Hands are commonly held up as an exemplar of well-known, familiar objects. However, conceptual knowledge of the hand has been found to show highly stereotyped distortions. Specifically, people judge their knuckles as farther forward in the hand than they actually are. The cause of this distal bias remains unclear. In Experiment 1, we tested whether both visual and tactile information contribute to the distortion. Participants judged the location of their knuckles by pointing to the location on their palm directly opposite (...) each knuckle with: 1) a metal baton (using vision and touch) 2) a metal baton while blindfolded (using touch), 3) a laser pointer (using vision). In Experiment 2, we investigated whether judgments are influenced by visual landmarks such as the creases at the base of each finger on the palm. Participants localized their knuckles on either a photograph or a silhouette of their hand. In both experiments, clear distortions were found across conditions, of generally similar magnitude. These results show that distal bias is resistant to changes in the stimulus information and does not rely on any specific stimulus cue or single sensory modality, suggesting that such mislocalisations reflect a conceptual misrepresentation of hand structure. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe often use our own emotions to understand other people’s emotions. However, emotional egocentric biases, namely the tendency to use one’s own emotional state when relating to others...

Our understanding of body ownership largely relies on the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI) paradigm where synchronous stroking of the real and fake hands leads to an illusion of ownership of RH provided its physical, anatomical, and spatial plausibility. Self-attribution of a fake hand also occurs during visuomotor synchrony, when the visual feedback of self-initiated movements follows the trajectory of the instantiated motor command. In both cases, the experience of ownership is established through bottom-up integration and top-down prediction of multisensory (proximodistal) (...) cues within the peripersonal space. It seems, however, that depending on whether the signals are externally or self-generated, top-down expectation signals are qualitatively different. On the one hand, in RHI, the sensory correlations are modulated by empirically induced priors about the internal model of the body. On the other hand, in mRHI, body ownership is actively shaped by processes allowing for continuous comparison between the actual and predicted sensory consequences of the actions. Ample research demonstrates that the differential processing of the predicted and the actual reafferent information is addressed by the central nervous system via an internal Forward Model (FM). Indeed, results from mRHI suggest that in action-contexts mechanism underlying body ownership could be similar to the FM. Crucially FMs integrate across all sensory input including not only proximodistal (visuomotor) but also purely distal sensory signals (visuoauditory). Thus if body ownership results from a consistency of FM, it would be affected by the (in)congruency of purely distal signals provided that they inform about the action-consequences relevant to the task. Here we explicitly address this question. To test our hypothesis, we devise an embodied VR-based task where action outcomes were signaled by distinct auditory cues. By manipulating the cues with respect to their spatial, temporal and semantic congruency, we show that purely distal feedback violating predictions about action outcomes compromises both body ownership and performance. These results demonstrate that body ownership is influenced by cues which not only pertain to the body itself but also those arising outside of the body, and suggest that in goal-oriented tasks body ownership might result from the consistency of forward models. (shrink)

Response to spatial and nonspatial change in wild and Wistar rats The purpose of the experiment was to investigate the effects of domestication on exploration in rats. The comparison was made between wild Warsaw-Wild-Captive-Pisula-Stryjek rats and Wistar laboratory rats. The study used a purpose-built maze divided into zones connected with a corridor. Objects were placed in two out of four zones. Their location and shape were subject to experimental manipulation. Transporter used to move rats to the maze provided the opportunity (...) for spontaneous exploration of the experimental arena. Rats were subjected to a series of 10 sessions, followed by a spatial or nonspatial change in the experimental arena, after which another 5 experimental sessions were conducted. The study revealed that wild rats had much higher exploration latency than their laboratory counterparts. At each analyzed stage, WWCPS rats spent much more time in the transporter than Wistar rats. Wistar rats spent much more time during the experiment on object interaction in the experimental arena. In post-manipulation sessions, however, it was wild rats that explored object zones relatively longer than laboratory rats. No differences in the animals' behavior depending on the type of change were observed. Results suggest that wild rats tend to explore much more cautiously than laboratory rats and are more sensitive to changes in their environment. The underlying cause of these differences is likely to be the higher level of stress in wild rats, resulting from threats in their natural habitat. (shrink)

SummaryThe aim of the study was to assess the relationship between adverse life events, a tendency to respond with a high level of anxiety, and height and adiposity of adolescents. The sample included 575 persons aged 10–15 from the Wielkopolska region of Poland. The influence of adverse events during the 6 months before the examination and anxiety trait, as assessed with a STAIC questionnaire, on body height and BMI was analysed. Also sex, age, chronic diseases and socioeconomic status indicators were (...) assessed. One-way and two-way ANOVA was used for assessment of relationships. Adverse events had no influence on body height and BMI. Subjects with a high level of anxiety trait were shorter than subjects with a normal level of anxiety trait. The association of anxiety trait and body height was significant after adjustment for sex, age, chronic diseases and history of adverse life events. The analysis showed no statistically significant influence of adverse life events on height and BMI and a significant relationship between the general tendency to respond with anxiety and body height of adolescents. This suggests that psychological characteristics associated with the cognitive tendency to interpret events as threatening, and consequently, to respond with stress, may be involved in the variability of biological traits regardless of the objective harmfulness of the situation. (shrink)

First published in 1986, Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft remains the only analysis of indigenous discourse about an African belief system undertaken from within the framework of Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Taking as its point of departure W. V. O. Quine's thesis about the indeterminacy of translation, the book investigates questions of Yoruba epistemology and of how knowledge is conceived in an oral culture.

The New Evil Demon problem has been hotly debated since the case was introduced in the early 1980’s (e.g. Lehrer and Cohen 1983; Cohen 1984), and there seems to be recent increased interest in the topic. In a forthcoming collection of papers on the New Evil Demon problem (Dutant and Dorsch, forthcoming), at least two of the papers, both by prominent epistemologists, attempt to resist the problem by appealing to the distinction between justification and excuses. My primary aim here is (...) to critically evaluate this new excuse maneuver as a response to the New Evil Demon problem. -/- Their response attempts to give us reason to reject the idea that victims of the New Evil Demon have justification for believing as they do. I shall argue that this approach is ultimately unsuccessful, however much of value can be learned from these attempts. In particular, progress in the debate can be made by following those who advance the excuse maneuver and make explicit the connection between epistemic justification and epistemic norms. By doing so, the questions being debated are clarified, as is the methodology being used to attempt to answer them. (shrink)

There are various equivalent formulations of the Church-Turing thesis. A common one is that every effective computation can be carried out by a Turing machine. The Church-Turing thesis is often misunderstood, particularly in recent writing in the philosophy of mind.

This study aimed to verify the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Grit-S questionnaire. Grit is understood here as the perseverance and passion for long-term goals, and it encompasses two dimensions: Consistency of Interest and Perseverance of Effort. The sample comprised N = 270 participants aged 18-34. We performed confirmatory factor analyses to verify the dimensional structure of grit, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis to compare the structure across gender, and correlation analysis to examine external validity. Findings showed satisfactory (...) parameters for Grit-S including: reliability, structural and external validity, and measurement invariance across gender groups. The results support the possibility of using the Grit-S questionnaire in research exploring the predictors of success. (shrink)

It is common to account for our senses on the basis of our sensory organs. One way of glossing why Aristotle famously counted five senses—and why his count became common sense in the West and elsewhere—is because there are five rather obvious organs of sense. In more modern accounts, this organ criterion of the senses has transformed into a neurobiological criterion; that is to say, part of what it means to be a sense is to have an associated organ with (...) appropriate physiological properties. For example, part of the claim that humans have a sense of vision is that we have a non-vestigial organ (the eye) that has cells (photoreceptors) especially sensitive to the properties of electromagnetic radiation. However, the nature of this “organ criterion” is a point of some contention. Is it a sufficient criterion? Necessary? To be called “vision” need the organ mediating it give rise to “visual experiences”? This chapter will consider the neurobiological criterion as it was originally presented in Aristotle and later reconceptualized in 19th-century neurophysiologist Johannes Müller’s “Law of Specific Nerve Energies.” By understanding the role of neurobiology in these accounts, we will be able to explore the deficiencies of contemporary accounts that downplay neurobiology in differentiating the senses. We will consider one of these accounts in detail: Alva Noë’s recent arguments in favor of an enactive approach to perceptual psychology. (shrink)

1.1 Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Tangent Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Vector Fields, Integral Curves, and Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Tensors and Tensor Fields on Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.5 The Action of Smooth Maps on Tensor Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.6 Lie Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.7 Derivative Operators and Geodesics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.8 Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 1.9 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 1.10 Hypersurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1.11 Volume Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.. (shrink)

В книге собраны статьи по актуальным вопросам политической теории, которые находятся в центре дискуссий отечественных и зарубежных философов и обществоведов. Книга имеет полемический характер и предназначена всем.

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.

University study can be a life period of heightened psychological distress for many students. The development of new preventive and intervention programs to support well-being in university students is a fundamental challenge for mental health professionals. We designed an 8-week online mindfulness-based program combining a face-to-face approach, text, audio, video components, and support psychotherapy principles with a unique intensive reminder system using the Facebook Messenger and Slack applications in two separate runs. We assessed the program’s effect on mindful experiencing, perceived (...) stress, emotion regulation strategies, self-compassion, negative affect, and quality of life. The results of the presented pilot study confirmed that eMBP is a feasible and effective tool in university students’ mental health support. The students who completed the eMBP reported a reduction of perceived stress with a large effect size as well as a decrease of negative affect experience frequency and intensity, an increase of being mindful in their life, and a higher rate of self-compassion with a medium effect size. A small effect size was found in the frequency of using a cognitive reappraisal strategy. One new result is the observation of an eMBP effect on the decrease in attributed importance to the quality-of-life components replicated in two consecutive runs of the program. The study affirms that mindfulness-based interventions can be effectively delivered in an eHealth form to university students. (shrink)

The paper presents, in the synthetic way, the issue of the rationality of the tax system and taxation principles in relation to the clearly visible fiscal crisis in the 21st century caused by, among others, COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis which is theoretical (descriptive, comparative) was carried out by using tools indicated in the area of New Institutional Economics (NIE). Attention was devoted primarily to the importance of specific institutional arrangements, broadly understood as the “rules of the game” applicable in the (...) political and economic spheres, and related to the problems of public finances. Research has shown that the appropriate design of tax rules may contribute, to some extent, to limiting the fiscal crisis. Tax policy, and even more broadly, fiscal policy, may determine the formula in which the economic achievements regarding compliance with tax principles and fiscal rules can be implemented. What is primarily important is the legal framework (one of the most important formal institutions) within which state policy in the field of public finances should be implemented. (shrink)