Distinguishing three levels in explicit self-awareness

This paper focuses on the development of explicit self-awareness in children. Mirror self-recognition has been the most popular paradigm used to assess this ability in children. Nevertheless, according to Rochat (2003), there are, at least, three different levels of explicit self-awareness. We therefore designed three different self-recognition tasks, each corresponding to one of these levels (a mirror self-recognition task, a picture self-recognition task and a masked self-recognition task). We observed a decrease in performance across the three tasks. This supports a developmental scale in self-awareness. Besides, the masked self-recognition performance makes it possible to assess the final and the most sophisticated level of self-awareness, i.e. the external self. To our best knowledge, this task is the first attempt to evaluate the external self in preverbal children. Our results indicate that 22-month old children show awareness of their external self or, at least, that this ability is in the process of being acquired.     

The neural correlates of visual self-recognition

This paper presents a review of studies that were aimed at determining which brain regions are recruited during visual self-recognition, with a particular focus on self-face recognition. A complex bilateral network, involving frontal, parietal and occipital areas, appears to be associated with self-face recognition, with a particularly high implication of the right hemisphere. Results indicate that it remains difficult to determine which specific cognitive operation is reflected by each recruited brain area, in part due to the variability of used control stimuli and experimental tasks. A synthesis of the interpretations provided by previous studies is presented. The relevance of using self-recognition as an indicator of self-awareness is discussed. We argue that a major aim of future research in the field should be to identify more clearly the cognitive operations induced by the perception of the self-face, and search for dissociations between neural correlates and cognitive components.     

Self-construal priming modulates neural substrates of self-awareness

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess whether self-construal priming can change adults' self-awareness induced during face perception. After reading essays containing independent or interdependent pronouns (e.g., I or we), participants were scanned while judging the head orientation of images showing their own and familiar faces. Neural activity in the right middle frontal cortex was greater when participants viewed their own rather than familiar faces, and this difference was larger after independent than after interdependent self-construal priming. The increased right frontal activity for participants' own faces relative to familiar faces was associated with faster responses. Our findings suggest that the neural correlates of self-awareness associated with recognition of one's own face can be modulated by self-construal priming in human adults.     

How Whites Should Live in This Strange Place

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Samantha Vice is correct to claim that whites should feel shame and regret, though perhaps not guilt, at their whiteness. She is wrong, however, to suggest that there is a sense in which whites should live in silence and humility, and withdraw from public political space. In particular, I argue that this latter claim has absurd consequences, since it implies a withdrawal from non-public and non-political spaces also. Besides, whites, as complex selves, face conflicting reasons for action which Vice insufficiently grapples with. I conclude, however, that Vice is best interpreted as rightly suggesting that whites should live in careful reflective self-awareness of how their whiteness, and whiteliness, unfairly privileges them, still. This is preferable advice to Vice’s notions of silence and humility which are rightly but unnecessarily susceptible to confusion and compelling counterargument. Or so I argue.     

Capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) respond to video images of themselves

Many studies have used mirror-image stimulation in attempts to find self-recognition in monkeys. However, very few studies have presented monkeys with video images of themselves; the present study is the first to do so with capuchin monkeys. Six tufted capuchin monkeys were individually exposed to live face-on and side-on video images of themselves (experimental Phase 1). Both video screens initially elicited considerable interest. Two adult males looked preferentially at their face-on image, whereas two adult females looked preferentially at their side-on image; the latter elicited lateral movements and head-cocking. Only males showed communicative facial expressions, which were directed towards the face-on screen. In Phase 2 monkeys discriminated between real-time, face-on images and identical images delayed by 1 s, with the adult females especially preferring real-time images. In this phase both screens elicited facial expressions, shown by all monkeys. In Phase 3 there was no evidence of discrimination between previously recorded video images of self and similar images of a familiar conspecific. Although they showed no signs of explicit self-recognition, the monkeys’ behaviour strongly suggests recognition of the correspondence between kinaesthetic information and external visual effects. In species such as humans and great apes, this type of self-awareness feeds into a system that gives rise to explicit self-recognition.     

Human action and virtue in Descartes and Spinoza

In this paper, I argue that despite undeniable fundamental differences between Descartes’ and Spinoza’s accounts of human action, there are some striking similarities between their views on right action, moral motivation, and virtue that are usually overlooked. I will argue, first, that both thinkers define virtue in terms of activity or freedom, mutatis mutandis, and thus in terms of actual power of acting. Second, I will claim that both Descartes and Spinoza hold a non-consequentialist approach to virtue, by which human actions are evaluated as virtuous or good on the basis of their motivational forces rather than their consequences. I will show further that both philosophers identify virtue qua free action with the highest good (summum bonum), and thus with that which is to be sought for its own sake and not as a means to anything preferable to it.     

Losing claims of rights

Conclusion I have contended that acting on some principle and complaining when others act in accordance with the same principle in similar circumstances is morally improper. By wrongdoing one forfeits the right to claim the right (s)he disregards in interacting with others. This is not equivalent to a view that one's acting in a certain way justifies others acting in that way, i.e. that by wrongdoing one forfeits rights (s)he disregards in interacting with others. It may still be morally improper to treat malfeasors in the same way they treat us but, I have argued, they cannot themselves claim a right not to be treated in that way.This analysis of the right to claim rights can help explain the change in moral status of wrongdoers in two important ways. First, if there are some non-forfeitable human rights, the loss of moral standing of one who disregards those rights in others can be explained. Second, and perhaps potentially more important, if having a right implies the right holder's being justified in claiming it, we have a basis for saying all human rights are forfeitable.This second position would require a tightening of the link between the right to X and the ancillary right to claim the right to X. I have not undertaken that burden here. Instead, I argued that the loss of the right to claim is, itself, a significant loss.     

Recognizing one's own face

We report two studies of facial self-perception using individually tailored, standardized facial photographs of a group of volunteers and their partners. A computerized morphing procedure was used to merge each target face with an unknown control face. In the first set of experiments, a discrimination task revealed a delayed response time for the more extensively morphed self-face stimuli. In a second set of experiments, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure brain activation while subjects viewed morphed versions of either their own or their partner's face, alternating in blocks with presentation of an unknown face. When subjects viewed themselves (minus activation for viewing an unknown face), increased blood oxygenation was detected in right limbic (hippocampal formation, insula, anterior cingulate), left prefrontal cortex and superior temporal cortex. In the partner (versus unknown) experiment, only the right insula was activated. We suggest that a neural network involving the right hemisphere in conjunction with left-sided associative and executive regions underlies the process of visual self-recognition. Together, this combination produces the unique experience of self-awareness.     

The Blind Men and the Elephant: Selective Examination of the Public-Private Literature Gives Rise to a Faulty Perception

ABSTRACT Wicklund and Gollwitzer make two claims that the distinction between public and private self-awareness/self-consciousness is “Aristotelian,” and that the distinction is fallacious For the distinction to be Aristotelian, as Wicklund and Gollwitzer use that term, requires that the distinction not be embedded in a “process” model of behavior Thus, the first claim is easily shown to be false The second claim rests on a variety of empirical and theoretical issues An examination of these issues reveals (a) that Wicklund and Gollwitzer's alternative interpretations for public self-attention effects are themselves Aristotelian—involving labels but no processes, (b) that their citation of literature relevant to their case is highly selective and misleading, and (c) that their abolition of the public-private distinction would leave an embarrassing contradiction among self-awareness effects, which Wicklund and Gollwitzer apparently are unable to address The vast preponderance of evidence thus supports the utility and the importance of the public-private self-focus distinction     

Mirror self-recognition in gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla): a review and evaluation of mark test replications and variants

Animal Cognition - Mirror self-recognition (MSR), widely regarded as an indicator of self-awareness, has not been demonstrated consistently in gorillas. We aimed to examine this issue by setting...     

Split-brain reveals separate but equal self-recognition in the two cerebral hemispheres

To assess the ability of the disconnected cerebral hemispheres to recognize images of the self, a split-brain patient (an individual who underwent complete cerebral commissurotomy to relieve intractable epilepsy) was tested using morphed self-face images presented to one visual hemifield (projecting to one hemisphere) at a time while making "self/other" judgments. The performance of the right and left hemispheres of this patient as assessed by a signal detection method was not significantly different, though a measure of bias did reveal hemispheric differences. The right and left hemispheres of this patient independently and equally possessed the ability to self-recognize, but only the right hemisphere could successfully recognize familiar others. This supports a modular concept of self-recognition and other-recognition, separately present in each cerebral hemisphere.     

The processing of auditory and visual recognition of self-stimuli

This study examined self-recognition processing in both the auditory and visual modalities by determining how comparable hearing a recording of one’s own voice was to seeing photograph of one’s own face. We also investigated whether the simultaneous presentation of auditory and visual self-stimuli would either facilitate or inhibit self-identification. Ninety-one participants completed reaction-time tasks of self-recognition when presented with their own faces, own voices, and combinations of the two. Reaction time and errors made when responding with both the right and left hand were recorded to determine if there were lateralization effects on these tasks. Our findings showed that visual self-recognition for facial photographs appears to be superior to auditory self-recognition for voice recordings. Furthermore, a combined presentation of one’s own face and voice appeared to inhibit rather than facilitate self-recognition and there was a left-hand advantage for reaction time on the combined-presentation tasks.     

Rights and claims

Conclusion By way of conclusion, I have tried to show that rights do not come from nowhere, that is, rights are not sui generis. They come from claims. Rights do not make claims possible; rather claims make rights possible. For out of claims come claims to rights and from the welter of such claims to rights a legal system is established which, after sifting and refining, accepts some claims to rights and dignifies these as deeds, titles, rights and rejects others; and provides rules enabling persons to exercise their rights. A system of rights and rules thus generated gives one the right to make strong claims. Although having a right is not a condition for making a claim, having a right is necessary to sustain and appraise a claim. Appealing to rights enables us to distinguish weak from strong claims. For rights may sustain or rebut claims though they are not themselves claims.How can we appraise claims? A claim to implies a claim that, the latter being an outcome of the former. If the resulting claim is open to appraisal of the sustain/reject or true/false kind, then it is a claim in a sense other than a primitive cry in the wild. If one can go on to say of a claim that is open to appraisal that one has a right to make such a claim or that one has a strong claim, this is to give favorable, initial appraisal to a claim thus made; and is a claim not in a primitive but in a secondary and ultimately more significant sense.A slightly revised version of a paper read at the Long Island Philosophical Society, May 15, 1971. I wish to thank Lowell Kleinman, Alex Orenstein, Peter Manicas and Karsten Struhl for their helpful criticisms.     

Musicians processing music: Measurement of brain potentials with EEG

Abstract

In the present study, the EEG was recorded from the scalp of musicians while mentally active in their field. Analytic, creative and memory processes of the brain were observable using a special electrophysiological method called DC-potential recording. Music students listened to a sequence of four notes and subsequently were either to reverse the sequence (task 1 = analytic) or to compose a new continuation (task 2 = creative). In task 3, the initial segment of a well-known melody was presented and had to be continued (memory task). All tasks had to be solved mentally (imagery). In tasks 1 and 2, either tonal or atonal sequences were presented.

While processing, the results show that the analytic task elicited the highest brain activity. The analytic task involved mainly parieto-temporal areas of both hemispheres, the left hemisphere showing a tendency for domination. The memory task produced predominant activity over the right hemisphere. The creative task caused the lowest brain activation and elicited an unexpected lateralisation to the left, though we expected creativity to be a right hemispheric holistic-synthetic phenomenon.

Comparing listening with processing of the perceived music, we found a significant shift from an insignificant right hemispheric to an insignificant left hemispheric predominance (except with the memory task). This indicates that musicians do not lateralise to the left hemisphere per se when listening to music. Whether one finds a left hemispheric lateralisation in listening tasks or a right hemispheric one probably depends on the amount of simultaneous analytic-sequential processing the musician undertakes.     

Cognitive task effects on hemispheric blood flow in humans: Evidence for individual differences in hemispheric activation

Evidence from two indirect measures of hemispheric activity, EEG α and conjugate lateral eye movements, has pointed to the existence of individual differences in hemispheric activation. Results from a more direct indicator of hemispheric activity, regional cerebral blood flow as measured by the ¹³³Xe inhalation method, show that such individual differences can be detected in the distribution of blood in the two hemispheres and that the amount of increase in blood flow in the right relative to the left hemisphere is correlated with performance on a spatial task. These results corroborate and extend the findings from the EEG and eye movement studies and suggest that the dimension of individual differences in hemispheric activation may exert significant influence on cognitive performance and on problem-solving strategies.     

Reevaluating split-fovea processing in word recognition: Hemispheric dominance, retinal location, and the word-nonword effect

Many studies have claimed that hemispheric projections are split precisely at the foveal midline and so hemispheric asymmetry affects word recognition right up to the point of fixation. To investigate this claim, four-letter words and nonwords were presented to the left or right of fixation, either close to fixation in foveal vision or farther from fixation in extrafoveal vision. Presentation accuracy was controlled using an eyetracker linked to a fixation-contingent display. Words presented foveally produced identical performance on each side of fixation, but words presented extrafoveally showed a clear left-hemisphere (LH) advantage. Nonwords produced no evidence of hemispheric asymmetry in any location. Foveal stimuli also produced an identical word-nonword effect on each side of fixation, whereas extrafoveal stimuli produced a word-nonword effect only for LH (not right-hemisphere) displays. These findings indicate that functional unilateral projections to contralateral hemispheres exist in extrafoveal locations but provide no evidence of a functional division in hemispheric processing at fixation.     

A specific role for efferent information in self-recognition

We investigated the specific contribution of efferent information in a self-recognition task. Subjects experienced a passive extension of the right index finger, either as an effect of moving their left hand via a lever ('self-generated action'), or imposed externally by the experimenter ('externally-generated action'). The visual feedback was manipulated so that subjects saw either their own right hand ('view own hand' condition) or someone else's right hand ('view other's hand' condition) during the passive extension of the index finger. Both hands were covered with identical gloves, so that discrimination on the basis of morphological differences was not possible. Participants judged whether the right hand they saw was theirs or not. Self-recognition was significantly more accurate when subjects were themselves the authors of the action, even though visual and proprioceptive information always specified the same posture, and despite the fact that subjects judged the effect and not the action per se. When the passive displacement of the participants right index finger was externally generated, and only afferent information was available, self-recognition performance dropped to near-chance levels. Differences in performance across conditions reflect the distinctive contribution of efferent information to self-recognition, and argue against a dominant role of proprioception in self-recognition.     

Self in time and language

Time has been considered a crucial factor in distinguishing between two levels of self-awareness: the “core,” or “minimal self,” and the “extended,” or “narrative self.” Herein, I focus on this last concept of the self and, in particular, on the relationship between the narrative self and language. In opposition to the claim that the narrative self is a linguistic construction, my idea is that it is created by the functioning of mental time travel, that is, the faculty of human beings to project themselves mentally backwards in time to relive, or forward to anticipate, events. Moreover, I propose that narrative language itself should be considered a product of a core brain network that includes mechanisms, such as mental time travel, mindreading, and visuo-spatial systems.     

Self‐legislation,Respect and the Reconciliation of Minority Claims

It is a widely supported claim that liberal democratic institutions should treat citizens with equal respect. I neither dispute nor champion this claim, but investigate how it could be fulfilled. I do this by asking, as a sort of litmus test, how liberal democratic institutions should treat with respect citizens holding minority convictions, and thereby dissenting from a deliberative output. The first step of my argument consists in clarifying the sense in which liberal democracies have a primary concern for the respectful treatment of citizens qua self‐legislating persons. Taking the second step, I address critically the common tendency in the literature to concentrate on what I have termed the ex ante legem phase, focusing solely on the structure of institutionalized decision‐making processes. I submit, rather, that the principle of equal respect for persons demands more of liberal democratic institutions to enhance citizens' chances to give voice to their consciences and influence, on that ground, the formulation of the rules to which they should conform. Fulfilling this commitment requires democratic theorizing to go beyond the ex ante legem phase and regard forms of ex post legem contestation as an extension of citizens' right to political participation. Against this backdrop, I take the third and last step and argue that a promising way forward consists in the adoption of an ex post legem version of conscientious exemptionism, granting citizens a conditional moral right to request exemptions on the grounds of conscience from certain controversial legal and political provisions.