Prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological endowment consists of numerous domain‐specific cognitive resources, rather than a few domain‐general ones. In the light of some conceptual clarification, we examine the central in‐principle arguments that evolutionary psychologists mount against domain‐general cognition. We conclude (a) that the fundamental logic of Darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domain‐specific features, and (b) that a mixed innate cognitive economy of domain‐specific (...) and domain‐general resources remains a genuine conceptual possibility. However, an examination of evolutionary psychology's ‘grain problem’ reveals that there is no way of establishing a principled and robust distinction between domain‐specific and domain‐general features. Nevertheless, we show that evolutionary psychologists can and do live with this grain problem without their whole enterprise being undermined. (shrink)

Prominent evolutionary psychologists have argued that our innate psychological endowment consists of numerous domainspecific cognitive resources, rather than a few domaingeneral ones. In the light of some conceptual clarification, we examine the central inprinciple arguments that evolutionary psychologists mount against domaingeneral cognition. We conclude (a) that the fundamental logic of Darwinism, as advanced within evolutionary psychology, does not entail that the innate mind consists exclusively, or even massively, of domainspecific features, and (b) that a mixed innate cognitive economy of domainspecific (...) and domaingeneral resources remains a genuine conceptual possibility. However, an examination of evolutionary psychology's 'grain problem' reveals that there is no way of establishing a principled and robust distinction between domainspecific and domaingeneral features. Nevertheless, we show that evolutionary psychologists can and do live with this grain problem without their whole enterprise being undermined. (shrink)

The Welfare State is a key policy issue of the 1990s. The essays in this book depart from much of the recent economic debate in emphasising the positive contributions of the Welfare State, and in assessing its efficiency in relation to the objectives which it is intended to achieve. These objectives are not just the alleviation of poverty but more broadly the provision of security and the redistribution of income. Part A of the book sets the current debate in the (...) context of the current evidence about income inequality and poverty in Europe. Part B analyses the existing role of the Welfare State, with particular reference to retirement pensions and unemployment benefit. Part C investigates proposals for reform and security. What is the case for greater targeting? How can we design a social safety net? What is the future of European social protection policy? (shrink)

According to simulation or shared-substrates models of emotion recognition, our ability to recognize the emotions expressed by other individuals relies, at least in part, on processes that internally simulate the same emotional state in ourselves. The term “emotional expressions” is nearly synonymous, in many people's minds, with facial expressions of emotion. However, vocal prosody and whole-body cues also convey emotional information. What is the relationship between these various channels of emotional communication? We first briefly review simulation models of emotion recognition, (...) and then discuss neuroscientific evidence related to these models, including studies using facial expressions, whole-body cues, and vocal prosody. We conclude by discussing these data in the context of simulation and shared-substrates models of emotion recognition. (shrink)

What makes us conscious? Many theories that attempt to answer this question have appeared recently in the context of widespread interest about consciousness in the cognitive neurosciences. Most of these proposals are formulated in terms of the information processing conducted by the brain. In this overview, we survey and contrast these models. We first delineate several notions of consciousness, addressing what it is that the various models are attempting to explain. Next, we describe a conceptual landscape that addresses how the (...) theories attempt to explain consciousness. We then situate each of several representative models in this landscape and indicate which aspect of consciousness they try to explain. We conclude that the search for the neural correlates of consciousness should be usefully complemented by a search for the computational correlates of consciousness. (shrink)

According to Darwinian thinking, organisms are designed by natural selection, and so are integrated collections of adaptations, where an adaptation is a phenotypic trait that is a specialized response to a particular selection pressure. For animals that make their living in the Arctic, one adaptive problem is how to maintain body temperature above a certain minimum level necessary for survival. Polar bears' thick coats are a response to that selection pressure . A thick coat makes a positive difference to a (...) polar bear's fitness, since polar bears with very thin coats left fewer offspring than those with thicker coats. The foundational idea of evolutionary psychology is that brains are no different from any other organ with an evolutionary function, insofar as brains too are systems shaped by natural selection to solve adaptive problems. Thus brains have a particular functional organization because their behavioural effects tend, or once tended, to help maintain or increase the fitness of organisms with those brains. Prominent evolutionary psychologists have endorsed the view that the last time any significant modifications were made by natural selection to the human brain's functional architecture, we were hunter-gatherers, inhabiting a world quite different from that which we now inhabit. That world was the Pleistocene epoch, between about 2 million years ago and 10 thousand years ago. On this view, then, the Pleistocene constitutes what evolutionary psychologists often call our environment of evolutionary adaptedness , and the information- processing structure and organization of our present-day cognitive architecture is no different from that of our recent huntergatherer ancestors. (shrink)

Foveated stimuli receive visual processing that is quantitatively and qualitatively different from nonfoveated stimuli. At normal interpersonal distances, people move their eyes around another’s face so that certain features receive foveal processing; on any given fixation, other features therefore project extrafoveally. Yet little is known about the processing of extrafoveally presented facial features, how informative those extrafoveally presented features are for face perception (e.g., for assessing another’s emotion), or what processes extract task-relevant (e.g., emotion-related) cues from facial features that first (...) appear outside the fovea, and how these processes are implemented in the brain. (shrink)

According to Darwinian thinking, organisms are (for the most part) designed by natural selection, and so are (for the most part) integrated collections of adaptations, where an adaptation is a phenotypic trait that is a specialized response to a particular selection pressure. For animals that make their living in the Arctic, one adaptive problem is how to maintain body temperature above a certain minimum level necessary for survival. Polar bears' thick coats are a response to that selection pressure (surviving in (...) extreme cold). A thick coat makes a positive difference to a polar bear's fitness, since polar bears with very thin coats left fewer offspring than those with thicker coats. The foundational idea ofevolutionary psychologyis that brains are no different from any other organ with an evolutionary function, insofar as brains too are systems shaped by natural selection to solve adaptive problems. Thus brains have a particular functional organization because their behavioural effects tend, or once tended, to help maintain or increase the fitness of organisms with those brains. Prominent evolutionary psychologists (for example: Cosmides and Tooby, 1987; Cosmides and Tooby, 1994 and Symons, 1992) have endorsed the view that the last time any significant modifications were made by natural selection to the human brain's functional architecture, we were hunter-gatherers, inhabiting a world quite different from that which we now inhabit. That world was the Pleistocene epoch, between about 2 million years ago and 10 thousand years ago. On this view, then, the Pleistocene constitutes what evolutionary psychologists often call ourenvironment of evolutionary adaptedness(or EEA), and the information- processing structure and organization of our present-day cognitive architecture is no different from that of our recent huntergatherer ancestors. (shrink)

Decompositional analysis is the process of constructing explanations of the characteristics of whole systems in terms of characteristics of parts of those whole systems. Cognitive psychology is an endeavour that develops explanations of the capacities of the human organism in terms of descriptions of the brain's functionally defined information-processing components. This paper details the nature of this explanatory strategy, known as functional analysis. Functional analysis is contrasted with two other varieties of decompositional analysis, namely, structural analysis and capacity analysis. After (...) an examination of these three varieties of analysis, there follows a consideration of a mistake to avoid when conducting decompositional analyses in psychology, and a possible limitation on their explanatory scope. (shrink)

We address two points in this commentary. First, we question the extent to which O'Brien & Opie have established that the classical approach is unable to support a viable vehicle theory of consciousness. Second, assuming that connectionism does have the resources to support a vehicle theory, we explore how the activity of the units of a PDP network might sum together to form phenomenal experience (PE).

Although information-processing theories cannot provide a full explanatory account of P-consciousness, there is less conflation and confusion in cognitive psychology than Block suspects. Some of the reasoning that Block criticises can be interpreted plausibly in the light of a folk psychological view of the relation between P-consciousness and A-consciousness.

Research only alluded to by Preston & de Waal (P&deW) indicates the disproportionate involvement of some brain regions in the perception and experience of certain emotions. This suggests that the neural substrate of primitive emotional contagion has some emotion-specific aspects, even if cognitively sophisticated forms of empathy do not. Goals for future research include determining the ways in which empathy is emotion-specific and dependent on overt or covert perception.

In light of the myriad accounting and corporate ethics scandals of the early 21st century, many corporate leaders and management scholars believe that ethics education is an essential component in business school education. Despite a voluminous body of ethics education literature, few studies have found support for the effectiveness of changing an individual's ethical standards through programmatic ethics training. To address this gap in the ethics education literature the present study examines the influence of an underlying social cognitive error, called (...) pluralistic ignorance. We believe that if pluralistic ignorance is reduced, the result will be more effective business ethics education programs. Eighty undergraduate management students participated in this longitudinal study, and a mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the reduction of pluralistic ignorance resulted in higher personal ethical standards over the course of a semester, when compared to a class that did not receive a formal ethics education program as part of their course. We discuss the implications of pluralistic ignorance in training business ethics and ethics education. (shrink)

In light of the myriad accounting and corporate ethics scandals of the early 21st century, many corporate leaders and management scholars believe that ethics education is an essential component in business school education. Despite a voluminous body of ethics education literature, few studies have found support for the effectiveness of changing an individuals ethical standards through programmatic ethics training. To address this gap in the ethics education literature the present study examines the influence of an underlying social cognitive error, called (...) pluralistic ignorance. We believe that if pluralistic ignorance is reduced, the result will be more effective business ethics education programs. Eighty undergraduate management students participated in this longitudinal study, and a mixed-model ANOVA revealed that the reduction of pluralistic ignorance (due to an ethics education program designed to reduce pluralistic ignorance) resulted in higher personal ethical standards over the course of a semester, when compared to a class that did not receive a formal ethics education program as part of their course. We discuss the implications of pluralistic ignorance in training business ethics and ethics education. (shrink)

The present study explored several dispositional factors associated with individual differences in lay adult’s interpretation of when an arguer is, or is not, committed to a statement. College students were presented with several two-person arguments in which the proponent of a thesis conceded a key point in the last turn. Participants were then asked to indicate the extent to which that concession implied a change in the proponent’s attitude toward any of the previous statements in the argument. Participants designated as (...) ‘liberal’ used the concession to infer substantial change in commitment to earlier statements in the argument. A group designated as ‘conservative’ were reluctant to make any such inferences. A discriminant analysis indicated that variables assessing participants’ attitudes toward argument as well as their cognitive and communication styles jointly predicted their liberal or conservative status. The discriminant function and follow-up group comparisons indicated that liberals were more likely than conservatives to engage in argument. This included a greater tendency to use argument as a source of knowledge. Liberals also employed a more sophisticated message design logic than conservatives on a communication task. The groups did not clearly differ with respect to participants’ implicit theory of argument, though trends were present that merit attention in future research. Implications of these findings for future research on lay interpretations of commitment are discussed. (shrink)

Four experiments demonstrate category congruency priming by subliminal prime words that were never seen as targets in a valence-classification task and a gender-classification task . In Experiment 1, overlap in terms of word fragments of one or more letters between primes and targets of different valences was larger than between primes and targets of the same valence. In Experiments 2 and 3, the sets of prime words and target words were completely disjoint in terms of used letters. In Experiment 4, (...) pictures served as targets. The observed subliminal priming effects for novel primes cannot be driven by partial analysis of primes at the word-fragment level; they suggest instead that primes were processed semantically as whole words contingent upon prime duration. (shrink)

Mitochondrial replacement techniques have the potential to allow prospective parents who are at risk of passing on debilitating or even life-threatening mitochondrial disorders to have healthy children to whom they are genetically related. Ethical concerns have however been raised about these techniques. This article focuses on one aspect of the ethical debate, the question of whether there is any moral difference between the two types of MRT proposed: Pronuclear Transfer and Maternal Spindle Transfer. It examines how questions of identity impact (...) on the ethical evaluation of each technique and argues that there is an important difference between the two. PNT, it is argued, is a form of therapy based on embryo modification while MST is, instead, an instance of selective reproduction. The article's main ethical conclusion is that, in some circumstances, there is a stronger obligation to use PNT than MST. (shrink)