Correction to: Effects of reward magnitude and training frequency on the learning rates and memory retention of the Port Jackson shark Heterodontus portusjacksoni

Animal Cognition - In the original publication of the article, the Fig. 4 was erroneously published.     

Brain Gene Expression During REM Sleep Depends on Prior Waking Experience

In most mammalian species studied, two distinct and successive phases of sleep, slow wave (SW), and rapid eye movement (REM), can be recognized on the basis of their EEG profiles and associated behaviors. Both phases have been implicated in the offline sensorimotor processing of daytime events, but the molecular mechanisms remain elusive. We studied brain expression of the plasticity-associated immediate-early gene (IEG) zif-268 during SW and REM sleep in rats exposed to rich sensorimotor experience in the preceding waking period. Whereas nonexposed controls show generalized zif-268 down-regulation during SW and REM sleep, zif-268 is upregulated during REM sleep in the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus of exposed animals. We suggest that this phenomenon represents a window of increased neuronal plasticity during REM sleep that follows enriched waking experience.     

Self-recognition and self-regulation: the relationship with socialization trajectories and children's sex

The initial process of self development involves interaction with others and the establishment of relationships taking different paths depending on the socio-cultural context. Self-recognition and self-regulation are considered manifestations of this development between 18 and 24 months of age. This study aimed at analyzing the relationship between these two aspects, maternal beliefs about autonomy and relatedness, as well as identifying differences between boys and girls in this developmental stage. Participants were 94 mothers of different educational levels and their children of 17-22 months of age in two Brazilian cities. Socialization Goals Inventory and Parental Practices in the First Year Inventory were used to collect data on mothers' beliefs. Children performed tasks related to self-recognition (the mirror test) and self-regulation (compliance to requests). The group of mothers studied valued both autonomy and interdependence. Children's responses are consistent with a perspective of relational autonomy, which value both independence and interdependence. Differences were found in relation to sex in both self-recognition and self-regulation, and baby girls showed superior performance than boys in both tasks.     

Validity, the Squeezing Argument and Alternative Semantic Systems: the Case of Aristotelian Syllogistic

We investigate the philosophical significance of the existence of different semantic systems with respect to which a given deductive system is sound and complete. Our case study will be Corcoran’s deductive system D for Aristotelian syllogistic and some of the different semantic systems for syllogistic that have been proposed in the literature. We shall prove that they are not equivalent, in spite of D being sound and complete with respect to each of them. Beyond the specific case of syllogistic, the goal is to offer a general discussion of the relations between informal notions—in this case, an informal notion of deductive validity—and logical apparatuses such as deductive systems and (model-theoretic or other) semantic systems that aim at offering technical, formal accounts of informal notions. Specifically, we will be interested in Kreisel’s famous ‘squeezing argument’; we shall ask ourselves what a plurality of semantic systems (understood as classes of mathematical structures) may entail for the cogency of specific applications of the squeezing argument. More generally, the analysis brings to the fore the need for criteria of adequacy for semantic systems based on mathematical structures. Without such criteria, the idea that the gap between informal and technical accounts of validity can be bridged is put under pressure.     

The interaction of temporal generalization gradients predicts the context effect

In a temporal double bisection task, animals learn two discriminations. In the presence of Red and Green keys, responses to Red are reinforced after 1-s samples and responses to Green are reinforced after 4-s samples; in the presence of Blue and Yellow keys, responses to Blue are reinforced after 4-s samples and responses to Yellow are reinforced after 16-s samples. Subsequently, given a choice between Green and Blue, the probability of choosing Green increases with the sample duration-the context effect. In the present study we asked whether this effect could be predicted from the stimulus generalization gradients induced by the two basic discriminations. Six pigeons learned to peck Green following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 1-s samples (S(-)) and to peck Red following 4-s samples (S(+)) but not following 16-s samples (S(-)). Temporal generalization gradients for Green and Red were then obtained. Finally, the pigeons were given a choice between Green and Red following sample durations ranging from 1 to 16 s. Results showed that a) the two generalization gradients had the minimum at the S(-) duration, an intermediate value between the S(-) and the S(+) durations, and the maximum at the S(+) as well as more extreme durations; b) on choice trials, preference for Green over Red increased with sample duration, the context effect; and c) the two generalization gradients predicted the average context effect well. The Learning-to-Time model accounts for the major trends in the data.     

Reassessing logical hylomorphism and the demarcation of logical constants

The paper investigates the propriety of applying the form versus matter distinction to arguments and to logic in general. Its main point is that many of the currently pervasive views on form and matter with respect to logic rest on several substantive and even contentious assumptions which are nevertheless uncritically accepted. Indeed, many of the issues raised by the application of this distinction to arguments seem to be related to a questionable combination of different presuppositions and expectations; this holds in particular of the vexed issue of demarcating the class of logical constants. I begin with a characterization of currently widespread views on form and matter in logic, which I refer to as ‘logical hylomorphism as we know it’—LHAWKI, for short—and argue that the hylomorphism underlying LHAWKI is mereological. Next, I sketch an overview of the historical developments leading from Aristotelian, non-mereological metaphysical hylomorphism to mereological logical hylomorphism (LHAWKI). I conclude with a reassessment of the prospects for the combination of hylomorphism and logic, arguing in particular that LHAWKI is not the only and certainly not the most suitable version of logical hylomorphism. In particular, this implies that the project of demarcating the class of logical constants as a means to define the scope and nature of logic rests on highly problematic assumptions.     

The phenomenological-existential comprehension of chronic pain: going beyond the standing healthcare models

A distinguishing characteristic of the biomedical model is its compartmentalized view of man. This way of seeing human beings has its origin in Greek thought; it was stated by Descartes and to this day it still considers humans as beings composed of distinct entities combined into a certain form. Because of this observation, one began to believe that the focus of a health treatment could be exclusively on the affected area of the body, without the need to pay attention to patient’s subjectivity. By seeing pain as a merely sensory response, this model was not capable of encompassing chronic pain, since the latter is a complex process that can occur independently of tissue damage. As of the second half of the twentieth century, when it became impossible to deny the relationship between psyche and soma, the current understanding of chronic pain emerges: that of chronic pain as an individual experience, the result of a sum of physical, psychological, and social factors that, for this reason, cannot be approached separately from the individual who expresses pain. This understanding has allowed a significant improvement in perspective, emphasizing the characteristic of pain as an individual experience. However, the understanding of chronic pain as a sum of factors corresponds to the current way of seeing the process of falling ill, for its conception holds a Cartesian duality and the positivist premise of a single reality. For phenomenology, on the other hand, the individual in his/her unity is more than a simple sum of parts. Phenomenology sees a human being as an intending entity, in which body, mind, and the world are intertwined and constitute each other mutually, thus establishing the human being’s integral functioning. Therefore, a real understanding of the chronic pain process would only be possible from a phenomenological point of view at the experience lived by the individual who expresses and communicates pain.