The Ecological Revolution: The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, 50 Years Later - Part 2

ABSTRACT

This editorial presents the second of a 2-part special issue honoring the publication of James J. Gibson's 1966 book, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. As was pointed out by several reviews of this book written just after its publication (i.e., between 1967 and 1969), Gibson's 1966 book represents a revolution not only for the psychological science but also for domains beyond that of psychology. This second part of the special issue is composed of 5 theoretical contributions that represent, in addition to the 4 pieces previously published in the first part, the far-reaching influence of Gibson's ecological revolution.     

Emotional sharing and the extended mind

Synthese - This article investigates the relationship between emotional sharing and the extended mind thesis. We argue that shared emotions are socially extended emotions that involve a specific...     

Against Some Recent Arguments for ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can’: Reasons,Deliberation, Trying,and Furniture

Philosophia - Many philosophers claim that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. In light of recent empirical evidence, however, some skeptics conclude that philosophers should stop...     

Responsibility and the Brain Sciences

Some theorists think that the more we get to know about the neural underpinnings of our behaviors, the less likely we will be to hold people responsible for their actions. This intuition has driven some to suspect that as neuroscience gains insight into the neurological causes of our actions, people will cease to view others as morally responsible for their actions, thus creating a troubling quandary for our legal system. This paper provides empirical evidence against such intuitions. Particularly, our studies of folk intuitions suggest that (1) when the causes of an action are described in neurological terms, they are not found to be any more exculpatory than when described in psychological terms, and (2) agents are not held fully responsible even for actions that are fully neurologically caused.     

Improved picture naming in chronic aphasia after TMS to part of right Broca's area: an open-protocol study

Functional imaging studies with nonfluent aphasia patients have observed "over-activation" in right (R) language homologues. This may represent a maladaptive strategy; suppression may result in language improvement. We applied slow, 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to an anterior portion of R Broca's homologue daily, for 10 days in four aphasia patients who were 5-11 years poststroke. Significant improvement was observed in picture naming at 2 months post-rTMS, with lasting benefit at 8 months in three patients. This preliminary, open trial suggests that rTMS may provide a novel treatment approach for aphasia by possibly modulating the distributed, bi-hemispheric language network.     

Amnestic effect of intrahippocampal AM251, a CB1-selective blocker, in the inhibitory avoidance, but not in the open field habituation task, in rats

CB1 is the most abundant metabotropic receptor of the brain, being found in areas classically involved in learning and memory and present at higher density at presynaptic terminals. Different sets of evidence support the idea that endogenous ligands (endocannabinoids) to the CB1 receptors act as modulators of neurotransmission. In hippocampus, endocannabinoids seem to act as retrograde messengers mediating down-regulation of GABA release. Previous reports have described a cognitive impairment effect of cannabinoid agonists, or facilitation by antagonists. The scope of the present study is to investigate the effect of intrahippocampal administration of the CB1-selective antagonist, AM251, in two behavioral tasks. One hundred and twelve male Wistar rats with bilateral cannulae implanted in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus were trained in a step-down inhibitory avoidance task (IA, footshock, 0.5 mA) or an open field habituation task (OF). Immediately, after training, animals received an infusion of 0.55, 5.5, and 55.5 ng/side of AM251 (Tocris), or its vehicle (DMSO/saline), via these cannulae. Our results show that AM251 disrupted memory consolidation of the IA task, but not the OF task, an effect that seems to be purely mnemonic since the drug showed no motor performance effects. Only the intermediate dose (5.5 ng/side) of AM251 was effective in IA and the absence of effect with the larger dose may be the consequence of non-specific binding. The fact that OF was not affected raises the possibility that this endogenous system requires some degree of aversiveness to be recruited. We propose that increased levels of endogenous cannabinoids in the hippocampus, following a training session, contribute to facilitate memory consolidation, a process that may have been disrupted with AM251.     

Time-dependent effects of treadmill exercise on aversive memory and cyclooxygenase pathway function

Exercise induces brain function adaptations and improves learning and memory; however the time window of exercise effects has been poorly investigated. Studies demonstrate an important role for cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) pathway function in the mechanisms underlying memory formation. The aim of present work was to investigate the effects of treadmill exercise on aversive memory and COX-2, PGE(2) and E-prostanoid receptors contents in the rat hippocampus at different time points after exercise has ended. Adult male Wistar rats were assigned to non-exercised (sedentary) and exercised (running daily for 20min, for 2weeks) groups. The inhibitory avoidance task was used to assess aversive memory and the COX-2, PGE(2) and E-prostanoid receptors (EP1, EP2, EP3 and EP4) levels were determined 1h, 18h, 3days or 7days after the last training session of treadmill exercise. The step down latency in the inhibitory avoidance, COX-2 and EP4 receptors levels were acutely increased by exercise, with a significant positive correlation between aversive memory performance and COX-2 levels. Increased EP2 content decreased PGE(2) levels were observed 7days after the last running session. The treadmill exercise protocol facilitates inhibitory avoidance memory and induces time-dependent changes on COX-2 pathways function (COX-2, PGE(2) and EP receptors).     

Is memory for remembering? Recollection as a form of episodic hypothetical thinking

Misremembering is a systematic and ordinary occurrence in our daily lives. Since it is commonly assumed that the function of memory is to remember the past, misremembering is typically thought to happen because our memory system malfunctions. In this paper I argue that not all cases of misremembering are due to failures in our memory system. In particular, I argue that many ordinary cases of misremembering should not be seen as instances of memory’s malfunction, but rather as the normal result of a larger cognitive system that performs a different function, and for which remembering is just one operation. Building upon extant psychological and neuroscientific evidence, I offer a picture of memory as an integral part of a larger system that supports not only thinking of what was the case and what potentially could be the case, but also what could have been the case. More precisely, I claim that remembering is a particular operation of a cognitive system that permits the flexible recombination of different components of encoded traces into representations of possible past events that might or might not have occurred, in the service of constructing mental simulations of possible future events. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 1.2.