The field of animal-computer interfaces has a longer history than one might at first suppose. In this Introduction, I first discuss some of the early attempts to integrate computers into the study of animal cognition, communication, and behavior and how they provided the groundwork for subsequent research in nonhuman-computer interfaces. I then summarize the various contributions to this special issue, emphasizing how they provide a snapshot into the current state of the field. I close by emphasizing the value (...) of this work but also by suggesting some potential pitfalls of which we must also be aware. (shrink)

Recent discussions in animal welfare have emphasised the importance of animal agency—the ability of animals to make choices and exert control over their environment in a way that aligns with their needs and preferences. In this paper, we discuss the importance of animal agency for welfare and examine how use of some types of animal–computer interaction can enable animals to exercise more agency in captive environments through increased choice and control, cognitive challenge, and social interactions; as well as considering (...) some of the potential limitations of such efforts. (shrink)

With the innovation of computer, virtual clothing has also emerged. This research mainly discusses the real-time animation complex of interactive clothing design based on computer simulation. In the process of realizing virtual clothing, the sample interpolation synthesis method is used, and the human body sample library is constructed using the above two methods first, and then, the human body model is obtained by interpolation calculation according to the personalized parameters. Building a clothing model is particularly important for (...) the effect of trying on. The clothing that needs to be displayed can be scanned and then input into the computer to build the model. The model can be directly built in 3DMAX and other software and then its surface texture can be mapped, or the clothing model can be directly built. The 3D model in the 3ds file is loaded by the loop body nested switch branch selection structure. Correspondingly, the write-back operation of 3ds files is similar. Just follow the general structure of the 3ds file and write the root block, version information block, edit information block, key frame information block, etc. to a brand new file in sequence. The main reason for this article to perform the 3ds file write-back operation is that, after the clothing model is dynamically simulated through the dynamic principle, the deformed key animation frame needs to be saved as a 3ds file so that it can be further imported into the 3DSMAX software and generated by the renderer, form high-quality picture information, and finally get high-definition animation video. In the CPU-GPU hybrid method, modules such as force calculation, collision processing, and position update use the GPU method, while overstretching is processed by the CPU method, making the overall performance 10 times higher than the pure CPU method. This research helps to promote the development of 3D virtual clothing design. (shrink)

Animate vision systems have gaze control mechanisms that can actively position the camera coordinate system in response to physical stimuli. Compared to passive systems, animate systems show that visual computation can be vastly less expensive when considered in the larger context of behavior. The most important visual behavior is the ability to control the direction of gaze. This allows the use of very low resolution imaging that has a high virtual resolution. Using such a system in a controlled way provides (...) additional constraints that dramatically simplify the computations of early vision. Another important behavior is the way the environment “behaves‘. Animate systems under real-time constraints can further reduce their computational burden by using environmental cues that are perspicuous in the local context. A third source of economy is introduced when behaviors are learned. Because errors are rarely fatal, systems using learning algorithms can amortize computational cost over extended periods. Further economies can be achieved when the learning system uses indexical reference, which is a form of dynamic variable binding. Animate vision is a natural way of implementing this dynamic binding. (shrink)

In Sensations of History, James J. Hodge argues that animation in new media art transforms historical experience in the digital age. Combining close textual analysis of experimental new media artworks with discussion of key phenomenological texts, Sensations of History argues for the broad critical significance of animation as we shift from analog to digital technologies. Hodge looks closely at animation aesthetics, which allow for a clear grasp of the ways digital technologies transform our sense of historical experience.

Suppose a computer prints out the following little "poem": The shooting of the hunters she heardBut to pity it moved her not. What can we say about the meaning of this "poem"? We can say that it is ambiguous. It could mean: She heard the hunters shooting at animals, people, etc., but she had no pity for the victims. . . . She heard the hunters being shot but did not pity them. . . . She heard the hunters (...) shooting at someone or something and she heard the hunters being shot but did not pity either. An author could use the above word sequence to convey either , , or . But since we cannot treat the text produced by the computer as anyone's use of the words in question, it would not make sense to decide among its linguistically possible readings, just as it would not make sense to choose among the linguistically possible readings of an ambiguous sentence if it is considered in abstraction from its use by a speaker on a particular occasion. For example, it would not make sense to say of the sentence "He saw the man carrying the suitcase" that it just means "He saw the man who is carrying the suitcase" if we know that and in which what ways the sentence is ambiguous. If someone did say this, we would be inclined to think either that he does not know that the sentence is ambiguous or that he is talking not about the sentence but about an utterance of that sentence by a speaker on some occasion. Hence all we can do in interpreting the computer "poem" is to specify the set of its linguistically possible readings, namely, {, , }. But it would not make sense to select , for example, and say, "That is what the computer poem means, not , nor ." P. D. Juhl is an assistant professor of German at Princeton University. The present essay, in a different form, will appear in his forthcoming book, The Nature of Literary Interpretation. See also: "Against Theory" by Steven Knapp and Walter Benn Michaels in Vol. 8, No. 4. (shrink)

Whether any non-human animal can attribute mental states to others remains the subject of extensive debate. This despite the fact that several species have behaved as if they have a ‘theory of mind’ in various behavioral tasks. In this paper, we review the reasons of skeptics for their doubts: That existing experimental setups cannot distinguish between ‘mind readers’ and ‘behavior readers’, that results that seem to indicate ‘theory of mind’ may come from studies that are insufficiently controlled, and that our (...) own intuitive biases may lead us to interpret behavior more ‘cognitively’ than is necessary. The merits of each claim and suggested solution are weighed. The conclusion is that while it is true that existing setups cannot conclusively demonstrate ‘theory of mind’ in non-human animals, focusing on this fact is unlikely to be productive. Instead, the more interesting question is how sophisticated their social reasoning can be, whether it is about ‘unobservable inner experiences’ or not. Therefore, it is important to address concerns about the setup and interpretation of specific experiments. To alleviate the impact of intuitive biases, various strategies have been proposed in the literature. These include a deeper understanding of associative learning, a better knowledge of the limited ‘theory of mind’ humans actually use, and thinking of animal cognition in an embodied, embedded way; that is, being aware that constraints outside of the brain, and outside of the body, may naturally predispose individuals to produce behavior that looks smart without requiring complex cognition. To enable this kind of thinking, a powerful methodological tool is advocated: Computational modeling, namely agent-based modeling and, particularly, cognitive modeling. By explicitly simulating the rules and representations that underlie animal performance on specific tasks, it becomes much easier to look past one’s own biases and to see what cognitive processes might actually be occurring. (shrink)

Replacing animal procedures with methods such as cells and tissues in vitro, volunteer studies, physicochemical techniques and computer modelling, is driven by legislative, scientific and moral imperatives. Non‐animal approaches are now considered as advanced methods that can overcome many of the limitations of animal experiments. In testing medicines and chemicals, in vitro assays have spared hundreds of thousands of animals. In contrast, academic animal use continues to rise and the concept of replacement seems less well accepted in university research. (...) Even so, some animal procedures have been replaced in neurological, reproductive and dentistry research and progress is being made in fields such as respiratory illnesses, pain and sepsis. Systematic reviews of the transferability of animal data to the clinical setting may encourage a fresh look for novel non‐animal methods and, as mainstream funding becomes available, more advances in replacement are expected. BioEssays 29:918–926, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This dissertation investigates some philosophical issues using computational models. Chapter 1 presents a Lewis-Skyrms signaling game that can exhibit a type of compositionality novel to the signaling game literature. The structure of the signaling game is motivated by an analogy to the alarm calls of putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans). Putty-nosed monkeys display a compositional system of alarm calls with a semantics that is sensitive to the ordering of terms. This sensitivity to the ordering of terms has not been previously modeled (...) with a Lewis-Skyrms signaling game literature. Signaling games are valued for showing how communicative systems can arise with minimal learning tools. Simulation results show that basic (Roth-Erev) reinforcement learning is sufficient for the acquisition of a compositional signaling system sensitive to the ordering of terms. Chapter 2 investigates social epistemology in the context of an effect of cognitive biases called the illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect is exhibited when repeated exposure to a statement increases an individual's credence in that statement. While most investigations of the illusory truth effect focus on individuals' belief formation, humans typically form beliefs within a social structure. This is particularly relevant because various social structures can give rise to repeated exposure to statements; e.g. a popular book might recurringly be discussed in one's social circle, or one or two foundational papers might always be cited by a particular lab. So, how does the illusory truth effect influence learning and belief formation in a group? This chapter uses network models to investigate this question. These models show that the illusory truth effect can be very detrimental to a group's belief formation. The effect causes networks to prematurely settle on a belief, in part, through repeated exposure to data points that are not independently generated. Previous research has indicated that the probability of such failures is near zero when networks are large or scientists are forced to explore unpopular and risky science. However, simulation results show that the harmful consequences of the illusory truth effect are robust even in large networks with mandatory exploration. Finally, Chapter 3 shows how a rudimentary type of abstraction can obtain in Lewis-Skyrms signaling games. Here, abstraction is understood as occurring when different particulars take on the same functional role. Some abstraction may be guided by innate biases, and the chapter develops an analogy of reasoning about strategic thinking in chess to highlight some epistemic concerns that are raised by the presentation of abstraction. Concretely, the signaling game models of this chapter are developed in the context of two tasks that are much simpler than strategizing in chess. The first task is a transitive inference task that has been substantially studied in both humans and non-human animals. General features of the models developed for the transitive inference task are then carried over to a model for the second task of learning rudimentary grammatical structures. This second task is based on studies of human infants and non-human primates' ability to learn ``nonsense grammars". Closing discussion highlights some strengths of the abstraction exhibited in the Lewis-Skyrms signaling game models. (shrink)

For VR systems, one of its core parts is to present people with a real and immersive 3D simulation environment. This paper uses real-time computer graphics technology, three-dimensional modeling technology, and binocular stereo vision technology to study the multivisual animation character objects in virtual reality technology; designs a binocular stereo vision animation system; designs and produces a three-dimensional model; and develops a virtual multivisual animation scene application. The main research content and work performed in the text (...) include the research of the basic graphics rendering pipeline process and the analysis and research of each stage of the rendering pipeline. It mainly analyzes the 3D graphics algorithm used in the three-dimensional geometric transformation of computer graphics and studies the basic texture technology, basic lighting model, and other image output processes used in the fragment processing stage. Combined with the development needs of the subject, the principles of 3D animation rendering production software and 3D graphics modeling are studied, and the solid 3D model displayed in the virtual reality scene is designed and produced. This article also reflects the application of virtual reality in multivisual animation character design from the side, so it has realistic value and application prospects. (shrink)

Eco-cognitive computationalism considers computation in context, following some of the main tenets advanced by the recent cognitive science views on embodied, situated, and distributed cognition. It is in the framework of this eco-cognitive perspective that we can usefully analyze the recent attention in computer science devoted to the importance of the simplification of cognitive and motor tasks caused in organic entities by the morphological features: ignorant bodies can be domesticated to become useful “mimetic bodies”, that is able to render (...) an intertwined computation simpler, resorting to that “simplexity” of animal embodied cognition, which represents one of the main quality of organic agents. Through eco-cognitive computationalism we can clearly acknowledge that the concept of computation changes, depending on historical and contextual causes, and we can build an epistemological view that illustrates the “emergence” of new kinds of computations, such as the one regarding morphological computation. This new perspective shows how the computational domestication of ignorant entities can originate new unconventional cognitive embodiments. In the last part of the article I will introduce the concept of overcomputationalism, showing that my proposed framework helps us see the related concepts of pancognitivism, paniformationalism, and pancomputationalism in a more naturalized and prudent perspective, avoiding the excess of old-fashioned ontological or metaphysical overstatements. (shrink)

Neurulation, the curling of the neuroepithelium to form the neural tube, is an essential component of the development of animal embryos. Defects of neural tube formation, which occur with an overall frequency of one in 500 human births, are the cause of severe and distressing congenital abnormalities. However, despite the fact that there is increasing information from animal experiments about the mechanisms which effect neural tube formation, much less is known about the fundamental causes of neural tube defects (NTD). The (...) use of computer models provides one way of gaining clues about the ways in which neurulation may be compromised. Here we employ one computer model to examine the robustness of different cellular mechanisms which are thought to contribute to neurulation. The model, modified from that of Odell et al (Odell, G.M., Oster, G., Alberch, P. and Burnside, B., (1981)) mimics neurulation by laterally propagating a wave of apical contraction along an active zone within a ring of cells. We link the results to experimental evidence gained from studies of embryos in which neurulation has been perturbed. The results indicate that alteration of one of the properties of non-neural tissue can delay or inhibit neurulation, supporting the idea, gained from observation of embryos bearing genes which predispose to NTD, that the tissue underlying the neuroepithelium may contribute to the elevation of the neural folds. The results also show that reduction of the contractile properties of a small proportion of the neuroepithelial cell population may have a profound effect on overall tissue profiling. The results suggest that the elevation of the neural folds, and hence successful neurulation, may be vulnerable to relatively minor deficiencies in cell properties. (shrink)

Whether any non-human animal can attribute mental states to others remains the subject of extensive debate. This despite the fact that several species have behaved as if they have a ‘theory of mind’ in various behavioral tasks. In this paper, we review the reasons of skeptics for their doubts: That existing experimental setups cannot distinguish between ‘mind readers’ and ‘behavior readers’, that results that seem to indicate ‘theory of mind’ may come from studies that are insufficiently controlled, and that our (...) own intuitive biases may lead us to interpret behavior more ‘cognitively’ than is necessary. The merits of each claim and suggested solution are weighed. The conclusion is that while it is true that existing setups cannot conclusively demonstrate ‘theory of mind’ in non-human animals, focusing on this fact is unlikely to be productive. Instead, the more interesting question is how sophisticated their social reasoning can be, whether it is about ‘unobservable inner experiences’ or not. Therefore, it is important to address concerns about the setup and interpretation of specific experiments. To alleviate the impact of intuitive biases, various strategies have been proposed in the literature. These include a deeper understanding of associative learning, a better knowledge of the limited ‘theory of mind’ humans actually use, and thinking of animal cognition in an embodied, embedded way; that is, being aware that constraints outside of the brain, and outside of the body, may naturally predispose individuals to produce behavior that looks smart without requiring complex cognition. To enable this kind of thinking, a powerful methodological tool is advocated: Computational modeling, namely agent-based modeling and, particularly, cognitive modeling. By explicitly simulating the rules and representations that underlie animal performance on specific tasks, it becomes much easier to look past one’s own biases and to see what cognitive processes might actually be occurring. (shrink)

As courts become increasingly technologically sophisticated, it can be expected that the use of the latest visualisation techniques will also increase to make the most of this technology. In particular, the use of computer-generated animations can be expected to become more dominant. There is, however, very little research into the effects of animated evidence on jurors and other members of the judicial process. This paper investigates whether there is a difference in the quality and robustness of memories formed by (...) either hearing an oral testimony or seeing an animated version of it. Also, the paper investigates whether different opinions and attitudes are produced when testimony is presented as an animation as opposed to being verbally presented. Preliminary results reported here indicate that there is indeed a difference in attitude (and therefore potential bias) when animations are used instead of verbal testimony, but that this difference is only apparent in the long term (four weeks or more after the presentation of the animated evidence). The results point to the need for improved knowledge structures for mapping verbal testimony into animations, where issues of implicit knowledge and potential bias are explicitly referenced in the knowledge structure. The paper argues that, until and unless such issues are addressed, it is not safe to use animations in court except to present purely factual information. (shrink)

The brain–computer interface (BCI) has made remarkable progress in the bridging the divide between the brain and the external environment to assist persons with severe disabilities caused by brain impairments. There is also continuing philosophical interest in BCIs which emerges from thoughtful reflection on computers, machines, and artificial intelligence. This article seeks to apply BCI perspectives to examine, challenge, and work towards a possible resolution to a persistent problem in the mind–body relationship, namely dualism. The original humanitarian goals of (...) BCIs and the technological inventiveness result in BCIs being surprisingly useful. We begin from the neurologically impaired person, the problems encountered, and some pioneering responses from computers and machines. Secondly, the interface of mind and brain is explored via two points of clarification: direct and indirect BCIs, and the nature of thoughts. Thirdly, dualism is beset by mind–body interaction difficulties and is further questioned by the phenomena of intentions, interactions, and technology. Fourthly, animal minds and robots are explored in BCI settings again with relevance for dualism. After a brief look at other BCIs, we conclude by outlining a future BCI philosophy of brain and mind, which might appear ominous and could be possible. (shrink)

Why do the big philosophical questions so often strike us as far-fetched and little to with everyday life? Mary Midgley shows that it need not be that way; she shows that there is a need for philosophy in the real world. Her popularity as one of our foremost philosophers is based on a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to fundamental human problems, philosphical or otherwise. In _Utopias, Dolphins and Computers_ she makes her case for philosophy as a difficult but necessary tool for (...) solving some of the most pressing issues facing contemporary society. How should we treat animals? Why are we so confused about the value of education? What is at stake in feminism? Why should we sustain our environment? Why do we think intelligent computers will save us? Mary Midgley argues that philosophy not only can, but should be used in thinking about these questions. _Utopias, Dolphins and Computers_ will make fascinating reading for philosophers, educationalists, feminists, environmentalists and indeed anyone interested in the questions of philosophy, ethics and life. (shrink)

In this paper we examine to what extent the lengths of the links in an animated articulated figure can be changed without the viewer being aware of the change. This is investigated in terms of a framework that emphasizes the role of attention in visual perception. We conducted a set of five experiments to establish bounds for the sen-sitivity to changes in length as a function of several parameters and the amount of attention available. We found that while length changes (...) of 3% can be perceived when the relevant links are given full attention, changes of over 20% can go unnoticed when attention is not focused in this way. These results provide general guidelines for algorithms that produce or process character motion data and also bring to light some of the potential gains that stand to be achieved with attention-based algorithms. (shrink)

In our dealings with animals at least most of us see them as conscious beings. On the other hand the employment of human categories to animals seems to be problematic. Reflecting on the details of human beliefs, for example, casts serious doubt on whether the cat is able to believe anything at all. These theses try to reflect on methodological issues when investigating animal minds. Developing a theory of animal mentality seems to be a test case of the interdisciplinary research (...) programme in cognitive science. From the philosopher`s perspective the most pressing problem is how to talk about animal minds. Can we just employ the vocabulary of human psychology? If not, exploring animal minds contains the non-trivial task of introducing a terminology that allows to see the distinctness of animal minds and to see its connection to the human case. The treatment of some topic in cognitive science has to reach a reflective equilibrium between our intuitions, a phenomenological approach, philosophical conceptual analysis, various empirical approaches and model building. Reflective equilibrium means in this context that we have to reach a coherent model which incorporates as much of our intuitions concerning animal consciousness and integrates at the same time the findings of the different co-operating sciences. There can be various trade-offs in case of conflict between, say, philosophical definitions of mental terms as to be applied to animals, neurophysiology, our reflected intuitions and ethological model building based on a computational theory of animal minds. The paper gives an example of reflective equilibrium in discussing the case for awareness in vertebrates. It considers the role of evolutionary reasoning. The main focus lays on two examples of comparing our human notions with corresponding abilities in animals, and how an appropriate conceptual apparatus dealing with the abilities of animals could be introduced. (shrink)

With the recent advent of systems biology, developmental biology is taking a new turn. Attempts to create a ‘digital embryo’ are prominent among systems approaches. At the heart of these systems-based endeavours, variously described as ‘in vivoimaging’, ‘live imaging’ or ‘in totorepresentation’, are visualization techniques that allow researchers to image whole, live embryos at cellular resolution over time. Ultimately, the aim of the visualizations is to build a computer model of embryogenesis. This article examines the role of such visualization (...) techniques in the building of a computational model, focusing, in particular, on the cinematographic character of these representations. It asks how the animated representation of development may change the biological understanding of embryogenesis. By situating the animations of the digital embryo within the iconography of developmental biology, it brings to light the inextricably entwined, yet shifting, borders between the animated, the living and the computational. (shrink)

A questionnaire study was performed among Swedish organic livestock farmers to determine their view of animal welfare and other ethical issues in animal production. The questionnaire was sent to 56.5% of the target group and the response rate was 75.6%. A principal components analysis (exploratory factor analysis) was performed to get a more manageable data set. A matrix of intercorrelations between all pairs of factors was computed. The factors were then entered into a series of multiple regression models to explain (...) five dependent variables. Respondents were well educated and had long experience of farming. 81% were full-time farmers. They generally had a very positive attitude towards organic animal husbandry. They considered allowing animals their natural behavior a central aim, which is in accordance with organic philosophy. Farmers tended to be less approving of concepts like animal rights, dignity, and intrinsic value. When analyzing correlations between the factors, two groups of farmers emerged that were only partially correlated, representing different attitudes and behavioral dispositions. These may be interpreted as two subpopulations of organic livestock farmers in Sweden: those who saw organic farming as a lifestyle (``pioneer attitude'''') and entrepreneurs, who considered making money and new challenges more important. Their view of animal welfare differed. While the pioneers considered natural behavior a key issue, this was less important to the entrepreneurs, who also had a more approving attitude towards invasive operations such as castration and were more critical of the organic standards. (shrink)

Disoriented animals from ants to humans reorient in accord with the shape of the surrounding surface layout: a behavioral pattern long taken as evidence for sensitivity to layout geometry. Recent computational models suggest, however, that the reorientation process may not depend on geometrical analyses but instead on the matching of brightness contours in 2D images of the environment. Here we test this suggestion by investigating young children's reorientation in enclosed environments. Children reoriented by extremely subtle geometric properties of the 3D (...) layout: bumps and ridges that protruded only slightly off the floor, producing edges with low contrast. Moreover, children failed to reorient by prominent brightness contours in continuous layouts with no distinctive 3D structure. The findings provide evidence that geometric layout representations support children's reorientation. (shrink)

A skeptical worry known as ‘the indeterminacy of computation’ animates much recent philosophical reflection on the computational identity of physical systems. On the one hand, computational explanation seems to require that physical computing systems fall under a single, unique computational description at a time. On the other, if a physical system falls under any computational description, it seems to fall under many simultaneously. Absent some principled reason to take just one of these descriptions in particular as relevant for computational explanation, (...) widespread failure of computational explanation would appear to follow. This paper advances a new solution to the indeterminacy of computation. Very roughly, I argue that the computational identity of a physical system is determinate relative to a contextually specified way of regarding that system computationally—known as a labelling scheme. When a system simultaneously implements multiple computations, it does so relative to different labelling schemes. But relative to a fixed labelling scheme, a physical system has a unique computational identity. I argue that this relativistic conception of computational identity vindicates computational explanation in the face of simultaneous implementation. (shrink)

Computers can mimic human intelligence, sometimes quite impressively. This has led some to claim that, a.) computers can actually acquire intelligence, and/or, b.) the human mind may be thought of as a very sophisticated computer. In this paper I argue that neither of these inferences are sound. The human mind and computers, I argue, operate on radically different principles.

In ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’, Turing, sceptical of the question ‘Can machines think?’, quickly replaces it with an experimentally verifiable test: the imitation game. I suggest that for such a move to be successful the test needs to be relevant, expansive, solvable by exemplars, unpredictable, and lead to actionable research. The Imitation Game is only partially successful in this regard and its reliance on language, whilst insightful for partially solving the problem, has put AI progress on the wrong foot, prescribing (...) a top-down approach for building thinking machines. I argue that to fix shortcomings with modern AI systems a nonverbal operationalisation is required. This is provided by the recent Animal-AI Testbed, which translates animal cognition tests for AI and provides a bottom-up research pathway for building thinking machines that create predictive models of their environment from sensory input. (shrink)

This Ph.D. thesis explores a novel way of thinking about computation in cognitive science. It argues for what I call ‘the mechanistic account of wide computationalism’, or simply wide mechanistic computation. The key claim is that some cognitive and perceptual abilities are produced by or are the result of computational mechanisms that are, in part, located outside the individual; that computational systems, the ones that form the proper units of analysis in cognitive science, are particular types of functional mechanisms that, (...) on occasion, spread out across brain, body, and world. Wide mechanistic computation is the result of bringing together two distinct strands of thinking about computation: ‘wide’ views, which hold that computational systems can, on occasion, include parts of the surrounding environment; and ‘mechanistic’ views, which hold that computational explanation is a species of mechanistic explanation, and that computational mechanisms are a special type of functional mechanism. I argue that wide mechanistic computation draws support from several sources. First, I examine research on animal and human psychology and show that several organisms’ behaviours are properly treated as being the output of wide computational mechanisms. Second, I defend the view from several philosophical charges, including worries about its explanatory parsimony and empirical testability. Finally, I argue for the view’s theoretical credentials by showing that it can help resolve specific problems that have recently troubled 4E cognition. The result is an argument for not only the coherence but also empirical plausibility of wide mechanistic computation. On route to its main objective, the thesis also accomplishes a number of related tasks, including: providing a framework for organising and conceptualising different views of computation, securing the conceptual foundations of mechanistic computation by addressing an outstanding challenge called the ‘abstraction problem’, sounding a cautionary note about recent predictive processing accounts of extended cognition and arguing against a particular conception of levels often used within cognitive science, what is labelled the ‘hierarchical correspondence view of levels’. (shrink)

There has been an extraordinary resurgence of interest in the enigma of human consciousness among neuroscientists, psychologists, and professional philosophers. Much work is aimed at accommodating consciousness within the currently dominant physicalist world picture. This book is a comprehensive and sometimes impassioned attack to "biologize" consciousness by explaining its origin in evolutionary terms and identifying mental phenomena with brain processes; to "computerize" it by identifying mind with the supposed computational activity of the brain; and to empty or eliminate it by (...) denying the reality of qualia. Raymond Tallis's critique concludes with a long look at man--"the explicit animal"--that makes the irreducible mystery of human consciousness impossible to overlook or deny. (shrink)

The central paradigm of arti?cial intelligence is rapidly shifting toward biological models for both robotic devices and systems performing such critical tasks as network management, vehicle navigation, and process control. Here we use a recent mathematical analysis of the necessary conditions for consciousness in humans to explore likely failure modes inherent to a broad class of biologically inspired computing machines. Analogs to developmental psychopathology, in which regulatory mechanisms for consciousness fail progressively and subtly understress, and toinattentional blindness, where a narrow (...) 'syntactic band pass' de?ned by the rate distortion manifold of conscious attention results in pathological ?xation, seem inevitable. Similar problems are likely to confront other possible architectures, although their mathematical description may be far less straightforward. Computing devices constructed on biological paradigms will inevitably lack the elaborate, but poorly understood, system of control mechanisms which has evolved over the last few hundred million years to stabilize consciousness in higher animals. This will make such machines prone to insidious degradation, and, ultimately, catastrophic failure. (shrink)

Disney's computer‐animated musical film, Moana tells the tale of Moana, the daughter of Tui, the chief of a Polynesian island, Motunui. Bound by the legendary tradition of her ancestors, Moana is expected to follow her lineage and take over as chief when she grows up. As the authors dig beneath the surface level of the story, they find a metaphorical and philosophical level to Moana's journey. The story of Moana has layers. First, it is literally a tale of Moana's (...) voyage outside beyond the reef so that she can restore the heart of Te Fiti and save the people of Motunui. She closes this tale with a happy ending as she simultaneously lives the life that she freely chooses, becomes the leader of her people (by saving them) as her parents wanted, and honors her tradition insofar as she restores her ancestors' tradition of wayfinding. (shrink)

The numerous systems designed to facilitate animals’ use of computers often are specific to the animals involved, their unique context, and the applications – enrichment among them. Hence, several development methods have arisen in parallel, largely transposed from the human-computer interaction (HCI) domain. In light of that prior work, the paper presents a step-by-step guide for iteratively designing and constructing interactive computers for animals, informed by the rich history of HCI yet applying animal-centred principles, to enrich animal-computer interaction. (...) For each stage in the iterative design (requirements, ideation, prototyping, and testing), the author reflects on real-world experience of building interactive devices for various animals. The paper concludes with overarching considerations vital for future practice of developing interactive computers for animals. Thus, it serves as a valuable reference and information source for researchers designing novel computer systems for animals. (shrink)

This paper explores how, at the 1875 Royal Commission on Vivisection, the anaesthetised animal was construed as a boundary object around which “cooperation without consensus” Computer supported cooperative work: cooperation or conflict? Springer, London, 1993) could form, serving the interests of both scientists and animals. Advocates of anaesthesia presented it as benevolently intervening between the scientific agent and animal patient. Such articulations of ‘ethical’ vivisection through anaesthesia were then mandated in the 1876 Cruelty to Animals Act, and thus have (...) had significant downstream effects on the regulation of laboratory animals in Britain and beyond. Constructing this ‘consensus’ around the anaesthetised animal, however, required first excluding abolitionists and inhumane scientists, and secondly limiting the interests of experimental animals to the avoidance of pain through anaesthesia and euthanasia, thereby circumventing the issue of their possible interest in future life. This consensus also served to secure the interests of vivisecting scientists and to limit the influence of public opinion in the laboratory to administrative procedure and scheduled inspection. The focus on anaesthesia was connected with discussions of what supporting infrastructures were required to ensure proper ethical procedure was carried out by scientists. In contrast to the much studied polarisation in British society between pro- and antivivisectionists after 1876, we understand the 1875 Commission as a conflict amongst scientists themselves, while also being an intra-class conflict amongst the ruling class. (shrink)

The relationship between humans and animals is complex and influenced by multiple variables. Humans display a remarkably flexible and rich array of social competencies, demonstrating the ability to interpret, predict, and react appropriately to the behavior of others, as well as to engage others in a variety of complex social interactions. Developing computational systems that have similar social abilities is a critical step in designing robots, animated characters, and other computer agents that appear intelligent and capable in their interactions (...) with humans and each other. Further, it will improve their ability to cooperate with people as capable partners, learn from natural instruction, and provide intuitive and engaging interactions for human partners. Thus, human−animal team analogs can be one means through which to foster veridical mental models of robots that provide a more accurate representation of their near-future capabilities. Some digital twins of human−animal teams currently exist but are often incomplete. Therefore, this article focuses on issues within and surrounding the current models of human−animal teams, previous research surrounding this connection, and the challenges when using such an analogy for human−autonomy teams. (shrink)

Recently, many philosophers have been inclined to ascribe mentality to animals on the main grounds that they possess certain complex computational abilities. In this paper I contend that this view is misleading, since it wrongly assumes that those computational abilities demand a psychological explanation. On the contrary, they can be just characterised from a computational level of explanation, which picks up a domain of computation and information processing that is common to many computing systems but is autonomous from the domain (...) of psychology. Thus, I propose that it is possible to conceive insects and other animals as mere computing agents, without having any commitment to ascribe mentality to them. I conclude by sketching a proposal about how to draw the line between mere computing and genuine mentality. (shrink)

The contribution of the body to cognition and control in natural and artificial agents is increasingly described as “off-loading computation from the brain to the body”, where the body is said to perform “morphological computation”. Our investigation of four characteristic cases of morphological computation in animals and robots shows that the ‘off-loading’ perspective is misleading. Actually, the contribution of body morphology to cognition and control is rarely computational, in any useful sense of the word. We thus distinguish (1) morphology that (...) facilitates control, (2) morphology that facilitates perception and the rare cases of (3) morphological computation proper, such as ‘reservoir computing.’ where the body is actually used for computation. This result contributes to the understanding of the relation between embodiment and computation: The question for robot design and cognitive science is not whether computation is offloaded to the body, but to what extent the body facilitates cognition and control – how it contributes to the overall ‘orchestration’ of intelligent behaviour. (shrink)

For the past two decades, it has widely been assumed by linguists that there is a single computational operation, Merge, which is unique to language, distinguishing it from other cognitive domains. The intention of this paper is to progress the discussion of language evolution in two ways: (i) survey what the ethological record reveals about the uniqueness of the human computational system, and (ii) explore how syntactic theories account for what ethology may determine to be human-specific. It is shown that (...) the operation Label, not Merge, constitutes the evolutionary novelty which distinguishes human language from non-human computational systems; a proposal lending weight to a Weak Continuity Hypothesis and leading to the formation of what is termed Computational Ethology. Some directions for future ethological research are suggested. (shrink)

Do Animals have ideas? Do they experience pain like humans? Do they think about objects that they cannot see? About situations that have occurred in the past? Do they consciously make plans for the future or do they simply react unthinkingly to objects as they appear and situations as they arise? All of these questions have bearing on whether or not animals have consciousness. The advent of computers that ”think” has lead us to consider “intelligence” in a way we never (...) thought possible a decade ago. But when and how does information processing in the brain become automatic?In Minds of Their Own, Lesley J. Rogers examines the issue of animal thought both sympathetically and critically by looking at the different behavior characteristics of a variety of animals, the evolution of the brain and when consciousness might have evolved. To most people, to be conscious means to be aware of oneself as well as to be aware of others. But does this hold true for animals? The answer may have implications which transcend mere scientific inquiry: if animals are cognizant creatures, what, if any, moral responsibility do humans have to assure their rights? This timely book examines this issue and others by emphasizing comparisons between humans and animals: how we evolved; how we remember; how we learn. (shrink)

For the people who make them, music recommender systems hold a utopian promise: they can broaden listeners' horizons and help obscure musicians find audiences, taking advantage of the enormous catalogs offered by companies like Spotify, Apple Music, and their kin. But for critics, recommender systems have come to epitomize the potential harms of algorithms: they seem to reduce expressive culture to numbers, they normalize ever-broadening data collection, and they profile their users for commercial ends, tearing the social fabric into isolated (...) patches of atomized individuals. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork, anthropologist Nick Seaver offers an account of how the makers of music recommendation navigate these tensions: how product managers understand their relationship with the users they want to help and to capture, how engineers imagine the abstract geography of the "world of music" as a space they control and care for, how scientists conceive of listening itself as a kind of data processing. The book rehumanizes the algorithmic systems that shape our world, foregrounding the ideas animating the people who build and maintain them. Seaver braids together the thinking of programmers and anthropologists, opening up the cultural world of computation in a vividly theorized book that ranges widely from cosmology to calculation, metaphor to myth, and captivation to care. (shrink)

As a discipline, psychiatry is in the process of finding the right set of concepts to organize research and guide treatment. Dissatisfaction with the status quo as expressed in standard manuals has animated a number of computational paradigms, each proposing to rectify the received concept of mental disorder. We explore how different computational paradigms: normative modeling, network theory and learning-theoretic approaches like reinforcement learning and active inference, reconceptualize mental disorders. Although each paradigm borrows heavily from machine learning, they differ significantly (...) in their methodology, their preferred level of description, the role they assign to the environment and, especially, the degree to which they aim to assimilate psychiatric disorders to a standard medical disease model. By imagining how these paradigms might evolve, we bring into focus three rather different visions for the future of psychiatric research. Although machine learning plays a crucial role in the articulation of these paradigms, it is clear that we are far from automating the process of conceptual revision. The leading role continues to be played by the theoretical, metaphysical and methodological commitments of the competing paradigms. (shrink)

Since the cognitive revolution, psychologists have developed formal theories of cognition by thinking about the mind as a computer. However, this metaphor is typically applied to individual minds. Humans rarely think alone; compared to other animals, humans are curiously dependent on stores of culturally transmitted skills and knowledge, and we are particularly good at collaborating with others. Rather than picturing the human mind as an isolated computer, we can imagine each mind as a node in a vast distributed (...) system. Viewing human cognition through the lens of distributed systems motivates new questions about how humans share computation, when it makes sense to do so, and how we can build institutions to facilitate collaboration. (shrink)

Are humans alone in their ability to reminisce about the past and imagine the future? Recent evidence suggests that food-storing birds (scrub jays) have access to information about what they have stored where and when. This has raised the possibility of mental time travel (MTT) in animals and sparked similar research with other species. Here we caution that such data do not provide convincing evidence for MTT. Examination of characteristics of human MTT (e.g. non-verbal declaration, generativity, developmental prerequisites) points to (...) other avenues as to how a case for animal MTT could be made. In light of the current lack of evidence, however, we maintain that MTT is a uniquely human characteristic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 341 if you started asking them questions about possible worlds. But Bradley's contribution is to have given us a painstaking and thorough reading of some extremely tightly wound and important aspects of the Tractatus, to have brought that text into direct contaot with con· temporary issues, and to have made progress toward showing that how· ever remarkable we thought the Tractatus was, it is still more remarkable (...) than that. JOHN CHURCHILL Hendrix College Conway, Arkansas The Human Person: Animal and Spirit. By DAVID BRAINE. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. Pp. xxv + 555. $32.95 (cloth). Any study in philosophical anthropology that rejects both mate· rialism and dualism, and seeks to set forth a " holistic " alternative, may be met in many quarters with some skepticism today-especially if that alternative seeks to accommodate itself to religious teaching regarding the soul's continued existence after death. For, it will be asked, on the one hand, how can it deny that the esse of the human being ceases at death (538) without affirming some sort of dualism? On the other hand, unless it is some sort of soft-headed New Age philosophy (which this most certainly is not), how can it sustain its claim to "holism" while rejecting the monolithic materialism of those whom Walker Percy once described as our "brain engineers, neuropharmacologists, and chemists of the synapses "? The challenge is " how to produce an account which allows the human person to continue exist· ing after death, and even to have body restored to it, while remaining completely faithful to the insight that it belongs to human nature to be bodily," and, at the same time, to " avoid reerecting the soul into a complete substance" (xix). The peculiar obstacle faced by such a project is the pervasive proclivity towards reductionism in modern accounts of human nature stemming from the impress of both materialism and dualism. Both analyze the human person into an aggregate of parts in certain relations, the behavior of the whole being ·the result of the interactions of these parts. " In all this the materialist has exactly the same picture as the dualist. Indeed, unless the mental can first be represented as inner, logically independent of anything in the ' outer man ' and the ' world,' there is no way in which it can be identified with a brain-process or 342 BOOK REVIEWS state" (3). So whether one thinks of the mind as an independent en· tity (as in dualism), or not (as in materialism), the body is left to be accounted for by the brain engineers and their aggregates of physi· ological, anatomical, neurological, and chemical causes. And since materialism involves no complicating questions about causal interaction between the physical and the mental (as in dualism), it is usually preferred on grounds of its simplicity-all causation being subsumed under the physical. In this ambitious tome, David Braine, a philosopher at the University of Aberdeen, offers a thoroughgoing analysis and critique of such views, whereby he undertakes to overturn these ways of viewing human nature and to offer a holistic alternative. He sets forth a framework for understanding things like perceiving, doing, and speaking as irreducibly the acts of the psychosomatically integrated beings to which we normally attribute them-an understanding that conforms to the ordinary experience of such acts in ourselves and in others. He seeks to expose how materialist arguments repeat the mistakes of the dualists by reducing human beings (and other animals) to their aggregate parts, segmented sequences, and their interrelations. He takes issue with the arguments of recent analytical philosophers (such as Davidson and Dummett) in detail, and sets forth a holistic alternative-both with re· spect to the human person as " animal" and as " spirit." As to the human as "animal," Braine notes, accordingly, that "it is the bodily animal being as such, not just its mind, which is an ' I ', a ' he or she ', a focalized subject in relation to the world. The primary reason why human behaviour cannot be simulated by a computer does not lie in things special to human beings, but in the fact that this fo. calized psychophysical structure which they share with the... (shrink)

The detection and categorization of animate motions is a crucial task underlying social interaction and perceptual decision making. Neural representations of perceived animate objects are partially located in the primate cortical region STS, which is a region that receives convergent input from intermediate-level form and motion representations. Populations of STS cells exist which are selectively responsive to specific animated motion sequences, such as walkers. It is still unclear how and to what extent form and motion information contribute to the generation (...) of such representations and what kind of mechanisms are involved in the learning processes. The article develops a cortical model architecture for the unsupervised learning of animated motion sequence representations. We demonstrate how the model automatically selects significant motion patterns as well as meaningful static form prototypes characterized by a high degree of articulation. Such key poses are selectively reinforced during learning through a cross talk between the motion and form processing streams. Furthermore, we show how sequence-selective representations are learned in STS by fusing static form and motion input from the segregated bottom-up driving input streams. Cells in STS, in turn, feed their activities recurrently to their input sites along top-down signal pathways. We show how such learned feedback connections enable predictions about future input as anticipation generated by sequence-selective STS cells. Network simulations demonstrate the computational capacity of the proposed model by reproducing several experimental findings from neurosciences and by accounting for recent behavioral data. (shrink)

In a world of pervasive media and ubiquitous computing, this article asks what happens as everything (objects, subjects, and actions) moves toward animation across a network. How do media and mediation affect our sense of agency? I argue that the contemporary subject, as described by real-world media practice and animated film, exists within a space of accelerated mediation that distorts self-perception. I use the example of A Scanner Darkly, the 2006 Richard Linklater film, to discuss the effects of pervasive (...) media and how it affects the parameters of self-reflection and agency. The importance of A Scanner Darkly to my argument is that it provides a vision of pervasive mediation in which subjects and objects collide. In A Scanner Darkly, I focus on the use of rotoscoping animation as visual effect and conceptual filter. Effectively, as I argue, animation is used in this case to illustrate the loss of face-to-face engagement – the impossibility of the unmediated encounter. In the first section of the article, I conceptualize a networked subject in reference to the film’s rendition of a subject adrift in a field of mediation. In the second section, I contrast this vision with a formulation of networked subjectivity that engages modalities of mediated presence to explore issues of agency in light of a technologically animated environment. The question I ask is: if as a society we are subjected to a pervasive mediation, how may we imagine modes of agency within an animated world? (shrink)

Artificial grammar learning (AGL) is used to study how human adults, infants, animals or machines learn various sorts of rules defined over sounds or visual items. Ten Cate et al. introduce the topic and provide a critical synthesis of this important interdisciplinary area of research. They identify the questions that remain open and the challenges that lie ahead, and argue that the limits of human, animal and machine learning abilities have yet to be found.

The animated movie creates character performances and movement frame-by-frame by involving a sequence of slightly different objects. The technique involves the development of computer graphics, images, or drawings with creativity. More frequently, the representation of ethnic minorities provides a significant impact on the viewers. So, it is significant to analyze how the viewers are influenced by minority representation in animated movies. Hence, the present investigates the impact of ethnic minority representations in animation on various aspects of viewer engagement. (...) A sample of 300 participants was divided into two groups Group A as well as Group B, to analyze how different variables influence their responses to animated movies. Participants of different categories were indulged in watching an animated movie and provided with a questionnaire to interpret the factors that mostly influence the participants. By involving a statistical approach, the analysis revealed significant effects of the factors. The findings emphasize the importance for creators and producers to consider how ethnic minority representations in animation can shape and affect viewer experiences and responses. This study demonstrated the importance of involving larger samples and gaining a clear understanding of the need for representation awareness among the public. (shrink)

To effectively train ethical decision-making of nursing students, a case-based computer program was developed using Flash animation. Seven ethical cases collected from practicing registered nurses’ actual clinical experiences and a six-step Integrated Ethical Decision-Making Model developed by the author were employed in the program. In total, 251 undergraduate students from three nursing schools used the program in their nursing ethics course. The usability of the program and its usefulness in improving 11 abilities needed in ethical decision-making were measured; (...) it scored higher than 4 on a 5-point scale. Of the students, 82% recommended the program as a valuable complementary tool in the teaching of a nursing ethics course. A variety of encouraging and positive experiences were reported by the students. The computer program is likely to be usefully practical in the training of abstract skills to nursing students, though certain challenges remain, such as the precise understanding of cognitive or affective responses to ethical issues. (shrink)