IntroductionNeurofeedback training is increasingly applied as a therapeutic tool in a variety of disorders, with growing scientific and clinical interest in the last two decades. Different Neurofeedback approaches have been developed over time, so it is now important to be able to distinguish between them and investigate the effectiveness and efficiency characteristics of each specific protocol. In this study we intend to examine the effects of Neurofeedback based on slow brain activity, the so-called Infra-Low Frequency training a recently developed methodology (...) that seems promising for the regulation of the central nervous system.AimsWith this review we intend to summarize the currently existing literature on ILF-Neurofeedback, examine its quality and formulate indications about the clinical effectiveness of ILF-Neurofeedback.MethodsLiterature search was first conducted according to PRISMA principles, described, and then assessed using the MMAT appraisal tool. 18 well-documented studies of ILF-Neurofeedback training in human subjects were picked up and analyzed. Reports include group interventions as well as single case studies.ResultsResearch data indicates good potential for ILF-Neurofeedback to influence brain activity and neurovegetative parameters. From the clinical profile, a salient common observation is a high level of individualization as a specific characteristic of ILF-Training: this feature seems to correlate with effectiveness of ILF-Neurofeedback, but also poses a challenge for researchers in terms of producing controlled and comparable findings; according to this point, some recommendation for future research on ILF-Neurofeedback are proposed. In conclusion, ILF-neurofeedback shows great potential for application for all those conditions in which the regulation of brain activity and neurophysiological processes are crucial. Further research will make it possible to complete the available data and to have a broader overview of its possible applications. (shrink)

Eating disorders can be viewed as “embodied acts” that help to cope with internal and external demands that are perceived as overwhelming. The maintenance of EDs affects the entire identity of the person; the lack of a defined; or valid sense of self is expressed in terms of both physical body and personal identity. According to attachment theory, primary relationships characterized by insecurity, traumatic experiences, poor mirroring, and emotional attunement lead to the development of dysfunctional regulatory strategies. Although the literature (...) shows an association between attachment style or states of mind, trauma, behavioral strategies, and various EDs, the debate is still ongoing and the results are still conflicting. Therefore, we believe it is important to examine and treat EDs by understanding which narrative trajectory intercepts distress in relation to narrative and embodied self-concept. Drawing on clinical observation and a narrative review of the literature, we focus on the construction and organization of bodily and narrative identity. Because bodily representations are the primary tools for generating meaning, organizing experience, and shaping social identity from the earliest stages of life, we focus on the role that bodily interactions and sensorimotor and proprioceptive patterns have played in the development of EDs. We consider the role that lack of attunement, insecure attachment, and relational trauma play in mentalizing, affecting self-representation and emotion regulation strategies. The paper also considers a semantic mode of trauma in EDs that involves a top-down pathway through beliefs and narratives about oneself based on lack of amiability, on devaluation, and on humiliation memories. Finally, we would like to highlight the proposal of an integrated model with multiple access model to psychotherapy that takes into account the complexity of ED patients in whom aspects related to dysregulation, body image disintegration, and post-traumatic symptoms are associated with a suffering sense of self and a retraumatizing narrative. (shrink)

Starting from the discussion on the original set of criteria advanced by Clark and Chalmers (1998) meant to avoid the overextension of the mind, or the so-called “cognitive bloat”, we will sketch our solution to the problem of criteria evaluation, by connecting it to the search for a mark of the mental. Our proposal is to argue for a “weak conscientialist” mark of the mental based on transparent access, which vindicates the role of consciousness in defining what is mental without, (...) however, identifying the mental with the conscious. This renovated link between mind and consciousness, spelled out through the concept of transparency, further develops some of our previous work on the topic (Di Francesco 2007; Di Francesco and Piredda 2012) and is partially inspired by Horgan and Kriegel (2008). (shrink)

This review discussed the effects of the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic on the psychological wellbeing of people with Parkinson's disease focusing specifically on depressive symptoms, anxiety levels, sleep, and quality of life. Together with motor symptoms, psychological symptoms are common and disabling conditions in the clinical course of PD becoming a relevant topic as a result of the lockdown measure due to alter their everyday life. We searched on PubMed online electronic databases for English articles published between (...) January 2020 and 31 December 2021. Twenty-eight relevant studies were found and included in the review. Heterogeneous data emerged from the topics analyzed. Overall, data from depression studies showed significant depressive symptoms if the patient was analyzed longitudinally or vs. a control group consisting in healthy subjects, while these differences become minimal when the control group is a family member. Differently, in most of the studies reviewed there is no evidence of a statistically significant impact on anxiety disorders, nor on the quality of sleep. Conversely, PD patients showed a statistically significant negative impact of QoL compared with control groups or other neurological conditions. Although these findings must be interpreted carefully in the light of the studies' limitations, both in methodology and design, collectively our review showed that COVID-19 pandemic has had negative effects on the mental health of people with PD, due to disruption of healthcare services, loss of usual activities and supports and reduction in physical activity. (shrink)

Previous studies have highlighted that temporal source memory can be influenced by factors such as the individual’s age and the emotional valence of the event to be remembered. In this study, we investigated how the different points of view (POVs) from which an event is presented could interact with the relationship between age-related differences and emotional valence on temporal source memory. One hundred and forty-one younger adults (aged 18–30) and 90 older adults (aged 65–74) were presented with a series of (...) emotional videos shot from different POVs (first vs. third-person) in three sessions. In the fourth session, participants were asked to indicate in which session (1, 2, or 3) they viewed each video. The results indicated that the first-person POV amplified the effects of the emotional valence on temporal source memory. Only in this experimental condition, older adults “pushed away” negative stimuli by perceiving them as more distant in time, and “kept closer” positive stimuli by perceiving them as more recent. In comparison, younger adults “kept closer” positive stimuli. These findings add to the existing literature on the positivity effect on temporal source memory and highlighted the importance of considering the POV in relation to the emotional valence. (shrink)

Studying trust in the context of human-robot interaction is of great importance given the increasing relevance and presence of robotic agents in the social sphere, including educational and clinical. We investigated the acquisition, loss and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in-vivo. The relationship between trust and the representation of the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. Additionally, to outline children’s beliefs (...) about the mental competencies of the robot, we further evaluated the attribution of mental states to the interactive agent. In general, no substantial differences were found in children’s trust in the play-partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-years-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, as opposed to 7-years-olds, who displayed the reverse pattern. These findings align with results showing that, for 3 and 7-year-olds, the cognitive ability to switch was significantly associated with trust restoration in the human and the robot, respectively. Additionally, supporting previous findings, we found a dichotomy between attributions of mental states to the human and robot and children’s behavior: while attributing to the robot significantly lower mental states than the human, in the trusting game children behaved in a similar way when they related to the human and the robot. Altogether, the results of this study highlight that similar psychological mechanisms are at play when children are to establish a novel trustful relationship with a human and robot partner. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the interplay – during development – between children’s quality of attachment relationships and the development of a Theory of Mind, which act differently on trust dynamics as a function of the children’s age as well as the interactive partner’s nature (human vs. robot). (shrink)

Analyzes the philosophical thought of Simone Weil. Pp. 279-286, "Un'ebrea antisemita?, " discuss the Jewish philosopher's apparent antisemitism, her intransigence towards Judaism in comparison with other religions, and her persistent selection of negative examples from Jewish history.

This work evaluated the structure of dreams in people affected by schizophrenia. The verbal reports of 123 schizophrenic patients were compared with 123 dream reports from a control group. In accordance with the Jungian conceptualization of, dreams as texts, dream reports were assessed using textual analysis processing techniques.Significant differences were found in textual parameters, showing that the dreams reports of schizophrenic patients differ from those of the control group. It is thus possible that schizophrenia probably underlies changes in the oneiric (...) production and dream reports. This work confirms the value of textual analysis in the study of oneiric material. (shrink)

Negation can be considered a shared social action that develops since early infancy with very basic acts of refusals or rejection. Inspired by an approach to the embodiment of concepts known as Multiple Representation Theories, the present paper explores negation as an embodied action that relies on both sensorimotor and linguistic/social information. Despite the different variants, MRT accounts share the basic ideas that both linguistic/social and sensorimotor information concur to the processes of concepts formation and representation and that the balance (...) between these components depends on the kind of concept, the context, or the performed task. In the present research we will apply the MRT framework for exploring negation in Italian sign language. The nature of negation in LIS has been explored in continuity with the co-speech gesture where negative elements are encoded through differentiated prosodic and gestural strategies across languages. Data have been collected in naturalistic settings that may allow a much wider understanding of negation both in speech and in spoken language with a semi-structured interview. Five LIS participants with age range 30–80 were recruited and interviewed with the aim of understanding the continuity between gesture and sign in negation. Results highlight that negation utterances mirror the functions of rejection, non-existence and denial that have been described in language acquisition both in deaf and hearing children. These different steps of acquisition of negation show a different balance between sensorimotor, linguistic and social information in the construction of negative meaning that the MRT is able to enlighten. (shrink)

Background:Personal values influence nursing students’ development of professional values, which affect professional outcomes, and how nursing students react to different situations. Personal values can be shaped by different factors, including culture, gender, and age.Aims:To explore personal values held by nursing students, and to verify if and how gender and year of study affect nursing students’ personal values.Research design:A multicenter, cross-sectional study was used.Participants and research context:The whole population of nursing undergraduate students available at the time was recruited from eight centers (...) of two Universities, composing a sample of 947 students. Demographic data were collected and it was administered the Portrait Values Questionnaire.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of the University of the participating centers.Findings:The study sample was mainly composed of young (92.6%, n = 877), female (77.3%, n = 732), Italian (95.8%, n = 907), and unmarried (98.6%, n = 934) nursing students. The most important value for nursing students, consistently through the years of nursing school, was Self-transcendence, which has the motivational emphasis on helping others and selflessness. Then, we found that male students had higher levels of Power (p < 0.001) and Achievement (p = 0.031), while female students outscored male students in Benevolence (p = 0.005) and Security (p = 0.006). Year of study showed no statistically significant difference.Discussion:Nursing students express high levels in hetero-directed values. Male nursing students, although they choose a stereotypically feminine profession, outscored females in stereotypical masculine values such as dominance and success. This is the first study that describes the personal value profile of undergraduate nursing students, according to the Theory of Basic Human Values, and it is a starting point for future research.Conclusion:Nursing educators might want to consider the findings from this study while guiding students in developing awareness for their personal values. (shrink)

The so-called gammadiae are symbols similar to letters whose specific meaning is unknown. It is currently believed that they could have originated among Hellenistic Jews, and been inherited by Christians, who adapted them to own needs. They seem to have indicated the holiness of the characters marked by them. Building on previous analysis and on the recent systematic cataloguing of the Early Christian catacombs of Rome, as well as a range of other artefacts, we examine two lesser known archaeological finds, (...) and finally consider some examples of gammadiae “of transition”, which appear during the Medieval period predominantly in manuscripts or in the mosaics of basilicas. These last symbols show differences from the Early Christian ones, even though they still appear systematically on the pallia of Christ, the martyrs, saints and other holy people. (shrink)

Nel Corpus Galenicum sono molte le citazioni del nome di Dioscoride e della sua opera, il De materia medica, talvolta con minime differenze nel contenuto o con commenti eruditi di Galeno. Oltre a queste riprese più esplicite, ci sono anche alcuni passaggi degli scritti galenici che potrebbero avere come fonte il De materia medica. Questo anche sulla base di alcuni n-grams che ricorrono in entrambi gli autori, l’uno source text e l’altro target text. Esaminando le citazioni più o meno esplicite (...) dell’opera dioscoridea in Galeno, questo contributo si propone di mostrare l’influenza de il buono accoglitor del quale negli scritti del medico di Pergamo e il suo rapporto con il modello dioscorideo. (shrink)

The use of assistance systems aimed at reducing road fatalities is spreading, especially for car drivers, but less effort has been devoted to developing and testing similar systems for powered two-wheelers. Considering that over speeding represents one of the main causal factors in road crashes and that riders are more vulnerable than drivers, in the present study we investigated the effectiveness of an assistance system which signaled speed limit violations during a simulated moped-driving task, in optimal and poor visibility conditions. (...) Participants performed four conditions of simulated riding: one baseline condition without Feedback, one Fog condition in which visual feedback was provided so as to indicate to the participants when a speed limit was exceeded, and two post-Feedback conditions with and without Fog, respectively, in which no feedback was delivered. Results showed that participants make fewer speeding violations when the feedback is not provided, after 1 month, and regardless of the visibility condition. Finally, the feedback has been proven effective in reducing speed violations in participants with an aggressive riding style, as measured in the baseline session. (shrink)

In the book De laudibus divinae sapientiae, according to Gilles, two opposite motors are at work in the human soul, sense and reason: the first one leads the man to evil; the second one to good. However Gilles gets the Thomist argument back to warn the reader that man, to reach the knowledge of the eternal truth and his own salvation, needs a third motor, which compensates for the limits of human reason.Therefore the human reason arranges the soul lower powers, (...) while it itself is governed by the Holy Spirits gifts, that form its supernatural habitus. These gifts lead the soul, through an anagogic, gnosiological and moral process, to a gradual conversion to the divine supreme Wisdom.The book under consideration reveals so some important changes in Gilles’ doctrine. We’ll analyze the problem of the human possibility to know and love God, according to Gilles’ theses before and with the Scholastic debates. (shrink)

The following article is about the famous question of man as a political animal, that emerges from the ethical-political and biological works of Aristotle. In view of the problems connected with the main interpretations, we will try to link the problem of human politics to the horizon of the community, which is the real key to understand the meaning of this “politics”.

Il volume considera la figura teoretica del valore dell’altro nel pensiero di Edmund Husserl, ponendo in connessione le analisi del filosofo sull’intersoggettività e sull’etica. Da qui le questioni fondamentali che guidano il percorso: è possibile impiegare le analisi fenomenologiche husserliane della relazione nel campo dell’assiologia e dell’etica? Può così essere fondato il valore dell’altro soggetto e della dimensione intersoggettiva e, dunque, un dovere nei loro confronti? Le analisi etiche presentano una particolare concezione dell’altro soggetto e della relazione come dotate di (...) valore? È la categoria etica dell’amore a permettere di guadagnare una prospettiva significativa rispetto a tali interrogativi, rivelando come valore e dovere siano implicati dalla dimensione intersoggettiva dell’esperienza. Si apre così un’interessante prospettiva interpretativa, secondo la quale la fenomenologia husserliana contribuisce ad analizzare la dimensione dell’alterità e della relazione intersoggettiva anche da un punto di vista assiologico ed etico. (shrink)

The paper examines the ethically relevant category of choice in Edmund Husserl’s ethics and asks whether a choice is a purely individual moment or whether it is not characterized by an intersubjective dimension. To this end, the centrality of the category of choice in Husserlian ethical reflection is considered, and its structural elements are highlighted: the subject of choice, the situation of choice, and the values in relation to which the choice is made. By analyzing these elements, especially in the (...) context of the development of Husserlian thought in the Freiburg period, it appears that choice, the most individual moment in which the subject becomes him or herself, has no less an intersubjective dimension. If this is so, then it is possible to conceive of a deep connection between ethics and intersubjectivity in the thought of Edmund Husserl. (shrink)

Nel corso della sua intera produzione filosofica, solo in due occasioni Schopenhauer riflette esplicitamente e sistematicamente sul misticismo, nel tentativo di determinarne i confini e i limiti rispetto al suo sistema metafisico e, più in generale, rispetto al pensiero filosofico lato sensu. La seguente analisi ha l’obiettivo di stabilire se sia possibile rilevare una definizione univoca del termine misticismo all’interno della sua filosofia, per poi determinare sulla base di essa il particolare rapporto che intercorre tra il misticismo e il nichilismo (...) schopenhaueriano. (shrink)

The notion of collective action is one of the most discussed topics in contemporary social ontology, which offers different explanations of how two or more individuals can act together in the pursuit of a common goal. Many believe that collective intentionality is at the basis of actions of this kind, whereas others deny that collective actions have a distinctive nature or involve different faculties than those required by individual actions. The article aims to outline the most influential approaches to collective (...) agency and discuss the disputed case of Margaret Gilbert’s theory, which is subject to conflicting interpretations. I start from asking the question: what is it that makes a group of people act together intentionally? First, I will outline three approaches offered in social ontology, i.e., content, mode, and subject account. Then, I will focus on Gilbert’s view, allegedly a proponent of the (plural) subject account. The main purpose of these pages is to show that Gilbert’s approach should rather be classified as a mode account and that the interpretation attributing to her a subject account is, if not to be discarded, at least to be regarded as uncertain. While some scholars have questioned the theory of plural subjects as presented in Gilbert’s early essays, this article makes the point by considering Gilbert’s latest publications. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to propose a new categorization of a specific set of aesthetic concepts, using Sibley’s theory of the aesthetic concepts as a starting point. I discuss the status of aesthetic concepts connected with pleasure and the role of aesthetic pleasure. I examine Sibley’s theory and the importance of its results for the conceptual art. Then, I compare Sibley’s theory and Kant’s theory specifically on the theme of judgment, universal agreement and pleasure. I finally propose to (...) look at these theories as complementary (they deal with the same problems but Sibley takes an objective position, since his main focus is the object and its properties, while in Kant’s theory the focus is on the subject) since they achieve important results for the theory of aesthetic concepts, both from the perspective of the subject and from the perspective of the object. (shrink)

Nel 2004, in occasione del secondo bicentenario della morte di Kant, i cartesiani tornarono nelle fila dell'interpretazione che Ferdinand Alquié aveva opposto a quella di Alexis Philolenko. È possibile indagare su “Descartes est en Kant” per il fatto che il filosofo di Konisberg, come Cartesio prima di lui, poneva l'essere al di là della conoscenza. Certamente il percorso seguito fu un altro: Kant lo fece ponendo la condizione dei limiti della conoscenza; Cartesio affermando il carattere incomprensibile dell'infinito. Inutile, tuttavia, cercare (...) citazioni da Cartesio in Kant Werke, ed è impossibile risalire a tesi o concetti di scrittura cartesiana che possano essere identificati come tali. Così, i cartesiani, nel 2004, cercavano ciò che c'è in “Descartes est en Kant” al di là del confronto tra dottrine isolate, poiché i testi non consentono di stabilire affiliazioni dirette (come volevano i neokantiani): l'affiliazione di Cartesio a Kant trova nella co-appartenenza dei due filosofi allo stesso orizzonte di problemi. Sulla scia di Alquié, l'obiettivo dei cartesiani era »finalement, de reconnaître dans quelle mesure Kant renouvelle le moment cartésien, en sorte que, lorsque Kant pense, Descartes s'avance encore, caché. Caché en Kant, agissant encore sous la figure de Kant». (shrink)

It is now a widespread opinion among interpreters that Aristotle’s History of Animals is not a mere collection of empirical data but has its own theoretical framework; however, there is still disagreement as to exactly what this framework is. To address the problem, the article analyzes in detail the diairetic schemes of HA I 1, attempting to overturn the common opinion that this chapter is a mere expository introduction to the study of animals’ differences. On the contrary, it will be (...) shown that in this chapter Aristotle not only applies the method of ‘multiple division’ theorized in Parts of Animals I 2–4, but also uses dividing criteria that are informed by his causal theory and his hylomorphist ontology. This analysis will therefore lead to the more controversial conclusion that HA is not an ‘early’ work by Aristotle but a mature treatise with its own specific theoretical aim: the aitiological explanation of the anatomical, eco-physiological and ethological differences among animals. (shrink)

In this paper we claim, first, that there are high-level visual experiences of grouping properties, i.e., properties that an array of elements we see can have to be organised in a certain way. Second, we argue that there are auditory experiences of groupings that share certain important properties with visual experiences of groupings, thereby being perceptual and high-level as well. Third, these results enable us to understand the nature and structure of our meaning experiences. We claim that, although meaning experiences (...) depend on the auditory experiences we discuss, they are not perceptual, for they lack one of the features that make those auditory experiences perceptual; namely, being holistically attended to. (shrink)