Plasticity of body representation fundamentally underpins human tool use. Recent studies have demonstrated remarkably complex plasticity of body representation in humans, showing that such plasticity (1) occurs flexibly across multiple time scales and (2) involves multiple body representations responding differently to tool use. Such findings reveal remarkable sophistication of body plasticity in humans, suggesting that Vaesen may overestimate the similarity of such mechanisms in humans and non-human primates.

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

We question the generalizability of Glover's model because it fails to distinguish between different forms of planning. The highly controlled experimental situations on which this model is based, do not reflect some important factors that contribute to planning. We discuss several classes of action that seem to imply distinct planning mechanisms, questioning Glover's postulation of a single “planning system.”.

The empirical support for the shared circuits model (SCM) is mixed. We review recent results from our own lab and others supporting a central claim of SCM that mirroring occurs at multiple levels of representation. By contrast, the model is silent as to why human infants are capable of showing imitative behaviours mediated by a mirror system. This limitation is a problem with formal models that address neither the neural correlates nor the behavioural evidence directly.

Schilbach et al. contrast second-person and third-person approaches to social neuroscience. We discuss relations between second-person and first-person approaches, arguing that they cannot be studied in isolation. Contingency is central for converging first- and second-person approaches. Studies of embodiment show how contingencies scaffold first-person perspective and how the transition from a third- to a second-person perspective fundamentally involves first-person contributions.

Political theory is a field that finds nourishment in others. From economics, history, sociology, psychology, and political science, theorists have drawn a rich repertoire of schemas to parse the social world and make sense of it. With each of these encounters, new subjects are brought into focus as others recede into the background, ushering a change not only in how questions are tackled but also in what questions are thought worth asking.

Psychophysical experiments have demonstrated large and highly systematic perceptual distortions of tactile space. Such a space can be referred to our experience of the spatial organisation of objects, at representational level, through touch, in analogy with the familiar concept of visual space. We investigated the neural basis of tactile space by analysing activity patterns induced by tactile stimulation of nine points on a 3 × 3 square grid on the hand dorsum using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used a searchlight (...) approach within pre-defined regions of interests to compute the pairwise Euclidean distances between the activity patterns elicited by tactile stimulation. Then, we used multidimensional scaling to reconstruct tactile space at the neural level and compare it with skin space at the perceptual level. Our reconstructions of the shape of skin space in contralateral primary somatosensory and motor cortices reveal that it is distorted in a way that matches the perceptual shape of skin space. This suggests that early sensorimotor areas critically contribute to the distorted internal representation of tactile space on the hand dorsum. (shrink)

Tactile distance perception is believed to require that immediate afferent signals be referenced to a stored representation of body size and shape (the body model). For this ability, recent studies have reported that the stored body representations involved are highly distorted, at least in the case of the hand, with the hand dorsum represented as wider and squatter than it actually is. Here, we aim to define the neural basis of this phenomenon. In a behavioural experiment participants estimated the distance (...) between touches on two points by adjusting the length of a visually-presented line on the screen. The technique of multidensional scaling (MDS) was used to reconstruct a perceptual map of tactile space. Analysis of spatial distortion using Procrustes alignment showed that maps were stretched in the mediolateral hand axis. In order to determine the neural correlates of these body distortions, we performed an fMRI study. For each participant, we used a searchlight pattern classifier with Euclidean distance on pre-defined regions of interests (ROIs). In order to relate the representations between the different points and to computational models, we compare response-pattern dissimilarity matrices in these ROIs. Similar to the behavioural experiment, we used MDS to reconstruct maps of the neural representation of tactile space using the values from the dissimilarities matrices. We were able to reconstruct the perceptual map of tactile space in the contralateral primary somatosensory and motor cortices. This suggests that these areas are critical to generate the tactile representations of the dorsum of the hand. (shrink)

We examined the neural basis of tactile distance perception by analyzing activity patterns induced by tactile stimulation of nine points on a 3 x 3 square grid on the hand dorsum using functional magnetic resonance (fMRI). We used a searchlight approach within pre-defined regions of interests (ROIs) to compute the pairwise Euclidean distances between the activity patterns elicited by tactile stimulation. Then, we used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to reconstruct skin space at the neural level and compare it with skin space (...) at the perceptual level. Our reconstructions of the shape of skin space in contralateral primary somatosensory (SI) and motor (M1) cortices reveal that it is distorted in a way that matches the perceptual shape of skin space. This suggests that early sensorimotor areas are critical to processing tactile distance perception. (shrink)

Hands are commonly held up as an exemplar of well-known, familiar objects. However, conceptual knowledge of the hand has been found to show highly stereotyped distortions. Specifically, people judge their knuckles as farther forward in the hand than they actually are. The cause of this distal bias remains unclear. In Experiment 1, we tested whether both visual and tactile information contribute to the distortion. Participants judged the location of their knuckles by pointing to the location on their palm directly opposite (...) each knuckle with: 1) a metal baton (using vision and touch) 2) a metal baton while blindfolded (using touch), 3) a laser pointer (using vision). In Experiment 2, we investigated whether judgments are influenced by visual landmarks such as the creases at the base of each finger on the palm. Participants localized their knuckles on either a photograph or a silhouette of their hand. In both experiments, clear distortions were found across conditions, of generally similar magnitude. These results show that distal bias is resistant to changes in the stimulus information and does not rely on any specific stimulus cue or single sensory modality, suggesting that such mislocalisations reflect a conceptual misrepresentation of hand structure. (shrink)

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

Imagine I hold up a Granny Smith apple for all to see. You would thereby gain justified beliefs that it was green, that it was apple, and that it is a Granny Smith apple. Under classical foundationalism, such simple visual beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning your experience. Under dogmatism, some or all of these beliefs are justified immediately by your experience and not by reasons you possess. This paper argues for what I call the looks (...) view of the justification of simple visual beliefs. According to the looks view, such beliefs are mediately justified on the basis of reasons concerning how the relevant things look. Unlike under classical foundationalism, under the looks view as I develop it, these reasons are public. They are public with respect to both their content and possession: with respect to content, they are not about ourselves and our experiences, and with respect to their possession, many people can have the very same looks-related reasons. (shrink)

Abstract I provide an account of the nature of seemings that explains why they are necessary for justification. The account grows out of a picture of cognition that explains what is required for epistemic agency. According to this account, epistemic agency requires (1) possessing the epistemic aims of forming true beliefs and avoiding errors, and (2) having some means of forming beliefs in order to satisfy those aims. I then argue that seeming are motives for belief characterized by their role (...) of providing us with doxastic instructions guided by our epistemic aims. Understanding the nature of seemings allows us to underwrite recent epistemological work by Michael Huemer, and shows why he was right to claim that seemings are the source of all justification. I then look at some objections both to my arguments regarding the connection between seemings and justification, and to Huemer’s related “Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism”. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9830-2 Authors Matthew Skene, Syracuse University, 8330 E. Quincy Ave., I-307, Denver, CO 80237, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

Saggio storico-pedagogico costruito su scritti editi e inediti di Elena Marano, pedagogista, filantropa, scrittrice vissuta tra la il XIX e il XX secolo ad Adrano (Ct). Ancorato alla pedagogia tradizionale, il suo pensiero trae alimento da ideologi del Risorgimento (Mazzini e Gioberti), si confronta con studiosi e intellettuali coevi, si apre a forme di rigenerazione didattico-educative i cui temi precorrono la contemporaneità: riposizionamento morale per contrastare emergenza educativa, istruzione diffusa per abbattere disagio sociale e analfabetismo, formazione delle bambine per favorire (...) cittadinanza femminile e inserimento delle donne nella società, relazionalità produttiva e funzione pedagogica del lavoro per conseguire «quella legalità che è attributo dello Stato». Diversi gli aspetti dell'educazione – morale, intellettuale, civile...– che, avviando corresponsabilità educativa tra docente e studente, scuola e famiglia, costituiscono strumento di interazione tra le discipline e l'unità di pensiero, necessaria diade per la deduzione del vero. (shrink)

Offers an accessible reader that combines theory with historical and contemporary case studies that encourage students to apply their theoretical understandings of justice to real world issues.

Dans la mythologie grecque, Prométhée - le 'prévoyant' - déroba le feu aux dieux et le transmit aux hommes. Zeus, courroucé par ce transfert technologique, condamna Prométhée à un châtiment itéré à l'identique, à l'infini, algorithmique. Le problème que pose l'ancien mythe est celui des limites de la connaissance. En termes modernes, jusqu'à quel point pouvons-nous transformer la nature sans une connaissance des conséquences de nos actions sur elle? Cette question nous pousse à analyser les limites des sciences : à (...) une techno-science devenue toujours plus invasive, la science répond en se donnant à elle-même des limites"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

One’s account of the meaning of ethical sentences should fit – roughly, as part to whole – with one’s account of the meaning of sentences in general. When we ask, though, where one widely discussed account of the meaning of ethical sentences fits with more general accounts of meaning, the answer is frustratingly unclear. The account I have in mind is the sort of metaethical expressivism inspired by Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare, and defended and worked out in more detail recently (...) by Blackburn, Gibbard, and others. So, my first aim (§1) in this paper is to pose this question about expressivism’s commitments in the theory of meaning and to characterize the answer I think is most natural, given the place expressivist accounts attempt to occupy metaethics. This involves appeal to an ideationalist account of meaning. Unfortunately for the expressivist, however, this answer generates a problem; it’s my second aim (§2) to articulate this problem. Then, my third aim (§3) is to argue that this problem doesn’t extend to the sort of account of the meaning of ethical claims that I favor, which is like expressivism in rejecting a representationalist order of semantic explanation but unlike expressivism in basing an alternative order of semantic explanation on inferential role rather than expressive function. (shrink)