Current accounts suggest that self-referential thought serves a pivotal function in the human ability to simulate the future during mind-wandering. Using experience sampling, this hypothesis was tested in two studies that explored the extent to which self-reflection impacts both retrospection and prospection during mind-wandering. Study 1 demonstrated that a brief period of self-reflection yielded a prospective bias during mind-wandering such that participants’ engaged more frequently in spontaneous future than past thought. In Study 2, individual differences in the strength of self-referential (...) thought — as indexed by the memorial advantage for self rather than other-encoded items — was shown to vary with future thinking during mind-wandering. Together these results confirm that self-reflection is a core component of future thinking during mind-wandering and provide novel evidence that a key function of the autobiographical memory system may be to mentally simulate events in the future. (shrink)

Given that as much as half of human thought arises in a stimulus independent fashion, it would seem unlikely that such thoughts would play no functional role in our lives. However, evidence linking the mind-wandering state to performance decrement has led to the notion that mind-wandering primarily represents a form of cognitive failure. Based on previous work showing a prospective bias to mind-wandering, the current study explores the hypothesis that one potential function of spontaneous thought is to plan and anticipate (...) personally relevant future goals, a process referred to as autobiographical planning. The results confirm that the content of mind-wandering is predominantly future-focused, demonstrate that individuals with high working memory capacity are more likely to engage in prospective mind-wandering, and show that prospective mind-wandering frequently involves autobiographical planning. Together this evidence suggests that mind-wandering can enable prospective cognitive operations that are likely to be useful to the individual as they navigate through their daily lives. (shrink)

According to the attentional resources account, mind wandering (or “task-unrelated thought”) is thought to compete with a focal task for attentional resources. Here, we tested two key predictions of this account: First, that mind wandering should not interfere with performance on a task that does not require attentional resources; second, that as task requirements become automatized, performance should improve and depth of mind wandering should increase. Here, we used a serial reaction time task with implicit- and explicit-learning groups to test (...) these predictions. Providing novel evidence for the attentional resource account’s first prediction, results indicated that depth of mind wandering was negatively associated with learning in the explicit, but not the implicit, group, indicating that mind wandering is associated with impaired explicit, but not implicit, learning. Corroborating the attention resource account’s second prediction, we also found that, overall, performance improved while at the same time depth of mind wandering increased. From an implicit learning perspective, these results are consistent with the claim that explicit learning is impaired under attentional load, but implicit learning is not. (shrink)

As research on mind wandering has accelerated, the construct’s defining features have expanded and researchers have begun to examine different dimensions of mind wandering. Recently, Christoff and colleagues have argued for the importance of investigating a hitherto neglected variety of mind wandering: “unconstrained thought,” or, thought that is relatively unguided by executive-control processes. To date, with only a handful of studies investigating unconstrained thought, little is known about this intriguing type of mind wandering. Across two experiments, we examined, for the (...) first time, whether changes in task demand influence rates of constrained versus unconstrained thoughts. In both experiments, participants completed either an easy (0-back) or hard (2-back) task and responded to intermittently presented thought probes that gauged thought constraint throughout the task. In Experiment 1, we found that participants completing the easy task engaged in unconstrained thoughts more frequently than those completing the difficult task. In Experiment 2, we replicated this result and further demonstrated manipulations of unconstrained thought while also measuring task-relatedness (a common dimension of mind wandering). Finally, exploratory analyses showed associations between constrained thought and age, verbal intelligence, and an assessment of flow (‘deep effortless concentration’), thereby adding further evidence to indicate a dissociation between task-relatedness and constraint. We discuss the methodological and theoretical applications of our findings to the burgeoning field of research on unconstrained thought. (shrink)

Introspection is paradoxical in that it is simultaneously so compelling yet so elusive. This paradox emerges because although experience itself is indisputable, our ability to explicitly characterize experience is often inadequate. Ultimately, the accuracy of introspective reports depends on individuals' imperfect ability to take stock of their experience. Although there is no ideal yardstick for assessing introspection, examination of the degree to which self-reports systematically covary with the environmental, behavioural, and physiological concomitants of experience can help to establish the correspondence (...) between meta-consciousness and experience. We illustrate the viability of such an approach in three domains, imagery, mind-wandering, and hedonic appraisal, identifying both the situations in which introspections appear to be accurate and those in which they seem to diverge from underlying experience. We conclude with a discussion of the various factors that may cause meta-consciousness to misrepresent experience. (shrink)

This volume takes the first step toward building the necessary local bridges.

In recent years, the number of studies examining mind wandering has increased considerably, and research on the topic has spread widely across various domains of psychological research. Although the term “mind wandering” has been used to refer to various cognitive states, researchers typically operationalize mind wandering in terms of “task-unrelated thought” (TUT). Research on TUT has shed light on the various task features that require people’s attention, and on the consequences of task inattention. Important methodological and conceptual complications do persist, (...) however, in current investigations of TUT. As we argue, these complications may be dampening the development of a more nuanced scientific account of TUT. Here, we outline three of the more prominent methodological and conceptual complications in the literature on TUT, and we discuss potential directions for researchers to take as they move forward in their investigations of TUT. (shrink)

This review identifies some of the many layers that surround and potentially obscure the emotionally charged topic of recovered accounts of childhood abuse. Consideration of the, admittedly often indirect, evidence provides suggestive support for many of the components of both recovered and fabricated memories of abuse. With respect to recovered memories the available evidence suggests that: although the prior accessibility of a memory may be difficult to determine, recovered memory reports can sometimes be corroborated with respect to their correspondence to (...) actual abuse; although individuals often retain memory for trauma, there is evidence for fluctuations in the accessibility of traumatic experiences, particularly for situations that are extremely difficult to talk about; there are compelling mechanisms available to account for both the decreases and the subsequent increases in accessibility of traumatic memories that could lead to recovered memory reports. With respect to fabricated memories the available evidence suggests that: people are highly capable of fabricating vivid recollections that can be confused with reality; once fabricated, there seems to be no limit to the preposterous false memories that some individuals are capable of accepting particularly when in the presence of a persuasive individual in a position of authority. Although future research is needed to provide more direct evidence for the above claims, at present readers are urged to consider the strong likelihood that both recovered and fabricated memories correspond to real phenomena. (shrink)

The current research investigates the interaction between thought suppression and individuals’ explicit awareness of their thoughts. Participants in three experiments attempted to suppress thoughts of a prior romantic relationship and their success at doing so was measured using a combination of self-catching and experience-sampling. In addition to thoughts that individuals spontaneously noticed, individuals were frequently caught engaging in thoughts of their previous partner at experience-sampling probes. Furthermore, probe-caught thoughts were: associated with stronger decoupling of attention from the environment, more likely (...) to occur under cognitive load, more frequent for individuals with a desire to reconcile, and associated with individual differences in the tendency to suppress thoughts. Together, these data suggest that individuals can lack meta-awareness that they have begun to think about a topic they are attempting to suppress, providing novel insight into the cognitive processes that are involved in attempting to control undesired mental states. (shrink)

We all have had convictions that we were unable to substantiate on a purely logical basis. Such intuitive experiences have intrigued philosophers for centuries, although the construct of intuition as such has generally been given an undeserved cold shoulder by researchers. As Peugeot, in this issue, observes, ‘It is therefore very surprising that so few studies have been dedicated to the study of the subjective experience which is associated with it’ . Peugeot is correct in her observation that modern research (...) has had little to say explicitly about intuition and its subjective concomitants. However, this omission may be as much a matter of terms as it is of fact. Specifically, if we consider the definition of intuition we see that a considerable amount of research that has been called by other names, actually reveals important insights into both the cognitive processes that lead to intuition and the subjective experiences associated with it. Moreover, because this research explicitly relates subjective experiences to more objective measures and methodologies, it circumvents a central criticism that can be levelled against the first-person phenomenological methodology used by Peugeot; namely that it may not reflect underlying processes, nor even necessarily the subjective experiences that it purports to measure. (shrink)

In Study 1, 49 college students' preferences for different brands of strawberry jams were compared with experts' ratings of the jams. Students who analyzed why they felt the way they did agreed less with the experts than students who did not. In Study 2, 243 college students' preferences for college courses were compared with expert opinion. Some students were asked to analyze reasons; others were asked to evaluate all attributes of all courses. Both kinds of introspection caused people to make (...) choices that, compared with control Ss', corresponded less with expert opinion. Analyzing reasons can focus people's attention on nonoptimal criteria, causing them to base their subsequent choices on these criteria. Evaluating multiple attributes can moderate people's judgments, causing them to discriminate less between the different alternatives. (shrink)

Recently, a new method of considering successful intentional thought suppression has emerged. This method, the think/no-think paradigm has been utilized over a multitude of settings and has fairly robustly demonstrated the ability to interfere with memory recall. The following experiment examined the effect of intentional thought suppression on recognition memory of nonverbalizeable shapes. In this experiment, participants learned word–shape targets. For some of the pairs, they rehearsed the shape when presented with the word; for others, they suppressed the shape when (...) presented with the word. Finally, participants were shown multiple shapes, one at a time, and asked to identify which they had previously seen as paired with a word. Results of the experiment indicated that, similar to results involving words, participants were less accurate in identifying suppressed shapes, as compared to rehearsed shapes. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Insight experiences are sudden, persuasive, and can accompany valuable new ideas in science and art. In this preregistered experiment, we aim to validate a novel visceral and continuous measure of insight problem solving and to test whether real-time and embodied feelings of insight can predict correct solutions. We report several findings. Consistent with recent work, we find a strong positive relationship between Aha moments and accuracy for problems that demand implicit processing. We also found that the intensity of the insight (...) experience further predicted the accuracy of solutions and participants naturally embodied the intensity of their insight experiences by squeezing the dynamometer more tightly. Intriguingly, this unintentional embodiment further predicted the accuracy of solutions. We suggest that the dynamometer complements previous measures by (1) simultaneously capturing both process and feeling in real-time, (2) highlights the value of measuring Aha moments on a continuum of intensity, and (3) firmly establishes that the impulsive feeling of Aha can carry information about the veracity of an idea. We discuss the findings in light of a recent theoretical account of how feelings of insight may act as a heuristic to select ideas from the stream of consciousness. (shrink)

Do you persist as the same person over time because you keep the same mind or because you keep the same body? Philosophers have long investigated this question of personal identity with thought experiments. Cognitive scientists have joined this tradition by assessing lay intuitions about those cases. Much of this work has focused on judgments of identity continuity. But identity also has practical significance: obligations are tagged to one's identity over time. Understanding how someone persists as the same person over (...) time could provide insight into how and why moral and legal obligations persist. In this paper, we investigate judgments of obligations in hypothetical cases where a person's mind and body diverge (e.g., brain transplant cases). We find a striking pattern of results: In assigning obligations in these identity test cases, people are divided among three groups: “body‐followers,” “mind‐followers,” and “splitters”—people who say that the obligation is split between the mind and the body. Across studies, responses are predicted by a variety of factors, including mind/body dualism, essentialism, education, and professional training. When we give this task to professional lawyers, accountants, and bankers, we find they are more inclined to rely on bodily continuity in tracking obligations. These findings reveal not only the heterogeneity of intuitions about identity but how these intuitions relate to the legal standing of an individual's obligations. (shrink)

This research examined how and why group membership diminishes the attribution of mind to individuals. We found that mind attribution was inversely related to the size of the group to which an individual belonged . Mind attribution was affected by group membership rather than the total number of entities perceived at once . Moreover, mind attribution to an individual varied with the perception that the individual was a group member. Participants attributed more mind to an individual that appeared distinct or (...) distant from other group members than to an individual that was perceived to be similar or proximal to a cohesive group . This effect occurred for both human and nonhuman targets, and was driven by the perception of the target as an entitative group member rather than by the knowledge that the target was an entitative group member. (shrink)

The following values have no corresponding Zotero field: PB - SAGE PERIODICALS PRESS.

How early can you be expected to know that you want to be a doctor? If you ask medical school essay reviewers I'm sure you'll hear how many thousands of people have known that they wanted to go into medicine ever since they were five years old; but is that too early to actually know? While the average age of acceptance into medical school is 24, suggesting that a significant percentage of students do not matriculate into medical school directly after (...) college, many students begin preparing during high school. That isn't to say that there's a nation of ninth grade students studying for the MCAT and writing their personal statements However, students interested in applying to combined undergraduate and medical school programs, more commonly known as BS/MD programs, need to fulfill many of the same requirements as undergraduate students applying to medical school in order to be considered a competitive applicant. The question is whether preparing for a career in medicine during high school makes sense or whether it is impossible to know what you want to do with the rest of your life at such an early age. I come from a medical family. At least ten of my relatives are involved in medicine, including fields such as nursing, orthopedic surgery, and oncology. Among them, my father, uncle, and sister all attended combined medical programs, making me aware that such a path was an option. I like to believe that hearing about and observing their different experiences gave me enough information to decide that I wanted to pursue medicine at a young age, but perhaps I just conformed to a life in the ‘family business.’ While I'll never fully know what percentage of the idea was mine, I enjoy it so much that it seems unnecessary to go down the chicken or egg rabbit hole. With the goal of potentially applying to BS/MD programs, I geared my high school experience toward helping my chances; I took AP Biology and Chemistry, kept up a respectable GPA, brought my SAT score above 1400, and even participated in a weekly program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey called Mini Medical School, which centered on lectures about various medical topics among other extracurricular medical activities. Everything I did either directly helped my chances of getting into a BS/MD program or indirectly helped by bolstering my resume. Ultimately, I did get into a few programs and am currently going into my junior year of college at one. However, it recently occurred to me that while my program has consumed my past, I am being rewarded for my choices in the present. It dawned on me that BS/MD programs are not inherently great or terrible but represent a unique path for high- schoolers who have decided that they want to pursue medicine at a young age, and therefore focused their studies on medicine before most pre-med students. Considering that in countries like England students normally apply to medical school following their graduation from high school, this is not an outrageous option. Unless you are coerced by family members to apply to a BS/MD program, a legitimate concern of program interviewers, what such a program offers is invaluable: the ability to abridge your undergraduate education and subsequently reduce the exorbitant cost and extensive medical school process. Furthermore, it allows students who want to become physicians to explore other non-medically related interests without having to worry about the medical school application process looming over their heads. For example, a friend of mine who is also in a BS/MD program decided to take a swing dancing class because he had the freedom of knowing a spot was reserved for him in medical school. He no longer felt pressured into allocating all of his time towards medically themed activities. Similarly, I am following one of my passions by majoring in creative writing, a discipline that is not a focus of the average premedical student. In an era in which the well-rounded medical professional is viewed as the prototype—as shown by the recent change in the MCAT to include social sciences, a shift away from the previous focus solely on the natural sciences—such opportunities to broaden one’s horizons should be encouraged. Another clear advantage is that students in such programs are provided with a host of opportunities specific to them. In my case, the biggest advantage is that BS/MD students are given a separate advisor specific to the program in question. This enables us to have an authority figure whom we can reference concerning any requirements for their particular combined program and whose primary goal is to ensure that we are able to fulfill said requirements. Thanks to our advisors we are given the opportunity to participate certain activates before the rest of the student body such as a seminar class about medical history, hospital internships, and volunteer opportunities. Finally, if recognition and reverence is paramount for a student, being a member of a BS/MD program is usually indicative of an elevated academic status. It is generally understood that such programs are selective, offering a certain level of prestige to their students. While rewarding, BS/MD programs also have their potential drawbacks. College often represents a time where students are in flux: their major, career plans, and social relationships can change multiple times over the course of four years. It stands to reason that any decision made in high school—a time in which your brain is not yet fully developed and you are not yet fully socialized to be an independent, self-sufficient individual—is subject to change upon further experience in college. If acceptance to BS/MD programs is contingent on participation in medically-focused extracurricular activities from ninth grade onwards, then there is a chance that some will expend the energy to enter a BS/MD program only to realize they are uninterested in becoming doctors. For such individuals, the development of their interests could have been stymied because they pursued a commitment to medicine, not knowing what they really wanted, but hoping to leave that option open. Time spent shadowing a doctor may be more effectively used attending a career fair as many possible professions may have been overlooked. One problematic trend that I’ve noticed is that BS/MD students don’t feel encouraged to do more than the bare minimum because they already have a guaranteed spot in medical school. While in my experience most students still pursue leadership positions and extracurricular activities, in some cases students have rested on their laurels and accomplished much less over the course of their college careers than their high school careers. In some extreme cases, this has gone as far as to prevent students from meeting the minimum requirements of the program, putting them in a position in which they neither have a reserved spot nor any realistic chance of getting into other medical schools. In such instances, perhaps these students have burnt out from the stress of ensuring that their high school resumes and transcripts were competitive enough to apply to these combined programs. This returns the discussion to the initial question of how early you can be expected to know that you want to be a doctor. The answer is that insofar as there is no clear consensus about when our career choice must be made and to what extent and at what age others around us influence our decision most, students should be informed about different paths and opportunities, but not coerced into partaking before they are ready. This applies to every career, but most significantly to these combined programs because they are paths to graduate schools which can provide a student with less stress, more freedom, and more opportunities down the road. That being said, one must be very cautious to avoid a premature decision and if a student is not completely sure about which profession he or she would like to pursue, the safest bet is simply to explore any interests that he or she has and figure it out from there. Students who decide during their senior year of college that they are passionate about medicine and decide to pursue a career as a physician will be much happier than those pushed into medical school only to realize that medicine is not for them. However, for the students who feel secure in their passion for medicine, I strongly believe that combined medical programs are an appropriate option given that such students have had the time and opportunity to explore the medical field before making their decision. (shrink)

First published in 1976, this book presents a view of language as a matter of systematic communicative behaviour.

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of (...) the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism. (shrink)

Epistemology has for a long time focused on the concept of knowledge and tried to answer questions such as whether knowledge is possible and how much of it there is. Often missing from this inquiry, however, is a discussion on the value of knowledge. In The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding Jonathan Kvanvig argues that epistemology properly conceived cannot ignore the question of the value of knowledge. He also questions one of the most fundamental assumptions in (...) epistemology, namely that knowledge is always more valuable than the value of its subparts. Taking Platos' Meno as a starting point of his discussion, Kvanvig tackles the different arguments about the value of knowledge and comes to the conclusion that knowledge is less valuable than generally assumed. Clearly written and well argued, this 2003 book will appeal to students and professionals in epistemology. (shrink)

Conditional sentences are among the most intriguing and puzzling features of language, and analysis of their meaning and function has important implications for, and uses in, many areas of philosophy. Jonathan Bennett, one of the world's leading experts, distils many years' work and teaching into this Philosophical Guide to Conditionals, the fullest and most authoritative treatment of the subject. An ideal introduction for undergraduates with a philosophical grounding, it also offers a rich source of illumination and stimulation for graduate (...) students and professional philosophers. (shrink)

Jonathan Bennett here examines the second half of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Dialectic, where Kant is concerned with problems about substance, the nature ...

Liberalism without Perfection offers an introduction to the debate between liberal perfectionism and political liberalism. This book is a new account and defence of Rawlsian political liberalism, one of the most discussed, but widely misunderstood and criticized theories in contemporary political theory.

The five hundred years from 300 B.C. to A.D. 200 were a period during which Greek science made spectacular advances and Greek philosophy underwent dramatic changes. How much did the scientists take note of the philosophical issues bearing on their pursuits? What progress did the philosophers make with methodological and theoretical issues arising out of developments in science? What influence did philosophical criticism or philosophical ideas have on specific theories in medicine or mechanics, mathematics or astronomy? These are some of (...) the questions discussed in this series of papers by the distinguished scholars who took part in the Confe;rence Hellenistique in Paris in 1980. The result is a broad-ranging and pioneering volume which will be of importance to scholars in the history and philosophy of science and to those whose interests lie in classical philosophy. (shrink)