Impairments in executive functioning are prevalent in chronic pain conditions, with cognitive inflexibility being the most frequently reported. The current randomized, cross-over trial, piloted a computerized cognitive training program based on Relational Frame Theory, targeting improvement in cognitive flexibility. At baseline, 73 chronic pain patients completed testing on pre-selected outcomes of executive functioning, alongside IQ measures. When tested three times over the course of 5 months, there was a drop-out rate of 40% at the third time point, leaving 44 patients (...) who had data at all time points. The results showed that there was a substantial learning effect from the MINDFLEX training and a substantial time-dependent improvement on the primary outcomes of increased flexibility, but that this could not be tied to active training. In conclusion, this small study indicated a learning effect as well as improvement on primary outcomes. Based on the current results, a larger trial with improved feasibility of training is warranted. (shrink)

Chronic widespread pain is one of the most difficult pain conditions to treat due to an unknown etiology and a lack of innovative treatment design and effectiveness. Based upon preliminary findings within the fields of motivational psychology, integrative neuroscience, diaphragmatic breathing, and vagal nerve stimulation, we propose a new treatment intervention, motivational nondirective resonance breathing, as a means of reducing pain and suffering in patients with chronic widespread pain. Motivational nondirective resonance breathing provides patients with a noninvasive means of potentially (...) modulating five psychophysiological mechanisms imperative for endogenously treating pain and increasing overall quality of life. (shrink)

Chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) represents a highly prevalent and significant clinical problem. Both major and minor surgeries entail risks of developing CPSP, and cancer-related surgery is no exception. As an example, more than 40% of women undergoing breast cancer surgery struggle with CPSP years after surgery. While we do not fully understand the pathophysiology of CPSP, we know it is multifaceted with biological, social, and psychological factors contributing. The aim of this review is to advocate for the role of response (...) outcome expectancies in the development of CPSP following breast cancer surgery. We propose the Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress (CATS) as an applicable theoretical framework detailing the potential role of cortisol regulation, inflammation, and inflammatory-induced sickness behavior in CPSP. Drawing on learning theory and activation theory, CATS offers psychobiological explanations for the relationship between stress and health, where acquired expectancies are crucial in determining the stress response and health outcomes. Based on existing knowledge about risk factors for CPSP, and in line with the CATS position, we propose the SURGEry outcome expectancy (SURGE) model of CPSP. According to SURGE, expectancies impact stress physiology, inflammation, and fear-based learning influencing the development and persistence of CPSP. SURGE further proposes that generalized response outcome expectancies drive adaptive or maladaptive stress responses in the time around surgery, where coping dampens the stress response, while helplessness and hopelessness sustains it. A sustained stress response may contribute to central sensitization, alterations in functional brain networks and excessive fear-based learning. This sets the stage for a prolonged state of inflammatory-induced sickness behavior – potentially driving and maintaining CPSP. Finally, as psychological factors are modifiable, robust and potent predictors of CPSP, we suggest hypnosis as an effective intervention strategy targeting response outcome expectancies. We here argue that presurgical clinical hypnosis has the potential of preventing CPSP in women with breast cancer. (shrink)

Mind body, not a pseudo-problem, by H. Feigl.--Is consciousness a brain process? by U. T. Place.--Sensations and brain processes, by J. J. C. Smart.--The nature of mind, by D. M. Armstrong.--Materialism as a scientific hypothesis, by U. T. Place.--Sensations and brain processes: a reply to J. J. C. Smart, by J. T. Stevenson.--Further remarks on sensations and brain processes, by J. J. C. Smart.--Smart on sensations, by K. Baier.--Brain processes and incorrigibility, by J. J. C. Smart.--Could mental states be brain (...) processes? by J. Shaffer.--The identity of mind and body, by J. Cornman.--Shaffer on the identity of mental states and brain processes, by R. Coburn.--Mental events and the brain, by J. Shaffer.--Comment: mental events and the brain, by P. Feyerabend.--Materialism and the mind-body problem, by P. Feyerabend.--Materialism, by J. J. C. Smart.--Scientific materialism and the identity theory, by N. Malcolm.--Professor Malcolm on scientific materialism and the identity theory, by E. Sosa.--Rejoinder to Mr. Sosa, by N. Malcolm.--Mind-body identity, privacy and categories, by R. Rorty.--Physicalism, by T. Nagel.--Mind-body identity, a side issue? by C. Taylor.--Illusions and identity, by J. M. Hinton.--Bibliography (p. [259]-261). (shrink)

Vol. 2 is dedicated to the use of Kierkegaard by later Danish writers. Almost from the beginning Kierkegaard's works were standard reading for these authors. Danish novelists and critics from the Modern Breakthrough movement in the 1870s were among the first to make extensive use of his writings. These included the theoretical leader of the movement, the critic Georg Brandes, who wrote an entire book on Kierkegaard, and the novelists Jens Peter Jacobsen and Henrik Pontoppidan.

Recent reasoning accounts suggest that people can process elementary logical principles intuitively. These controversial “logical intuitions” are believed to result from a learning process in which developing reasoners automatize their application. To verify this automatization hypothesis, we contrasted the reasoning performance of younger (7th grade) and older (12th grade) reasoners with a two-response paradigm. Participants initially responded with the first intuitive response that came to mind and subsequently were allowed to deliberate on classic “bias” problems (base-rate problems and syllogisms). Results (...) showed that in addition to showing less deliberate correction of an initial erroneous response, younger reasoners were specifically less likely to generate the correct response from the outset. The findings lend credence to the role of a developmental automatization process and indicate that developmental improvements in reasoning accuracy are at least partially driven by an improvement in the accuracy of our intuitions. (shrink)

De dialectiek bij Paul Scholten: haar aard, oorsprong en bronnen Een bekend kenmerk van Scholtens beschouwingswijze was zijn dialectiek.Langemeijer heeft de aard ervan scherp geduid, maar erkend in het duister te tasten over haar oorsprong en bronnen. Hegel en Barth komen niet in aanmerking. Ik wijs op de betekenis die de theoloog P.D. Chantepie de la Saussaye (1848-1920) gehad kan hebben voor de ontwikkeling van Scholtens denken, zowel inhoudelijk als qua dialectiek. Sommige contemporaine auteurs lijken Scholten schatplichtig te achten aan (...) Kierkegaard; ik acht dat te speculatief. Moderne digitale technologie opent potentieel grote mogelijkheden voor de toepassing van computers en artificiële intelligentie (AI) in de rechtspleging. Scholtens dialectiek stelt ons voor fundamentele rechtsfilosofische vragen ten aanzien van de mogelijkheid en wenselijkheid van ‘rechtspraak door computers’. (shrink)

In this article, we first describe our general inhibitory-control theory and, then, we describe how we have tested its specific hypotheses on reasoning with brain imaging techniques in adults and children. The innovative part of this perspective lies in its attempt to come up with a brain-based synthesis of Jean Piaget’s theory on logical algorithms and Daniel Kahneman’s theory on intuitive heuristics.

Der Aufsatz zielt auf eine nähere Präzisierung der üblicherweise gegebenen Bestimmung, Leibniz sei „Kompatibilist“ gewesen. Willensfreiheit ist für Leibniz mit Gottes Vorherwissen und Vorherbestimmung sowie mit dem Prinzip des zureichenden Grundes kompatibel, keineswegs jedoch mit Indifferenz. Urn die Vereinbarkeit der Willensfreiheit mit vollständigen individuellen Begriffen zu zeigen, scheint der Rekurs auf Gegenstücke in anderen möglichen Welten unerläßlich. Es wird argumentiert, daß Willensfreiheit für Leibniz nicht mit der prinzipiellen Vorhersagbarkeit von Willensentscheidungen durch einen menschlichen Beobachter oder durch einen Laplaceschen Dämon kompatibel (...) ist. (shrink)

The parameters governing our behavior are in constant flux, and capturing these dynamics in cognitive models remains a challenge. We demonstrate how a mapping between ACT‐R's model of declarative memory and the linear ballistic accumulator enables efficient estimation of memory parameters from data. The resulting estimates provide a cognitively meaningful explanation for observed differences in behavior over time and between individuals.

Why are negative emotions so central in art reception far beyond tragedy? Revisiting classical aesthetics in the light of recent psychological research, we present a novel model to explain this much discussed (apparent) paradox. We argue that negative emotions are an important resource for the arts in general, rather than a special license for exceptional art forms only. The underlying rationale is that negative emotions have been shown to be particularly powerful in securing attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability, (...) and hence is precisely what artworks strive for. Two groups of processing mechanisms are identified that conjointly adopt the particular powers of negative emotions for art's purposes. The first group consists of psychological distancing mechanisms that are activated along with the cognitive schemata of art, representation, and fiction. These schemata imply personal safety and control over continuing or discontinuing exposure to artworks, thereby preventing negative emotions from becoming outright incompatible with expectations of enjoyment. This distancing sets the stage for a second group of processing components that allow art recipients to positively embrace the experiencing of negative emotions, thereby rendering art reception more intense, more interesting, more emotionally moving, more profound, and occasionally even more beautiful. These components include compositional interplays of positiveandnegative emotions, the effects of aesthetic virtues of using the media of (re)presentation (musical sound, words/language, color, shapes) on emotion perception, and meaning-making efforts. Moreover, our Distancing-Embracing model proposes that concomitant mixed emotions often help integrate negative emotions into altogether pleasurable trajectories. (shrink)

The editors welcome letters from readers, although we cannot guarantee that all will be published. To ensure timeliness, correspondents must respond to an article within seven weeks and not exceed two double‐spaced pages. Letters become the property of the editors and may be edited and shortened at our discretion.

This article is an attempt to give arguments for bringing aesthetics back into praxis. Often aesthetics is understood as something coming out of individual designers' or architects' creative talents. We challenge such a view by introducing an understanding of aesthetics as an aspect of praxis. The article builds on observations of a design project for a community centre in a Danish village. We argue that aesthetics is a result of struggles by participants in praxis, where aesthetic, material, functional, ethical, political, (...) and economic aspects are formed by each other in a dialectic process. The struggles are found in the client's reasons for starting the process, in the design and construction process and the use of the results. This means that descriptions of the aesthetics of buildings should incorporate relevant discussions and struggles of the design, construction and use of the building. It also means that the key to a fruitful ongoing collaborative process producing good aesthetic comes from managing together the many aspects of praxis in an open way. (shrink)

BackgroundEthical problems in everyday healthcare work emerge for many reasons and constitute threats to ethical values. If these threats are not managed appropriately, there is a risk that the patient may be inflicted with moral harm or injury, while healthcare professionals are at risk of feeling moral distress. Therefore, it is essential to support the learning and development of ethical competencies among healthcare professionals and students. The aim of this study was to explore the available literature regarding ethics education that (...) promotes ethical competence learning for healthcare professionals and students undergoing training in healthcare professions.MethodsIn this integrative systematic review, literature was searched within the PubMed, CINAHL, and PsycInfo databases using the search terms ‘health personnel’, ‘students’, ‘ethics’, ‘moral’, ‘simulation’, and ‘teaching’. In total, 40 articles were selected for review. These articles included professionals from various healthcare professions and students who trained in these professions as subjects. The articles described participation in various forms of ethics education. Data were extracted and synthesised using thematic analysis.ResultsThe review identified the need for support to make ethical competence learning possible, which in the long run was considered to promote the ability to manage ethical problems. Ethical competence learning was found to be helpful to healthcare professionals and students in drawing attention to ethical problems that they were not previously aware of. Dealing with ethical problems is primarily about reasoning about what is right and in the patient’s best interests, along with making decisions about what needs to be done in a specific situation.ConclusionsThe review identified different designs and course content for ethics education to support ethical competence learning. The findings could be used to develop healthcare professionals’ and students’ readiness and capabilities to recognise as well as to respond appropriately to ethically problematic work situations. (shrink)

In previous published research (“Conditionals and Inferential Connections: A Hypothetical Inferential Theory,” Cognitive Psychology, 2018), we investigated experimentally what role the presence and strength of an inferential connection between a conditional’s antecedent and consequent plays in how people process that conditional. Our analysis showed the strength of that connection to be strongly predictive of whether participants evaluated the conditional as true, false, or neither true nor false. In this article, we re-analyse the data from our previous research, now focussing on (...) the semantics of conditionals rather than on how they are processed. Specifically, we use those data to compare the main extant semantics with each other and with inferentialism, a semantics according to which the truth of a conditional requires the presence of an inferential connection between the conditional’s component parts. (shrink)

Sustainability science seeks to extend scientific investigation into domains characterized by a distinct problem-solving agenda, physical and social complexity, and complex moral and ethical landscapes. In this endeavor it arguably pushes scientific investigation beyond its usual comfort zones, raising fundamental issues about how best to structure such investigation. Philosophers of science have long scrutinized the structure of science and scientific practices, and the conditions under which they operate effectively. We propose a critical engagement between sustainability scientists and philosophers of science (...) with respect to how to engage in scientific activity in these complex domains. We identify specific issues philosophers of science raise concerning current sustainability science and the contributions philosophers can make to resolving them. In conclusion we reflect on the steps philosophers of science could take to advance sustainability science. (shrink)

This paper argues that the main global critiques of scientism lose their punch because they rely on an uncharitable definition of their target. It focuses on epistemological scientism and divides it into four categories in terms of how strong (science is the only source of knowledge) or weak (science is the best source of knowledge) and how narrow (only natural sciences) or broad (all sciences or at least not only the natural sciences) they are. Two central arguments against scientism, the (...) (false) dilemma and self‐referential incoherence, are analysed. Of the four types of epistemological scientism, three can deal with these counterarguments by utilizing two methodological principles: epistemic evaluability of reliability and epistemic opportunism. One hopes that these considerations will steer the discussion on scientism to more fruitful pastures in the future. For example, there are interesting methodological considerations concerning what evaluability or reliability and epistemic opportunism entail. (shrink)