A unified approach to the perception of motion,stereo, and static-flow patterns

This paper presents a unified approach for studying the perception of motion, stereopsis, and static-flow (Glass) patterns. The objective is to address the same issues across these “modalities.” To this end, a new class of stimuli and procedures were developed, the key feature of which is the incorporation of a forced-choice competition paradigm into the random-dot stimuli paradigm that has traditionally been used in these modalities. The two competing percepts that are pitted against each other are opposite directions for motion, near/far depth planes for stereopsis, and orthogonal global patterns for Glass patterns. The differences in qualitative predictions for competing hypotheses are generally well pronounced, and the results provide clear evidence for deciding between alternative hypotheses. This approach has been used to confirm that covariance is the preferred metric for eliciting global correlations in all the modalities and to investigate the nature of front-end processes in each modality. It has the potential for neurophysiological studies for both single-cell and neuronal ensemble recording.     

Absolutely relative or relatively absolute: violations of value invariance in human decision making

Making decisions based on relative rather than absolute information processing is tied to choice optimality via the accumulation of evidence differences and to canonical neural processing via accumulation of evidence ratios. These theoretical frameworks predict invariance of decision latencies to absolute intensities that maintain differences and ratios, respectively. While information about the absolute values of the choice alternatives is not necessary for choosing the best alternative, it may nevertheless hold valuable information about the context of the decision. To test the sensitivity of human decision making to absolute values, we manipulated the intensities of brightness stimuli pairs while preserving either their differences or their ratios. Although asked to choose the brighter alternative relative to the other, participants responded faster to higher absolute values. Thus, our results provide empirical evidence for human sensitivity to task irrelevant absolute values indicating a hard-wired mechanism that precedes executive control. Computational investigations of several modelling architectures reveal two alternative accounts for this phenomenon, which combine absolute and relative processing. One account involves accumulation of differences with activation dependent processing noise and the other emerges from accumulation of absolute values subject to the temporal dynamics of lateral inhibition. The potential adaptive role of such choice mechanisms is discussed.     

Term-Modal Logics

Many powerful logics exist today for reasoning about multi-agent systems, but in most of these it is hard to reason about an infinite or indeterminate number of agents. Also the naming schemes used in the logics often lack expressiveness to name agents in an intuitive way.To obtain a more expressive language for multi-agent reasoning and a better naming scheme for agents, we introduce a family of logics called term-modal logics. A main feature of our logics is the use of modal operators indexed by the terms of the logics. Thus, one can quantify over variables occurring in modal operators. In term-modal logics agents can be represented by terms, and knowledge of agents is expressed with formulas within the scope of modal operators.This gives us a flexible and uniform language for reasoning about the agents themselves and their knowledge. This article gives examples of the expressiveness of the languages and provides sequent-style and tableau-based proof systems for the logics. Furthermore we give proofs of soundness and completeness with respect to the possible world semantics.     

On convention

Summary If my main criticism of Lewis is sound, we must conclude that there are at least two distinct types of convention: co-ordination conventions and conventions constituting autonomous practices. It is only possible in the case of the former, but not the latter, to specify the agents' structure of preferences, and the problem the convention is there to solve, antecedently and independently of the content of the conventions themselves. Conventions constituting an autonomous practice are constitutive of the point of, and the values inherent in the practice itself and hence they are not explicable in terms of solutions to co-ordination problems. Thus, from the vantage point of practical reasoning, Lewis' theory of conventions is partial and limited. It is superior, however, to the alternative offered by Gilbert, as it provides a good answer, albeit limited in scope, to the question of the normativity of conventions. Gilbert's analysis is more fundamentally flawed. She has failed to undermine Lewis' insight that conventions are arbitrary rules, due to her misconstrual of what arbitrariness consists in. Consequently, Gilbert's analysis of the normativity of social conventions in terms of joint acceptance is doubly inadequate: it fails to distinguish conventions from many other types of rule people follow, and it fails to answer the question of the normativity of conventions in terms of reasons for action.In the course of this discussion, I have side-stepped all the difficult questions concerning the conventionality of language, judging them to be far too complex issues to be dealt with within the confines of this article. I do hope, however, that an awareness of the distinction between co-ordination conventions and conventions of autonomous practices, will facilitate the arguments over the conventionality of language as well.I am indebted to Timothy Williamson and Joseph Raz with whom I have discussed these matters at length, and I am grateful for their invaluable comments on a draft of this paper. I am also indebted to Brian Bix, Ruth Gavison, Alon Harel, Edna Ullmann-Margalit, and the editors of Synthese for their helpful comments and suggestions.     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Personality Structure Through the Lens of the HEXACO Model

Across 5 different samples, totaling more than 1,600 participants from India, Indonesia, Oman, Romania, and Thailand, the authors address the question of cross-cultural replicability of a personality structure, while exploring the utility of exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) as a data analysis technique in cross-cultural personality research. Personality was measured with an alternative, non–Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality framework, provided by the HEXACO–PI (Lee &; Ashton, 2004 Lee, K., &; Ashton, M. C. (2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The results show that the HEXACO framework was replicated in some of the investigated cultures. The ESEM data analysis technique proved to be especially useful in investigating the between-group measurement equivalence of broad personality measures across different cultures.     

How Homeric is the Aristotelian Conception of Courage?

When Aristotle limits the manifestation of true courage to the military context only, his primary target is an overly inclusive conception of courage presented by Plato in the Laches. At the same time, Aristotle explicitly tries to demarcate his ideal of genuine courage from the paradigmatic examples of courageous actions derived from the Homeric epics. It remains questionable, though, whether Aristotle is truly earnest in his efforts to distance himself from Homer. It will be argued that Aristotle's attempt to associate with Homer the two forms of specious courage—courage of the citizen troops and spirit‐caused courage—fails to provide sufficient criteria for the demarcation in question. All the essential elements of the Aristotelian account of courage, such as a voluntary choice, a noble goal, and a thumos‐driven reaction guided by reason are exemplified by a number of Homeric characters as well. It is thus likely that the philosopher's account of courage largely incorporates the poetic tradition at a new level, rather than supersedes it.     

On The Virtue of Judging Others

An other‐directed moral judgement is contrasted with a moral evaluation of one's own behaviour; it is argued that having a capacity to make self‐directed moral judgements is at the core of being within morality, while a lack of disposition on the part of a mature individual to judge others is indicative of the corresponding lack with regard to the self‐directed evaluations. Our readiness to evaluate the behaviour of others measures the level of our commitment to a system of morality. Consistent nonjudgementalism subverts the interpersonal nature of moral values and points to a deeper issue – an unwillingness of a nonjudgementalist to apply moral categories to her own choices.     

Age-related cognitive decline as a function of daytime testing

The current study investigates the effects of age, cognitive load, optimal time-of-day testing, and irrelevant background noise suppression on mental processing. One hundred and seventy-eight young (M = 22.97 years) and 114 old adults (M = 56.38 years) were assessed for implicit learning and speed of information processing under irrelevant sound interference early during daytime (7AM–2.30PM) or in the afternoons (3PM–midnight). No direct effect of irrelevant speech effect was found on implicit learning. An optimal time of testing per age group was identified according to the ability to suppress irrelevant auditory information. If no semantic meaning was derived from the sound conditions, irrelevant sound was easily inhibited leaving no room for declined cognitive performance. This suggests an intact phonological inhibition in older adults and a further circumvention of the phonological loop. However, when difficulty was increased, a widened performance gap between young and old people could be observed. Education modulated difficult performance irrespective of age. With increasing age, task demand fulfillment becomes a function of a limited time mechanism. If extraneous time is not adapted to cognitive skills and performance, higher order processing cannot be reached, rendering older adults slower than their younger counterparts.     

Studies of socioeconomic and ethnic differences in intelligence in the former Soviet Union in the early twentieth century

This paper reviews the studies of socioeconomic and ethnic and racial differences in intelligence carried out in Russia/USSR during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In these studies the IQs of social classes and of ethnic minorities were tested. These included Tatars (a Caucasoid people), Chuvash and Altai (mixed Caucasoid–Mongoloid peoples), Evenk (a mixed Caucasoid–Arctic people), and Uzbeks (a Central–South Asian people). The results of these studies showed socioeconomic differences of 12 IQ points between the children of white collar and blue collar workers, and that with the exception of the Tartars the ethnic minorities obtained lower IQs than European Russians.     

Reasons Explanations and Pure Agency

We focus on the recent non-causal theory of reasons explanationsof free action proffered by a proponent of the agency theory, Timothy O'Connor. We argue that the conditions O'Connor offersare neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to act for a reason. Finally, we note that the role O'Connor assigns toreasons in the etiology of actions results in further conceptual difficulties for agent-causalism.