Philosophie Als Aufkl?rung

Summary It cannot be stated with certainty that the process of enlightenment (Aufklärung) is irreversible. In many systems the tendency to dogmatize the ideologies by means of which political systems define their identity, invariably dominates the emancipatory tendencies of the intelligentsia. In recent years it has become clear that one has to add to this the fact that in the context of the international student youth movement, part of the intelligentsia is unmistakably fascinated by what dogmatism has been able to achieve as far as integration and orientation are concerned; and thus actively ideological and political movements have been developed which are contrary to the process of enlightening clarification. It is obvious that philosophy plays an important part here.The present essay on the other hand stresses by way of compensation the traditional enlightening function of philosophy. The term enlightening clarification is understood here to mean that process in which the stock of assumptions in regard to reality about which one does not allow for discussion, and which thus, correspondingly, in its claim of validity, is morally and politically controlled and protected group-specifically, is reduced to a minimum. The process of clarification, thus, is a process by means of which our socially secured interestedness, namely that reality is in this way and not in any other way, gradually disintegrates. The institutional character of universally accepted truths as well as the hermeneutic and rhetorical technologies of man's enlightening clarification, whose function it is to dissolve this universal acceptance, are described in this essay in great detail.

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This paper is a reprint from M. Riedel (ed.),Rehabilitierung der praktischen Philosophie. Geschichte — Probleme — Aufgaben. Freiburg: Verlag Rombach & Co., 1972.     

Cross-trial priming of element positions in visual pop-out search is dependent on stimulus arrangement

Two experiments examined cross-trial positional priming (V. Maljkovic & K. Nakayama, 1994, 1996, 2000) in visual pop-out search. Experiment 1 used regularly arranged target and distractor displays, as in previous studies. Reaction times were expedited when the target appeared at a previous target location (facilitation relative to neutral baseline) and slowed when the target appeared at a previous distractor location (inhibition). In contrast to facilitation, inhibition emerged only after extended practice. Experiment 2 revealed reduced facilitatory and no inhibitory priming when the elements' spatial arrangement was made irregular, indicating that positional--in particular, inhibitory--priming critically depends on the configuration of the display elements across sequences of trials. These results are discussed with respect to the role of the context for cross-trial priming in visual pop-out search.     

Measurement of Ability in Adaptive Learning and Assessment Systems when Learners Use On-Demand Hints

Adaptive learning and assessment systems support learners in acquiring knowledge and skills in a particular domain. The learners’ progress is monitored through them solving items matching their level and aiming at specific learning goals. Scaffolding and providing learners with hints are powerful tools in helping the learning process. One way of introducing hints is to make hint use the choice of the student. When the learner is certain of their response, they answer without hints, but if the learner is not certain or does not know how to approach the item they can request a hint. We develop measurement models for applications where such on-demand hints are available. Such models take into account that hint use may be informative of ability, but at the same time may be influenced by other individual characteristics. Two modeling strategies are considered: (1) The measurement model is based on a scoring rule for ability which includes both response accuracy and hint use. (2) The choice to use hints and response accuracy conditional on this choice are modeled jointly using Item Response Tree models. The properties of different models and their implications are discussed. An application to data from Duolingo, an adaptive language learning system, is presented. Here, the best model is the scoring-rule-based model with full credit for correct responses without hints, partial credit for correct responses with hints, and no credit for all incorrect responses. The second dimension in the model accounts for the individual differences in the tendency to use hints.     

Electrophysiological correlates of flicker-induced color hallucinations

In a recent study, Becker and Elliott [Becker, C., & Elliott, M. A. (2006). Flicker induced color and form: Interdependencies and relation to stimulation frequency and phase. Consciousness & Cognition, 15(1), 175-196] described the appearance of subjective experiences of color and form induced by stimulation with intermittent light. While there have been electroencephalographic studies of similar hallucinatory forms, brain activity accompanying the appearance of hallucinatory colors was never measured. Using a priming procedure where observers were required to indicate the presence of one of eight target colors we compared electrophysiological correlates of hallucinatory color with brain states associated with other visual phenomena. Different target colors were accompanied by different patterns of EEG activation. However, in general, we found that the appearance of hallucinatory colors is preceded by a power decrease in the lower alpha band alongside an increase in gamma band frequencies. We argue that decreasing activity in the lower alpha band acts as a gating mechanism, inducing a switch in perception between different colors. The increasing gamma activation may correlate with the formation of a coherent conscious percept.     

The Relationship Between Premenstrual Distress and Anxiety Sensitivity: The Mediating Role of Rumination

Given that premenstrual distress is reported by large numbers of women, research has focused on the identification of biological and psychological factors that influence its severity. Previous research suggests that women who are high in anxiety sensitivity also report greater levels of premenstrual distress and negative affect. According to the menstrual reactivity hypothesis, women who have a tendency to self-focus and catastrophize about physical sensations are more likely to report greater levels of premenstrual distress. Cognitive schemas surrounding the menstrual cycle develop that are influenced by gender roles, cultural stereotypes, and expectations about bodily sensations. Another cognitive process, rumination, may also be linked to increased reports of premenstrual distress. Conceptually, the constructs of anxiety sensitivity and rumination share the tendency to self-focus on internal states. The goal of this study was to investigate how these two constructs relate to the prediction of premenstrual distress in a large sample of healthy undergraduate women (N = 478). Using mediational modeling, support was found for a mediational model; women who reported high levels of rumination and anxiety sensitivity reported the greatest premenstrual distress. These results are discussed within the framework of the menstrual reactivity hypothesis, a diathesis-stress model of premenstrual distress.     

Effect of external motion on correspondence between infant actigraphy and maternal diary

Correspondence between infant actigraphy and mother-recorded diary differed significantly when receiver–operator function area under the curve, correlation, and logistic regression was calculated with and without excluding periods of external motion. External motion occurred in 40% of recording time and significantly changed activity count per epoch.     

Dimensional weighting of primary and secondary target-defining dimensions in visual search for singleton conjunction targets

Two experiments investigated dimension-based attentional processing in a complex singleton conjunction search task. In Experiment 1, observers had to discern the presence of a singleton target defined by a conjunction of size (fixed primary dimension) with either color or motion direction (secondary dimension). Similar to findings in singleton feature search, changes (vs. repetitions) of the secondary dimension across trials resulted in reaction time (RT) costs—which were, however, increased by a factor of 3–5 compared to singleton feature search. In Experiment 2, the coding of search-critical, dimensional saliency signals was investigated by additionally presenting targets redundantly defined in both secondary dimensions, with redundant-target signals being either spatially coincident or separate (i.e., one vs. two target items). Redundant-target RTs significantly violated Miller’s (Cognit Psychol 14:247–279, 1982) race model inequality only when redundant signals were spatially coincident (i.e., bound to a single object), indicating coactive processing of target information in the two secondary dimensions. These findings suggest that the coding and combining of signals from different visual dimensions operates in parallel. Increased change costs in singleton conjunction search are likely to reflect a reduced amount of weight available for processing the secondary target-defining dimensions, due to a large amount of weight being bound by the primary dimension.

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Inhibitory and facilitatory location priming in patients with left-sided visual hemi-neglect

In visual search for pop-out targets, reaction times are facilitated when the target on the current trial appears at a previous target location, and inhibited when it appears at a previous distractor location, relative to when it appears at a previously empty (neutral) location (Maljkovic and Nakayama, Perception and Psychophysics 58:977–991, 1996). However, while normal subjects are able to positively/negatively tag selected target/rejected distractor locations to guide search on the next trial, patients with visual hemi-neglect may have a (uni- or bilateral) deficit in these functions that may contribute to their disturbed visual scanning behavior. To examine this, using a pop-out search task, the present study assessed cross-trial facilitatory and inhibitory priming in 14 patients with left-sided visual hemi-neglect and in 14 age-, education-, and IQ-matched control subjects. The group of neglect patients did show significant facilitatory and inhibitory priming. However, while control subjects exhibited balanced effects of facilitation and inhibition, inhibition was relatively reduced in magnitude in neglect patients. In particular, inhibition was virtually absent in two patients with lesions affecting superior regions of the frontal cortex, putatively encroaching on the frontal eye field of the right hemisphere. These findings provide neuropsychological evidence that facilitatory and inhibitory priming effects are based on dissociable mechanisms, consistent with Geyer et al. (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 33:788–797, 2007).     

Object-based selection operating on a spatial representation made salient by dimensional segmentation mechanisms: a re-investigation of Egly and Homa (1984)

Three experiments re-investigated selective attention in the ‘ring-cueing’ paradigm of Egly and Homa (J Exp Psychol: Human Percept Perform 10:778–793, 1984). Observers were cued to attend to one of three concentric rings of radius 1°, 2°, or 3°, and their signal detection accuracy for cued and uncued rings was measured. Experiment 1, which used a central color cue to indicate a like-colored ring, replicated ring-cueing effects along the lines of Egly and Homa. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether these effects were produced by observers exploiting secondary-depth cues possibly inherent in the display layout. With color cues, the availability of secondary-depth information had no influence on the ring-cueing effects. However, making the rings monochrome and using central size cues significantly reduced the ring-cueing effects when the depth information was disrupted. The results suggest that selection was object-based, operating on a spatial ‘grouped-array’ representation of the cued ring made salient by color- or depth-based segmentation mechanisms.

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