The claimed link between dominance and free testosterone is an intriguing one but problems remain in attempting to link this single hormonal measure to human behaviour. These include the heterogeneous nature of dominance, the precise nature of the correlation(s), and whether only testosterone is important.

The view that female mammals are more docile appears to arise in part from imposing human values on animal studies. Many reports of sexual dimorphism in physical aggression favouring the male in laboratory rodents appear to select circumstances where that expectation is supported. Other situations that favour the expression of conflict in females have been (until recently) relatively little studied. Although female rodents generally do not show the “ritualised” forms of conflict that characterise male sexual competition, they can use notably (...) damaging strategies (especially if they are of short duration). Such considerations might weigh in the selection of strategies by our own species. (shrink)

My topic is personal identity, or rather, our identity. There is general, but not, of course, unanimous, agreement that it is wrong to give an account of what is involved in, and essential to, our persistence over time which requires the existence of immaterial entities, but, it seems to me, there is no consensus about how, within, what might be called this naturalistic framework, we should best procede. This lack of consensus, no doubt, reflects the difficulty, which must strike anyone (...) who has considered the issue, of achieving, just in one's own thinking, a reflective equilibrium. The theory of personal identity, I feel, provides a curious contrast. On the one side, it seems highly important to know what sort of thing we are, but, on the other, it is hard to find any answer which has a ‘solid’ feel. (shrink)

This article provides a critical examination of a controversial issue that has theoretical and practical importance to a broad range of academic disciplines: Are religious experiences localized within the brain? Research into the neuroscience of religious experiences is reviewed and conceptual and methodological challenges accompanying the neurotheology project of localizing religious experiences within the brain are discussed. An alternative theory to current reductive and mechanistic explanations of observed mind–brain correlations is proposed — a mediation theory of cerebral (...) action — that has the potential for addressing what Chalmers called the “hard problem” of consciousness. (shrink)

The Newell Test is an important step in advancing our understanding of cognition. One critical constraint is missing from this test : A cognitive architecture must be self-contained. ACT-R and connectionism fail on this account. I present an alternative proposal, called Distributed Adaptive Control, and expose it to the Newell Test with the goal of achieving a clearer specification of the different constraints and their relationships, as proposed by Anderson & Lebiere.

Extraversion has two central characteristics: (1) interpersonalengagement, which consists of affiliation (enjoying and valuing close interpersonal bonds, being warm and affectionate) and agency (being socially dominant, enjoying leadership roles, being assertive, being exhibitionistic, and having a sense of potency in accomplishing goals) and (2) impulsivity, which emerges from the interaction of extraversion and a second, independent trait (constraint). Agency is a more general motivational disposition that includes dominance, ambition, mastery, efficacy, and achievement. Positive affect (a combination of positive feelings and (...) motivation) is closely associated with extraversion. Extraversion is accordingly based on positiveincentivemotivation. (shrink)

What are we? What is the nature of the human person? Animalism has a straightforward answer to these long-standing philosophical questions: we are animals. After being ignored for a long time in philosophical discussions of our nature, this idea has recently gained considerable support in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Containing mainly new papers as well as two highly important articles that were recently published elsewhere, this volume's contributors include both emerging voices in the debate and many of those who (...) have been instrumental in shaping it. Some of their contributions defend animalism, others criticize it, still others explore its more general implications. The book also contains a substantial introduction by the editors explaining what animalism is, identifying leading issues that merit attention, and highlighting many of the issues that the contributors have raised. (shrink)

The commentaries on our target article address three main areas: (1) the relative importance of extraversion and other related traits to DA functioning, (2) how the long-term stability of extraversion can be conceptualized within a highly plastic central nervous system, and (3) the nature of DA functioning in the MOC network and in extraversion. We have organized our Response, therefore, into three major sections.

There are a limited number of neuroimaging investigations into motor control of the lumbopelvic musculature. Most investigation examining motor control of the lumbopelvic musculature utilize transcranial magnetic stimulation and focus primarily on the motor cortex. This has resulted in a dearth of knowledge as it relates to how other regions of the brain activate during lumbopelvic movement. Additionally, task-based functional connectivity during lumbopelvic movements has not been well elucidated. Therefore, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain (...) activation and ROI-to-ROI task-based functional connectivity in 19 healthy individuals during the performance of three lumbopelvic movements: modified bilateral bridge, left unilateral bridge, and right unilateral bridge. The whole brain analysis found robust, bilateral activation within the motor regions of the brain during the bilateral bridge task, and contralateral activation of the motor regions during unilateral bridging tasks. Furthermore, the ROI-to-ROI analysis demonstrated significant connectivity of a motor network that included the supplemental motor area, bilateral precentral gyrus, and bilateral cerebellum regardless of the motor task performed. These data suggest that while whole brain activation reveals unique patterns of activation across the three tasks, functional connectivity is very similar. As motor control of the lumbopelvic area is of high interest to those studying low back pain, this study can provide a comparison for future research into potential connectivity changes that occur in individuals with LBP. (shrink)

A common code for integrating perceptions and actions was relevant for simple behavioral guidance well before the evolution of cognitive abilities. We review proposals that representation of to-be-produced events played important roles in early behavior, and evidence that the neural mechanisms supporting such rudimentary sensory predictions have been elaborated through evolution to support the cognitive codes addressed by TEC.

Neuronal signalling involves multiple neuropeptides that are diverse in structure and function. Complex patterns of tissue‐specific expression arise from alternate RNA splicing of neuropeptide‐encoding gene transcripts. The pattern of expression and its role in cell signalling is diffecult to study at the level of single neurons in the complex vertebrate brain. However, in the model molluscan system, Lymnaea, it is possible to show that alternate mRNA expression of the FMRFamide gene is specific to single identified neurons. Two different transcripts (...) are expressed in a mutually exclusive manner in different neurons. Post‐translational processing of the two precursor proteins leads to completely distinct sets of neuropeptide transmitters. The function of these transmitter cocktails, resulting from alternate mRNA splicing, was studied physiologically in identified neurons forming part of a behaviourally important network regulating heartbeat. (shrink)

Identifying biomarkers of developing mental disorder is crucial to improving early identification and treatment—a key strategy for reducing the burden of mental disorders. Cross-frequency coupling between two different frequencies of neural oscillations is one such promising measure, believed to reflect synchronization between local and global networks in the brain. Specifically, in adults phase–amplitude coupling (PAC) has been shown to be involved in a range of cognitive processes, including working and long-term memory, attention, language, and fluid intelligence. Evidence suggests that (...) increased PAC mediates both temporary and lasting improvements in working memory elicited by transcranial direct-current stimulation and reductions in depressive symptoms after transcranial magnetic stimulation. Moreover, research has shown that abnormal patterns of PAC are associated with depression and schizophrenia in adults. PAC is believed to be closely related to cortico-cortico white matter (WM) microstructure, which is well established in the literature as a structural mechanism underlying mental health. Some cognitive findings have been replicated in adolescents and abnormal patterns of PAC have also been linked to ADHD in young people. However, currently most research has focused on cross-sectional adult samples. Whereas initial hypotheses suggested that PAC was a state-based measure due to an early focus on cognitive, task-based research, current evidence suggests that PAC has both state-based and stable components. Future longitudinal research focusing on PAC throughout adolescent development could further our understanding of the relationship between mental health and cognition and facilitate the development of new methods for the identification and treatment of youth mental health. (shrink)

We extend the target authors' moral disciplining theory (MDT) by discussing signaling, proscriptive and prescriptive morality, and the dynamics by which signaling may operate in tandem with proscriptive and prescriptive forms of moral disciplining. We also suggest that MDT can help explain challenges to economic and social progress by revealing fundamental tensions between puritanical intuitions and liberal ideals.

In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialists. A sequence of chapters then (...) examines topics including the Wager's underlying theology, its influence on later philosophical figures, and contemporary analyses of the Wager including Alan Hájek's challenge to its validity, the many gods objection, and the ethics of belief. The final five chapters explore various ways in which the Wager has inspired contemporary decision theory, including questions related to infinite utility, imprecise probabilities, and infinitesimals. (shrink)

What kind of thing are we? Paul Snowdon's answer is that we are animals, of a sort. This view--'animalism'--may seem obvious but on the whole philosophers have rejected it. Snowdon argues that animalism is a defensible way of thinking about ourselves. Its rejection rests on the tendency when doing philosophy to mistake fantasy for reality.

There are a number of concepts of common-sense morality, what one must do, what one ought to do, the supererogatory, the minimum that duty allows, the morally optional and the morally indifferent, that philosophers have been hard-pressed to represent in an integrated conceptual framework. Indeed, many philosophers have despaired at the attempt and concluded that only a fragment of these concepts belong to that fundamental sphere of morality that is the central focus of the ethicist. For example, the traditional scheme, (...) with its triad of the obligatory, the forbidden and the permissible, pigeonholes all actions into three mutually exclusive and exhaustive classes: those which are obligatory, those which are forbidden and those which are optional. Hence, at best, it can represent exactly two of the six aforementioned concepts. For from the standpoint of this scheme, what one must do and what one ought to do can't be distinguished and hence they can't both be represented. Although the morally optional can be represented, the supererogatory, one of its subclasses, cannot be represented. Furthermore, the morally indifferent, another subclass of the optional--one which is obviously disjoint from the supererogatory--cannot be represented. Finally, the minimum that duty allows finds no distinctive place in the traditional scheme. Thus, on the face of it, the traditional scheme is radically incomplete. ;I present, motivate and defend a new conceptual scheme for common-sense morality in which these concepts are represented and systematically integrated. An intuitively motivated semantic framework underpinning this conceptual scheme is also presented. Such a scheme, along with the associated semantic framework, is motivated by reflecting on the supererogationist's objections to utilitarianism and to the traditional scheme. But in addition, a new integrated network of linguistic motivations for this conceptual scheme is uncovered, one which is completely independent of supererogationistic considerations. Hence, these two separate sources of evidence for the centrality of this new scheme to our pre-theoretic thinking corroborate one another--thus jointly boosting the evidence beyond the mere sum of their separate evidential values. (shrink)

Fish proposes that we need to elucidate what 'disjunctivism' stands for, and he also proposes that it stands for the rejection of a principle about the nature of experience that he calls the decisiveness principle. The present paper argues that his first proposal is reasonable, but then argues, in Section II, that his positive suggestion does not draw the line between disjunctivism and non-disjunctivism in the right place. In Section III, it is argued that disjunctivism is a thesis about the (...) special nature of perceptual experience, and the thesis as elucidated here is then distinguished from and related to certain other ideas about perception, namely, direct realism and also McDowell's epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

The Pasadena game invented by Nover and Hájek raises a number of challenges for decision theory. The basic problem is how the game should be evaluated: it has no expectation and hence no well-defined value. Easwaran has shown that the Pasadena game does have a weak expectation, raising the possibility that we can eliminate the value gap by requiring agents to value gambles at their weak expectations. In this paper, I first prove a negative result: there are gambles like the (...) Pasadena game that do not even have a weak expectation. Hence, problematic value gaps remain even if decision theory is extended to take in weak expectations. There is a further challenge: the existence of a ‘value gap’ in the Pasadena game seems to make decision theory inapplicable in a number of cases where the right choice is obvious. The positive contribution of the paper is a theory of ‘relative utilities’, an extension of decision theory that lets us make comparative judgements even among gambles that have no well-defined value. (shrink)

The authors argue that the time is ripe for national and corporate leaders to move consciously towards the development of global ethics. This papers presents a model of global ethics, a rationale for the development of global ethics, and the implications of the model for research and practice.

The trilogy is viewed through the lens of myth and metaphor. A wide variety of philosophical and mythological themes are presented and expounded upon, drawing from a rich source of scholars, thinkers, writers, and poets from East and West alike. Heretical or not, the Star Wars prequels are a surprisingly rich source of insight into the whole saga.

Jaak Panksepp’s article ‘Affective Consciousness: Core Emotional Feelings in Animals and Humans’ is a excellent review and summary by a leading empirical contributor whose work for many years has been running counter to reigning behavioristic premises in neuroscience. It may unfortunately be true that he could not get this review published in many neuroscience journals because it attacks too many sacred cows. Panksepp has given readers of Consciousness and Cognition a nicely condensed summary of much of his classic 1998 textbook, (...) Affective Neuroscience. I’m reasonably confident that future neuroscience students will look on that textbook as one of the seminal publications on the subject of emotion and the brain, much as we might now look back on Luria’s Higher Cortical Functions in Man, or Paul MacLean’s classic work, The Triune Brain. There is probably little that I can add to his elegant presentation of the basic affective neuroscience findings, but I would like to highlight a few key issues for the reader. (shrink)

We should seek an ethic internal to marketing arising from marketing's societal function, rather than imposing some add-on ethic. This suggests that marketing should enhance the information and the freedom the potential customer brings to the market transaction. Defining and achieving this information and freedom is difficult, but marketers suggest that the market itself drives out major violators, a suggestion less persuasive concerning increasingly complex goods and services. Marketing also is tempted to appeal to our baser, darker side. These problems (...) are better addressed through self-regulation guided by a vision of advertising and business in the service of society, and by the marketer's own sense of integrity than through external regulation. (shrink)

As transnational interactions increase, cross-cultural conflict concerning ethical issues is inevitable. This article presents a model for assisting decision makers in selecting appropriate strategies for addressing cross-cultural ethical conflict. A theoretical framework for the model is developed based on the literature on international business ethics and on conflict resolution. The model is illustrated through several case examples. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

The ability to imagine hypothetical events in one’s personal future is thought to involve a number of constituent cognitive processes. We investigated the extent to which individual differences in working memory capacity contribute to facets of episodic future thought. College students completed simple and complex measures of working memory and were cued to recall autobiographical memories and imagine future autobiographical events consisting of varying levels of specificity . Consistent with previous findings, future thought was related to analogous measures of autobiographical (...) memory, likely reflecting overlapping cognitive factors supporting both past and future thought. Additionally, after controlling for autobiographical memory, residual working memory variance independently predicted future episodic specificity. We suggest that when imagining future events, working memory contributes to the construction of a single, coherent, future event depiction, but not to the retrieval or elaboration of event details. (shrink)