It is generally assumed that storing predictive relations between two events in memory as bi-directional associations does not require conscious awareness of this relation, whereas the formation of unidirectional associations that capture the direction of the relation does. This study reports a set of experiments demonstrating that unidirectional associations can be formed even when awareness of the relation is actively prevented, if attention is “tuned” to process predictive relations. When participants engaged in predicting targets based on cues in an unrelated (...) task before the actual acquisition phase, unidirectional associations were formed during this acquisition phase even though E1 was presented subliminally. This suggests that although processing the relation between events may often be accompanied by awareness of this relation, awareness is not a prerequisite for the formation of unidirectional associations. (shrink)

Three experiments examined whether the mere priming of potential action effects enhances people’s feeling of causing these effects when they occur. In a computer task, participants and the computer independently moved a rapidly moving square on a display. Participants had to press a key, thereby stopping the movement. However, the participant or the computer could have caused the square to stop on the observed position, and accordingly, the stopped position of the square could be conceived of as the potential effect (...) resulting from participants’ action of pressing the stop key. The location of this position was primed or not just before participants had to stop the movement. Results showed that priming of the position enhanced experienced authorship of stopping the square. Additional experimentation demonstrated that this priming of agency was not mediated by the goal or intention to produce the effect. (shrink)

The objective of this research project is to develop a preliminary examination of an heuristic process ontology derived from an east-west comparative methodology. It attempts to trace the similarities and discontinuities of an ontological perspective in Friedrich Nietzsche‘s philosophy and several different strands of thought in Warring States era Chinese philosophical thought, focusing on Daoism in particular. The project traces the conclusions of these comparisons from a basic theoretical ontology to a socio-practical consideration. It concludes that in theorizing process both (...) perspectives do not rely on traditional dichotomies that are seen in Western philosophical thought, they see the world as non-deterministic and utilize correlative thinking. The research traces further considerations in the areas of epistemology and evaluation based on these points and concludes that there is no separation between epistemology-evaluation and the underlying ontology, they are direct continuations of ontology. As a last question of theory, this research examines the consequences of comparative process ontology for language, claiming that it allows us to undermine a subjective/objective dichotomy by naturalizing language. Lastly, the theoretical groundwork of this project is applied to a number of extant philosophical issues. It attempts to resolve the dichotomy of reality and appearance as a metaphysical issue, and offers an account of how socio-political and economic issues can be theorized according to such an ontology. (shrink)

The present article reviews modern research on the psychology of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation determines the offset of emotional responding and is thus distinct from emotional sensitivity, which determines the onset of emotional responding. Among the most viable categories for classifying emotion-regulation strategies are the targets and functions of emotion regulation. The emotion-generating systems that are targeted in emotion regulation include attention, knowledge, and bodily responses. The functions of emotion regulation include satisfying hedonic needs, supporting specific goal pursuits, and facilitating (...) the global personality system. Emotion-regulation strategies are classified in terms of their targets and functions and relevant empirical work is reviewed. Throughout this review, emotion regulation emerges as one of the most far-ranging and influential processes at the interface of cognition and emotion. (shrink)

This study investigates to what extent the amount of variation in a visual scene causes speakers to mention the attribute color in their definite target descriptions, focusing on scenes in which this attribute is not needed for identification of the target. The results of our three experiments show that speakers are more likely to redundantly include a color attribute when the scene variation is high as compared with when this variation is low (even if this leads to overspecified descriptions). We (...) argue that these findings are problematic for existing algorithms that aim to automatically generate psychologically realistic target descriptions, such as the Incremental Algorithm, as these algorithms make use of a fixed preference order per domain and do not take visual scene variation into account. (shrink)

Concern for and interest in research integrity has increased significantly during recent decades, both in academic and in policy discourse. Both in terms of diagnostics and in terms of therapy, the tendency in integrity discourse has been to focus on strategies of individualisation (detecting and punishing individual deviance). Other contributions to the integrity debate, however, focus more explicitly on environmental factors, e.g. on the quality and resilience of research ecosystems, on institutional rather than individual responsibilities, and on the quality of (...) the research culture. One example of this is the Bonn PRINTEGER Statement. This editorial to the LSSP thematic series (article collection) entitled Addressing integrity challenges in research: the institutional dimension invites authors to contribute to the research integrity debate. Notably, we are interested in submissions addressing issues such as institutional responsibilities, changes in the research climate, duties of research managers and research performing or research funding organisations (RPOs and RFOs) as well as new approaches to integrity education. (shrink)

In two experiments, we investigate to what extent various visual saliency cues in realistic visual scenes cause speakers to overspecify their definite object descriptions with a redundant color attribute. The results of the first experiment demonstrate that speakers are more likely to redundantly mention color when visual clutter is present in a scene as compared to when this is not the case. In the second experiment, we found that distractor type and distractor color affect redundant color use: Speakers are most (...) likely to overspecify if there is at least one distractor object present that has the same type, but a different color than the target referent. Reliable effects of distractor distance were not found. Taken together, our results suggest that certain visual saliency cues guide speakers in determining which objects in a visual scene are relevant distractors, and which not. We argue that this is problematic for algorithms that aim to generate human-like descriptions of objects, since these generally select properties that help to distinguish a target from all objects that are present in a scene. (shrink)

In general, to enhance something is to raise that thing in degree, intensity, magnitude, or in some sense improve upon it.2 In this context, we are concerned with enhancements, ie amplifications or extensions, of human capabilities, ...

Custers and Aarts demonstrated that whether predictive relations between two events are stored in memory as unidirectional or bi-directional structures does not depend on awareness, but on attention. Here, the role of attention and top-down processes in producing these effects are investigated more closely.

Solidarity has for a long time been referred to as the core value underpinning European health and welfare systems. But there has been debate in recent years about whether solidarity, with its alleged communitarian content, can be reconciled with the emphasis on individual freedom and personal autonomy. One may wonder whether there is still a place for solidarity, and whether the concept of justice should be embraced to analyse the moral issues regarding access to health care. In this article, I (...) will answer this question by analysing the normative foundations of the concept of justice, followed by a deeper examination of the concept of solidarity in continental philosophy. More specifically, I will compare the philosophical traditions rooted in Kant (with emphasis on autonomy and individual rights) to approaches rooted in Hegel (with emphasis on individual relations of recognition). In addition, I will present the work of Avishai Margalit on the decent society to criticize a predominantly liberal approach to access to health care. The importance of solidarity lies particularly in its emphasis on relational aspects and the role of recognition in care practices, which are usually ignored in liberal approaches to justice. However, the article will argue that solidarity is not an alternative to a rights-based concept of justice, but must be considered as a necessary complement to it. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

This article argues that autistic people occasionally experience greater comfort from imposed routines than from a yielding form of love and understanding, which I will call naive humanism. Collins's theory of action, with its attention toward the achievements residing in a reductionist approach, can help to point out the flaws of a naive humanistic stance. It would, however, be a mistake to stop at this point and remain satisfied with the problem-solving capacity of such a reductionist stance. In a ward (...) for autistic youths, the risk of cruelty resides in a purely mechanistic stance as much as in a naive humanistic approach. Thus, the social context of care of autistic people urges us to question the scope of a traditional scheme of thought, which cherishes a deep distinction between humans and machines. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the social and ethical issues that arise as a result of digitization based on six dominant technologies: Internet of Things, robotics, biometrics, persuasive technology, virtual & augmented reality, and digital platforms. We highlight the many developments in the digitizing society that appear to be at odds with six recurring themes revealing from our analysis of the scientific literature on the dominant technologies: privacy, autonomy, security, human dignity, justice, and balance of power. This study shows that (...) the new wave of digitization is putting pressure on these public values. In order to effectively shape the digital society in a socially and ethically responsible way, stakeholders need to have a clear understanding of what such issues might be. Supervision has been developed the most in the areas of privacy and data protection. For other ethical issues concerning digitization such as discrimination, autonomy, human dignity and unequal balance of power, the supervision is not as well organized. (shrink)

New Visions of the Zhuangzi edited by Livia Kohn presents thirteen different essays on the Zhuangzi that will appeal to readers from any number of different backgrounds. The eclecticism of these essays, ranging in content from neuroscience to fashion shows, highlights the ever-increasing scope and relevance of ancient Chinese works like the Zhuangzi to contemporary life and thought. Also, the enterprising move of some essays away from a traditional schools-based approach also serves as an inspiration for future scholarly work. The (...) essays will be discussed in this review by grouping several according to overlapping themes, leaving the more stand-alone contributions to be addressed last.First of all, the cripple... (shrink)

Generally, online support groups are viewed as low-threshold services. We challenge this assumption with an investigation, based on Conversation Analysis and Membership Categorization Analysis, of contributions to an online support group on eating disorders. In this analysis we show how a new member interacts with existing members in order to display legitimacy for membership of the group. The group operates as a Community of Practice, since membership is organized as joined participation in a writing practice. It becomes clear that becoming (...) a member involves subscribing to normative requirements, centrally, displaying the insight that you are ill. In the case we focus on, this involves the requirement to leave pro-anorexia as a membership category behind. The novice does not yet seem ready to subscribe to this norm and thus the threshold for seeking support is heightened. (shrink)

Kalisch et al. propose a positive appraisal style as the key mechanism that underlies resilience. The present authors suggest that flexibility in emotion processing is more conducive to resilience than a general positivity bias. People may achieve emotional flexibility through counter-regulation – a dynamic processing bias toward positive stimuli in negative contexts and negative stimuli in positive contexts.

Concern for and interest in research integrity has increased significantly during recent decades, both in academic and in policy discourse. Both in terms of diagnostics and in terms of therapy, the tendency in integrity discourse has been to focus on strategies of individualisation. Other contributions to the integrity debate, however, focus more explicitly on environmental factors, e.g. on the quality and resilience of research ecosystems, on institutional rather than individual responsibilities, and on the quality of the research culture. One example (...) of this is the Bonn PRINTEGER Statement. This editorial to the LSSP thematic series entitled Addressing integrity challenges in research: the institutional dimension invites authors to contribute to the research integrity debate. Notably, we are interested in submissions addressing issues such as institutional responsibilities, changes in the research climate, duties of research managers and research performing or research funding organisations as well as new approaches to integrity education. (shrink)

This paper takes issue with what seem to be standard practices of at least some organizations that use models in their ad campaigns. These organizations know that many of their models have had drug problems but refuse either to tolerate this or to help them. Some organizations have, allegedly in the name of a responsibility for the health of their customers, rather opted for a firm condemnation of the practices in which models such as Kate Moss apparently engage. This raises (...) questions about hypocrisy. The paper uses Levinas's concept of the face critically to describe what might be going on in the conflict between Moss and some of the companies she worked for. Moss is arguably understood by these companies as a role model who should not engage with drugs or street life. Against these more or less patronizing tendencies, the paper claims that it is not so much the face but processes of defacement that should trouble us from a moral perspective. The face, it is maintained, is not only ethical but also has a materiality. In opposition to what is maintained by at least some scholars of Levinas, art, literature and history have alerted us over and over again that the face is anything but indelible. Some examples from art show us the versatility and vulnerability of the face. The gossip and hype about what came to be known as the Kate Moss affair stands, it is argued, in a long misogynic tradition of defacement. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTo commemorate that Cognition & Emotion was established three decades ago, we asked some distinguished scholars to reflect on past research on the interface of cognition and emotion and prospects for the future. The resulting papers form the Special Issue on Horizons in Cognition and Emotion Research. The contributions to Horizons cover both the field in general and a diversity of specific topics, including affective neuroscience, appraisal theory, automatic evaluation, embodied emotion, emotional disorders, emotion-linked attentional bias, emotion recognition, emotion regulation, (...) lifespan development, motivation, and social emotions. We hope that Horizons will spark constructive debates, while offering guidance for the future growth and development of research on the interface between cognition and emotion. Finally, we provide an update on how Cognition & Emotion has fared over the past year, and announce some changes in editorial policies and the editorial board. (shrink)

Social interactions of autistic and non-autistic persons are intriguing. In all sorts of situations people with autism are part of the daily life of those around them. Such interactions exist despite the lack of familiar ways of attuning to one another. In Autistic Company, the anthropologist and philosopher Ruud Hendriks—himself trained as a care worker for young people with autism—investigates what alternative means are sometimes found by autistic and non-autistic people to establish a shared existence. Unprecedented in scholarly work (...) on autism, the book also reflects on how to talk about these unusual ways of getting on together. Drawing on methods from both the arts and the social sciences, this study covers very diverse sources, ranging from literary works to factual writing on autism in science and advisory literature, and from autobiographical accounts to ethnographic observations in a home for autistic people. “Putting familiar concepts to a test, Autistic Company wrenches and fiddles with the very distinctions that constitute our sense of self. By doing so, Hendriks succeeds in getting closer both to autistic and non-autistic extremes, showing how thin the division between us and them really is.” -L.W. Nauta in Krisis. (shrink)

While we applaud the careful breakdown by Clark and Fischer of the representation of social robots held by the human user, we emphasise that a neurocognitive perspective is crucial to fully capture how people perceive and construe social robots at the behavioural and brain levels.

This article discusses interactive minimum cost spanning tree problems and argues that the standard approach of using a transferable utility game to come up with a fair allocation of the total costs has some flaws. A new model of spillover games is presented, in which each player’s decision whether or not to cooperate is properly taken into account.

The Health Council of the Netherlands is an independent scientific advisory board to the Dutch government in matters of public health. In this article we argue that even for an independent body such as the Health Council there seems to be no escape from the increasing intertwinement of scientific and societal processes. In order to produce a serviceable truth for policymaking, the council needs to reflect on what goes on in its socio-political surroundings. On the other hand, how could we (...) ever come to understand the legitimacy of the council when notions of scientific objectivity dissolve in such a reflexive, inherently political stance? In a situation where science and society are thoroughly interrelated, the Health Council somehow succeeds in bringing about or re-claiming some sense of objectivity. Our central question will be how to conceptualise this notion of 'objectivity' without having to rely on idealized notions of objectivity that are criticized in philosophical, sociological and historical studies of science and society. In order to do so, we will regard the objectivity of advisory reports of the Health Council as being constructed out of heterogeneous elements and under complex circumstances. The theoretical point will be empirically underpinned with case material drawn from activities of the Health Council in the period 1985-2002 in predominantly the subject areas healthcare and medical technology. (shrink)

Clowns seem suspect when it comes to respect. The combination of clowning and people with dementia may seem especially suspicious. In this argument, I take potential concerns about clowning in dementia care as an opportunity to explore the meaning of a respectful approach of people with dementia. Our word ‘respect’ is derived from the Latin respiciō, meaning ‘looking back’ or ‘seeing again’, as well as ‘looking after’ or ‘having regard’ for someone or something. I build upon this double meaning of (...) respiciō by examining how simultaneously we look to and after people with dementia. I do so empirically by studying how miMakkus clowns in their practice learn to look with new eyes to people and things around them. I call this clown’s view and differentiate it from the predominant way of observing people in dementia care. I argue that respiciō comes in two guises, each of which merges specific forms of looking to and looking after the other. By making conventional, solidified ways of seeing the other fluid again, clowns remind us of the value that comes with a veiled way of paying respect to people with dementia. (shrink)

A cumulative emotion science requires sustained investments in theory development. To encourage such investments, a new section will be added to Cognition & Emotion that is specifically devoted to...

Deprescribing is the term used to describe the process of withdrawal of an inappropriate medication supervised by a clinician. This article presents a discussion of how the Four Principles of biomedical ethics that may guide medical practitioners’ prescribing practices apply to deprescribing medications in older adults. The view of deprescribing as an act creates stronger moral duties than if viewed as an omission. This may explain the fear of negative outcomes which has been reported by prescribers as a barrier to (...) deprescribing. Respecting the autonomy of older adults is complex as they may not wish to be active in the decision-making process; they may also have reduced cognitive function and family members may therefore have to step in as surrogate decision-makers. Informed consent is intended as a process of information giving and reflection, where consent can be withdrawn at any time. However, people are rarely updated on the altered risks and benefits of their long-term medications as they age. Cessation of inappropriate medication use has a large financial benefit to the individual and the community. However, the principle of justice also dictates equal rights to treatment regardless of age. (shrink)