The cognitive representation of intending not to act: Evidence for specific non-action-effect binding

The question how we represent voluntary action on a cognitive level has recently become of increasing interest to researchers studying motor control. However, so far it has been neglected how we represent the voluntary omission of an action. In our attempt to investigate the representation of voluntary non-actions we demonstrated binding effects between voluntary non-actions and subsequent action effects (Kühn, Elsner, Prinz, & Brass, 2009). That study, however, only distinguished between acting or not acting, and did not address the question of whether non-actions are coded as general omissions or whether they can be encoded specifically as the actual negation of the action in question (“not-right” or “not-left”). Our current study provides first evidence for the specificity of representations of intentional non-actions. Additionally, we compare two ways in which the specific non-actions might be represented: an ironic representation account implying that negations are prone to be omitted and a reformulated representation account assuming that the negated action is suppressed and/or the alternative action is facilitated. Our results suggest that the representation of non-actions contains a facilitation of the alternative action rather than a suppression of the action in question.     

A Smile is Just a Smile: But Only for Men. Sex Differences in Meaning of Faces Scales

This study tests psychometrics of the faces scale that is often used in organizational psychology to assess emotions, attitudes, and well-being. In analyzing 10,584 two-categorical judgments (“sad” versus “happy”) of 11 faces from 72 participants, women judged a face with a horizontal line as mouth (“neutral face”) more often sad than happy and significantly more often sad than men did. Moreover, women adapted their judgments to the range of faces under study in showing a significant contrast effect. In a range of neutral to bright smiling faces a face showing a mild smile was judged to be sad, while in a range of neutral to heavy griming faces a mild grim was judged to be happy. Sex differences in meaning of faces within faces scales and their implications for the use of the faces scale in work and organizational psychology are discussed.     

Acquiring Non-Object Terms: The Case for Time Words

We address the issue of children's understanding of abstract words with two studies on preschoolers' knowledge of the time-duration words minutes, hours, days, and years. The first study examines 4- and 5-year-olds' ability to answer questions about durations of common phenomena with duration terms. The second study examines 4- to 6-year-olds' comprehension of duration terms with a forced-choice pointing task. Both show that preschoolers' knowledge of such words is incomplete, but that it adheres to the pattern proposed in previous work with toddlers for abstract words. More specifically, children form lexical domains for such words even before they know their individual meanings, thereby allowing the children to often respond appropriately but not usually correctly to questions about abstract dimensions like time.     

Outcome expectancy and not accuracy determines posterror slowing: ERP support

A considerable number of studies have recently used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the mechanisms underlying error processing. Nevertheless, how these mechanisms are associated with behavioral adjustments following errors remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated how posterror slowing is linked to outcome expectations and error feedback. We used an adaptive four-choice reaction time task to manipulate outcome expectancy. Behaviorally, the results show posterror slowing when errors are unexpected and postcorrect slowing when correct responses are unexpected, indicating that outcome expectancy is crucial for posterror slowing. ERP analyses revealed that the error-related negativity and the feedback-related negativity were not correlated with the behavioral reaction time pattern, whereas the P3 was. The results support the hypothesis that posterror slowing is caused by attentional orienting to unexpected events.     

Videotherapie bei postpartalen Störungen

Video recording is currently part of in- and out-patient therapy programs for parents with infants. The observation and analysis of video sequences allow the patient to gain an extraordinary insight with respect to its own experience and behaviour. Video Microanalytical Therapy (VMT) looks for the mother’s positive qualities in her relationship to the child and employs these qualities in order to support successful interactions. VMT is well-suited to the treatment of mothers with postpartal affective or psychotic disorders, because the typical cognitive distortions and reduced perception shown by these mothers can be avoided to a large extent through the use of pictures. In this study, a video microanalytical therapy concept will be presented, that was developed for the treatment of postpartally disordered mothers at the Psychiatric Centre Nordbaden in Wiesloch, Germany.     

《易经》:早期儒家的形上学与意识进化学

相关资料初步表明,在中国古代,客观地把握人性及人与宇宙交互作用的自觉与努力业已发生。本文试图阐明《易经》的思维理路,借此思维理路,《易经》不仅塑造和影响了早期儒家形上学,而且也塑造和影响了诸如意识研究,尤其是意识学之类的当代研究领域。《易经》的发展及其在西方的传播,正说明了这一点。意识学研究人性,思考存在的其他领域。在这些方面,意识学与《周易》是相通的。将意识学同中国古代思想相比较可以看出,我们现在所研究的意识学在中国古代思想中早已有之。基于这一历史事实,我们有必要在意识学的起始处研究意识学。在意识学研究中,意识进化学是一个不可或缺的、必须进行研究的内容。我们可以通过《易经》来探索意识的进化。     

The ontogeny of intentional communication in chimpanzees in the wild

The onset of intentional communication in children's first year of life represents a major milestone in human cognitive development. Similarly, it is well established that our closest living relatives, the great apes, communicate with signals characterized by at least first‐order intentionality. Despite the well‐documented influence of developmental experiences on socio‐cognitive abilities in apes, the developmental trajectory of intentional signal use as well as effects of social exposure remain poorly understood under naturalistic conditions. Here, we addressed these issues by studying the ontogeny of intentional communication in chimpanzee infants of two subspecies (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii/verus) and communities living in their natural environments. Overall, we found that gestures and bimodal signal combinations were most commonly accompanied by markers of intentional communication: audience checking, persistence to the goal, and sensitivity to recipient’s attentional state. Within individuals, the proportion of communicative behaviours associated with goal persistence and sensitivity to attention increased with age. Cross‐sectional comparisons between infants revealed an age effect on the use of audience checking. Context, interaction partner and site affiliation affected the production of specific markers irrespective of infants' age. The present study provided hitherto undocumented evidence for the development of three important markers of intentional communication in great apes. Moreover, our results suggest that social exposure impacts early intentional signal use.     

Correction to: Synthetic Biology and the Translational Imperative

Science and Engineering Ethics - The author group of above-mentioned review paper was incorrectly published in the online article.     

Locating and Representing Pain

Two views on the nature and location of pain are usually contrasted. According to the first, experientialism, pain is essentially an experience, and its bodily location is illusory. According to the second, perceptualism or representationalism, pain is a perceptual or representational state, and its location is to be traced to the part of the body in which pain is felt. Against this second view, the cases of phantom, referred and chronic pain have been marshalled: all these cases apparently show that one can be in pain while not having anything wrong in her body. Pain bodily location, then, would be illusory. I this paper I shall defend the representational thesis by presenting an argument against experientialism while conceding that the appearance/reality distinction collapses. A crucial role in such identification is played by deictics. In reporting that we feel pain here, the deictic directly refers to the bodily part as coinciding with the part as represented. So, pain location is not illusory. The upshot is that the body location is part and parcel of the representational content of pain states, a representation build up from the body map.