目的、意向和意识

本文提出了一个意向性目标搜寻的计算机模型,它有两个部分,静态部分包括一个目标表征和到达这个目标的程序。动态部分是一个感觉输入、中间信息加工,行为输出的重复的反馈循环。人类意向必然伴有意识,但机器人则可能无意识而有意向。 利用目标搜寻系统机器人模型,我们对目标搜寻系统的目的连续统下了定义;这个连续统从简单的直接反应系统一直到意向性系统。对这个目的连续统有两种传统的解释:一是柏拉图、亚里士多德和普罗提诺的终极原因理论,二是希腊原子论者和现代进化生物学家的还原主义学说。本文评价了这些学说。 本文考察了几种类型的意识机能,提出了以自动机为依据的意识理论,比较了人类和计算机。从计算机结构的角度来看,人类意识是一类特殊的计算机控制系统。     

Are You Analyzing Me? A Qualitative Exploration of Psychologists’ Individual and Interpersonal Experiences with Authenticity

Within multiple social roles, such as careers and personal relationships, psychologists are encouraged to maintain their authenticity. Although the concept of authenticity has a lengthy history in the philosophy and literary fields, only in the last decade have researchers begun empirically studying this unique, yet vague, concept. This study sought to explore and understand what experiences, issues, and concerns psychologists encounter in their efforts to live authentically. A purposeful sample consisted of 17 psychologists, who were individually interviewed. Utilizing a qualitative research design, 328 significant statements were extracted and grouped together, resulting in five emergent themes specifically related to personal and social, nontherapeutic contexts. Participants described how their psychological-mindedness adds to complexity of separating the person from the therapist during encounters with others. They believed that self-exploration, self-awareness, and self-acceptance were important in attaining one's authenticity. Concepts of culture and gender influences, psychological-mindedness, and consistency in social roles were discussed as related to authenticity. Last, participants indicated feeling the most authentic with close friendships, significant others, and family members, and less authentic in casual and/or collegial-professional roles.     

The effects of movement direction and hemispace on estimates of distance traveled

BACKGROUND/HYPOTHESIS: The degree of attention directed to a stimulus and the presence of anisometric representations can alter the perception of the magnitude of a stimulus. We wanted to learn if normal right-handed subjects' estimates of distance traveled are influenced by the right-left direction or hemispace of movements. METHODS: We had blindfolded participants estimate the distance their arm was moved in a rightward or leftward direction, in right and left hemispace. Since we wanted subjects to estimate the distance traveled rather than compute the distance between the start and finish points, the subjects' arms were passively moved in sinusoidal trajectories at a constant speed. RESULTS: Subjects estimated leftward movements as longer than rightward movements, but there was no effect of hemispace. COMMENTS/CONCLUSIONS: People often attend more to novel than routine conditions and therefore participants might have overestimated the distance associated with leftward versus rightward movement because right-handed people more frequently move their right hand in a rightward direction and learn to read and write using rightward movements. Thus, leftward movements might be more novel and more attended than rightward movements and this enhanced directional attention might have influenced estimates of magnitude (distance).     

SCHEDULE-INDUCED POLYDIPSIA: ARE RESPONSE-DEPENDENT SCHEDULES A LIMITING CONDITION?1

The collateral water intake of albino rats was measured when the inter-pellet intervals in fixed-ratio and fixed-time schedules were equated. Fixed-ratio and fixed-time inter-pellet intervals were equated by dividing the average fixed-ratio session time of each subject by 150 (food pellets). The average inter-pellet interval obtained then defined the subsequent fixed-time schedule for each individual subject. Shifts to fixed-time schedules followed the completion of each fixed-ratio 20, 40, and 80 schedule. This procedure permitted an assessment of the extent to which excessive collateral drinking was associated with inter-pellet interval length or adventitious food reinforcement. For both the fixed-ratio and fixed-time schedules, drinking progressively increased as a function of increasing the duration of the inter-pellet interval and was a post-pellet event under the control of variables other than adventitious food reinforcement.     

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual victimization in the military: an unintended consequence of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

The integration of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals into the U.S. military is a long-standing and politically and socially divisive issue. Exclusionary and pseudo-inclusionary policies that restrict openly LGB individuals from military service are also of long duration. Yet LGB servicemembers have continued to serve covertly in the military for many decades. Moreover, political issues and social conventions associated with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) have diverted focus from imperative research issues, such as LGB servicemembers and incidents of victimization in the military. Research is reviewed to evaluate such victimization, which is conceptualized as resulting from a convergence of sexual stigma, conservative gender role beliefs, and sexual prejudice. DADT, in combination with overarching difficulties intrinsic to sexual orientation research, serves to augment LGB victimization and reduce victim reports and help seeking. Consequently, there is a deficient evidence base for assisting LGB servicemembers and for advancing research, prevention efforts, and policy changes. Implications of repealing DADT are discussed, as are future directions for LGB military research.     

Diagnostic implications of the electroencephalogram for behavior problem children

The purpose of this department is to present alternative points of view on controversial topics related to the practice of psychology in the schools. An author will state his position on some particular issue. This is followed by the reaction of another psychologist, who will discuss points of agreement or disagreement based upon his research and experience.     

Internal representational models of peers: implications for the development of problematic behavior.

The authors investigated the relation between children's knowledge structures for peers and externalizing behavior problems. Initial levels of aggression were evaluated in 135 boys and 124 girls (Grades 1-3; 40% African American, 60% Caucasian) in Year 1 and again in Years 6 and 9. In Year 6, 3 aspects of their social knowledge structures were assessed: quality, density, and appropriateness. Results indicate that knowledge structures are related to children's concurrent levels of externalizing behaviors and that knowledge structures are related to children's concurrent levels of externalizing behaviors and predict externalizing behaviors 3 years later even after controlling for current levels of behavior. In addition, knowledge structures in Year 6 mediate the relation between aggression in Year 1 and externalizing behaviors in Year 9. The role of knowledge structures in the maintenance and growth of children's antisocial behavior is discussed.     

Peirce's evolutionary pragmatic idealism

In this paper I synthesize a unified system out of Peirce's life work, and name it “Peirce's Evolutionary Pragmatic Idealism”. Peirce developed this philosophy in four stages:

1. His 1868–69 theory that cognition is a continuous and infinite social semiotic process, in which Man is a sign.
2. His Popular Science Monthly pragmatism and frequency theory of probabilistic induction.
3. His 1891–93 cosmic evolutionism of Tychism, Synechism, and Agapism.
4. Pragmaticism: The doctrine of real potentialities (“would-be's”), and Peirce's pragmatic program for developing concrete reasonableness.

Peirce's evolutionary conception of the cosmos is pantheistic, and he constructed it to reconcile religion with Darwinian evolution.