How do affected interests support global democracy?

In this paper, I critique one way of arguing for global democracy on grounds of affected interests and defend another. A famous argument for global democracy, which I call the Demos-Based Argument, attempts to justify global democracy based on the claim that affected interests vindicate individual claims to democratic participation or representation. I analyze and evaluate the Demos-Based Argument and consider different ways of interpreting and justifying its crucial premise: the Principle of Affected Interests. The result is that the argument fails. One lesson of the discussion of the Demos-Based Argument is that the most promising, though eventually unsuccessful, justification of the Principle of Affected Interests is utilitarian. Given the failure of the Demos-Based Argument, the question suggests itself if there is another way to argue for global democracy on utilitarian grounds. I will outline a promising alternative argument for global democracy, which I call the Direct Argument. Like the Demos-Based Argument, the Direct Argument is based on affected interests and ultimately on utilitarianism, but unlike the former, the Direct Argument avoids the detour over stating a criterion for individual claims to democratic participation and representation.     

The role of problem-solving appraisal in the process and outcome of career counseling

Because problem-solving appraisal has been demonstrated to be a critical variable in psychological adjustment, this study examined its potential role as both a static and dynamic client attribute influencing the process and outcome of career counseling. Participants were 151 adults who received an average of five sessions of naturally occurring career counseling; data were collected before, during, and after counseling. The results indicated that: (a) in line with a static attribute model, clients' pre-counseling problem-solving appraisal scores predicted post-counseling career and psychological outcomes as well as career decidedness even after partialling out clients' pre-decidedness scores; (b) in line with a dynamic attribute model, clients who experienced positive changes in problem-solving appraisal in counseling were more likely to have more positive career resources to use in their career transitions as well greater goal directedness; (c) participation in career counseling related to positive change in problem-solving appraisal scores at a level similar to problem-solving training workshops; and (d) clients' changes in problem-solving appraisal related to changes in the working alliance over time.     

Perceptual awareness and categorical representation of faces: evidence from masked priming

How internal categories influence how we perceive the world is a fundamental question in cognitive sciences. Yet, the relation between perceptual awareness and perceptual categorization has remained largely uncovered so far. Here, we addressed this question by focusing on face perception during subliminal and conscious perception. We used morphed continua between two face identities and we assessed, through a masked priming paradigm, the perceptual processing of these morphed faces under subliminal and supraliminal conditions. We found that priming from subliminal faces followed linearly the information present in the primes, while priming from visible faces revealed a non-linear profile, indicating a categorical processing of face identities. Our results thus point to a special relation between perceptual awareness and categorical processing of faces, and support the dissociation between two modes of information processing: a subliminal mode involving analog treatment of stimuli information, and a supraliminal mode relying on discrete representation.     

Impaired awareness of movement disorders in Parkinson’s disease

Background

This study analyzed the presence of awareness of movement disorders (dyskinesias and hypokinesias) in 25 patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and motor fluctuations (dyskinesias, wearing off, on–off fluctuations). Of the few studies that have dealt with this topic, none have analyzed the differences in the awareness of motor deficits by comparing the on and off states using motor scales and an extensive battery of tests to assess cognitive and behavioral functioning.

Methods

PD patients were compared on three different scales that we have devised to measure awareness of movement disorders: Global Awareness of Movement (GAM) Disorders, dyskinesia/hypo-bradykinesia rating scales.

Results

Data showed that PD patients had greater awareness and psychological suffering in the off state than in the on state. In particular, they were troubled by motor disabilities related to hypokinesias and had mood-related symptoms and a perception of disability in activities of daily living. Interestingly, patients only showed a selective reduction of awareness of movement disorders associated with executive functions and related to dyskinesias in the on state, compared to a preserved awareness of hypokinesias in the off state. On the contrary, no association with executive functions was found in the off state.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that the dopaminergic overstimulation of mesocorticolimbic pathways may cause a dysfunction of prefrontal–subcortical connections related to the impaired insight.     

Deconstructing the tower: Parameters and predictors of problem difficulty on the Tower of London task

The Tower of London (TOL) task has been widely used in both clinical and research realms. In the current study, 104 healthy participants attempted all possible moderate- to high-difficulty TOL problems in order to determine: (1) optimal measures of problem solving performance, (2) problem characteristics, other than the minimum moves necessary to solve the problem, that determine participants’ difficulty in solving problems successfully, quickly, and efficiently, and (3) effects of increased task experience on which problem characteristics determine problem difficulty. A factor analysis of six performance measures found that, regardless of task experience, problem difficulty could be captured well either by a single factor corresponding to general quality of solution or possibly by three subordinate factors corresponding to solution efficiency, solution speed, and initial planning speed. Regression analyses predicting these performance factors revealed that in addition to a problem’s minimum moves three problem parameters were critical in determining the problem difficulty: goal position hierarchy, start position hierarchy, and number of solution paths available. The relative contributions of each of the characteristics strongly depended on which performance factor defined performance. We conclude that TOL problem performance is multifaceted, and that classifying problem difficulty using only the minimum moves necessary to solve the problem is inadequate.     

Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other?

What is the best way of assessing the extent to which people are aware of a stimulus? Here, using a masked visual identification task, we compared three measures of subjective awareness: The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), through which participants are asked to rate the clarity of their visual experience; confidence ratings (CR), through which participants express their confidence in their identification decisions, and Post-decision wagering (PDW), in which participants place a monetary wager on their decisions. We conducted detailed explorations of the relationships between awareness and identification performance, looking to determine (1) which scale best correlates with performance, and (2) whether we can detect performance in the absence of awareness and how the scales differ from each other in terms of revealing such unconscious processing. Based on these findings we discuss whether perceptual awareness should be considered graded or dichotomous. Results showed that PAS showed a much stronger performance-awareness correlation than either CR or PDW, particularly for low stimulus intensities. In general, all scales indicated above-chance performance when participants claimed not to have seen anything. However, such above-chance performance only showed when we also observed a correlation between awareness and performance. Thus (1) PAS seems to be the most exhaustive measure of awareness, and (2) we find support for above-chance performance in the absence of subjective awareness, but such unconscious knowledge only contributes to performance when we observe conscious knowledge as well. Similarities and differences between scales are discussed in the light of consciousness theories and response strategies.     

Partial awareness distinguishes between measuring conscious perception and conscious content: Reply to Dienes and Seth

In their comment on Sandberg, Timmermans, Overgaard, and Cleeremans (2010), Dienes and Seth argue that increased sensitivity of the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS) is a consequence of the scale being less exclusive rather than more exhaustive. According to Dienes and Seth, this is because PAS may measure some conscious content, though not necessarily relevant conscious content, “If one saw a square but was only aware of seeing a flash of something, then one has not consciously seen a square.” In this reply, we claim that there is a difference between conscious visual experience, which may be partial, and the resulting conscious content, which is conceptual. Whereas PAS measures the first, confidence judgments and post-decision wagering measure the second.     

The earliest electrophysiological correlate of visual awareness?

To examine the neural correlates and timing of human visual awareness, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in two experiments while the observers were detecting a grey dot that was presented near subjective threshold. ERPs were averaged for conscious detections of the stimulus (hits) and nondetections (misses) separately. Our results revealed that hits, as compared to misses, showed a negativity around 180-350 ms at occipital and posterior temporal sites. It was followed by a positive wave after 400-500 ms, peaking at parietal sites. These correlates were not affected by a manipulation of attention. The early negativity, called 'visual awareness negativity' (VAN), may be a general, primary electrophysiological correlate of visual awareness. The present data show that it can be observed in response to appearance of a stimulus in visual awareness and that it generalizes across different manipulations of stimulus visibility.     

What is implicit about implicit self-esteem?

Modern advances in implicit social cognition enabled development of novel methods for examining less conscious aspects of self-worth. The use of such “implicit” measures of self-esteem is based on the premise that because they circumvent direct self-reports, they must capture more implicit, automatic components of self-evaluation. Whether self-evaluations captured via “implicit” measures actually have these functional properties requires empirical verification, however. This investigation critically examined the evidence for such assumptions regarding the Name-Letter Test, one of the most popular implicit measures, by adopting a phenomenological approach. The results revealed that many respondents were aware of the self-relevant nature of the measure at the time of assessment. Moreover, at least some variance in the “implicit” measurement outcomes was accounted for by relevant conscious beliefs, particularly among those aware of the self-relevant nature of the task. The implications for understanding the nature and assessment of unconscious self-worth are discussed.     

A microgenetic study of insightful problem solving

An eight-session microgenetic study of acquisition of an insightful problem-solving strategy was conducted. A total of 35 second graders who did not use this insightful strategy initially were assigned to two groups that differed in the frequency of problems likely to facilitate discovery and generalization of the strategy. Children in the facilitative problems group discovered the insightful strategy earlier, used it more often subsequently, and transferred it more often to novel problems than did those in the nonfacilitative problems group. Children generally discovered the insightful strategy on the most facilitative items and extended it progressively to items on which its advantages were smaller but still substantial. The results indicate that experience outside the experimental situation, as well as experience inside the experimental situation, influences use of new strategies.