How something can be said about telling more than we can know: on choice blindness and introspection

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson’s classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes (1977), is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., &; Olsson, A. (2005). Failure to detect mismatches between intention and outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310(5745), 116–119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis (LSA) to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports.     

Looking for foes and friends: perceptual and emotional factors when finding a face in the crowd

In a face-in-the-crowd setting, the authors examined visual search for photographically reproduced happy, angry, and fearful target faces among neutral distractor faces in 3 separate experiments. Contrary to the hypothesis, happy targets were consistently detected more quickly and accurately than angry and fearful targets, as were directed compared with averted targets. There was no consistent effect of social anxiety. A facial emotion recognition experiment suggested that the happy search advantage could be due to the ease of processing happy faces. In the final experiment with perceptually controlled schematic faces, the authors reported more effective detection of angry than happy faces. This angry advantage was most obvious for highly socially anxious individuals when their social fear was experimentally enhanced.     

Neuropsychological correlates of Greek alcoholic patients who report memory disturbances

We studied 40 male and 37 female (M age=63 yr.) Greek alcoholic patients and an equal number of control subjects. Both groups were evaluated with the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Syndrome Short Test, the Verbal Fluency Test (Category & Letter), the Clock Test, and the Digit Span (Forward and Backward from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised). Alcoholic patients had statistically significant lower scores on MMSE, Verbal Fluency Test, and Digit Span, and higher scores on the Syndrome Short Test, while positive correlations were found among MMSE, Verbal Fluency Test, Clock Test, Digit Span-Backward, and age. These findings point to frontal lobe dysfunction in Greek alcoholic patients which is not different from that shown in patients from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds.     

Life after Kant: Natural purposes and the autopoietic foundations of biological individuality

This paper proposes a basic revision of the understanding of teleology in biological sciences. Since Kant, it has become customary to view purposiveness in organisms as a bias added by the observer; the recent notion of teleonomy expresses well this as-if character of natural purposes. In recent developments in science, however, notions such as self-organization (or complex systems) and the autopoiesis viewpoint, have displaced emergence and circular self-production as central features of life. Contrary to an often superficial reading, Kant gives a multi-faceted account of the living, and anticipates this modern reading of the organism, even introducing the term self-organization for the first time. Our re-reading of Kant in this light is strengthened by a group of philosophers of biology, with Hans Jonas as the central figure, who put back on center stage an organism-centered view of the living, an autonomous center of concern capable of providing an interior perspective. Thus, what is present in nuce in Kant, finds a convergent development from this current of philosophy of biology and the scientific ideas around autopoeisis, two independent but parallel developments culminating in the 1970s. Instead of viewing meaning or value as artifacts or illusions, both agree on a new understanding of a form of immanent teleology as truly biological features, inevitably intertwined with the self-establishment of an identity which is the living process.     

Deviancy and Normative Training Processes in Experimental Groups of Delinquent and Nondelinquent Male Adolescents

The goal of this study was to identify the predictors and the moderators of group characteristics that influence deviancy and normative training processes in delinquent male adolescents. The authors experimentally tested the effects of group composition on deviant talk interaction processes among groups in which all members presented delinquent behaviors (“pure” delinquent group condition), those that included adolescents with no delinquent behaviors (“pure” normative group condition), and adolescents with both profiles (“mixed” group condition). Participants were 70 male adolescents aged 15–18 (M = 16.5; 56% Caucasian), with a random assignment to groups. Data were collected among three group sessions (T1, T2, T3), one session a week, using videotape. Two contents of interactions were also measured: antisocial and normative stories, counterbalanced across sessions. Results showed a significant group effect for antisocial talk and its reinforcement, with less antisocial talk within the mixed group condition in comparison to the pure delinquent group condition. The topic of interaction was also observed as a predictor of antisocial talk, with less normative interactions and more antisocial talk associated with antisocial topics. Finally, time moderated some relations between experimental groups and talk. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work for future research on deviancy training processes. Aggr. Behav. 39:30‐44, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Food Fight! The Swedish Low-Carb/High Fat (LCHF) Movement and the Turning of Science Popularisation Against the Scientists

Science popularisation is widely recognised as having its ‘political uses’ and as serving as a conventional means for buttressing the epistemic authority of the institutions of science in society. By separating the work of producing new knowledge from its dissemination, popularisation promotes public understanding and appreciation of science placed beyond public reach and influence. However, simply by insisting upon such a separation, so popularisation remains vulnerable to ‘capture’ by skilled and resourceful communicators intent on turning it against the established authority of scientists. This is a phenomenon which can be analysed in relation to the communicative strategies pursued by a collection of general practitioners, diabetics and self-styled dietary experts in Sweden championing a low-carbohydrate/high fat (LCHF) dietetics akin to the Diet Revolution initiated by Robert Atkins in the early 1970s. By dedicating themselves to achieving an overwhelming public presence in the propagation of simplified accounts of dietary science, the LCHF movement has been able to fashion science popularisation into a weapon capable of being turned back upon established dietary expertise in Sweden. In this effort they have proceeded on two fronts; firstly by debunking established dietary advice for failing to live up to idealised standards of ‘sound science’, and secondly, by effectively mobilising the personal testimony and endorsements of dieters themselves in order to publicly confirm the authenticity and trustworthiness of the LCHF regimen.     

Placebo effects in spider phobia: an eye-tracking experiment

ABSTRACT

Several eye-tracking studies have revealed that spider phobic patients show a typical hypervigilance-avoidance pattern when confronted with images of spiders. The present experiment investigated if this pattern can be changed via placebo treatment. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 37 women with spider phobia. They looked at picture pairs (a spider paired with a neutral picture) for 7?s each in a retest design: once with and once without a placebo pill presented along with the verbal suggestion that it can reduce phobic symptoms. The placebo was labelled as Propranolol, a beta-blocker that has been successfully used to treat spider phobia. In the placebo condition, both the fixation count and the dwell time on the spider pictures increased, especially in the second half of the presentation time. This was associated with a slight decrease in self-reported symptom severity. In summary, we were able to show that a placebo was able to positively influence visual avoidance in spider phobia. This effect might help to overcome apprehension about engaging in exposure therapy, which is present in many phobic patients.     

On the Origins of Critical Realism

Critical realism has been used in connection with different epistemological positions. The article reviews its different uses in German, American, and British philosophy and examines its relation to Barbour's introduction of the term in the science and theology debate. The result is that there is a close connection to scientific realism, but not to philosophical critical realism in a narrower sense. Critical realism is a type of realism defining the term in Kant's sense as related to the question of the existence of the tempospatial world. It distinguishes itself as a middle way between naïve realism and other extremes.