Human adaptive behavior in sensorimotor control is aimed to increase the confidence in feedforward mechanisms when sensory afferents are uncertain. It is thought that these feedforward mechanisms rely on predictions from internal models. We investigate whether the brain uses an internal model of physical laws to help estimate body equilibrium when tactile inputs from the foot sole are depressed by carrying extra weight. As direct experimental evidence for such a model is limited, we used Judoka athletes thought to have (...) built up internal models of external loads as compared with Non-Athlete participants and Dancers. Using electroencephalography, we first tested the hypothesis that the influence of tactile inputs was amplified by descending cortical efferent signals. We compared the amplitude of P1N1 somatosensory cortical potential evoked by electrical stimulation of the foot sole in participants standing still with their eyes closed. We showed smaller P1N1 amplitudes in the Load compared to No Load conditions in both Non-Athletes and Dancers. This decrease neural response to tactile stimulation was associated with greater postural oscillations. By contrast in the Judoka’s group, the neural early response to tactile stimulation was unregulated in the Load condition. This suggests that the brain can selectively increase the functional gain of sensory inputs, during challenging equilibrium tasks when tactile inputs were mechanically depressed by wearing a weighted vest. In Judokas, the activation of regions such as the right posterior inferior parietal cortex as early as the P1N1 is likely the source of the neural responses being maintained similar in both Load and No Load conditions. An overweight internal model stored in the right PPC known to be involved in maintaining a coherent representation of one’s body in space can optimize predictive mechanisms in situations with high balance constraints. This hypothesis has been confirmed by showing that postural reaction evoked by a translation of the support surface on which participants were standing wearing extra-weight was improved in Judokas. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore the psychophysical bases of multisensory surface stickiness perception by investigating how sensitively humans perceive different levels of stickiness intensity conveyed by auditory, tactile, and visual cues. First, we sorted five different sticky stimuli by perceived intensity in ascending order for each modality separately and evaluated the discrimination sensitivities of each participant using a fitted psychometric curve. Results showed that perceptual intensity orders were not identical to physical intensity order and that the sequential order (...) of perceived intensities for different modalities was inconsistent. Moreover, estimated perceptual sensitivities to surface stickiness indicated that auditory cues result in better discrimination sensitivity than tactile and visual cues. Second, we calculated the relative perceptual distances of stickiness intensities using multidimensional scaling. A follow-up statistical test demonstrated that the perceptual mapping of vision and touch are similar but that auditory perception is different. These results suggest that the discriminability of stickiness intensity is best served by auditory cues and that texture information processing in the auditory domain is distinctive from that of other modalities. (shrink)

Multimodal integration is the formation of a coherent percept from different sensory inputs such as vision, audition, and somatosensation. Most research on multimodal integration in speech perception has focused on audio-visual integration. In recent years, audio-tactile integration has also been investigated, and it has been established that puffs of air applied to the skin and timed with listening tasks shift the perception of voicing by naive listeners. The current study has replicated and extended these findings by testing the effect (...) of air puffs on gradations of voice onset time along a continuum rather than the voiced and voiceless endpoints of the original work. Three continua were tested: bilabial (“pa/ba”), velar (“ka/ga”), and a vowel continuum (“head/hid”) used as a control. The presence of air puffs was found to significantly increase the likelihood of choosing voiceless responses for the two VOT continua but had no effect on choices for the vowel continuum. Analysis of response times revealed that the presence of air puffs lengthened responses for intermediate (ambiguous) stimuli and shortened them for endpoint (non-ambiguous) stimuli. The slowest response times were observed for the intermediate steps for all three continua, but for the bilabial continuum this effect interacted with the presence of air puffs: responses were slower in the presence of air puffs, and faster in their absence. This suggests that during integration auditory and aero-tactile inputs are weighted differently by the perceptual system, with the latter exerting greater influence in those cases where the auditory cues for voicing are ambiguous. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

The first two parts of the book are lectures given by Dr. Cuénot at the first annual conference in October 1966 of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Association of Great Britain and Ireland. Then follows a comment made by Professor Garaudy at the conference. The text concludes with an original essay by Dr. Cuénot which examines Teilhard's influence on contemporary thinkers.

Se apuntan algunas reflexiones relevantes sobre el ethos universitario en el contexto del exilio republicano español de 1939. En concreto, de autores como Fernando de los Ríos, Joaquín Xirau y José Gaos, exponentes todo ellos de un saber desarraigado en busca de nuevos resortes de poder. Se tiene además en cuenta el caso de María Zambrano, cuyo aparente desinterés por la cuestión universitaria es indicio de un saber coherente con su exilio e irreductible a la disciplina académica, de un saber (...) que ha renunciado al poder y exige un nuevo ethos. (shrink)

This striking Lacanian contribution to discourse analysis is also a critique of contemporary psychological abstraction, as well as a reassessment of the radical opposition between psychology and psychoanalysis. This original introduction to Lacan's work bridges the gap between discourseanalytical debates in social psychology and the social-theoretical extensions of discourse theory. David Pavón Cuéllar provides a precise definition and a detailed explanation of key Lacanian concepts, and illustrates how they may be put to work on a concrete discourse, in this case (...) a fragment of an interview obtained by the author from the Mexican underground Popular Revolutionary Forces (EPR). Throughout the book, Lacanian concepts are compared to their counterparts in psychology. Such a comparison reveals insuperable incompatibilities between the two series of concepts. The author shows that Lacan's psychoanalytical terminology can neither be translated nor assimilated to the terms of current psychology. Among the notions in actual or potential competition with Lacanian concepts, the book deals with those proposed by semiology, Marxism, phenomenology, constructionism, deconstruction, and hermeneutics. Taking a stand on those theoretical positions, each chapter includes detailed discussion of the contribution of classical approaches to language; including Barthes, Bakhtin, Althusser, Politzer, Wittgenstein, Berger and Luckmann, Derrida, and Ricoeur. There is sustained reference in the body of the text to the arguments of Lacan and Lacanians, of Miller, Milner, Soler, and Zizek. At the same time, in the extensive notes accompanying the text, there is a systematic reappraisal and reinterpretation of debates and pieces of research work in social psychology, especially in a discursive and critical domain that has incorporated elements of psychoanalytic theory. (shrink)

The particle internal clock conjectured by de Broglie in 1924 was investigated in a channeling experiment using a beam of ∼80 MeV electrons aligned along the 〈110〉 direction of a 1 μm thick silicon crystal. Some of the electrons undergo a rosette motion, in which they interact with a single atomic row. When the electron energy is finely varied, the rate of electron transmission at 0° shows a 8% dip within 0.5% of the resonance energy, 80.874 MeV, for which the (...) frequency of atomic collisions matches the electron’s internal clock frequency. A model is presented to show the compatibility of our data with the de Broglie hypothesis. (shrink)

Estamos a un año del cincuentenario de la aparición formal de la bioética en el escenario científico global. El afortunado neologismo usado por Potter en 1970 para vincular las ciencias experimentales con las ciencias humanísticas, creando un enfoque interdisciplinar indispensable -esencia de la bioética-, el cual pretende recuperar el liderazgo de la filosofía -particularmente de la ética- a fin de orientar apropiadamente los desarrollos de las ciencias prácticas en boga, como la biología, la ecología, la química, la cibernética, las nuevas (...) biotecnologías, la biomedicina, siempre con respeto de la dignidad del ser humano y su entorno. Es necesario estar alerta a ciertas tendencias actuales guiadas principalmente por intereses económicos y posverdad, corrientes transhumanistas que parecieran dar un nuevo giro copernicano en la reflexión científico-filosófica, en donde la esencia del ser humano pareciera esfumarse y quedar al libre arbitrio de las ciencias cibernéticas. ¿Qué hacer entonces? El reto que se vislumbra en el horizonte es volver a descubrir una racionalidad que la sustente, o como Potter decía en 1970: "El conocimiento de cómo utilizar el conocimiento" ¿Qué tan cerca está esta nueva ciencia de alcanzar las metas que su fundador Van Rensselaer Potter propuso para unir las ciencias experimentales con las ciencias humanísticas? ¿La biología con la filosofía, y a su vez destacar la urdimbre jurídica que de manera natural brota ante problemáticas y retos tan relevantes en el ámbito clínico, como son los que aborda y atiende la bioética como ciencia? En este contexto la bioética surge como una disciplina con un especial interés por discernir en esta multitud de nuevas posibilidades lo que es ético de lo que no lo es, lo que humaniza de lo que degrada, lo correcto de lo incorrecto, lo que concuerda con el respeto a la dignidad de las personas o no. De ahí el interés en aportar un conjunto de escritos científicos acerca de sus fundamentos y principales aplicaciones, tanto para personal de salud, alumnos de pregrado y posgrado, docentes, como a quienes pertenecen a comités hospitalarios: abogados, filósofos, representantes religiosos, así como profesionales de otros ámbitos, incluidas la investigación y la práctica clínica, que les permita tomar las decisiones correctas, dentro del marco del derecho sanitario vigente de nuestro país y conforme a los tratados internacionales de los que México es parte. El libro tiene como objetivo presentar a los estudiantes, docentes, investigadores y profesionales de distintas carreras, interesados en este ámbito, los fundamentos antropológicos y humanísticos de la novedosa y polémica ciencia de la bioética, sus campos de aplicación, los dilemas que suelen presentarse, así como algunas propuestas de solución de casos clínicos concretos por un grupo interdisciplinar de académicos de prestigiadas instituciones educativas de nuestro país. (shrink)

The objective was to analyze the influence of the social context on bullying. A mixed investigation was proposed: the social context was analyzed, were applied questionnaires and interviews; were analyzed descriptively, normality tests and non-parametric tests; different manifestations of bullying are presented; their frequency varies between both high schools.

Hookups are uncommitted sexual encounters that range from kissing to intercourse and occur between individuals in whom there is no current dating relationship and no expressed or acknowledged expectations of a relationship following the hookup. Research over the last decade has begun to focus on hooking up among adolescents and young adults with significant research demonstrating how alcohol is often involved in hooking up. Given alcohol’s involvement with hooking up behavior, the array of health consequences associated with this relationship, as (...) well as its increasing prevalence from adolescence to young adulthood, it is important to determine the predictors and consequences associated with alcohol-related hooking up. The current review extends prior reviews by adding more recent research, including both qualitative and experimental studies (i.e. expanding to review more diverse methods), research that focuses on the use of technology in alcohol-related hookups (i.e. emerging issues), further develops prevention and intervention potentials and directions, and also offers a broader discussion of hooking up outside of college student populations (i.e., expanding generalization). This article will review the operationalization and ambiguity of the phrase hooking up, the relationship between hooking up and alcohol use at both the global and event levels, predictors of alcohol-related hooking up, and both positive and negative consequences, including sexual victimization, associated with alcohol-related hookups. Throughout, commentary is provided on the methodological issues present in the field, as well as limitations of the existing research. Future directions for research that could significantly advance our understanding of hookups and alcohol use are provided. (shrink)

Behavioural evidence suggests that cephalopod molluscs may have a form of primary consciousness. First, the linkage of brain to behaviour seen in lateralization, sleep and through a developmental context is similar to that of mammals and birds. Second, cephalopods, especially octopuses, are heavily dependent on learning in response to both visual and tactile cues, and may have domain generality and form simple concepts. Third, these animals are aware of their position, both within themselves and in larger space, including (...) having a working memory of foraging areas in the recent past. Thus if using a ‘global workspace’ which evaluates memory input and focuses attention is the criterion, cephalopods appear to have primary consciousness. (shrink)

Visual, somatosensory, and perspectival cues normally provide congruent information about where the self is experienced. Separating those cues by virtual reality techniques, recent studies found that self-location was systematically biased to where a visual–tactile event was seen. Here we developed a novel, repeatable and implicit measure of self-location to compare and extend previous protocols. We investigated illusory self-location and associated phenomenological aspects in a lying body position that facilitates clinically observed abnormal self-location . The results confirm that (...) the self is located to where touch is seen. This leads to either predictable lowering or elevation of self-localization, and the latter was accompanied by sensations of floating, as during out-of-body experiences. Using a novel measurement we show that the unitary and localized character of the self can be experimentally separated from both the origin of the visual perspective and the location of the seen body, which is compatible with clinical data. (shrink)

Following on from ecological theories of perception, such as the one proposed by [Gibson, J. J. . The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin] this paper reviews the literature on the multisensory interactions underlying the perception of flavor in order to determine the extent to which it is really appropriate to consider flavor perception as a distinct perceptual system. We propose that the multisensory perception of flavor may be indicative of the fact that the taxonomy currently used to (...) define our senses is simply not appropriate. According to the view outlined here, the act of eating allows the different qualities of foodstuffs to be combined into unified percepts; and flavor can be used as a term to describe the combination of tastes, smells, trigeminal, and tactile sensations as well as the visual and auditory cues, that we perceive when tasting food. (shrink)

Recognizing and aligning individuals’ unique adaptive beliefs or “priors” through cooperative communication is critical to establishing a therapeutic relationship and alliance. Using active inference, we present an empirical integrative account of the biobehavioral mechanisms that underwrite therapeutic relationships. A significant mode of establishing cooperative alliances—and potential synchrony relationships—is through ostensive cues generated by repetitive coupling during dynamic touch. Established models speak to the unique role of affectionate touch in developing communication, interpersonal interactions, and a wide variety of therapeutic benefits (...) for patients of all ages; both neurophysiologically and behaviorally. The purpose of this article is to argue for the importance of therapeutic touch in establishing a therapeutic alliance and, ultimately, synchrony between practitioner and patient. We briefly overview the importance and role of therapeutic alliance in prosocial and clinical interactions. We then discuss how cooperative communication and mental state alignment—in intentional communication—are accomplished using active inference. We argue that alignment through active inference facilitates synchrony and communication. The ensuing account is extended to include the role of tactile afferents in realizing the beneficial effect of therapeutic synchrony. We conclude by proposing a method for synchronizing the effects of touch using the concept of active inference. (shrink)

Recent research has begun to investigate sensory processing in relation to nonclinical variation in traits associated with the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We propose that existing accounts of autistic perception can be augmented by considering a role for individual differences in top-down expectations for the precision of sensory input, related to the processing of state-dependent levels of uncertainty. We therefore examined ASD-like traits in relation to the rubber-hand illusion: an experimental paradigm that typically elicits crossmodal integration of visual, tactile, (...) and proprioceptive information in an unusual illusory context. Individuals with higher ASD-like traits showed reduced effects of the rubber-hand illusion on perceived arm position and reach-to-grasp movements, compared to individuals with lower ASD-like traits. These differences occurred despite both groups reporting the typical subjective experience of the illusion concerning visuotactile integration and ownership for the rubber hand. Together these results suggest that the integration of proprioceptive information with cues for arm position derived from the illusory context differs between individuals partly in relation to traits associated with ASD. We suggest that the observed differences in sensory integration can be best explained in terms of differing expectations regarding the precision of sensory estimates in contexts that suggest uncertainty. (shrink)

According to proponents of the sensorimotor contingency theory of perception (Hurley & Noë 2003, Noë 2004, O’Regan 2011), active control of camera movement is necessary for the emergence of distal attribution in tactile-visual sensory substitution (TVSS) because it enables the subject to acquire knowledge of the way stimulation in the substituting modality varies as a function of self-initiated, bodily action. This chapter, by contrast, approaches distal attribution as a solution to a causal inference problem faced by the subject’s perceptual (...) systems. Given all of the available endogenous and exogenous evidence available to those systems, what is the most probable source of stimulation in the substituting modality? From this perspective, active control over the camera’s movements matters for rather different reasons. Most importantly, it generates proprioceptive and efference-copy based information about the camera’s body-relative position necessary to make use of the spatial cues present in the stimulation that the subject receives for purposes of egocentric object localization. (shrink)

Digital reading devices such as Kindle differ from paper books with respect to the kinesthetic and tactile feedback provided to the reader, but the role of these features in reading is rarely studied empirically. This experiment compares reading of a long text on Kindle DX and in print. Fifty participants (24 years old) read a 28 page (approx. one hour reading time) long mystery story on Kindle or in a print pocket book and completed several tests measuring various levels (...) of reading comprehension: engagement, recall, capacities to locate events in the text and reconstructing the plot of the story. Results showed that in most tests subjects performed identically whatever the reading medium. However, on measures related to chronology and temporality, those who had read in the print pocket book, performed better than those who had read on a Kindle. It is concluded that, basically comprehension was similar with both media, but, because kinesthetic feedback is less informative with kindle, readers were not as efficient to locate events in the space of the text and hence in the temporality of the story. We suggest that, to get a correct spatial representation of the text and consequently a coherent temporal organization of the story, readers would be reliant on the sensorimotor cues which are afforded by the manipulation of the book. (shrink)

Dual process accounts of affective learning state that the learning of likes and dislikes reflects a learning mechanism that is distinct from the one reflected in expectancy learning, the learning of signal relationships, and has different empirical characteristics. Affective learning, for example, is said not to be affected by: (a) extinction training; (b) occasion setting; (c) cue competition; and (d) awareness of the CS-US contingencies. These predictions were tested in a series of experiments that employed simple Pavlovian conditioning procedures. Neutral (...) visual pictures of geometric shapes, or tactile conditional stimuli (CS) were paired with aversive electrotactile unconditional stimuli (US). Dependent measures were physiological (skin conductance, blink startle modulation) or verbal (US expectancy, on-line and off-line ratings of CS pleasantness). Different combinations of these dependent measures were employed across different experiments in an attempt to assess affective and expectancy learning simultaneously. Changes in CS pleasantness as indexed by ratings or blink startle modulation were readily observed. However, contrary to the predictions from dual-process accounts, results indicated that acquired CS unpleasantness is subject to extinction, occasion setting, cue competition, and not found in absence of CS-US contingency awareness. (shrink)

Gaze behavior is an important component of children’s language, cognitive, and sociocultural development. This is especially true for young deaf children acquiring a signed language—if they are not looking at the language model, they are not getting linguistic input. Deaf caregivers engage their deaf infants and toddlers using visual and tactile strategies to draw in, support, and promote their child’s visual attention; we argue that these caregiver actions create a developmental niche that establishes the visual modality capital their child (...) needs for successful sign language learning. But most deaf children do not have deaf signing parents and they will need to rely on adult signing teachers if they are to acquire a signed language at an early age. This study examines classroom interactions between a Deaf teacher, her teacher’s aide, and six deaf preschoolers to document the teachers’ “everyday practices” as they socialize the gaze behavior of these children. Utilizing a detailed behavioral and linguistic analysis of two video-recorded book-sharing contexts, we present data summarizing the teacher’s attention-getting actions directed toward the children and the discourse-embedded cues that signal the teacher’s expectations for student participation in the signed conversation. We observed that the teacher’s behaviors differed according to the parent status of the deaf preschooler suggesting that Deaf children of Deaf parents arrive to the preschool classroom with well-developed self-regulation of their attention or gaze. The teachers also used more physical and explicit cueing with the deaf children of hearing parents—possibly to promote their ability to leverage the visual modality for sign language acquisition. We situate these socialization patterns within a framework that integrates notions of intuitive or indigenous practices, developmental niche, and modality capital. Implications for early childhood deaf education are also discussed. (shrink)

Despite the recognized importance of bodily movements in spatial audition, few studies have integrated action-based protocols with spatial hearing in the peripersonal space. Recent work shows that tactile feedback and active exploration allow participants to improve performance in auditory distance perception tasks. However, the role of the different aspects involved in the learning phase, such as voluntary control of movement, proprioceptive cues, and the possibility of self-correcting errors, is still unclear. We study the effect of guided reaching exploration (...) on perceptual learning of auditory distance in peripersonal space. We implemented a pretest-posttest experimental design in which blindfolded participants must reach for a sound source located in this region. They were divided into three groups that were differentiated by the intermediate training phase: Guided, an experimenter guides the participant’s arm to contact the sound source; Active, the participant freely explores the space until contacting the source; and Control, without tactile feedback. The effects of exploration feedback on auditory distance perception in the peripersonal space are heterogeneous. Both the Guided and Active groups change their performance. However, participants in the Guided group tended to overestimate distances more than those in the Active group. The response error of the Guided group corresponds to a generalized calibration criterion over the entire range of reachable distances. Whereas the Active group made different adjustments for proximal and distal positions. The results suggest that guided exploration can induce changes on the boundary of the auditory reachable space. We postulate that aspects of agency such as initiation, control, and monitoring of movement, assume different degrees of involvement in both guided and active tasks, reinforcing a non-binary approach to the question of activity-passivity in perceptual learning and supporting a complex view of the phenomena involved in action-based learning. (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)

Humour is a prevalent feature in any form of human interaction, regardless of language modality. This article explores in detail how humour is negotiated in conversations among deafblind Australians who are fluent users of tactile Australian Sign Language. Without access to the visual or auditory cues that are normally associated with humour, there is a risk that deafblind interactants will misconstrue humorous utterances as serious, or be unsure whether their conversation partner has got the joke. In this article, (...) we explore how humorous utterances unfold in tactile signed interactions. Drawing on Conversation Analytic principles, we outline the ad hoc and more conventionalised signals deafblind signers use to signal amusement. Looking at humour in these conversations contributes to a greater understanding of how humour is conveyed across language modalities and further support for humour’s centrality to interactional solidarity. (shrink)

A preliminary attempt is made to analyze the intraspecihc aggressive behavior of mammals in terms of specific neural circuitry. The results of stimulation, lesion, and recording studies of aggressive behavior in cats and rats are reviewed and analyzed in terms of three hypothetical motivational systems: offense, defense, and submission. A critical distinction, derived from ethological theory, is made between motivating stimuli that simultaneously activate functional groupings of motor patterning mechanisms, and releasing and directing stimuli that are necessary for the activation (...) of discrete motor patterning mechanisms. It is suggested that motivating stimuli activate pathways that converge upon sets of homogeneous neurons, called motivational mechanisms, whose activity determines the motivational state of the animal. A defense motivational mechanism is hypothesized to be located in the midbrain central gray. In addition to tactile, auditory, and visual inputs from the paleospinothalamic tract, lateral lemniscus, and (perhaps) from the pretectum, it may receive inputs from a major forebrain pathway whose functional significance is not yet understood. A submission motivational mechanism is also thought to be located in the central gray. In addition to inputs for defense, it is thought to receive a necessary input from a "consociate (social familiarity cue) modulator" located in the ventromedial hypothalamus, which can switch behavior from defense to submission. The location of the hypothetical offense motivational mechanism is not known, although the pathways by which it is activated are traced in some detail. (shrink)

Soft robots promise an exciting design trajectory in the field of robotics and human–robot interaction (HRI), promising more adaptive, resilient movement within environments as well as a safer, more sensitive interface for the objects or agents the robot encounters. In particular, tactile HRI is a critical dimension for designers to consider, especially given the onrush of assistive and companion robots into our society. In this article, we propose to surface an important set of ethical challenges for the field of (...) soft robotics to meet. Tactile HRI strongly suggests that soft-bodied robots balance tactile engagement against emotional manipulation, model intimacy on the bonding with a tool not with a person, and deflect users from personally and socially destructive behavior the soft bodies and surfaces could normally entice. (shrink)

We argue that pre-cueing studies show that perception is cognitively penetrated via mental imagery. It is important to be clear about the relation between attention and mental imagery here. We do not want to question the role of attention in pre-cueing studies. After all, it is attention that is being pre-cued. The pre-cue draws attention to certain features, which via top-down connections induces mental imagery for the pre-cued properties, which, then, after stimulus-presentation, interacts with and influences the online computations that (...) process stimulus features. That is, what mediates the cognitive penetration of perceptual processing is not pre-cued attention, but cue-induced mental imagery. (shrink)

The authors examined cue competition effects in young children using the blicket detector paradigm, in which objects are placed either singly or in pairs on a novel machine and children must judge which objects have the causal power to make the machine work. Cue competition effects were found in a 5- to 6-year-old group but not in a 4-year-old group. Equivalent levels of forward and backward blocking were found in the former group. Children's counterfactual judgments were subsequently examined by asking (...) whether or not the machine would have gone off in the absence of I of 2 objects that had been placed on it as a pair. Cue competition effects were demonstrated only in 5- to 6-year-olds using this mode of assessing causal reasoning. (shrink)

The transmission, emergence, and dissemination of features of racial differentiation are based on the interplay of different sensory perceptions, as this contribution will illustrate. For this purpose, examples from ethnographic travelogues from German East Africa and from the time of German colonial rule were selected to examine the functioning of tactile perception by means of the descriptions of skin colors and skin decorations. The source material reveals multisensuality in the form of synesthesia of the sense of sight with the (...) sense of touch, in that the perception of tactile stimuli is determined less by direct touch and more by the visual representation of haptic properties. (shrink)

The rubber hand paradigm is used to create the illusion of self-touch, by having the participant administer stimulation to a prosthetic hand while the Examiner, with an identical stimulus , administers stimulation to the participant’s hand. With synchronous stimulation, participants experience the compelling illusion that they are touching their own hand. In the current study, the robustness of this illusion was assessed using incongruent stimuli. The participant used the index finger of the right hand to administer stimulation to a prosthetic (...) hand while the Examiner used a paintbrush to administer stimulation to the participant’s left hand. The results indicate that this violation of tactile expectations does not diminish the illusion of self-touch. Participants experienced the illusion despite the use of incongruent stimuli, both when vision was precluded and when visual feedback provided clear evidence of the tactile mismatch. (shrink)

It seems that there are important differences concerning the way in which space itself is presented in visual and tactile modalities. In the case of vision, it is usually accepted that visual objects are experienced as located in a visual field. However, it is controversial whether similar field-like characteristics can be attributed to the space in which tactile entities are experienced to be located. The paper investigates whether postulating the presence of a tactile field is justified. I (...) argue that the answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ due to the dual nature of touch: touch is both an interoceptive modality that presents states of one’s body and an exteroceptive modality that presents external entities. More specifically, the interoceptive tactile space has a character of a spatial field. On the other hand, the exteroceptive tactile space does not have characteristics necessary for ascribing the field-status. (shrink)

El presente artículo introduce la traducción del francés al español del estudio sobre la espacialidad en Gilles Deleuze realizado en 2010 por el profesor Guillaume Sibertin-Blanc: «Cartografía y territorios». Se presenta, para ello, una lectura culturalista de la filosofía occidental del espacio, destacando dos de sus rasgos, la hiperfecundidad y el temporalismo, que retoma el que es considerado aquí como el primer esbozo de tematización de las cartografías tacto-libidinales de lo vivo, a saber: la filosofía aristotélica del alma. Así, se (...) espera contextualizar y apreciar de mejor manera toda concepción de la espacialidad que rehabilite la hiperfecundidad del espacio y evacúe el temporalismo, permitiendo desactivar las concepciones tradicionales de subjetividad e identidad, tal como logra hacerlo la geofilosofía de Deleuze. (shrink)