This landmark volume brings together the work of the world's leading researchers in sublimated perception. This compilation marks a fundamental shift in the current study of subliminal effects: No longer in question is the notion that perception without awareness occurs. Now, the emphasis is on elucidating the parameters of subliminal effects and understanding the conditions under which stimuli perceived without awareness significantly influence affect, cognition, and behavior. PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS firmly establishes subliminal perception within the mainstream of psychological science. Well (...) represented here are the two main research branches that have emerged: One directly investigates the nature of subliminal effects; the other uses subliminal techniques as tools for investigating psychological phenomena such as hypnosis, dreaming, repression, social judgment and inference, psychopathology, and symptom formation. Broadly grouped into three main sections, the contributed chapters explore * The cognitive perspective--including implicit memory and implicit perception, the measurement of unconscious perceptual processes, and methods for revealing unconscious processes * The clinical perspective--exploring the cognitive and dynamic aspects of subliminal perception, memory, and consciousness; direct recovery of subliminal stimuli; and validation of subliminal psychodynamic activation * The social perspective--discussing subliminal mere-exposure effects, affect and social perception, and the role of subliminality in social psychology Timely and thought-provoking, PERCEPTION WITHOUT AWARENESS is sure to be of enormous interest to all psychoanalytic clinicians and scholars, as well as cognitive, clinical, and social psychologists whose work touches upon issues relating to psychopathology, perception, cognition, and memory. (shrink)

A modified version of the mere exposure effect paradigm was utilized in an implicit artificial grammar learning task in an attempt to develop a procedure that would be more sensitive in assesing nonconscious learning processes than the methods currently utilized within the field of implicit learning. Subjects were presented with stimuli generated from a finite-state artificial grammar and then had to either decide if novel items conformed to the rule structure of the grammar or rate the degree to which they (...) liked novel items. Because the latter of the task was more indirect of the two procedures, subjects′ availability to discriminate between well-formed and ill-formed items on this liking task was taken as a more sensitive piece of evidence of implicit learning, compared to performance on the rule conformity task. A subsequent test of subjects′ explicit knowledge of the rules of the grammar showed that subjects do have some conscious knowledge of the artificial grammar, but subjects making liking decisions exhibited significantly less conscious rule knowledge than subjects initially making rule-conformity judgements. The findings are discussed in relation to synergistic relationships among implicit perception, implicit memory, and implicit learning proceses. (shrink)

Manuscript reviews are intended to be objective, empirical assessments of the scientific worth of papers submitted for publication. However, critics have charged that manuscript reviews are unreliable, unconstructive, and biased in a number of ways . A review of the empirical literature in this area indicates: that inter-reviewer reliability in manscript assessments is clearly inadequate, that reviewer bias can sometimes influence manuscript assessments, and that there is a dearth of empirical data supporting the predictive and discriminant validity of manuscript assessment (...) procedures. Based on the available evidence it seems that manuscript reviews are more strongly influenced by chance factors than by systematic reviewer or editorial bias. Nonetheless, our desire to conceptualize manuscript reviews in psychology as objective, empirical assessments has produced a number of undesired results. An alternative approach to manuscript review based on an adversery model rather than a scientific model is presented. Advantages of an adversary model as a method for identifying sound research are discussed. Changes in current publication policies that would allow research findings to be disseminated more efficiently are also described. (shrink)

Contrary to Perruchet & Vinter's self-organizing consciousness (SOC) model, subliminal mere exposure (SME) research indicates that stimuli perceived without awareness produce robust effects. Moreover, SME effects are significantly stronger than mere exposure effects produced by clearly recognized stimuli. The SOC model must be revised to accommodate findings from studies that use affect-based outcome measures.

Clinical psychologists, cognitive psychologists, neuropsychologists, social psychologists and developmental psychologists have all become increasingly interested in studying unconscious mental processes empirically. In the words of the editors, The study of the unconscious has the potential to become the unifying force in psychology, linking cognition and emotion, infancy and old age, normal and pathological development, brain and psyche.

In his analysis of subliminal perception research, Erdelyi documented two important phenomena: subchance perception and temporal variability in stimulus availability and accessibility. This Commentary addresses three issues raised by Erdelyi's review: the importance of distinguishing “micro” from “macro” temporal shifts; the need to analyze perception without awareness data at the level of the individual as well as the group; and parallels between the dissociations associated with neuroclinical phenomena and those observed in patients with certain forms of personality pathology. Continued integration (...) of laboratory findings with in vivo observations of clinical syndromes will yield a more cohesive and heuristic approach to the study of implicit mental states. (shrink)

Although the network model represents a promising new approach to conceptualizing comorbidity in psychiatric diagnosis, the model applies most directly to Axis I symptom disorders; the degree to which the model generalizes to Axis II disorders remains open to question. This commentary addresses that issue, discussing opportunities and challenges in applying the network model to DSM-diagnosed personality pathology.

A comprehensive theory of implicit and explicit knowledge must explain phenomenal knowledge (e.g., knowledge regarding one's affective and motivational states), as well as propositional (i.e., “fact”-based) knowledge. Findings from several research areas (i.e., the subliminal mere exposure effect, artificial grammar learning, implicit and self-attributed dependency needs) are used to illustrate the importance of both phenomenal and propositional knowledge for a unified theory of implicit and explicit mental states.

Mele's analysis of self-deception is persuasive but it might also be useful to consider the varieties of self-deception that occur in real-world settings. Instances of self-deception can be classified along three dimensions: implicit versus explicit, motivated versus process-based, and public versus private. All three types of self-deception have implications for the scientific research enterprise.

The situationist challenge to global character traits claims that on the basis of findings in social psychology, we should only accept at most the existence of local or context-sensitive traits. In this article I explore a neglected area of J. S. Mill's work to outline an account of context-sensitive traits. This account of traits, coupled with a sophisticated consequentialist ethical framework, suggests an interesting view on which persons govern the circumstances of their actions in order to best promote overall well-being.

(1997). Considering moral sensitivity in media ethics courses and research: An essay review by Robert F. Potter. Journal of Mass Media Ethics: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 51-57. doi: 10.1207/s15327728jmme1201_4.

This book argues that a conscientiously objecting medical professional should receive an exemption only if the grounds of an objector's refusal are reasonable. It defends a detailed, contextual account of public reasonability suited for healthcare, which builds from the overarching concept of Rawlsian public reason. The author analyzes the main competing positions and maintains that these other views fail precisely due to their systematic inattention to the grounding reasons behind a conscientious objection; he argues that any such view is plausible (...) to the extent that it mimics the 'reason-giving requirement' for conscience objections defended in this work. Only reasonable objections can defeat the prior professional obligation to assign primacy to patient well-being, therefore one who refuses a patient's request for a legally available, medically indicated, and safe service must be able to explain the grounds of their objection in terms understandable to other citizens within the public institutional structure of medicine. The book further offers a novel policy proposal to deploy the Reasonability View: establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. It concludes that the Reasonability View is a viable and attractive position in this debate. A New Theory of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: Justification and Reasonability will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy of medicine, as well as thinkers interested in the intersections between law, medical humanities, and philosophy. (shrink)

If classical Western theism is correct that God's timeless omniscience is compatible with human free will, then it is incoherent to hold that this God can in any strict sense be immutable and a se as well as omniscient. That is my thesis. ‘Classical theism’ shall refer here to the tradition of philosophical theology centring on such mainstream authors as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. ‘Divine omniscience’ shall mean that the eternal God knows all events as a timeless observer of them. (...) ‘Human free will’ shall mean that human beings are, at least sometimes, self-determining agents who make choices not decisively caused to be what they are by external or internal factors other than the free willing itself – choices that these agents have the capacity and the freedom to make differently than they do. Except where stipulated otherwise, ‘divine immutability’ shall ‘mean that God is neither subject to, nor capable of, change in being, knowing, or willing, since God is immune to external influences, and without internal needs, of the sorts that might give rise to such change. Finally, ‘aseity’ shall be used to underline the divine immunity to external influences, since a being that is wholly a se or self-caused , cannot be open to such influences, cannot be made to be what or how it is by anything other than itself. (shrink)

Sixteen essays on epistemology, metaphysics, & history & politics, treating aspects of the writings of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Leibniz, & Hobbes.

Much of traditional AI exemplifies the explicit representation paradigm, and during the late 1980''s a heated debate arose between the classical and connectionist camps as to whether beliefs and rules receive an explicit or implicit representation in human cognition. In a recent paper, Kirsh (1990) questions the coherence of the fundamental distinction underlying this debate. He argues that our basic intuitions concerning explicit and implicit representations are not only confused but inconsistent. Ultimately, Kirsh proposes a new formulation of the distinction, (...) based upon the criterion ofconstant time processing.The present paper examines Kirsh''s claims. It is argued that Kirsh fails to demonstrate that our usage of explicit and implicit is seriously confused or inconsistent. Furthermore, it is argued that Kirsh''s new formulation of the explicit-implicit distinction is excessively stringent, in that it banishes virtually all sentences of natural language from the realm of explicit representation. By contrast, the present paper proposes definitions for explicit and implicit which preserve most of our strong intuitions concerning straightforward uses of these terms. It is also argued that the distinction delineated here sustains the meaningfulness of the abovementioned debate between classicists and connectionists. (shrink)

This paper builds upon previous work in which I argue that we should assess a provider's reasons for his or her objection before granting a conscientious exemption. For instance, if the medical professional's reasoned basis involves an empirical mistake, an accommodation is not warranted. This article poses and begins to address several deep questions about the workings of what I call a reason-giving view: What standard should we use to assess reasons? What policy should we adopt in order to evaluate (...) the reasons offered by medical practitioners in support of their objections? I argue for a reasonability standard to perform the essential function of assessing reasons, and I offer considerations in support of a policy establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. (shrink)

In their provocative 1988 paper, Fodor and Pylyshyn issued a formidable challenge to connectionists, i.e. to provide a non‐classical explanation of the empirical phenomenon of systematicity in cognitive agents. Since the appearance of F&P's challenge, a number of connectionist systems have emerged which prima facie meet this challenge. However, Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) advance an argument, based upon a general principle of nomological necessity, to show that one of these systems (Smolensky's) could not satisfy the Fodor‐Pylyshyn challenge. Yet, if Fodor (...) and McLaughlin's analysis is correct, it is doubtful whether any existing connectionist system would fare better than Smolensky's. In the view of Fodor and McLaughlin, humans and classical architectures display systematicity as a matter of nomological necessity (necessity by virtue of natural law), but connectionist architectures do not. However, I argue that the Fodor‐Pylyshyn‐McLaughlin appeal to nomological necessity is untenable. There is a sense in which neither classical nor connectionist architectures possess nomological (or‘nomic’) necessity. However, the sense in which classical architectures do possess nomic necessity applies equally well to at least some connectionist architectures. Representational constituents can have causal efficacy within both classical and connectionist architectures. (shrink)

This book offers an in-depth analysis of the wide range of issues surrounding "passive euthanasia" and "allow-to-die" decisions. The author develops a comprehensive conceptual model that is highly useful for assessing and dealing with real-life situations. He presents an informative historical overview, an evaluation of the clinical settings in which treatment abatement takes place, and an insightful discussion of relevant legal aspects. The result is a clearly articulated ethical analysis that is medically realistic, philosophically sound, and legally viable.

In their provocative 1988 paper, Fodor and Pylyshyn issued a formidable challenge to connectionists, i.e. to provide a non‐classical explanation of the empirical phenomenon of systematicity in cognitive agents. Since the appearance of F&P's challenge, a number of connectionist systems have emerged which prima facie meet this challenge. However, Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) advance an argument, based upon a general principle of nomological necessity, to show that one of these systems (Smolensky's) could not satisfy the Fodor‐Pylyshyn challenge. Yet, if Fodor (...) and McLaughlin's analysis is correct, it is doubtful whether any existing connectionist system would fare better than Smolensky's. In the view of Fodor and McLaughlin, humans and classical architectures display systematicity as a matter of nomological necessity (necessity by virtue of natural law), but connectionist architectures do not. However, I argue that the Fodor‐Pylyshyn‐McLaughlin appeal to nomological necessity is untenable. There is a sense in which neither classical nor connectionist architectures possess nomological (or‘nomic’) necessity. However, the sense in which classical architectures do possess nomic necessity applies equally well to at least some connectionist architectures. Representational constituents can have causal efficacy within both classical and connectionist architectures. (shrink)

Fodor's and Pylyshyn's stand on systematicity in thought and language has been debated and criticized. Van Gelder and Niklasson, among others, have argued that Fodor and Pylyshyn offer no precise definition of systematicity. However, our concern here is with a learning based formulation of that concept. In particular, Hadley has proposed that a network exhibits strong semantic systematicity when, as a result of training, it can assign appropriate meaning representations to novel sentences (both simple and embedded) which contain words in (...) syntactic positions they did not occupy during training. The experience of researchers indicates that strong systematicity in any form is difficult to achieve in connectionist systems.Herein we describe a network which displays strong semantic systematicity in response to Hebbian, connectionist training. During training, two-thirds of all nouns are presented only in a single syntactic position (either as grammatical subject or object). Yet, during testing, the network correctly interprets thousands of sentences containing those nouns in novel positions. In addition, the network generalizes to novel levels of embedding. Successful training requires a, corpus of about 1000 sentences, and network training is quite rapid. The architecture and learning algorithms are purely connectionist, but classical insights are discernible in one respect, viz, that complex semantic representations spatially contain their semantic constituents. However, in other important respects, the architecture is distinctly non-classical. (shrink)

Blind Realism originated in the deeply felt conviction that the widespread acceptance of Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge rests in a demonstrably erroneous understanding of the nature of human knowledge. In seeking to defend that conviction, Robert F. Almeder offers a fairly detailed and systematic picture of the nature and limits of human factual knowledge.

Actions within organizational contexts should be understood differently as compared with actions performed outside of such contexts. This is the case due to the agentic shift, as discussed by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, and the role that systemic factors play in shaping the available alternatives from which individuals acting within institutions choose. The analysis stemming from Milgram’s experiments suggests not simply that individuals temporarily abdicate their moral agency on occasion, but that there is an erosion of agency within organizations. The (...) point about the erosion of agency is deepened in the discussion of a case study which illustrates the difficulty of identifying even the bare “ownership” of actions within organizations. While this is the case, explicating these reasons suggests that both individual actors and firms can bear ethical responsibility within organizational contexts. As part of the effort to present the whole picture, business ethics courses should introduce students to the relevant insights from social psychology and human factors research. (shrink)

This is a book about the role that psychological impairment should play in a theory of criminal liability. Criminal guilt in the Anglo-American legal tradition requires both that the defendant committed some proscribed act and did so with intent, knowledge, or recklessness. The second requirement corresponds to the intuitive idea that people should not be punished for something they did not do 'on purpose' or if they 'did not realize what they were doing'. Unlike many works in this area, this (...) book addresses the automatism and insanity defences by examining the types of functional impairment that typical candidates for these defences actually suffer. What emerges is a much wider conceptual framework that allows us to understand the significance of psychological states and processes for the attribution of criminal responsibility in a manner that is logically coherent, morally defensible, and consistent with research in psychopathology. (shrink)

At present, the prevailing Connectionist methodology forrepresenting rules is toimplicitly embody rules in neurally-wired networks. That is, the methodology adopts the stance that rules must either be hard-wired or trained into neural structures, rather than represented via explicit symbolic structures. Even recent attempts to implementproduction systems within connectionist networks have assumed that condition-action rules (or rule schema) are to be embodied in thestructure of individual networks. Such networks must be grown or trained over a significant span of time. However, arguments (...) are presented herein that humanssometimes follow rules which arevery rapidly assignedexplicit internal representations, and that humans possessgeneral mechanisms capable of interpreting and following such rules. In particular, arguments are presented that thespeed with which humans are able to follow rules ofnovel structure demonstrates the existence of general-purpose rule following mechanisms. It is further argued that the existence of general-purpose rule following mechanisms strongly indicates that explicit rule following is not anisolated phenomenon, but may well be a common and important aspect of cognition. The relationship of the foregoing conclusions to Smolensky''s view of explicit rule following is also explored. The arguments presented here are pragmatic in nature, and are contrasted with thekind of arguments developed by Fodor and Pylyshyn in their recent, influential paper. (shrink)

Ancell and Sinnott-Armstrong argue that medical providers possess wide freedoms to determine the scope of their practice, and therefore, prohibiting almost any conscientious objections is a bad idea. They maintain that we could create an acceptable system on the whole which even grants accommodations to discriminatory refusals by healthcare professionals. Their argument is premised upon applying a free market mechanism to conscientious objections in medicine, yet I argue their Market View possesses a number of absurd and troubling implications. Furthermore, I (...) demonstrate that the fundamental logic of their main argument is flawed. Thinkers who wish to address the issues raised in this debate in general or by discriminatory conscience objections in particular should avoid the Market View and instead envisage theories that assess the reasons underlying conscientious refusals in medicine. (shrink)

This major study advances an interpretation of criminal justification defences that views them as an integral component of the structure of the criminal law. Criminal law is defined here as the institutional representation of the underlying principles of political morality in a liberal society. The book extends the traditional scope of the legal and philosophical discussion of justification defences. It integrates philosophical analysis with a consideration of contemporary applications, it shows how these defences are key components of criminal law, and (...) it explores the relationship between legal and moral justification. (shrink)

Adopting a critical thinking methodology in which critical thinking tools are introduced and applied to medical ethics reading, this book explains the dialogue which is formed by the readings in each chapter and clarifies how the various thinkers are responding to one another in a common discussion. The books' unified approach offers a critical thinking pedagogy, which philosophically and logically pulls the many readings and philosophies together. The book examines an introduction to moral theory and critical thinking tools, while readings (...) address the following issues: surrogacy contracts; abortion; ethical issues at the end of life; genetics and morality; ethics and HIV/AIDS; the relationship between medical professionals and patients; research on human and non-human subjects; allocation of medical resources and justice issues in health care systems. For individuals interested in medical ethics and philosophy. (shrink)

The past decade has witnessed the emergence of a novel stance on semantic representation, and its relationship to context sensitivity. Connectionist-minded philosophers, including Clark and van Gelder, have espoused the merits of viewing hidden-layer, context-sensitive representations as possessing semantic content, where this content is partially revealed via the representations'' position in vector space. In recent work, Bodén and Niklasson have incorporated a variant of this view of semantics within their conception of semantic systematicity. Moreover, Bodén and Niklasson contend that they (...) have produced experimental results which not only satisfy a kind of context-based, semantic systematicity, but which, to the degree that reality permits, effectively deals with challenges posed by Fodor and Pylyshyn (1988), and Hadley (1994a). The latter challenge involved well-defined criteria for strong semantic systematicity. This paper examines the relevant claims and experiments of Bodén and Niklasson. It is argued that their case fatally involves two fallacies of equivocation; one concerning ''semantic content'' and the other concerning ''novel test sentences''. In addition, it is argued that their ultimate construal of context sensitive semantics contains serious confusions. These confusions are also found in certain publications dealing with "latent semantic analysis". Thus, criticisms presented here have relevance beyond the work of Bodén and Niklasson. (shrink)

The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet. This paper briefly describes some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, and examines some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations. The paper concludes by highlighting the risks associated (...) with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties. (shrink)