Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience

The implications of the discovery of mirroring mechanisms and embodied simulation for empathetic responses to images in general, and to works of visual art in particular, have not yet been assessed. Here, we address this issue and we challenge the primacy of cognition in responses to art. We propose that a crucial element of esthetic response consists of the activation of embodied mechanisms encompassing the simulation of actions, emotions and corporeal sensation, and that these mechanisms are universal. This basic level of reaction to images is essential to understanding the effectiveness both of everyday images and of works of art. Historical, cultural and other contextual factors do not preclude the importance of considering the neural processes that arise in the empathetic understanding of visual artworks.     

“Cuts in Action”: A High‐Density EEG Study Investigating the Neural Correlates of Different Editing Techniques in Film

In spite of their striking differences with real‐life perception, films are perceived and understood without effort. Cognitive film theory attributes this to the system of continuity editing, a system of editing guidelines outlining the effect of different cuts and edits on spectators. A major principle in this framework is the 180° rule, a rule recommendation that, to avoid spectators’ attention to the editing, two edited shots of the same event or action should not be filmed from angles differing in a way that expectations of spatial continuity are strongly violated. In the present study, we used high‐density EEG to explore the neural underpinnings of this rule. In particular, our analysis shows that cuts and edits in general elicit early ERP component indicating the registration of syntactic violations as known from language, music, and action processing. However, continuity edits and cuts‐across the line differ from each other regarding later components likely to be indicating the differences in spatial remapping as well as in the degree of conscious awareness of one's own perception. Interestingly, a time–frequency analysis of the occipital alpha rhythm did not support the hypothesis that such differences in processing routes are mainly linked to visual attention. On the contrary, our study found specific modulations of the central mu rhythm ERD as an indicator of sensorimotor activity, suggesting that sensorimotor networks might play an important role. We think that these findings shed new light on current discussions about the role of attention and embodied perception in film perception and should be considered when explaining spectators’ different experience of different kinds of cuts.     

The authenticity of Christian Evangelicals: between individuality and obedience

Based on ethnographic data in a Christian Evangelical church in the UK, the article shows how Evangelical Christians construct their individual and group identity through appeals to authenticity. Authenticity, as it emerges from the local narratives, shares much with philosophical and sociological understandings of it, yet it is articulated within the framework of tradition. By grounding authenticity in Christian tradition, Evangelicals construct an identity which they understand as distinctive rather than morally superior to other moral traditions. Christian authenticity is a moral pursuit that requires obedience—the acceptance of God’s will. This is contrasted with the celebration of individual self-authority that is at the core of Western society. The tension between individuality and obedience to God is the motif that makes Christianity distinctive in the eyes of the informants in this study. It is also the basis for the formation of the Christian self.     

Association of Positivity with Health Problems in Old Age: Preliminary Findings from Spanish Middle Class Seniors

Previous studies have indicated positivity as a basic trait which lies at the very heart of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and dispositional optimism, and predisposes people to view life and experience from a positive point of view. The present research addresses the extent to which age, positivity and its abovementioned expressions may be associated with healthy functioning in old age. Fifty-one men and eighty-one women, all Spanish, predominantly middle-class and educated, in good health and ranging in age from 62 to 80, participated in this research project. The findings reveal the role positivity plays in moderating the negative impact of aging on health problems as assessed by availing of the Nottingham Health Profile. The higher the positivity, the less people seem inclined to report health problems as they advance in age. Self-esteem, life satisfaction, and optimism too show similar effects, but only the association between life satisfaction, health problems and aging were worth considering, once positivity was kept under control.     

Positivity: The Dispositional Basis of Happiness

The present study examined in a stringent developmental model whether positivity, conceptualized as a pervasive mode of appraising, viewing, and perceiving life from a positive stance, predicts chronic positive affectivity across time or vice versa. Participants [263 participants (47 % males)], aged 15.5 at the beginning of the study and 23.5 at the end, reported on measures of positivity and dispositional positive affect four times. Longitudinal findings corroborated the posited paths of relations, with positivity significantly predicting positive affectivity across time rather than vice versa.     

The Yin and Yang of cell cycle progression and differentiation in the oligodendroglial lineage

In white matter disorders such as leukodystrophies (LD), periventricular leucomalacia (PVL), or multiple sclerosis (MS), the hypomyelination or the remyelination failure by oligodendrocyte progenitor cells involves errors in the sequence of events that normally occur during development when progenitors proliferate, migrate through the white matter, contact the axon, and differentiate into myelin-forming oligodendrocytes. Multiple mechanisms underlie the eventual progressive deterioration that typifies the natural history of developmental demyelination in LD and PVL and of adult-onset demyelination in MS. Over the past few years, pathophysiological studies have mostly focused on seeking abnormalities that impede oligodendroglial maturation at the level of migration, myelination, and survival. In contrast, there has been a strikingly lower interest for early proliferative and differentiation events that are likely to be equally critical for white matter development and myelin repair. This review highlights the Yin and Yang principles of interactions between intrinsic factors that coordinately regulate progenitor cell division and the onset of differentiation, i.e. the initial steps of oligodendrocyte lineage progression that are obviously crucial in health and diseases.     

Personal values and political activism: A cross‐national study

Using data from 28 countries in four continents, the present research addresses the question of how basic values may account for political activism. Study (N = 35,116) analyses data from representative samples in 20 countries that responded to the 21‐item version of the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ‐21) in the European Social Survey. Study (N = 7,773) analyses data from adult samples in six of the same countries (Finland, Germany, Greece, Israel, Poland, and United Kingdom) and eight other countries (Australia, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, and United States) that completed the full 40‐item PVQ. Across both studies, political activism relates positively to self‐transcendence and openness to change values, especially to universalism and autonomy of thought, a subtype of self‐direction. Political activism relates negatively to conservation values, especially to conformity and personal security. National differences in the strength of the associations between individual values and political activism are linked to level of democratization.     

Die Fakta leiten alle Eidetik. Zu Husserls Begriff des materialen Apriori

The paper provides a reconstruction of the notion of material Apriori while exhibiting the anti-Kantian inspiration and factual grounding thereof. The attempt is made to show that a non-formal Apriori obtains because the sensuous has a normative character; further, that the difference between material and formal eidetic laws is rooted in the difference between sensuous contents, given in experience, and intellectual contents, originating in activities of judgement. The material Apriori is not independent of all experience, since it is grounded on sensuous eidetic contents and thus depends on the latter’s givenness and characteristics. It is thanks precisely to this ,contingency‘ that it has an ontological significance.