A Dynamical Systems Approach to Manual Tracking Performance

Manual tracking performance was investigated from the perspective of dynamical systems theory. The authors manipulated the type of visual display, the control system dynamics, and the frequency of the sinusoidal input signal to examine couplings with various phases between the visual signal and control movements. Analyses of the system output amplitude ratio and relative phase showed that participants (N = 24) performed poorly with 90° relative phase coupling. All the couplings became less stable as the movement frequency increased. The authors developed an adaptive oscillator model with linear damping to describe the coupled system consisting of the human performer, the visual display, and the control system dynamics. A geometric account of the stability of performance at different relative phases is also presented.     

The Inherent Empirical Underdetermination of Mental Causation

It has become a popular view among non-reductive physicalists that it is possible to devise empirical tests generating evidence for the causal efficacy of the mental, whereby the exclusion worries that have haunted the position of non-reductive physicalism for decades can be dissolved once and for all. This paper aims to show that these evidentialist hopes are vain. I argue that, if the mental is taken to supervene non-reductively on the physical, there cannot exist empirical evidence for its causal efficacy. While causal structures without non-reductive supervenience relations can be conclusively identified in ideal discovery circumstances, it is impossible, in principle, to generate evidence that would favour models with mental causation over models without. Ascribing causal efficacy to the mental, for the non-reductive physicalist, is a modelling choice that must be made on the basis of metaphysical background theories or pragmatic maxims guiding the selection among empirically indistinguishable models.     

Evolutionary Psychology, Cognitive Science, and Dynamical Systems: Building an Integrative Paradigm

Cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and dynamical systems theory have all been proposed as frameworks for linking the diverse subdisciplines of psychology with one another, and with other scientific disciplines. Traditional cognitive science focused on content-free general processing and deemphasized motivation. An evolutionary perspective emphasizes the centrality of motivational systems and the specificity of mechanisms designed to solve particular recurrent problems. The evolutionary perspective provides a set of broad general principles linking diverse behaviors in humans as well as other species. The dynamic approach seeks even broader principles, searching for emergent patterns in all complex systems, whether animate or inanimate. Natural selection is itself one such broad principle, as is the broader principle of self-organization, which helps explain dynamic equilibria found in groups of humans and in diverse species linked together within ecosystems. Proponents of the major contending interdisciplines will need to build more bridges if the dream of a unifying paradigm is to be realized. This review samples some of the reasons why evolutionary psychologists, dynamical systems theorists, and traditional cognitive scientists need one another.     

Extending Dynamical Systems Theory to Model Embodied Cognition

We define a mathematical formalism based on the concept of an ‘‘open dynamical system” and show how it can be used to model embodied cognition. This formalism extends classical dynamical systems theory by distinguishing a ‘‘total system’’ (which models an agent in an environment) and an ‘‘agent system’’ (which models an agent by itself), and it includes tools for analyzing the collections of overlapping paths that occur in an embedded agent's state space. To illustrate the way this formalism can be applied, several neural network models are embedded in a simple model environment. Such phenomena as masking, perceptual ambiguity, and priming are then observed. We also use this formalism to reinterpret examples from the embodiment literature, arguing that it provides for a more thorough analysis of the relevant phenomena.     

Absence Causation and a Liberal Theory of Causal Explanation

For the framework of event causation—i.e. the framework according to which causation is a relation between events—absences or omissions pose a problem. Absences, it is generally agreed, are not events; so, under the framework of event causation, they cannot be causally related. But, as a matter of fact, absences are often taken to be causes or effects. The problem of absence causation is thus how to make sense of causation that apparently involves absences as causes or effects. In an influential paper, Helen Beebee offers a partial solution to the problem by giving an account of causation by absence (i.e. causation in which absences are supposed to be causes). I argue that Beebee's account can be extended to cover causation of absence (i.e. causation in which absences are supposed to be effects) as well. More importantly, I argue that the extended Beebeeian account calls for a major modification to David Lewis's theory of causal explanation, usually taken as standard. Compared to the standard theory, the result of this modification, which I shall call ‘the liberal theory of causal explanation’, has, among other things, the advantage of being able to accommodate causal explanations in which the explananda are not given in terms of events.     

因果论分析疾病的不典型首发症状

疾病首发症状的不典型是导致误诊误治的重要原因,本文就疾病首发症状的不典型进行哲学分析,通过举例阐述如何在临床上运用因果联系的思维方法识别不典型首发症状,以及因果联系在首发症状不典型病例应用中的注意事项。最后,文章分析了由因果理论得出的病因诊断和对因治疗医疗模式在临床运用中的重要性及其发展前景。     

Systems Theory and Family Therapy: From a Critique on Systems Theory to a Theory on System Change

Some system therapists reject the systemic view for various reasons, often related to violence, victimisation and power. This critique is based on an outdated narrow and incomplete knowledge of linear systems theory. A better understanding of these linear systems theories and of systems levels of organisation already answers much of the critique, but does not explain change. For the latter, a theory of how systems change is necessary for systems therapy in general and family therapy in particular. Modern dynamic systems and chaos theory are most useful to understand change, chaos, history, unpredictability and flexibility.     

A Grounded Approach to the Study of Complex Systems

The complex and dynamic nature of systems pose a particular challenge to researchers and require the use of a research methodology designed to deal with such systems. The properties of fit, relevance, understandability, generality, control, workability, generalizability, and modifiability make Glaserian grounded theory and grounded action particularly well suited for studying systems. These methods are innovative, systemic, and sophisticated enough to reveal the underlying complexities of systems and plan actions that address their complex, dynamic nature while remaining grounded in what is occurring within the systems as they change over time.     

试论如何运用系统论原理认识细胞

运用系统论的原理分析了细胞的形态、结构与功能。细胞是生物体结构和功能的基本单位,具有多样性和统一性。细胞系统是复杂的物质系统,具有层次性、整体性、动态性及开放性等特征。应用唯物辩证法系统论的原理可以对细胞系统做出更新、更全面的诠释。     

Grounded Theory and Grounded Action: Rooted in Systems Theory

The research methodologies of grounded theory and grounded action are framed by a systems perspective, from which they contribute their own unique properties and processes to the evolution of systems thinking. The author provides definitions for systems, theory, grounded theory, grounded action, and systems thinking, and explores the relationships between theory, grounded theory/grounded action, and systems thinking with regard to purpose, context, and usefulness for the resolution of social concerns and systemic change.     

Niklas Luhmann's Systems Theory as a Challenge for Ethics

The author discusses Niklas Luhmann's concept of ethics and morals. Therefore he sketches the main traits of Luhmann's theory of systems (e.g. the terms autopoiesis, system and environment, code and programme). From the system-theoretical point of view, ethics are characterized as the reflexive theory of morals. Morals are described as the communication of regard or disregard. The author shows which consequences follow from this concept by discussing problems concerning several subsystems at the same time. The problems of Luhmann's theory of morals and ethics are demonstrated by analyzing the concepts of risk and responsibility. Finally, the author demands that ethics should be understood even more as social ethics which reflect upon their social foundation in a more consequent way.     

心理自我调控理论的研究进展

摘要：Stemberg在整合已有风格理论的基础上,提出了一种全新的风格理论一心理自我调控理论。该理论重新激活了人们对风格的研究兴趣,并引发了一系列的相关实证研究。该文对该理论及其相关研究的进展进行了评述。     

心理账户:缘起、理论及应用

心理账户深刻地体现了心理学和经济学的结合,是在行为经济学的大背景下开始研究的。心理账户是人们在心理上对结果,尤其是经济结果的编码,分类和估价的过程,它反映了人们在进行资金财富决策过程中的心理认知过程。心理账户与经济账户的运算法则不同,它具有非替代性。心理账户与金融投资结合形成了行为资产组合理论,心理账户与消费经济结合,形成了行为生命周期理论。     

Emergence,Drop-Back And Reductionism in Living Systems Theory

Millers Living Systems Theory (LST) is known to be very comprehensive. It comprises eight nested hierarchical levels. It also includes twenty critical subsystems. While Millers approach has been analyzed and applied in great detail, some problematic features remain, requiring further explication. One of these is the relationship between reduction and emergence in LST. There are at least four relevant possibilities. One is that LST exhibits neither clear reductionism nor emergence, but is essentially neutral in this regard. Another is that the apparent comprehensiveness of LST is illusory, as the approach remains vulnerable to reduction that could ultimately reduce it to a shadow of its present self. The charge of reductionism has been made by critics leading Miller to defend this theory vehemently as nonreductionist in nature. A third possibility is that LST is not reductionist, but is in fact an emergent theory. Miller makes this claim quite strongly. A fourth possibility, and in some ways the most analytically problematic, is that LST exhibits evidence of both reductionism and emergence simultaneously. Some critics might see this fourth situation as evidence of a troubling paradox or anomaly that must be resolved before further progress can be made in the explication and application of LST. The purpose of the paper is to remove this apparent anomaly. The paper removes this anomaly by differentiating between new-variable emergence and transformational emergence. No concrete evidence is found to contradict Milers claim of emergence in LST, and thus no true anomaly exists.     

智力落后的成因--当代智力理论新解

智力落后的成因历来存在争论。本文在当代复杂系统智力理论的视野之下．从Sternberg的三元智力理论和Das的PASS模型入手,分析了智力落后本质及成因的新解．揭示了智力落后理论研究的认知心理学新走向。     

心理健康:维列鲁学派活动理论的诠释

依据维列鲁学派活动理论的基本观点,揭示了心理健康的本质在于个体主导其生命活动的有效性．在于心理系统对个体生命活动系统的有效管理;强调健康心理学是关于人生的实践智慧的学问,它的核心在于促进个体对其生命活动的有效管理,使其能采取正确的生活方式,对自己的生命承担起责任。     

脑的四个功能系统学说

本文根据实验事实 ,讨论脑内评估 -情绪的功能系统。在此基础上 ,发展鲁利亚的脑的三个功能系统学说 ,提出脑的四个功能系统学说 ,认为脑内存在包括评估 -情绪功能系统在内的四个互相紧密联系的功能系统 ,人的各种行为和心理活动是这四个功能系统相互作用和协同活动的结果     

系统论方法在糖尿病性视网膜病变危险因素及治疗研究中的应用

全球糖尿病患者人数在不断的增多,大约10％的Ⅰ型糖尿病患者在10年后可出现糖尿病性视网膜病变,而大约95％的Ⅱ型糖尿病患者在20年后可出现糖尿病性视网膜病变。目前,糖尿病性视网膜病的发病机制尚不明确,影响其发生发展的因素也很复杂,因此,对糖尿病性视网膜病的发病危险因素及其诊治的研究,具有相当重要的意义。系统论,研究各种物质运动形态所共有的系统联系和关系,具有普遍的方法论意义,为现代医学的进步提供了全新的思维方式和科学方法论原则。本文试用系统论的整体性、优化原理阐述糖尿病性视网膜病变发病的危险因素与治疗进展,为对其深入研究提供方法论依据。