The role of experience in web-building spiders (Araneidae)

A typical feature of vertical orb-webs is the ‘top/bottom’ asymmetry, where the lower web region is larger than the upper web region. This asymmetry may improve prey capture success, because, sitting in the hub of the web, a spider can reach prey entangled below the hub faster than prey entangled in the area above the hub. While web asymmetry is known to vary intraspecifically, we tested if this variation also exists at the individual level and whether it is the result of experience, using two orb-web spider species, Argiope keyserlingi and Larinioides sclopetarius. The results reveal that experienced web-building spiders constructed more asymmetric webs than conspecifics deprived of any prior building experience over a period of several months. Experienced individuals invested more silk material into the web region below the hub, which covered a larger area. Moreover, web asymmetry was also influenced by previous prey capture experiences, as spiders increased the lower region of the web if it intercepted the most prey over a period of 6 days. Consequently, spiders may be able to use long-term web-building experience as well as short-term prey capture experience to build better traps. In contrast to previous views of spiders, experience can contribute to intraspecific as well as to individual variations in web design. Received: 1 March 1999 / Accepted after revision: 18 August 1999     

Decrypting ‘the Christian Thinking of the Flesh, Tacitly, the Caress, in a Word, the Christian Body’ in Le Toucher—Jean-Luc Nancy

This article responds to the question of the ‘implicit and presupposed theological turn of phenomenology’ by providing a close reading of Jacques Derrida’s Le Toucher—Jean-Luc Nancy (2000 French/2005 English translation), particularly concerning what Derrida alludes to as ‘the Christian thinking of the flesh’ in the French phenomenological tradition post-Husserl. In reading Derrida’s own text, the article identifies and then performs a ‘cryptonomy’ of references to the ‘Christian body,’ and of the ‘return of religion.’ The article also focuses on the more recent writings of Jean-Luc Nancy, especially Corpus (2000 French), concerning the body and its relationship to the concept of corporality (Leiblichkeit) from Husserl’s Ideas II.

Specialised use of working memory by Portia africana,a spider-eating salticid

Using expectancy–violation methods, we investigated the role of working memory in the predatory strategy of Portia africana, a salticid spider from Kenya that preys by preference on other spiders. One of this predator’s tactics is to launch opportunistic leaping attacks on to other spiders in their webs. Focussing on this particular tactic, our experiments began with a test spider on a ramp facing a lure (dead prey spider mounted on a cork disc) that could be reached by leaping. After the test spider faced the lure for 30 s, we blocked the test spider’s view of the lure by lowering an opaque shutter before the spider leapt. When the shutter was raised 90 s later, either the same lure came into view again (control) or a different lure came into view (experimental: different prey type in same orientation or same prey type in different orientation). We recorded attack frequency (number of test spiders that leapt at the lure) and attack latency (time elapsing between shutter being raised and spiders initiating a leap). Attack latencies in control trials were not significantly different from attack latencies in experimental trials, regardless of whether it was prey type or prey orientation that changed in the experimental trials. However, compared with test spiders in the no-change control trials, significantly fewer test spiders leapt when prey type changed. There was no significant effect on attack frequency when prey orientation changed. These findings suggest that this predator represents prey type independently of prey orientation.     

One-encounter search-image formation by araneophagic spiders

An experimental study of search-image use by araneophagic jumping spiders (i.e., salticid spiders that prey routinely on other spiders) supports five conclusions. First, araneophagic salticids have an innate predisposition to form search images for specific prey from their preferred prey category (spiders) rather than for prey from a non-preferred category (insects). Second, single encounters are sufficient for forming search images. Third, search images are based on selective attention specifically to optical cues. Fourth, there are trade-offs in attention during search-image use (i.e., forming a search image for one type of spider diminishes the araneophagic salticids attention to other spiders). Fifth, the araneophagic salticids adoption of search images is costly to the prey (i.e., when the araneophagic salticid adopts a search, the preys prospects for surviving encounters with the araneophagic salticid are diminished). Cognitive and ecological implications of search-image use are discussed.     

Concepts,Conceptual Schemes and Grammar

This paper considers the connection between concepts, conceptual schemes and grammar in Wittgenstein’s last writings. It lists eight claims about concepts that one can garner from these writings. It then focuses on one of them, namely that there is an important difference between conceptual and factual problems and investigations. That claim draws in its wake other claims, all of them revolving around the idea of a conceptual scheme, what Wittgenstein calls a ‘grammar’. I explain why Wittgenstein’s account does not fall prey to Davidson’s animadversions against the idea of a conceptual scheme as a force operating on a pre-conceptual content. In the sequel I deny that the distinction between grammatical and empirical propositions disappears in the last writings: it is neither deliberately abandoned, nor willy-nilly undermined by the admission of hinge propositions in On Certainty or by the role accorded to agreement in judgement.     

The Genesis of Hi-Worlds: Towards a Principle-Based Possible World Semantics

A Leibnizian semantics proposed by Becker in 1952 for the modal operators has recently been reviewed in Copeland’s paper The Genesis of Possible World Semantics (Copeland in J Philos Logic 31:99–137, 2002), with a remark that “neither the binary relation nor the idea of proving completeness was present in Becker’s work”. In light of Frege’s celebrated Sense-Determines-Reference principle, we find, however, that it is Becker’s semantics, rather than Kripke’s semantics, that has captured the true spirit of Frege’s semantic program. Furthermore, for Kripke’s possible world semantics to fit in Frege’s framework of senses, worlds and referents, it will have to be thoroughly reformulated. By introducing the notion of a hi-world into the picture, we manage to keep the key ingredients of Becker’s semantics intact, while at the same time solve a fatal problem that used to shadow Becker’s original semantics—it had not been able to make sense of inhomogeneous modality. The resulting generalized Beckerian semantics provides, in effect, a Beckerian analysis of the Kripkean possible worlds. It reveals the subtle hierarchical internal structure of a Kripkean world that has not been discovered before.     

LEXIN: A lexical database from Spanish kindergarten and first-grade readers

The LEXIN database offers psycholinguistic indexes of the 13,184 different words (types) computed from 178,839 occurrences of these words (tokens) contained in a corpus of 134 beginning readers widely used in Spain. This database provides four statistical indicators: F (overall word frequency), D (index of dispersion across selected readers), U (estimated frequency per million words), and SFI (standard frequency index). It also gives information about the number of letters, syntactic category, and syllabic structure of the words included. To facilitate comparisons, LEXIN provides data from LEXESP’s (Sebastián-Gallés, Martí, Cuetos, & Carreiras, 2000), Alameda and Cuetos’s (1995), and Martínez and García’s (2004) Spanish adult psycholinguistic frequency databases. Access to the LEXIN database is facilitated by a computer program. The LEXIN program allows for the creation of word lists by letting the user specify searching criteria. LEXIN can be useful for researchers in cognitive psychology, particularly in the areas of psycholinguistics and education.     

The role of learning in risk-avoidance strategies during spider–ant interactions

Cognitive abilities used by arthropods, particularly predators, when interacting in a natural context have been poorly studied. Two neotropical sympatric predators, the golden silk spider Nephila clavipes and the ectatommine ant Ectatomma tuberculatum, were observed in field conditions where their interactions occurred regularly due to the exploitation of the same patches of vegetation. Repeated presentations of E. tuberculatum workers ensnared in their web triggered a progressive decrease in the capture response of N. clavipes. All the spiders that stopped trying to catch the ant on the second and/or third trial were individuals that had been bitten during a previous trial. Behavioural tests in natural field conditions showed that after a single confrontation with ant biting, spiders were able to discriminate this kind of prey more quickly from a defenceless prey (fruit flies) and to selectively and completely suppress their catching response. This one-trial aversive learning was still effective after 24 h. Likewise, E. tuberculatum workers entangled once on a N. clavipes web and having succeeded in escaping, learned to escape more quickly, breaking through the web by preferentially cutting spiral threads (sticky traps) rather than radial threads (stronger structural unsticky components) or pursuing the cutting of radials but doing it more quickly. Both strategies, based on a one-trial learning capability, obviously minimize the number of physical encounters between the two powerful opponents and may enhance their fitness by diminishing the risk of potential injuries resulting from predatory interactions.     

Nature,Red in Tooth and Claw<Superscript>1</Superscript>

“Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw” explores Adorno’s ideas about our mediated relationship with nature. The first section of the paper examines the epistemological significance of his thesis about the preponderance of the object while describing the Kantian features in his notion of mediation. Adorno’s conception of nature will also be examined in the context of a review of J. M. Bernstein’s and Fredric Jameson’s attempts to characterize it. The second section of the paper deals with Adorno’s Freudian account of internal nature. While arguing against Joel Whitebook’s view that Adorno needs a concept of sublimation, I contend that Adorno’s genetic account of the relationship between nature and mind enables him to respond to the Freudian injunction to displace the id with the ego with a view to fostering autonomy. In the final section of the paper, problems with Adorno’s ideas about external and internal nature are briefly discussed. In Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000) p. 195, John Bellamy Foster remarks on this line from Alfred Lord Tennyson ’s In Memoriam, claiming that it was widely known for “anticipating ”Darwinian’ ideas,’’ including much-maligned and heretical (at the time) materialist doctrines.     

John Nash: Three Phases in the Career of a Beautiful Mind

This article is the Helen Flanders Dunbar Lecture presented at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 2002, the centennial year of her birth. It focuses on three periods in the evolution of Nash’s mental illness, the predelusional, delusional, and postdelusional periods, and provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of each. Donald Capps is Professor of Pastoral Psychology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His books include Men, Religion, and Melancholia (1997), Living Stories: Pastoral Counseling in Congregational Context (1998), Social Phobia: Alleviating Anxiety in an Age of Self-Promotion (1999), Jesus: A Psychological Biography (2000), Giving Counsel: A Minister’s Guidebook (2001), Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor (2002), and A Time to Laugh: The Religion of Humor (2005). He has served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and has an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Correspondence to Donald Capps, joan.blyth@ptsem.edu     

The UCLA Body Project II: Breast and Body Dissatisfaction among African, Asian, European, and Hispanic American College Women

Breast and global body dissatisfaction were examined in Asian (n = 237), European (n = 196), Hispanic (n = 109), and African (n = 58) American college women. Asian American women reported the lowest body satisfaction on the Appearance Evaluation Scale (Cash, T. F. The multidimensional body-self relations questionnaire users’ manual: 3rd revision, 2000) and greatest breast dissatisfaction on one of two breast dissatisfaction measures. Ethnic differences in breast dissatisfaction, but not in body dissatisfaction, disappeared when body size (BMI) was statistically controlled. Results were consistent with research showing that (1) ethnic differences in body dissatisfaction are small, (2) studies of ethnic differences must include appropriate controls for total or specific body size, and (3) Asian college women report lower global body satisfaction than women of African, European, or Hispanic heritage. For additional papers and information, please contact David Frederick at enderflies1@aol.com, visit his website at or contact Gordon B. Forbes at gforbes@millikin.edu.     

Opportunistic use of cognitive smokescreens by araneophagic jumping spiders

Little is known about how a prey species' cognitive limitations might shape a predator's prey-capture strategy. A specific hypothesis is investigated: predators take advantage of times when the prey's attention is focussed on its own prey. Portia fimbriata, an araneophagic jumping spider (Salticidae) from Queensland, is shown in a series of 11 experiments to exploit opportunistically a situation in which a web-building spider on which it preys, Zosis genicularis (Uloboridae), is preoccupied with wrapping up its own prey. Experimental evidence supports three conclusions: (1) while relying on optical cues alone, P. fimbriata perceives when Z. genicularis is wrapping up prey; (2) when busy wrapping up prey, the responsiveness of Z. genicularis to cues from potential predators is diminished; and (3) P. fimbriata moves primarily during intervals when Z. genicularis is busy wrapping up prey. P. fimbriata's strategy is effective partly because the wrapping behaviour of Z. genicularis masks the web signals generated by the advancing P. fimbriata's footsteps and also because, while wrapping, Z. genicularis' attention is diverted away from predator-revealing cues. Electronic Publication     

Evidence against integration of spatial maps in humans: generality across real and virtual environments

A real-world open-field search task was implemented with humans as an analogue of Blaisdell and Cook’s (Anim Cogn 8:7–16, 2005) pigeon foraging task and Sturz, Bodily, and Katz’s (Anim Cogn 9:207–217, 2006) human virtual foraging task to 1) determine whether humans were capable of integrating independently learned spatial maps and 2) make explicit comparisons of mechanisms used by humans to navigate real and virtual environments. Participants searched for a hidden goal located in one of 16 bins arranged in a 4 × 4 grid. In Phase 1, the goal was hidden between two landmarks (blue T and red L). In Phase 2, the goal was hidden to the left and in front of a single landmark (blue T). Following training, goal-absent trials were conducted in which the red L from Phase 1 was presented alone. Bin choices during goal-absent trials assessed participants’ strategies: association (from Phase 1), generalization (from Phase 2), or integration (combination of Phase 1 and 2). Results were inconsistent with those obtained with pigeons but were consistent with those obtained with humans in a virtual environment. Specifically, during testing, participants did not integrate independently learned spatial maps but used a generalization strategy followed by a shift in search behavior away from the test landmark. These results were confirmed by a control condition in which a novel landmark was presented during testing. Results are consistent with the bulk of recent findings suggesting the use of alternative navigational strategies to cognitive mapping. Results also add to a growing body of literature suggesting that virtual environment approaches to the study of spatial learning and memory have external validity and that spatial mechanisms used by human participants in navigating virtual environments are similar to those used in navigating real-world environments.     

Anti-Positionalism’s Regress

This paper is about the Problem of Order, which is basically the problem how to account for both the distinctness of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s preceding a, and the identity of facts like a’s preceding b and b’s succeeding a. It has been shown that the Standard View fails to account for the second part and is therefore to be replaced. One of the contenders is Anti-Positionalism. As has recently been pointed out, however, Anti-Positionalism falls prey to a regress argument which is to prove its failure. In the paper we spell out this worry, show that the worry is a serious one, and distinguish four possible strategies for Anti-Positionalism to deal with it.     

Parental Influences on Young Women’s Certainty about Their Career Aspirations

Identity control theory (Kerpelman, Pittman, & Lamke, Journal of Adolescent Research, 12: 325–346, 1997) and the literature on possible selves (Markus & Nurius, American Psychologist, 41: 954–969, 1986) and family influences on adolescents’ vocational choices (e.g., Otto, Journal of Career Development, 27: 111–117, 2000; Whiston & Keller, The Counseling Psychologist, 32: 493–568, 2004) were used to guide this study of young women’s career aspirations. How mother–daughter and father–daughter relationships were associated with young women’s certainty about their anticipated future careers was addressed with data from 304 female undergraduates. Findings indicated that parent–daughter connectedness predicted the young women’s anticipated distress, as well as their willingness to change to fit parental views should their parents disagree with their career aspirations. In addition, anticipated distress mediated associations between willingness to change and connectedness with parents, and between willingness to change and father–daughter career discussions. Discussing career goals with mother increased mother’s influence, but decreased father’s influence, on daughter’s career certainty under conditions of father–daughter disagreement about career choice. The ability to separate her own feelings from those of her father was particularly important in reducing the daughter’s willingness to change her career goals to fit maternal or paternal expectations. Collectively, these findings offer additional insights about the role of parent–adolescent relationships in understanding young women’s career aspirations and note the importance of considering the distinct influences of mothers and fathers on their daughters’ career goals and plans.     

Space,place, and sculpture: working with Heidegger

Heidegger’s paper ‘Art and Space’ (1969, Man and world 6. Bloomington: Indiana university Press) is the place where he gives his fullest discussion of a major art medium which is somewhat neglected in aesthetics, namely sculpture. The structure of argument in ‘Art and Space’ is cryptic even by Heidegger’s standards. The small amount of literature tends to focus on the paper’s role within Heidegger’s own oeuvre as an expression of changes in his understanding of space. This is ironic; for Heidegger’s main thematic in the essay is the way in which space is overcome in the creation of sculpture. Of course, by virtue of its three-dimensional character, sculpture seems to be a spatial medium, par excellence. The counter-intuitive character of Heidegger’s position requires, accordingly, that his argumentative strategy be scrutinized very closely. In this paper, therefore, I will examine closely the structure of Heidegger’s argument, with the aim of understanding, rectifying, and then developing his most important insights. My ultimate aim is to show the subtle, but radical points which are at issue in Heidegger’s arguments, and to develop them much further in the clarification of sculpture’s key philosophical significance.

Primeness, Internalism and Explanatory Generality

Williamson (2000) [Knowledge and its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press] argues that attempts to substitute narrow mental states or narrow/environmental composites for broad and factive mental states will result in poorer explanations of behavior. I resist Williamson’s arguments and use Twin-Earth style cases to argue for the causal inertness of broad mental states.     

Belief, faith, and acceptance

Belief is a central focus of inquiry in the philosophy of religion and indeed in the field of religion itself. No one conception of belief is central in all these cases, and sometimes the term ‘belief’ is used where ‘faith’ or ‘acceptance’ would better express what is intended. This paper sketches the major concepts in the philosophy of religion that are expressed by these three terms. In doing so, it distinguishes propositional belief (belief that) from both objectual belief (believing something to have a property) and, more importantly, belief in (a trusting attitude that is illustrated by at least many paradigm cases of belief in God). Faith is shown to have a similar complexity, and even propositional faith divides into importantly different categories. Acceptance differs from both belief and faith in that at least one kind of acceptance is behavioral in a way neither of the other two elements is. Acceptance of a proposition, it is argued, does not entail believing it, nor does believing entail acceptance in any distinctive sense of the latter term. In characterizing these three notions (and related ones), the paper provides some basic materials important both for understanding a person’s religious position and for appraising its rationality. The nature of religious faith and some of the conditions for its rationality, including some deriving from elements of an ethics of belief, are explored in some detail.     

Truth, Warrant and Superassertibility

In a recent paper on Truth, Knowability and Neutrality Timothy Kenyon sets out to defend the coherence of a putative anti-realist truth-predicate, superassertibility, due to Wright (1992, 1999), against a number of Wright’s critics. By his own admission, the success of Kenyon’s defensive strategies turns out to hinge upon a realist conception of absolute warrant which conflicts with the anti-realist character of the original proposal, based, as it was, on a notion of defeasible warrant. Kenyon’s potential success in resisting Wright’s critics brings a pyrrhic victory: either way, realism wins. Here I argue that the link between superassertibility and defeasible warrant can be restored in a way which clarifies the consistency of the pair, provided that the notion of inference to superassertibility is properly understood in logical terms. As one might expect, the requisite notion is not classical in character. As one might not expect, the notion cannot be properly construed in intuitionist terms either. Hence, I propose an alternative logical framework which, I believe, is at least formally adequate to the representation of superassertibility on the basis of defeasible warrant. The price to be paid for rejecting the ‘third way’ proposed here in favour of either of the two more traditional logical options is precisely that indicated by Kenyon’s discussion.