Aims and hypothesesIn an environment of absolute silence, researchers have found many of their participants to perceive phantom sounds. With this between-subject experiment, we aimed to elaborate on these research findings, and specifically investigated whether–in line with the fear-avoidance model of tinnitus perception and reactivity–fear or level of perceived threat influences the incidence and perceptual qualities of phantom sound percepts in an anechoic room. We investigated the potential role of individual differences in anxiety, negative affect, noise sensitivity and subclinical hearing (...) loss. We hypothesized that participants who experience a higher level of threat would direct their attention more to the auditory system, leading to the perception of tinnitus-like sounds, which would otherwise be subaudible, and that under conditions of increased threat, narrowing of attention would lead to perceptual distortions.MethodsIn total, N = 78 normal-hearing volunteers participated in this study. In general, the study sample consisted of young, mostly female, university students. Their hearing was evaluated using gold-standard pure tone audiometry and a speech-in-noise self-test, which is a sensitive screening test to identify subclinical hearing loss. Prior to a four-minute stay in an anechoic room, we randomized participants block design-wise in a threat and no-threat condition. Participants in the threat condition were deceived about their hearing and were led to believe that staying in the room would potentially harm their hearing temporarily. Participants were asked whether they perceived sounds during their stay in the room and rated the perceptual qualities of sound percepts. They were also asked to fill-out standardized questionnaires measuring anxiety, affect and noise sensitivity. The internal consistency of the questionnaires used was verified in our study sample and ranged between α = 0.61 and α = 0.90.ResultsIn line with incidence rates reported in the literature, 74% of our participants reported having heard tinnitus-like sounds in the anechoic room. Speech-in-noise identification ability was comparable for both groups of participants. The experimental manipulation of threat was proven to be effective, as indicated by significantly higher scores on a Threat Manipulation Checklist among participants in the threat condition as compared to those in the no-threat condition. Nevertheless, participants in the threat condition were as likely to report tinnitus percepts as participants in the no-threat condition, and tinnitus percepts were not rated as being louder or more unpleasant as a function of level of threat. For participants who did experience tinnitus percepts, a higher level of threat was associated with a higher degree of experienced unpleasantness. These associations were absent in those who did not experience tinnitus. Higher negative affect was only slightly associated with higher ratings of tinnitus unpleasantness.ConclusionWhereas our threat manipulation was successful in elevating the level of fear, it did not contribute to a higher percentage of participants perceiving tinnitus-like sounds in the threat condition. However, higher levels of perceived threat were related to a higher degree of perceived tinnitus unpleasantness. The findings of our study are drawn from a rather homogenous participant pool in terms of age, gender, and educational background, challenging conclusions that are applicable for the general population. Participants generally obtained normophoric scores on independent variables of interest: they were low anxious, low noise-sensitive, and there was little evidence for the presence of subclinical hearing loss. Possibly, there was insufficient variation in scores to find effects. (shrink)

The adventurous hero Indiana Jones makes his long-awaited return to theaters this summer! Filled with the intrigue and drama characteristic of all the classic Indiana Jones films, the fourth release is all brought to life by an incredible soundtrack. Selections from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull features popular music from the film, as composed by Academy Award winner John Williams, plus 8 pages of color artwork straight from the movie. This book is part of an instrumental (...) series arranged for Flute, Clarinet, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Trumpet, Horn in F, and Trombone. The arrangements are completely compatible with each other and can be played together as solos. Each book contains a carefully edited part that is appropriate for the Level 2–3 player, and a fully orchestrated accompaniment CD. The CD includes a demo track of each song, which features a live instrumental performance, followed by a play-along track. A piano accompaniment book (optional) is also available. It includes a CD that features various instrument demo tracks from the series. Titles include: *Raiders March* *The Adventures of Mutt* *The Journey to Akator* *Marion’s Theme* *Irina’s Theme*. (shrink)

Contemporary society, according to Centore, is dominated by a post-modern philosophical world-view. Lacking until now, from the many works that have been written on post-modernism, is one that scrutinizes its fundamental assumptions and presuppositions. Being and Becoming attempts to fill this need by synthesizing the key developments in contemporary post-modernism. By taking the reader through the various historical periods and developments which have led to the current situation, Centore shows what is now taken for granted by the vast majority of (...) people is not necessary for either philosophical or theological reasons. (shrink)

This book brings together the chief elements of 3,000 years of philosophy as found mainly in Western thought in a highly readable form. The work concentrates on problems and issues much more than on names, dates and places. he book includes an extensive bibliography of works related to the main themes of the text, followed by a long list of names and dates of leading historical figures in various fields, especially in science, philosophy, and theology.

This work penetrates difficult ethical issues by examining human experience and reasoning in conjunction with actual choices of action.

From the time of the thinkers of ancient Greece, the question of what can be said about the existence and nature of God has been debated by many philosophers and theologians. In Theism and Atheism: The Eternal Debate, F.F. Centore presents a broad analysis of the major positions that address the question and the thinkers who have contributed to the debate. This is an admirably lucid and thorough examination of the history of natural theology. Covering the material in a thematic (...) rather than in a strictly chronological way, Centore draws out the key positions on topics such as the relationship of science and religion, the problem of evil, Naturalistic and Supernaturalistic theism and the dispute between essence and existence. The proponents of the various positions are considered alongside their most explicit critics. Important thinkers dealt with in this work include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Hume, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud and Darwin. The diversity of exploration also goes beyond the Judeo-Christian tradition to look at Hinduism, Buddhism, Stoicism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism and Classical Paganism. This work, however, is much more than a survey of the major historical arguments and rebuttals concerning God's existence and nature. Overall, it is a work by a well-established Catholic philosopher who concludes that God's existence and nature are indeed compatible with modern science, human freedom and the existence of evil in the world. (shrink)

CCP is not, generally speaking, well-respected today. This is not so much because CCP is impure, being, as it is, all mixed up with dogmatic statements drawn from Scripture, Church teachings, and so on, but because CCP is impure in a certain way. All philosophies are always and everywhere impure in the sense of always and everywhere being embedded in some particular time and culture. Philosophies are written by philosophers, each of whom is taught many things at his mother’s knee (...) long before he ever becomes a philosopher. What he is taught, though, will vary, and some doctrines, it would seem, are more damaging than others to what today is considered good philosophizing. My purpose in this paper is to set out the obnoxious form of impurity which is generally thought to invalidate CCP, and then briefly to provide some hints as to why the situation is not at all as bad as the critics make it out to be. (shrink)

“… the recipients of this letter had to learn that while Christ is unchanging, he is nevertheless onward-moving, always leading his people forth to new ventures in his cause…. He is the pioneer, the trailblazer, along the path of faith….”.

Can one deny the intelligibility of “extramental nonbeing” in pure ontology while affirming its intelligibility in physics? When one sweeps the heavens clean of matter does one also necessarily affirm the existence of absolute nonbeing in those “clean” spaces? Does talking about space necessarily mean talking about nonbeing? How could there possibly be “space” which is not absolute nothingness? How, if at all, can statements about space be reconciled with such self-contradictory statements as “What is not, is“?The purpose of this (...) brief paper is not to argue, within the context of the physical sciences, about whether or not there exist voids or absolutely empty spaces in the universe. Neither is it to discuss the existence or nonexistence of the aether. And although I shall be using texts taken from several famous historical figures, my purpose is not primarily historical. (shrink)

DOES the sun travel around the earth or does the earth travel around the sun? Our limited objective in this article is to see how one seventeenth century thinker of note, thinking on the topic previous to the publication of Newton’s Principia, answered this question and why he gave the answer that he did. Our procedure will be to set out the views of Copernicus’ important predecessors, the view of Copernicus, the view of Hooke, and then to place these views (...) in their wider historical context. (shrink)

This work is a paperback reissue, with an added preface, of a 1959 anthology of essays on the background to Darwin’s Origin of Species. It was meant to serve two purposes. One was to honor Darwin on the hundredth anniversary of his famous book. The other was to honor Professor A O Lovejoy, the Johns Hopkins scholar who did so much to popularize process philosophy in the United States. About half of the new preface is devoted to an extensive, though (...) by no means complete, bibliographic note on recent Darwinian scholarship. Over-all this is an excellent volume. It does, however, have certain shortcomings. (shrink)

IT cannot be denied that metaphysics is an unpopular subject among many contemporary professional philosophers. Historically speaking, the reasons for this present-day phenomenon can be traced back to the rise and spread of philosophical Idealism over the past several hundred years. What is common to all Idealistic philosophers is the orientation adopted at the beginnings of their philosophical investigations: they attempt to unravel the mysteries of being by viewing being through ideas. Their prime concern becomes the analyses of terms and (...) propositions. Indeed, this approach is so commonplace that many thinkers cannot imagine doing things in any other way. In our age this approach shows up very clearly in the way many thinkers are perfectly willing to talk about propositions but possess a deep aversion to talking about what a thing is in itself. It is sometimes said that we currently live in a philosophical era dominated by materialism. It would seem, however, that the situation is the other way around; discussions of intramental entities take up most of the time of many philosophers, at least of non-scholastic philosophers. Most scholastic philosophers still want to talk about things i.e. extramental entities. Most of their contemporary philosophers, on the other hand, are perfectly content talking about propositions. If the latter is ever to move closer to the former group, it would seem that what is required is a more materialistic attitude on their part, in the sense of a greater concentration on things as opposed to ideas. (shrink)