This paper considers the conception of the Triune God, soteriology and eschatology in Anne Conway’s metaphysics. After outlining some of the key features of her thought, including her account of a timeless God who is nevertheless intimately present in creation, I will argue that her conception of the Trinity offers a distinctive role for Christ and the Holy Spirit to play in her philosophical system. I also propose an interpretation of Conway’s eschatology, in which time is understood as grounded in (...) a never-ending soteriological process of the overall movement of creatures towards perfection and a state of spirituality. (shrink)

This ambitious book examines the notion of legal transparency from a unique cultural and historical perspective. Drawing from their combined academic and practical experience with both Chinese and Western legal traditions, authors John Head and Xing Lijuan explore how an intense debate — pitting legal transparency against legal opaqueness — unfolded in dynastic Chinese law, which began in the dark mists of history and ended formally just over a hundred years ago. They rely on a wide range of both (...) Western and Chinese sources to explain how that great debate was resolved in the early Han Dynasty (around the third century BCE) in a way that molded Chinese law into a sophisticated legal system that for roughly two millennia balanced definitiveness with vagueness, predictability with flexibility, and egalitarianism with privilege — and that reflected cultural values still resonating in China today. Legal Transparency in Dynastic China presents a clear narrative that assumes no prior expertise in Chinese law or history, and it caters to readers interested in issues of good governance, comparative studies, China, history, and law. The book begins by defining “legal transparency” and explaining where it fits into the larger context of the transparency-in-government movement that has gained such momentum in recent years, especially at the urging of Western powers. Then the book explains the fundamentally different values espoused by early Confucianists, for whom society is best governed not through written law but through the exemplary behavior of a highly educated, virtuous, and enlightened elite. After tracing the political and ideological challenges that the Confucianists faced from the Legalists, Head and Xing examine the compromise that resulted in the so-called “Confucianization of the Law” around 200 BCE. They then show how that alloy of competing ideologies characterized Chinese dynastic law for many centuries, resulting in what some would consider the most enduring and effective legal system in human history. (shrink)

In a realistic steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) based brain-computer interface (BCI) application like driving a car or controlling a quadrotor, observing the surrounding environment while simultaneously gazing at the stimulus is necessary. This kind of application inevitably could cause head movements and variation of the accompanying gaze fixation point, which might affect the SSVEP and BCI’s performance. However, few papers studied the effects of head movements and gaze fixation switch on SSVEP response, and the corresponding (...) BCI performance. This study aimed to explore these effects by designing a new ball tracking paradigm in a virtual reality (VR) environment with two different moving tasks, i.e., the following and free moving tasks, and three moving patterns, pitch, yaw, and static. Sixteen subjects were recruited to conduct a BCI VR experiment. The offline data analysis showed that head moving patterns [F(2, 30) = 9.369, p = 0.001, effect size = 0.384] resulted in significantly different BCI decoding performance but the moving tasks had no effect on the results [F(1, 15) = 3.484, p = 0.082, effect size = 0.188]. Besides, the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and filter bank canonical correlation analysis (FBCCA) accuracy were better than the PSDA and MEC methods in all of the conditions. These results implied that head movement could significantly affect the SSVEP performance but it was possible to switch gaze fixation to interact with the surroundings in a realistic BCI application. (shrink)

Acoustical changes in the prosody of mothers’ speech to infants are distinct and near universal. However, less is known about the visible properties of mothers’ infant-directed (ID) speech, and their relation to speech acoustics. Mothers’ head movements were tracked as they interacted with their infants using ID speech, and compared to movements accompanying their adult-directed (AD) speech. Movement measures along three dimensions of head translation, and three axes of head rotation were calculated. Overall, more (...) class='Hi'>head movement was found for ID than AD speech, suggesting that mothers exaggerate their visual prosody in a manner analogous to the acoustical exaggerations in their speech. Regression analyses examined the relation between changing head position and changing acoustical pitch ( F0 ) over time. Head movements and voice pitch were more strongly related in ID speech than in AD speech. When these relations were examined across time windows of different durations, stronger relations were observed for shorter time windows (< 5 sec). However, the particular form of these more local relations did not extend or generalize to longer time windows. This suggests that the multimodal correspondences in speech prosody are variable in form, and occur within limited time spans. (shrink)

Acoustical changes in the prosody of mothers’ speech to infants are distinct and near universal. However, less is known about the visible properties of mothers’ infant-directed speech, and their relation to speech acoustics. Mothers’ head movements were tracked as they interacted with their infants using ID speech, and compared to movements accompanying their adult-directed speech. Movement measures along three dimensions of head translation, and three axes of head rotation were calculated. Overall, more head movement (...) was found for ID than AD speech, suggesting that mothers exaggerate their visual prosody in a manner analogous to the acoustical exaggerations in their speech. Regression analyses examined the relation between changing head position and changing acoustical pitch over time. Head movements and voice pitch were more strongly related in ID speech than in AD speech. When these relations were examined across time windows of different durations, stronger relations were observed for shorter time windows. However, the particular form of these more local relations did not extend or generalize to longer time windows. This suggests that the multimodal correspondences in speech prosody are variable in form, and occur within limited time spans. (shrink)

BackgroundAttention deficit hyperactivity disorder is clinically diagnosed; however, quantitative analysis to statistically analyze the symptom severity of children with ADHD via the measurement of head movement is still in progress. Studies focusing on the cues that may influence the attention of children with ADHD in classroom settings, where children spend a considerable amount of time, are relatively scarce. Virtual reality allows real-life simulation of classroom environments and thus provides an opportunity to test a range of theories in a naturalistic (...) and controlled manner. The objective of this study was to investigate the correlation between participants’ head movements and their reports of inattention and hyperactivity, and to investigate how their head movements are affected by different social cues of different sensory modalities.MethodsThirty-seven children and adolescents with and without ADHD were recruited for this study. All participants were assessed for diagnoses, clinical symptoms, and self-reported symptoms. A virtual reality-continuous performance test was conducted under four conditions: control, no-cue, visual cue, and visual/audio cue. A quantitativecomparison of the participants’ head movements was conducted in three dimensions using a head-mounted display in a VR classroom environment. Task-irrelevant head movements were analyzed separately, considering the dimension of movement needed to perform the VR-CPT.ResultsThe magnitude of head movement, especially task-irrelevant head movement, significantly correlated with the current standard of clinical assessment in the ADHD group. Regarding the four conditions, head movement showed changes according to the complexity of social cues in both the ADHD and healthy control groups.ConclusionChildren and adolescents with ADHD showed decreasing task-irrelevant movements in the presence of social stimuli toward the intended orientation. As a proof-of-concept study, this study preliminarily identifies the potential of VR as a tool to understand and investigate the classroom behavior of children with ADHD in a controlled, systematic manner. (shrink)

With age might come a decline in crucial driving skills. The effect of a collision warning system on older drivers' head movements behavior at intersections was examined.Methods: Twenty-six old-adults, between 55 and 64 years of age, and 16 Older drivers between 65 and 83 years of age, participated in the study. A CWS and a front-back in-vehicle camera were installed in each of the participants' own vehicles for 6 months. The CWS was utilized to identify unsafe events during (...) naturalistic driving situations, and the IVC was used to capture head direction at intersections. The experimental design was conducted in three phases, 2 months each. Unsafe events were recorded by the CWS during all phases of the study. In the second phase, the CWS feedback was activated to examine its effect on drivers' head movement' behavior at intersections.Results: Older drivers drove significantly more hours in total during the intervention phase than the baseline phase and the carryover phase. The study revealed no significant differences between the head movements of older and old-adult drivers at intersections. For intersection on the left direction, a significant improvement in drivers' head movements' behavior was found at T-junctions, turns and four-way intersections from phase 1 to phase 3, however, two intersection types presented a decrease along the study phases. The head movements' behavior at roundabouts and merges was better at phase 1 compared to phase 3. There was no significant reduction of the mean number of CWS unsafe events across the study phases.Conclusions: The immediate feedback provided by the CWS was effective in terms of participants' head movements at certain intersections but was harmful in others. However, older drivers drove many more hours during the active feedback phase, implying that they trusted the system. Therefore, in the light of this complex picture, using the technological feedback with older drivers should be followed with an additional mediation or follow-up to ensure safety. (shrink)

There is a long and distinguished history of ethical thought in both business and medicine dating back to ancient times. Yet, the emergence of distinct academic disciplines ("business ethics" and "bioethics") which are also tied to broader social movements is a very recent phenomenon. In spite of the apparent affinities that would seem to emerge from this connection, many have argued that the differences between business and medicine make any constructive interaction between business ethics and bioethics minimal. Indeed, little (...) has been done to specifically examine the potential for collaboration and interdisciplinary research. This paper argues that there is considerable potential for constructive interaction between these two movements based on three major arguments: that the differences between medicine and business have been exaggerated, that both the fields face a number of urgent problems that are common to each, and that the model of bioethics can serve as a useful guide for business ethicists. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe present study examined the effects of emotions on eye movements, head motion, and iPad motion during reading. Thirty-one participants read neutral, emotionally negative texts and emotio...

In this paper we document the developmental trajectory of the complementizer system (CP-system) in Italian by looking at the earliest spontaneous production of eleven young children, whose transcriptions are available on CHILDES. We conducted a novel corpus analysis, tracking down a number of constructions in which the clausal left-periphery is activated. First, we considered the appearance of the different complementizer particles in the CP-system, which overtly realize the three distinct functional projections ForceP, IntP, and FinP. The analysis revealed that children (...) acquiring Italian correctly use these complementizer particles already in the third year of life. Second, we looked for the simultaneous activation of different functional projections within the CP-system. We went through our corpus searching for complex sentences in which more than one constituent was moved to the left periphery. This option is allowed by the adult grammar of Italian and, as our search revealed, it is also attested in the grammar of young children. Soon after their second birthday, sequences in which a left-dislocated Topic and a Wh- element co-occur are attested, directly supporting the existence of a (high) Topic position above FocusP. Moreover, movement in general conforms to the constraints of the adult grammar, with no attested violation of obligatory inversion (a consequence of the Q-Criterion). Importantly, “why-questions” did not require inversion, much as in the adult grammar of Italian. Taken together, children's use of complementizer particles and their activation of multiple landing sites for movement show that 2-year-olds already possess a richly articulated functional structure of the CP-system, aligned to the layered adult structure. In concluding the paper, we also discuss some temporal differences between constructions activating high and low portions of the CP-system. In particular, we detect a temporal precedence for wh-questions over why-questions. Since the former activate a lower projection, this is consistent with the recently proposedGrowing Treeshypothesis, according to which the development of the CP-system proceeds stepwise. (shrink)

In the Vocation of Man, Fichte makes the striking claim that life is eternal, rational, our true being, and the final cause of nature in general and of death in particular. How can we make sense of this claim? I argue that the public lectures that compose the Vocation are a popular expression of Fichte’s pre-existing commitment to what I call immortalism, the view that life is the unconditioned condition of intelligibility. Casting the I as an absolutely self-active or living (...) power enables his philosophical account of both the intelligibility of objects and of what it means to die. This explains his characterization of the Wissenschaftslehre as a system in which ‘all is act, movement, and life’. In Sect. 1, I explain the context of Jacobi’s use of ‘caput mortuum’ as a term for the thing in itself. In Sects. 2 and 3, I reconstruct two immortalist arguments from Fichte’s Jena period. The first is that the I’s self-activity rules out the existence of the thing in itself and thereby vanquishes ‘death’s head’. The second is that, insofar as the I charges us with the moral perfection of nature, it is the final cause of our entire life, including its end. This is to say that the I puts our every moment into question, even our last. In Sect. 4, I use these immortalist arguments to interpret the striking claim from the Vocation. (shrink)

Boeckx & Stjepanovic (2001) claim to have evidence from the analysis of pseudogapping that head movement is best viewed as not occurring in the overt syntax, but rather in the PF component. In this squib, I will show that all of the movements that are needed in the analysis of pseudo-gapping are phrasal, hence demonstrating that the analysis of pseudo-gapping shows nothing about the place of head movement in the grammar.

The vestibulo-ocular reflex plays an important role in controlling the gaze at a visual target. Although patients with vestibular hypofunction aim to improve their VOR function, some retain dysfunction for a long time. Previous studies have explored the effects of direct current stimulation on vestibular function; however, the effects of random noise stimulation on eye–head coordination have not previously been tested. Therefore, we aimed to clarify the effects of high frequency noisy vestibular stimulation on eye–head coordination related to (...) VOR function. Thirteen healthy young adult participants with no serious disease took part in our study. The current amplitude and density used were 0.4 mA and 0.2 mA/cm2, respectively, with a random noise frequency of 100–640 Hz. The electrodes were located on both mastoid processes. The stimulus duration and fade in/out duration were 600 and 10 s, respectively. Subjects oscillated their head horizontally, gazing at the fixation point, at 1 Hz for 30 repetitions. The coordination of eye–head movements was measured by eye-tracking and a motion capture system. Peak-to-peak angles for eye and head movement and deviation of the visual line from the fixation target revealed no significant differences between HF-nVS and sham. The lag time between the eye and head movement with HF-nVS post-stimulation was significantly shorter than that of the sham. We found that HF-nVS can reduce the lag time between eye and head movement and improve coordination, contributing to a clear retinal image. This technique could be applied as a form of VOR training for patients with vestibular hypofunction. (shrink)

Head stabilization is fundamental for balance during locomotion but can be impaired in elderly or diseased populations. Previous studies have identified several parameters of head stability with possible diagnostic value in a laboratory setting. Recently, the ecological validity of measures obtained in such controlled contexts has been called into question. The aim of this study was to investigate the ecological validity of previously described parameters of head stabilization in a real-world setting. Ten healthy subjects participated in the (...) study. Head and trunk movements of each subject were recorded with inertial measurement units (IMUs) for a period of at least ten hours. Periods of locomotion were extracted from the measurements and predominant frequencies, root mean squares (RMSs) and bout lengths were estimated. As parameters of head stabilization, attenuation coefficients (ACs), harmonic ratios (HRs), coherences and phase differences were computed. Predominant frequencies were distributed tightly around 2 Hz and ACs, HRs and coherences exhibited the highest values in this frequency range. All head stability parameters exhibited characteristics consistent with previous reports, although higher variances were observed. These results suggest that head stabilization is tuned to the 2 Hz fundamental frequency of locomotion and that previously described measures of head stability could generalize to a real-world setting. This is the first study to address the ecological validity of these measures, highlighting the potential use of head stability parameters as diagnostic tools or outcome measures for clinical trials. The low cost and ease of use of the IMU technology used in this study could additionally be of benefit for a clinical application. (shrink)

While numerous studies show that brain signals contain information about an individual’s current state that are potentially valuable for smoothing man-machine interfaces, this has not yet lead to the use of brain computer interfaces (BCI) in daily life. One of the main challenges is the common requirement of personal data that is correctly labelled concerning the state of interest in order to train a model, where this trained model is not guaranteed to generalize across time and context. Another challenge is (...) the requirement to wear electrodes on the head. We here propose a BCI that can tackle these issues and may be a promising case for BCI research and application in everyday life. The BCI uses EEG signals to predict head rotation in order to improve images presented in a Virtual Reality (VR) headset. When presenting a 360° video to a headset, Field-of-View approaches only stream the content that is in the current field of view and leave out the rest. When the user rotates the head, other content parts need to be made available soon enough to go unnoticed by the user which is problematic given the available bandwidth. By predicting head rotation, the content parts adjacent to the currently viewed part could be retrieved in time for display when the rotation actually takes place. Eleven participants generated left- and rightward head rotations while head movements were recorded using the headsets motion sensing system and EEG sensors. We trained neural network models to distinguish EEG epochs preceding rightward, leftward and no rotation. Applying these models to streaming EEG data that was withheld from the training showed that 400 ms before rotation onset, the probability ‘no rotation’ started to decrease and the probabilities of an upcoming right- or leftward rotation started to diverge in the correct direction. In the proposed BCI scenario, users already wear a device on their head allowing for integrated sensors. Moreover, it is possible to acquire accurately labeled training data on the fly, and continuously monitor and improve the model’s performance. The BCI can be harnessed if it will improve imagery and therewith enhance immersive experience. (shrink)

Echo phonology was originally proposed to account for obligatory coordination of manual and mouth articulations observed in several sign languages. However, previous research into the phenomenon lacks clear criteria for which components of movement can or must be copied when the articulators are so different. Nor is there discussion of which nonmanual articulators can echo manual movement. Given the prosodic properties of echoes (coordination of onset/offset and of dynamics such as speed) as well as general motoric coordination of various articulators (...) in the human body, we expect that the mouth is not the only nonmanual articulator involved in echo phonology. In this study, we look at a fixed set of lexical items across 36 sign languages and establish that the head can echo manual movement with respect to timing and to the axis/axes of manual movement. We propose that what matters in echo phonology is the visual percept of temporally coordinated movement that repeats a salient movement property in such a way as to give the visual impression of a copy. Our findings suggest that echoes are not obligatory motor couplings of two or more articulators but may enhance phonological distinctions that are otherwise difficult to see. (shrink)

The present attempt to introduce the general philosophical reader to the Phenomenological Movement by way of its history has itself a history which is pertinent to its objective. It may suitably be opened by the following excerpts from a review which Herbert W. Schneider of Columbia University, the Head of the Division for Internc.. tional Cultural Cooperation, Department of Cultural Activities of Unesco from 1953 to 56, wrote in 1950 from France: The influence of Husser! has revolutionized continental philosophies, (...) not because his philosophy has become dominant, but because any philosophy now seeks to accommodate itself to, and express itself in, phenomenological method. It is the sine qua non of critical respectability. In America, on the contrary, phenomenology is in its infancy. The aver age American student of philosophy, when he picks up a recent volume of philosophy published on the continent of Europe, must first learn the "tricks" of the phenomenological trade and then translate as best he can the real import of what is said into the kind of analysis with which he is familiar....... No doubt, American education will gradually take account of the spread of phenomenological method and terminology, but until it does, American readers of European philosophy have a severe handicap; and this applies not only to existentialism but to almost all current philosophicalliterature. (shrink)

The aim of this review is to highlight the most relevant contributions on dance in neuroscientific research. Neuroscience has analyzed the mirror system through neuroimaging techniques, testing its role in imitative learning, in the recognition of other people's emotions and especially in the understanding of the motor behavior of others. This review analyses the literature related to five general areas: breakthrough studies on the mirror system, and subsequent studies on its involvement in the prediction, the execution, the control of movement, (...) and in the process of “embodied simulation” within the intersubjective relationship; research focused on investigating the neural networks in action observation, and the neural correlates of motor expertise highlighted by comparative studies on different dance styles; studies dealing with the viewer's experience of dance according to specific dance repertoires, which revealed the relevance of choreographic choices for aesthetic appreciation; studies focused on dance as an aesthetic experience, where both the emotional and the cultural dimension play a significant role, and whose investigation paves the way to further progress both in empirical and in phenomenological research methodologies; collaboration-based experiments, in which neuroscientists and choreographers developed expertise-related questions, especially focusing on the multiple phenomena that underlie motor imagery. (shrink)

The theory of Participatory Discrepancies (or PDs) claims that minute temporal asynchronies (microtiming) in music performance are crucial for prompting bodily entrainment in listeners, which is a fundamental effect of the “groove” experience. Previous research has failed to find evidence to support this theory. The present study tested the influence of varying PD magnitudes on the beat-related body movement behavior of music listeners. 160 participants (79 music experts, 81 non-experts) listened to twelve music clips in either Funk or Swing style. (...) These stimuli were based on two audio recordings (one in each style) of expert drum and bass duo performances. In one series of six clips, the PDs were downscaled from their originally performed magnitude to complete quantization in steps of 20%. In another series of six clips, the PDs were upscaled from their original magnitude to double magnitude in steps of 20%. The intensity of the listeners’ beat-related head movement was measured using video-based motion capture technology and Fourier analysis. A mixed-design four-factor ANOVA showed that the PD manipulations had a significant effect on the expert listeners’ entrainment behavior. The experts moved more when listening to stimuli with PDs that were downscaled by 60% compared to completely quantized stimuli. This finding offers partial support for PD theory: PDs of a certain magnitude do augment entrainment in listeners. But the effect was found to be small to moderately sized, and it affected music expert listeners only. (shrink)

Recent research on body and head positions has shown that postural changes may induce varying degrees of changes on acoustic speech signals and articulatory gestures. While the preservation of formant profiles across different postures is suitably accounted for by the two-tube model and perturbation theory, it remains unclear whether it is resulted from the accommodation of tongue postures. Specifically, whether the tongue accommodates the changes in head angle to maintain the target acoustics is yet to be determined. The (...) present study examines vowel acoustics and their correspondence with the articulatory maneuvers of the tongue, including both tongue postures and movements of the tongue center, across different head angles. The results show that vowel acoustics, including pitch and formants, are largely unaffected by upward or downward tilting of the head. These preserved acoustics may be attributed to the lingual gestures that compensate for the effects of gravity. Our results also reveal that the tongue postures in response to head movements appear to be vowel-dependent, and the tongue center may serve as an underlying drive that covariates with the head angle changes. These results imply a close relationship between vowel acoustics and tongue postures as well as a target-oriented strategy for different head angles. (shrink)

Constraints and dependencies among the elements of embodied cognition form patterns or microstrategies of interactive behavior. Hard constraints determine which microstrategies are possible. Soft constraints determine which of the possible microstrategies are most likely to be selected. When selection is non‐deliberate or automatic the least effort microstrategy is chosen. In calculating the effort required to execute a microstrategy each of the three types of operations, memory retrieval, perception, and action, are given equal weight; that is, perceptual‐motor activity does not have (...) a privileged status with respect to memory. Soft constraints can work contrary to the designer's intentions by making the access of perfect knowledge in‐the‐world more effortful than the access of imperfect knowledge in‐the‐head. These implications of soft constraints are tested in two experiments. In experiment 1 we varied the perceptual‐motor effort of accessing knowledge in‐the‐world as well as the effort of retrieving items from memory. In experiment 2 we replicated one of the experiment 1 conditions to collect eye movement data. The results suggest that milliseconds matter. Soft constraints lead to a reliance on knowledge in‐the‐head even when the absolute difference in perceptual‐motor versus memory retrieval effort is small, and even when relying on memory leads to a higher error rate and lower performance. We discuss the implications of soft constraints for routine interactive behavior, accounts of embodied cognition, and tool and interface design. (shrink)

Over the last few years, the public has gradually become aware of the existence of a new cause: animal liberation. Most people first heard of the movement through newspaper articles, often of the "what on earth will they come up with next?" variety. Then there were marches and demonstrations against factory farming, animal experimentation or the Canadian seal slaughter; all brought to an audience of millions by the TV cameras. Finally there have been the illegal acts: slogans daubed on fur (...) shops, laboratories broken into and animals rescued. What are the ideas behind the animal liberation movement, and where is it heading? In this essay I shall try to answer these questions. (shrink)

Movement abnormalities are prevalent across all stages of schizophrenia contributing to poor social functioning and reduced quality of life. To date, treatments are scarce, often involving pharmacological agents, but none have been shown to improve movement abnormalities effectively. Virtual reality (VR) is a tool used to simulate virtual environments where behavioral performance can be quantified safely across different tasks while exerting control over stimulus delivery, feedback and measurement in real time. Sensory information is transmittedviaa head mounted display allowing users (...) to directly interact with virtual objects and bodies using gestures and body movements in the real world to perform different actions, permitting a sense of immersion in the simulated virtual environment. Although, VR has been widely used for successful motor rehabilitation in a variety of different neurological domains, none have been exploited for motor rehabilitation in schizophrenia. The objectives of this article are to review movement abnormalities specific to schizophrenia, and how VR can be utilized to restore and improve motor functioning in patients with schizophrenia. Constructing VR-mediated motor-cognitive interventions that can help in retaining and transferring the learned outcomes to real life are also discussed. (shrink)

Here we studied how participants steer to intercept uniformly moving targets in a virtual driving task. We tested the hypothesis that locomotor interception behavior cannot fully be explained by a strategy of nulling rate of change in pertinent agent-target relations such as the target-heading angle or target’s bearing angle. In line with a previously reported observation and model simulations, we found that, under specific combinations of initial target eccentricity and target motion direction, locomotor paths revealed reversals in movement direction. This (...) phenomenon is not compatible with unique reliance on first-order information in the case of uniformly moving targets. We also found that, as expected, such reversals in movement direction were not observed consistently over all trials of the same experimental condition: their presence depended on the timing of the first steering action effected by the participant, with only early steering actions leading to reversals in movement direction. These particular characteristics of the direction-reversal phenomenon demonstrated here for a locomotor interception-by-steering task correspond to those reported for lateral manual interception. Together, these findings suggest that control strategies operating in manual and locomotor interception may at least share certain characteristics. (shrink)

One of the most important phenomena in contemporary South America has been the tendency towards more democratic systems. After protracted periods of authoritarian rule, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia appear to be heading in a more democratic direction. This process has awakened political hopes and attracted intellectual reflection, especially regarding Brazil and Argentina, the largest and most influential nations of South America. Both countries are in different moments, with different timings, in transitions which could lead to the establishment of stable (...) democratic regimes. The following will discuss a number of new social movements which have emerged under the military regimes and have been significant in the struggle for democracy. (shrink)

An examination of the philosophy of Anne Conway (1631-1679) and the main aspects of her fascinating work, Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy.

Observing averted eye gaze results in the automatic allocation of attention to the gazed-at location. The role of the orientation of the face that produces the gaze cue was investigated. The eyes in the face could look left or right in a head-centred frame, but the face itself could be oriented 90 degrees clockwise or anticlockwise such that the eyes were gazing up or down. Significant cueing effects to targets presented to the left or right of the screen were (...) found in these head orientation conditions. This suggests that attention was directed to the side to which the eyes would have been looking towards, had the face been presented upright. This finding provides evidence that head orientation can affect gaze following, even when the head orientation alone is not a social cue. It also shows that the mechanism responsible for the allocation of attention following a gaze cue can be influenced by intrinsic object-based (i.e. head-centred) properties of the task-irrelevant cue. (shrink)

Constraints and dependencies among the elements of embodied cognition form patterns or microstrategies of interactive behavior. Hard constraints determine which microstrategies are possible. Soft constraints determine which of the possible microstrategies are most likely to be selected. When selection is non-deliberate or automatic the least effort microstrategy is chosen. In calculating the effort required to execute a microstrategy each of the three types of operations, memory retrieval, perception, and action, are given equal weight; that is, perceptual-motor activity does not have (...) a privileged status with respect to memory. Soft constraints can work contrary to the designer's intentions by making the access of perfect knowledge in-the-world more effortful than the access of imperfect knowledge in-the-head. These implications of soft constraints are tested in two experiments. In experiment 1 we varied the perceptual-motor effort of accessing knowledge in-the-world as well as the effort of retrieving items from memory. In experiment 2 we replicated one of the experiment 1 conditions to collect eye movement data. The results suggest that milliseconds matter. Soft constraints lead to a reliance on knowledge in-the-head even when the absolute difference in perceptual-motor versus memory retrieval effort is small, and even when relying on memory leads to a higher error rate and lower performance. We discuss the implications of soft constraints for routine interactive behavior, accounts of embodied cognition, and tool and interface design. (shrink)

What is the significance of and logic behind Jacques Derrida's recent "political" writings? While Derrida's work refuses to obey any singular movement or register, he does, nonetheless, make recurrent attempts to negotiate between a politics of identity and difference. A similar undertaking can be found in the radical democratic writings of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. An encounter between these thinkers is here carried out in order to elucidate key themes in Derrida's The Other Heading. The reading aims at developing (...) and contextualising Derrida's relation to radical democratic thought so that his political strategies can be made more explicit. (shrink)

‘Only’ associates with focus and licenses NPIs. This paper looks at the distributional pattern of NPIs under ‘only’ and presents evidence for the movement theory of focus association and against an in situ approach. NPIs are licensed in the ‘scope’ (or the second argument) of ‘only’, but not in the complement (or its first argument), which I will call the ‘syntactic restrictor’. While earlier approaches argued that ‘only’ licenses NPIs in the unfocused part of the sentence it occurs in except (...) in its focus, evidence from DP-‘only’ shows that NPIs are also not licensed in the unfocused part of the syntactic restrictor. The distribution of NPIs provides a test for the size of the syntactic restrictor, and this test is applied to the case of VP-‘only’. The evidence shows that (i) the restrictor can be smaller than the entire VP and is not necessarily identical to the surface complement of ‘only’; (ii) in the case of association with a head the restrictor comprises an XP containing the head; and (iii) in cases of association into an island, the restrictor comprises the entire island. Generalizations (i)–(iii) can be captured straightforwardly by a movement approach but are incompatible with an in situ analysis. Contextual domain- restriction of the kind used in in situ approaches accounts for the appropriate semantics in cases where the semantic focus is properly contained in the syntactic restrictor of ‘only’. (shrink)

This expanded new edition of Law in Perspective focuses on a range of powerful critical thinking tools drawn from logic, science, ethics, and political and social theory. Information on terrorism and refugee law has been fully updated, climate change is discussed throughout, and new chapters have been added on law and Indigenous people, lawyers' ethics and corporate power. The book considers the relationship between legal theory, social theory and empirical research methods, as a guide for students taking on higher degrees (...) in legal research. It also analyzes key theories of the nature and social role of law. (shrink)