Introduction: why the De anima commentaries? This book will concentrate on interpretations of the De anima in late antiquity, and what we can learn from ...

Much problem solving and learning research in math and science has focused on formal representations. Recently researchers have documented the use of unschooled strategies for solving daily problems -- informal strategies which can be as effective, and sometimes as sophisticated, as school-taught formalisms. Our research focuses on how formal and informal strategies interact in the process of doing and learning mathematics. We found that combining informal and formal strategies is more effective than single strategies. We provide a theoretical account of (...) this multiple strategy effect and have begun to formulate this theory in an ACT-R computer model. We show why students may reach common impasses in the use of written algebra, and how subsequent or concurrent use of informal strategies leads to better problem-solving performance. Formal strategies facilitate computation because of their abstract and syntactic nature; however, abstraction can lead to nonsensical interpretations and conceptual errors. Reapplying the formal strategy will not repair such errors; switching to an informal one may. We explain the multiple strategy effect as a complementary relationship between the computational efficiency of formal strategies and the sense-making function of informal strategies. (shrink)

Experimental studies of fear conditioning have identified the effectiveness of safety signals in inhibiting fear and maintaining fear-motivated behaviors. In fear conditioning procedures, the presence of safety signals means that the otherwise expected feared outcome will not now occur. Differences in the inhibitory learning processes needed to learn safety are being identified in various psychological and psychiatric conditions. However, despite early theoretical interest, the role of conditioned inhibitors as safety signals in anxiety has been under-investigated to date, in part because (...) of the stringent test procedures required to confirm the demonstration of conditioned inhibition as such. Nonetheless, the theoretical implications of an inhibitory learning perspective continue to influence clinical practice. Moreover, our understanding of safety signals is of additional importance in the context of the increased health anxiety and safety behaviors generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The notes of W. S. Maguinness on the Corpus Tibullianum contain several things which strike me as either true or at least highly plausible. In the above passage, however, I think both he and Postgate have missed the point of the first word. Tibullus has been telling the story of how Apollo turned herdsman for love's sake. He insists several times over that it is a story, not a thing he can vouch for. The infinitives in 14 a-c make it (...) sufficiently evident that the lost pentameter began with fertur or dicitur; in 18, Artemis dicitur to have blushed for her brother's unseemly occupation; in 29, fertur that the gods used to serve Venus openly. The same line reminds us that these stories refer to old days, olim. Now comes the couplet in question. (shrink)

In this paper an attempt is made to look at Freud's contribution from the point of view of its scientific validity. A factual survey is made of the results of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, of the kinds of facts and arguments used to support the psychoanalytic doctrine and of the experiments carried out to test it. The conclusion arrived at is that psychoanalysis and the theories associated with it is not a science, but a myth; adherence to it is based on emotion (...) and prejudice rather than on fact and reason. (shrink)