This paper offers theoretical explanations for why “guided touch” or manual touch with verbal communication can be an effective way of treating the body and the mind. The active inference theory suggests that chronic pain and emotional disorders can be attributed to distorted and exaggerated patterns of interoceptive and proprioceptive inference. We propose that the nature of active inference is abductive. As such, to rectify aberrant active inference processes, we should change the “Rule” of abduction, or the “prior beliefs” (...) entailed by a patient’s generative model. This means pre-existing generative models should be replaced with new models. To facilitate such replacement—or updating—the present treatment proposes that we should weaken prior beliefs, especially the one at the top level of hierarchical generative models, thereby altering the sense of agency, and redeploying attention. Then, a new prior belief can be installed through inner communication along with manual touch. The present paper proposes several hypotheses for possible experimental studies. If touch with verbal guidance is proven to be effective, this would demonstrate the relevance of active inference and the implicit prediction model at a behavioral level. Furthermore, it would open new possibilities of employing inner communication interventions, including self-talk training, for a wide range of psychological and physical therapies. (shrink)

Appraising the worth of others’ testimony is always complex; appraising the worth of expert testimony is even harder; appraising the worth of expert testimony in a legal context is harder yet. Legal efforts to assess the reliability of expert testimony—I’ll focus on evolving U.S. law governing the admissibility of such testimony—seem far from adequate, offering little effective practical guidance. My purpose in this paper is to think through what might be done to offer courts more real, operational help. The (...) first step is to explain why the legal formulae that have evolved over the years may seem reassuring, but aren’t really of much practical use. The next is to suggest that we might do better not by amending evidentiary rules but by helping judges and attorneys understand what questions they should ask about expert evidence. I focus here on (i) epidemiological testimony, and (ii) the process of peer review. (shrink)

Breaking bad news (BBN) to parents whose newborn has a major disease is an ethical dilemma. In Saudi Arabia, BBN about newborns is performed according to the parental preferences that have been reported from non-Arabic/non-Islamic countries. Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN have not yet been studied. Therefore, we aimed to elicit the preferences of Saudi mothers about BBN concerning newborns. We selected a convenience sample of 402 Saudi mothers, aged 18-50 years, who had no previous experience with BBN. We selected (...) them via a simple number-randomization scheme from the premises of a level III Saudi hospital between October of 2009 and January of 2011. We used a hypothetical situation (BBN about trisomy 21) to elicit their preferences about BBN concerning newborns via a structured verbal questionnaire composed of 12 multiple-choice questions. We expressed their preferences as percentages (95% confidence interval), and we used the Kendall's W test (W) to assess the degree of agreement in preferences. The Saudi mothers preferred that BBN be conducted with both parents together (64% [60-69]), albeit with weak levels of agreement (W = 0.29). They showed moderate agreement in their preferences that BBN should be conducted early (79% [75-83], W = 0.48), in detail (81% [77-85], W = 0.52), in person (88% [85-91], W = 0.58), and in a quiet setting (86% [83-90], W = 0.53). With extremely weak agreement, they preferred to have a known person present for support during BBN (56% [51-61], W = 0.01), to have close bodily contact with their babies (66% [61-70], W = 0.10), and to have no another patients present (64% [59-68], W = 0.08). They showed moderate levels of agreement in their desires to detail, in advance, their preferences about process of BBN by giving a reversible, written informed consent that could be utilized for guidance, if needed (80% [76-84], W = 0.36). In our experience, Saudi mothers' preferences about BBN concerning newborns are varied, suggesting that a "one-size-fits-all" approach is inappropriate. A reversible, written informed consent detailing their preferences about BBN that would be kept in their medical records and utilized for guidance, if needed, may be the best solution, given this level of diversity. These findings merit further study. (shrink)

Against claims that cognitive science of religion undercuts belief in God, many defenders of theistic belief have invoked the Religious Reasons Reply: science cannot undercut belief in God if one has good independent reasons to believe. However, it is unclear whether this response helps salvage the god beliefs of most people. This paper considers four questions: (1) What reasons do Christians have for believing in God? (2) What kinds of beliefs about God can the reasons support? (3) Are the reasons (...) rationalizations? (4) Can cognitive science undercut the reasons? Many Christians invoke everyday religious experiences (EREs)—such as experiences of divine presence, guidance, and communication—as reasons to believe. Unlike another popular reason to believe in God (the appearance of design and beauty in nature), EREs can support beliefs about a relational God who is present to me, who guides my life, and who speaks to me. EREs are not rationalizations since they seem to cause and sustain such beliefs. Nonetheless, EREs like experiences of hearing God speak are problematic reasons to believe. ‘Soft’ voice-hearing experiences are easily undercut. ‘Hard’ experiences of an external, audible voice are probably underpinned by similar cognitive processes as audio-verbal hallucinations. (shrink)

When navigating in a new environment, it is typical for people to resort to external guidance such as GPS, or people. However, in the real world, even though navigators have learned the route, they may still prefer to travel with external guidance. We explored how the availability of feedback and the source of external guidance affect navigation decision-making on experienced routes in the presence of external guidance. In three experiments, participants navigated a simulated route three times (...) and then verbally confirmed that they had learned it. They then travelled the same route again, accompanied with no, correct, or incorrect direction guidance, which latter two were provided by a GPS (Exp.1), a stranger (Exp.2), or a friend (Exp.3). Half of the participants received immediate feedback on their navigation decisions, while the other half without feedback did not know if they had selected the correct directions. Generally, without feedback, participants relied on external guidance, regardless of the direction sources. Results also showed that participants trusted the GPS the most, but performed best with their friends as a direction source. With feedback, participants did not show differences in performance between the correct and incorrect guidance conditions, indicating that feedback plays a critical role in evaluating the reliability of external guidance. Our findings suggest that incorrect guidance without any feedback might disturb navigation decision-making, which was further moderated by the perceived credibility of direction sources. We discuss these results within the context of navigation decision-making theory and consider implications for wayfinding behaviors as a social activity. (shrink)

One necessary condition on any adequate account of perception is clarity regarding whether unconscious perception exists. The issue is complicated, and the debate is growing in both philosophy and science. In this paper we consider the case for unconscious perception, offering three primary achievements. First, we offer a discussion of the underspecified notion of central coordinating agency, a notion that is critical for arguments that purportedly perceptual states are not attributable to the individual, and thus not genuinely perceptual. We develop (...) an explication of what it is for a representational state to be available to central coordinating agency for guidance of behavior. Second, drawing on this explication, we place a more careful understanding of the attributability of a state to the individual in the context of a range of empirical work on vision-for-action, saccades, and skilled typing. The results place pressure on the skeptic about unconscious perception. Third, reflecting upon broader philosophical themes running through debates about unconscious perception, we highlight how our discussion places pressure on the view that perception is a manifest kind, rather than a natural kind. In doing so, we resist the tempting complaint that the debate about unconscious perception is merely verbal. (shrink)

: ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336) was a Kubrawī sheikh lived in Simnān one hundred years after Ibn al-Arabī (d. 638/1240). He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism, raised many disciples. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly come to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif (subtle organs), rijāl al-ghaib (men of the unseen), wāqia (dream-like mystical experiences) and tajallī (manifestation). Simnānī’s understanding of the unity influenced subsequent sūfī’s and specifically Ahmad Sirhindī (d. (...) 1034/1624) and his sheikh Bāqībillah’s (d. 1012/1603) views of the unity overlap with Simnānī’s one. In Maktūbāt, Sirhindī who developed the idea of unity of the seen against the unity of the existence expresses that his understanding of being is the same with Simnānī’s one. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of the unity among sūfī’s. Such that, whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. However, his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī was not studied as a whole looking at his ouvre. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq (absolute being) for God. He maintains that it is not convenient to use this concept for al-Haq. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. In this article, causes for Simnānī’s critiques will be discussed and both sūfī’s conceptions of wujūd al-mutlaq and ‘ayn (quintessence) will be studied.Summary: One of the famous names in the Kubrawī tradition, ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī is a sheikh who lived in the city of Simnān in the contemporary Iran between 659-736/1261-1336. In his youth, he served in the service of Arghūn Khan (r. 1284-1291) in the Īlkhānid Palace; and later, after a spiritual experience, he left the palace and turned to a Ṣūfī life. For a certain period, he continued worshipping and riyādhat (spiritual fight against the evil commanding self) on his own, and looked for a guide convenient to his character. Eventually, he became the disciple of the Kubrawī sheikh in Baghdad, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Isfarāyīnī (d. 717/1317), and obtained ijāzah (permission) for irshād (guidance). After that, with the instruction of his sheikh, he went back to Simnān; and spent rest of his life with guiding his disciples and writing scholarly works. He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly comes to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif, rijāl al-ghaib, wāqia and tajallī; and influenced subsequent sūfī’s. Simnani’s influences can best be seen on the founder of the Mujaddidiyya branch of Naqshbandiyya, Ahmad Sirhindī (d. 1034/1624), and Sirhindī’s sheikh Bāqībillah (d. 1012/1603). In a letter Bāqībillah wrote to Sirhindī, he mentions certain differences between Simnānī’s understanding of unity and unity of the existence by stating that Simnānī’s path is not that of unity of the existence, and that his shuhūd (seen) is the most perfect shuhūd. Also in the Maktūbāt, Sirhindī expresses that his understanding of being is the same with that of Simnānī’s. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of being and unity among sūfī’s. It would not be incorrect to say that he is more famous for this critique so much so that whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. The main reason for this is that a letter Simnānī wrote to one of the followers of Ibn al-Arabī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 736/1335) in which Simnānī criticizes Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of unity, was included in the famous work of Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Nafakhāt al-uns. This letter’s presence in the Nafakhāt played a vital role in its publicity. For this reason, it can be said that Nafakhāt made Simnānī famous. Yet, it should also be said that the fame stemming from Nafakhāt is incomplete and it is just about one aspect of Simnānī, a scholar who authored dozens of books on the Sūfism. Moreover, it is not correct to defend that Simnānī’s statements in that letter reflects a full picture of his opinion about Ibn al-Arabī. Hence, to have a better understanding of his criticism and thoughts about Ibn al-Arabī, one should explore other works of Simnānī as well. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq for God. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. To understand the first criticism, one needs to know the meaning both sūfī’s attribute to the concept of wujūd al-mutlaq; and for the second the meaning they attribute to the concept of ‘ayn. First, it should be known that Ibn al-Arabī did not think of being as a form category the members of which are beings. To the contrary, he uses wujūd exclusively for the Eternal, and refrains from using the concept of wujūd for the creation; and calls them mawjūd. In other words, Ibn al-Arabī differentiates between being and existence; and limits the concept of being only for the al-Haqq. Ibn al-Arabī states this view repeatedly in statements such as “al-Haqq (the Truth) is being; things, however, are attributes of being.” What Ibn al-Arabī means by wujūd al-mutlaq is al-Haqq who is wajib al-wujūd (the Necessary Being) and free from all restrictions. Thus, in a certain sense wujūd al-mutlaq means wajib al-wujūd. By writing that “Wujūd al-Haqq is the essence of wajib al-wujūd who is qualified with the perfect attributes of eternity and infinity. Absolute Being is the actions emanating from these attributes. Wujūd al-Muqayyad (the Limited Being) is the outcome that comes into existence as a result of these actions”, Simnānī explicitly states that for him Absolute Being is the actions of al-Haqq. What one can understand from the statements of both sūfī’s is that while by wujūd al-mutlaq Ibn al-Arabī refers to wajib al-wujūd (i.e. the essence of al-Haqq), for the same term Simnānī refers to actions of al-Haqq. Since in criticizing Ibn al-Arabī, Simnānī takes into account his own definition of the term Wujūd al-Mutlaq as the actions of al-Haqq, his criticisms are not valid. In fact, both exonerate al-Haqq from all the conditions. However, while Ibn al-Arabī chooses to verbalize the existence of God with the concept of “Absolute Being”, Simnānī only approves to express the existence of God with the concepts of wājib al-wujūd and al-Wujūd al-Haqq and differing from Ibn al-Arabī attributes the meaning of the actions of God to the concept of Absolute Being.Simnānī’s second critique against Ibn al-Arabī is related to this sentence: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. An annotation that is written by Simnānī on a page which is out of his gloss on al-Futūhāt is highly harsh reads as follows: “O, followers of the most deviant leader! If you hear that one says that your sheikh is identical with his beard, put the claim that he is identical with his rejectomenta aside, should you accept this and tolerate him?” It is understood from these sentences that Simnānī considers the concept “al-ayn” as the essence of that thing. Though, the word “al-ayn” is one of the most multi-meaning word in the Arabic language and in Ibn al-Arabī’s works it is used with various meanings such as eye, the quintessence, spring, water source, tangible being of a thing, the essence of a thing and so on. The usage as “the essence of a thing” is very much common in Ibn al-Arabī’s works. It is interesting that while this word has so many meanings, Simnānī takes one meaning as base and blaspheme against Ibn al-Arabī. It is obvious that the main cause for Simnānī’s critique against Ibn al-Arabī in both problems is his attribution to the concepts different meanings than Ibn al-Arabī and then judging him in the context of his attributes. (shrink)

I provide a critical commentary regarding the attitude of the logician and the philosopher towards the physicist and physics. The commentary is intended to showcase how a general change in attitude towards making scientific inquiries can be beneficial for science as a whole. However, such a change can come at the cost of looking beyond the categories of the disciplines of logic, philosophy and physics. It is through self-inquiry that such a change is possible, along with the realization of the (...) essence of the middle that is otherwise excluded by choice. The logician, who generally holds a reverential attitude towards the physicist, can then actively contribute to the betterment of physics by improving the language through which the physicist expresses his experience. The philosopher, who otherwise chooses to follow the advancement of physics and gets stuck in the trap of sophistication of language, can then be of guidance to the physicist on intellectual grounds by having the physicist’s experience himself. In course of this commentary, I provide a glimpse of how a truthful conversion of verbal statements to physico-mathematical expressions unravels the hitherto unrealized connection between Heisenberg uncertainty relation and Cauchy’s definition of derivative that is used in physics. The commentary can be an essential reading if the reader is willing to look beyond the categories of logic, philosophy and physics by being ‘nobody’. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement on the necessity to obtain informed consent in research, opinions vary on the threshold of disclosure necessary and the best method to obtain consent. We aimed to investigate Australian researchers’ views on, and their experiences with, obtaining informed consent. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 researchers from NSW institutions, working (...) in various fields of research. Interviews were analysed and coded to identify themes. Results Researchers reported that consent involved information disclosure, understanding and a voluntary decision. They emphasised the variability of consent interactions, which were dependent on potential participants’ abilities and interests, study complexity and context. All researchers reported providing written information to potential participants, yet questioned the readability and utility of this information. The majority reported using signed consent forms to ‘operationalise’ consent and reported little awareness of, and lack of support in implementing more dynamic informed consent procedures, such as verbal informed consent, that was fit for the purposes of their studies. Views on Human Research Ethics Committees varied. Some reported inconsistent, arduous inputs on the information form and consent process. Others expressed reliance on HRECs for guidance, viewing them as institutional safeguards. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of transparent relationships, both between researchers and participants, and between researchers and HRECs. Where the relationship with study participants was reported as more robust, researchers felt that they were better able to ensure participants made better, more informed decisions. Where the relationship with HRECs was reported as more robust, researchers were more likely to view them as institutional safeguards, rather than as bureaucratic hindrances. Conscientious and mindful researchers are paramount to ensuring the procedure accommodates individual requirements. This study advocates that when designing ethical informed consent practices, researchers should be integrated as autonomous players with a positive input on the process, rather than, in the worst case, predatory recruiters to be curtailed by information forms and oversight. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Zen/Ch’an-Catholic Dialogue Explores the Path to Spiritual MaturationFrancis V. TisoThe second in a four year series of dialogues between Catholics and Buddhists on the West Coast was held at Mercy Center, Burlingame, California, on the topic “Abiding in Christ; Taking Refuge in the Buddha: Then What?” The January 28–February 2, 2008, meeting was cochaired by Rev. Heng Sure of the Institute for World Religions, Berkeley, California, and John C. (...) Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah.In his keynote, Bishop Wester observed that one year previous (January 24–27, 2007) at the City of the Ten Thousand Buddhas, the dialogue considered the topic “Abiding in Christ; Taking Refuge in the Buddha.” The participants explored the Buddhist “Refuge” practice, entailing “taking refuge in, or relying upon, the Buddha, his Teachings, and the enlightening Community” (the “Three Jewels” of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). This was compared with the Catholic sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist). Both practices constitute the basis for entry into the spiritual life for both communities, and both continue to impact the integration of faith with daily life. “Abiding in Christ” and “Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels” are prerequisites for serious engagement with the spiritual and ethical values of Catholic Christianity and Zen/Ch’an and Vajrayana Buddhism. Since these “initiatic” practices involve personal commitment and free choice, they illuminate the heart of our previous four years of dialogue: “Walking the Bodhisattva Path / Walking the Christ Path” (2003), “Transformation of Hearts and Minds: Approaches to Precepts” (2004), “Practice: Means Toward Transformation” (2005), and “Meeting on the Path” (2006).Although the topic under consideration in 2007 might have been considered “basic material” for the way people enter the spiritual life, the dialogue was rich in the range of topics discussed. The participants in 2007 revisited some of the great dyads of the spiritual life, such as the distinction between cataphatic and apophatic spirituality, between the active life and the contemplative life, between attainment of wisdom and the practice of compassion, between verbalization and ineffability, between experience and that which transcends even the category of experience. Moreover, the group expressed a great interest in exploring more deeply the subject of ethical responsibility in transmitting these teachings to students and communities. Transmitting [End Page 145] the teachings involves both accumulating a substantial body of knowledge and also having a personal commitment to the transformative process.Giving emphasis to this dialogue’s long-term commitment to transformation, this year’s theme builds upon previous efforts to understand “abiding and refuge.” It is therefore in this light that the discussion raises the question: “Then what?” What does a Christian do, what does a Buddhist do with his or her life, once initiation has been completed? In order to answer this question, the dialogue took a step forward from last year’s discussion of Christian and Buddhist initiation into the terrain of spiritual progress, maturation, mentoring, and guidance. In order to bring an experiential dimension into the work of dialogue, there was a willingness to take the risk of introducing two afternoons of experiential contemplative practice. In this way, the methods available to Buddhist practitioners and the Christian faithful can be seen from the perspective of lived experience and commitment.The group quickly raised questions directed towards making sense of what is called “spiritual progress” or “transformation.” What do these terms actually mean in real human lives? How do the participants embody these processes? How do they discern the authenticity—or lack thereof—in both practices and practitioners? How do they hand the practices, and the knowledge about spiritual growth, to others? How also do they and their communities train those whose ministry it will be to lead and guide others?Resonating with the insightful comments (Osservatore Romano, December 15, 2007) of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, this year’s dialogue pursued an “exchange of our own spiritual experiences.” One participant emphasized: “Sharing each others’ religious practices really is the heart of this dialogue for me; this is where I experience our underlying unity.” Two practical strategies were employed in order to facilitate this exchange. The first strategy was... (shrink)

Teaching students to ask and answer questions is critically important if they are to engage in reasoned argumentation, problem-solving, and learning. This study involved 35 groups of grade 6 children from 18 classrooms in three conditions (cognitive questioning condition, community of inquiry condition, and the comparison condition) who were videotaped as they worked on specific inquiry-based science tasks. The study also involved the teachers in these classrooms who were audio-taped as they interacted with the children during these tasks. The results (...) show that while there were no significant differences in the children's explanatory behaviour across the two time periods, there were significant differences in the total verbal interactions between the children in the cognitive questioning condition and their peers in the community of inquiry and comparison conditions. Furthermore, the children in the cognitive questioning condition obtained higher reasoning and problem-solving scores than peers in the other conditions. Interestingly, while there were no significant differences between the teachers’ basic and extended mediating behaviours in the three conditions at Times 1 and 2, there was a significant difference in extended mediation behaviours with the teachers demonstrating nearly three times more extended mediation to promote students’ learning at Time 2 than they did at Time 1. Teacher intervention in providing guidance in how to interact during cooperative, inquiry-based science appears to be critical to helping students engage in higher-level thinking and learning. (shrink)

The component structures of two distinct neuropsychological systems are described. "System-Y" depends upon "system-X" which, on the other hand, can operate independently of system-Y. System-X provides a matrix upon which system-Y must operate, and, system-Y is transformed by the operations of system-X. In addition these neuropsychological structures reverberate in political history and in the cosmos. The most fundamental structure in the soul, in society, and in the cosmos, has the form of a conical spiral. It can be described mathematically as (...) an harmonic system and mythologically in terms of the birth, marriage and death of the divine-king. ;System-Y corresponds to the neocortex. System-X corresponds to the region below the cortex including the limbic brain. Many of the essential structures of system-Y are captured by Plato's image of the helmsman: orientation, locomotion, manual control and dexterity, visual guidance, verbal command, intention, and volition. System-X on the other hand has been systematically neglected by Western culture, beginning with Plato. ;The dissertation builds upon Yakovlev's distinction between "teleokinesis," "ectokinesis" and "endokinesis." "Teleokinesis" refers to goal-directed action in external space, and belongs to system-Y. Ectokinesis and endokinesis are components of system-X. "Endokinesis" refers to movements within the body. "Ectokinesis" refers to the emotions, which are expressions of endokinesis. The mechanics of ectokinesis is that of an harmonic or vibrational system, as is the mechanics of a musical instrument. ;Within a trance the structure of system-Y is temporarily altered, such that system-X enters the foreground of awareness. Because ectokinesis is analogous to music cultures inspired by trance experience understand the universe in terms of music. The structure of ectokinesis in a trance is that of a conical spiral. Plato inherited the mystical traditions of the ancient Near East but replaced the spiral of emotions with a spiral of ideas , by understanding the axis of the cone as the paradigmatic dimension, and the angular rotation of the spiral as the syntagmatic dimension, of language. Finally I explain how the mythology and political structure of theocratic society imitated the neuropsychological structures of trance experience. (shrink)

Little is known about distance processing in patients with posterior brain damage. Although many investigators have claimed that distance estimates are normal or abnormal in some of these patients, many of these observations were made informally and the examiners often asked for relative, and not absolute, distance estimates. The present investigation served two purposes. First, we wanted to contrast the use of distance information in peripersonal space for perceptual report as opposed to visuomotor control in our visual form agnosic patient, (...) DF. Second, we wanted to see to what extent her abilities to process distance cues were dependent on binocular vision, in light of Milner et al.'s (1991) observations of preserved stereopsis in DF, and Dijkerman et al.'s (1996) and Marotta et al.'s (1997) observations that her visual guidance of grasping may be particularly dependent on binocular vision of the target. We hypothesized that DF's visuomotor responses would show normal sensitivity to target distance, while her perceptual estimates would not. In the first experiment, we required DF and two age- and sex-matched control subjects to reach out and grasp black cubes placed at varying distances, or to estimate the distance of the cubes from the hand starting position without making a reaching movement. In the second experiment, we required DF and two age-matched control subjects to point as rapidly and accurately as possible to small LED targets which differed in spatial location, under binocular and monocular conditions. The results showed that, relative to the control subjects, DF's grasping movements produced normal peak velocity-distance scaling-when she reached for blocks which varied in depth or pointed to LED targets which were presented at different distances in depth. In contrast, in the cube experiment, her verbal estimates of object distance were poorly scaled, although they improved slightly under the binocular conditions. The results are discussed in terms of current theories of processing streams in extrastriate visual cortex and the distinction between categorical and coordinate spatial processing. (shrink)

There is common agreement that preschool-level science education affects children’s curiosity, their positive approach towards science, and their desire to engage with the subject. Children’s natural curiosity drives them to engage enthusiastically in all forms of exploration. Engaging in scientific exploration necessitates self-regulation capabilities and a wide repertoire of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine to what extent preschoolers (aged 5‒6 years) implement nascent inquiry skills, metacognitive awareness, and self-regulation capabilities during play-based scientific exploration (...) tasks. An additional purpose was to investigate the relationships between these capabilities, a relationship not yet investigated in the context of play-based, scientific exploration among young children. The study consisted of 215 preschoolers, from 10 preschools. For this study, we developed two scientific exploration tasks—structured and open-ended. Our motivation was to examine whether preschoolers’ capabilities will differ in the context of structured task which is aligned with the view that young children need guidance and explicit instructions compared to the context of open-ended, play-based task–allowing the children to apply and test their intuitive theories and skills. During performance participants were videotaped. Their verbal and non-verbal responses were analyzed by means of a scoring scheme. The results of a micro-analysis of about 100 hours of video showed that given the opportunity, even without setting explicit goals and instructions, children exhibit inquiry capabilities: they ask questions, plan, hypothesize, use tools, draw conclusions. Asking questions and planning were better manifested during the structured task. Children also manifested higher levels of attention, persistence, and autonomy during the structured task. However, significant higher scores of self-regulation indications were revealed in the context of the open-ended, play-based, exploration task. Moreover, results indicate significant correlations between the five measures of preschoolers’ inquiry capabilities and measures of metacognitive strategic awareness and self-regulation. The results of the present study suggest the importance of combining various learning environments and experiences in early science education that encourage children to engage in structured exploration alongside play-based, open-ended, exploration. (shrink)

BackgroundInstitutional review boards (IRBs) are formally designated to review, approve, and monitor biomedical research. They are responsible for ensuring that researchers comply with the ethical guidelines concerning human research participants. Given that IRBs might face different obstacles that cause delays in their processes or conflicts with investigators, this study aims to report the functions, roles, resources, and review process of IRBs in Saudi Arabia.MethodThis was a cross-sectional self-reported survey conducted from March 2021 to March 2022. The survey was sent to (...) 53 IRB chairpersons and the administration directors (or secretary) across the country through email after receiving verbal consent. The validated survey consisted of eight aspects: (a) organizational aspects, (b) membership and educational training, (c) submission arrangements and materials, (d) minutes, (e) review procedures, (f) communicating a decision, (g) continuing review, and (h) research ethics committee (REC) resources. A total of 200 points indicated optimal IRB functions.ResultsTwenty-six IRBs across Saudi Arabia responded to the survey. Overall, the IRBs in this study scored a total of 150/200 of the points on the self-assessment tool. Relatively newer IRBs (established less than ten years ago) conducted meetings at least once in a month, had annual funding, had more balanced gender representation, tended to score higher than older IRBs. The organizational aspect score was the lowest among all items in the survey (14.3 score difference, p-value < 0.01). The average turnaround time for expedited research from proposal submission to final decision was 7 days, while it was 20.5 days for the full committee review.ConclusionSaudi IRBs performed generally well. However, there is room for focused improvement with respect to extra resources and organizational issues that require closer evaluation and guidance from the regulatory bodies. (shrink)

People's desire not to limit the meaning of Hancang driving force, continuous development and self-transcendence, which is people from within and beyond the root driving force. The so-called "inner beyond" is not a process of idealism, which began with the desire, from the bottom of the body, and go up on the layer by layer through the heart of the development process裡and mental flexibility, and would therefore have to enhance and transform. We regard the body as I desire the presence (...) of mode. Significance by the driving force in the body and thus close to the appearance, at first non-verbal, and then eventually completed in the language of representation. Through a variety of different non-linguistic representation, the meaning of the body of the driving force to obtain specific and differentiation, as music, art, dance, drama art form ... ... and so on. These different forms of art of common origins, is made ​​to understand the forms of physical exercise, as they are each other's differences, then is made ​​to understand the form of different, such as voice, image, attitude ... ... and so the nature and rules lawyers, and the rise because of their differences on the artistic and cultural expressions of different, and even the formation of the various arts precinct. In order to film art integrated voice, image and body movement, presented at the time of the current moving image, to the above description of the story. Different types of art is "the desire of the induced mover", which provides clear instructions and guidance In order to man the desire for meaning. The meaning of desire is the driving force of development of art in different fields to cross-border basic driving force. Story has entered into a description of the classification of the appearance of language, its basic features is metaphorical. Cross-disciplinary domain of the past will pin their hopes on the concepts and logical reasoning and arguments permit. Today, the language of metaphor for understanding the nature, making metaphor and narrative clues as cross-domain, and in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and even among. The reason why life events, actions and circumstances can be constructed to the story, because there I am with the interaction between multiple otherness, its impetus came from one continuous extrapolation, and extrapolation of each other. And diversity of his stories were always the people the story, and always coming to the multivariate description of those who hear him. Through stories, we witness In order to the meaning of life, but always to witness the way metaphor and description of each story to each other through mutual enrichment. Description of the future, after all, the story, no matter real or imagined, there is established based on the relationship regardless of which I was with him who have the freedom in the relationship, a relationship in freedom. It is also across the world who can not break the fundamental driving force and field-based. This paper assumes that there is an undetermined dynamic energy for meaningfulness in human desire, which develops and transcends any particular realization. This is the original energy by which human beings could attain transcendence by way of immanence, which is not an idealist process, but rather originated from a body-based desire that develops upwards and fuller to integrate the mental and the spiritual. Representability, first non-linguistic and then linguistic, is the access to meaning for our desire that takes body as its mode of existence. Through different forms of representation, such as sounds, pictures and gestures ... etc., the project of meaning is specified. The movement of body in intelligible forms is the common origin of music, dancing and performative arts. Cultural difference and artistic boundaries are based upon differences in the nature and rule of these intelligible forms. The art of filming, which synthesizes image, music and body movement in presenting images moving in time so as to tell stories of various kinds. All forms of art are "inducers of desire" by articulating, determining and guiding our desire for meaning. This dynamic development of our desire for meaning is the common basic energy by which we can cross the borders of different arts. Story-telling presupposes linguistic representation accessible to our meaning dynamism. In the past, concepts and logical reasoning and argumentation were taken to be the hope for interdisciplinary research. But now, with the better understanding we have of the metaphoric nature of language, metaphors and narratives are taken to be the clue for a cross-bordering effort in different sciences, human , social and natural. If there are events, actions and plots in human existence to be constructed as stories, it is because there is always interaction with multiple others, the dynamism of it consisting in our incessant act of strangification and mutual strangification. Stories are always stories about one self with multiple others and told to multiple others. By telling stories, we witness a particular way of meaningful life, always metaphorically interpreted. We achieve mutual enrichment by telling stories to each other. The ultimate foundation of cross-bordering in arts and scientific disciplines consists in the ontology of dynamic relation, in which there is relatedness in freedom and freedom in being related, and this is the ground on which all our life stories, both real and imaginative, are based. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 501 the practical problems of daily life by providing an explanation for misfortune and a source of guidance in times of uncertainty. There were also attempts to use it for divination and supernatural healing" (p. 151). Along these same lines, one should also cite a number of articles by Natalie Zemon Davis and, above all, the work of Robert Mandl 'ou. 17 To conclude these (...) remarks, I must stress once again that Cassirer's program, in its pure form, is not only impossible for any but the mystic to follow; it is fundamentally anti~ historical. Peter Gay himself, a great admirer of Cassker, and a historian who has a penchant for such neo--idealist hocus-pocus, has tended to follow Cassirer's dictum in his interpretation of the Enlightenment as a whole (to his grid, one is tempted to add).TM Earlier, in Voltaire's Politics (1959), Gay had made a most convincing case for a radically different approach, which he calls "the social history of ideas." Instead of "searching for a dynamic center of thought," "a single point of view," of which each pamphlet, poem or tale was but another facet, Gay presented Voltaire's works as responses to specific situatiom--a series of positions which, if not discrete, were at least sufficientlydiverse as to be incomprehensible without intimate knowledge of the peculiar circumstances of each. I am not suggestinghere that the historian of philosophy abandon his traditional m6tier in a mad search for more fashionable methods. There will always be a need for insightful, penetrating analyses of individual thinkers, and probing essays into internal consistencies or contradictions. Febvre readily conceded that the historian concerned only with "placing" Descartes in his century has not thereby come to grips with Cartesianism. But abstract analysis cannot safelybe divorced from its natural collateral disciplines. It is time to stop studying philosophical ideas as if they were statements propounded in a void. If we neglect the rhetorical situation of philosophy, if we forget the particular audience to which an idea was addressed, we run the risk of forgetting what it is we mean by an idea in the first place. ALeaev SOMA~ Par/~ COMPLEMENTARY METHODOLOGIES IN THE HISTORY OF IDEAS Alfred Soman doses his article with the modest statement, "I am not suggesting here that the historian of philosophy abandon his traditional metier in a mad search for more fashionable methods. There will always be a need for insightful, penetrating analyses of 1T N. Z. Davis, "The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth-Century France.,"Past and Present, No. 50 (February, 1971), 41-75; "The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France," ibid., No. 59 (May, 1973), 51-91. Mandrou's recent Des humaniatea au.r hommea de science: XVI 9 et XVIIe si~cles (1973) is by far the most coherent and systematic synthesisof the new historiography of ideas for this period. Specialistswill of course findroom to quarrel over some of the details;but as an initial outline and as a program for future research, the virtues of Mandrou's book are, I think, indisputable. is E.g., P. Gay, The Enlightenment, an Interpretation, 2 vols. (New York, 1966-1969). Gay's s~lmmaryremarks on Charron (I, 303) are so typical of his verbal sleights of hand that I cannot resist the following quotation: "While Charron was not a philosophe before his time---he was a priest and a theologian---the values he celebrates, in open dcfcren~ to his Romans, are the v~u of tl~ Eallghtc~m~nt." 502 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY individual thinkers, and probing essays into internal consistencies or contradictions.''t Yet what else might his intent be when he tacks on to a critique of an article explicitly designed as a textual analysis of De la Sagesse a glowing!audation of the new trends in the social history of ideas. The second half of his article is in fact an attack on many of the textual studies that fill this journal. The new trends in historiography that have so greatly affected eighteenth-century studies do indeed look most promising,2 hut in our concern for the social milieu in which... (shrink)

The literature on epistemic injustice has thus far confined the concept of testimonial injustice to speech expressions such as inquiring, discussing, deliberating, and, above all, telling. I propose that it is time to broaden the horizons of testimonial injustice to include a wider range of expressions. Controversially, the form of communication I have in mind is non-verbal expression. Non-verbal expression is a vital, though often overlooked, form of communication, particularly for people who have certain neurocognitive disorders. Dependency upon (...) non-verbal expression is a common feature of some forms of neurocognitive disorders such as ‘intellectual disabilities’, autism and late-stage dementia. According to the narrow definition of testimonial injustice currently championed in the literature, people who express non-verbally are exempt from testimonial injustice. However, when we consider cases where meaningful communications from non-verbal people are dismissed or ignored in virtue of identity prejudice, there seems to be a distinct testimonial harm at play. Using late-stage dementia as a case study, I argue that the definition of testimonial injustice should be expanded to include all communicative practices, whether verbal or non-verbal, to encompass the epistemic harms inflicted upon some of the most marginalised in our society. (shrink)

Biobanking can promote valuable health research that may lead to significant societal benefits. However, collecting, storing and sharing human samples and data for research purposes present numerous ethical challenges. These challenges are exacerbated when the biobanking efforts aim to facilitate research on public health emergencies and include the sharing of samples and data between low/middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). In this article, we explore ethical challenges for COVID-19 biobanking, offering examples from two past infectious disease outbreaks in LMICs (...) where biobanking activities contributed to the perpetuation of global inequities. We focus on how the ethical imperative to promote the common good during public health emergencies can conflict with protecting the interests of biobank participants. We discuss how conducting biobank research under a waiver of informed consent during public health emergencies is ethically permissible, provided guidance is in place to prevent biopiracy and exploitation of vulnerable communities. We also highlight the need for biobank collaborations between LMICs and HICs to promote capacity building and benefit sharing. Finally, we offer guidance to promote the ethical oversight of biobanks and biobank research during the COVID-19 pandemic or other future public health emergencies. (shrink)

Passivity experiences in schizophrenia are thought to be due to a failure in a neurocognitive action self-monitoring system . Drawing on the assumption that inner speech is a form of action, a recent model of auditory verbal hallucinations has proposed that AVHs can be explained by a failure in the NASS. In this article, we offer an alternative application of the NASS to AVHs, with separate mechanisms creating the emotion of self-as-agent and other-as-agent. We defend the assumption that inner (...) speech can be considered as a form of action, and show how a number of previous criticisms of applying the NASS to AVHs can be refuted. This is achieved in part through taking a Vygotskian developmental perspective on inner speech. It is suggested that more research into the nature and development of inner speech is needed to further our understanding of AVHs. (shrink)

The present study aimed to quantify the magnitude of sex differences in humans' ability to accurately recognise non-verbal emotional displays. Studies of relevance were those that required explicit labelling of discrete emotions presented in the visual and/or auditory modality. A final set of 551 effect sizes from 215 samples was included in a multilevel meta-analysis. The results showed a small overall advantage in favour of females on emotion recognition tasks (d = 0.19). However, the magnitude of that sex difference (...) was moderated by several factors, namely specific emotion, emotion type (negative, positive), sex of the actor, sensory modality (visual, audio, audio-visual) and age of the participants. Method of presentation (computer, slides, print, etc.), type of measurement (response time, accuracy) and year of publication did not significantly contribute to variance in effect sizes. These findings are discussed in the context of social and biological explanations of sex differences in emotion recognition. (shrink)

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas (...) really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’. (shrink)

The philosophical interest of verbal disputes is twofold. First, they play a key role in philosophical method. Many philosophical disagreements are at least partly verbal, and almost every philosophical dispute has been diagnosed as verbal at some point. Here we can see the diagnosis of verbal disputes as a tool for philosophical progress. Second, they are interesting as a subject matter for first-order philosophy. Reflection on the existence and nature of verbal disputes can reveal something (...) about the nature of concepts, language, and meaning. In this article I first characterize verbal disputes, spell out a method for isolating and resolving them, and draw out conclusions for philosophical methodology. I then use the framework to draw out consequences in first-order philosophy. In particular, I argue that the analysis of verbal disputes can be used to support the existence of a distinctive sort of primitive concept and that it can be used to reconstruct a version of an analytic/synthetic distinction, where both are characterized in dialectical terms alone. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued in recent years that certain kinds of metaphysical debates—e.g., debates over the existence of past and future objects, mereological sums, and coincident objects—are merely verbal. It is argued in this paper that metaphysical debates are not merely verbal. The paper proceeds by uncovering and describing a pattern that can be found in a very wide range of philosophical problems and then explaining how, in connection with any problem of this general kind, there (...) is always a non-verbal debate to be had. Indeed, the paper provides a recipe for locating the non-verbal debates that surround these philosophical problems. This undermines metametaphysical verbalist views of our metaphysical questions—i.e., views that say that there is no non-verbal debate to be had about some metaphysical question. Finally, the paper also provides a quick argument against actual-literature verbalist views of our metaphysical questions; in other words, the paper argues that in connection with all of our metaphysical questions, it is easy to find examples of non-verbal debates in the actual philosophical literature. (shrink)

The syntagmatic paradigmatic model is a distributed, memory‐based account of verbal processing. Built on a Bayesian interpretation of string edit theory, it characterizes the control of verbal cognition as the retrieval of sets of syntagmatic and paradigmatic constraints from sequential and relational long‐term memory and the resolution of these constraints in working memory. Lexical information is extracted directly from text using a version of the expectation maximization algorithm. In this article, the model is described and then illustrated on (...) a number of phenomena, including sentence processing, semantic categorization and rating, short‐term serial recall, and analogical and logical inference. Subsequently, the model is used to answer questions about a corpus of tennis news articles taken from the Internet. The model's success demonstrates that it is possible to extract propositional information from naturally occurring text without employing a grammar, defining a set of heuristics, or specifying a priori a set of semantic roles. (shrink)

There is currently debate between deflationists and anti-deflationists about the ontology of persisting objects. Some deflationists think that disputes between, for example, four-dimensionalists (e.g. Ted Sider and David Lewis) and quasi-nihilists (e.g. Peter Van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks) are merely verbal disputes. Anti-deflationists deny this. Eli Hirsch is a deflationist who maintains that many ontological disputes are merely verbal. Theodore Sider maintains that the disputes are not merely verbal. Hirsch and Sider are thus engaged in a metaontological (...) dispute. In this paper, I argue that Hirsch's metaontological dispute with Sider is, by Hirsch's own lights, itself merely verbal. I conclude that the mere verbalness of his metaontological dispute with Sider suggests that Hirsch's account of what makes a dispute merely verbal may be problematic. (shrink)

This article introduces the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP), a first systematic method for identifying irony in natural discourse. The first section discusses previous operationalizations of irony and demonstrates that these are not explicit about which criteria were used to separate irony from non-irony. The second section argues why irony can be defined as an “utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation.” This section also explains why ironic utterances can be placed on an evaluation (...) scale. In the third section, clauses are proposed as a good unit of analysis when looking at irony in natural discourse. The different steps of the VIP are then introduced in the fourth section and subsequently applied in a sample analysis of a natural text in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses a reliability analysis of the VIP protocol. The article ends with an outlook on how future research on verbal irony might benefit from applying the VIP. (shrink)

While a large body of literature on pejorative language has emerged recently, derogatory communication is a broader phenomenon that need not constitutively involve the use of words. This paper delineates the class of non-verbal pejoratives and sketches an account of the derogatory power of a subset of NVPs, namely those whose effectiveness crucially relies on iconicity. Along the way, I point out some ways in which iconic NVPs differ from wholly arbitrary NVPs and ritualized threat signals in the animal (...) kingdom, such as the wolf’s snarl, which do not threaten or demean targets by virtue of any kind of iconographic depiction. An iconic portrayal such as a racist caricature disparages its target by inviting recipients to entertain an unflattering image of the target. “Blackface” performers in the nineteenth-century, for example, promulgated an unflattering image of African-Americans by means of make-up, costumes, and vocal impersonations. (shrink)

This research explores the nuanced realm of verbal violence, investigating its manifestations, consequences, and broader societal impact. Inspired by Albanian proverbs like “Words kill more than bullets” and “The tongue has no bones but can break them,” the study employs a multidimensional approach, integrating linguistic, sociological, and psychological perspectives. Analyzing various cultural definitions, the research unveils the complex nature of verbal violence, extending beyond simple exchanges to acts that seek to control, coerce, and inflict emotional pain. Emphasizing the (...) urgent need for awareness, understanding, and mitigation in today’s communication-centric world, the study navigates linguistic landscapes, revealing nuances reflective of the universal struggle to communicate without causing harm. Drawing on works by different authors, the research highlights verbal violence’s multifaceted nature, encompassing acts of force, contempt, and challenges to honesty. The paper concludes by underlining the hidden, yet potent wounds caused by verbal violence, advocating for collective efforts to foster communication promoting understanding, empathy, and positive change. (shrink)

Nineteen teachers took part in a brief, one session, in?service course in which they were trained in behavioural techniques with the main aim of helping them increase their rates of approval contingent upon required behaviours from their pupils and to decrease their rates of disapproval. Subsidiary aims were that the teachers would be enabled to alter the balance of approval/disapproval given to academic and social behaviours, to increase the rate of approval given to group behaviours, to increase the rate of (...) description given to behaviours approved/disapproved, to use pupils' names more frequently and increase redirections given to behaviours following disapproval. From observations taken before and after training, it was seen that the main aim was achieved, with teachers showing increased levels of approval contingent upon required behaviour and decreased levels of disapproval, these changes being accompanied by increased pupil on?task behaviour. For the subsidiary aims, the data showed an encouraging shift in the balance of the teachers' verbal behaviour towards social and academic behaviours but the results were rather mixed for the other subsidiary aims. (shrink)

The present paper describes the main discursive uses of creo, a performative form of doxastic verb creer, in oral Spanish interaction, specifically those in which the verbal form shows attenuation or intensification. To that end, this paper performs a thorough analysis of creo instances across conversational corpora (COGILA, COJEM, Val.Es.Co., Val.Es.Co. 2.0) and parliamentary debates corpora (Congreso de los Diputados, Les Corts Valencianes), with a combined 700 000 words collated as the sample. A preliminary qualitative and quantitative investigation was (...) carried out in which the goals were twofold: First, to isolate the features of each Concrete Interactive Context (CIC, Briz y Albelda, 2013) of creo in wich the doxastic verbal form appears and to identify which features favor its use (namely, register, level of dialogicity, and specific genre traits, Soler, 2019). Second, to determine what argumentative, face, or discursive factors influence the development of frequent pragmatic functions (Soler, 2018). This work finds that creo, although defined as a polyfunctional form (Simon-Vandenbergen, 2000; Gachet, 2009: Mullan, 2010), exhibits a set of three pragmatic values that affects, in different ways, the interactants’ face: affiliation or reinforcement of relations with other/-s - neutrality - de-responsibility. (shrink)

Many items of culture which are conveyed from one culture to another may take verbal form, and then constitute what Jakobson called “translation proper.” If such diffusions involve a co-occurrent change of semiotic systems, they are of such a different nature, that we better reserve another term for it: transposition. Whether or not accompanied by transpositions, such as pictures, translational events may play an important part in the encounter between cultures, not only in the negative sense of deformations as (...) postulated by the Tartu school. Particularly, when such transpositions make up a massive occurrence, as was the assimilation of the Greek-Muslim heritage in Middle Age Europe, or the more extended process by means of which Europe took on of the experience of the so-called New World several centuries later, such processes may actually enrich the homeculture. In this paper, we will study the latter process, zeroing in on a single, if protracted, event, the creation of the work ascribed to Bernardino de Sahagún, which really involved the collaboration of many scholars, many of them bearers of Aztec culture, exclusively or in combination with Western culture. This case interests us in particular, also because it involved the transposition of pictures, not, in the sense, of Western pictures being substitued for single pre-Hispanic picture, but rather as a kind of semiotic means contributing in different ways to the process of constitution. (shrink)

Metaphor plays a unique role in cognitive development by structuring abstract concepts and leading to conceptual change. Existing work suggests early emergence of metaphorical abilities, with five-year-olds understanding and explaining metaphors that involve cross-domain comparisons (e.g., SPACE to TIME). Yet relatively little is known about the factors that explain this developmental change. This study focuses on spatial metaphors for time, and asks whether cognitive and/or verbal factors best explain developmental changes in three- to six-year-old children's comprehension and explanation of (...) metaphors. The results show that children's grasp of the time concept—but not verbal ability—predicts their metaphor comprehension. Verbal ability, on the other hand, is a predictor of metaphor explanation, even after controlling for age. The results thus suggest that cognitive and verbal factors selectively predict children's emerging metaphorical abilities. (shrink)

This study critically explores the representation of ideologies across the verbal and visual modes in 15 articles and photographs from local Spanish-language print media with the goal of determining the potential for minoritized semiotic texts to challenge the negative semiotic treatment of Latin@ immigrants in the United States. Following a critical social semiotic approach, the analysis of intersemiotic relationships demonstrates that approximately half of the semiotic texts analyzed communicate an overall transformative message by challenging the negative representations of Latin@s (...) in the mainstream media. The strong presence of transformative ideologies in the verbal and visual modes underscores the potential for Spanish-language media to represent Latin@s as powerful social actors who stand up to negative treatment through activism. Moreover, the contrast of ideologies across the verbal and visual modes may incite the audience to participate in activism that supports Latin@ immigrants in the United States. (shrink)

This article addresses the relationship between content, voice, and body language in persuasive communication and the contribution of these three elements of persuasive performances to its overall persuasiveness. Findings are presented from two separate laboratory experiments. In the first experiment three versions of a video displaying a speech were shown to three different groups of participants: without vocal emphasis and without gestures of the speaker, with vocal emphasis but without gestures, with vocal emphasis and gestures. Audio tracks of the first (...) two experimental conditions were later used in the second experiment to analyze the effects of vocal emphasis when no visual cues are present. Measurement included a questionnaire as well as Real Time Response-measurement. It was found that content dominates the effect of the speech; emphasis and gestures, however, improved the perception of some features of the speech, such as liveliness and power. Audio-only versions yielded similar results but were rated more favorably in general. (shrink)

One method for investigating the neurobiology of consciousness is to experimentally manipulate consciousness as a variable and then visualize the resultant functional brain changes with advanced imaging techniques. To begin investigation into this area, healthy volunteers underwent positron emission tomography scanning while listening to randomized word lists in both conscious and unconscious conditions. Following anaesthesia, subjects had no explicit memories. Nonetheless, subjects demonstrated implicit memory on a forced-choice test . These subsequent memory scores were correlated with regional brain metabolism measured (...) during encoding. Conscious recall and unconscious recognition memory demonstrated considerable anatomic overlap in correlating significantly with relative glucose metabolism in auditory verbal memory areas. However, only conscious recall correlated with mediodorsal thalamic nucleus activity; unconscious recognition memory did not. These findings suggest that conscious versus unconscious memory distinctions may depend on the presence or absence of correlated thalamic activity, and directly implicate the thalamus in the neurobiology of consciousness. (shrink)