Does a causal relation exist between the functional hemispheric asymmetries of visual processing subsystems?

Past research indicates that specific shape recognition and spatial-relations encoding rely on subsystems that exhibit right-hemisphere advantages, whereas abstract shape recognition and spatial-relations encoding rely on subsystems that exhibit left-hemisphere advantages. Given these apparent regularities, we tested whether asymmetries in shape processing are causally related to asymmetries in spatial-relations processing. We examined performance in four tasks using the same stimuli with divided-visual-field presentations. Importantly, the asymmetry observed in any one task did not correlate with the asymmetries observed in the other tasks in ways predicted by extant theories. Asymmetries in shape processing and spatial-relations encoding may not be due to a common causal force influencing multiple subsystems.     

An ethics of suffering: does it solve the problems we want to solve?: commentary

Erich H. Loewy proposes to elevate the moral obligation to prevent and relieve suffering to the level of a prima facie moral duty by delineating which beings are of primary moral worth and which are of secondary moral worth. Sentient beings have a capacity to suffer and are therefore of primary moral worth. Beings that are insentient cannot suffer; therefore such beings are only of secondary moral worth. Objects of secondary moral worth include patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) and brain-dead patients. This proposal, he says, would solve a number of problems in clinical bioethics. First, it would help to clarify our moral duties at the bedside. And secondly, by creating a hierarchy of moral values, it helps to differentiate which patients are owed our primary allegiance and resources. Despite his extensive and painstaking proof, I believe several questions remain about the use of the "capacity of sentient beings to suffer" as a basis for a universal grounding in ethics.     

Does Externalism Entail the Anomalism of the Mental?

In 'Mental Events' Donald Davidson argued for the anomalism of the mental on the basis of the operation of incompatible constitutive principles in the mental and physical domains. Many years later, he has suggested that externalism provides further support for the anomalism of the mental. I examine the basis for that claim. The answer to the question in the title will be a qualified 'Yes'. That is an important result in the metaphysics of mind and an interesting consequence of externalism.     

Does the philosophy of medicine exist?

There has been a great deal of discussion, in this journal and others, about obstacles hindering the evolution of the philosophy of medicine. Such discussions presuppose that there is widespread agreement about what it is that constitutes the philosophy of medicine.Despite the fact that there is, and has been for decades, a great deal of literature, teaching and professional activity carried out explicitly in the name of the philosophy of medicine, this is not enough to establish that consensus exists as to the definition of the field. And even if consensus can be obtained as to what constitutes the philosophy of medicine, this does not mean that it exists as a field.     

Does control of the environment enhance the perception of control?

It has been proposed that control over the environment increases the perception of control, thereby enhancing motivation. Revesman and Perlmuter (1981) found that when subjects were permitted to choose response terms to be learned on a paired-associate task, decision latencies were faster if the announcement of the desired option caused the screen upon which materials were printed to go blank. On the basis of the results of the present experiment, it was concluded that control of the environment does result in faster decision latencies, but that this effect occurs despite a decrease in the perception of control.     

Does the experience of presence restore self-control?

A wide range of research suggests that the exertion of self-control is a limited resource or constrained by a motivational shift. Less attention, however, has been given to the question how self-control capacity can be restored. This study examined whether this restoration can be achieved by “presence,” the perceptual illusion of non-mediation. We suggest that the adoption of the mediated reference systems creates a “holiday from self” and restores self-control capacity. Depleted participants who saw an immersive video clip performed better in a subsequent self-control task than participants who saw a non-immersive video clip or were in a waiting group. But the concrete mechanism remains open: Self reported presence did not serve as a mediator.     

Does affluence impoverish the experience of parenting?

Acquiring greater financial resources before having children seems like an intuitive strategy for people to enhance their well-being during parenthood. However, research suggests that affluence may activate an agentic orientation, propelling people to pursue personal goals and independence from others, creating a conflict with the communal nature of parenting. Coherence between one's goals and actions has been theorized to be essential for the experience of meaning in life. Thus, we hypothesized that affluence would be associated with a diminished sense of meaning during childcare. In Study 1, using the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), we found that socioeconomic status (SES) was negatively related to the average sense of meaning parents reported across episodes of the day when they were taking care of their children. In Study 2, a reminder of wealth produced a parallel effect; when parents were exposed to a photograph of money, they reported a lower sense of meaning in life while spending time with their kids at a children's festival. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between wealth and well-being by showing that affluence can compromise a central subjective benefit of parenting—a sense of meaning in life.     

Does the Subject of Experience Exist in the World?

In this paper I attempt to show, by considering a number of sources, including Wittgenstein, Sartre, Thomas Nagel and Spinoza, but also adding something crucial of my own, that it is impossible to construe the subject of experience as an object among other objects in the world. My own added argument is the following. the subject of experience cannot move in time along with material events and processes or it could not be aware of the passage of time, hence neither of change nor of motion. the subject cannot therefore be identified with any neural process, function, or location since whatever goes on in the CNS is necessarily objective and part of the temporal flux. However this does not imply any form of dualism for experiences exist only for the subject whose experiences they are and hence they have no objective reality.     

Does implementation of reforms authorized in Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act affect the complexity of the questions asked of young alleged victims in court?

This study examined whether the implementation of Section 28 (S28) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act and the introduction of mandatory ground rules hearings reduced the complexity of the questions English lawyers asked when examining child witnesses. This study compared cases with (n = 43) and without (n = 43) the S28 special measures and involved children aged 6–15 testifying as alleged victims of sexual abuse. Defense lawyers' questions in the S28 condition comprised fewer words, clauses, false starts, multiple negatives, and temporal and numeric attributes than in the non‐S28 condition. When questioning younger children, lawyers used fewer words, clauses, references to “before/after,” and passive voice. These results demonstrated that S28 successfully reduced the complexity of the questions and that lawyers in both conditions partially adjusted the complexity of their questions to accommodate children's developmental capabilities.     

What can neuroimaging meta-analyses really tell us about the nature of emotion?

In Vytal and Hamann (2010) we reported a neuroimaging meta-analysis that found that basic emotions can be distinguished by their brain activation correlates, in marked contrast to Lindquist et al.'s conclusions in the target article. Here, I discuss implications of these findings for understanding emotion, outline limitations of using meta-analyses and neuroimaging as the sole basis for deciding between emotion views, and suggest that these views are essentially compatible and could be adapted and combined into an integrated emotion framework.     

Does power magnify the expression of dispositions?

Conventional wisdom holds that power holders act more in line with their dispositions than do people who lack power. Drawing on principles of construct accessibility, we propose that this is the case only when no alternative constructs are activated. In three experiments, we assessed participants' chronic dispositions and subsequently manipulated participants' degree of power. Participants then either were or were not primed with alternative (i.e., inaccessible or counterdispositional) constructs. When no alternatives were activated, the responses of power holders--perceptions of other people (Experiment 1), preferences for charitable donations (Experiment 2), and strategies in an economic game (Experiment 3)--were more in line with their chronically accessible constructs than were the responses of low-power participants. However, when alternatives had been activated, power holders' responses were no longer more congruent with their dispositions than were the responses of low-power participants. We propose a single mechanism according to which power increases reliance on accessible constructs--that is, constructs that easily come to mind-regardless of whether these constructs are chronically or temporarily accessible.     

Does the corollary discharge of attention exist?

We discuss experimental support for the existence of a corollary discharge signal of attention movement control and its formulation in terms of the corollary discharge of attention model of attention movement (CODAM). The data is from fMRI, MEG and EEG activity observed about 200 ms after stimulus onset in various attention paradigms and in which the activity is mainly sited in parietal and extra-striate visual areas. Moreover the data arises from neural activity observed before report of a subject's experience occurs. The overall experimental support for the existence of a copy of the attention movement control signal generates, it is suggested, a viable route to explore the relation between this signal and human consciousness, as concluded in the paper.     

Closing the gap? Some questions for neurophenomenology

In his 1996 paper “Neurophenomenology: A methodological remedy for the hard problem,” Francisco Varela called for a union of Husserlian phenomenology and cognitive science. Varela's call hasn't gone unanswered, and recent years have seen the development of a small but growing literature intent on exploring the interface between phenomenology and cognitive science. But despite these developments, there is still some obscurity about what exactly neurophenomenology is. What are neurophenomenologists trying to do, and how are they trying to do it? To what extent is neurophenomenology a distinctive and unified research programme? In this paper I attempt to shed some light on these questions.