Are moods cognitive?: A critique of Schmitt on Heidegger

Conclusion If, as Schmitt suggests, Heidegger bases the claim that moods are cognitive on the philosophical distinction between theoretical and non-theoretical knowing, then much of what Heidegger says in this connection turns out to be either unclear, trivially true, or else false. Yet Schmitt himself only occasionally seems to recognize how dubious this account really is. Moreover, in attempting to help Heidegger say what he means, Schmitt's interpretation in Chapter 5 falters. It falters because(1) the emphatic likening of moods to skills,(2) the introduction of the bizzare notion knowing how occurrently, and (3) the misconceiving of self-deception, are not to be found in Sein und Zeit. They represent, rather, an imposition upon Sein und Zeit from without. This fact means either that Schmitt's interpretation is faulty or else that it is as much reconstructive as explicative. And if reconstructive, then several conceptual mistakes are attributable to him more than to Heidegger. In spite of these difficulties Martin Heidegger on Being Human is a prize book. It attempts to understand a thinker better than he understood himself. And according to Schleiermacher this is the goal of every hermeneutic.In contrast to the successful parts of the book, the chapter on moods fails to make sense out of Heidegger's view - one reason being, I would guess, that Heidegger is, after all, equivocating on the German word Stimmung. Sometimes he uses it to refer specifically to states such as being depressed, being serene, being anxious. At other times he uses it to refer vaguely to Dasein's attunement to the world. If the human being is always already (immer schon) attuned to the world, and if such a posture toward the world is also considered a mood, then in some imprecise way one's being in a mood might be a necessary condition for any belief to affect him emotionally. But, of course, mood in this broad sense would indicate an ontologically, and not a causally, necessary condition. And so, it would not follow that every belief which affected one emotionally need have some specific mood (e.g., depression, serenity, anxiety) as its necessary causal antecedent. Nor would it follow that, as a matter of fact, a change of belief could not effect a specific change of mood.I fear that with regard to some topics the sense in which one understands Heidegger better than he understood himself may well be the original Socratic sense: one knows what Heidegger himself does not know, viz., that the conceptions of Sein und Zeit are not always intelligible. And one wonders whether any philosophical midwifery can really be of aid - at least with respect to the claim that moods are cognitive.     

Schedule control of the vocal behavior of Cebus monkeys

The vocal behavior of three Cebus monkeys was maintained by fixed-ratio schedules of response dependent reinforcement at values between fixed-ratio 1 and fixed-ratio 15. In one monkey that was exposed to variable-interval, fixed-interval, and conjunctive fixed-ratio fixed-interval schedules of reinforcement, vocal responding occurred at a low rate, but schedule-appropriate patterns were maintained. The rates and patterns of responding engendered indicated that the vocal operant can be brought under schedule control in the monkey by the use of response-dependent reinforcement.     

Acquired equivalence and distinctiveness of cues: I. Exploring a neural network approach

Rats were placed in 4 contexts (A, B, C, D) where they received 2 auditory stimuli (X, Y); in A and B, presentations of X were paired with food and those of Y were not, and in C and D, Y was paired with food and X was not. Rats then received combinations of contexts that had provided congruent (AB, CD) or incongruent (AD, CB) information about X and Y's relationship to food. Responding was more variable during congruent than incongruent trials (Experiment 1) and was systematically increased and decreased during congruent (relative to incongruent) trials by the presentation of food or no food, respectively (Experiment 2). These results support a connectionist approach to acquired changes in stimulus distinctiveness.     

Listener: A tool for client-side investigation of hypermedia navigation behavior

Behavioral researchers have employed hypermedia-based software applications in their experiments for some time. More recently, interest in the World-Wide Web has developed among researchers in the social sciences, and popular use of this new medium continues to grow at an incredible rate. This paper describes Listener, a tool developed to log users’ hypermedia and World-Wide Web navigation behavior using Apple Macintosh computers in a laboratory setting. Listener is able to capture navigation actions through cached documents, overcoming some of the problems associated with analyzing standard web server logs.     

Active-imaginal exposure: examination of a new behavioral treatment for cynophobia (dog phobia)

The aims of this study were to investigate exposure-based treatments for cynophobia (dog phobia) and to test a newly developed hybrid imaginal exposure treatment that we have named active imaginal exposure. The treatment introduces an in vivo coping component to imaginal exposure whereby the patient physically performs coping responses to an imagined feared stimulus. Eighty-two participants meeting DSM-IV criteria for specific phobia (animal subtype) were randomly assigned to one of three 30-min. treatments: (a) active-imaginal exposure (AI), (b) imaginal exposure alone (IE), or (c) graduated in vivo exposure (IV). Participants completed a behavioral approach test at pre, post, and four-week follow-up. Significant pre- to posttreatment improvement was observed in all three treatment conditions. Response rates at posttreatment were 51.9, 62.1, and 73.1% for the IE, AI, and IV groups respectively. Likewise, effect sizes at posttreatment were 0.76, 1.41, and 1.55 for the IE, AI, and IV groups respectively. Although in the predicted direction, the between group differences were not significant. A similar pattern of results was observed at follow-up. Further, safety behavior utilization during treatment was associated with less improvement--particularly in the two imaginal treatment conditions. Exposure treatments of dog phobia appear feasible and effective in reducing phobic fear and avoidance associated with dog phobia. Furthermore, preliminary evidence suggests that our active-imaginal exposure treatment may be a viable alternative to in vivo exposure.     

Individual differences in information order effects: The importance of right-hemisphere access in belief updating

The order in which information is received alters the evaluation of causal hypotheses. Specifically, research suggests that the last piece of information oftentimes has the greatest impact on the evaluation and that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of information is an important factor influencing the magnitude of this recency effect. The present paper extends this line of work by exploring individual differences in this phenomenon via one's degree of handedness. Two hundred and five participants were given two hypothetical scenarios and related causal hypotheses accompanied by two pieces of additional information and asked to revise their belief in each hypothesis as information accumulated. Results confirmed predictions that 1) inconsistent/mixed-handers (those who use their non-dominant hand for at least some activities) show a larger effect with two pieces of inconsistent weak or strong information, and 2) neither mixed-handers nor consistent/strong-handers (those who use their dominant hand for almost all activities) show an effect with strong and weak pieces of consistent information. Mixed-handers' susceptibility to persuasive arguments and Ramachandran’s (1995; Ramachandran and Blakeslee, 1998) belief-updating theory centered around communication between the two halves of the brain and functional access to the right hemisphere are used to account for these data.     

Mighty metaphors: behavioral and ERP evidence that power shifts attention on a vertical dimension

Thinking about the abstract concept power may automatically activate the spatial up-down image schema (powerful up; powerless down) and consequently direct spatial attention to the image schema-congruent location. Participants indicated whether a word represented a powerful or powerless person (e.g. ‘king’ or ‘servant’). Following each decision, they identified a target at the top or bottom of the visual field. In Experiment 1 participants identified the target faster when their spatial position was congruent with the perceived power of the preceding word than when it was incongruent. In Experiment 2 ERPs showed a higher N1 amplitude for congruent spatial positions. These results support the view that attention is driven to the image schema congruent location of a power word. Thus, power is partially understood in terms of vertical space, which demonstrates that abstract concepts are grounded in sensory-motor processing.