A long history of research has revealed many neurophysiological changes and concomitant behavioral impacts of sleep deprivation, sleep restriction, and circadian rhythms. Little research, however, has been conducted in the area of computational cognitive modeling to understand the information processing mechanisms through which neurobehavioral factors operate to produce degradations in human performance. Our approach to understanding this relationship is to link predictions of overall cognitive functioning, or alertness, from existing biomathematical models to information processing parameters in a cognitive architecture, leveraging (...) the strengths from each to develop a more comprehensive explanation. The integration of these methodologies is used to account for changes in human performance on a sustained attention task across 88 h of total sleep deprivation. The integrated model captures changes due to time awake and circadian rhythms, and it also provides an account for underlying changes in the cognitive processes that give rise to those effects. The results show the potential for developing mechanistic accounts of how fatigue impacts cognition, and they illustrate the increased explanatory power that is possible by combining theoretical insights from multiple methodologies. (shrink)

Humans use their spatial information processing abilities flexibly to facilitate problem solving and decision making in a variety of tasks. This article explores the question of whether a general strategy can be adapted for performing two different spatial orientation tasks by testing the predictions of a computational cognitive model. Human performance was measured on an orientation task requiring participants to identify the location of a target either on a map (find‐on‐map) or within an egocentric view of a space (find‐in‐scene). A (...) general strategy instantiated in a computational cognitive model of the find‐on‐map task, based on the results from Gunzelmann and Anderson (2006), was adapted to perform both tasks and used to generate performance predictions for a new study. The qualitative fit of the model to the human data supports the view that participants were able to tailor a general strategy to the requirements of particular spatial tasks. The quantitative differences between the predictions of the model and the performance of human participants in the new experiment expose individual differences in sample populations. The model provides a means of accounting for those differences and a framework for understanding how human spatial abilities are applied to naturalistic spatial tasks that involve reasoning with maps. (shrink)

This article presents an approach to understanding human spatial competence that focuses on the representations and processes of spatial cognition and how they are integrated with cognition more generally. The foundational theoretical argument for this research is that spatial information processing is central to cognition more generally, in the sense that it is brought to bear ubiquitously to improve the adaptivity and effectiveness of perception, cognitive processing, and motor action. We describe research spanning multiple levels of complexity to understand both (...) the detailed mechanisms of spatial cognition, and how they are utilized in complex, naturalistic tasks. In the process, we discuss the critical role of cognitive architectures in developing a consistent account that spans this breadth, and we note some areas in which the current version of a popular architecture, ACT-R, may need to be augmented. Finally, we suggest a framework for understanding the representations and processes of spatial competence and their role in human cognition generally. (shrink)

Veksler and Gunzelmann argue that the vigilance decrement and the deleterious effects of sleep loss reflect functionally equivalent degradations in cognitive processing and performance. Our account is implemented in a cognitive architecture, where these factors produce breakdowns in goal-directed cognitive processing that we refer to as microlapses. Altmann raises a number of challenges to microlapses as a unified account of these deficits. Under scrutiny, however, the challenges do little to discredit the theory or conclusions in the original paper. In (...) our response, we address the most serious challenges. In so doing, we provide additional support for the theory and mechanisms, and we highlight opportunities for extending their explanatory breadth. (shrink)

Our ability to process spatial information is fundamental for understanding and interacting with the environment, and it pervades other components of cognitive functioning from language to mathematics. Moreover, technological advances have produced new capabilities that have created research opportunities and astonishing applications. In this Topic on Modeling Spatial Cognition, research crossing a variety of disciplines and methodologies is described, all focused on developing models to represent the capacities and limitations of human spatial cognition.

Research on sleep loss and vigilance both focus on declines in cognitive performance, but theoretical accounts have developed largely in parallel in these two areas. In addition, computational instantiations of theoretical accounts are rare. The current work uses computational modeling to explore whether the same mechanisms can account for the effects of both sleep loss and time on task on performance. A classic task used in the sleep deprivation literature, the Psychomotor Vigilance Test, was extended from the typical 10-min duration (...) to 35 min, to make the task similar in duration to traditional vigilance tasks. A computational cognitive model demonstrated that the effects of time on task in the PVT were equivalent to those observed with sleep loss. Subsequently, the same mechanisms were applied to a more traditional vigilance task—the Mackworth Clock Task—providing a good fit to existing data. This supports the hypothesis that these different types of fatigue may produce functionally equivalent declines in performance. (shrink)

The spacing effect is among the most widely replicated empirical phenomena in the learning sciences, and its relevance to education and training is readily apparent. Yet successful applications of spacing effect research to education and training is rare. Computational modeling can provide the crucial link between a century of accumulated experimental data on the spacing effect and the emerging interest in using that research to enable adaptive instruction. In this paper, we review relevant literature and identify 10 criteria for rigorously (...) evaluating computational models of the spacing effect. Five relate to evaluating the theoretic adequacy of a model, and five relate to evaluating its application potential. We use these criteria to evaluate a novel computational model of the spacing effect called the Predictive Performance Equation. Predictive Performance Equation combines elements of earlier models of learning and memory including the General Performance Equation, Adaptive Control of Thought—Rational, and the New Theory of Disuse, giving rise to a novel computational account of the spacing effect that performs favorably across the complete sets of theoretic and applied criteria. We implemented two other previously published computational models of the spacing effect and compare them to PPE using the theoretic and applied criteria as guides. (shrink)

Visual working memory is a construct hypothesized to store a small amount of accurate perceptual information that can be brought to bear on a task. Much research concerns the construct's capacity and the precision of the information stored. Two prominent theories of VWM representation have emerged: slot-based and continuous-resource mechanisms. Prior modeling work suggests that a continuous resource that varies over trials with variable capacity and a potential to make localization errors best accounts for the empirical data. Questions remain regarding (...) the variability in VWM capacity and precision. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we demonstrate that VWM facilitates search and exhibits effects of fixation frequency and recency, particularly for prior targets. Whereas slot-based memory models cannot account for the human data, a novel continuous-resource model does capture the behavioral and eye tracking data, and identifies the relevant resource as item activation. (shrink)

Most computational theories of cognition lack a representation of physiology. Understanding the cognitive effects of compounds present in the environment is important for explaining and predicting changes in cognition and behavior given exposure to toxins, pharmaceuticals, or the deprivation of critical compounds like oxygen. This research integrates physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model predictions of caffeine concentrations in blood and tissues with ACT-R's fatigue module to predict the effects of caffeine on fatigue. Mapping between the PBPK model parameters and ACT-R model (...) parameters is informed by the neurophysiological literature and established associations between ACT-R modules and brain regions. The results from three such parameter mappings are explored to explain observed data from sleep-deprived participants performing the psychomotor vigilance test with and without caffeine. Predicted caffeine concentrations in the brain are used to modulate procedural parameters in the fatigue module to explain caffeine's effects on multiple performance metrics. (shrink)

Glenn Alexander Magee's controversial book argues that Hegel was decisively influenced by the Hermetic tradition, a body of thought with roots in Greco-Roman ...

Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex (...) demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics.The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

Degrees of belief; Dempster's rule of combination; Simple and separable support functions; The weights of evidence; Compatible frames of discernment; Support functions; The discernment of evidence; Quasi support functions; Consonance; Statistical evidence; The dual nature of probable reasoning.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted people and institutions to turn to online virtual environments for a wide variety of social gatherings. In this perspectives article, we draw upon our previous work and interviews with Ghanaian Christian leaders to consider implications of this shift. Specifically, we propose that the shift from physical to virtual interactions mimics and amplifies the neoliberal individualist experience of abstraction from place associated with Eurocentric modernity. On the positive side, the shift from physical to virtual environments (...) liberates people to selectively pursue the most fulfilling interactions, free from constraints of physical distance. On the negative side, the move from physical to virtual space necessitates a shift from material care and tangible engagement with the local community to the psychologization of care and pursuit of emotional intimacy in relations of one’s choosing—a dynamic that further marginalizes people who are already on the margins. The disruptions of the pandemic provide an opportunity to re-set social relations, to design ways of being that better promote sustainable collective well-being rather than fleeting personal fulfillment. (shrink)

When we are fatigued, we feel that our performance is worse than when we are fresh. Yet, for over 100 years, researchers have been unable to identify an objective, behavioral measure that covaries with the subjective experience of fatigue. Previous work suggests that the metrics of signal detection theory —response bias and perceptual certainty —may change as a function of fatigue, but no work has yet been done to examine whether these metrics covary with fatigue. Here, we investigated cognitive fatigue (...) using SDT. We induced fatigue through repetitive performance of the n-back working memory task, while functional magnetic resonance imaging data was acquired. We also assessed cognitive fatigue at intervals throughout. This enabled us to assess not only whether criterion and d’ covary with cognitive fatigue but also whether similar patterns of brain activation underlie cognitive fatigue and SDT measures. Our results show that both criterion and d’ were correlated with changes in cognitive fatigue: as fatigue increased, subjects became more conservative in their response bias and their perceptual certainty declined. Furthermore, activation in the striatum of the basal ganglia was also related to cognitive fatigue, criterion, and d’. These results suggest that SDT measures represent an objective measure of cognitive fatigue. Additionally, the overlap and difference in the fMRI results between cognitive fatigue and SDT measures indicate that these measures are related while also separate. In sum, we show the relevance of SDT measures in the understanding of fatigue, thus providing researchers with a new set of tools with which to better understand the nature and consequences of cognitive fatigue. (shrink)

Fake news is a worrying phenomenon which is growing increasingly widespread, partly because of the ease with which it is disseminated online. Combating the spread of fake news requires a clear understanding of the nature of fake news. However, the use of the term in everyday language is heterogenous and has no fixed meaning. Despite increasing philosophical attention to the topic, there is no consensus on the correct definition of “fake news” within philosophy either. This paper aims to bring clarity (...) to the philosophical debate of fake news in two ways: Firstly, by providing an overview of existing philosophical definitions and secondly, by developing a new account of fake news. This paper will identify where there is agreement within the philosophical debate of definitions of “fake news” and isolate four key questions on which there is genuine disagreement. These concern the intentionality underlying fake news, its truth value, the question of whether fake news needs to reach a minimum audience, and the question of whether an account of fake news needs to be dynamic. By answering these four questions, I provide a novel account of defining “fake news”. This new definition hinges upon the fact that fake news has the function of being deliberately misleading about its own status as news. (shrink)

An account of the conflict between our positive and negative emotional relationships to the Earth and how they will be resolved for the Symbiocene, the next period in the history of the Earth.

In this paper, I reinterpret the conflict between rewilders and those who want to preserve traditional agricultural landscapes. By showing that underlying both positions is a common outlook in which nature preservation can be described as a primarily interpretative act geared towards the preservation of meaning by establishing a successful contact with external reality, I hope to refocus the debate away from the current stalemate. Too often, the debate ends in a dispute about what counts as 'real nature'. By interpreting (...) nature preservation - whether it is directed at rewilding or at preserving old agricultural landscapes - as an act that is a response to nature's meanings, we will refocus attention on the real issue underlying preservation: articulating the ways nature is meaningful to us. (shrink)

I offer a new metacognitive account of the feeling of agency over bodily actions. On this model the feeling of agency is the metacognitive monitoring of two cues: i) smoothness of action: done via monitoring the output of the comparison between actual and predicted sensory consequences of action and ii) action outcome: done via monitoring the outcome of action and its success relative to a prior intention. Previous research has shown that the comparator model offers a powerful explanation of the (...) feeling of agency. However, within the literature there is a growing sense of unease with the model; a consensus seems to be building that the model is not up to the task of explaining all of the new discoveries made regarding the feeling of agency since its inception. Most problematically there are paradigms which deeply challenge the comparator model by suggesting that a weak feeling of agency can be elicited even when no motor prediction is formed. The new account offered here inherits the explanatory power of the comparator model whilst avoiding this problem. (shrink)

This article examines the argument that biodiversity is crucial for well-functioning ecosystems and that such ecosystems provide important goods and services to our human societies, in short the ecosystem services argument (ESA). While the ESA can be a powerful argument for nature preservation, we argue that its dominant functionalist interpretation is confronted with three significant problems. First, the ESA seems unable to preserve the nature it claims to preserve. Second, the ESA cannot explain why those caring about nature want to (...) preserve it. Third, the ESA might undermine its own goal because it potentially decreases environmental motivations. (shrink)

Introduction. The sense of agency over thoughts is the experience of oneself qua agent of mental action. Those suffering certain psychotic symptoms are thought to have a deficient sense of agency. Here I seek to explain this sense of agency in terms of metacognition. Method. I start with the proposal that the sense of agency is elicited by metacognitive monitoring representations that are used in the intentional inhibition of thoughts. I apply this model to verbal hallucinations and the like and (...) examine the plausibility of this model explaining deficits associated with these symptoms. Results. By tying the sense of agency to metacognitive inhibition I propose that the loss of a sense of agency in certain psychotic symptoms is accompanied by a particular deficit in the patient’s ability to control their own thinking. This is consistent with the experiences of those at high risk of developing hallucinations, who report more intrusive thoughts than controls. The model I present is able to explain why those at risk of developing verbal hallucinations and those suffering from verbal hallucinations have deficits in the intentional inhibition of thought. I defend this account from a possible objection by distinguishing the form of the intentional inhibition deficit displayed by those suffering verbal hallucination from that displayed by those suffering from orbital-frontal cortex lesions and posttraumatic stress disorder. Conclusion. A plausible hypothesis is that the sense of agency over thoughts is elicited by the metacognitive monitoring representation used to intentionally inhibit. (shrink)

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is the experience of an artificial body part as being a real body part and the experience of touch coming from that artificial body part. An explanation of this illusion would take significant steps towards explaining the experience of embodiment in one’s own body. I present a new cognitive model to explain the RHI. I argue that the sense of embodiment arises when an on-line representation of the candidate body part is represented as matching an (...) off-line prototype representation of what one’s body is usually like. The cause of the sense of embodiment in the model body part only partially overlaps with the causes of proprioceptive drift, which commonly accompanies the RHI, and so is compatible with observed dissociations between the illusion and proprioceptive drift. The distinguishing features of this model are the off-line body representation, and the process of matching an on-line model to an off-line model, both of which are to be understood in terms of a conceptual space. -/- Key Words: Rubber Hand Illusion; RHI; Sense of Embodiment; Self Consciousness; Body Experience. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories have largely been framed by the academy as a stigmatised form of knowledge. Yet recent scholarship has included calls to take conspiracy theories more seriously as an area of study with a desire to judge them on their own merits rather than an a priori dismissal of them as a class of explanation. This paper argues that the debates within the philosophy of religion, long overlooked by scholars of conspiracy theories, can help sow the seeds for re-examining our (...) understanding of conspiracy theories in a more balanced and nuanced way. The nature of religious belief is elemental to understanding the epistemological foundations of the conspiracy theorising worldview amidst what we may call ‘conspiratorial ambiguity’. Specifically, R.M. Hare's concept of bliks, which are unfalsifiable but meaningful worldviews, offers a way forward to reframe our approach towards the theory of conspiracy theories. (shrink)

I compare Frith and colleagues’ influential comparator account of how the sense of agency is elicited to the multifactorial weighting model advocated by Synofzik and colleagues. I defend the comparator model from the common objection that the actual sensory consequences of action are not needed to elicit the sense of agency. I examine the comparator model’s ability to explain the performance of healthy subjects and those suffering from delusions of alien control on various self-attribution tasks. It transpires that the comparator (...) model needs case-by-case adjustment to deal with problematic data. In response to this, the multifactorial weighting model of Synofzik and colleagues is introduced. Although this model is incomplete, it is more naturally constrained by the cases that are problematic for the comparator model. However, this model may be untestable. I conclude that currently the comparator model approach has stronger support than the multifactorial weighting model approach. (shrink)

In this paper we try to diagnose one reason why the debate regarding the Hard Problem of consciousness inevitably leads to a stalemate: namely that the characterisation of consciousness assumed by the Hard Problem is unjustified and probably unjustifiable. Following Dennett : 4–6, 1996, Cognition 79:221–237, 2001, J Conscious Stud 19:86, 2012) and Churchland :402–408, 1996, Brainwise: studies in neurophilosophy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002), we argue that there is in fact no non-question begging argument for the claim that consciousness (...) is a uniquely Hard Phenomenon. That is; there is no non-question begging argument for the claim that consciousness is necessarily in explicable in terms of the structure and function of mental states. Unfortunately the debate has not moved on because the majority of materialists feel the pull of the at least one of, what we call, the ‘key’ intuitions that supposedly support dualism and the existence of a Hard Phenomenon and so try to accommodate them rather than denying them. Although this a possible response to the intuitions it tends to mask the fact that there is in fact no argument for the existence of a Hard Phenomenon. So we end up participating in our own hornswoggling :402–408, 1996) and chasing our tails trying to answer a question we should in fact ignore. We have no reason to think there is a Hard Problem of consciousness because we have no reason to think the Hard Phenomenon exists. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a pluralistic view of phenomenological method which will provide evidence for particular accounts of experience without relying exclusively on the reflective method or on intuition as a criterion for truth. To this end, I discuss the prospects for indirect phenomenology. I argue that phenomenology ought to be defined by its object of investigation, first-person experience, and not by any particular method of gaining access to this object of investigation. On this view, an integration of naturalized (...) phenomenology into the cognitive sciences is far more feasible than we might have expected. (shrink)

The advance of the internet and social media has had a drastic impact on our epistemic environment. This paper will focus on two different risks epistemic agents face online: being exposed to fake news and epistemic flooding. While the first risk is widely known and has been extensively discussed in the philosophical literature, the notion of ‘epistemic flooding’ is a novel concept introduced in this paper. Epistemic flooding occurs when epistemic agents find themselves in epistemic environments in which they are (...) routinely confronted with more information and evidence than they can diligently process. Epistemic flooding is one of the most significant risks epistemic agents run while using social media and one of the reasons why the first risk (being exposed to fake news) is especially pernicious. It is particularly harmful if one ascribes to the Spinozan model of belief acquisition in which belief comes easy. Mitigating the combined threat of fake news and epistemic flooding requires us to think normatively about our epistemic environments and how to better them. This paper turns to the normative framework of epistemic environmentalism in order to accomplish this. (shrink)

The suggestion that there is a need to moralize bodily pleasures for uncooperative self-control failures doesn't fit with the historical record. I counter that the development of puritanical values was an instrument of coercion and control, rather than an adaptation for cooperation. Confusing cooperation with coercion and moral principles with conventional norms leads to misconceptions about societal arrangements.

Many of our children are poorly prepared to face the challenges of school and growing up in our complex society. The term readiness is misrepresented in the field of education; this book implies a different type of readiness involving a process that can be taught and nurtured within each child. Going beyond what our schools typically assess to determine readiness to attend school, which is often based upon age, this book addresses the synergistic aspects of readiness, learning, and adaptation that (...) allow children to be optimally ready to learning and capable of handing for challenges and transitions. This more holistic and interactive understanding of readiness involves not only the typical physical development, but also psychological aspects including the cognitive, emotional, spiritual, behavioral, and environmental pieces. The goal of this book is to provide the necessary lens through which we can see what is really hindering many children in schools today, along with possible approaches and interventions typically not seen as educational in nature, but what may be just the needed prescription for our ailing youth. (shrink)