‘On Bullshit’ and ‘Mindfucking’: an essay on mental manipulation in education

In 2005 and 2008, respectively, two books by well-established and -respected analytical philosophers caused some controversy, not only because of their provocative and eye-catching titles but also because of the sheer brevity of the essays they contained. Harry Frankfurt's book, which analysed the prevalence of ‘bullshit’ in contemporary society, was generally lauded for elevating a slang term to a new epistemological category, despite some people's understandable unease with the author's opportunist focus on a popular obscenity. Critics were generally less kind with regard to Colin McGinn's book, pointing out that his analysis adds little, if anything, to the general understanding of mental manipulation, and that he has little to say about the factors that influence the frequency with which mindfucking occurs in contemporary society. After arguing that mindfucking is a special kind of psychological manipulation (and crucially distinct from indoctrination and brainwashing), the present paper investigates the possible educational significance and application of these two notions. It pays special attention to the factors affecting the frequency and magnitude with which bullshit and mindfucking occur in contemporary society, not only in our culture but in other cultures too.     

Threat ≠ prevention,challenge ≠ promotion: The impact of threat,challenge and regulatory focus on attention to negative stimuli

The purpose of the current experiment was to distinguish between the impact of strategic and affective forms of gain- and loss-related motivational states on the attention to negative stimuli. On the basis of the counter-regulation principle and regulatory focus theory, we predicted that individuals would attend more to negative than to neutral stimuli in a prevention focus and when experiencing challenge, but not in a promotion focus and under threat. In one experiment (N = 88) promotion, prevention, threat, or challenge states were activated through a memory task, and a subsequent dot probe task was administered. As predicted, those in the prevention focus and challenge conditions had an attentional bias towards negative words, but those in promotion and threat conditions did not. These findings provide support for the idea that strategic mindsets (e.g., regulatory focus) and hot emotional states (e.g., threat vs. challenge) differently affect the processing of affective stimuli.     

Actuality in Propositional Modal Logic

We show that the actuality operator A is redundant in any propositional modal logic characterized by a class of Kripke models (respectively, neighborhood models). Specifically, we prove that for every formula ${\phi}$ in the propositional modal language with A, there is a formula ${\psi}$ not containing A such that ${\phi}$ and ${\psi}$ are materially equivalent at the actual world in every Kripke model (respectively, neighborhood model). Inspection of the proofs leads to corresponding proof-theoretic results concerning the eliminability of the actuality operator in the actuality extension of any normal propositional modal logic and of any “classical” modal logic. As an application, we provide an alternative proof of a result of Williamson’s to the effect that the compound operator A□ behaves, in any normal logic between T and S5, like the simple necessity operator □ in S5.     

Log-normal nanograin-size distributions in nanostructured composites

A key challenge in the fabrication of superhard nanocomposite films is how to control the distribution of grain sizes in these materials. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy has been used to measure nanograin-size distributions in the Ti–B–N films with various B contents. The results show that the mean grain size decreases with increase of B content and the grain-size distribution conforms to a log-normal function when the hardness approaches a maximum value. The transition from normal to log-normal distributions can be determined by analysis in terms of a minimum information criterion. The origin of a log-normal size distribution probably results from heterogeneity arising from a diffusion-drift process.     

The precuneus and the insula in self-attributional processes

Attributions are constantly assigned in everyday life. A well-known phenomenon is the self-serving bias: that is, people’s tendency to attribute positive events to internal causes (themselves) and negative events to external causes (other persons/circumstances). Here, we investigated the neural correlates of the cognitive processes implicated in self-serving attributions using social situations that differed in their emotional saliences. We administered an attributional bias task during fMRI scanning in a large sample of healthy subjects (n = 71). Eighty sentences describing positive or negative social situations were presented, and subjects decided via buttonpress whether the situation had been caused by themselves or by the other person involved. Comparing positive with negative sentences revealed activations of the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Self-attribution correlated with activation of the posterior portion of the precuneus. However, self-attributed positive versus negative sentences showed activation of the anterior portion of the precuneus, and self-attributed negative versus positive sentences demonstrated activation of the bilateral insular cortex. All significant activations were reported with a statistical threshold of p ≤ .001, uncorrected. In addition, a comparison of our fMRI task with data from the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire, Revised German Version, demonstrated convergent validity. Our findings suggest that the precuneus and the PCC are involved in the evaluation of social events with particular regional specificities: The PCC is activated during emotional evaluation, the posterior precuneus during attributional evaluation, and the anterior precuneus during self-serving processes. Furthermore, we assume that insula activation is a correlate of awareness of personal agency in negative situations.     

中小学生阅读图文课文的眼动实验研究

本研究采用眼动方法,对85名小五、实二和高二年级学生阅读图文课文的阅读理解指标和眼动指标进行考察。结果表明：（1）学生阅读不同呈现方式和难度课文的阅读理解指标和眼动指标,一般都具有明显的年龄发展特征;（2）学生阅读不同呈现方式课文的阅读理解指标和眼动指标,有图课文大多显著优于无图课文;（3）学生阅读不同难度课文的阅读理解指标和眼动指标,易课文显著优于难课文。     

建筑有学问,风水是迷信

近几年,风水术又流行起来。风水先生不足论,在一些学者的言论和论著中,也把风水说成是建筑选址的“环境科学”,比如要依山傍水,背风向阳之类。笔者经过对历史文献的考察,发现这完全是一种误解。兹将结果发表,供有关人士参考。一、风水术不是孔孟老庄及其以前的传统选择适当的地方做窝,是许多动物的本能。据研究,有些动物还有选择葬地的行为。到该死的时     

Odors Can Serve as Landmarks in Human Wayfinding

Scientists have shown that many non‐human animals such as ants, dogs, or rats are very good at using smells to find their way through their environments. But are humans also capable of navigating through their environment based on olfactory cues? There is not much research on this topic, a gap that the present research seeks to bridge. We here provide one of the first empirical studies investigating the possibility of using olfactory cues as landmarks in human wayfinding. Forty subjects participated in a piloting study to determine the olfactory material for the main experiment. Then, 24 subjects completed a wayfinding experiment with 12 odors as orientation cues. Our results are astonishing: Participants were rather good at what we call “odor‐based wayfinding.” This indicates that the ability of humans to use olfactory cues for navigation is often underestimated. We discuss two different cognitive explanations and rule out the idea that our results are just an instance of sequential learning. Rather, we argue that humans can enrich their cognitive map of the environment with olfactory landmarks and may use them for wayfinding.