The music and social bonding hypothesis proposes that human musicality has evolved as mechanisms supporting social bonding. We consider the MSB hypothesis under the lens of amnesia by arguing how patients with amnesia, especially those with Alzheimer's disease, can benefit from music, not only to retrieve personal memories, but also to use them for social bonding.

: The problem of intersubjectivity has undergone multifold discussions in the philosophical, neuroscientific and psychological fields. Currently, the predominant theories in this ongoing debate contend that simulation or explicit reasoning must ground other-understanding. Yet this contention confines the subject to solipsistic self-projection without actual communication. I will provide an analysis suggesting that the roots of the concept of “empathy” reveal not only a dualistic inner-outer distinction but also an emerging reference to the bodily dimension. I claim that, by examining the (...) verifiable-in-experience ideas of expressivity and dynamical value-based perception, the limits of the Theory Theory and of the Simulation Theory are resolved by means of a direct perceptual encounter that implies a unitary and never-isolated subject. I aim at showing that perception-based empathy provides an adequate basis for considering social dimensions from intersubjectivity to shared agency, since it allows for both direct embodied communication in cooperation and for the autonomy of agents involved in a collective domain. Keywords : Empathy; Expressivity; Embodiment; Perception; Collective Intentionality Esperire l’altro. Come espressività e percezione fondata sul valore forniscono un approccio non solipsistico all’empatia Riassunto : Il problema dell’intersoggettività è stato oggetto di diversi dibattiti in ambito filosofico, neuroscientifico e psicologico. Le teorie oggi dominanti si interrogano se debba essere la simulazione o il ragionamento esplicito il fondamento della comprensione dell’altro. Tuttavia, questa discussione confina il soggetto in una solipsistica proiezione di sé, priva di reale comunicazione. Proporrò un’analisi che suggerisce come le radici del concetto di “empatia” rivelino non solo una distinzione dualista tra interno ed esterno, ma anche un riferimento emergente alla dimensione corporea. Sosterrò che, esaminando concetti verificabili nell’esperienza quali espressività e percezione dinamica fondata sul valore, i limiti della Theory Theory e della Simulation Theory vengono dissolti dall’incontro percettivo diretto, che considera il soggetto come unitario e mai isolato. Intendo mostrare come l’empatia fondata sulla percezione costituisca una buona base per considerare dimensioni differenti, dall’intersoggettività all’agentività condivisa, poiché riconosce in entrambe una comunicazione diretta incarnata, che rispetta la cooperazione, ma anche l’autonomia, degli agenti coinvolti in dominio collettivo. Parole chiave : Empatia; Espressività; Embodiment; Percezione; Intenzionalità collettiva. (shrink)

_Pasado de violencia política_ es una obra colectiva, conformada por diez ensayos de jóvenes investigadores e investigadoras, procedentes de distintas disciplinas: historia, ciencias políticas, antropología, arqueología, filosofía, filología, historia del arte. Esta convergencia responde al carácter eminentemente interdisciplinario del ámbito al que adscribe el libro ―lo estudios de memoria― y de la Asociación que da vida a este proyecto, _Memorias en Red_. Sin embargo, en este caso, la recolección de ensayos no apunta a establecer comparaciones interdisciplinarias sobre algún objeto específico (...) ―que es el enfoque más común de este tipo de obras― sino que su objetivo fundamental es discutir sobre la memoria en sí, sus dinámicas, funciones y manifestaciones. Persiguiendo este objetivo, el libro presenta un recorrido a través de objetos y contextos muy distintos: exhumaciones de fosas comunes, manifestaciones callejeras, ex centros de detención y tortura, prácticas de disidencia asociadas a la estética y la ética del cuerpo, procesamientos internacionales de derechos humanos y redes de activismo ciudadano. [...]. (shrink)

Motor learning can be defined as a process that leads to relatively permanent changes in motor behavior through repeated interactions with the environment. Different strategies can be adopted to achieve motor learning: movements can be overtly practiced leading to an amelioration of motor performance; alternatively, covert strategies (e.g., action observation) can promote neuroplastic changes in the motor system even in the absence of real movement execution. However, whether a training regularly alternating action observation and execution (i.e., Action Observation Training, AOT) (...) may surpass the pure motor practice (MP) and observational learning (OL) remains to be established. To address this issue, we enrolled 54 subjects requiring them to learn tying nautical knots via one out of three types of training (AOT, MP, OL) with the scope to investigate which element mostly contributes to motor learning. We evaluated the overall improvement of each group, along with the predictive role that neuropsychological indexes exert on each treatment outcome. The AOT group exhibited the highest performance improvement (42%), indicating that the regular alternation between observation and execution biases participants toward a better performance. The reiteration of this sequence provides an incremental, adjunct value that super-adds onto the efficacy of motor practice or observational learning in isolation (42% > 25% + 10%, i.e., OL + MP). These findings extend the use of the AOT from clinical and rehabilitative contexts to daily routines requiring the learning and perfectioning of new motor skills such as sports training, music, and occupational activities requiring fine motor control. (shrink)

Cet article se donne pour tâche d’étudier la manière dont l’exposition à l’art d’oblitération du sculpteur Sacha Sosno conduit Levinas à décrire les portées ontologique et éthique de la pratique de la rature appliquée à des sculptures archétypales de l’art classique : oblitération par le vide (découpe, percée, trouée) et oblitération par le plein (obtusion, enserrement). Quarante-deux ans après avoir considéré – dans « La réalité et son ombre » (1948) – que seule l’exégèse philosophique de l’art peut réintégrer l’œuvre (...) dans le monde humain, Levinas reconnaît une prise de position éthique au sein même de la technique d’oblitération. En effet, dans De l’oblitération (1990), le philosophe affirme que les blessures infligées par la défaite des belles formes interrompent notre obstination inter-essée de persévérer dans l’être, révèlent la finitude et l’ambiguïté d’un visage à la fois visible et invisible, dénoncent les abus de la vie sociale, et suscitent la compassion et la responsabilité du spectateur. (shrink)

New technologies and recent palaeographical studies on the reconstruction of the ancient scrolls from Herculaneum encouraged new hypotheses on the outline of the ancient library in the «Villa dei Papiri». After a brief overview of the problems involved in the reconstruction of the volumina, this contribution focuses on the work of two scribes -the so-called Anonimo XXI and XXV - who copied many scrolls and collaborated with each other at least in two cases. A passage from Aristophanes’ Clouds, probably from (...) Philodemus’ treatise De vitiis, has been read for the first time. The final part of the article examines shape and structure of the titles of this important treatise. (shrink)

When dealing with manuscripts transmitting otherwise unknown ancient texts and without a subscriptio, the work of a philologist and literary critic becomes both more difficult and more engrossing. Definitive proof is impossible; at the end there can only be a hypothesis. When dealing with a unique grammatical text, such a hypothesis becomes even more delicate because of the standardization of ancient grammar. But it can happen that, behind crystallized theoretical argumentation and apparently canonical formulas, interstices can be explored that lead (...) to unforeseen possibilities, more exciting—and even more suitable—than those that have already emerged. (shrink)

Despite the ideal of dispossession, absolute poverty and the total absence of links with possession and human beings which shaped the myth of the monastic desert, the monastic economy and its management were very similar to the secular economic system, in that both were organised by networks based on families.This article tackles how and where material assets were produced and administered in Egyptian monasteries between the fourth and eighth centuries, and who was responsible for this function. The history of monasticism (...) is materially related to the institutionalisation of the society’s cultural and material systems of production. Consequently the economy was also transformed by monastic practices: history is linked to the definition and the successful affirmation of the figure of the oikonomos, the steward in charge of everyday life in monasteries. (shrink)

Is it right to wage war to export democracy, or - as Kant would have said - to forcibly interfere in the constitution and in the government of another state with the goal of transforming it into a republic? The answer of Kant, contained in the fifth preliminary article of the Perpetual Peace, leans towards non-interventionism: a bad constitution can never justify a war, because it may be the root only of a scandalum acceptum. To understand the meaning of scandalum (...) acceptum we have to become aware that it is a term originating from moral theology, which we should translate into the language of international law. The scandal, as it was still clear to Kant’s contemporaries, is the sin of advertising a sinful behavior: but it is just a scandalum acceptum if the act that inspired others to sin has been done without the intention to give them a bad example. A flawed constitution can be only the occasion of a scandalum acceptum because its legal power does not spread its influence beyond the border of its state. If a nation chooses to imitate the allegedly wrong constitution of another state, its choice depends only on its sovereignty, because it is a matter of internal constitutional law. On the other hand, waging war against another country because of its allegedly flawed constitution is a worse kind of scandal, the scandalum datum, because it involves an international law principle of limited sovereignty according to which every state has the right to assault another state because of its constitution. (shrink)

Le discours sur le rôle du design dans la résolution et la cause des problèmes socioculturels actuels est double. D’une part, on observe un intérêt croissant pour la manière dont le design pourrait contribuer à améliorer les problèmes sociaux et à promouvoir les transformations socio-culturelles souhaitées. D’autre part, des questions se posent, non seulement sur l’efficacité de la contribution du design au social, mais aussi le rôle de la pratique du design dans la création de ces mêmes problèmes sociaux.

Music in dreams is rarely reported in scientific literature, while the presence of musical themes in dreams of famous musicians is anecdotally reported. We did a systematic investigation to evaluate whether the occurrence of musical dreams could be related to musical competence and practice, and to explore specific features of dreamt pieces. Thirty-five professional musicians and thirty non-musicians filled out a questionnaire about the characteristics of their musical activity and a structured dream log on the awakening for 30 consecutive days. (...) Musicians dream of music more than twice with respect to non-musicians; musical dreams frequency is related to the age of commencement of musical instruction, but not to the daily load of musical activity. Nearly half of the recalled music was non-standard, suggesting that original music can be created in dreams. (shrink)

P.Bon. 5 preserves the only known collection of ancient Latin model letters, accompanied by a Greek translation. This article argues that the Latin is the primary version and dates the composition to before the early third century. Comparisons with other model letter collections, principally ps.-Demetrius’ Epistolary Types and ps.-Libanius’ Epistolary Styles, locate the text within a wider literary genre. A new reconstructed text is provided in the Appendix at the end of this article.

To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to test different theoretical models of working memory in childhood based on a computerized assessment. We tested this across several countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Italy, and UK. The present study addressed the wider macro-cultural context and how this impacts working memory. We used two economic indices to characterize the participating countries and ranked the countries based on the Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment. Children between 5 and 10 (...) years completed the same set of short-term and working memory tests. There were two main findings. First, there was a similar pattern in verbal working memory across countries, which suggests that this skill may be relatively consistent across different cultural groups. In contrast, the pattern for visuo-spatial working memory was different across countries, which may explained by cultural differences and educational rankings of the countries. The second main finding was that both a domain-general model and a domain-specific model provided a reasonably good fit with the data, there was the high relationship between the verbal and visuo-spatial working memory constructs across the countries in the latter model. Thus, it may be a more parsimonious choice to rely on a three-factor model. The data also suggest culture-similar patterns in a computerized assessment of working memory. (shrink)

Batteries are a fundamental storage component due to its various applications in mobility, renewable energies and consumer electronics among others. Regardless of the battery typology, one key variable from a user’s perspective is the remaining energy in the battery. It is usually presented as the percentage of remaining energy compared to the total energy that can be stored and is labeled State Of Charge (SOC). This work addresses the development of a hybrid model based on a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) (...) power cell, due to its broad implementation. The proposed model calculates the SOC, by means of voltage and electric current as inputs and the latter as the output. Therefore, four models based on k-Means, Agglomerative Clustering, Gaussian Mixture and Spectral Clustering techniques have been tested in order to obtain an optimal solution. (shrink)

IntroductionAnorexia nervosa promotes psychological distress in caregivers who adopt different coping strategies. Dysfunctional caregiving styles exacerbate further distress in the patient promoting the maintenance of the illness. We aimed to assess the possible contribution of personality traits of caregivers to the adoption of different coping strategies to deal with the affected relative.MethodsAbout 87 adolescents with AN were recruited. Their parents completed the Family Coping Questionnaire for Eating Disorders and the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised. Differences between mothers and fathers were assessed (...) through the independent sample t-test. Multivariate regression analyses were run to assess if personality traits, the occurrence of psychiatry conditions in the parents, the marital status, and the duration of the illness predicted parental coping strategies.ResultsThe group of mothers showed higher levels of avoidance and seeking for information coping strategies than the sample of fathers. Lower illness duration predicted higher collusion with the illness in both parents. Harm avoidance, cooperativeness, and self-directedness positively predicted parental coercion, collusion, and seeking for information strategies with some differences between mothers and fathers.DiscussionIllness duration and personality traits of parents affect the type of parental coping strategies developed to face AN in adolescents. These variables should be considered in the assessment of families of adolescents with AN and may be addressed to promote more fine-tuned clinical interventions for caregivers. (shrink)

Working Memory (WM) skills of individuals with Down’s syndrome DS tend to be very poor compared to typically developing children of similar mental age. In particular, research has found that in individuals with DS visuo-spatial WM is better preserved than verbal WM. This study investigated whether is possible to train Short-Term Memory (STM) and WM abilities in individuals with DS. The cases of two teenage children are reported: E.H., 17 years and 3 months, and A.S., 15 years and 11 months. (...) A school-based treatment targeting visuo-spatial WM was given to E.H. and A.S. for six weeks. Both prior to and after the treatment, they completed a set of assessments to measure WM abilities and their performance was compared with younger typically developing nonverbal mental age controls. The results showed that the trained participants improved their performance in some of the trained and non-trained WM tasks proposed, especially with regard to the tasks assessing visuo-spatial WM abilities. These findings are discussed on the basis of their theoretical, educational and clinical implications. (shrink)