If we express our knowledge in sentences, we will find that these sentences are linked in complex patterns governed by our observations and our inferences from these observations. These inferences are to a large extent driven by logical rules. We ask whether the structure logic imposes on our knowledge restricts what we forget and what we remember. The model is a two period S5 logic. In this logic, we propose a memory loss operator: the agent forgets a (...) sentence pif and only if he knows pat time 1 and he does not know pat time 2. Equipped with the operator, we prove theorems on the relation between knowledge and memory loss. The main results point to classes of formulas that an agent cannot forget, and classes of formulas he must forget. A desirable feature is that most results hold in the S4 logic. The results illustrate bounds to memory loss, and thus to bounded rationality. We apply the model to single-agent conventions: conventions made between an agent and himself. (shrink)

Hospitality industry plays a crucial role in the development of tourism. Predicting the future demand of a hotel is a key step in the process of hotel revenue management. Hotel passenger flow prediction plays an important role in guiding the formulation of hotel pricing and operating strategies. On the one hand, hotel passenger flow prediction can provide decision support for hotel managers and effectively avoid the waste of hotel resources and loss of revenue caused by the loss of (...) customers. On the other hand, it is the guarantee of the priority occupation of business opportunities by hotel enterprises, which can help hotel enterprises adjust their operation strategies reasonably to better adapt to the market situation. In addition, hotel passenger flow prediction is helpful to judge the overall operating condition of the hotel industry and assess the risk level of the hotel project to be built. Hotel passenger flow is affected by many factors, such as weather, environment, season, holidays, economy, and emergencies, and has the characteristics of complex nonlinear fluctuation. The existing demand predicting methods include linear methods and nonlinear methods. The linear prediction methods rely on the stability of environment and time series, so they cannot completely simulate the complex nonlinear fluctuations characteristics of hotel passenger flow. Traditional nonlinear prediction methods need to improve the prediction accuracy, and they are difficult to deal with the increasing data of hotel passenger flow. Based on the above analysis, this paper constructs a deep learning prediction model based on Long Short-Term Memory to predict the number of actual monthly arrival bookings. The number of actual monthly arrival bookings can reflect the actual monthly passenger flow of a hotel. The prediction model can effectively reduce the loss caused by cancellation or nonarrival of bookings due to various reasons and improve the hotel revenue. The experimental part of this paper is based on the booking demand dataset of a resort hotel in Portugal from July 1, 2015, to August 31, 2017. Artificial neural network and support vector regression are built as benchmark models to predict the number of actual monthly arrival bookings of this hotel. The experimental results show that, compared with the benchmark models, the LSTM model can effectively improve the prediction ability and provide necessary reference for the hotel's future pricing decision and operation mode arrangement. (shrink)

All over the Internet, many websites operate dealing with collective and personal memory. The sites relevant to collective memory deal with structuring the memory of social groups and they comprise part of “civil religion”. The sites that deal with personal memory memorialize people who have died and whose family members or friends or other members of their community have an interest in preserving their memory. This article offers an analysis of an expanded philosophical discourse that (...) took place over a two-year period with three groups of young people who had experienced loss in their families or their communities and who were partners in writing texts on memorial sites or had established websites as part of coping with the loss. This article seeks to offer a narrative analysis of the philosophical discourse and to contribute to an expansion of the discussion regarding the connection between Philosophy with Children and its methods and the social networks where entire lives involving philosophical dimensions are conducted. (shrink)

In this paper, the most common pepper noise in grayscale image noise is investigated in depth in the median filtering algorithm, and the improved median filtering algorithm, adaptive switching median filtering algorithm, and adaptive polar median filtering algorithm are applied to the OTSU algorithm. Two improved OTSU algorithms such as the adaptive switched median filter-based OTSU algorithm and the polar adaptive median filter-based OTSU algorithm are obtained. The experimental results show that the algorithm can better cope with grayscale images contaminated (...) by pretzel noise, and the segmented grayscale images are not only clear but also can better retain the detailed features of grayscale images. A genetic algorithm is a kind of search algorithm with high adaptive, fast operation speed, and good global space finding ability, and it will have a good effect when applied to the threshold finding of the OTSU algorithm. However, the traditional genetic algorithm will fall into the local optimal solution in different degrees when finding the optimal threshold. The advantages of the two interpolation methods proposed in this paper are that one is the edge grayscale image interpolation algorithm using OTSU threshold adaptive segmentation and the other is the edge grayscale image interpolation algorithm using local adaptive threshold segmentation, which can accurately divide the grayscale image region according to the characteristics of different grayscale images and effectively improve the loss of grayscale image edge detail information and jagged blur caused by the classical interpolation algorithm. The visual effect of grayscale images is enhanced by selecting grayscale images from the standard grayscale image test set and interpolating them with bilinear interpolation, bucolic interpolation, NEDI interpolation, and FEOI interpolation for interpolation simulation validation. The subjective evaluation and objective evaluation, as well as the running time, are compared, respectively, showing that the method of this paper can effectively improve the quality of grayscale image interpolation. (shrink)

Since its introduction in 1938, electroshock, or electroconvulsion therapy , has been one of psychiatry's most controversial procedures. Approximately 100,000 people in the United States undergo ECT yearly, and recent media reports indicate a resurgence of its use. Proponents claim that changes in the technology of ECT administration have greatly reduced the fears and risk formely associated with the procedure. I charge, however that ECT as routinely used today is at least as harmful overall as it was before these changes (...) were instituted. I recount my own experience with combined insulin coma - elcetroshock during the early 1960s and the story of the first electroshock "treatment." I report on who now is being electroshocked, at what cost, where, and for what reasons. I discuss ECT technique modifications and describe how ECT is currently administered. I examine assertions and evidence concerning ECT's effectivness and ECT-related deaths, brain damage, and memory loss. Finally I describe "depatterning treatment," a brainwashing technique developed in Canada during the 1950s, drawing a parallel between electroshock and brainwashing. (shrink)

Fine (2005, 2006) has presented a ‘trilemma’ concerning the tense-realist idea that reality is constituted by tensed facts. According to Fine, there are only three ways out of the trilemma, consisting in what he takes to be the three main families of tense-realism: ‘presentism’, ‘(external) relativism’, and ‘fragmentalism’. Importantly, although Fine characterises tense-realism as the thesis that reality is constituted (at least in part) by tensed facts, he explicitly claims that tense realists are not committed to their fundamental existence. Recently, (...) Correia and Rosenkranz (2011, 2012) have claimed that Fine’s tripartite map of tense realism is incomplete as it misses a fourth position they call ‘dynamic absolutism’. In this paper, I will argue that dynamic absolutists are committed to the irreducible existence of tensed facts and that, for this reason, they face a similar trilemma concerning the notion of fact-content. I will thus conclude that a generalised version of Fine’s trilemma, concerning both fact-constitution and fact-content, is indeed inescapable. (shrink)

Generativism about memory justification is the view that memory can generate epistemic justification. Generativism is gaining popularity, but process reliabilists tend to resist it. Process reliabilism explains the justification of beliefs by way of the reliability of the processes they result from. Some advocates of reliabilism deny various forms of generativism. Other reliabilists reject or remain neutral about only the more extreme forms. I argue that an extreme form of generativism follows from reliabilism. This result weakens a long-standing (...) argument for reliabilism. (shrink)

The possibility of changing the past by means of time-travel appears to depend on the possibility of distinguishing the past as it is ‘before’ and ‘after’ the time-travel. So far, all the metaphysical models that have been proposed to account for the possibility of past-changing time-travels operate this distinction by conceiving of time as multi-dimensional, and thus by significantly inflating our metaphysics of time. The aim of this article is to argue that there is an intuitive sense in which past-changing (...) time-travels are metaphysically possible also in one-dimensional time. (shrink)

The supervaluationist approach to branching time (‘SBT-theory’) appears to be threatened by the puzzle of retrospective determinacy: if yesterday I uttered the sentence ‘It will be sunny tomorrow’ and only in some worlds overlapping at the context of utterance it is sunny the next day, my utterance is to be assessed as neither true nor false even if today is indeed a sunny day. John MacFarlane (“Truth in the Garden of Forking Paths” 81) has recently criticized a promising solution to (...) this puzzle for falling short of an adequate account of ‘actually’. In this paper, I aim to rebut MacFarlane's criticism. To this effect, I argue that: (i) ‘actually’ can be construed either as an indexical or as a nonindexical operator; (ii) if ‘actually’ is nonindexical, MacFarlane's criticism is invalid; (iii) there appear to be independent reasons for SBT-theorists to claim that ‘actually’ is a nonindexical expression. (shrink)

The analysis of identity in cases of memory loss, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease, sheds light on relevant philosophical and practical concerns, such as decision-making processes, autonomy, and the improvement of interaction with patients. Literature on psychological continuity recognizes identity when there are no disruptions in memory, which is certainly not the case in Alzheimer´s disease. Narrative identity, particularly in its relational and non-relational versions, delivers tools which are not exempt from difficulties. Either the caregivers’ narrative or the (...) patient’s narrative is dismissed. Furthermore, if there is a contradiction of narratives in relational theories, we are advised to either find the best narrative or seek agreement. However, one option rejects one narrative, while the other is unattainable in practice for the case in question. Hence, we propose drawing from ironism (Rorty, 1989), which suggests duality of dialogues when dealing with problems. This will be used to defend that the narratives of both, a person with Alzheimer and those close to them, are valid when constituting identity of the former. In this case, we will articulate and defend relational ironism, which allows us to embrace inconsistent narratives without seeking agreements. According to this, personal identity in this case is in constant tension between the narratives of those who suffer Alzheimer’s disease and the narratives of those close to them. We close illustrating possible benefits for how best to interact with patients. (shrink)

This article discusses the possibility of practitioners who mistake organic memory loss for dissociative amnesia. It starts with the case of a young man with complete retrograde amnesia due to a traumatic head injury. Because he did not show any gross neurological abnormalities, a neurologist thought his amnesia had a psychological origin. An extensive neuropsychological examination revealed that the man did have an organic reason for his amnesia. Next, the existence of dissociative memory loss as well (...) as isolated organic retrograde amnesia is considered. While cases of organic memory loss are well-documented, there is hardly any evidence for dissociative amnesia. It is argued that organic memory loss might be mistakenly taken for dissociative amnesia. In line with the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, practitioners are advised to rule out the possibility of organic memory loss, before diagnosing a patient with dissociative amnesia. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to propose a novel supervaluationist theory of ‘actually’ in the open future. First, I will argue that any adequate theory of actuality in a branching setting must comply with three main desiderata. Second, I will prove that none of the actuality operators that have been proposed in the literature is up to the task. Finally, I will propose a novel theory of actuality in the open future combining one of the existing definitions of the (...) actuality operator with a new definition of the historical possibility operator, and argue for its adequacy. The central feature of the theory I will advance is the introduction of an actuality parameter capable of being shifted by the historical possibility operator. I will argue that this account appears to not only be consistent with the idea that the future is genuinely open, but also with the general idea that ‘actually’ is, in a relevant sense, a ‘rigid’ operator. (shrink)

According to perspectival realism, reality is (at least partially) constituted by “purely perspectival” facts, that is, facts that appear to describe reality only from a given “perspective”. Fragmentalism is a form of perspectival realism that maintains both that no perspective is privileged and that perspectival facts constitute reality absolutely. Assuming that reality is sufficiently variegated, fragmentalism entails that reality is absolutely constituted by incompatible facts. Given that incompatible facts can never obtain together, reality must be divided into a plurality of (...) “fragments” that never compose a coherent, unitary whole. The main aim of this paper is to provide the first rigorous, detailed map of fragmentalism and its rivals. First, we will argue that fragmentalism is best construed as having two “unitist” (that is, non-fragmentalist) boundaries, which we will call ‘coherent’ and ‘incoherent unitism’. Second, we will present what we take to be the six main viable versions of fragmentalism and show how they can be categorized according to whether they take the logical operations of conjunction and negation to be either “local” or “global”. (shrink)

Relational, operator, and predicate systems are distinguished on the basis that they correspond to the three possible pair-wise bracketings into two constituents of the three parts of a proposition: relation, subject, and object. It is asserted that the verbal propositional modality (left hemisphere) uses a predicate grammar, while the spatial-image operational modality (right hemisphere) uses an operator grammar. Verbal propositional memory has the capacity for extensive propositional embedding while spatial operational memory does not.

Pathogenesis in tauopathies involves the accumulation of tau in the brain and progressive synapse loss accompanied by cognitive decline. Pathological tau is found at synapses, and it promotes synaptic dysfunction and memory deficits. The specific role of toxic tau in disrupting the molecular networks that regulate synaptic strength has been elusive. A novel mechanistic link between tau toxicity and synaptic plasticity involves the acetylation of two lysines on tau, K274, and K281, which are associated with dementia in Alzheimer's (...) disease (AD). We propose that an increase in tau acetylated on these lysines blocks the expression of long‐term potentiation at hippocampal synapses leading to impaired memory in AD. Acetylated tau could inhibit the activity‐dependent recruitment of postsynaptic AMPA‐type glutamate receptors required for plasticity by interfering with the postsynaptic localization of KIBRA, a memory‐associated protein. Strategies that reduce the acetylation of tau may lead to effective treatments for cognitive decline in AD. (shrink)

Cultural heritage can offer tangible and intangible traces of the past. A past that shapes cultural identity, but also a past from which one sometimes wishes to detach oneself and which nevertheless needs to be remembered, even commemorated. These themes of memory, history and oblivion are examined by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur in his work La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli. Inspired by these ideas, this paper analyses how they are closely linked to cultural heritage. Heritage serves as a support for (...) memory, even if it can be mishandled, which in turn can affect heritage policies. Memory and heritage can be abused as a result of wounds from the past or for reasons of ideological manipulation or because of a political will to force people to remember. Furthermore, heritage, as a vehicule of memory, contributes to historical knowledge, but can remain marked by a certain form of subjectivism during the heritage and conservation operation, for which heritage professionals are responsible. Yet, the responsibility for conserving cultural heritage also implies the need to avoid any loss of heritage, and to fight against oblivion. Nonetheless, this struggle cannot become totalitarian, nor can it deprive the community of a sometimes salutary oblivion to its own identity construction. These theoretical and philosophical concepts shall be examined in the light of legal discourse, and in particular in Belgian legislation regarding cultural heritage. It is clear that the shift from monument to heritage broadens the legal scope and consequently raises the question of who gets to decide what is considered heritage according to the law, and whether there is something such as a collective human right to cultural heritage. Nonetheless, this broadening of the legislation extends the State intervention into cultural heritage, which in turn entails certain risks, as will be analysed with Belgium’s colonial heritage. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 32.1 (2002) 49-62 [Access article in PDF] "What I Want Back is What I Was" Consolation's Retrospect Denise Riley "If a horse in its elation should say 'I am beautiful' it would be bearable" [Epictetus 289]. Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, doesn't go on to say that if a human were to utter the same sentiment, it would be unbearable: only that the horse's owner shouldn't try to take (...) credit himself for the gratuitous beauty of his animal, or try to bask in those equine good looks which, if owned by him, aren't his. The horse, though, in its jubilation can get away with boasting.There's a noticeable awkwardness in any mention of human physical beauty; its embarrassment can include a fear of lapsing into that vanity deplored alike by the Old Testament and by some feminisms. This hesitation isn't simply the wish to steer clear of laying arrogant claims to distinction; for someone can say, not boastfully but in the spirit of mentioning a contingent fact, "I used to be a strong swimmer," without the same sheepishness. But there does seem to be something especially stubborn, unmentionable, about beauty's independence. The fact that, as a lost thing, it was never owned isn't enough to characterize faded beauty's discursive peculiarities. For the same holds true, for instance, of youth. It's extremely difficult to feel yourself to be young at the actual time when you are. Certainly I was never a child.These pages skip all but one small aspect of this matter of who or what can claim beauty. They'll look only at an extremely common sentence of regret for lost physical beauty: at the strange bending of time implicit in saying inwardly, "Yes, I suppose in the past I must have been beautiful, as people used to say, although at the time I never saw it." To meditate on this very ordinary thought is by no means to despise it; and it would be foolish to tut over such retrospective self-shaping. This is how the language of self-characterization often operates backwards.1It would be vacuous to condemn our attempts at a little distraction from the approach of death with sentences like "After all, I suppose I must have been something of a beauty when I was young," or at least, where you know you can't make such a claim, the ever-reliable lament "Compared to what I am now, they should have seen me then!" (Indeed such slipping into the retrospective-fantastic mood may be positively benign in another content: for instance, a compensating refusal to treat anyone now as harshly as I was myself treated then. And there could be far riskier contents to a sentence of retrospective "realization" than mere vanity, such as revelation and enlightenment: "now I see that all along I was a favored son of God, though formerly I was blind to this shining truth.") Meanwhile timor mortis is ever at hand, and will only intensify: [End Page 49]The wrinkles which thy glass will truly showOf mouthèd graves will give thee memory.2Still, there's something of a taboo or an unnameability about the gradual erosion of whatever we feel we once had by way of beauty, a silence which, unsurprisingly, persists irrespective of the enormous new industries of repair and regeneration. This anxiety over the eclipse of your looks is exhaustively catered to (and, in the process, magnified) yet is itself a dread scarcely mentioned. How beauty's ordinary loss is silently spoken is a point at which the consolations of illusion meet and fortify the illusions of consolation. If their encounter produces a blankness liable to sink into depressive shame, arguably this adds to an unvoiced vertigo of the everyday; but what more might thinking aloud about it do? 1 The Sentence of Retrospect For the purposes of illustrating this grammar of concessive retrospect, let's imagine a puppet (for the purposes of argument here, a caricature will have to do) oddly equipped with... (shrink)

Julian Wolfreys starts with loss. All memory is the memory of loss... All that we are, all we experience, all we remember, all that we forget but which leaves nevertheless a trace on us, in us, a trace that countersigns and writes us as who we are (in effect the constellated matrix of Being's becoming): this is a process of loss. This just is loss. Loss is who we are. Loss is authentically (...) the necessary and inescapable inessential essence of Being. Loss names the ghosts, the revenants of Being, Being's others. Neither there nor not there, loss persists as the always already becoming of the thinking of Being. There is more than one loss. There is no one loss. Loss never arrives for a first time. All loss is the return of what is lost to Being's being in the world. From that starting point, the author explores the nature of being and dwelling... of memory and the nature of the traces of the past... of apparition and appearance and perception... of touch and being touched... of the material and the (a)material. In a book that draws in multiple threads from 19th- and 20th-century European literature, he references extensively Heidegger, Derrida, Lacan, Cixous, Celan, Husserl, Woolf, Joyce, Hegel, Badiou, Rilke, Merleau-Ponty, Winterson, Stockhausen and True Detective in an impressive and eclectic tour of the being-becoming-loss.". (shrink)

In this paper we analyse some ethical and philosophical questions related to the development of memory enhancing drugs (MEDs) and anti-dementia drugs. The world of memory enhancement is coloured by utopian thinking and by the desire for quicker, sharper, and more reliable memories. Dementia is characterized by decline, fragility, vulnerability, a loss of the most important cognitive functions and even a loss of self. While MEDs are being developed for self-improvement, in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) the self (...) is being lost. Despite this it is precisely those patients with AD and other forms of dementia that provide the subjects for scientific research on memory improvement. Biomedical research in the field of MEDs and anti-dementia drugs appears to provide a strong impetus for rethinking what we mean by ‘memory’, ‘enhancement’, ‘therapy’, and ‘self’. We conclude (1) that the enhancement of memory is still in its infancy, (2) that current MEDs and anti-dementia drugs are at best partially and minimally effective under specific conditions, (3) that ‘memory᾿and ‘enhancement᾿are ambiguous terms, (4) that there is no clear-cut distinction between enhancement and therapy, and (5) that the research into MEDs and anti-dementia drugs encourages a reductionistic view of the human mind and of the self. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:526 BOOK REVIEWS learned how to integrate satisfaction into love (91, 113, 119, 124, 136, 186, 192, 198; cp. 37). Indeed, it is Aquinas's gradual integration of satisfaction as a motive for the Incarnation subordinate to love (166) that enables Aquinas aptly to locate satisfaction within the Christian life (cp. 47, 136, 142, 166) and accounts for Cessario's subtitle. Third, I am not clear on Ccssario's (or my own!) (...) stand on how we ought sort out the respects in which Thomas's and our perspectives merge (cp. xiv). In his conclusion Cessario is cautious, suggesting that "if the term ' satisfaction ' cannot be restored to current usage, then certainly the substance of Saint Thomas's understanding of satisfaction can and should be." (256). But, given Cessario's own persuasive display of the way satisfactio pervades the very texture of Aquinas's theology, I am not sure we can have the "substance" without the term-or vice-versa. Clearly Cessario thinks the merging is substantive. But he himself teaches us that supporting this claim involves supporting claims for exegetical, liturgical ecclesial, and other practices. Those of us who think that satisfactio is a description rather than "the guiding model or key notion" (xx, my emphasis) for thinking Christ crucified will need to see such support worked out in relation to the competing sotcriologies Cessario mentions (267) as well as ecumenical discussions of justification which were understandably outside the scope of this book (151). But a single book can only accomplish a single thing-and this book clearly succeeds in showing us how Thomas can be brought to bear on contemporary theological issues. All students of Aquinas and/or soteriology ought to read this text. Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland JAMES J. BUCKLEY How We Know. Edited by MICHAEr, SHAFTO. San 1!1rancisco: Harper & Row. 1985. Pp. xv and 171. $14.95. How We Know is a collection of six papers delivered in 1984 at the twentieth Nobel Conference, held at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Two words that came to my mind as I worked through the papers were "fascinating" and "frightening". The Conference dealt with cognitive science and a number of the authors have come up with interesting, provocative, and often orig'inal observations about how the human mind operates when it hies to remember and to understand. In his Introduction Michael Shafto, who is a Scientific Officer in the Personnel and Training Research Programs of the United States Office of Naval Research, notes that cognitive science as the work of a coalition of thinkers is barely a decade old, and he reminds the reader that the methods BOOK REVIEWS 59.7 of cognitive science are those of experimental psychology, physiology, and computer science. Though the Confermce was supposedly aimed at nonspecialists, the reader unfamiliar with cognitive science might find some of the papers a bit difficult. Certainly the backgrounds of the authors are very impressive. The first four papers in the collection are by Gerald Edelman, Brenda Milner, Roger C. Schank, and Herbert A. Simon respectively. Edelman is the Director and Scientific Chairman of the Neurosciences Research Program at Rockefeller University; Milner is Professor of Psychology in the Department of Neurology at McGill University: Schank is Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science Department at Yale; and Simon is Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University. Calling his theory of the hum:m brain "Neural Darwinism," Edelman claims that the brain is Darwinian. Taking Darwin's theory of natural selections and applying it to the brain, Edelman argues that during ontogeny and behavior those groups of neurons are chosen that are adaptive for the organism. Milner explores the neurophysiological basis of that special moment when a new experience affects the brain. Insisting that memory is not merely a passive reproi!ucer but rather actively selective, Milner, relying on her studies of patients. with loss of memory, suggests that the frontal lobes of the brain hnve a special role in memory. Interested in the interface of mcmory anil percr-ption, Schank notes that, because human memory is dynamic and the memory of the computer is not, the -programming of the intelligent functions of... (shrink)

The authors' results support a functionalist conception of working memory: a manifold repertoire of schemes/schemas (long-term memory) and a small set of general-purpose “hidden operators.” Using some of these operators I define mental (i.e., endogenous) attention. Then, analyzing two of the authors' unexplained important findings, I illustrate the mental-attention model's explanatory power. Multivariate methodology that varies developmental, task differences, and individual differences is recommended.

In this paper we argue that autobiographical memory can be conceptualized as a mental state resulting from the interplay of a set of psychological capacities?self-reflection, self-agency, self-ownership and personal temporality?that transform a memorial representation into an autobiographical personal experience. We first review evidence from a variety of clinical domains?for example, amnesia, autism, frontal lobe pathology, schizophrenia?showing that breakdowns in any of the proposed components can produce impairments in autobiographical recollection, and conclude that the self-reflection, agency, ownership, and personal temporality (...) are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for autobiographical memorial experience. We then suggest a taxonomy of amnesic disorders derived from consideration of the consequences of breakdown in each of the individual component processes that contribute to the experience of autobiographical recollection. (shrink)

Spatial memory relies on encoding, storing, and retrieval of knowledge about objects’ positions in their surrounding environment. Blind people have to rely on sensory modalities other than vision to memorize items that are spatially displaced, however, to date, very little is known about the influence of early visual deprivation on a person’s ability to remember and process sound locations. To fill this gap, we tested sighted and congenitally blind adults and adolescents in an audio-spatial memory task inspired by (...) the classical card game “Memory.” In this research, subjects had to find pairs among sounds displaced on an audio-tactile device composed of loudspeakers covered by tactile sensors. To accomplish this task, participants had to remember the spatialized sounds’ position and develop a proper mental spatial representation of their locations. The test was divided into two experimental conditions of increasing difficulty dependent on the number of sounds to be remembered. Results showed that sighted participants outperformed blind participants in both conditions. Findings were discussed considering the crucial role of visual experience in properly manipulating auditory spatial representations, particularly in relation to the ability to explore complex acoustic configurations. (shrink)

This text is part of a research conducted under the working title "What do we talk about when we are silent and what are we silent about when we are talking? - premises for the anthropology of silence about the nearest past." In the first part the author investigates the meaning of silence in the Croatian and Serbian press right before and during Croatia's Operation Storm. The ratio between silence, suppression of information and forgetting, on the one hand, and social (...) memory, on the other, has been elaborated in the final part of the text by following reports about the anniversaries of Operation Storm in both Croatian and Serbian publics. The starting point lies in the belief that the phenomenon of silence, being an immanent part of each discourse, represents an important factor in the creation of social relationships and system of value models, that it has important communication and cognitive functions and that the performance character lies in its essence. In short, silence makes it possible to form the prevailing image about this event, even if it does not construct it indirectly - through speech. The author has elaborated on the meaning of silence in the context of Operation Storm partly because studies about the breakup of Yugoslavia frequently mention silence as a manipulation strategy employed by some of the sides in the conflict, while not a single study systematically investigates the semantic of silence and suppression of information in these conflicts. Most importantly, taking into account the frequency of direct silence in the newspaper discourse and rhetoric strategies that point at silence indirectly from the context and discourse, the author focuses on the relationship between the event and silence. In order to shed light on the way in which Operation Storm is remembered, i.e. forgotten, in the stakeholders' publics and political imageries, she follows the dailies - Vecernje Novosti Politika, Danas - Vecernji List, Jutarnji List, Magazin supplement of the Jutarnji List, as well as texts about Operation Storm in weeklies such as the NIN and Vreme of Belgrade or Globus of Zagreb in the period between August 2, 1995 and mid-August 2006. Ovaj tekst je deo istrazivanja koje se odvija pod radnim naslovom "O cemu govorimo kada cutimo i o cemu cutimo kada govorimo? - polazne pretpostavke za antropologiju cutanja o najbilizoj proslosti". U prvom delu autorka ispituje znacenja cutanja u pisanju hrvatske i srpske stampe neposredno pre hrvatske akcije Oluja i tokom same akcije. Odnos cutanja, precutkivanja i zaboravljanja, s jedne strane, i drustvenog pamcenja, s druge strane tematizovan je u zavrsnom delu teksta, pracenjem napisa o godisnjicama akcije Oluja u obe javnosti - hrvatskoj i srpskoj. Polaziste je u uverenju da je fenomen cutanja, buduci imanentni deo svakog diskursa znacajan cinilac kreiranja drustvenih odnosa i sistema vrednosnih modela, da ima vazne komunikativne i kognitivne funkcije i da je u svojoj sustini performativnog karaktera. U najkracem, cutanje pomaze formiranju dominantne slike o ovom dogadjaju, ako je, na posredan nacin - preko govorenja - i ne konstruise. Tematizovanje znacenja cutanja u kontekstu akcije Oluja preduzeto je delom i stoga sto se precutkivanje u studijama o kraju Jugoslavije neretko pominje kao manipulativna strategija neke od strana u sukobu, a da nema ni jedne studije koja bi sistematski ispitivala znacenja cutanja i precutkivanja u ovim konfliktima. I najvaznije, uvazavajuci frekventnost neposrednog izrazavanja cutanja u novinskom diskursu, kao i retorickih strategija koje posredno, iz konteksta i uspostavljenog sveta diskursa, upucuju na cutanje, autorka se usredsredjuje upravo na odnos dogadjajnosti i cutanja. Kako bi osvetlila nacin na koji je operacija Oluja zapamcena, odnosno zaboravljena u zainteresovanim javnostima i politickim imginarijumima, prati pisanje dnevne stampe - Vecernje novosti, Politika, Danas - Vecernji list Jutarnji list, Magazin - dodatak Jutarnjeg lista, kao i napise o Oluji u nedeljnicima, poput beogradskog NIN-a, Vremena ili zagrebackog Globusa u periodu od 02. avgusta 1995. do sredine avgusta 2006. godine. (shrink)

Rather than a natural product, a computational analysis leads us to characterize déjà vu as a failure of memory retrieval, linked to the activation in neocortex of familiar items from a compositional memory in the absence of hippocampal input, and to a misappropriation by the self of what is of others.

Because mourning and memorializing a miscarriage seems to imply acceptance of foetal personhood, feminists have been reluctant to address the often traumatic but common experience of pregnancy loss. Feminist anthropologists of reproduction have argued that adopting a view of personhood as constructed and negotiated, rather than inherent, solves this dilemma and enables the development of a feminist discourse of pregnancy loss. This article aims to make a critical contribution to such a discourse by analysing representations of lost babies (...) and children in online pregnancy loss memorials. It focuses on two genres of representation, idealized angels and medical ultrasound images. It argues that the dominance of a biological model of personhood limits the ability of both forms of representation to secure the status of memorialized children as real. However, pregnancy loss memorials do communicate the anguish of grieving parents, in part through the very unrepresentability of their loss. They also provoke a questioning of the taken for granted subject of `the child', whether imagined or real, absent or present. (shrink)

Even without Alzheimer's or dementia, most of us are prone to “ordinary forgetting”. The Good Place and careful philosophical reflection can help us think through memory loss, relationships, and making a place for each other as we live through the human condition. Throughout The Good Place, Chidi and Eleanor help each other develop and sustain their moral selves as well as their relationship. Stories are fundamental to our sense of self, right and wrong, and the kind of people (...) we are. To understand memory as a construction, we must understand the three stages of individual memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval. How we scaffold each other's identities and how we hold space for each other in the real world are ethical issues that have everything to do with memory and the stories we tell ourselves and each other. The Good Place can help us grapple with this. (shrink)

"A study of the cultural politics of loss and mourning in France from 1978 to the present. Focuses on national identity, secularism, Jacobin republicanism, and political-cultural exceptionalism"--Provided by publisher.

Working memory, an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. Working memory has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system – that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information. Recently, however, several studies have questioned this assumption, purporting to provide evidence for unconscious working memory. In this paper, we focus on visual working memory and critically examine these studies as (...) well as studies of unconscious perception that seem to provide indirect evidence for unconscious working memory. Our analysis indicates that current evidence does not support an unconscious working memory store, though we offer independent reasons to think that working memory may operate on unconsciously perceived information. (shrink)

Episodic memory often is conceptualized as a uniquely human system of long-term memory that makes available knowledge accompanied by the temporal and spatial context in which that knowledge was acquired. Retrieval from episodic memory entails a form of first–person subjectivity called autonoetic consciousness that provides a sense that a recollection was something that took place in the experiencer’s personal past. In this paper I expand on this definition of episodic memory. Specifically, I suggest that (a) the (...) core features assumed unique to episodic memory are shared by semantic memory, (b) episodic memory cannot be fully understood unless one appreciates that episodic recollection requires the coordinated function of a number of distinct, yet interacting, “enabling” systems. Although these systems – ownership, self, subjective temporality, and agency – are not traditionally viewed as memorial in nature, each is necessary for episodic recollection and jointly they may be sufficient, and (c) the type of subjective awareness provided by episodic recollection (autonoetic) is relational rather than intrinsic – i.e., it can be lost in certain patient populations, thus rendering episodic memory content indistinguishable from the content of semantic long-term memory. (shrink)

Locke is often thought to have introduced the topic of personal identity into philosophy when, in the second edition of theEssay,he distinguished the person from both the human being and the soul. Each of these entities differs from the others with respect to their identity conditions, and so they must be ontologically distinct. In particular, Locke claimed, a person cannot survive total memory loss, although a human being or a soul can.

The goal of our target article is to establish that electrophysiological data constrain models of short-term memory retention operations to schemes in which activated long-term memory is its representational basis. The temporary stores correspond to neural circuits involved in the perception and subsequent processing of the relevant information, and do not involve specialized neural circuits dedicated to the temporary holding of information outside of those embedded in long-term memory. The commentaries ranged from general agreement with the view (...) that short-term memory stores correspond to activated long-term memory (e.g., Abry, Sato, Schwartz, Loevenbruck & Cathiard [Abry etal.], Cowan, Fuster, Grote, Hickok & Buchsbaum, Keenan, Hyönä & Kaakinen [Keenan et al.], Martin, Morra), to taking a definite exception to this view (e.g., Baddeley, Düzel, Logie & Della Sala, Kroger, Majerus, Van der Linden, Colette & Salmon [Majerus et al.], Vallar). (shrink)