published: October 2019

Anhedonia—a loss of interest and pleasure in previously enjoyable activities—is one of the two cardinal symptoms of depression but has until recently been relatively neglected in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. One way to better target anhedonia is to identify in the laboratory what psychological mechanisms drive the reduced pleasure experience in depression and then to develop in the clinic novel CBT techniques that address these mechanisms. This chapter reviews evidence evaluating how well classic CBT repairs anhedonia, provides an overview of recent experimental work characterizing anhedonia and exploring anhedonia maintenance mechanisms, and discusses implications for adapting CBT to better repair anhedonia. While the focus is on depression, implications for the transdiagnostic treatment of anhedonia are discussed.
Psychological Treatments for Anhedonia
Authors: Dour Halina J. , LeBeau Richard T. , Craske Michelle G.
Published: October 2019

Anhedonia is defined as the reduced ability to anticipate or expect future rewards, recognize or appreciate present rewards, and learn methods of obtaining rewards. It is a core symptom of depression and a correlate of many anxiety disorders. Anhedonia is a unique and significant predictor of negative long-term outcomes and poor treatment response. Despite the apparent link between diminished positive affect and affective disorders, current psychotherapies for anxiety and depression primarily focus on minimizing negative affect (e.g., sadness, thoughts of death) with little focus on addressing deficits in positive affect (anhedonia). This chapter reviews current and emerging interventions that target anhedonia, including a discussion of possible mechanisms (i.e., factors that explain change) of these treatments. It concludes with directions for future research in this important area.
LGBT Politics in South Asia
Authors: Munhazim Ahmad Qais
Published: October 2019

LGBT politics in South Asia is rooted in both the history of colonialism and what the author of this chapter calls the “underground movement” of the LGBT South Asian communities themselves. Offering a critique of coming out, the chapter argues that South Asian states carry the burden of colonial violence to this day. Therefore, embracing Western coming out culture for these states is antithetical to the process of decolonization. This chapter moves from a state-centric understanding of LGBT politics to an everyday people–focused conceptualization and practices of LGBT politics and movements that cross geographical, cultural, religious, and political boundaries in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Employing a feminist autoethnographic approach, the chapter argues that public space performances of hijras on the streets, trains, buses, and homes in South Asia are the most authentic, indigenous, decolonial, and antipatriarchal drives in creating space for LGBT communities in the region. This movement troubles gendered and heteronormative public spaces while also claiming the rich history and diversity of gender and sexuality in South Asia.
Gender in Israel
Authors: Itzkovitch-Malka Reut
Published: October 2019

This chapter traces, identifies, and characterizes the main features of the gender division in Israeli society and politics. It addresses questions relevant to the status of women, as well as the LGBTQ community, and assesses the magnitude of gender inequality in the various societal, cultural, and political arenas. While substantial progress has been made in improving the status of women in Israel, there is still a long road ahead before Israel can achieve true gender equality. In order for such equality to become a reality, genuine change is in order: a focus on the substantive outputs of the Knesset and the government; an emphasis on gender mainstreaming practices; and widespread feminist activity in formal politics, meant to inject critical feminist views into the political system and alter existing gender relations.
A History of Pain Research
Authors: Cervero Fernando , Wood John N.
Published: October 2019

Useful analgesic plant products have been known since antiquity. In recent times, the cell and molecular basis of damage detection and its complex relationship to pain perception have been explored in detail. A range of technical advances have given us considerable new knowledge about both the peripheral aspects of pain pathways and damage transduction as well as central mechanisms of pain modulation. Electrophysiology, imaging, genetic manipulation of animal models of pain, the role of the immune system, and genetic studies of human pain states have all provided new information. Remarkably, despite these advances, we are still uncertain about the locus of pain perception, while the development of new small-molecule analgesic drugs has had almost no success. This article summarizes the history of pain research and discusses present activities together with potential future routes to pain treatment.
Time and Moral Reasoning
Authors: Ish-Shalom Piki
Published: October 2019

This chapter explores the nexus of moral reasoning, politics, and time, especially in the realm of international politics. It argues that a crucial venue through which adversarial politics infiltrates moral reasoning is the latter’s need of temporalization. Temporalization is facilitated by temporal contexts and narratives so that the temporal boundaries of the situations-to-be-judged become essentially contested. The essential contestedness of temporal boundaries can subjugate normative language and moral reasoning to the dictates of adversarial politics and relativism. Temporalization can change morality into an instrument of power politics. To overcome these problems and salvage morality from subjugation and relativism, the chapter suggests that we should focus on international institutions, which can salvage moral reasoning by changing the structure of incentives facing adversaries, encouraging them not to aim predominantly at their own, domestic audience, but equally at international and universal audiences.
Disappearing from the Picture?
Authors: Finnane Antonia
Published: October 2019

This article explores a lesser known source of graphic images of male and female figures produced during the early decades of the People’s Republic of China. Propaganda posters, stage performances, and cinema suggest a high level of visibility for women in Mao’s China. In contrast, how-to-sew manuals and pattern books, which in Japan, Western countries, and even the Eastern Bloc were dominated by images of women and designs of clothing for them, in China show an overwhelming preponderance of designs for men’s clothing, and graphic drawings of the male figure. The main exceptions were privately authored manuals produced in the early 1950s, preceding socialist transformation. The article argues that the associated development of an everyday “regime of invisibility” for women was linked to the development and intensification of the Mao cult, and the obliteration from the emotional (affective) landscape of objects of desire that might rival Mao himself.
Architecture in Series
Authors: Zarecor Kimberly E.
Published: October 2019

Communist governments in Europe believed that the state should enable the provision of material goods to its people—food, clothing, and shelter among the most critical of these needs. A long-term strategy for how to achieve this goal was left unresolved in the iconic texts and statements of the international communist movement. Architects, planners, and economists had to develop their own solutions to the vexing question of housing for the masses. As part of their work, they had to respond to the new planning regimens of the command economy and institutional structures such as the Five-Year Plan. While the perils of mass production have received much scholarly attention, this essay argues that an alternative base of knowledge about architectural modernism can be mobilized from the history of communist mass housing programs. This model of architecture—referred to here as “serial architecture”—embodied both an aesthetic approach and an ethical stance that remains relevant to enduring questions of the built environment’s agency in creating and sustaining social progress.
“How-To” Make Art in Communist China: Professionalizing Amateur Artists
Authors: Li Vivian Y.
Published: October 2019

This article explores the prominent role of the amateur artist in the conception of communist visual culture in China during the Maoist years (1949–1976). Focusing on two groups of amateur art manuals for the promotion of producing visual arts and meishuzi by the nonartists of the general public, this study reveals the dynamic process of changing authorship and the public nature of the amateur arts in the People’s Republic. In offering detailed explanations of core artistic concepts, techniques, and model examples, the manuals reflect an institutional management of the amateur artists and their creative impulses. Authored by professional artists, but intended for amateurs, the manuals speak of ideological tensions at play in the communist effort of bringing the arts to the people.
Self–Other Agreement on Ratings of Personality Disorder Symptoms and Traits
Authors: Oltmanns Joshua R. , Oltmanns Thomas F.
Published: October 2019

The present chapter considers the factors important to self–other agreement on personality disorder, reviews the literature on this topic, and presents three meta-analyses with a total of fifty-three studies of self–other agreement on personality disorder (total N = 11,812). Meta-analyses were completed on (1) overall self–other agreement on personality disorder symptoms and traits, (2) self–other agreement on DSM personality disorders, and (3) self–other agreement on maladaptive personality traits measured dimensionally by the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5). Overall median self-other agreement was r = 0.37. Self–other agreement on DSM PDs ranged from r = . 32 (dependent PD) to r = 0.51 (antisocial PD). Median self–other agreement was somewhat higher on the PID-5 maladaptive trait domains (r = 0.45), which is in line with prior estimates of the magnitude of self–other agreement on “normal” FFM trait domains.
The Realistic Accuracy Model
Authors: Letzring Tera D. , Funder David C.
Published: October 2019

This chapter describes the realistic accuracy model (RAM), starting with a history of its development. It then describes the four moderators of accuracy in personality judgment—good judge, good target, good trait, and good information—and how these moderators interact with each other. Next, it describes the four stages in the process of making accurate judgments, which are relevance, availability, detection, and utilization. Implications of the model for improving judgment accuracy and applications to judgments of states are then discussed. The chapter concludes with suggested directions for future research, including judgments of other levels of personality besides traits, interactions between moderators, the development of judgmental ability, and the consequences of judgmental accuracy.
Lens and Dual Lens Models
Authors: Osterholz Sarah , Breil Simon M. , Nestler Steffen , Back Mitja D.
Published: October 2019

This chapter presents variants of Brunswik’s lens model aimed to understand whether, when, and why trait judgments are more or less accurate. After outlining the basic concepts of lens models, it describes exemplary studies that have applied the lens model to unravel personality expression and impression formation processes that lead to more or less accurate judgments. Next, it gives an overview of factors that can influence the accuracy of trait judgments and explains these accuracy moderators within the lens model framework. It then describes an extension of the lens model, the dual lens model, that differentiates more controlled versus more automatic aspects on all levels of the lens model (i.e., personality self-concept, cues, personality judgments). It also briefly summarizes further extensions and highlights the lens model as a flexible tool to study cue processes underlying accuracy and related interpersonal perception phenomena. Finally, the chapter concludes by outlining suggestions for future lens model applications in accuracy research.
neural responses to infant vocalizations in adult listeners
Authors: Young Katherine S. , Parsons Christine E. , Stein Alan , Vuust Peter , Craske Michelle G. , Kringelbach Morten L.
Published: October 2019

Infant vocalizations are uniquely salient sounds in our auditory environment. They attract attention and compel the listener to respond quickly and carefully. These sounds prompt a range of effortful and complex behaviours in parents, with the goal of providing life-sustaining care for their infant. The neurobiological underpinnings of this motivational state are of much interest to auditory and parenting researchers alike. Neuroimaging has afforded the opportunity to examine the biological substrates of these complex states. Functional MRI (fMRI) studies have identified a network of cortical and subcortical regions that are reactive to infant cries. This ‘parental brain’ is a combination of regions of the ‘social brain’ (temporal and frontal lobe areas) and subcortical ‘survival’ regions. Temporally sensitive neuroimaging techniques (magnetoencephalography, MEG and local field potentials, LFPs) are beginning to illuminate the dynamic nature of activity among these regions, with findings demonstrating early (50–200 ms) identification of infant cries in the periaqueductal grey and orbitofrontal cortex that may support rapid orientating responses. Emerging work investigating parental experience-dependent brain plasticity suggests associations between various aspects of parenting behaviour and adaptations in fronto-amygdala circuitry. Future work combining levels of analyses in longitudinal designs may lead to a better understanding of caregiving behaviour in health and disease.
Voice Perception Across Species
Authors: Andics Attila , Faragó Tamás
Published: October 2019

This chapter provides a wide comparative perspective on the behavioural and neural capacities for vocalization processing in general, and for cross-species voice processing in particular. Vocal communication usually takes place among conspecifics, but in certain cases heterospecific vocalizations can also help optimize behaviour. Vocal anatomy and the neurophysiological processes of voice production are highly conserved across vertebrates, and the perception of basic biological meanings from vocalizations is thus based on auditory cues that are not species-specific. This chapter suggests that these similarities, and also the general ability to learn about vocal sounds, provide a good basis to assume that specific cues in heterospecific vocalizations may be efficiently processed. The chapter reviews the anatomical, behavioural, and neuroscientific evidence suggesting that heterospecific vocalization processing may work efficiently across a wide range of taxa, and shares the neural substrates involved in the processing of conspecific communication sounds.
Dual Stream Models of Auditory Vocal Communication
Authors: Rauschecker Josef P.
Published: October 2019

Vocal communication sounds in non-human primates have often been considered as precursors of speech. Indeed, both speech and monkey calls consist of similar acoustic-phonetic elements, including harmonic tones, band-passed noise bursts, and frequency-modulated sweeps. These elements are concatenated into word-like auditory objects. In rhesus monkeys, as well as humans, these communication sounds are represented mostly in anterior regions of superior temporal cortex, which form a ventral processing stream. Posterior regions of superior temporal cortex, by contrast, are the starting point for an auditory dorsal stream, which is responsible for auditory-motor control. Voice sounds, which are non-verbal sounds for the expression of emotions that can also be used to identify speakers and their characteristics, form a partly overlapping category of communication sounds. They too are represented in dual-processing streams in the brains of humans and non-human primates, and may be an important stepping-stone in the evolution of language.
Ancient of Days The Vocal Pattern as Primordial Big Bang of Communication
Authors: Van Lancker Sidtis Diana
Published: October 2019

Familiar voice recognition appeared on the earth 250 million years ago with the advent of frogs. Interestingly, air breathing and vocalization coemerged in the amphibian, as they do as first gesture in the human newborn, suggesting that the larynx was designed to serve these two functions with equal commitment. Establishing a repertory of familiar voices plays a crucial role across biological species, enabling identification of family, friend, and foe in the distance and at night. All voices, familiar and unfamiliar, transmit a cornucopia of data about the speaker, a capability which began simply and has flourished prodigiously in the human to include gender, age, size, sexual preference, socioeconomic and geographical background, mood, emotion, linguistic meanings, pragmatic communication, attitude, and psychiatric state. Considering that vocal information draws on an immense range of human behaviour, one can conclude that it takes a whole brain to produce and perceive a voice pattern.
Amygdala Processing of Vocal Emotions
Authors: Whitehead Jocelyne C. , Armony Jorge L.
Published: October 2019

The human voice is a highly regarded tool for conveying and interpreting emotions, essentially to relay one’s intentions while communicating with others. During social discourse, our autonomic nervous system evokes physiological changes within our body, allowing us to project our emotional state through alterations of vocal quality, pitch, frequency, and intensity. Our current understanding of the neural mechanisms involved in processing emotional information has come primarily through studying the neural response to visual stimuli, specifically facial expressions, by means of functional neuroimaging and lesion studies. Recently, there has been a surge of inquiry as to how emotions are perceived and processed via other sensory modalities, most notably, the auditory system. The aim of this chapter is to outline the neural structures that are known to be involved with processing vocal emotional information, and to address and discuss the inconsistencies found in both lesion and neuroimaging studies. Many of these discrepancies can be attributed to differences of experimental design, as the literature continues to expose a complexity to emotional processing that necessitates a number of valid controls.
Machine-Based Decoding of Voices and Human Speech
Authors: Vinciarelli Alessandro
Published: October 2019

This chapter provides an overview of the main approaches adopted in computing science to automatically extract information from speech signals. In particular, the chapter shows how the adoption of statistical models allows one to automatically transcribe speech recordings; that is, to automatically map the speech signals into sequences of words expected to correspond to what the speakers are actually saying. Furthermore, the chapter introduces the methodologies aimed at detecting the physical traces of social and psychological phenomena in speech, in particular when it comes to non-verbal and paralinguistic aspects. In both domains, the chapter outlines the main technological issues that need to be addressed in order to effectively process the data.
Voice Processing in Dementia
Authors: Agustus Jennifer L. , Hailstone Julia C. , Warren Jason D.
Published: October 2019

This chapter summarizes the clinical features, cognitive mechanisms, and neuroanatomical substrates of voice-processing disorders associated with the major dementias. Although disturbances of voice processing are rarely the leading feature of these diseases, impaired perception or recognition of voice identity and non-verbal vocal signals contributes to daily-life disability in the dementias and constitutes a significant source of distress for patients and caregivers. The brain networks targeted in particular diseases provide a substrate for the characteristic clinico-anatomical phenotypes that define different dementias and, more particularly, for the development of voice-processing deficits, as the networks overlap closely those implicated in the processing of voices in the healthy brain. The chapter firstly reviews key clinical and neuroanatomical characteristics of common dementias that affect voice processing, and considers the challenges of assessing voice processing in these diseases. It then outlines a taxonomy of voice-processing symptoms and deficits in the dementias, related to the perception and recognition of voices as complex ‘auditory objects’ that signal speaker identity as well as much other paralinguistic information. The extent to which deficits may be selective for voice attributes versus other domains of non-verbal sound and person knowledge, and the demands of integrating vocal with other sensory information, are considered. The chapter surveys the neuroanatomical correlates of disordered voice processing in neurodegenerative syndromes, and concludes by proposing a framework for understanding voice processing in the dementias and by indicating directions for future work.
The Dark Nights of the Soul in Abrahamic Meditative Traditions
Authors: Fisher Nathan
Published: October 2019

This chapter examines traditional descriptions of challenging stages of Jewish, Christian, and Islamicate meditative paths and some of the ways in which contemporary teachers and students in the West interpret them. It explores how these “dark nights” are understood in some contemplative systems as part of an oscillatory trajectory between expansive and constricting states of consciousness that ultimately lead to traditional goals. These contemporary traditions often draw upon classical mystical texts to appraise such challenging experiences but translate their medieval frameworks of purification into the arena of depth psychology. In introducing the conception of “non-linear paths,” this chapter seeks to highlight the ways in which certain meditation-related difficulties are interpreted and normalized even as individual variability and the unpredictable nature of these paths has been acknowledged for centuries in these traditions.
Meditation, Exceptional Psychophysiological Control, and Parapsychology
Authors: Cardeña Etzel
Published: October 2019

Contemplative traditions have posited that exceptional abilities can occur in conjunction with meditation. These claims have been often dismissed as mere fantasies, but some have been evaluated experimentally. This chapter reviews historical accounts from Asian and Western traditions about such abilities and summarizes the research on the relation of meditation with exceptional psychophysiological control and with parapsychological (psi) phenomena such as clairvoyance or precognition, which seem to bypass time and space constraints. There is some evidence that meditation may increase perceptual sensitivity, bleeding and heart rate control, the ability to withstand cold temperatures and pain, and reduce metabolic responses. Analyses of cumulative research also suggest that meditation (particularly very long-term practice) is associated with greater-than-chance psi performance under controlled conditions. Nonetheless, the study of the relation between meditation and exceptional abilities has been scant, so more research on the topic is clearly warranted.
Judaism and Meditation
Authors: Persico Tomer
Published: October 2019

The Jewish meditative tradition is a diverse collection of techniques and practices, originating at different eras and exhibiting varying characteristics. In the following a summation of the major trends of Jewish meditation is attempted, following a chronological scheme and aiming to underline the shifts in emphasis displayed by different Jewish meditative paths, from the Bible, through the Merkabah literature, to Kabbalah, Hasidism, and ending with contemporary spirituality circles. Special consideration will be given to the effects of modern subjectivity and secularization on the development of Jewish meditative practices and to the inherent tension they exhibit with the Halakhic tradition.
Paul and Religion
Authors: Wasserman Emma
Published: October 2019

This essay develops a definition of religion and uses this definition to clarify the role of comparison in the historical study of Paul’s letters. Critical comparisons are especially important for understanding Paul’s rhetoric about God, Christ, and other gods in light of both Jewish and non-Jewish myths and traditions. Focusing on 1 Cor 8:1–11:1, 15:23–28, Gal 4:3–10, and Rom 1:18–32, the author finds that Paul’s texts fit with traditions of Jewish polemic that ungenerously misrepresent the gods of other peoples in order to assert their non-existence, relative powerlessness, and subordination. Rather than revealing deities of exceptional power and unrivalled political status, such polemics adapt certain widely shared assumptions about the nature of the gods, especially their human-like attributes and political arrangements.
Mission and Evangelism
Authors: Irvin Dale T.
Published: October 2019

From its inception, the modern ecumenical movement has entailed the twin pursuits of realizing both the unity and the mission of the church. Moreover, mission and evangelism were closely related in twentieth-century ecumenical thought. The main ecumenical institutional structure that advanced the churches’ understanding of mission and evangelism for much of the century was the International Missionary Council, which in 1961 became the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism within the World Council of Churches. By the end of the 1960s, Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants were also making major contributions to the broader ecumenical understanding of mission and evangelism. Enduring theological achievements including the concept of the missio Dei and the contextualization of theology remain a part of the overall legacy of the ecumenical movement.
Central Europe
Authors: Metzner-Nebelsick Carola
Published: October 2019

This chapter covers the area between eastern France and western Hungary, and from the Alps to the central European Mittelgebirge, following the established division between the early Iron Age (Hallstatt) and later Iron Age (La Tène) periods, beginning each section with a summary of the history of research and chronology. After characterizing the west–east Hallstatt cultural spheres, early Iron Age burial rites, material culture, and settlements are explored by region, including the phenomenon of ‘princely seats’. In the fifth century BC, a new ideological, social, and aesthetic concept arose, apparent both in the burial record, and especially in the development of the new La Tène art style. This period also saw the emergence of new, larger proto-urban forms of settlement, first unfortified agglomerations, and later the fortified oppida. Finally, the chapter examines changes in the nature and scale of production, material culture, and religious practices through the first millennium BC.
Far-Red Light Accelerates Photosynthesis in the Low-Light Phases of Fluctuating Light
Authors: Kono Masaru , Kawaguchi Hikaru , Mizusawa Naoki , Yamori Wataru , Suzuki Yoshihiro , Terashima Ichiro
Published: October 2019

It is well known that far-red light (FR; >700 nm) drives PSI photochemistry, but its effect on photosynthetic performance has received little attention. In this study, the effects of the addition of FR to red fluctuating light (FL) have on photosynthesis were examined in the leaves of Arabidopsis thaliana. Light-activated leaves were illuminated with FL [alternating high light/low light (HL/LL) at 800/30 μmol m−2 s−1] for 10–15 min without or with FR at intensities that reflected natural conditions. The CO2 assimilation rates upon the transition from HL to LL were significantly greater with FR than without FR. The enhancement of photosynthesis by FR was small under the steady-state conditions and in the HL phases of FL. Proton conductivity through the thylakoid membrane (gH+) in the LL phases of FL, estimated from the dark relaxation kinetics of the electrochromic absorbance shift, was greater with FR than without FR. The relaxation of non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) in the PSII antenna system and the increase in PSII photochemistry in the LL phases accelerated in the presence of FR. Similar FR-effects in FL were confirmed in typical sun and shade plants. On the basis of these results, we concluded that FR exerted beneficial effects on photosynthesis in FL by exciting PSI and accelerating NPQ relaxation and PSII-yield increase. This was probably because of the increased gH+, which would reflect faster ΔpH dissipation and ATP synthesis.