Although many researchers theorize that primitive numerosity processing abilities may lay the foundation for whole number concepts, other classes of numbers, like fractions, are sometimes assumed to be inaccessible to primitive architectures. This research presents evidence that the automatic processing of nonsymbolic magnitudes affects processing of symbolic fractions. Participants completed modified Stroop tasks in which they selected the larger of two symbolic fractions while the ratios of the fonts in which the fractions were printed and the overall sizes of the (...) compared fractions were manipulated as irrelevant dimensions. Participants were slower and less accurate when nonsymbolic dimensions of printed fractions were incongruent with the symbolic comparison decision. Results indicated a robust basic sensitivity to nonsymbolic ratios that exceeds prior conceptions about the accessibility of fraction values. Results also indicated a congruity effect for overall fraction size, contrary to findings of prior research. These findings have implications for extending theory about the nature of human number sense and mathematical cognition more generally. (shrink)

Recent research in numerical cognition has begun to systematically detail the ability of humans and nonhuman animals to perceive the magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios. These relationally defined analogs to rational numbers offer new potential insights into the nature of human numerical processing. However, research into their similarities with and connections to symbolic numbers remains in its infancy. The current research aims to further explore these similarities by investigating whether the magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios are associated with space just as symbolic (...) numbers are. In two experiments, we found that responses were faster on the left for smaller nonsymbolic ratio magnitudes and faster on the right for larger nonsymbolic ratio magnitudes. These results further elucidate the nature of nonsymbolic ratio processing, extending the literature of spatial–numerical associations to nonsymbolic relative magnitudes. We discuss potential implications of these findings for theories of human magnitude processing in general and how this general processing relates to numerical processing. (shrink)

Clarke and Beck suggest that the ratio processing system may be a component of the approximate number system, which they suggest represents rational numbers. We argue that available evidence is inconsistent with their account and advocate for a two-systems view. This implies that there may be many access points for numerical cognition – and that privileging the ANS may be a mistake.

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 6, June 2022.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

This book challenges common historical misperceptions of both the history of the sciences in early modern France and the history of the French Enlightenment. Tracing the complex historical relationship between them, this reinterpretation critiques the view that the sciences were always politically neutral and that the philosophes were proto-republican. By reexamining the moral, political, and social ideas of those who defended the ascendency of the sciences, this book demonstrates the evolution of political views, in particular with the marquis de Condorcet, (...) from a commitment to absolute monarchy to revolutionary republicanism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay argues for the emergence of a cultural and epistemological divide between amateur savants and members of the Royal Academy of the Sciences in late Old Regime and revolutionary France and suggests that the amateur ideal rose in significance even as intellectual activity came to be increasingly centralized in the postrevolutionary era. At the crux of the tensions between the amateur ideal and the professionalizing reality in the immediate postrevolutionary period stood Aubin-Louis Millin and his journal, the Magasin (...) Encyclopédique. The essay examines, in particular, the revival in the pages of the Magasin Encyclopédique of interest in Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, the seventeenth-century icon of an amateur ideal in which investigations in the natural sciences and scholarship were private, decentralized, often provincial activities. Although the sciences in the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras were often perceived as forward looking and dismissive of the past, this essay finds that a sentimental and nostalgic attachment to the past—to a myth of Peiresc—continued to play an important role in the identity of postrevolutionary men of letters. (shrink)

The Uniqueness Thesis holds, roughly speaking, that there is a unique rational response to any particular body of evidence. We first sketch some varieties of Uniqueness that appear in the literature. We then discuss some popular views that conflict with Uniqueness and others that require Uniqueness to be true. We then examine some arguments that have been presented in its favor and discuss why permissivists find them unconvincing. Last, we present some purported counterexamples that have been raised against Uniqueness and (...) discuss some possible reasons why proponents of Uniqueness might find these similarly unconvincing. (shrink)

In this chapter, it is argued that the Mind-Body Powers model of neural correlates of consciousness provides a metaphysical framework that yields the theoretical possibility of empirically detecting consciousness. Since the model is informed by an Aristotelian-Thomistic hylomorphic ontology rather than a physicalist ontology, it provides a philosophical foundation for the science of consciousness that is an alternative to physicalism. Our claim is not that the Mind-Body Powers model provides the only alternative, but rather that it provides a sufficient framework (...) for empirically detecting and scientifically studying consciousness. Elsewhere, the integrated information theory’s prediction about the neural correlate of being conscious has been used to illustrate how the Mind-Body Powers model grounds the possibility of empirically detecting consciousness (see M. Owen, 2021, ch. 8). The theory’s prediction was used as one plausible example of a hypothesis about the nature and location of the neural correlate that can be combined with the model. However, there is no settled conclusion about which neurobiological theory of consciousness accurately identifies the neural mechanisms corresponding to being conscious (NAS, 2021, p. 39; Sattin et al., 2021; Seth, 2017; Seth & Bayne, 2022). Therefore, this work will employ another plausible neurobiological prediction provided by the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis. The hypothesis is combined with the Mind-Body Powers model to demonstrate that empirically detecting consciousness is metaphysically plausible wholly apart from a physicalist framework. (shrink)

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, Jürgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to (...) station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture. (shrink)

Organoids and specifically human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are one of the most relevant novelties in the field of biomedical research. Grown either from embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, HCOs can be used as in vitro three-dimensional models, mimicking the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. Based on that, and despite their current limitations, it cannot be assumed that they will never at any stage of development manifest some rudimentary form of consciousness. In the absence of behavioral (...) indicators of consciousness, the theoretical neurobiology of consciousness being applied to unresponsive brain-injured patients can be considered with respect to HCOs. In clinical neurology, it is difficult to discern a capacity for consciousness in unresponsive brain-injured patients who provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. In such scenarios, a validated neurobiological theory of consciousness, which tells us what the neural mechanisms of consciousness are, could be used to identify a capacity for consciousness. Like the unresponsive patients that provide a diagnostic difficulty for neurologists, HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness. Therefore, this article discusses how three prominent neurobiological theories of consciousness apply to human cerebral organoids. From the perspective of the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory, we discuss what neuronal structures and functions might indicate that cerebral organoids have a neurobiological capacity to be conscious. (shrink)

This paper develops a model of individual decision-making under bounded rationality in which discretionary cognitive adjustment creates a durable stock that complements choice of action. While it increases utility, adjustment also entails a cost, because focusing attention optimally is effortful and mental resources are scarce. Associated behavioral phenomena are categorized based on whether the operative motivation in adjusting is forward-looking utility maximization or justification of prior action. The theory is in line with prior conceptions of cognitive dissonance, but also offers (...) a more empirically consistent explanation of the endowment effect, persuasive advertising, and sunk-cost effects than existing accounts. (shrink)

In their forthcoming article, Shavelson and colleagues (2023) identify a key ethical concern associated with medical aid-in-dying (MAiD) laws in the eleven US jurisdictions where the practice is le...

At the same time that social justice concerns are on the rise on college campuses, empathy levels among US college students are falling. Social injustice resulting from organizational decisions and actions causes profound and unnecessary human suffering, and research to understand antecedents to these decisions and actions lacks attention. Empathy represents a potential tool and critical skill for organizational decision-makers, with empirical evidence linking empathy to moral recognition of ethical situations and greater breadth of understanding of stakeholder impact and improved (...) financial success. This study explores the potential relationship between empathy and social justice, using a multifaceted operationalization of social justice, which includes management actions and social sympathies. Results broadly support the positive empathy and social justice relationship and suggest higher education interventions to develop empathy in college business students. (shrink)

The emergence of vibrant research communities of computer scientists in Kenya and Uganda has occurred in the context of neoliberal privatization, commercialization, and transnational capital flows from donors and corporations. We explore how this funding environment configures research culture and research practices, which are conceptualized as two main components of a research community. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study utilizing interview, ethnographic and survey data collected in Nairobi and Kampala. We document how administrators shape research culture by building academic (...) programs and training growing numbers of PhDs, and analyze how this is linked to complicated interactions between political economy, the epistemic nature of computer science and sociocultural factors like entrepreneurial leadership of key actors and distinctive cultures of innovation. In a donor-driven funding environment, research practice involves scientists constructing their own localized research priorities by adopting distinctive professional identities and creatively structuring projects. The neoliberal political economic context thus clearly influenced research communities, but did not debilitate computing research capacity nor leave researchers without any agency to carry out research programs. The cases illustrate how sites of knowledge production in Africa can gain some measure of research autonomy, some degree of global competency in a central arena of scientific and technological activity, and some expression of their regional cultural priorities and aspirations. Furthermore, the cases suggest that social analysts must balance structure with culture, place and agency in their approaches to understanding how funding and political economy shape scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Anselm: I agreed that Pegasus is a flying horse according to the stories people tell, the paintings painters paint and so on . That is, Pegasus is a flying horse in the understanding of storytellers, their readers and the artists who depict Pegasus. You asked whether flying is not an unmediated causal power . Well, it could be an unmediated causal power if you or I had it, but not if a being with only mediated powers had it. And so (...) poor Pegasus, a being whose powers are only those given him by storytellers and artists, has only the mediated power of flying that they have given him. He flies in the thoughts and depictions of beings with unmediated powers. Still, Pegasus has not only the mediated power to fly but also the mediated power to entertain us, and perhaps even inspire us. Fool: But people could tell stories about you, too, about how you sprouted wings and flew onto the roof of Canterbury Cathedral. Anselm: Alas, if it were only in stories that I could do that, then flying would not be an unmediated causal power of mine. I would still have unmediated causal powers all right, and so would be greater than Pegasus. But flying is not one of my unmediated causal powers. However, something than which nothing greater can be conceived would, and does, as I have proved in my Proslogion, have unmediated causal powers – indeed, much greater unmediated causal powers than any poor mortals like you and me.1 •↵1 For …. (shrink)

Different people reason differently, which means that sometimes they reach different conclusions from the same evidence. We maintain that this is not only natural, but rational. In this essay we explore the epistemology of that state of affairs. First we will canvass arguments for and against the claim that rational methods of reasoning must always reach the same conclusions from the same evidence. Then we will consider whether the acknowledgment that people have divergent rational reasoning methods should undermine one’s confidence (...) in one’s own reasoning. Finally we will explore how agents who employ distinct yet equally rational methods of reasoning should respond to interactions with the products of each others’ reasoning. We find that the epistemology of multiple reasoning methods has been misunderstood by a number of authors writing on epistemic permissiveness and peer disagreement. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

Max Horkheimer is well known as the director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and as a sometime collaborator with Theodor Adorno, especially on their classic Dialectic of Enlightenment. These essays reveal another side of Horkheimer, focusing on his remarkable contributions to critical theory in the 1930s.Included are Horkheimer's inaugural address as director of the Institute, in which he outlines the interdisciplinary research program that would dominate the initial phase of the Frankfurt School, his first full monograph, and a (...) number of other pieces published in the 1930s. The essays, most of which have not appeared in English before, are surprisingly relevant to current post-philosophy debates, notably "On the Problem of Truth," with its focus on pragmatism, and "The Rationalism Debate in Current Philosophy," a sustained critique of the post-Cartesian philosophy of consciousness. Horkheimer's 1933 critique of Kantian ethics, "Materialism and Morality," is of particular interest given the current reaction to the neo-Kantian aspect of Habermas's work. There are also essays relevant to the current foundations debate within Continental philosophy, and the rationality/relativism question is sustained throughout the volume. (shrink)

The extended Church-Turing thesis posits that any computable function can be calculated efficiently by a probabilistic Turing machine. If this thesis held true, the global effort to build quantum computers might ultimately be unnecessary. The thesis would however be strongly contradicted by a physical device that efficiently performs a task believed to be intractable for classical computers. BosonSampling - the sampling from a distribution of n photons undergoing some linear-optical process - is a recently developed, and experimentally accessible example of (...) such a task [1]. (shrink)

Ageing causes progressive decline in metabolic, behavioural, and physiological functions, leading to a reduced health span. The extracellular matrix (ECM) is the three‐dimensional network of macromolecules that provides our tissues with structure and biomechanical resilience. Imbalance between damage and repair/regeneration causes the ECM to undergo structural deterioration with age, contributing to age‐associated pathology. The ECM ‘Ageing Across the Life Course’ interdisciplinary research network (ECMage) was established to bring together researchers in the United Kingdom, and internationally, working on the emerging field (...) of ECM ageing. Here we report on a consultation at a joint meeting of ECMage and the Medical Research Council / Versus Arthritis Centre for Integrated Research into Musculoskeletal Ageing, held in January 2023, in which delegates analysed the key questions and research opportunities in the field of ECM ageing. We examine fundamental biological questions, enabling technologies, systems of study and emerging in vitro and in silico models, alongside consideration of the broader challenges facing the field. (shrink)

While the Deleuzo-Guattarian concept of ‘body without organs’ is developed alongside their critique of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is also developed alongside their critique of Christianity, most poignantly in the sixth plateau of A Thousand Plateaus. Here Deleuze and Guattari quote Antonin Artaud in order to show how ‘the judgment of God weighs upon and is exercised against the BwO’. In order to understand this relationship between judgement of God and the BwO, this essay explores Deleuze's critiques of Christianity (...) in his earlier works and concludes that the BwO, much like Artaud's own poetry, is developed in contrast to an internalised form of Christianity. (shrink)

Initially “meaningless” and randomly generated sounds can be learned over exposure. This is demonstrated by studies where repetitions of randomly determined sound patterns are detected better if they are the same sounds presented on previous trials than if they are novel. This experiment posed two novel questions about this learning. First, does familiarization with a sound outside of the repetition detection context facilitate later performance? Second, does familiarization enhance performance when repeats are interleaved with distracters? Listeners were first trained to (...) categorize a unique pattern of synchronous complex tone trains from other tone trains with similar qualities. They were then tasked to detect repeated pattern presentations interleaved with similar distracters in 4.2 s long excerpts. The familiarized pattern, an unfamiliar pattern that remained fixed throughout, or patterns that were uniquely determined on each trial could be presented as repeats. FF patterns were learned at a faster rate and achieved higher repetition detection sensitivity than UF and UU patterns. Similarly, FF patterns also showed steeper learning slopes in their response times than UF patterns. The data show that familiarity with a “meaningless” sound pattern on its own can facilitate repetition detection even in the presence of distracters. Familiarity effects become most apparent in the potential for learning. (shrink)

Medical aid in dying (MAiD), despite being legal in many jurisdictions, remains controversial ethically. Existing surveys of physicians’ perceptions of MAiD tend to focus on the legal or moral permissibility of MAiD in general. Using a novel sampling strategy, we surveyed physicians likely to have engaged in MAiD-related activities in Colorado to assess their attitudes toward contemporary ethical issues in MAiD.

Abstract. Richard Feldman’s Uniqueness Thesis holds that “a body of evidence justifies at most one proposition out of a competing set of proposi- tions”. The opposing position, permissivism, allows distinct rational agents to adopt differing attitudes towards a proposition given the same body of evidence. We assess various motivations that have been offered for Uniqueness, including: concerns about achieving consensus, a strong form of evidentialism, worries about epistemically arbitrary influences on belief, a focus on truth-conduciveness, and consequences for peer disagreement. (...) We argue that each of these motivations either misunderstands the commitments of permissivism or is question-begging. Better understanding permissivism makes it a much more plausible position. (shrink)

A substantial body of evidence suggests that autobiographical recollection and simulation of future happenings activate a shared neural network. Many of the neural regions implicated in this network are affected in patients with bipolar disorder , showing altered metabolic functioning and/or structural volume abnormalities. Studies of autobiographical recall in BD reveal overgeneralization, where autobiographical memory comprises primarily factual or repeated information as opposed to details specific in time and in place and definitive of re-experiencing. To date, no study has examined (...) whether these deficits extend to future event simulation. We examined the ability of patients with BD and controls to imagine positive, negative and neutral future events using a modified version of the Autobiographical Interview that allowed for separation of episodic and non-episodic details. Patients were selectively impaired in imagining future positive, negative, and neutral episodic details; simulation of non-episodic details was equivalent across groups. (shrink)

The concept of modernity is fraught with contestation, a wedge that divides people, practices, institutions, and beliefs. This chasm is particularly pronounced for traditional institutions like the...

It is often assumed that engaging in a one‐on‐one dialogue with a tutor is more effective than listening to a lecture or reading a text. Although earlier experiments have not always supported this hypothesis, this may be due in part to allowing the tutors to cover different content than the noninteractive instruction. In 7 experiments, we tested the interaction hypothesis under the constraint that (a) all students covered the same content during instruction, (b) the task domain was qualitative physics, (c) (...) the instruction was in natural language as opposed to mathematical or other formal languages, and (d) the instruction conformed with a widely observed pattern in human tutoring: Graesser, Person, and Magliano's 5‐step frame. In the experiments, we compared 2 kinds of human tutoring (spoken and computer mediated) with 2 kinds of natural‐language‐based computer tutoring (Why2‐Atlas and Why2‐AutoTutor) and 3 control conditions that involved studying texts. The results depended on whether the students' preparation matched the content of the instruction. When novices (students who had not taken college physics) studied content that was written for intermediates (students who had taken college physics), then tutorial dialogue was reliably more beneficial than less interactive instruction, with large effect sizes. When novices studied material written for novices or intermediates studied material written for intermediates, then tutorial dialogue was not reliably more effective than the text‐based control conditions. (shrink)