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In the alpha span test, short lists of words are presented and the participant's task is to mentally reorder the words and give them back in correct alphabetical order. Alpha span is the longest list of words correctly recalled; the article also describes a scoring method in which credit is given for partially correct answers. Alpha span provides a quick and easily completed measure of verbal-numerical working memory (WM), and evidence is presented to show that it is also a valid and reliable measure. One purpose of the article is to present data on age-related differences in WM in participants 17 to 87 years of age. These data show that alpha span is highest in people in their 20s and then declines systematically from the 20s to the 80s. A 2nd purpose is to report data on the reliability of the alpha span measure and explore its relationships with other cognitive measures. The article concludes with some comments on the nature of WM as illustrated by alpha span; specifically, we suggest that WM reflects both domain-general executive functions and specific abilities in the domain tapped by the task in question. (PsycINFO Database Record

The whole Psalter could be seen as a second Torah, whose five books are witness to the making, dissolution and renewal of the covenant with David. This article looks at Book Four of that story (Psalms 90–106), where the figure of Moses and the traditions of the Exodus are prominent and create an alternative vision to the covenant with David which is under threat (Psalm 89). These seventeen psalms comprise four collections (90–92, 93–100, 101–103, 104–106). By focusing on later Jewish and Christian reception of each psalm, the article shows how Jewish tradition maintains the earlier emphases on Moses and pre-Davidic traditions, whilst Christian tradition interprets them after the time of David, through the person of Christ. However, the article demonstrates that each tradition also recognizes a universal theology throughout Book Four: God as refuge in 90–92, God's cosmic rule in 93–100, God's mercy in suffering in 101–103, and God as Creator and Redeemer in 104–106.

This chapter examines six poetic books, under the headings of liturgical poetry (Psalms, Lamentations), dramatic poetry (Job, Song), and didactic poetry (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes). It assesses, first, the particular features of all biblical poetry, in terms of style and formal structures, and, second, the reasons for ascribing these six books as postexilic works. Each book is then discussed in detail. Particular attention is paid to their poetic style and structures, to their compilation as a whole, and to their reception history: the latter in particular testifies to an ongoing “performative” potential, whether for the synagogue, church, classroom, theatre, concert hall, or as a work of art. The chapter concludes that each book shares several poetic features in common, but what really unites them is their detachment from any single spatial or temporal setting, each being “timeless” as literature and so “universal” in use.

Les psaumes 90-92 font partie de la quatrieme section du Psautier, ou la figure de Moise a une place importante. L’article etudie l’histoire de la reception juive et chretienne des trois psaumes, tant dans les textes, commentaires ou poemes, que dans la liturgie, l’iconographie ou la musique. La figure du Dieu refuge et protecteur du mal traverse les Ps 90-91 dans les lectures juive et chretienne, alors que le Ps 92, lie a la liturgie du shabbat, est peu commente par la tradition chretienne. Au-dela de leur enracinement dans l’histoire biblique, ces psaumes, dans l’epaisseur de leur reception, entrainent leur lecteur dans une conversation multiculturelle.

This paper discusses biblical poetry in relation to the ancient Greek-Latin tradition of lyric poetry. Since the Greek word »lyric« and the Hebrew word »psalterion« each have musical connotations, there must be some connection between biblical psalmody and lyric poetry. Indeed, the liturgical superscriptions of many psalms and the numerous hints to musical instruments and singing within them suggest that many texts were originally used for accompaniment to music and so could be seen as ›lyric poetry‹ in the strictest sense. There are, of course, key differences between ancient and biblical lyric poetry. Hebrew poems are formally marked not so much by metre or rhyme as by more general conventions of sonority and word-play, perhaps to facilitate memorisation. Furthermore, Hebrew poetry is particularly recognizable by its balanced expression of thought, a ›parallelism‹ which includes repeated or contrasting ideas and figurative language. This feature is also evident in some Hebrew prose: this ›blurring of the boundaries‹ between prose and poetry is another feature which distinguishes biblical poetry from ancient Greek or Latin lyric poetry. One other distinctive feature of psalmody is that, although rooted in the liturgy of the first Temple (950–587 BCE), and developing in the liturgy of the second Temple period, it continued to thrive even after the fall of the Temple in 70 CE. The liturgical use of the psalms resulted in its continual prominence throughout Jewish and Christian history; and because the essence of Hebrew poetry is more dependent on sense than sound this has also enabled a rich tradition of translation. So Hebrew psalmody is ›re-invented‹ through the several Greek, Latin, and Aramaic versions, as well as through the many languages of the early modern period, right up to the contemporary vernacular. In this sense psalmody is unusual: unlike ancient classical poetry it provides an ongoing and living tradition for a community of faith.

This book has three divisions – entitled History, Memory, Forgetting – and these intentionally echo Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting, with a similar concern, which is to wrestle with how ...

Impairment on verbal fluency tasks has been one of the more consistently reported neuropsychological findings after cerebellar lesions, but it has not been uniformly observed and the possible underlying cognitive basis has not been investigated. We tested twenty-two patients with chronic, unilateral cerebellar lesions (12 Left, 10 Right) and thirty controls on phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. We measured total words produced, words produced in the initial 15 seconds, errors and strategy switches. In the phonemic fluency task, the right cerebellar lesion (RC) group produced significantly fewer words compared to the left cerebellar lesion (LC) group and healthy controls, particularly over the first 15 seconds of the task with no increase in errors and significantly fewer switches over the entire task. In the semantic fluency task there was only a modest decrease in total words in the RC group compared to controls. RC lesions impair fluency with many of the same performance characteristics as left prefrontal lesions. This supports the hypotheses of a prefrontal-lateral cerebellar system for modulation of attention/executive or strategy demanding tasks.

The paper highlights the enduring influence of Gunkel and Mowinckel throughout the twentieth century, but its main focus is from the 1980s when there was a notable change of emphasis from historically orientated works to studies of a more literary nature (noting here the roles of Wilson, Westermann and Brueggemann). Edited works from SBL in America (1993) and in Germany (1994) are seen as landmark publications. The paper also notes more collaborative works involving Jews and Christians — in the poetry of the psalms, in Qumran studies, and in the reception history of psalmody. The paper concludes by assessing the prospects of psalm studies in these relatively new areas.

La première partie de l’article définit la réception de l’histoire et son rôle. J’explique son lien avec la critique historique et son intérêt pour l’histoire du texte et avec la critique littéraire et son intérêt pour l’attitude du lecteur face au texte. Puis je mets en lumière cinq types de réception de l’histoire – exégèse, ouvrages de piété, liturgie, traduction et représentation esthétique. En divisant l’histoire de la réception en six périodes, de la monarchie davidique à aujourd’hui, on dispose d’une manière de déterminer quand et pourquoi ces cinq types ont été utilisés dans les traditions juive et chrétienne. Dans la seconde partie, ce modèle est appliqué au Psaume 1, un psaume profondément personnel où s’affirme la confiance en Dieu seul. On peut voir, à travers des traductions, des interprétations, l’art et la musique, comment cette expression de la foi a été utilisée à tort, à la fois dans la tradition juive et dans la tradition chrétienne, de Qumran jusqu’à la Réforme, pour promouvoir la supériorité d’une foi sur l’autre. Mais deux lectures contemporaines du Psaume 1, juive et chrétienne, montrent comment une lecture plus irénique et réconciliatrice du psaume commence à prévaloir. Ainsi, l’histoire de la réception offre une perspective unique d’approche biblique, ce dont le Psaume 1 fournit un bel exemple. The first part of the paper explains what reception history is about and its role. I explain how it is related to ‘historical criticism’, with its interest in the history of the text, as well as to ‘literary criticism’, with its interest in the reader’s response to the text. I then highlight five types of reception history – exegesis, devotional works, liturgy, translation and aesthetic representation. I show how, by dividing reception history into six periods, from the Davidic monarchy up to the present day, we have a way of assessing when and why these five types were used, both in Jewish and Christian tradition. The second part of the paper applies this model to Psalm 1. I emphasise, firstly, that this is a deeply personal psalm which affirms trust in God alone. I then show how, through translations, exegesis, art and music, this expression of faith has been misused, in both Jewish and Christian reception history, from Qumran up to the Reformation, to promote the superiority of one faith over the other. I conclude with two contemporary Jewish and Christian readings of Psalm 1 in order to illustrate how a more irenic and conciliatory reading of this psalm is now beginning to prevail. My conclusion is that reception history can offer a unique perspective on the biblical texts, and that Psalm 1 is a good example of this.

This study examined the performance of 38 normal subjects and 43 patients with focal lesions of the frontal lobes on a simple go-nogo task where the probability of the nogo stimulus was either 75% or 25%. Patients with lesions to the superior medial parts of the frontal lobes, in particular to the left superior portion of Brodmann area 6 (which includes the supplementary motor areas and the premotor areas for the right hand) had an increased number of false alarms (incorrect responses to the nogo stimulus). These results indicate that area 6 is specifically involved in the inhibition of response. Patients with lesions to the right anterior cingulate (areas 24 and 32) were slower and more variable in their reaction time. These findings could be explained by an inability to sustain stimulus-response contingencies. Lesions to the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 44, 45, 47) also increased the variability of response, perhaps by disrupting monitoring performance.

Background: Investigations of cognitive deficits after frontal lobe damage have commonly relied on multidimensional tests and relatively coarse specification of lesion anatomy. Some form of impairment in attention is often asserted to cause the revealed deficits.Objective: To describe a disorder of attention in patients with frontal damage using a theoretical model of the fundamental cognitive processes that underlie attention.Methods: The ability to perform a task of concentrated responding was studied in 43 patients with well-defined chronic frontal lesions and 38 control subjects using a continuous reaction time (RT) test. Performance measures were mean RT, RT across blocks of the test, and errors. Lesion measures were coarse localization and a hot-spot analysis to detect finer grained lesion effects.Results: Only patients with lesions in the right superomedial (SM) frontal regions had significantly prolonged RT consistently across the entire test. The critical lesion was in Brodmann’s areas 24, 32, 9, and 46 days and in the adjacent corpus callosum. Patients with lesions in left lateral frontal (LL) regions made significantly more errors on the 20% of trials in the first block. The critical lesion was in areas 44, 45, and 47/12.Conclusion: Concentrating attention to respond is affected by lesions in two different frontal regions for reasons that reflect impairments in different cognitive processes. Right superomedial lesions cause an insufficient energizing of attention to respond. Left lateral lesions cause defective setting of specific stimulus-response contingencies. Constrained tests of attention can demonstrate impairments in specific cognitive operations following lesions to different regions of the frontal lobes.

Books reviewed in this article: J. P. Burgess, Why Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible in a Time of Church Conflict T. E. Fretheim and K. Froehlich, The Bible as Word of God in a Postmodern Age R. S. Hess and G. J. Wenham (eds), Make the Old Testament Live from Curriculum to Classroom M. E. Mills, Images of God in the Old Testament R. J. Clifford, The Wisdom Literature S. L. McKenzie and M. P. Graham (eds), The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to the Critical Issues P. R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures F. F. Segovia and M. A. Tolbert (eds), Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy

It is impossible to read the first fifteen chapters of Exodus alongside the royal psalms and Zion hymns in the Psalter without noticing that very different perceptions of Israel's beginnings co-existed in the pre-exilic period. The Moses-Egypt tradition is about a wandering people, deprived of land and status, living under the promise of the protection offered by a nomadic clan-god; whilst the David-Zion tradition, fundamental to so many psalmists, concerns an established nation, a royal state cult which ratifies claims to land and status through its deity ‘housed’ in a Temple. And yet the Exodus tradition is used in a handful of psalms: the question thus arises — what purpose does it serve? Furthermore, why should the psalmists use such an anomalous tradition in this way?