The idea that remembering involves an engram, becoming stable and permanent via consolidation, has guided the neuroscience of memory since its inception. The shift to thinking of memory as continuo...

Optogenetics makes possible the control of neural activity with light. In this article, I explore how the development of this experimental tool has brought about methodological and theoretical advances in the neurobiological study of memory. I begin with Semon’s distinction between the engram and the ecphory, explaining how these concepts present a methodological challenge to investigating memory. Optogenetics provides a way to intervene into the engram without the ecphory that, in turn, opens up new means for testing theories of memory (...) error. I focus on a series of experiments where optogenetics is used to study false memory and forgetting. (shrink)

The algorithm, a building block of computer science, is defined from an intuitive and pragmatic point of view, through a methodological lens of philosophy rather than that of formal computation. The treatment extracts properties of abstraction, control, structure, finiteness, effective mechanism, and imperativity, and intentional aspects of goal and preconditions. The focus on the algorithm as a robust conceptual object obviates issues of correctness and minimality. Neither the articulation of an algorithm nor the dynamic process constitute the algorithm itself. Analysis (...) for implications in computer science and philosophy reveals unexpected results, new questions, and new perspectives on current questions, including the relationship between our informally construed algorithms and Turing machines. Exploration in terms of current computational and philosophical thinking invites further developments. (shrink)

The Archival and Constructive views of memory offer contrasting characterizations of remembering and its relation to memory errors. I evaluate the descriptive adequacy of each by offering a close analysis of one of the most prominent experimental techniques by which memory errors are elicited—the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. Explaining the DRM effect requires appreciating it as a distinct form of memory error, which I refer to as misremembering. Misremembering is a memory error that relies on successful retention of the targeted event. It (...) differs from both successful remembering and from confabulation errors, where the representation produced is wholly inaccurate. As I show, neither the Archival nor the Constructive View can account for the DRM effect because they are insensitive to misremembering’s unique explanatory demands. Fortunately, the explanatory limitations of the Archival and Constructive Views are complementary. This suggests a way.. (shrink)

Confabulation is a symptom central to many psychiatric diagnoses and can be severely debilitating to those who exhibit the symptom. Theorists, scientists, and clinicians have an understandable interest in the nature of confabulation—pursuing ways to define, identify, treat, and perhaps even prevent this memory disorder. Appeals to confabulation as a clinical symptom rely on an account of memory’s function from which cases like the above can be contrasted. Accounting for confabulation is thus an important desideratum for any candidate theory of (...) memory. Many contemporary memory theorists now endorse Constructivism, where memory is understood as a capacity for constructing plausible representations of past events. Constructivism’s aim is to account for and normalize the prevalence of memory errors in everyday life. Errors are plausible constructions that, on a particular occasion have led to error. They are not, however, evidence of malfunction in the memory system. While Constructivism offers an uplifting repackaging of the memory errors to which we are all susceptible, it has troubling implications for appeals to confabulation in psychiatric diagnosis. By accommodating memory errors within our understanding of memory’s function, Constructivism runs the risk of being unable to explain how confabulation errors are evidence of malfunction. After reviewing the literature on confabulation and Constructivism, respectively, I identify the tension between them and explore how different versions of Constructivism may respond. The paper concludes with a proposal for distinguishing between kinds of false memory—specifically, between misremembering and confabulation—that may provide a route to their reconciliation. (shrink)

Constructivists about memory argue that memory is a capacity for building representations of past events from a generalized information store. The view is motivated by the memory errors discovered in cognitive psychology. Little has been known about the neural mechanisms by which false memories are produced. Recently, using a method I call the Optogenetic False Memory Technique, neuroscientists have created false memories in mice. In this paper, I examine how Constructivism fares in light of O-FaMe results. My aims are two-fold. (...) First, I argue that errors found in O-FaMe and cognitive psychology are similar behaviorally. Second, Constructivists should be able to explain the former since they purport to explain the latter, but they cannot. I conclude that O-FaMe studies reveal details about the mechanism by which false memories are produced that are incompatible with the explanatory approach to false memories favored by Constructivism. (shrink)

In Memory: A Philosophical Study, Bernecker argues for an account of contiguity. This Contiguity View is meant to solve relearning and prompting, wayward causation problems plaguing the causal theory of memory. I argue that Bernecker’s Contiguity View fails in this task. Contiguity is too weak to prevent relearning and too strong to allow prompting. These failures illustrate a problem inherent in accounts of memory causation. Relearning and prompting are both causal relations, wayward only with respect to our interest in specifying (...) remembering’s requirements. Solving them requires saying more about remembering, not causation. I conclude by sketching such an account. (shrink)

My commentary focuses on Khalidi's defense of episodic memory as a cognitive kind. His argument relies on merging two distinct accounts of episodic memory—the phenomenal and the etiological. I suggest that Khalidi's framework can be used to carve the contemporary memory literature differently. On this view, the phenomenal account supports constructive episodic simulation as a cognitive kind, the etiological account supports event memory as a cognitive kind, and episodic memory ceases to be. The question for Khalidi is, then, how to (...) evaluate this alternative proposal—and more broadly how to adjudicate between competing and overlapping accounts of cognitive kinds. (shrink)

In Minds, Brains, and Norms , Pardo and Patterson deny that the activities of persons (knowledge, rule-following, interpretation) can be understood exclusively in terms of the brain, and thus conclude that neuroscience is irrelevant to the law, and to the conceptual and philosophical questions that arise in legal contexts. On their view, such appeals to neuroscience are an exercise in nonsense. We agree that understanding persons requires more than understanding brains, but we deny their pessimistic conclusion. Whether neuroscience can be (...) used to address legal issues is an empirical question. Recent work on locked-in syndrome, memory, and lying suggests that neuroscience has potential relevance to the law, and is far from nonsensical. Through discussion of neuroscientific methods and these recent results we show how an understanding of the subpersonal mechanisms that underlie person-level abilities could serve as a valuable and illuminating source of evidence in legal and social contexts. In so doing, we sketch the way forward for a no-nonsense approach to the intersection of law and neuroscience. (shrink)

A common way to understand memory structures in the cognitive sciences is as a cognitive map​. Cognitive maps are representational systems organized by dimensions shared with physical space. The appeal to these maps begins literally: as an account of how spatial information is represented and used to inform spatial navigation. Invocations of cognitive maps, however, are often more ambitious; cognitive maps are meant to scale up and provide the basis for our more sophisticated memory capacities. The extension is not meant (...) to be metaphorical, but the way in which these richer mental structures are supposed to remain map-like is rarely made explicit. Here we investigate this missing link, asking: how do cognitive maps represent non-spatial information?​ We begin with a survey of foundational work on spatial cognitive maps and then provide a comparative review of alternative, non-spatial representational structures. We then turn to several cutting-edge projects that are engaged in the task of scaling up cognitive maps so as to accommodate non-spatial information: first, on the spatial-isometric approach​ , encoding content that is non-spatial but in some sense isomorphic to spatial content; second, on the ​ abstraction approach​ , encoding content that is an abstraction over first-order spatial information; and third, on the ​ embedding approach​ , embedding non-spatial information within a spatial context, a prominent example being the Method-of-Loci. Putting these cases alongside one another reveals the variety of options available for building cognitive maps, and the distinctive limitations of each. We conclude by reflecting on where these results take us in terms of understanding the place of cognitive maps in memory. (shrink)

Following a government campaign run by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in 1994, many Hong Kong companies and trade associations adopted written codes of conduct. The research study reported here examines how and why companies responded, and assesses the impact of code adoption on the moral climate of code adopters. The research involved (a) initial questionnaire surveys to which 184 organisations replied, (b) longitudinal questionnaire-based assessments of moral ethos and conduct in a focal sample of 17 code adopting companies, (...) (c) interviews with 33 managers in the focal companies examining the adoption and impact of the codes, and (d) content analysis of 41 company codes of conduct, including those of most focal companies, plus the ICAC model code.While a mixture of prudential and altruistic reasons were given for code adoption, content analysis suggested that the prime motive was corporate self-defence. The prevailing themes were bribery, conflict of interest, insider information, gambling, moonlighting, accuracy of records and misuse of corporate assets. Wider social responsibility tended to be neglected. Companies appeared to have imposed their codes top-down, emphasising disciplinary procedures rather than ethics training, and appointing neither ethics counsellors nor ombuds-people. The longitudinal study over a seven month period suggested that while moral ethos may have declined, overall standards of perceived conduct had not changed. (shrink)

The casual justification of the influence of a technology, particularly artificial intelligence, by appeal to the existence of the technology constitutes an artificialistic fallacy, analogous to the naturalistic fallacy that is well-known in philosophy. Similar to an invocation of nature to provide moral warrant, modern tech evangelists invoke the burgeoning of hardware and software products in order to promote that burgeoning. This fallacy is often tacit or committed by omission. Emerging ethical initiatives emphasize the refinement, explanation, and oversight of AI (...) products rather than their fundamental ethical effect, making the fallacy recursive. (shrink)

In recent years, the full text of papers are increasingly available electronically which opens up the possibility of quantitatively investigating citation contexts in more detail. In this study, we introduce a new form of citation analysis, which we call citation concept analysis (CCA). CCA is intended to reveal the cognitive impact certain concepts—published in a highly-cited landmark publication—have on the citing authors. It counts the number of times the concepts are mentioned (cited) in the citation context of citing publications. We (...) demonstrate the method using three classical highly cited books: (1) The structure of scientific revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn, (2) The logic of scientific discovery—Logik der Forschung: Zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft in German—, and (3) Conjectures and refutations: the growth of scientific knowledge by Karl R. Popper. It is not surprising—as our results show—that Kuhn’s “paradigm” concept seems to have had a significant impact. What is surprising is that our results indicate a much larger impact of the concept “paradigm” than Kuhn’s other concepts, e.g., “scientific revolution”. The paradigm concept accounts for about 40% of the concept-related citations to Kuhn’s work, and its impact is resilient across all disciplines and over time. With respect to Popper, “falsification” is the most used concept derived from his books. Falsification is the cornerstone of Popper’s critical rationalism. (shrink)

This article compares the information processing and dynamical systems perspectives on problem solving. Key theoretical constructs of the information-processing perspective include “searching” a “p...

Krueger & Funder (K&F) presuppose that the base rate for social cognition is more rational than is indicated by research, and that a focus on cognitive errors and behavioral shortcomings is responsible for the fragmented nature of social psychology. Insight concerning both issues is forthcoming from advances in evolutionary psychology and the adaptation of dynamical systems theory to social psychology.

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

We prove that everyn-modal logic betweenKnandS5nis undecidable, whenever n ≥ 3. We also show that each of these logics is non-finitely axiomatizable, lacks the product finite model property, and there is no algorithm deciding whether a finite frame validates the logic. These results answer several questions of Gabbay and Shehtman. The proofs combine the modal logic technique of Yankov–Fine frame formulas with algebraic logic results of Halmos, Johnson and Monk, and give a reduction of the (undecidable) representation problem of finite (...) relation algebras. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo further delineate risk and resilience factors contributing to trajectories of mental health symptoms experienced by college students through the pandemic.Participantsn = 183 college students.MethodsLinear mixed models examined time effects on depression and anxiety. Propensity-matched subgroups exhibiting “increased” versus “low and stable” depression symptoms from before to after the pandemic-onset were compared on pre-pandemic demographic and psychological factors and COVID-related experiences and coping strategies.ResultsStudents experienced worsening of mental health symptoms throughout the pandemic, particularly during Fall 2020 compared with Fall 2019. (...) The propensity-matched subgroup exhibiting relative resilience reported less alcohol use prior to the pandemic, greater use of active coping strategies, and less of an impact on their college progress.ConclusionsResults point to several potential targets of screening and intervention to decrease residual impacts of the pandemic. (shrink)

Rao is a major force in parapsychology research having first published in the '50s, and this book publication is right up to date in 2017. The book Is almost three hundred pages of text spread out over nine chapters. I initially found book title to be confusing because it could be taken to mean something like a primer or an introduction of the essential parts of parapsychology. Whereas in fact the book is more like a selection of discrete areas of (...) parapsychology such as psi missing (the tendency to actively avoid the ‘target’ of a psi experiment, to the point of statistical deviation away from chance); the experimenter effect (similar to the experimenter effect of conventional psychology, but here the suggestion is that experimenters are using their own psychic powers to influence experimental results); and problems with replication in psi experiments; and some other philosophical or epistemological considerations. I’ll come back to the question of the title at the end of the review. There is much to recommend in this book but there are also problems depending on what one's expectations are in reading the book. (shrink)

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, which causes more disability than any other medical condition in the United States at a cost of $560–$635 billion per year. Opioid analgesics are frequently used to treat CP. However, long term use of opioids can cause brain changes such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia that, over time, increase pain sensation. Also, opioids fail to treat complex psychological factors that worsen pain-related disability, including beliefs about and emotional responses to pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy can (...) be efficacious for CP. However, CBT generally does not focus on important factors needed for long-term functional improvement, including attainment of personal goals and the psychological flexibility to choose responses to pain. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has been recognized as an effective, non-pharmacologic treatment for a variety of CP conditions. However, little is known about the neurologic mechanisms underlying ACT. We conducted an ACT intervention in women with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected pre- and post-ACT, and changes in functional connectivity were measured using Network-Based Statistics. Behavioral outcomes were measured using validated assessments such as the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire, the Chronic Pain Acceptance Questionnaire, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and the NIH Toolbox Neuro-QoLTM scales. Results suggest that, following the 4-week ACT intervention, participants exhibited reductions in brain activation within and between key networks including self-reflection, emotion, and cognitive control. These changes in connectivity strength were correlated with changes in behavioral outcomes including decreased depression and pain interference, and increased participation in social roles. This study is one of the first to demonstrate that improved function across the DMN, SN, and FPN may drive the positive outcomes associated with ACT. This study contributes to the emerging evidence supporting the use of neurophysiological indices to characterize treatment effects of alternative and complementary mind-body therapies. (shrink)

Small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) are used more regularly and widely in disaster response. Like other personnel involved in disaster response, the sUAS pilots work for long periods, experience extreme stress and fatigue. They often arrive at the disaster fatigued (due to long drives to get there). However, unlike other personnel in this domain, there is little research on the effects of fatigue on sUAS pilots. Our experiences with a series of three real-world deployments highlight the challenges of conducting human (...) factors research during disaster response and recovery. We specifically present lessons learned from having participant researchers embedded in three disasters with the sUAS pilot teams. These lessons result in a set of feasible and non-interruptive methods and metrics for conducting human factors research during field events. Preliminary results and recommended next steps are presented. (shrink)

We apply an online optimization process based on machine learning to the production of Bose-Einstein condensates. BEC is typically created with an exponential evaporation ramp that is optimal for ergodic dynamics with two-body s-wave interactions and no other loss rates, but likely sub-optimal for real experiments. Through repeated machine-controlled scientific experimentation and observations our ’learner’ discovers an optimal evaporation ramp for BEC production. In contrast to previous work, our learner uses a Gaussian process to develop a statistical model of the (...) relationship between the parameters it controls and the quality of the BEC produced. We demonstrate that the Gaussian process machine learner is able to discover a ramp that produces high quality BECs in 10 times fewer iterations than a previously used online optimization technique. Furthermore, we show the internal model developed can be used to determine which parameters are essential in BEC creation and which are unimportant, providing insight into the optimization process of the system. (shrink)

Newborn bloodspot screening programs are some of the longest running population screening programs internationally. Debate continues regarding the need for parents to give consent to having their child screened. Little attention has been paid to how meanings of consent-related terminology vary among stakeholders and the implications of this for practice. We undertook semi-structured interviews with parents, healthcare professionals and policy decision makers in two Canadian provinces. Conceptions of consent-related terms revolved around seven factors within two broad domains, decision-making and information (...) attainment. Decision-making comprised: parent decision authority; voluntariness; parent engagement with decision-making; and the process of enacting choice. Information ascertainment comprised: professional responsibilities ; parent responsibilities; and the need for discussion and understanding prior to a decision. Our findings indicate that consent-related terms are variously understood, with substantive implications for practice. We suggest that consent procedures should be explained descriptively, regardless of approach, so there are clear indications of what is expected of parents and healthcare professionals. Support systems are required both to meet the educational needs of parents and families and to support healthcare professionals in delivering information in a manner in keeping with parent needs. (shrink)

Amongst philosophers, there is ongoing debate about what successful event remembering requires. Causal theorists argue that it requires a causal connection to the past event. Simulation theorists argue, in contrast, that successful remembering requires only production by a reliable memory system. Both views must contend with the fact that people can remember past events they have experienced with varying degrees of accuracy. The debate between them thus concerns not only the account of successful remembering, but how each account explains the (...) various forms of memory error as well. Advancing the debate therefore must include exploration of the cognitive architecture implicated by each view and whether that architecture is capable of producing the range of event representations seen in human remembering. Our paper begins by exploring these architectures, framing casual theories as best suited to the storage of event instances and simulation theories as best suited to store schemas. While each approach has its advantages, neither can account for the full range of our event remembering abilities. We then propose a novel hybrid theory that combines both instance and schematic elements in the event memory. In addition, we provide an implementation of our theory in the context of a cognitive architecture. We also discuss an agent we developed using this system and its ability to remember events in the blocks world domain. (shrink)

The shortage of organs for transplantation by its nature prompts ethical dilemmas. For example, although there is an imperative to save human life and reduce suffering by maximising the supply of vital organs, there is an equally important obligation to ensure that the process by which we increase the supply respects the rights of all stakeholders. In a relatively unexamined practice in the USA, organs are procured from unrepresented decedents without their express consent. Unrepresented decedents have no known healthcare wishes (...) or advance care planning document; they also lack a surrogate. The Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 2006 sends a mixed message about the procurement of organs from this patient population and there are hospitals that authorise donation. In addition, in adopting the RUAGA, some states included provisions that clearly allow organ procurement from unrepresented decedents. An important unanswered question is whether this practice meets the canons of ethical permissibility. The current Brief Report presents two principled approaches to the topic as a way of highlighting some of the complexities involved. Concluding remarks offer suggestions for future research and discussion. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Setting Up the Argument The Evidence for Fine‐Tuning Epistemic Probability Determining k′ and the Comparison Range Justifying Premises (1) and (2) The Multiverse Hypothesis Miscellaneous Objections Conclusion: Putting the Argument in Perspective References.

A cylindric algebra atom structure is said to be strongly representable if all atomic cylindric algebras with that atom structure are representable. This is equivalent to saying that the full complex algebra of the atom structure is a representable cylindric algebra. We show that for any finite n >3, the class of all strongly representable n-dimensional cylindric algebra atom structures is not closed under ultraproducts and is therefore not elementary. Our proof is based on the following construction. From an arbitrary (...) undirected, loop-free graph Γ, we construct an n-dimensional atom structure E(Γ), and prove, for infinite Γ, that E(Γ) is a strongly representable cylindric algebra atom structure if and only if the chromatic number of Γ is infinite. A construction of Erdős shows that there are graphs (k < ω)with infinite chromatic number, but having a non-principal ultraproduct $\prod _D\Gamma _k $ whose chromatic number is just two. It follows that $E(\Gamma _k )$ is strongly representable (each k < ω) but $\Pi _D E(\Gamma _k)$ is not. (shrink)

The ciliated protozoan, Paramecium, broadcasts the activity of its individual ion channel classes through its swimming behaviour. This fact has made it possible to isolate mutants with defective ion currents, simply by selecting individuals with abnormal swimming patterns. At least four of Paramecium's ion currents are activated by rising intracellular calcium concentration, including two K+ currents and a Na+ current. A variety of cell lines with defects in these Ca2+‐dependent currents have been isolated: in several cases, the defects have been (...) traced to mutations in the structural gene for calmodulin. Sequence analysis of calmodulins from these and other Ca2+ ‐dependent ion‐current mutants may enable a detailed mapping of putative channel interaction domains on the surface of the calmodulin molecule. (shrink)