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Despite its computational elegancy, Jackendoff's proposal to reconcile competing approaches by postulating a parallel architecture for phonological, syntactic, and semantic modules is disappointing. We argue that it is a pragmatic version of the leading module which Jackendoff would probably prefer, but which he does not explicitly acknowledge. This internal conflict leads to several shortcomings and even distortions of information presented in the book.

The sensorimotor account of perception is akin to Gibsonian direct realism. Both emphasize external properties of the world, challenging views based on the analysis of internal visual processing. To compare the role of distal and retinotopic parameters, distractor effect – an optomotor reaction of midbrain origin – is considered. Even in this case, permanence in the environment, not on the retina, explains the dynamics of habituation.

Eye movements play a variety of roles in perception, cognition, and communication. The roles are revealed by the duration of fixations reflecting the quality of processing in the first line. We describe possible roles of eye fixations in different temporal diapasons. These forms of processing may be specific to sensorimotor coordinations. Any generalization to other domains should be cautious.

While sharing the author's interest in the development of an action-based framework for memory research, I think the present version is neither new nor particularly productive. More differentiation is needed to describe memory functioning in a variety of domains and on the many levels of activity regulation. Above all, Glenberg's proposals seem to contradict empirical data.

Three experiments investigated level of processing effects on a variety of direct and indirect memory tasks, in the context of a processing theory of dissociations. Subjects studied words in five encoding conditions and received one of ten memory tests. In Experiment 1, four tests previously classified as conceptual showed a robust LOP effect, as did a direct perceptual test of graphemic cued recall. An indirect perceptual word fragment completion test was unaffected by LOP. Experiment 2 showed that a new indirect (...) version of a graphemic cued test was not affected by LOP. In Experiment 3, guided by a generation/recognition model, we constructed three new direct tests in which subjects identified words that were graphemically, phonologically, or semantically similar to studied words. The three tests differed in their sensitivity to study conditions, but LOP had no effect in any case, despite the involvement of deliberate conscious recollection. Contemporary explanatory frameworks couched as dichotomies do not provide an adequate account of the results. It seems necessary instead to specify the types of information activated by each encoding condition, the types of information required by each test, and how encoding and retrieval processes are modified by task instructions. (shrink)

We identify two aspects of the problem of maintaining perceptual stability despite an observer's eye movements. The first, visual direction constancy, is the (egocentric) stability of apparent positions of objects in the visual world relative to the perceiver. The second, visual position constancy, is the (exocentric) stability of positions of objects relative to each other. We analyze the constancy of visual direction despite saccadic eye movements.Three information sources have been proposed to enable the visual system to achieve stability: the structure (...) of the visual field, proprioceptive inflow, and a copy of neural efference or outflow to the extraocular muscles. None of these sources by itself provides adequate information to achieve visual direction constancy; present evidence indicates that all three are used.Our final question concerns how information processing operations result in a stable world. The three traditionally suggested means have been elimination, translation, or evaluation. All are rejected. From a review of the physiological and psychological evidence we conclude that no subtraction, compensation, or evaluation need take place. The problem for which these solutions were developed turns out to be a false one. We propose a “calibration” solution: correct spatiotopic positions are calculated anew for each fixation. Inflow, outflow, and retinal sources are used in this calculation: saccadic suppression of displacement bridges the errors between these sources and the actual extent of movement. (shrink)

Prohibition on sex selection may well be unnecessary and oppressive as well as posing risks to women’s lives The urge to select children’s sex is not new. The Babylonian Talmud, a Jewish text completed towards the end of the fifth century of the Christian era, advises couples on means to favour the birth of either a male or a female child.1 The development of amniocentesis alerted the public in the mid-1970s to the scientific potential for prenatal determination of fetal sex,2 (...) and progressive decriminalisation of abortion afforded choice about continuation of pregnancy. The more recent emergence of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) obviates resort to abortion, and improved techniques of sperm sorting and diagnosis permit creation of zygotes that will ensure the sex of a future child. Growth of biomedical means to select the sex of future children has been accompanied by fear that such means will be employed to favour births of sons, and so perpetuate devaluation of girl children and women’s inferior family and social status. A reaction to this fear has been the demand for legal and medical professional prohibition of sex selection techniques. For instance, the Council of Europe’s Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine3 provides in article 14 that: The use of techniques of medically assisted procreation shall not be allowed for the purpose of choosing a future child’s sex, except where serious hereditary sex-related disease is to be avoided. Legislation has been enacted in a number of countries, and proposed in others, to prohibit sex selection on non-medical grounds, such as the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994 in India. In Canada, for instance, government draft legislation introduced in May 2002 proposes to make it a crime for any person, for the purpose of creating a human …. (shrink)

The rapid rise of international collaborative science has enabled access to genomic data. In this article, it is argued that to move beyond mapping genomic variation to understanding its role in complex disease aetiology and treatment will require extending data sharing for the purposes of clinical research translation and implementation.

Professor Kemp Smith in providing a new edition of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , embodying all the author’s additions and corrections, has given expression to the perennial interest and fascination which this work has possessed for many minds during the odd one hundred and fifty years since it was first published by Hume’s nephew. The editor himself has performed a great service by contributing an Introduction and a clear and concise summary of the Dialogues , in both of which (...) he expounds his own view as to how Hume’s discussion is to be interpreted. Hume employs three characters—Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes; and. (shrink)

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits most forms of discrimination on the basis of genetic information in health insurance and employment. The findings cited as justification for the act, the almost universal political support for it, and much of the scholarly literature about genetic discrimination, all betray a confusion about what is really at issue. They imply that genetic discrimination is wrong mainly because of genetic exceptionalism: because some special feature of genetic information makes discrimination on the basis (...) thereof wrong. I suggest, to the contrary, that the best arguments against genetic discrimination assume that health care is an entitlement . I do this by examining two different exceptionalist arguments for genetic nondiscrimination, showing that they do not furnish good reasons for prohibiting genetic discrimination unless one supposes that health care is an entitlement. (shrink)

The Acarnanian chrēsmologos Amphilytos spoke the verses to Peisistratos just before the battle of Pallene in 546 b.c. They contain a prediction of imminent victory for Peisistratos and total defeat for the Athenians. The Athenians will be routed and deprived of political self-determination, while the victory will restore to Peisistratos the tyranny from which he was twice forced, ‘rooting’ it once for all. Of course, all of this appears quite evident from the narrative. But as the verses form part of (...) Herodotos' account of Peisistratos' ascent to power they amount to much more, for they constitute penultimate proof of Peisistratos' irresistibility , a recurrent theme in Herodotos' logos, but one which was undoubtedly encouraged by his Athenian sources as a means of explaining how the Athenians were forced to yield the tyranny. Indeed, the theme of irresistibility helps to excuse the Athenians for being overcome; as much of the logos, which is historically quite vague, it is a reaction to fact, not factual itself. (shrink)

I defend the following version of the ought-implies-can principle: (OIC) by virtue of conceptual necessity, an agent at a given time has an (objective, pro tanto) obligation to do only what the agent at that time has the ability and opportunity to do. In short, obligations correspond to ability plus opportunity. My argument has three premises: (1) obligations correspond to reasons for action; (2) reasons for action correspond to potential actions; (3) potential actions correspond to ability plus opportunity. In the (...) bulk of the paper I address six objections to OIC: three objections based on putative counterexamples, and three objections based on arguments to the effect that OIC conflicts with the is/ought thesis, the possibility of hard determinism, and the denial of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

In Alfred Ayer's article, philosophy is sharply counterposed to science, is denied the status of a science. This is the leitmotif of his entire paper. Moreover, the defense of this conception is characteristic of many representatives of neopositivism who go along with Ayer. However, Ayer has certain distinctive ideas of his own, which require critical analysis. Fundamental among them is his acknowledgment of the extremely general character of the concepts and principles with which philosophy, as distinct from the special sciences, (...) operates. This universality which is the distinguishing characteristic of philosophy is then transformed into an argument against the recognition of philosophy as a science. In replying to Ayer we shall attempt to demonstrate that his acknowledgment by no means necessitates the elimination of philosophy from the list of the sciences, but merely emphasizes its distinctive, that is, its general character, in contrast to all other sciences, which are particular in nature. This is the theme of the present article. (shrink)

Unrecognized presuppositions about patient appearance have become increasingly important in medicine, medical ethics and medical law. Symptoms of these historically conditioned assumptions include common ageism, aesthetic surgery, and litigation about ‘wrongful life’. These phenomena suggest a societal intolerance for what is considered an ‘abnormal’ appearance. Among others, eighteenth-century artists and anatomists helped to set these twentieth-century precedents, actually measuring deviations of external traits to analogous deformations of the soul, and drawing moral conclusions from physiognomic measurements. Other eighteenth-century artists countered with (...) pathognomy, recognizing that uneven physical features may indicate humanity, instead of character flaws. We suggest that there is an important and as yet unrecognized role played by visual and perceptual preferences in our judgments concerning normalcy and anomaly. We further suggest a shift away from our current fashion-magazine, youth-oriented aesthetic, and towards an aesthetic of imperfection. Physicians and medical students can be made aware of their historically conditioned reactions to ‘abnormal’ appearing patients by studying the understandings and methods with which artists have portrayed those who are considered deformed in appearance. (shrink)

Pediatric critical careCritical care refers to the health care of children with life-threatening illness or following major surgery or severe injury. This care is offered in different contexts across the globe. In well-resourced environments, critical careCritical care may be provided in pediatric intensive care units, which provide highly complex medical care with advanced, potentially expensive technological devices aimed primarily at sustaining life; whereas in poorly resourced regions, only primary care may be available for critically ill or injured childrenInjured children. Even (...) where PICU facilities are available, they are a scarce and expensive resource. The knowledge and ability to sustain a critically ill or injured child’sInjured children life, potentially with effects on the child and family’s quality of lifeQuality of life and at the expense of other children’s health care, leads to frequent ethical challenges. Ethical issues related to how best to ensure optimal quality of lifeQuality of life and the fair distribution of scarce resources are common. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the individual patient’s medical, scientific and psychosocial context, through interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration; as well as familiarity with the overriding, relevant ethico-legal policiesPolicy and principles is essential for appropriate decision-makingDecision-making. Truthful communicationCommunication with the family is essential, using a shared decision-makingDecision-making process, and the child’s best interestBest interest must be central to every decision. This chapter presents an overview of the recommended approach to, and important considerations for, ethical decision-makingDecision-making in the PICU, using a hypothetical case example. (shrink)