Doing without representing?

Connectionism and classicism, it generally appears, have at least this much in common: both place some notion of internal representation at the heart of a scientific study of mind. In recent years, however, a much more radical view has gained increasing popularity. This view calls into question the commitment to internal representation itself. More strikingly still, this new wave of anti-representationalism is rooted not in armchair theorizing but in practical attempts to model and understand intelligent, adaptive behavior. In this paper we first present, and then critically assess, a variety of recent anti-representationalist treatments. We suggest that so far, at least, the sceptical rhetoric outpaces both evidence and argument. Some probable causes of this premature scepticism are isolated. Nonetheless, the anti-representationalist challenge is shown to be both important and progressive insofar as it forces us to see beyond the bare representational/non-representational dichotomy and to recognize instead a rich continuum of degrees and types of representationality.     

The Effects of Sex and Power Schemas,Attitudes Toward Women,and Victim Resistance on Rape Attributions1

This study examined the effects of attitudes toward women, rape schemas, and victim resistance on rape attributions in a hypothetical rape scenario. One hundred twenty-eight female subjects participated in the investigation. In line with the hypotheses, a 2 × 2 × 2 (Traditional vs. Nontraditional Attitudes × Sex vs. Power Schemas × Presence vs. Absence of Resistance) ANOVA demonstrated a significant interaction effect between rape schemas and victim resistance for rape attributions. As predicted, those who held sex schemas of rape attributed less fault and responsibility to resisting, compared to nonresisting, victims. In addition, they attributed more fault and responsibility to the nonresisting victim than did those who held power schemas. Rape schemas and victim resistance exerted an interactive influence on perpetrator attributions. Although attitudes toward women did not affect victim attributions, traditional women attributed less fault and responsibility to perpetrators than did nontraditional women.     

Lesion localization in acquired deficits of emotional expression and comprehension

This study investigated the relationship between intrahemispheric location of lesion and disturbances of emotional expression and comprehension. Twenty-eight right hemisphere strokes, 18 left hemisphere strokes, and 20 controls were examined on a standardized test of the expression, repetition, and comprehension of emotional prosody as well as the visual recognition of emotional situations and faces. The patients were classified into aprosodic syndromes according to the test scores. The lesions were independently traced, and overlapped for each aprosodic syndrome. The results, for lesions in either hemisphere, indicated involvement of the basal ganglia most frequently in aprosodic syndromes followed by anterior temporal lobe and insula lesions. Basal ganglia damage was also seen most frequently in patients with impaired comprehension of emotional facial expressions and situations. The anterior temporal lobe was also frequently involved in patients with such deficits. The basal ganglia emerged as a structure of particular importance in the mediation of emotional expression and comprehension.     

Limbic hypertension induced by stress and septal stimulation

For this study, it was postulated that hypertension of emotional origin is generated within the limbic system. To validate this thesis, septal induced blood pressure elevations were combined with a stressful experience in adult rats (spontaneously hypertensive and Wistar Kyoto rats). Stress consisted of intermittent confinement in a plexiglass tube. The results revealed that hypertension induced by electric stimulation of the septum during the stressful state could subsequently be elicited by the stressful state alone, without electric stimulation of the septum. It was postulated that the cortically modulated stress circuit converged with the electrically activated limbic pressor circuit at the level of the septum. This convergence resulted in the formation of one cortico-limbic circuitry which could be activated by stress alone. This underlying mechanism may be considered as a model of neural sensitization in the production of stress-induced limbic hypertension.     

Adjunctive brainstem behaviors in the rat

Adjunctive behaviors refers to behaviors that are “out of context” and/or excessive in amount. The terminology was first used for unexplained behaviors associated with food pellet ratio contingencies in food deprived rats (Falk, 1971). Clinically, unrelated and complex excessive behaviors were also noted with brainstem and diencephalic discharges (Andy, 1986, 1989 and 1995; Andy and Jurko, 1986). The objective of this study was to develop a model of brainstem generated adjunctive behaviors in the rat. Method: Sixty-one adult rats were used. Kindling was induced by mechanical and DC electrical perturbations in the midbrain. Nine different treatment groups were established in which lesions and drugs were used separately and in different combinations. Cocaine was used to accentuate, and dextrorphan to attenuate the kindling process. Behaviors were visually analyzed and recorded by video camera; they were not quantified. DC stimulation and EEGs were done with Grass instruments. Recording and stimulation sights were verified histologically. Results: A total of 45 different behaviors were elicited. DC stimulation kindled subjects had significantly more behaviors than did electrode insertion alone and cocaine alone. However, cocaine combined with DC stimulation increased the number and intensity of the kindled behaviors. Dextrorphan tended to facilitate catatonic and sleep states. Behaviors occurred randomly and were unrelated, even when they occurred in clusters. The behaviors were associated with four abnormal EEG discharge patterns. Conclusion: We speculate that brainstem behaviors are innate adjunctive drives that are generated in the brainstem reticular formation. They are monitored by the cortex and partially modified by environmental and cortical inputs.     

Test–retest reliability and task order effects of emotional cognitive tests in healthy subjects

Little is known of the retest reliability of emotional cognitive tasks or the impact of using different tasks employing similar emotional stimuli within a battery. We investigated this in healthy subjects. We found improved overall performance in an emotional attentional blink task (EABT) with repeat testing at one hour and one week compared to baseline, but the impact of an emotional stimulus on performance was unchanged. Similarly, performance on a facial expression recognition task (FERT) was better one week after a baseline test, though the relative effect of specific emotions was unaltered. There was no effect of repeat testing on an emotional word categorising, recall and recognition task. We found no difference in performance in the FERT and EABT irrespective of task order. We concluded that it is possible to use emotional cognitive tasks in longitudinal studies and combine tasks using emotional facial stimuli in a single battery.