ABSTRACTObjective: This study was designed to improve our understanding of prospective memory changes in ageing, and to identify the cognitive correlates of PM decline, using a virtual environment, to provide a more realistic assessment than traditional laboratory tasks.Design: Thirty-five young and 29 older individuals exposed to a virtual town were asked to recall three event-based intentions with a strong link between prospective and retrospective components, three event-based intentions with a weak link, and three time-based intentions. They also underwent retrospective episodic (...) memory, executive functions, binding in working memory, processing speed, and time estimation assessments.Results: Older individuals recalled fewer intentions than young adults. While age-related PM decline affected the recall of both prospective and retrospective components, the recall of the latter seemed more challenging for older individuals when the link was weak. This PM decline was linked to an age-related decline... (shrink)

A classic finding reported in Beck (1966a) is that observers tend to indicate a more natural texture break between a set of T’s and tilted T’s than between a set of T’s and backward L’s. This finding has played a prominent role in discussions about the properties of texture segmentation and in the development of computational theories of texture segmentation. Due to the small sample size of the original study, we replicated the original experiment with a larger sample. Regrettably, we (...) discovered that the description in Beck (1966a) is insufficient to allow us to reproduce the stimuli. For our replication, we created stimuli that seem consistent with the spirit of the original study. The results of the replication study partly matchBeck’s original data (r = .59), but conclusions indicated by these results deviate from some of Beck’s key conclusions.We also further explored the influential claim derived from a second experiment in Beck (1966a) that texture segmentation was not related to the perceived similarity of elements. Contrary to this claim, a re-analysis of Beck’s data indicates the counterintuitive conclusion that observers tend to indicate stronger texture segmentation between regions that are rated as being more similar. In a replication of the second experiment, this relation flipped so that the replication observers indicated stronger texture segmentation for regions with lower similarity ratings. Despite being influential, we conclude that there are substantial problems with the stimuli, analyses, and conclusions in Beck (1966a). (shrink)

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, an incredibly sophisticated chatbot. Its capability is astonishing: as well as conversing with human interlocutors, it can answer questions about history, explain almost anything you might think to ask it, and write poetry. This level of achievement has provoked interest in questions about whether a chatbot might have something similar to human intelligence or even consciousness. Given that the function of a chatbot is to process linguistic input and produce linguistic output, we consider the (...) question whether a sophisticated chatbot might have inner speech. That is: Might it talk to itself, internally? We explored this via a conversation with ‘Playground’, a chatbot which is very similar to ChatGPT but more flexible in certain respects. We asked it questions which, plausibly, can only be answered if one first produces some inner speech. Here, we present our findings and discuss their philosophical significance. (shrink)

A fundamental characteristic of human visual perception is the ability to group together disparate elements in a scene and treat them as a single unit. The mechanisms by which humans create such groupings remain unknown, but grouping seems to play an important role in a wide variety of visual phenomena, and a good understanding of these mechanisms might provide guidance for how to improve machine vision algorithms. Here, we build on a proposal that some groupings are the result of connections (...) in cortical area V2 that join disparate elements, thereby allowing them to be selected and segmented together. In previous instantiations of this proposal, connection formation was based on the anatomy (e.g., extent) of receptive fields, which made connection formation obligatory when the stimulus conditions stimulate the corresponding receptive fields. We now propose dynamic circuits that provide greater flexibility in the formation of connections and that allow for top-down control of perceptual grouping. With computer simulations we explain how the circuits work and show how they can account for a wide variety of Gestalt principles of perceptual grouping, texture segmentation tasks, amodal illusory contours, and ratings of perceived groupings. We propose that human observers use such top-down control to implement task-dependent connection strategies that encourage particular groupings of stimulus elements in order to promote performance on various visual tasks. (shrink)

Although perceptual grouping has been widely studied, its mechanisms remain poorly understood. We propose a neural model of grouping that, through top-down control of its circuits, implements a grouping strategy involving both a connection strategy (which elements to connect) and a selection strategy (that defines spatiotemporal properties of a selection signal to segment target elements and facilitate identification). We apply the model to a letter discrimination task that investigated relationships among uniform connectedness and the grouping principles of proximity and shape (...) similarity. Participants reported whether small circles formed a global letter E or H, and these circles could be connected by a line or be embedded in a matrix of squares. In the model, a good grouping strategy for this task consists of a connection strategy that connects circles but not squares for all conditions and a selection strategy that uses a selection signal of varying size, depending on whether squares were present. Consistent with empirical results, which were verified in two replication studies, model performance is worse with distractor squares, and line connectors improve performance only in the condition with squares. Rather than relying on abstract grouping principles, we show how the empirical results can be explained in terms of observers implementing a task-dependent grouping strategy that promotes overall performance. (shrink)

In a series of articles, Jacob Beck proposed that a variety of texture segmentation phenomena occurs due to emergent features that arise from “links” between elements with appropriate local properties, such as alignment, orientation, and proximity. His findings and ideas guided theoretical and computational models, and some of his demonstrations became textbook knowledge about visual perception. We build on this work in two ways. First, we provide a modern replication of a classic texture segmentation study using a much larger sample (...) size. Overall, the replication agrees with Beck’s original findings, although there are some quantitative differences. Second, we show how to apply a quantitative model of visual cortex to Beck’s experiment and demonstrate that the model can explain many aspects of Beck’s findings. Key to the model’s success is cognitive control of connections between individual elements (akin to Beck’s “links” between elements) and a selection mechanism that makes it easy to identify how well elements within a region connect and how well different regions are disconnected. Overall, the model supports Beck’s claim that local properties can facilitate patterns of connections between stimulus elements and that some connection patterns allow an observer to easily distinguish textures. (shrink)

Physics matters less than we once thought to the making of Mendel. But it matters more than we tend to recognize to the making of Mendelism. This paper charts the variety of ways in which diverse kinds of physics impinged upon the Galtonian tradition which formed Mendelism’s matrix. The work of three Galtonians in particular is considered: Francis Galton himself, W. F. R. Weldon and William Bateson. One aim is to suggest that tracking influence from physics can bring into (...) focus important but now little-remembered flexibilities in the Galtonian tradition. Another is to show by example why generalizations about what happens when ‘physics’ meets ‘biology’ require caution. Even for a single research tradition in Britain in the decades around 1900, these categories were large, containing multitudes. (shrink)

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In this article, I expand upon Slavoj Zižek’s “anamorphic” reading of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. In this reading, Zižek distinguishes between the film’s ostensible narrative structure, the “foreground,” as he calls it, and the “background,” wherein the social and spiritual dissolution endemic to Cuaron’s dystopian England draws the viewer into a recognition of the dire conditions plaguing the post-9/11, post-Iraq invasion, neoliberal world. The foreground plots the conventional trajectory of the main character Theo from ordinary, disaffected man to self-sacrificing (...) hero, one whose martyrdom might pave the way for a new era of regeneration. According to Zižek, in this context the foreground merely entertains, while propagating some well-worn clichés about heroic individualism as demonstrated through Hollywood’s generic conventions of an action-adventure/political thriller/science-fiction film. Zižek contends that these conventions are essential to the revelation of the film’s progressive politics, as “the fate of the individual hero is the prism through which … [one] see[s] the background even more sharply.” Zižek’s framing of Theo merely as a “prism” limits our understanding of the film by not taking into account its status as an adaptation of P.D. James’ The Children of Men. This article offers such an account by interpreting the differences between the film and its literary source as one informed by the transition from Cold War to post-9/11 neoliberal conceptions of identity and politics. To articulate the terms of this argument and its implications, I turn to another narrative depicting the identity and politics at the end of history, Francis Fukuyama’s infamous The End of History and the Last Man, published the same year as James’ novel, both offering meditations on the Cold War and speculations on its aftermath. Incorporating these two texts into Zižek’s anamorphic paradigm contributes to our understanding of the film’s message regarding the “state of things” during the post-9/11 era, as well as the Cold War era that preceded it, as perceived through the eyes of Theo adapted to suit the respective dystopian conditions of the novel and film. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

ABSTRACT Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she shifted her focus to the three-dimensional structure of viruses, obtaining diffraction patterns of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) of unprecedented detail and clarity. (...) During the next five years, while making significant headway on the structural determination of TMV, Franklin maintained an active correspondence with both Watson and Crick, who were also studying aspects of virus structure. Developments in TMV research during the 1950s illustrate the connections in the emerging field of molecular biology between structural studies of nucleic acids and of proteins and viruses. They also reveal how the protagonists of the “race for the double helix” continued to interact personally and professionally during the years when Watson and Crick's model for the double-helical structure of DNA was debated and confirmed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Rosalind Franklin is best known for her informative X-ray diffraction patterns of DNA that provided vital clues for James Watson and Francis Crick's double-stranded helical model. Her scientific career did not end when she left the DNA work at King's College, however. In 1953 Franklin moved to J. D. Bernal's crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College, where she shifted her focus to the three-dimensional structure of viruses, obtaining diffraction patterns of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) of unprecedented detail and clarity. (...) During the next five years, while making significant headway on the structural determination of TMV, Franklin maintained an active correspondence with both Watson and Crick, who were also studying aspects of virus structure. Developments in TMV research during the 1950s illustrate the connections in the emerging field of molecular biology between structural studies of nucleic acids and of proteins and viruses. They also reveal how the protagonists of the “race for the double helix” continued to interact personally and professionally during the years when Watson and Crick's model for the double-helical structure of DNA was debated and confirmed. (shrink)

The theory of lower previsions is designed around the principles of coherence and sure-loss avoidance, thus steers clear of all the updating anomalies highlighted in Gong and Meng's "Judicious Judgment Meets Unsettling Updating: Dilation, Sure Loss, and Simpson's Paradox" except dilation. In fact, the traditional problem with the theory of imprecise probability is that coherent inference is too complicated rather than unsettling. Progress has been made simplifying coherent inference by demoting sets of probabilities from fundamental building blocks to secondary representations (...) that are derived or discarded as needed. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the view that Spinoza is committed to allowing for the existence of a plurality of possible worlds, that his necessitarianism is merely moderate, not strict enough to exclude the possibility of other worlds. To show that evidence for attributing strict necessitarianism to Spinoza is lacking, we shall concentrate on Don Garrett's article, “Spinoza's Necessitarianism,” in the conviction that his case for attributing strict necessitarianism to Spinoza is the strongest one available.

Résumé éditeur : "Nous avons perdu les deux repères qui permettaient autrefois de nous définir entre les dieux et les bêtes. Nous ne savons plus qui nous sommes, nous autres humains. De nouvelles utopies en naissent. D'un côté, le post-humanisme prétend nier notre animalité et faire de nous des dieux promis à l'immortalité par les vertus de la technique. D'un autre côté, l'animalisme veut faire de nous des animaux comme les autres et inviter les autres animaux à faire partie de (...) notre communauté morale. Alors forgeons une nouvelle utopie à notre mesure. Ne cherchons plus à nier les frontières naturelles - celles qui nous séparent des dieux ou des animaux - et défendons un humanisme conséquent, c'est-à-dire un cosmopolitisme sans frontières.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Visions of Damietta:St. Francis, Robert Grosseteste, and the Crusades, 1219–1253Rosamund M. Gammie (bio)A peculiar and under-explored event in Robert Grosseteste's (d. 1253) life is that of his supposed dream-vision in 1249, reported posthumously and in only one source, the Lanercost chronicle.1 The vision foreshadows the loss of Damietta in Egypt the following year, during the Seventh Crusade (1249–54) under the leadership of Louis IX. The parallels to St. (...) Francis's vision at Damietta in 1219 during the Fifth Crusade (1215–21) are immediately noticeable yet the vision has remained largely dismissed as an afterthought in the scholarship of Grosseteste. Considering that Grosseteste wrote, in 1236, what has been described by Michael Lower as "surely the best defence of the cross petition a crusader ever had," in addition to his association with the Franciscans and his relationship with Richard, earl of Cornwall, brother of Henry III and nephew of celebrated crusader Richard I and a (if not the) principal leader of the Baron's Crusade, it is surprising that there is no fuller account of his support for the movement; rather there are piecemeal references to certain acts of interference such as that noted by Lower.2 This paper seeks to establish Grosseteste's position on the crusades, in light of a thoroughly Franciscan influence, beginning with Damietta. [End Page 141]Robert Grosseteste and the FranciscansMuch has been written about the relationship between Robert Grosseteste and the early Franciscan movement in England.3 As Giles Gasper writes in a recent study of Grosseteste and the Franciscan school at Oxford, "Robert Grosseteste is well-known for his support for the Franciscan order, and his warm relations with many brothers of the English province."4 James McEvoy concludes in his examination of Grosseteste's affinity with the nascent movement that "there can be no doubt that Grosseteste was well acquainted with the personality and ideals of St. Francis, the circumstance of the Franciscans' foundation, and the nature of their vocation."5 Grosseteste's Letters are full of admiration for the Franciscans and involvement in their affairs, so much so that a clear and uncompromisingly affectionate relationship can be traced during the bishop's lifetime. Indeed, Grosseteste, in Letter 41, ca. 13 March, 1236, declares to Elias of Cortona, third minister of the Franciscan Order, that "there are no assistants I know of … so effective as your friars."6 The Friars themselves reciprocated their love for Grosseteste; the same letter states, "your sons, the Friars Minor in England, out of kindness in a special way embrace me tightly with arms of love." A letter from 1238 (Letter 58) to Pope Gregory IX asks for help in preserving the reputation of the Brothers, who "illuminate our whole land with the brilliant light of their preaching and teaching" with the warning that "the glory of such an important religious order will vanish and the masses will be scandalized in them."7 [End Page 142]The Dominican Brother Hubert perhaps best expresses the affection between the religious orders and Grosseteste, writing the celebratory Life of Grosseteste shortly after the bishop's death in 1253.8 According to Brother Hubert, Grosseteste was the "father and guardian" of both orders, whose presence "pleased him, as did their / Arrival, their multitude, and frequent conversation," and that just "as a mother to her new-born, he fostered, loved / Protected, fed, and valued them."9 Gasper continues, "English Franciscan historiography leaves no doubt as to the high esteem in which the order held Grosseteste from the mid-13th century onwards, honored in particular for his teaching and learning."10 Chosen personally by Agnellus of Pisa to teach the first Franciscans at Oxford, his influence cannot be underestimated. Indeed, there were Franciscan (and Dominican) contributions to the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to canonize the bishop; a ten-lined letter from Nicholas, guardian of the Greyfriars at Lincoln, penned on 26 June, 1289, extolls the exemplary actions of the bishop.11The relationship between Grosseteste and this first generation of Franciscans was one of mutual respect and love. What is harder to trace is Grosseteste's appreciation of St. Francis himself. When Servus Gieben asks... (shrink)

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.