Emotion-specific load disrupts concomitant affective processing

Findings in the neuroimaging literature suggest that separate brain circuitries are involved when individuals perform emotional compared to nonemotional working memory (WM) tasks. Here we test this hypothesis with behavioural measures. We predicted that the conceptual processing of affect would be disrupted more by concurrent affective than nonaffective load. Participants performed a conceptual task in which they verified affective versus sensory properties of concepts, and a second, concurrent, working memory (n-back) task in which the target stimuli were facial expressions. Results revealed that storing and updating affective (as compared with identity) features of facial expressions altered performance more for affective than for sensory properties of concepts. The findings are supportive of the ideas that affective resources exist and that these resources are specifically used during the processing and representation of affective properties of objects and events.     

A Kantian-Brandomian View of Concepts and The Problem of a Regress of Norms

ABSTRACT

According to the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts, we can understand concepts in terms of norms or rules that bind those who apply them, and the application of a concept requires that the concept-user be sensitive to the norms governing its application. But this view faces some serious objections. In particular, according to Rosen, Glüer and Wikforss, this view leads to a vicious regress of norms. The purpose of this paper is to defend a version of the Kantian-Brandomian view of concepts against this objection. I argue that we can deal with this problem along the lines of a coherentist account of justification.     

The challenge of cross-cultural quality of life assessment

Abstract

As a result of an increased international cooperation in the health care field, the demand for cross-culturally applicable, patient-oriented instruments to assess the need for and to evaluate the outcome of medical interventions has also grown. However, basic problems exist in assessing health-related quality of life—one of the most prominent outcomes—across cultures. Conceptually it is unclear to which extent the quality of life construct is transferable from one cultural context to another. Methodologically, ways to assess the construct have to be sensitive to different cultures and practically, application of quality of life measures may be difficult. The current paper addresses these issues, presenting the current state of the art in cross-cultural development of health-related quality of life assessment instruments as well as a critical review thereof. Examples are provided from internationally active working groups in terms of the translation, psychometric testing and norming of quality of life questionnaires.     

The spatial mapping of concepts in English and Mandarin

ABSTRACT

English speakers have been shown to map abstract concepts in space, which occurs on both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. For example, words such as God are associated with up and right spatial locations, and words such as Satan with down and left. If the tendency to map concepts in space is a universal property of human cognition, then it is likely that such mappings may be at least partly culturally-specific, since many concepts are themselves language-specific and therefore cultural conventions. Here we investigated whether Mandarin speakers report spatial mapping of concepts, and how these mappings compare with English speakers (i.e. are words with the same meaning associated with the same spatial locations). Across two studies, results showed that both native English and Mandarin speakers reported spatial mapping of concepts, and that the distribution of mappings was highly similar for the two groups. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Mapping an HIV/STD prevention curriculum for Zambian in-school settings

HIV/AIDS poses grave risk to human development in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence-based interventions that are rooted in local culture could help efforts to prevent threats to human development from HIV/AIDS. We used concept mapping (Concept System, 2006 ) to construct the components and content of a locally developed HIV/AIDS curriculum for use by secondary schools in Lusaka, Zambia. Participants were school counsellors (n = 14), youth health program officers (n = 7), and regular education teachers (n = 3) from the education, health, and youth development agencies in Lusaka, Zambia (males = 11; females = 13; mean age 38; SD = 15 years). Concept mapping yielded six statement clusters defining preliminary components of a locally grounded in-school HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum and the content items that define these components: (1) life skills education (18 items), (2) sexuality and reproductive health (10 items), (3) treatment, care and support (13 items), (4) counselling (12 items), (5) basic facts about HIV/AIDS (11 items), and (6) dissemination of information about HIV/AIDS (11 items). Zambian locally constructed constructs for an HIV/STD prevention curriculum overlap those promoted by public health programs in the country and internationally.     

Congruity Effects in Time and Space: Behavioral and ERP Measures

Two experiments investigated whether motion metaphors for time affected the perception of spatial motion. Participants read sentences either about literal motion through space or metaphorical motion through time written from either the ego-moving or object-moving perspective. Each sentence was followed by a cartoon clip. Smiley-moving clips showed an iconic happy face moving toward a polygon, and shape-moving clips showed a polygon moving toward a happy face. In Experiment 1, using an explicit judgment task, participants judged smiley-moving cartoons as related to ego-moving sentences about space and about time, and shape-moving cartoons as related to object-moving sentences. In Experiment 2, participants viewed the same stimuli, but the cartoons were task-irrelevant. Event-related brain potentials revealed an early attentional effect of congruity on cartoons following sentences about space, and a later semantic effect on cartoons following sentences about time. Results are most consistent with accounts that posit differences in the processing of novel and conventional metaphors.     

NONEMPIRICAL REALITY: TRANSCENDING THE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL IN THE ORDER OF THE ONE

I describe characteristic phenomena of quantum physics that suggest that reality appears to us in two domains: the open and well‐known domain of empirical, material things—the realm of actuality—and a hidden and invisible domain of nonempirical, non‐material forms—the realm of potentiality. The nonempirical forms are part of physical reality because they contain the empirical possibilities of the universe and can manifest themselves in the empirical world. Two classes of nonempirical states are discussed: the superposition states of microphysical entities, which are nonempirical because observation destroys them, and the virtual states of material systems, which are nonempirical because they are empty. The non‐empirical part to physical reality represents a predetermined and hidden order that exists before it is empirical, and the visible world is an emanation out of it. I discuss consequences for our understanding of human nature, the origin of life, and human values. Reality is an indivisible wholeness that is aware of its processes, like a Cosmic Spirit, and it reveals its awareness in the mindlike properties of elementary processes as well as in the human consciousness. Thus, one is led to G. W. F. Hegel's thesis that the Cosmic Spirit is thinking in us.     

How are religious concepts created? A form of cognition and its effects

Science that needs logical demonstration has failed to eliminate religious concepts. It is as if they have own validity that cannot be broken by scientific knowledge we trust the most at present. In this paper, I will attempt to establish a new cognitive theory to help explain the basis of belief in religious concepts. This form of cognition will be named simply unifying-induction or unifying-inductive cognition. As illustrations, I will consider some typical religious discourses involving concepts such as “all-in-one” or “one is everything.” It is these typically religious discourses that science has not been able to easily sweep away by its logical scientific proofs. In the end, although we perhaps cannot know if the religious beings such as gods really exist or not, we may understand these concepts are very the creation of human cognition. It also has important implications for other disciplines such as robotics, developmental psychology, cognitive archaeology, the history of science, the study of religion and so on.