Split-brain syndrome and extended perceptual consciousness

In this paper I argue that split-brain syndrome is best understood within an extended mind framework and, therefore, that its very existence provides support for an externalist account of conscious perception. I begin by outlining the experimental aberration model of split-brain syndrome and explain both: why this model provides the best account of split-brain syndrome; and, why it is commonly rejected. Then, I summarise Susan Hurley’s argument that split-brain subjects could unify their conscious perceptual field by using external factors to stand-in for the missing corpus callosum. I next provide an argument that split-brain subjects do unify their perceptual fields via external factors. Finally, I explain why my account provides one with an experimental aberration model which avoids the problems typically levelled at such views, and highlight some empirical predictions made by the account. The nature of split-brain syndrome has long been considered mysterious by proponents of internalist accounts of consciousness. However, in this paper I argue that externalist theories can provide a straightforward explanation of the condition. I therefore conclude that the ability of externalist accounts to explain split-brain syndrome gives us strong reason to prefer them over internalist rivals.     

Validity of Interpretation: A user validity perspective beyond the test score

This paper introduces the concept of user validity and provides a new perspective on the validity of interpretations from tests. Test interpretation is based on outputs such as test scores, profiles, reports, spreadsheets of multiple candidates' scores, etc. The user validity perspective focuses on the interpretations a test user makes given the purpose of the test and the information provided in the test output. This innovative perspective focuses on how user validity can be extended to content, criterion, and to some extent construct‐related validity. It provides a basis for researching the validity of interpretations and an improved understanding of the appropriateness of different approaches to score interpretation, as well as how to design test outputs and assessments that are pragmatic and optimal.     

Schizophrenia and the Scaffolded Self

A family of recent externalist approaches in philosophy of mind argues that our psychological capacities are synchronically and diachronically “scaffolded” by external (i.e., beyond-the-brain) resources. I consider how these “scaffolded” approaches might inform debates in phenomenological psychopathology. I first introduce the idea of “affective scaffolding” and make some taxonomic distinctions. Next, I use schizophrenia as a case study to argue—along with others in phenomenological psychopathology—that schizophrenia is fundamentally a self-disturbance. However, I offer a subtle reconfiguration of these approaches. I argue that schizophrenia is not simply a disruption of ipseity or minimal self-consciousness but rather a disruption of the scaffolded self, established and regulated via its ongoing engagement with the world and others. I conclude by considering how this scaffolded framework indicates the need to consider new forms of intervention and treatment.

     

How much is ‘quite a bit’? Mapping between numerical values and vague quantifiers

Vague quantifiers, terms like “quite a bit” and “hardly ever”, are often used in the response scales of psychology and social science questionnaires to measure the frequency of certain behaviours. However, responses to such questions arc confounded because people differ in their interpretations of vague quantifiers. We propose that people interpret vague quantifiers by constructing a notion of how most people behave. Examining a critical topic for media researchers–estimating the amount of television walched–we conducted two split-ballot experiments in national surveys. Our first study (n = 1028) demonstrates that the amount people think other people watch varies according to how much television they watch themselves and the behaviour of their social group. Our second experiment (n = 1106) extends this result to the interpretation of vague quantifiers. These findings shed light on the psychological processes involved when interpreting vague quantifiers, and bring into question the validity of many survey results.     

The influence of prematurity,maternal anxiety,and infants' neurobiological risk on mother–infant interactions

In this study, we investigated how the birth of a very low birth weight preterm (VLBW) infant influences the mother–infant interaction at 3 months. We also focused on the impact of the infant's neurobiological risk and maternal anxiety, and their interaction. The comparison of the VLBW preterm sample (n = 79) with an external full‐term sample (n = 35) showed mother–infant interactions of the families with the preterm infant to be more vocally responsive during the interaction, but less facially responsive during the interaction. Additionally, higher levels of maternal anxiety were associated with preterm infants being less facially responsive in interaction with their mother. While neurobiological risk of the infant played a part in this association, with higher risk infants also being less facially responsive, the relationship with maternal anxiety and the mother–child interaction was stronger. How these findings may influence therapeutic interventions is discussed.     

Transparency and the KK Principle

An important question in epistemology is whether the KK principle is true, i.e., whether an agent who knows that p is also thereby in a position to know that she knows that p. We explain how a “transparency” account of self‐knowledge, which maintains that we learn about our attitudes towards a proposition by reflecting not on ourselves but rather on that very proposition, supports an affirmative answer. In particular, we show that such an account allows us to reconcile a version of the KK principle with an “externalist” or “reliabilist” conception of knowledge commonly thought to make that principle particularly problematic.     

A cognitive footprint in archival data: Generalizing the dilution effect from laboratory to field settings

This paper delineates a bridging strategy for generalizing a theoretical proposition about human judgment from laboratory to field settings. This strategy encompasses experimental and archival methods, emphasizing each method’s complementary rather than competitive advantage. Basic experiments that use generic tasks and settings, and novice subjects, contribute empirical tests that maximize internal validity. Given a target area in the “real world” for generalizing the proposition, applied experiments that use tasks and settings with greater mundane realism, and professional subjects from the target area, contribute replicating tests that balance internal and external validity. As a complement to experimentation, archival research adds value by testing observable implications of the proposition in field settings. We relate the bridging strategy to judgment research on the dilution effect (i.e., the presence of nondiagnostic cues, when processed with diagnostic cues, causes judges to under-weigh the diagnostic cues) in psychology and applied areas. Finally, we contribute an archival data analysis that uncovers indirect evidence, or a cognitive footprint, of the dilution effect in a professional judgment setting where social and economic mechanisms potentially discipline systematic error.     

Everything is clear: All perceptual experiences are transparent

The idea that perceptual experience is transparent is generally used by naïve realists and externalist representationalists to promote an externalist account of the metaphysics of perceptual experience. It is claimed that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience can be explained solely with reference to the externally located objects and properties which (for the representationalist) we represent, or which (for the naïve realist) partly constitute our experience. Internalist qualia theorists deny this and claim that the phenomenal character of our perceptual experience is internally constituted. However, my concern in this paper is not with the metaphysical debate but with transparency as a phenomenological feature of perceptual experience. Qualia theorists have presented a number of examples of perceptual experiences which, they claim, do not even seem to be transparent; these experiences involve objects or properties which seem to be internally realized. I argue, contrary to the qualia theorist's claim, that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can in fact be characterized solely with reference to externally located objects and properties, and the sense in which some features of our perceptual experiences do not seem external is due to cognitive, not perceptual, phenomenology.     

Husserl's noema and the internalism‐externalism debate

In a number of papers, Hubert Dreyfus and Ronald McIntyre have claimed that Husserl is an internalist. In this paper, it is argued that their interpretation is based on two questionable assumptions: (1) that Husserl's noema should be interpreted along Fregean lines, and (2) that Husserl's transcendental methodology commits him to some form of methodological solipsism. Both of these assumptions are criticized on the basis of the most recent Husserl‐research. It is shown that Husserl's concept of noema can be interpreted in a manner that makes his theory far more congenial to a certain type of externalism, but ultimately it is argued that his phenomenological analysis of intentionality entails such a fundamental rethinking of the very relation between subjectivity and world that it hardly makes sense to designate it as being either internalist or externalist.     

Introspective Self-Knowledge and Reasoning: An Externalist Guide

According to the received view, externalist grounds or reasons need not be introspectively accessible. Roughly speaking, from an externalist point of view, a belief will be epistemically justified, iff it is based upon facts that make its truth objectively highly likely. This condition can be satisfied, even if the epistemic agent does not have actual or potential awareness of the justifying facts. No inner perspective on the belief-forming mechanism and its truth-ratio is needed for a belief to be justified. In my view, this is not the whole story. While I agree that introspective access to our reasons is a defining feature of justification for the access internalist, not the externalist, I will argue that even for the latter, some kind of introspective access is an epistemic desideratum. Yet, even given that I am right, the desirable might not be achievable for us. Recent psychological research suggests that we do not dispose of reliable introspection into the sources of our own beliefs. This seems to undermine the claim that we can introspectively know about the reasons upon which our beliefs are based. In this paper I will therefore additionally show why these results do not threaten the kind of introspective access desirable from an externalist point of view.

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Macroscopic Oil Droplets Mimicking Quantum Behaviour: How Far Can We Push an Analogy?

We describe a series of experimental analogies between fluid mechanics and quantum mechanics recently discovered by a team of physicists. These analogies arise in droplet systems guided by a surface (or pilot) wave. We argue that these experimental facts put ancient theoretical work by Madelung on the analogy between fluid and quantum mechanics into new light. After re-deriving Madelung’s result starting from two basic fluid mechanical equations (the Navier–Stokes equation and the continuity equation), we discuss the relation with the de Broglie–Bohm theory. This allows to make a direct link with the droplet experiments. It is argued that the fluid mechanical interpretation of quantum mechanics, if it can be extended to the general N-particle case, would have a considerable advantage over the Bohm interpretation: it could rid Bohm’s theory of its non-local character.     

How do we process novel conceptual combinations in context?

Most theories of how people interpret novel noun–noun combinations (e.g., ghost forest) do not sufficiently address the role of context, which is surprising given that novel combinations are generally encountered in discourse contexts. We evaluated three hypotheses for the role of context in interpretation. The generation hypothesis states that interpretation is based on sense generation both in and out of context. The anaphor resolution hypothesis states that interpretation initially involves identifying a referent from the prior discourse context, and meaning generation occurs only if anaphoric processing fails. The dual-process hypothesis states that sense generation and anaphor resolution operate in parallel, and both may influence initial interpretation. In two experiments, we examined reading times on novel combinations when the dominant meaning (most likely interpretation) or subordinate meaning (infrequent interpretation) preceded or followed the combination in text. Results supported the dual-process hypothesis.     

What is What it’s Like? Introducing Perceptual Modes of Presentation

The central claim of this paper is that what it is like to see green or any other perceptible property is just the perceptual mode of presentation of that property. Perceptual modes of presentation are important because they help resolve a tension in current work on consciousness. Philosophers are pulled by three mutually inconsistent theses: representational externalism, representationalism, and phenomenal internalism. I throw my hat in with defenders of the first two: the externalist representationalists. We are faced with the problem of explaining away intuitions that favor phenomenal internalism. Perceptual modes of presentation account for what it is like to see properties in a way that accommodates those intuitions without vindicating phenomenal internalism itself. Perceptual MoPs therefore provide a new way of being an externalist representationalist.     

The Psychology of the persecutor — With reference to Costa Gavras's film Music Box

This paper is based on the author's interpretation of the film Music Box by Costa Gavras. The external and internal preconditions in the development of a persecutor are discussed in an attempt to understand the process from a socio-psychological as well as psychoanalytic viewpoint. During crises of a social nature, earlier coping strategies lose their validity, resulting in a narcissistic blow to the individual's ego. Earlier repressed primitive aspects of the personality are reactivated. When the individual is exposed to a totalitarian ideology which promises salvation from anxiety, paranoid processes become anchored and may dominate.

The protagonist in the film is approached as a case-study. By reviewing his present and past actions, the process by which the young man became a persecutor is exemplified as well as the long-term effects upon his object relations.     

Scripts we live by: on inheriting canonical texts

ABSTRACT

In this article, I theorize the interpretation of harmful canonical texts with special reference to John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. As a result of the actions and rhetoric of some of its North American evangelical readers, the Institutes has come to function as an intellectual foundation for certain expressions of modern homophobia. In conversation with Jacques Derrida on inheritance and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on reparativity, I thus consider how queer evangelicals (especially those who wish to continue identifying themselves as such) ought to engage both Calvin’s text, particularly, as well as, more generally, those other canonical texts that are sources of trauma. In so doing, I proffer a capacious view of interpretation as not only what one says but also how one lives.     

Smith’s practicality requirement meets dual-process models of moral judgment

In The Moral Problem, Michael Smith argues that only motivational internalists can offer an adequate explanation of why changes in moral judgment tend to be accompanied by changes in motivation in morally virtuous people. Smith argues that the failure of motivational externalism to account for this phenomenon amounts to a reductio of the view. In this paper, I draw on dual-process models of moral judgment to develop an externalist response to Smith’s argument. The key to my proposal is that motivationally efficacious states are often the source of our moral judgments, and changes in judgment are typically the result of changes in these states. However, moral judgments can also be formed via an alternative pathway that does not necessarily affect motivation, and so motivation and judgment can come apart. This response not only defuses Smith’s objections to externalism, but challenges Smith to square his internalist proposal with the empirical details of moral judgment.     

Evaluating the Utility of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo in Discriminating Among <Emphasis Type="Italic">DSM-IV</Emphasis> ADHD Subtypes

The objective of the current study was to evaluate how the inclusion of 3 Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) symptoms in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnostic criteria influences the external validity of the ADHD subtypes. The sample comprised 228 children (166 boys, 62 girls) ranging in age from 5–18 years who were referred to clinics for attentional, behavioral, and/or learning problems and diagnosed with DSM-IV ADHD (124 Combined type, 81 Inattentive type, 23 Hyperactive-Impulsive type). Parent ratings of ADHD symptoms were obtained using the Emory Combined Rating Scale (ECRS), which assesses symptoms of the common DSM-IV childhood psychiatric disorders. Regression analyses incorporating planned comparisons were conducted to examine how the inclusion of SCT symptoms affects differences among ADHD subtypes on several external validity indicators (i.e., gender, age-of-onset, and overlapping conditions). The regression analyses did not yield any significant differences in gender ratios, mean age-of-onset, or overlapping externalizing or internalizing problems when the ADHD Inattentive type was subdivided into high- versus low-SCT groups. In conclusion, the current results suggest that the inclusion of parent-reported SCT symptoms in the ADHD diagnostic criteria has limited utility for isolating diagnostically meaningful subgroups of the Inattentive type or for enhancing the external validity of the ADHD subtypes in clinic-referred samples.     

Artificial grammer learning by infants: an auto‐associator perspective

This paper reviews a recent article suggesting that infants use a system of algebraic rules to learn an artificial grammar (Marcus, Vijayan, Bandi Rao & Vishton, Rule learning by seven‐month‐old infants. Science, 183(1999), 77–80). In three reported experiments, infants exhibited increased responding to auditory strings that violated the pattern of elements they were habituated to. We argue that a perceptual interpretation is more parsimonious, as well as more consistent with a broad array of habituation data, and we report successful neural network simulations that implement this lower‐level interpretation. In the discussion, we discuss how our model relates to other habituation research, and how it compares to other neural network models of habituation in general, and models of the Marcus et al. (1999) task specifically.     

LOCKE,SUSPENSION OF DESIRE,AND THE REMOTE GOOD

The chapter ‘Of power“ of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is a very fine discussion of agency and a very complex piece of philosophy. It is the result of the superimposition of at least three layers of text (those of the first, second and fifth editions of the Essay), expressive of widely differing views of the same matters. The argument concerning agency and free will that it puts forward (as it now stands, reporting Locke's last word on the subject) is thus beset with problems, and even inconsistencies. But these textual and analytical difficulties should not hide from us the relevance and, in a way, the deep coherence of Locke's philosophy of action. In what follows, I will attempt to cast some light on this complicated interpretive and conceptual matter, by a careful reading of some parts of Locke's discussion. The first section shows how accounting for the evaluation and choice of remote goods, in terms of their real value and in preference to smaller, nearer ones, is a crucial problem for Locke's philosophy of action. The second section reads Locke's move from an internalist to an externalist view of motivation as a first, conceptually complex step towards such an account; and shows how this is linked to a change in the concept of will. The third and fourth sections reconstruct Locke's account (a pattern of suspension and examination of occurrent desire); discuss the role of the motivational and normative concept of happiness; and cast some doubt on the consistency of Locke's position.