Persons with Parkinson’s disease are advised to use compensatory strategies such as external cues or cognitive movement strategies to overcome gait disturbances. It is suggested that external cues involve the processing of sensory stimulation, while cognitive-movement strategies use attention allocation. This study aimed to compare over time changes in attention allocation in PwP between prolonged walking with cognitive movement strategy and external cues; to compare the effect of cognitive movement strategies and external cues on gait parameters; and evaluate whether these (...) changes depend on cognitive function. Eleven PwP participated in a single-group pilot study. Participants walked for 10 min under each of three conditions: natural walking, using external cuing, using a cognitive movement strategy. Attention and gait variables were extracted from a single-channel electroencephalogram and accelerometers recordings, respectively. Attention allocation was assessed by the% of Brain Engagement Index signals within an attentive engagement range. Cognitive function was assessed using a neuropsychological battery. The walk was divided into 2-min time segments, and the results from each 2-min segment were used to determine the effects of time and condition. Associations between cognitive function and BEI signals were tested. Findings show that in the cognitive movement strategy condition, there was a reduction in the % of BEI signals within the attentive engagement range after the first 2 min of walking. Despite this reduction the BEI did not consistently differ from natural and metronome walking. Spatiotemporal gait variables were better in the cognitive movement strategy condition relative to the other conditions. Global cognitive and information processing scores were significantly associated with the BEI only when the cognitive movement strategy was applied. In conclusion, the study shows that a cognitive movement strategy has positive effects on gait variables but may impose a higher attentional load. Furthermore, when walking using a cognitive movement strategy, persons with higher cognitive function showed elevated attentive engagement. The findings support the idea that cognitive and attentional resources are required for cognitive movement strategies in PwP. Additionally, this study provides support for using single-channel EEG to explore mechanistic aspects of clinical interventions. (shrink)

The current meta-analysis reviews 24 studies on self-reported emotional reactions to facial expressions in socially anxious versus nonanxious individuals. We hypothesized that socially anxious individuals would perceive all face types as less approachable, more negative, and more arousing. After correcting for biases, results showed that socially anxious individuals, compared to controls, reported lower approachability to all types of expressions and higher arousal in response to neutral expressions. Variances among effects usually could not be explained by the proposed moderators. This suggests (...) that current conceptualizations of social anxiety should take into account the willingness to approach social stimuli rather than global measures of emotion or arousal. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names (like pound and meter) and gradable adjectives (like tall, short and happy), inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al. In Foundations of measurement: Additive and Polynomial Representations, 1971). Based on measurement theory’s four-way typology of measures, I claim that different adjectives are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases, as well (...) as unit-based comparisons between predicates (as in the table is longer than it is wide). All considered, my analyses support the view that the grammar of natural languages is sensitive to features of measurement theory. (shrink)

The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing and Belonging in Psychoanalysis, introduces new perspectives on desire and longing, in and outside of the analytic relationship._ _This exciting volume explores the known and unknown, ghosts and demons, sexuality and lust. Galit Atlas discusses the subjects of sex and desire and explores what she terms the Enigmatic and the Pragmatic aspects of sexuality, longing, female desire, sexual inhibition, pregnancy, parenthood and creativity. The author focuses on the levels of communication that take place (...) in the most intimate settings: between mothers and their babies; between lovers; in the unconscious bond of two people— in the consulting room, where two individuals sit alone in one room, looking and listening, breathing and dreaming. Atlas examines the ways in which different languages, translations and integrations focus on birth, death, sexuality, and human bonds. In _The Enigma of Desire_ each chapter opens with a narrative, a therapeutic story which illustrates both the analyst’s and patient’s desires and the ways these interact and emerge in the consulting room. This book will be of interest to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of sex and desire and of great appeal to psychoanalysts, therapists and mental health professionals. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRecent models of social anxiety disorder emphasise the role of emotion dysregulation; however, the nature of the proposed impairment needs clarification. In a replication and extension framework, four studies examined whether individuals with social anxiety are impaired in using cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Self-reports and lab-based tasks of suppression and reappraisal were utilised among individuals with high and low levels of social anxiety. A meta-analysis of these studies indicated that, compared to controls, HSAs reported less frequent and effective use (...) of reappraisal and more frequent and effective use of suppression. Counter to most models and our hypotheses, HSAs were more successful than controls in lab-based reappraisal of shame-arousing pictures as measured by subjective ratings, but not by event-related potentials. HSAs were less successful than controls in lab-based suppression of shame-arousing pictures as measured by subjective ratings, but not... (shrink)

Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a pleiotropic recessive disorder characterized cerebellar ataxia, immunodeficiency, specific developmental defects, profound predisposition to cancer and acute radiosensitivity. Functional inactivation of single gene product, ATM, accounts for this compound phenotype. We suggest that ATM acts as a sensor of reactive oxygen species and/or oxidative damage cellular macromolecules, including DNA. In turn, ATM induces signalling through multiple pathways, thereby coordinating acute phase stress responses with cell cycle checkpoint control and repair of oxidative damage. Absence of ATM is proposed (...) to limit the repair of insidious oxidative damage that can occur under normal physiological conditions, ultimately leading to apoptosis of particularly sensitive cells, such as neurons and thymocytes. (shrink)

Based on a survey of 6,989 individuals aged 60 and up from six countries (Austria, Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain), this study aimed at exploring the extent to which digital media practices complement and/or replace print media among older internet users. Results indicated a relative strength of print media among this audience and pointed to four differentiated sub-segments: hybrid readers—who comprised the majority of sample respondents—, heavy print readers, heavy online readers and non-readers. The segment type significantly associated (...) with sociodemographic characteristics. The findings indicate that older readers are not a homogenous group and that their reading habits are affected by a complex configuration of factors: technological features of different media, specific individual psychosocial needs, unequal allocation of cultural capital among varied social groups that results in different levels and types of literacy, and—at least to some extent—idiosyncratic cultural and political conditions in each country. (shrink)

This paper provides a new account of positive versus negative antonyms. The data includes well-known linguistic generalizations regarding negative adjectives, such as their incompatibility with measure phrases (cf. two meters tall/ *short) and ratio phrases (twice as tall/ #short) as well as the impossibility of truly crosspolar comparisons (*Dan is taller than Sam is short). These generalizations admit a variety of exceptions, e.g., positive adjectives that do not license measure phrases (cf. #two degrees warm/cold) and rarely also negative adjectives that (...) do (cf. two hours late/early). Furthermore, new corpus data is presented regarding the use of twice with positive and negative adjectives. The analysis the paper presents supposes that grammar associates gradable adjectives with measure functions—mapping of entities to a set of degrees isomorphic to the real numbers (Kennedy, Projecting the adjective: The syntax and semantics of gradability and comparison, 1999). On this analysis, negative adjectives map entities to values that are linearly reversed and linearly transformed in comparison with their values in the positive antonyms. As shown, the generalizations, as well as their exceptions, directly follow. Negative polarity is explained in terms of function reversal, and non-licensing of measure phrases is explained in terms of transformation by an unspecified value. (shrink)

The rise of AI-based systems has been accompanied by the belief that these systems are impartial and do not suffer from the biases that humans and older technologies express. It becomes evident, however, that gender and racial biases exist in some AI algorithms. The question is where the bias is rooted—in the training dataset or in the algorithm? Is it a linguistic issue or a broader sociological current? Works in feminist philosophy of technology and behavioral economics reveal the gender bias (...) in AI technologies as a multi-faceted phenomenon, and the linguistic explanation as too narrow. The next step moves from the linguistic aspects to the relational ones, with postphenomenology. One of the analytical tools of this theory is the “I-technology-world” formula that models our relations with technologies, and through them—with the world. Realizing that AI technologies give rise to new types of relations in which the technology has an “enhanced technological intentionality”, a new formula is suggested: “I-algorithm-dataset.” In the third part of the article, four types of solutions to the gender bias in AI are reviewed: ignoring any reference to gender, revealing the considerations that led the algorithm to decide, designing algorithms that are not biased, or lastly, involving humans in the process. In order to avoid gender bias, we can recall a feminist basic understanding—visibility matters. Users and developers should be aware of the possibility of gender and racial biases, and try to avoid them, bypass them, or exterminates them altogether. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the epistemological foundations of narrative research in education. In particular, I seek to explain how one can obtain knowledge, given its origin in teachers' subjective experiences. The problem with rhetorical and aesthetic criteria that narrative researchers use to warrant their knowledge claims is not that they don't meet a correspondence criterion of truth as post-positivists contend, but rather that they fail to connect teachers' ethical views with their practice. Since narrative research is (...) aimed at understanding teachers' actions and not at seeking some kind of mechanism in teachers' behaviour, the link between past experiences and present teaching practice is not causal but teleological. I suggest that although the knowledge claims of narrative researchers may not be justified (because they don't meet the criteria of truth as correspondence theory), we might nonetheless be intellectually entitled to accept them. Entitlement is an epistemic right or warrant that constitutes knowledge as justification, but uses different reasons—teleological not causal explanations. I offer three criteria to establish entitlement to accept narrative researchers' findings: (1) the meeting of rhetorical standards such as plausibility, adequacy, and persuasion; (2) the inclusion of teachers' stories about their pedagogical practice; (3) the meeting of ethical criteria that connects a teacher's actions to an articulate and defensible end-in-view or vision of the good. (shrink)

This book is the first postphenomenological analysis of the important roles the cellphone plays in contemporary everydayness. It is an example of a new methodology to study everyday technologies that combines historical research with a philosophical investigation.

One of the most famous stories in Ugaritic literature is the legend of Aqht that was found at Ras Shamra, Syria, during the early 1930s. Written in Ugaritic script and spread over three worn and broken tablets, this text has been thoroughly studied for the past eighty years. More than a few studies have dealt with the following questions: Is the end of the known text in the third tablet really the end of the story? Or is there perhaps a (...) missing tablet, or tablets, that continue the plot from the third tablet? These questions have been answered on the basis of storyline and plot, and many believe that there must have been more contents that complete this story and that it cannot end where the text ends. In this paper we have tried to answer this question based on epigraphic evidence found in the third tablet of the Aqht legend. After carefully examining four unique features of this tablet, we conclude that KTU 1.19 is, in fact, the last one of this specific sequence. We support this evidence by an analysis of the contents, showing that there is indeed enough text to suggest a proper closure for this legend. (shrink)

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are powerful computational models, which generate complex, high-level representations that were missing in previous models of human cognition. By studying these high-level representations, psychologists can now gain new insights into the nature and origin of human high-level vision, which was not possible with traditional handcrafted models. Abandoning DNNs would be a huge oversight for psychological sciences.

Writing is frequently analyzed as a mode of communication. But writing can be done for personal reasons, to remind oneself of things to do, of thoughts, of events. The cellphone has revealed this shift, commencing as a communication device and ending up as a memory prosthesis that records what we see, hear, read and think. The recordings are not necessarily for communicating a message to others, but sometimes just for oneself. Today, when machine learning algorithms read, write and transmit, a (...) new mode of communication arises that is not centered on the human. In this chapter the various phases of modern writing are modeled according to postphenomenology. As a branch of philosophy of technology, postphenomenology offers a set of analytical tools to study technologies and our relations to them. One of its central frameworks is the scheme of “I–technology–world.” The author proposes some modifications so that the scheme can systematically model the changes in the humans users, in machine learning algorithms imbued with non-human cognition and in the environments of readers, interlocutors and contexts. (shrink)

Digital technologies are frequently considered as lacking material aspects. Today, it is evident that behind digital technologies lies a huge and complex material infrastructure in the form of fiber optic cables, servers, satellites, and screens. Postphenomenology has theorized the relations to material things as embodiment relations. Taking into account that technologies can also have hermeneutic aspects, this theory defines hermeneutic relations as those in which we read the world through technologies. The article opens with a review of some theoretical developments (...) to hermeneutic relations with a special focus on digital technologies. The article suggests that in the digital world, material hermeneutics needs to be updated as it shifts from a scientific to an everyday technological context. Now, technologies not only “give voice” to things, they also produce new meanings to informational structures and direct users to certain meanings. When it comes to digital technologies, especially those involving artificial intelligence (AI), the technology actively mediates the world. In postphenomenological terms, it possesses a technological intentionality. The postphenomenological formula should be updated to reflect this type of technological intentionality, by reversing the arrow of intentionality so that it points to the user, rather than from the user. (shrink)

In this reply to my reviewers, I touch upon Husserl’s notion of fantasy. Whereas Kant positions fantasy outside the scope of his own work, Husserl brings it back. The importance of this notion lies in freeing imagination from the tight link to images, as for Husserl imagination is an activity that functions as a “quasi perception.” Ihde and Stiegler enrich Husserl’s analysis of imagination with various aspects of technology: Ihde shows how changes in the technologies that mediate our imagination will (...) necessarily change our imagination; Stiegler broadens Husserl’s analysis of retention. The two theories can be combined into a new understanding of subjectivity that is modeled as layers. Some layers can be performed by AI. The second part deals with the question of whether AI can be imaginative. Traditionally, imaginative creativity is associated with art. Bioart and AI art are brought as examples of a new definition of art, according to which art is the arrangement of materials in a way that produces a meaning. This definition does not refer specifically to creativity. In both forms of art, the biological/artificial and the human cooperate so that the former arranges the materials and the latter produces the meaning, albeit this division of labor is not clear-cut. The result is a co-shaping process. My conclusion is that algorithms can be considered creative by human standards, but this entails a new mode of imagination that is co-shaped and co-shared by humans and algorithms. The layer paradigm explains how such co-shaping works in practice. (shrink)

This article analyzes the use of crowdsourcing to promote corporate sustainability by assessing compliance with supply chain disclosure laws. It draws on a case study of WikiRate.org as a novel example of crowdsourcing compliance with respect to the UK Modern Slavery Act and U.S. conflict minerals legislation (section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act). WikiRate is an open research platform whose mission is to crowdsource better companies by motivating corporations to be transparent about their environmental, social, and governance performance. (...) In particular, WikiRate’s projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals harness the power of citizens to evaluate the quality of corporate disclosures produced in accordance with these laws. Following an analysis of its projects on modern slavery and conflict minerals, I evaluate the challenges of using crowdsourcing to assess legal compliance, including the potential manipulation of data and the difficulty of relying on non-expert citizens to assess complex information in corporate disclosures. I argue that one must identify the appropriate “crowd” that would be most capable of assessing compliance with a given law. While crowdsourcing platforms such as WikiRate invite a broad range of stakeholders to assess compliance, the reality is that only a limited set of individuals may be able to meaningfully participate given the complexity of supply chain disclosures. Thus, “expertsourcing” may be a more appropriate tool for assessing compliance with certain laws as it limits participation to citizens with specialized expertise. (shrink)

Public procurement provides an excellent window into the shaping of corporate social responsibility of companies contracted by the government. To this emerging scholarly realization, we want to add that public procurement provides also the opportunity to examine corporate social responsibility as practiced by public sector organizations. This opportunity enables the investigation of the conditions under which public sector organizations endorse CSR guidelines, adherence to which demonstrates accountability for their service providers’ legal, employment-related practices. Our study examined the possibility that public (...) sector organizations’ CSR is enhanced by maintenance managers’ role dissonance emerging in response to an ethical mismatch between them and their organizations’ official stance concerning whether unethical employment practices of service providers should be sanctioned. We analyzed interviews with 13 managers in charge of contract administration in the area of cleaning and maintenance. Our findings suggest that the role dissonance that emerges in cases of mismatch in ethical orientation rarely enhances more responsible treatment of cleaning employees. We introduce a model indicating the conditions supporting this incident. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel semantic analysis of unit names and gradable adjectives, inspired by measurement theory (Krantz et al 1971). Based on measurement theory's typology of measures, I claim that different predicates are associated with different types of measures whose special characteristics, together with features of the relations denoted by unit names, explain the puzzling limited distribution of measure phrases.

The article proposes to model the phenomenon of the cell phone as a wall-window. This model aims at explicating some of the perceptions and experiences associated with cellular technology. The wall-window model means that the cell phone simultaneously separates the user from the physical surroundings (the wall), and connects the user to a remote space (the window). The remote space may be where the interlocutor resides or where information is stored (e.g. the Internet). Most cell phone usage patterns are modeled (...) as a single dimension according to the level of distraction or attention of the user. In order to accommodate nuanced situations such as augmented reality, I suggest a two-dimensional layout: the wall-window. The wall represents the attention to the immediate physical environment, while the window represents the attention to a remote space. The wall-window model further evolves once a screen is woven into this layout. This addition is easily understood due to the screen’s etymology, which is associated with the concepts of shield or barrier. From a technical perspective, the screen has become an integral part of the cell phone. Furthermore, a screen itself is both a wall and a window. Lastly, once a cell phone is supplemented with a screen, it is easier to refer to it as media. And again, media fits into the wall-window model. (shrink)

Digital technologies are frequently considered as lacking material aspects. Today, it is evident that behind digital technologies lies a huge and complex material infrastructure in the form of fiber optic cables, servers, satellites, and screens. Postphenomenology has theorized the relations to material things as embodiment relations. Taking into account that technologies can also have hermeneutic aspects, this theory defines hermeneutic relations as those in which we read the world through technologies. The article opens with a review of some theoretical developments (...) to hermeneutic relations with a special focus on digital technologies. The article suggests that in the digital world, material hermeneutics needs to be updated as it shifts from a scientific to an everyday technological context. Now, technologies not only “give voice” to things, they also produce new meanings to informational structures and direct users to certain meanings. When it comes to digital technologies, especially those involving artificial intelligence (AI), the technology actively mediates the world. In postphenomenological terms, it possesses a technological intentionality. The postphenomenological formula should be updated to reflect this type of technological intentionality, by reversing the arrow of intentionality so that it points to the user, rather than from the user. (shrink)

This text presents some elective affinities and differences between the works of two powerful media theoreticians of the 20th century: Water Benjamin and Vilém Flusser. Both authors have shaped original perspectives on the relationship between art and technology. While holding a special place for the theory of photography, both have reflected upon the history of writing and its transformations during Modernity. In addition, both Benjamin and Flusser dedicated important texts to the question of translation and the philosophy of language. This (...) text also examines the differences between the Benjaminian theory of writing and image reproduction connected to his concept of post-auratic images, and, on the other hand, the Flusserian theory of technical and post-historical images. (shrink)

This study investigated whether musical training and bilingualism are associated with enhancements in specific components of executive function, namely, task switching and dual-task performance. Participants belonging to one of four groups were matched on age and socioeconomic status and administered task switching and dual-task paradigms. Results demonstrated reduced global and local switch costs in musicians compared with non-musicians, suggesting that musical training can contribute to increased efficiency in the ability to shift flexibly between mental sets. On dual-task performance, musicians also (...) outperformed non-musicians. There was neither a cognitive advantage for bilinguals relative to monolinguals, nor an interaction between music and language to suggest additive effects of both types of experience. These findings demonstrate that long-term musical training is associated with improvements in task switching and dual-task performance. (shrink)

Why does a cell phone have a screen? From televisions and cell phones to refrigerators, many contemporary technologies come with a screen. The article aims at answering this question by employing Emmanuel Levinas’ notions of the Other and the face. This article also engages with Don Ihde’s conceptualization of alterity relations, in which the technological acts as quasi-other with which we maintain relations. If technology is a quasi-other, then, I claim, the screen is the quasi-face. By exploring Levinas’ ontology, specifically (...) what can be identified as his tool analysis, as well as his notion of the face, a new understanding of contemporary technologies can be extracted. Some of these technologies hardly fit into the Heideggerian notion of the hand as the main interface to artifacts. Instead they require the face. Levinas’ notion of the face is analyzed from an ontological perspective and developed in conjunction with the screen. As the screen serves as a quasi-face, it enables the construction of quasi-other technological artifacts. (shrink)

As AI algorithms advance and produce surprising outputs, the question of imagination arises. Can we classify their output as imaginative? And what is their effect on human imagination? Apparently, algorithms follow Kant’s explanations on human imagination, thereby pushing us to update our understanding of imagination by taking into account the co-shaping between humans and their technologies. Such a new understating is offered in this article based on the theories of Don Ihde and Bernard Stiegler. With Ihde, imagination is conceived as (...) tightly linked to perception. Imagination evolves from the modernist task of seeking new points-of-view to a new mode in which technologies present imaginative layers of information on top of reality. With Stiegler, imagination is regarded as tightly linked to memory. He demonstrates how imagination complements memory, serves as a condition to memory/technology and at the same time how imagination itself is conditioned by memory/technology. In this article I develop a new synthesis: imagination as composed of perception and memory. This is the foundation of my layered model of digital imagination. In this model, the task of AI algorithms is the filling in of the layers with data. By producing endless possibilities, these technologies “automate” the Kantian “free play” of imagination, allowing us to examine more options and focus on the best of them. The model reserves the production of meaning to humans. Our role as humans is to generate meaning to the link between layers and establish new layers. (shrink)

Today's navigation is different, with no paper map or compass. Instead we use a cellphone that has a built-in GPS. Such cellphone is also equipped with an embedded camera that can read signs in various languages and barcodes that most humans cannot decipher. Combined, the GPS and the camera participate in the production and exercise of augmented reality, where reality is presented with layers of information which are accessible only through technological mediation. Currently such mediation is enabled by the cellphone, (...) thereby providing novel dimensions to our experience of mobility. Consequently it produces innovative ways of navigation and a new sensation of reality. (shrink)

Vagueness is an ultimate challenge. An enormous diversity of literature on the topic has accumulated over the years, with no hint of a consensus emerging. In this light, Section 1 presents the main aspects of the challenge vagueness poses, focusing on the category of adjectives, and then gives some brief illustrations of the pervasive manifestations of vagueness in grammar.Section 2 deals with theSorites paradox, which for many philosophers is the hallmark of vagueness: By assigning avague predicate step by apparently inescapable (...) step to more and more objects one is eventually led to assign it to entities of which it plainly isn’t true.It is hard to resist the force of the paradox once one has been exposed to it. The result of this has been that many see the philosophical problem presented by vagueness as nothing other than the problem of solving the Sorites.The efforts to solve the Sorites paradox have uncovered a range of important connections between vagueness and other aspects of language and thought. But most of these seem to lead further and further away from what some consider the core issues that vagueness raises.Given the challenge posed by the Sorites, it is rather remarkable to discover that there is a lot more to vagueness beyond the paradox. In fact, linguists traditionally leave it to the philosophers to deal with the Sorites and put their own efforts into dealing with other manifestations of vagueness in natural language and their consequences for grammar. Page 2 2Section 3 reviews some of these additional phenomena, centering around three issues: (i) the controversial connections between vagueness and morphological gradability, (ii) the similarity and differences between the phenomena of vagueness and imprecision, and (iii) the ways in which vagueness infiltrates various grammatical constructions we find in language, with consequences for the architecture of grammar.The aim of this section is to highlight the main questions which any theory of vagueness will ultimately have to address. (shrink)

Este artigo procura desenvolver o conceito de "crítica" no primeiro romantismo, sobretudo em seus principais representantes, Friedrich Schlegel e Novalis. A partir destes autores já não se pode falar de uma obra de arte desvinculada da reflexão sobre ela, mas, por sua vez, a própria "critica" deve se tomar arte.