Recognition of the identity of familiar faces in conditions with poor visibility or over large changes in head angle, lighting and partial occlusion is far more accurate than recognition of unfamiliar faces in similar conditions. Here we used a visual search paradigm to test if one class of social cues transmitted by faces – direction of another’s attention as conveyed by gaze direction and head orientation – is perceived more rapidly in personally familiar faces than in unfamiliar faces. We found (...) a strong effect of familiarity on the detection of these social cues, suggesting that the times to process these signals in familiar faces are markedly faster than the corresponding processing times for unfamiliar faces. In the light of these new data, hypotheses on the organization of the visual system for processing faces are formulated and discussed. (shrink)

This study uses a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies methodology to provide the first systematic analysis of how trust is discursively constructed in crypto-drug markets. The data come from two purpose-built corpora. One comprises all the forum messages posted on the flag ship crypto-drug market Silk Road during the years in which it traded on the hidden net. The other corpus comprises all the reports published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the same period. Our analysis of (...) trust focuses on the identities of those buying and selling drugs. The findings reveal that the Silk Road community members regularly discussed vendors’ identities alongside a continuum of trust–risk calculation, explicitly identifying both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices and hence engaging in self-regulatory discourses, and mainly constructed drug users’ identities in relation to values of expertise, integrity and benevolence. The findings also suggest that hard law enforcement activity, such as crypto-drug market closure, may encourage technological innovation within these markets. Moreover, our results show a disconnect between the discursive reality of the policy-making documents we examined and the very crypto-drug markets that they seek to legislate. (shrink)

When the language-dominant hemisphere is damaged by a focal lesion, the brain may reorganize the language network through functional and structural changes known as adaptive plasticity. Adaptive plasticity is documented for triggers including ischemic, tumoral, and epileptic focal lesions, with effects in clinical practice. Many questions remain regarding language plasticity. Different lesions may induce different patterns of reorganization depending on pathologic features, location in the brain, and timing of onset. Neuroimaging provides insights into language plasticity due to its non-invasiveness, ability (...) to image the whole brain, and large-scale implementation. This review provides an overview of language plasticity on MRI with insights for patient care. First, we describe the structural and functional language network as depicted by neuroimaging. Second, we explore language reorganization triggered by stroke, brain tumors, and epileptic lesions and analyze applications in clinical diagnosis and treatment planning. By comparing different focal lesions, we investigate determinants of language plasticity including lesion location and timing of onset, longitudinal evolution of reorganization, and the relationship between structural and functional changes. (shrink)

El artículo se estructura en torno de tres tópicos que se proponen como aportes a la agenda y los debates sobre extensión crítica. Por una parte, los movimientos populares, su papel en las nuevas realidades latinoamericanas, sus formas de construcción y su carácter de sujetos centrales para la extensión. En segundo lugar, se analizan las funciones sustantivas, a partir de lo que llamamos la densidad epistémica o los desafíos de conocimiento de los movimientos y se analiza la propuesta de diálogo (...) de saberes en relación con esa densidad epistémica. Por último, compartimos algunas reflexiones acerca del diálogo de saberes desde la perspectiva metodológica, retomando los aportes del Educación Popular. (shrink)

This paper discusses Freud’s notion of subject is his writings concerning culture (mainly Civilisation and its discontents ) as a means of understanding contemporary problems concerning subjectivity. But given that our own society differs widely from Freud’s in many relevant respects, there arises the question of which elements of his theory retain their pertinence and which should be adapted or rejected. The answer to this question lies in a careful genetic reconstruction of Freud’s conception of the conflict between subjectivity and (...) culture so as to be contrasted with our own present situation. (shrink)

This volume brings together world-leading scholars on the thought of Averroes, the greatest medieval commentator on Aristotle but also a major scholar of Islam. The collection situates him in his historical context by emphasizing the way that he responded to the political situation of twelfth-century Islamic Spain and the provocations of Islamic theology. It also sheds light on the interconnections between aspects of his work that are usually studied separately, such as his treatises on logic and his legal writings. Advanced (...) students and scholars will find authoritative and insightful treatments of Averroes' philosophy, tackled from multiple perspectives and written in a clear and accessible way that will appeal to those encountering his work for the first time as well as to anyone looking for new critical approaches to Averroes and his thinking. (shrink)

Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have proved to be useful in comprehending the extent to which the visual modality is pervasive in mental imagery, and in comprehending the specificity of images generated through other sensory modalities. Although further research is needed to understand the nature of mental images, data attained by means of these techniques suggest that mental imagery requires at least two distinct processing components.

The concept of innateness is a part of folk wisdom but is also used by biologists and cognitive scientists. This concept has a legitimate role to play in science only if the colloquial usage relates to a coherent body of evidence. We examine many different candidates for the post of scientific successor of the folk concept of innateness. We argue that none of these candidates is entirely satisfactory. Some of the candidates are more interesting and useful than others, but the (...) interesting candidates are not equivalent to each other and the empirical and evidential relations between them are far from clear. Researchers have treated the various scientific notions that capture some aspect of the folk concept of innateness as equivalent to each other or at least as tracking properties that are strongly correlated with each other. But whether these correlations exist is an empirical issue. This empirical issue has not been thoroughly investigated because in the attempt to create a bridge between the folk view and their theories, researchers have often assumed that the properties must somehow cluster. Rather than making further attempts to import the folk concept of innateness into the sciences, efforts should now be made to focus on the empirical questions raised by the debates and pave the way to a better way of studying the development of living organisms. Such empirical questions must be answered before it can be decided whether a good scientific successor – in the form of a concept that refers to a collection of biologically significant properties that tend to co-occur – can be identified or whether the concept of innateness deserves no place in science. (shrink)

We present an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle for electrons based on the concept put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow. In this experiment we perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which (...) we interpret as an upper limit for the probability to violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle. We present also future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

Previous studies consistently showed age-related differences in temporal judgment and temporal memory. Importantly, emotional valence plays a crucial role in older adults’ information processing. In this study, we examined the effects of emotions at the intersection between time and memory, analysing age-related differences in a temporal source memory task. Twenty-five younger adults (age range 18–35), 25 old adults (age range 65–74), and 25 old–old adults (age range 75–84) saw a series of emotional pictures in three sessions separated by a one-day (...) rest period. In the fourth session, participants were asked to indicate in which session (1, 2, or 3) they saw each picture. Results showed that old–old adults tended to collocate negative pictures distant in time, while positive stimuli were remembered as more recent than real, compared to neutral pictures. To a lower extent, people over 65 showed the same pattern of results. In contrast, emotional valence did not affect younger adults’ temporal positioning of stimuli. Current findings fit well with the Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory’s assumptions and extended the literature on the positivity effect to temporal source memory. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (for electrons) which is based on a straightforward idea put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow (Phys. Lett. B 238:438, 1990). We perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a very simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we (...) describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which we interpret in the framework of quon theory. We also present future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

Della produzione didascalica di argomento astronomico dell’età ellenistica la tradizione manoscritta ci ha consegnato soltanto i Fenomeni di Arato, poema che sin da subito ha goduto di un vasto successo, testimoniato da riscritture, commenti e traduzioni. Poco sappiamo della poesia astronomica non aratea, di cui rimangono sparute testimonianze ed esempi frammentari, tra cui spiccano i cinque esametri sulla luna di Egesianatte (SH 466-467). Il presente contributo intende valutare la posizione di Egesianatte all’interno della poesia didascalica di argomento astronomico, prendendo in (...) considerazione le testimonianze sulla sua produzione astronomica e analizzando tanto il contesto di citazione dei versi, quanto il testo stesso dei frammenti. (shrink)

Hanno ancora qualcosa da dirci Sartre e Merleau-Ponty oggi? Sessant’anni dopo i loro “contraccolpi” – consumatisi nella redazione di una rivista come “Les Temps Modernes” – vale ancora la pena di ripercorrere quella storia? È questa la domanda che apre l’ultimo numero di “aut aut” curato da Enrica Lisciani-Petrini e Raoul Kirchmayr. Si tratta di una domanda a cui è difficile rispondere e che ha a che fare con che cos’è la filosofia e – soprattutto – che cos’è un filosofo. (...) È una domanda che, nel caso di Sartre e di Merleau-Ponty, non chiama in causa soltanto due differenti scuole di pensiero, ma anche due modi differenti di intendere il mondo, la politica, gli altri e le relazioni con essi. Ma si tratta, in fondo, di una domanda che – con le parole di Sartre – ci porta a riflettere sul fatto che “si è filosofi quando si è morti”, poiché – in fondo – “fino a quando viviamo, siamo uomini che, tra l’altro, scrivono opere di filosofia”. E allora la risposta a quella domanda non può che essere affermativa: il loro “dissidio produttivo” è un atto vitale, un incontro-scontro necessario fra persone che fanno vivere la filosofia.Sartre et Merleau-Ponty ont-ils encore quelque chose à nous dire aujourd’hui? Soixante années après leurs « contrecoups » – qui ont eu lieu dans la rédaction de la revue Les Temps Modernes – vaut-il encore la peine de reparcourir cette histoire? Voilà la question qui ouvre le dernier numéro de la revue « aut aut », sous la direction d’Enrica Lisciani-Petrini et Raoul Kirchmayr. Il s’agit d’une question à laquelle il est difficile de répondre et qui est en rapport avec ce qu’est la philosophie et – surtout – avec ce qu’est un philosophe. Il s’agit d’une question qui, chez Sartre et Merleau-Ponty, ne met pas seulement en cause deux courants de pensée différents, mais aussi deux différentes manières de concevoir le monde, la politique, les autres et les relations qu’on entretient avec eux. Mais il s’agit, au fond, d’une question qui – en employant les mots de Sartre – nous conduit à réfléchir sur le fait que « l’on est philosophes quand on est morts », parce que – après tout – « jusqu’à ce que nous vivons, nous sommes des hommes qui, entre autre, écrivent des oeuvres de philosophie ». Alors la réponse à cette question ne peut être qu’affirmative : leur « différend productif » est un acte vital, en même temps une rencontre et un affrontement nécessaires entre des personnes qui font vivre la philosophie.Do Sartre and Merleau-Ponty still have something to say to us today? Sixty years after their “breakup” – which took place in editing the journal Les Temps Modernes – is it still worthwhile to go over this history? This is the question that opens the last issue of the journal “aut aut,” under the direction of Enrica Lisciani-Petrini and Raoul Kirchmayr. It is a question to which it is difficult to respond and bears on what philosophy is – and especially with what a philosopher is today. It is a matter which, according to Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, does not only call into question two different currents of thought, but also two different ways of conceiving the world, politics, others and the relations between them. But it is a matter, at its core, which – employing the words of Sartre – leads us to reflect on the fact that “we are philosophers when we are dead,” because – after all – “while we are alive, we are men who, among other things, write works of philosophy.” Thus, the response to this question can only be affirmative: their “productive difference” is a vital act, at the same time an encounter and necessary confrontation between persons who breathe life into philosophy. (shrink)