"I don't want to hurry it ... When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. I just want to get at it slowly, but carefully and thoroughly, with the same attitude I remember was present just before . It is that attitude that found it, nothing else.".

When consciousness is examined using subjective ratings, the extent to which processing is conscious or unconscious is often estimated by calculating task performance at the subjective threshold or by calculating the correlation between accuracy and awareness. However, both these methods have certain limitations. In the present article, we propose describing task accuracy and awareness as functions of stimulus intensity as suggested by Koch and Preuschoff . The estimated lag between the curves describes how much stimulus intensity must increase for (...) awareness to change proportionally as much as accuracy and the slopes of the curves are used to assess how fast accuracy and awareness increases and whether awareness is dichotomous. The method is successfully employed to assess consciousness characteristics on data from four different awareness scales. (shrink)

This study presents and develops test methods for assessing sensitivity to conflict of interest (COIsen). We are aware of no study assessing COIsen, but note that some popular methods for assessing ethical sensitivity and related constructs (which include COIsen) are flawed in that their presentation of stimulus material to subjects actually guides subjects to attend to ethical (or related) issues. The method tested here was designed to avoid this flaw. Using adaptations of two existing cases, a quota (...) sample of 12 students was interviewed. Our method used funnel-sequenced, open-ended interviews that were audiotaped and transcribed, then subjected to a form of cognitive mapping. These maps revealed the presence of “indicators” of COIsen. We found that COIsen can be measured and that the global COIsen score generated by our method is able to reveal much variation across subjects, making it a worthwhile candidate for further consideration. (shrink)

Due to the complexity of research objects, theoretical concepts, and stimuli in media research, researchers in psychology and communications presumably need sophisticated measures beyond self-report scales to answer research questions on media use processes. The present study evaluates stimulus-dependent structure in spontaneous eye-blink behavior as an objective, corroborative measure for the media use phenomenon of spatial presence. To this end, a mixed methods approach is used in an experimental setting to collect, combine, analyze, and interpret data from standardized participant (...) self-report, observation of participant behavior, and content analysis of the media stimulus. T-pattern detection is used to analyze stimulus-dependent blinking behavior, and this structural data is then contrasted with self-report data. The combined results show that behavioral indicators yield the predicted results, while self-report data shows unpredicted results that are not predicted by the underlying theory. The use of a mixed methods approach offered insights that support further theory development and theory testing beyond a traditional, mono-method experimental approach. (shrink)

The radical transformations caused by the rapid development of information and communication technologies in the mid-1990s prompted the transition to the knowledge society which identified the key role of knowledge as the most important and valuable capital of organizations and had a decisive impact on the development of corporate training. In our study, we aimed to analyze the training methods used in American companies in the knowledge society, particularly, their feasibility, features, benefits and possible limitations. The results of our (...) study show that, at present, e-learning is considerably more widely used in American companies than instructor-led classroom training. Most organizations use blended learning which implies the combination of e-learning methods and instructor-led learning methods. A powerful stimulus for the wide implementation of e-learning methods was produced by the COVID-19 pandemic when the use of educational technologies made it possible for the companies not only to continue training and development of their employees but also to implement tactical and strategic practices which will have long-term implications for the future of the training industry. The most widely used e-learning methods in American companies are virtual classroom/webcast, online or computer-based methods, social learning, augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence. In spite of certain limitations of e-learning methods, they have a number of important benefits which allow companies to expand access to training, save costs, increase adaptability and flexibility of learning programs, etc., and thus satisfy their needs in qualified employees. (shrink)

Issues related to research integrity receive increasing attention in policy discourse and beyond with most universities having introduced by now courses addressing issues of good scientific practice. While communicating expectations and regulations related to good scientific practice is essential, criticism has been raised that integrity courses do not sufficiently address discipline and career-stage specific dimensions, and often do not open up spaces for in-depth engagement. In this article, we present the card-based engagement method RESPONSE_ABILITY, which aims at supporting researchers in (...) developing their ability to respond to challenges of good scientific practice. The method acknowledges that what counts and what does not count as acceptable practice may not be as clear-cut as imagined and that research environments matter when it comes to integrity issues. Using four sets of cards as stimulus material, participants are invited to reflect individually and collectively about questions of research integrity from different perspectives. This approach is meant to train them to negotiate in which contexts certain practices can still be regarded as acceptable and where possible transgressions might begin. RESPONSE_ABILITY can be seen as fostering the creation of an integrity culture as it invites a more reflexive engagement with ideals and realities of good practice and opens a space to address underlying value conflicts researchers may be confronted with. Concluding the article, we call for caution that addressing issues of integrity meaningfully requires striking a delicate balance between raising researchers’ awareness of individual responsibilities and creating institutional environments that allow them to be response-able. (shrink)

In an item-method directed forgetting paradigm, participants were required to attend to one of two colored words presented on opposite sides of a central fixation stimulus; they were instructed to Remember or Forget the attended item. On a subsequent recognition test, the Attended words showed a typical directed forgetting effect with better recognition of Remember words than Forget words. Our interest was in the fate of the Unattended words. When the study display disappeared before the memory instruction, there was no (...) effect of that instruction on unattended words; when the study display remained visible during presentation of the memory instruction, there was a reverse directed forgetting effect with better recognition of unattended words from Forget trials than from Remember trials. Incidental encoding of task-irrelevant stimuli occurs following presentation of a Forget instruction – but only when those task-irrelevant stimuli are still visible in the external environment. (shrink)

In order to systematically evaluate perceptual anticipation between experts and non-experts for different kinds of combat sports, we needed to perform a comprehensive assessment. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched four English-language and three Chinese-language databases that used expert/non-expert research paradigms, to explore perceptual anticipation in combat sports. We employed a random effects model for pooled analyses using the inverse variance method. We included 27 eligible studies involving 233 datasets in this meta-analysis. We observed large effect sizes for (...) the differences between experts and non-experts in both response accuracy and reaction time. We also observed substantial differences between experts and non-experts in the mean duration of visual fixations per trial, but not in the visual fixation duration. Taken together, high-level combat athletes have more advantages in perceptual anticipation than lower-level athletes, showing faster and more accurate responses when facing the opponent's attacks, as well as focusing on fewer points of visual fixations than novice athletes. Different types of combat sports and stimulus presentations affect perceptual anticipation abilities to varying extents in relation to outcome measures, with more pronounced expertise in a stimulus that is closer to real-world situations.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021226343, PROSPERO CRD42021226343. (shrink)

Subliminal perception occurs when prime stimuli that participants claim not to be aware of nevertheless influence subsequent processing of a target. This claim, however, critically depends on correct methods to assess prime awareness. Typically, d9 (‘‘d prime’’) tasks administered after a priming task are used to establish that people are unable to discriminate between different primes. Here, we show that such d9 tasks are influenced by the nature of the target, by attentional factors, and by the delay between stimulus (...) presentation and response. Our results suggest that the standard d9 task is not a straightforward measure of prime visibility. We discuss the implications of our findings for subliminal perception research. (shrink)

The use of visual attention for evaluating consumer behavior has become a relevant field in recent years, allowing researchers to understand the decision-making processes beyond classical self-reports. In our research, we focused on using eye-tracking as a method to understand consumer preferences in children. Twenty-eight subjects with ages between seven and twelve years participated in the experiment. Participants were involved in two consecutive phases. The initial phase consisted of the visualization of a set of stimuli for decision-making in an eight-position (...) layout called Alternative Forced-choice. Then the subjects were asked to freely analyze the set of stimuli, they needed to choose the best in terms of preference. The sample was randomly divided into two groups balanced by gender. One group visualized a set of icons and the other a set of toys. The final phase was an independent assessment of each stimulus viewed in the initial phase in terms of liking/disliking using a 7-point Likert scale. Sixty-four stimuli were designed for each of the groups. The visual attention was measured using a non-obstructive eye-tracking device. The results revealed two novel insights. Firstly, the time of fixation during the last 4 visits to each stimulus before the decision-making instant allows us to recognize the icon or toy chosen from the eight alternatives with a 71.2% and 67.2% of accuracy respectively. The result supports the use of visual attention measurements as an implicit tool to analyze decision-making and preferences in children. Secondly, eye movement and the choice of liking/disliking choice are influenced by stimuli design dimensions. The icon observation results revealed how gender samples have different fixation and different visit times which depend on stimuli design dimension. The toy observations results revealed how the materials determinate the largest amount fixations, also, the visit times were differentiated by gender. This research presents a relevant empirical data to understand the decision-making phenomenon by analyzing eye movement behavior. The presented method can be applied to recognize the choice likelihood between several alternatives. Finally, children's opinions represent an extra difficulty judgment to be determined, and the eye-tracking technique seen as an implicit measure to tackle it. (shrink)

Research in person and face perception has broadly focused on group-level consensus that individuals hold when making judgments of others. However, a growing body of research demonstrates that individual variation is larger than shared, stimulus-level variation for many social trait judgments. Despite this insight, little research to date has focused on building and explaining individual models of face perception. Studies and methodologies that have examined individual models are limited in what visualizations they can reliably produce to either noisy and blurry (...) or computer avatar representations. Methods that produce low-fidelity visual representations inhibit generalizability by being clearly computer manipulated and produced. In the present work, we introduce a novel paradigm to visualize individual models of face judgments by leveraging state-of-the-art computer vision methods. Our proposed method can produce a set of photorealistic face images that correspond to an individual's mental representation of a specific attribute across a variety of attribute intensities. We provide a proof-of-concept study which examines perceived trustworthiness/untrustworthiness and masculinity/femininity. We close with a discussion of future work to substantiate our proposed method. (shrink)

Spontaneous activity levels prior to stimulus presentation can determine how that stimulus will be perceived. It has also been proposed that such spontaneous activity, particularly in the default-mode network (DMN), is involved in self-related processing. We therefore hypothesised that pre-stimulus activity levels in the DMN predict whether a stimulus is judged as self-related or not. Method: Participants were presented in the MRI scanner with a white noise stimulus that they were instructed contained their name or another. They then had (...) to respond with which name they thought they heard. Regions where there was an activity level difference between self and other response trials two seconds prior to the stimulus being presented were identified. Results: Pre-stimulus activity levels were higher in the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), the right temporal pole (RTP), and the left superior temporal gyrus in trials where the participant responded that they heard their own name than trials where they responded that they heard another. Conclusion: Pre-stimulus spontaneous activity levels in particular brain regions, largely overlapping with the DMN, predict the subsequent judgement of stimuli as self-related. This extends our current knowledge of self-related processing and its apparent relationship with intrinsic brain activity in what can be termed a rest-self overlap. (shrink)

Bird songs often display musical acoustic features such as tonal pitch selection, rhythmicity, and melodic contouring. We investigated higher-order musical temporal structure in bird song using an experimental method called “music scrambling” with human subjects. Recorded songs from a phylogenetically diverse group of 20 avian taxa were split into constituent elements and recombined in original and random order. Human subjects were asked to evaluate which version sounded more “musical” on a per-species basis. Species identity and stimulus treatment were concealed from (...) subjects, and stimulus presentation order was randomized within and between taxa. Two recordings of human music were included as a control for attentiveness. Participants varied in their assessments of individual species musicality, but overall they were significantly more likely to rate bird songs with original temporal sequence as more musical than those with randomized temporal sequence. We discuss alternative hypotheses for the origins of avian musicality, including honest signaling, perceptual bias, and arbitrary aesthetic coevolution. (shrink)

Studies presenting memory-facilitating effect of emotions typically focused on affective dimensions of arousal and valence. Little is known, however, about the extent to which stimulus-driven basic emotions could have distinct effects on memory. In the present paper we sought to examine the modulatory effect of disgust, fear and sadness on intentional remembering and forgetting using widely used item-method directed forgetting paradigm. Eighteen women underwent fMRI scanning during encoding phase in which they were asked either to remember (R) or to forget (...) (F) pictures. In the test phase all previously used stimuli were re-presented together with the same number of new pictures and participants had to categorize them as old or new, irrespective of the F/R instruction. On the behavioral level we found a typical directed forgetting effect, i.e. higher recognition rates for to-be-remembered (TBR) items than to-be-forgotten (TBF) ones for both neutral and emotional categories. Emotional stimuli had higher recognition rate than neutral ones, while among emotional those eliciting disgust produced highest recognition, but at the same time induced more false alarms. Therefore when false alarm corrected recognition was examined the directed forgetting effect was equally strong irrespective of emotion. Additionally, even though subjects rated disgusting pictures as more arousing and negative than other picture categories, logistic regression on the item level showed that the effect of disgust on recognition memory was stronger than the effect of arousal or valence. On the neural level, ROI analyses (with valence and arousal covariates) revealed that correctly recognized disgusting stimuli evoked the highest activity in the left amygdala compared to all other categories. This structure was also more activated for remembered vs. forgotten stimuli, but only in case of disgust or fear eliciting pictures. Our findings, despite several limitations, suggest that disgust have a special salience in memory relative to other negative emotions, which cannot be put down to differences in arousal or valence. The current results thereby support the suggestion that a purely dimensional model of emotional influences on cognition might not be adequate to account for observed effects. (shrink)

The original stimulus for the choice of this topic was a book on intellectual history. One of the most brilliant authors in this field, Carl Becker, claims that the most important event in the intellectual history of modern time was the shift in the place of logic in science. According to Becker, the high esteem for logic which the scientist had in the age of St. Thomas Aquinas and through all the Middle Ages declined in the period of Galileo and (...) Newton. But at that time this decline was not yet fully understood. “The marriage of fact and reason” as Becker expresses himself “proved to be somewhat irksome in the nineteenth century and was altogether dissolved in the twentieth century.” The modern, twentieth century, physicist lives in an “atmosphere, which is so saturated with the actual that we can easily do with a minumum of theoretical” … “We have long since learned not to bother much with reason and logic.” To describe the spirit of twentieth century physics which emphasizes facts and minimizes reason Becker says: “Experiments seem to show that an electron may, for reasons best known to itself, be moving at two orbits at the same time. To this point Galileo's common sense method of noting the behavior of things, of sticking close to the observable facts has brought us. It has at last presented us with a fact that common sense repudiates.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 201-202 [Access article in PDF] Conference on Pure Land Buddhism in Dialogue with Christian Theology James Fredericks Loyola Marymount University As Charlie Parker devotees will attest, improvisation at its most thrilling, if not its most ingenious, is often the result of careful planning. Cannot something similar be said of interreligious dialogue? All our planning and study are best put to use when they suddenly become (...) mere prologue to an encounter that has forced us off the well-trodden path. A dialogue meeting at Loyola Marymount University, September 9-14, 2001, began with much planning and became highly improvisational on September 11th.The roots of this conference go back to discussions between Dennis Hirota and myself in Kyoto in 1998-1999. The two of us are interested in contributing to the future development of Shin Buddhism by placing it in dialogue with Christian theology. The focus here is on Christian theology as one aspect of Christianity's response to the modern world. We are both interested in investigating various theological methods as Christian responses to modernity, and the contributions these methods have made to the reform and renewal of Christian institutions. The ulterior purpose of these investigations is to think in new ways about how a Buddhist "theology" might contribute to the institutional reform and religious renewal of Shin Buddhism.A first dialogue meeting was held at Chikushi Jogakuen University (Dazaifu, Japan) in June of 2000. Participants included faculty from Chikushi Jogakuen, Charlie Hallisey (then of Harvard University), Peter McCormick (International Academy for Philosophy, Liechtenstein), and me (Loyola Marymount University). A second meeting was held at Loyola Marymount in September 2001. For one week, beginning September 6th, meetings were held at the Shin Buddhist temple and a neighboring Roman Catholic parish in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles, followed by an academic conference at Loyola Marymount starting on Monday, September 10th. These meetings brought together faculty from Chikushi Jogakuen and Loyola Marymount, Shin Buddhist specialists from the Eastern Buddhist Society in Tokyo, ministers from the Los Angeles Nishi and Higashi Honganji Temples, Charlie Hallisey (Wisconsin), and John Ross Carter (Colgate University). The visiting Buddhists had a chance to meet with the Buddhist-Catholic dialogue group in Los Angeles. Papers were presented on a number of subjects, including (1) Christian theology's [End Page 201] contribution to institutional reform and religious renewal in recent Roman Catholic history and its implications for Shin Buddhism in both the United States and Japan; (2) theological method and moral theology in relation to end of life issues from both a Shin and Christian perspective; (3) truth and history in interreligious understanding; (4) Shin Buddhism, Christianity and religious responses to social discrimination; and (5) Christian theology as a stimulus to the development of a Shin Buddhist theology.On the morning of September 11th, dialogue as formal academic presentations ended and dialogue as spontaneous improvisation began. With U.S. air transportation closed down by the federal government, prospects for return flights to Japan were indefinitely postponed. A planned outing to watch Ichiro Suzuki (of the Seattle Mariners) play the Angels had to be canceled (Anaheim stadium was also closed). Instead, Christians and Buddhists, Americans and Japanese suddenly were brought together in ways they could not have predicted and began to improvise. The campus ministry of Loyola Marymount organized an impromptu mass for the entire university on the evening of September 11th. The Buddhist visitors were given a place of honor at the liturgy and publicly welcomed as guests of the Catholic community. The psalm response for the mass was a musical setting of the words, "Shepherd me oh Lord, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life." In the days that followed, this text became the basis for very affecting conversations among the Buddhists and the Christians in response to the terrorist attacks. From the Shin perspective, Buddhists were able to bring a depth of meaning to these words even as they were interested in what the psalm might mean to Christians.Like improvisation in jazz, interreligious dialogue is sometimes at its... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Phenomenology and Modern Behavioral PsychologyLindsay B. Fletcher (bio) and Steven C. Hayes (bio)Keywordsacceptance, contextualism, defusion, relational-frame-theoryPérez-Álvarez and Sass (2008) deserve praise for examining the philosophical roots of clinical psychological science. Modern psychology has moved away from the development of philosophy and theory that is needed to ground scientific investigation within a coherent system. The result is increasingly ill-defined constructs and research programs that each operate within their own divergent (...) paradigm. B.F. Skinner is one of the few modern experimental behavioral psychologists who attempted to build a coherent science of behavior based on observable events with testable hypotheses. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 1999) and its associated basic science of cognition, Relational Frame Theory (RFT; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche 2001), build on Skinner’s work to produce a more progressive science.Psychology and philosophy are different disciplines and how they are approached is defined by the objective. The purpose of philosophy from a scientific point of view is not the same as from a philosophical point of view. It is fine to compare radical behaviorism and phenomenology, but it seems important to ask whether and how this will lead to a more progressive science of behavior.In this commentary, we discuss the philosophy and theory that underlie ACT/RFT and show how they reflect on the relevant points made by the authors regarding the shared features of phenomenology and radical behaviorism. We make two adjustments to the explanation of radical behavioral concepts presented in the current paper to create a more coherent analysis. Finally, we show here how the development of a theory based on applied goals directly informs the methods used in clinical settings.Philosophical AssumptionsThe field of behavior analysis that originated with Skinner has different strands. Some are holistic and pragmatic, whereas others are elementalistic and mechanistic (Hayes, Hayes, and Reese 1988). ACT is based on an a-ontological philosophy termed functional contextualism (Hayes 1993), which views behavior analysis from a holistic and pragmatic perspective. Functional contextualism (AKA radical behaviorism) shares some of the assumptions of phenomenology, as has long been noted (Day 1969). For example, Pérez-Álvarez and Sass (2008) identify a-dualism, or monism, as a common feature. In functional contextualism, the whole is divided into functional units for the purpose of prediction and influence. A three-term contingency (antecedent–behavior–consequence) in behavior analysis is viewed as a [End Page 255] whole event with pragmatically distinguishable aspects, not an assemblage. As the authors point out, this results in a dialectic tension between stimulus control, action, and reinforcer because none are distinct units, and each is defined with reference to the others much as the front of a coin cannot exist without the back. These are not ontological entities, but functional units that are abstracted from the whole for pragmatic purposes. What is “radical” about radical behaviorism is that the philosopher, psychologist, or researcher participates in the event they are observing, and their own acts of scientific observation are identified based on their own functional properties.Behavioral ThinkingIn the service of further developing this philosophical and theoretical foundation and considering it along side phenomenology, we need to examine two aspects of the target article. The first regards the role of the environment in shaping behavior that is central to behavioral and contextual theories. The authors object to behaviorism’s notion of environment and suggest replacing it with the concept of the world, stating that “animals have environment, but man has world.” What is missing is an account of that shift. We believe that modern behavior analysis provides that account.Similarly, the paper argues that “reinforcers are not just things that follow behavior, but also, and above all, values that guide our life.” Again what is missing is an account of the precise behavioral basis for the distinction.In an attempt to do this, the authors incorrectly analyze operant behavior as future oriented, even appealing to final causality. In the three-term contingency, the discriminative stimulus sets the occasion for reinforcement of a particular behavior. The behavior of interest has been reinforced in similar contexts in the past, which gives... (shrink)

This study assessed whether real-life stimulus material can elicit conscious and unconscious priming. A typical masked priming paradigm was used, with brand logo primes. We used a rigorous method to assess participants’ awareness of the subliminal information. Our results show that shortly presented and masked brand logos have the power to prime their brand names and, remarkably, words associated to the brand . However, this only occurred when the logos could be categorized clearly above the consciousness threshold. Once the primes (...) were presented close to the consciousness threshold, no subliminal influences on behavior were observed. (shrink)

The Page target article is interesting because of apparent coverage of many psychological phenomena with simple, unified neural techniques. However, prototype phenomena cannot be covered because the strongest response would be to the first-learned stimulus in each category rather than to a prototype stimulus or most frequently presented stimuli. Alternative methods using distributed coding can also achieve portability of network knowledge.

Categorical loudness scaling (CLS) measures provide useful information about an individual’s loudness perception across the dynamic range of hearing. A probability model of CLS categories has previously been described as a multi-category psychometric function (MCPF). In the study, a representative “catalog” of potential listener MCPFs was used in conjunction with maximum-likelihood estimation to derive CLS functions for participants with normal hearing and with hearing loss. The approach of estimating MCPFs for each listener has the potential to improve the accuracy of (...) the CLS measurements, particularly when a relatively low number of data points are available. The present study extends the MCPF approach by using Bayesian inference to select stimulus parameters that are predicted to yield maximum expected information (MEI) during data collection. The accuracy and reliability of the MCPF-MEI approach were compared to the standardized CLS measurement procedure (ISO16832:2006). A non-adaptive, fixed-level, paradigm served as a “gold-standard” for this comparison. The test time required to obtain measurements in the standard procedure is a major barrier to its clinical uptake. Test time was reduced from approximately 15 minutes to approximately 3 minutes with the MEI-adaptive procedure. Results indicated that the test-retest reliability and accuracy of the MCPF-MEI adaptive procedures were similar to the standardized CLS procedure. Computer simulations suggest that the reliability and accuracy of the MEI procedure were limited by intrinsic uncertainty of the listeners represented in the MCPF catalog. In other words, the MCPF provided insufficient predictive power to significantly improve adaptive-tracking efficiency under practical conditions. Concurrent optimization of both the MCPF catalog and the MEI-adaptive procedure have the potential to produce better results. Regardless of the adaptive-tracking method used in the CLS procedure, the MCPF catalog remains clinically useful for enabling maximum-likelihood determination of loudness categories. (shrink)

U knjizi "Ponovno promišljanje urođenosti" , koja izlaže konektivističko stajalište o razvoju, Jeffrey L. Elman et al. iznose nove pristupe i metode u procesu učenja uopće, s posebnim naglaskom na učenje jezika, odnosno materinskog jezika. Slijede najnoviji argumenti protiv Chomskyeve teze o urođenosti jezika koji, između ostalog, propituju sljedeće pretpostavke: 1. modularnost jezika; 2. kritično vrijeme za učenje jezika; 3. siromaštvo podražaja; 4. genetsku osnovu gramatike; 5. lokalizaciju jezika. Zaključak jest da su argumenti uvjerljivi te da postoji novi pogled na (...) urođenost jezika.In the book "Rethinking Innateness, a connectionist perspective on development" Jeffrey L. Elman et al. present new approaches and methods in the learning process in general, with special stress on the acquisition of language or mother tongue. Here are the most recent arguments against Chomskyan thesis about the innateness of language which questions, among other things, the following presuppositions: 1. language modularity; 2. critical period for the acquisition of language; 3. poverty of the stimulus; 4. genetical basis of grammar; 5. language localization. The conclusion is that the arguments are convincing and that there is a new way of looking at the innateness of language. (shrink)

This Neurocomputing special issue is based on selected, expanded and significantly revised versions of papers presented at the Second International Conference on Brain Inspired Cognitive Systems (BICS 2006) held at Lesvos, Greece, from 10 to 14 October 2006. The aim of BICS 2006, which followed the very successful first BICS 2004 held at Stirling, Scotland, was to bring together leading scientists and engineers who use analytic, syntactic and computational methods both to understand the prodigious processing properties of biological systems (...) and, specifically, of the brain, and to exploit such knowledge to advance computational methods towards ever higher levels of cognitive competence. The biennial BICS Conference Series (with BICS 2008 recently held in Sao Luis, Brazil, 24–27 June, and BICS 2010 due to be held in Madrid, Spain) aims to become a major point of contact for research scientists, engineers and practitioners throughout the world in the fields of cognitive and computational systems inspired by the brain and biology. The first paper in this special issue is by Carnell who presents an analysis of the use of Hebbian and Anti-Hebbian spike timedependent plasticity (STDP) learning functions within the context of recurrent spiking neural networks. He shows that under specific conditions Hebbian and Anti-Hebbian learning can be considered approximately equivalent. Finally, the author demonstrates that such a network habituates to a given stimulus and is capable of detecting subtle variations in the structure of the stimuli itself. Hodge, O’Keefe and Austin present a binary neural shape matcher using Johnson counters and chain codes. They show that images may be matched as whole images or using shape matching. Finally, they demonstrate shape matching using a binary associative-memory neural network to index and match chain codes where the chain code elements are represented by Johnson codes. (shrink)

Background: Human sexual classical conditioning effects are less robust compared with those obtained in other animals. The artificiality of the laboratory environment and/or the unconditioned stimulus (US) used (e.g. watching erotic film clips as opposed to participating in sexual activity) may contribute to this discrepancy. The present experiment used a field study design to explore the conditioning of human sexual arousal. Method: Seven heterosexual couples were instructed to include a novel, neutrally preferred scent as the conditioned stimulus (CS+) during sexual (...) interaction and another novel scent during non-sexual coupledinteraction (e.g. watching a movie, studying together). Seven control couples used both scents during nonsexual interaction. Conducted over a 2-week period, both experimental and control couples had three sexual interactions (oral sex and/or intercourse). In addition, experimental couples had three, while the controls had six, non-sexual interactions. Genital responding to and affective preference for the odors were assessed in the laboratory before and after the experience in the men. Results: We observed significantly increased genital responding to the CS+in the experimental relative to the control group; however, conditioned responses were not much stronger than those obtained during laboratory conditioning. Experimental males also showed a trend for decreased preference for the CS-odor. They may have learned that this odor predicted that sexual interaction with their partner would not occur. Conclusion: The present study provides another demonstration of conditioned sexual arousal in men, specifically an instance of such learning that happened in a real-world setting. It also suggests that inhibitory learning may occur, at least with the affective measure. Keywords: sexual classical conditioning; humans; evaluative conditioning (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17336 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17336. (shrink)

Within academic circles, the “deficit” model of public understanding of science has been subject to increasing critical scrutiny by those who favor more constructivist approaches. These suggest that “the public” can articulate sophisticated ideas about the social and ethical implications of science regardless of their level of technical knowledge. The seminal studies following constructivist approaches have generally involved small-scale qualitative investigations, which have minimized the pre-framing of issues to a greater or lesser extent. This article describes the Gene Week Project, (...) sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, which attempted to extend this work to a large-scale consultation on genetics and health through the medium of a local daily newspaper. Readers were invited to respond to a set of open-ended questions that accompanied stimulus material published each day for five consecutive weekdays. The articles were written with the intention of extending the limited range of discourses around genetics and biotechnology that are usually presented by the popular media. Responses raised overarching issues about the place of emerging health technologies in society reminiscent of previous open-ended consultations in this field. The paper ends with a critical discussion about the potential of this method to contribute to the further development of open-ended public consultations. (shrink)

Previous research found that application of eyeshadow on the upper eyelids induces overestimation of eye size. The present study examined whether this eyeshadow illusion is dependent on or independent of viewpoint. We created a three-dimensional model of a female face and manipulated the presence/absence of eyeshadow and face orientation around the axis of yaw (Experiment 1) or pitch (Experiment 2) rotation. Using the staircase method, we measured perceived eye size for each face stimulus. Results showed that the eyeshadow illusion occurred (...) regardless of face orientation around axes of both yaw and pitch rotations. Crucially, the illusion’s magnitude did not vary across face orientations; lack of interaction between the illusion’s magnitude and face orientation was confirmed by small values of Bayes factors. These findings ruled out the hypothesis that eyeshadow serves as a depth cue and leads to overestimation of eye size due to size-distance scaling. Alternatively, the present findings suggest that the eyeshadow illusion can be well explained by the assimilation between the eyes and eyeshadow, which also facilitates assimilation between the eyes and eyebrows. Practical implications and the present findings’ generalizability are also discussed. (shrink)

The paper addresses the methodology used by the teacher-KEYWORDS: facilitator to plan P4C sessions. The classic method consists of identifying the guidelines of the dialogue from a provisional mapping of the text, but this can be supplemented or replaced by other tools‡. GrupIREF and the Filosofía Lúdica movement§ use an approach that focuses on thinking skills. The P4C session is planned from the choice of the thinking skills to be trained - or possibly the attitudes and ethical values that appear (...) in the stimulus used. This article proposes an alternative to the classical planning approach, examining the basis of the model considered and offering a practical example. ITA_Focus dell’articolo è la modalità di pianificazione delle sessioni di Philosophy for Children, P4C, da parte del docente-facilitatore. Il metodo classico consiste nell’individuazione di linee-guida del dialogo a partire da una mappatura orientativa del testo-pretesto, ma ciò può essere integrato, o sostituito da altre modalità*. Il GrupIREF e il movimento della Filosofía Lúdica† utilizzano un approccio che privilegia le abilità di pensiero. La sessione P4C viene pianificata a partire dalla scelta dell’abilità di pensiero da allenare – o eventualmente dell’atteggiamento etico e dei valori legati al pre-testo utilizzato. Il presente lavoro suggerisce un’alternativa alla progettazione classica, attraverso una disamina delle basi del modello considerato, e ne offre un esempio pratico. (shrink)