Memory Bias in Recovered Clinical Depressives

Abstract

Emotions can be regarded as the manifestations of a system that realises multiple concerns and operates in an uncertain environment. Taking the concern realisation function as a starting point, it is argued that the major phenomena of emotion follow from considerations of what properties a subsystem implementing that function should have. The major phenomena are: the existence of the feelings of pleasure and pain, the importance of cognitive or appraisal variables, the presence of innate, pre-programmed behaviours as well as of complex constructed plans for achieving emotion goals, and the occurrence of behavioural interruption, disturbance and impulse-like priority of emotional goals. The system properties underlying these phenomena are facilities for relevance detection of events with regard to the multiple concerns, availability of relevance signals that can be recognised by the action system, and facilities for control precedence, or flexible goal priority ordering and shift.

A computer program, ACRES, is described that is built upon the specifications provided by this emotion theory. It operates in an operator-machine interaction involving the task of executing a knowledge manipulation task (the knowledge domain happens to be about emotions). ACRES responds emotionally when one of his concerns (e.g. errorless input, being kept busy, receiving varied input, not being killed) is touched upon. Responses are social signals, shifts in resource allocations to the operator, interruption of current task-directed processing, and refusal to accept instructions. His flow of behaviour shows much of the preference-based predictability, response interference, goalshifts, and social signalling of human and animal emotional behaviour.     

The Empirical Status of the Laws of Emotion

Abstract

Smedslund's view that my laws are non-empirical and tautological is based upon two arguments that I do not share. First, the content of the definition of emotion from which he starts is for me an empirically verifiable theory. Secondly, elements in that definition or theory, and in its derivations, are tautological only when these elements (like “want”) are merely understood as states of awareness, and not as constructs referring to observables outside the awareness of the subject of emotion: antecedents, conditions. processes, and overt responses. In short, I think that my laws could be proven wrong or, more plausibly, unproductive, and thus not necessarily true.

In addition, contrary to Smedslund, I hold that the laws of emotion can in part be contradictory precisely because they do not represent logical, but empirical, facts. Humans have contradictory interests and may well have provisions to Serve these interests.     

Automatic behavioural responses to valence: Evidence that facial action is facilitated by evaluative processing

Are motor schemata of facial action spontaneously activated upon the processing of evaluative information? In this case, the processing of positive evaluative information should immediately trigger the motor schema of smiling, and the processing of negative information should trigger frowning. This hypothesis was tested in two experiments in which participants were required to respond to positive and negative words by either smiling or frowning. Electromyogram (EMG) activity was recorded over the brow muscle region (corrugator supercilii) and over the cheek muscle region (zygomaticus major) in order to quantify the latency of muscular response as a dependent measure. In Experiment 1 we found that participants were faster at contracting their zygomaticus muscle (which is involved in smiling) when evaluating positive words, and faster at contracting their corrugator muscle (which is involved in frowning) when evaluating negative words. In Experiment 2, participants were required to respond with the contraction of one of the two muscles whenever a word appeared on the computer screen. Again, we found that responses were faster to congruent response valence combinations than to incongruent response valence combinations. These findings support the hypothesis that evaluative processing is directly linked to motor schemata of facial muscles.     

Spaceship Archeology: Methodological Experiments in NSF Counter-Insurgency at the 2017 Oregon Eclipse Festival

Abstract

This article examines several aspects of knowledge production among practitioners of 21st century capitalism, critiquing the motivations, funding, methods, and dissemination of today’s politically and economically dominant epistemology. We document a methodological experiment undertaken during the Oregon Eclipse Festival—a week-long event coinciding with the solar eclipse that crossed the United States on August 21, 2017. As commissioned participants in the festival’s Art & Science exhibit, we designed an interactive archeological excavation that sought to produce material evidence corroborating the (un)reality of UFO activity in Oregon. From this performance, we highlight four insights into the relationship between science, evidence, and responsibility.     

Manual and verbal responses to completely masked (unreportable) stimuli: exploring some conditions for the metacontrast dissociation.

As reported by Neumann and Klotz [1994, in Attention and Performance XV: Conscious and Nonconscious Information Processing Eds C Umiltà, M Moscovitch (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press) pp 123-150], a geometric shape masked by metacontrast can affect response latency (RT) even if it is not visible, i.e. if it yields a d' value of zero in a signal-detection (SD) task (metacontrast dissociation). In the initial study as well as in most subsequent experiments, the RT task was manual and the SD task was verbal. Hence tasks and output modes were confounded. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to find out which of these factors is responsible for the metacontrast dissociation. In experiment 1, participants performed an RT task in either a manual or a verbal output mode. In experiment 2, these output modes were compared in an SD task. Independently of output modes, the masked primes affected RT but could not be detected in the SD task. It is concluded that tasks, but not output modes, are crucial for the metacontrast dissociation. Implications for the mechanisms underlying the metacontrast dissociation and for the functional difference between judgments and responses are discussed.