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It is well-established that toddlers can correctly select a novel referent from an ambiguous array in response to a novel label. There is also a growing consensus that robust word learning requires repeated label-object encounters. However, the effect of the context in which a novel object is encountered is less well-understood. We present two embodied neural network replications of recent empirical tasks, which demonstrated that the context in which a target object is encountered is fundamental to referent selection and word (...) learning. Our model offers an explicit account of the bottom-up associative and embodied mechanisms which could support children’s early word learning and emphasises the importance of viewing behaviour as the interaction of learning at multiple timescales. (shrink)

Variability is prevalent in early language acquisition, but, whether it supports or hinders learning is unclear; while target variability has been shown to facilitate word learning, variability in competitor items has been shown to make the task harder. Here, we tested whether background variability could boost learning in a referent selection task. Two groups of 2-year-old children saw arrays of one novel and two known objects on a screen, and they heard a novel or known label. Stimuli were identical across (...) conditions, with the exception that in the constant color condition objects appeared on a uniform white background, and in the variable color condition backgrounds were different, uniform colors. At test, only children in the variable condition showed evidence of retaining label-object associations. These data support findings from the adult memory literature, which suggest that variability supports learning by decontextualizing representations. We argue that these data are consistent with dynamic systems accounts of learning in which low-level entropy adds sufficient noise to the developmental system to precipitate a change in behavior. (shrink)

While most interpreters take the opening of De Anima III 2 to be an oblique reference to some sort of conscious awareness, I argue that Aristotle intends to explain what I call ‘joint perception’: when conjoined with Aristotle’s subsequent claim that perceiving and being perceived are the same activity, the metaperception underpins the perception of a unified object. My interpretation is shown to have a more satisfactory account of the aporiai that follow. While I argue that the immediate focus of (...) the metaperceptual account is joint perception, it may also be applicable to other kinds of complex perception, which I briefly consider in the closing section. (shrink)

Many years ago, Pope Pius XII defined health as that which “encompasses the positive spiritual and social well-being of humanity and, on this ground, is one of the conditions required for universal peace and common security.” As we enter more deeply into the Third Millennium, the very survival and security of humanity hinge on getting these issues right.

This groundbreaking book is the first to provide a critical overview of the relationship between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice in museum culture. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections, with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. In recent years museums have provided the impetus for cutting-edge artistic practice, either as a response to particular collections, or as part of exhibitions. But the question of how museums have (...) staged contemporary ceramics and how ceramic artists respond to museum collections has not been the subject of published research to date. This book examines how ceramic artists have, over the last decade, begun to animate museum collections in new ways, and reflects on the impact that these new initiatives have had in the broad context of visual culture. Ceramics in the Expanded Field is the culmination of a three-year AHRC funded project, and reflects its major findings. It brings together leading international voices in the field of ceramics, research undertaken throughout the project and papers delivered at the concluding conference. By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions and the dialogue between ceramics and museological practice, this book will bring focus to an area of museology that has not yet been theorized, and will contribute to policy debates and art practice. (shrink)

Controlled fire use by early humans could have facilitated the evolution of human cooperation. Individuals with regular access to the benefits of domestic fire would have been at an advantage over those with limited or no access. However, a campfire would have been relatively costly for an individual to maintain and open to free riders. By cooperating, individuals could have reduced maintenance costs, minimized free riding and lessened the risk of being without fire. Cooperators were more likely to survive and (...) reproduce than uncooperative individuals because the former would have been better able to maximize a fire’s returns and enjoy regular access to its benefits. This is how the emergence of controlled fire use in Pleistocene human populations could have facilitated the evolution of cooperation. (shrink)

This article is an exploration of how the concept of relational autonomy might be applied in practice. The discussion uses the example of breast cancer nursing as a lens through which to consider how a view of autonomy as relational might affect the ways in which practitioners work with their clients.

Mathilda Percival, libre de couleur, quitta Saint-Eustache, une petite île sous domination hollandaise, entre fin 1859 et début 1860. Elle s’embarqua pour une nouvelle vie sur l’île de Saint-Thomas, située aux Antilles danoises. Cet article s’appuie sur sept lettres de Mathilda à son mari. Elles font la lumière sur la vie et les difficultés des ouvrières émigrées au xixe siècle aux Caraïbes. Elles montrent que son expérience recoupe celle des employées de maison émigrées à cette époque, auxquelles l’émigration (...) offrait l’occasion d’éprouver un sentiment d’autonomie et d’émancipation. Si les motifs économiques étaient certainement l’une des motivations principales du départ de Mathilda pour Saint-Thomas, les raisons de son exil définitif sont probablement beaucoup plus complexes. Il semblerait que son travail lui ait donné satisfaction. En outre, alors que l’historiographie sur la migration des femmes caribéennes porte principalement sur le xxe siècle (après la construction du Canal de Panama et s’accélérant après 1960), on sait peu sur l’émigration des femmes au milieu du xixe siècle, après l’abolition de l’esclavage. On en sait encore moins sur les Caraïbes non britanniques, constamment négligées par la recherche – une lacune à laquelle tente de remédier cet article à travers l’étude de ces lettres. (shrink)

This collection provides a complete version of Shelley's masterpiece Frankenstein as well as her short fiction and letters.