Storchak, Ehlis, and Fallgatter provide an extensive literature review on electrophysiological measurements, which indicate that general predictive deficits in self‐monitoring are associated with various positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.

James Russell claims that executive difficulties in both autism and schizophrenia are likely to be due to impairments of action monitoring at "a fairly high level". I argue that there is room for some 'intermediate' level of action-monitoring in between the higher and lower levels he distinguishes and that impairments at this intermediate level may play an important role in explaining some of the difficulties encountered by both schizophrenic patients and subjects with autism.

I have a painfully vivid memory of performing the Venezuelan choreographer Vincente Nebrada’s ballet Pentimento.After graduating from high school at age 15 and before entering college, I spent a number of years working as a professional ballet dancer with North Carolina Dance Theatre , among other companies. I was a new member of North Carolina Dance Theatre, and although the company had presented the piece on a number of occasions, this was the first time the director was watching from the (...) audience rather than the wings. In the middle of a pas de deux, I choked big time and blanked out on the choreography; try as I may, I could not remember a single step. My partner, who had been with the company for years, knew what was going on and manipulated my limbs until something clicked and I was able to find the choreography again. Following the performance, when we gathered onstage for notes, the director was so appalled that the only comme .. (shrink)

Passivity experiences in schizophrenia are thought to be due to a failure in a neurocognitive action self-monitoring system . Drawing on the assumption that inner speech is a form of action, a recent model of auditory verbal hallucinations has proposed that AVHs can be explained by a failure in the NASS. In this article, we offer an alternative application of the NASS to AVHs, with separate mechanisms creating the emotion of self-as-agent and other-as-agent. We defend the assumption (...) that inner speech can be considered as a form of action, and show how a number of previous criticisms of applying the NASS to AVHs can be refuted. This is achieved in part through taking a Vygotskian developmental perspective on inner speech. It is suggested that more research into the nature and development of inner speech is needed to further our understanding of AVHs. (shrink)

Self-esteem, self-monitoring, and temperamental traits are important factors that influence human behavior. The purpose of the present study was to compare groups involved in humanitarian (n= 61), political (n= 68), and religious (n= 54) activities in terms of intergroup differences in self-esteem, self-monitoring, and temperamental traits. There are two research questions that we sought to address: “What are the relationships between self-esteem, self-monitoring, and temperamental traits among those involved in social, religious, and humanitarian aid activities?” and “Do (...) temperamental traits affect self-esteem and self-monitoring among volunteers?” The study was conducted in Poland among adults aged 18 years and older, during meetings of six selected non-profit organizations, consisting of two organizations each in the humanitarian, political, and religious areas. The study used the Polish versions of the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Snyders’ Self-Monitoring Scale, and the EAS Temperament Questionnaire. Volunteers of humanitarian organizations had the lowest self-esteem among all the examined groups. Politicians turned out to be more pragmatic than those involved in religious activities and humanitarian aid. Between the three examined groups, there were statistically significant differences in temperamental activity; the most active are those politically involved, followed by participants involved in humanitarian aid and religious activities. Moreover, volunteers involved in humanitarian aid reported a higher level of temperamental fear than those involved in political and religious activities. Furthermore, there were group differences in their reasons for social involvement. We discuss the potential sources of differences and consequences of outcomes for human resource practice in non-profit organizations. (shrink)

One hypothesis concerning the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is that it functions, in part, to signal the occurrence of conflicts in information processing, thereby triggering compensatory adjustments in cognitive control. Since this idea was first proposed, a great deal of relevant empirical evidence has accrued. This evidence has largely corroborated the conflict-monitoring hypothesis, and some very recent work has provided striking new support for the theory. At the same time, other findings have posed specific challenges, especially concerning (...) the way the theory addresses the processing of errors. Recent research has also begun to shed light on the larger function of the ACC, suggesting some new possibilities concerning how conflict monitoring might fit into the cingulate's overall role in cognition and action. (shrink)

Humans are experts in cooperating with each other when trying to accomplish tasks they cannot achieve alone. Recent studies of joint action have shown that when performing tasks together people strongly rely on the neurocognitive mechanisms that they also use when performing actions individually, that is, they predict the consequences of their co‐actor’s behavior through internal action simulation. Context‐sensitive action monitoring and action selection processes, however, are relatively underrated but crucial ingredients of joint action. (...) In the present paper, we try to correct the somewhat simplified view on joint action by reviewing recent studies of joint action simulation, monitoring, and selection while emphasizing the intricate interrelationships between these processes. We complement our review by defining the contours of a neurologically plausible computational framework of joint action. (shrink)

I suggest that layer 4 of the shared circuits model (SCM) should monitor the failure of performing an action, instead of output inhibition, to obtain actual/possible and self/other distinctions. The target article's assumption of selective inhibition leaves some questions unanswered, such as the criteria for the selection. Monitoring failure can answer these questions because failure does not require selection. It also provides a basis for more likely explanation for the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origin of both monitoring and (...) output inhibition. (shrink)

In recent years, to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects, institutions in the USA have begun to set up programmes to monitor ongoing medical research. These programmes provide routine, onsite oversight, and thus go beyond existing oversight such as investigating suspected misconduct or reviewing paperwork provided by investigators. However, because of a lack of guidelines and evidence, institutions have had little guidance in setting up their programmes. To help institutions make the right choices, we used interviews and document (...) analysis to study how and why 11 US institutions have set up their monitoring programmes. Although these programmes varied considerably, we were able to distinguish two general types. ‘Compliance’ programmes on the one hand were part of the institutional review board office and set up to ensure compliance with regulations. Investigators’ participation was mandatory. Monitors focused on documentation. Investigators could be disciplined, and could be obliged to take corrective actions. ‘Quality-improvement’ programmes on the other hand were part of a separate office. Investigators requested to be monitored. Monitors focused more on actual research conduct. Investigators and other parties received feedback on how to improve the research process. Although both types of programmes have their drawbacks and advantages, we argue that if institutions want to set up monitoring programmes, quality improvement is the better choice: it can help foster an atmosphere of trust between investigators and the institutional review board, and can help raise the standards for the protection of human subjects. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 13, Issue 1, Page 63-78, January 2021.

The history of human subjects research and controversial procedures in relation to it has helped form the field of bioethics. Ethically questionable elements may be identified during research design, research implementation, management at the study site, or actions by a study’s investigator or other staff. Post-approval monitoring (PAM) may prevent violations from occurring or enable their identification at an early stage. In U.S.-initiated human subjects research taking place in resource-constrained countries with limited development of research regulatory structures, arranging a (...) site visit from a U.S. research ethics committee (REC) becomes difficult, thus creating a potential barrier to regulatory oversight by the parent REC. However, this barrier may be overcome through the use of digital technologies, since much of the world has at least remote access to the Internet. Empirical research is needed to pilot test the use of these technologies for research oversight to ensure the protection of human subjects taking part in research worldwide. (shrink)

The supervisor of the activities of a system user should benefit from the knowledge contained in the event logs of the user. They allow the monitoring of the sequential and parallel user activities. To make event logs more accessible to the supervisor, we suggest a process mining approach, including first the design of an understanding model of the activities of a system user. The model design is based on the relationships between the event logs and the activities of a (...) system user. An intervention model completes the understanding model to assist the supervisor. The intervention model enables an action of the supervisor on the critical activities, and the detection of anomalies. The models are automatically designed with a model-driven engineering approach. An experiment on a smart home system illustrates this tooled design, where the supervisor is a medical or paramedical staff member. (shrink)

The paper examines the ethics of electronic monitoring for advertising purposes and the implications for Internet user privacy using as a backdrop DoubleClick Incs recent controversy over matching previously anonymous user profiles with personally identifiable information. It explores various ethical theories that are applicable to understand privacy issues in electronic monitoring. It is argued that, despite the fact that electronic monitoring always constitutes an invasion of privacy, it can still be ethically justified on both Utilitarian and Kantian (...) grounds. From a Utilitarian perspective the emphasis must be on minimizing potential harms. From a Kantian perspective the emphasis must be on giving users complete information so that they can make informed decisions as to whether they are willing to be monitored. Considering the Internet advertising industrys current actions, computer users and government regulators would be well advised, both practically and ethically, to move to a user control model in electronic monitoring. (shrink)

Actions expressing emotions (such as caressing the clothes of one's dead friend in grief, or tearing apart a photograph out of jealousy) pose a notorious challenge to action theorists. They are thought to be intentional in that they are in some sense under the agent's control. They are not thought to be done for a reason, however, because they cannot be explained by considerations that favor them from the agent's point of view. This seems to be the case, at (...) least, if one subscribes to the Davidsonian standard model of action explanation. So far, philosophers have had three different reactions to this challenge. Rationalists insist that such actions can be rationalized by re-interpreting them. Arationalists insist that there simply is no reasoning process moving agents in emotional states to act. A third reaction questions the intentionality of such actions altogether. All three reactions, however, share the assumption underlying the standard account: if an agent is thought to act for a reason - and hence acts intentionally - he must entertain a desire and some means-end belief reflecting his reasoning process about how to attain what he desires by acting. In this paper, I try to show that this reflective reasoning mechanism is only one way to rationalize an action. Another way is by tracing an action to an unreflective valuing stance respresenting reasons the agent has from his point of view. Emotions are attitudes that help to grasp reasons the agent has. Since emotions come with a strong motivational potential they move the agent to act expressively. But the agent typically allows himself to do so, thereby monitoring the way in which he does it. To the extent that the agent unreflectively acts on a motive that is itself representative of his point of view, his expressive actions can be regarded as rationalizable. (shrink)

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been the subject of intense interest as a locus of cognitive control. Several computational models have been proposed to account for a range of effects, including error detection, conflict monitoring, error likelihood prediction, and numerous other effects observed with single-unit neurophysiology, fMRI, and lesion studies. Here, we review the state of computational models of cognitive control and offer a new theoretical synthesis of the mPFC as signaling response–outcome predictions. This new synthesis has two (...) interacting components. The first component learns to predict the various possible outcomes of a planned action, and the second component detects discrepancies between the actual and intended responses; the detected discrepancies in turn update the outcome predictions. This single construct is consistent with a wide array of performance monitoring effects in mPFC and suggests a unifying account of the cognitive role of medial PFC in performance monitoring. (shrink)

National Action Plans on business and human rights are a growing phenomenon. Since 2011, 42 such plans have been adopted or are in-development worldwide. By comparison, only 39 general human rights action plans were published between 1993 and 2021. In parallel, NAPs have attracted growing scholarly interest. While some studies highlight their potential to advance national compliance with international norms, others criticise NAPs as cosmetic devices that states use to deflect attention from persisting abuses and needed regulation. In (...) response to wider critiques of international human rights norms, and their failure to exact universal state compliance, experimentalist governance theory highlights the dynamic, dialogic and iterative character of human rights implementation as well as the role of stakeholders. In this article, we apply experimentalist governance theory to evaluate the role and character of business and human rights NAPs. Rather than attempting to evaluate NAPs’ ultimate consequences for rights-holders, which appears premature, we focus on NAPs processes. Specifically, we analyse NAPs processes in twenty-five states against five experimentalist governance criteria relating to stakeholder participation; agreement on a broad problem definition; local contextualisation; monitoring and peer review and periodic revision and learning. According to our findings, NAPs on business and human rights in most states demonstrate resemblance to the traits of experimentalist governance. In particular, our analysis points to the emergence of relatively sophisticated and demanding institutional governance mechanisms within NAPs — including the institutionalisation of complex deliberative processes. Nevertheless, our paper also identifies some significant shortcomings in NAPs, related to the lack of inclusion of vulnerable groups and the lack of explicit indicators and targets. (shrink)

This study adapts the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980) to the behavior of fraudulent reporting on financial statements so as to examine the effects of moral reasoning and self-monitoring on intention to report fraudulently, using structural equation modeling. The paper seeks to investigate two of the red flags for financial statement fraud identified in Loebbecke et al.'s (1989) paper: client management displays a significant lack of moral fiber and client personnel exhibit strong personality anomalies. As (...) expected, high moral reasoners are more influenced than low moral reasoners by their own attitude towards the behavior. Contrary to prior research, low self-monitors are found to be more influenced than high self-monitors by subjective norms. Future research is recommended to investigate the counter-intuitive results for self-monitors, to consider the implications of group decision making as regards the promulgation of fraudulent financial statements, and to examine additional red flags for financial statement fraud. (shrink)

A panel held at the International Conference on Information Systems, December 5–7, 1993, addressed the importance and ethicality of several issues relating to ethics and information technology use. The substance of the debate and results of audience votes on the issues are presented in this paper as a means of initiating a broader debate on the issues, for it is with debate that we reach a group consensus on acceptable behavior and practice. With consensus, we can begin to develop codes (...) and policies that are feasible and practical for ethical computer use.Specific dilemmas debated involved the issues of privacy and ownership, including the ethicality of using company resources for personal use and monitoring compliance to company policies about computer use. In general, we found little consensus about ethicality of any of the types of conduct, although we found a high degree of consensus that the debated issues were important and should continue to be discussed. The final question concerned policies and codes. While policies and codes were believed to be necessary, they were also perceived as ineffective. Several suggestions for practical action to enhance the efficacy of ethical codes are presented. (shrink)

This paper reports on the author’s experiences as manager of a capacity-building project in Latin America. The project aimed to strengthen planning, monitoring, and evaluation (PM&E) in agricultural research. Nine lessons are drawn: (1) Project design is much more than a technical process; it is essentially one of negotiation. (2) In capacity-building projects, design activities cannot end when implementation begins. (3) Capacity-building efforts should prepare managers to deal with complexity, uncertainty and change. (4) In capacity-building efforts, it is essential (...) to collaborate rather than patronize. (5) Organizational assessment is a complex social process, intertwined with organizational politics. (6) In designing capacity-building projects, it is essential to involve managers and staff members in assessing needs and opportunities. (7) Action-learning strategies offer great potential for capacity building. (8) In the context of strategic management and organizational learning, PM&E take on new meanings. (9) Training is most effective when it is designed to serve a purpose within an organizational change process. It is concluded that capacity building is more a process of social experimentation than of social engineering. Management systems cannot be imported, but need to be developed within organizations. Development agencies should play catalytic, facilitating roles, rather than take responsibility for organizational change. To support genuine capacity development, donors and funding agencies need to ensure that their planning and accountability procedures foster flexibility, innovation, and learning. (shrink)

Conscious awareness of intentionality is considered to be a product of specialized monitoring processes which distinguish intentional, goal-directed actions from unintentional, passive/ reactive actions. When goals are not met or unfavourable conditions arise, this ability to distinguish intentional and unintentional enables us to direct adaptive efforts towards either changing plans and goals or towards altering the environment. The formulation is discussed in relation to monitoring theories of consciousness and the concept of 'locus of control', and is developed to (...) explain several common psychological disorders in terms of dysfunctional monitoring of intentions. It is suggested that it could provide a theoretical basis for psychological treatment methods. (shrink)

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an arpeggio on the piano, or parallel-park, reflecting on your actions leads to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis--that's what is widely believed. But is it true? After exploring some of the contemporary and historical manifestations of the idea, Barbara Gail Montero develops (...) a theory of expertise which emphasizes the role of the conscious mind in expert action. She aims to dispel various myths about experts who proceed without any understanding of what guides their action, and she analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control and explicit monitoring of one's movements impedes well practiced skills. Montero explores a wide range of real-life examples of optimal performance, in sports, the performing arts, healthcare, the military, and other fields, and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to offer a refreshing and persuasive view of expertise, according to which expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective. (shrink)

Maintaining adequate performance in dynamic and uncertain settings has been a perennial stumbling block for intelligent systems. Nevertheless, any system intended for real-world deployment must be able to accommodate unexpected change—that is, it must be perturbation tolerant. We have found that metacognitive monitoring and control—the ability of a system to self-monitor its own decision-making processes and ongoing performance, and to make targeted changes to its beliefs and action-determining components—can play an important role in helping intelligent systems cope with (...) the perturbations that are the inevitable result of real-world deployment. In this article we present the results of several experiments demonstrating the efficacy of metacognition in improving the perturbation tolerance of reinforcement learners, and discuss a general theory of metacognitive monitoring and control, in a form we call the metacognitive loop. (shrink)

My paper addresses a topic--the implications of Rawls's justice as fairness for affirmative action--that has received remarkably little attention from Rawls's major interpreters. The only extended treatments of it that are in print are over a quarter-century old, and they bear scarcely any relationship to Rawls's own nonideal theorizing. Following Christine Korsgaard's lead, I work through the implications of Rawls's nonideal theory and show what it entails for affirmative action: viz. that under nonideal conditions, aggressive forms of formal (...) equality of opportunity (e.g., sensitivity training, outreach efforts, external monitoring and enforcement) and compensating support (e.g., special fellowship programs, childcare facilities, mentoring, co-op opportunities, etc.) can be justified, but that "hard" and even "soft" quotas are difficult to defend under any conditions. I conclude the paper by exploring the implications of these surprising results for contemporary liberalism more broadly and for constitutional law and public policy. (shrink)

Exercise may influence components of executive functioning, specifically cognitive control and action monitoring. We aimed to determine whether high level exercise improves the efficacy of cognitive control in response to differing levels of conflict. Fitter individuals were expected to demonstrate enhanced action monitoring and optimal levels of cognitive control in response to changing task demands. Participants were divided into the highly active or low-active group based on self-reported activity using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. A modified (...) flanker task was then performed, in which the level of conflict was modulated by distance of distractors from the target and congruency of arrows. Electroencephalography was collected during 800 trials; trials were 80% congruent, 20% incongruent, 50% close, and 50% far. The error-related negativity and error positivity were extracted from the difference wave of correct and incorrect response locked epochs, the N2 from the difference wave of congruent and incongruent stimulus locked epochs and the P3 from stimulus locked epochs. The HA group showed a larger Pe amplitude compared to the low-active group. Close trials elicited a larger N2 amplitude than far trials in the HA group, but not the low-active group, the HA group also made fewer errors on far trials than on close trials. Finally, the P3 was smaller in the lowest conflict condition in the HA, but not the low-active group. These findings suggest that habitual, high levels of exercise may influence the endogenous processing involved in pre-response conflict detection and the post-error response. (shrink)

Online trading invariably involves dealings between strangers, so it is important for one party to be able to judge objectively the trustworthiness of the other. In such a setting, the decision to trust a user may sensibly be based on that user’s past behaviour. We introduce a specification language based on linear temporal logic for expressing a policy for categorising the behaviour patterns of a user depending on its transaction history. We also present an algorithm for checking whether the transaction (...) history obeys the stated policy. To be useful in a real setting, such a language should allow one to express realistic policies which may involve parameter quantification and quantitative or statistical patterns. We introduce several extensions of linear temporal logic to cater for such needs: a restricted form of universal and existential quantification; arbitrary computable functions and relations in the term language; and a “counting” quantifier for counting how many times a formula holds in the past. We then show that model checking a transaction history against a policy, which we call the history-based transaction monitoring problem, is PSPACE-complete in the size of the policy formula and the length of the history, assuming that the underlying interpreted functions and relations are polynomially computable. The problem becomes decidable in polynomial time when the policies are fixed. We also consider the problem of transaction monitoring in the case where not all the parameters of actions are observable. We formulate two such “partial observability” monitoring problems, and show their decidability under certain restrictions. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists have sought to explain experiences of auditory verbal hallucinations and “inserted thoughts” in schizophrenia in terms of a failure on the part of patients to appropriately monitor their own inner speech. These self-monitoring accounts have recently been challenged by some who argue that AVHs are better explained in terms of the spontaneous activation of auditory-verbal representations. This paper defends two kinds of self-monitoring approach against the spontaneous activation account. The defense requires first making some (...) important clarifications concerning what is at issue in the dispute between the two forms of theory. A popular but problematic self-monitoring theory is then contrasted with two more plausible conceptions of what the relevant self-monitoring deficits involve. The first appeals to deficits in the neural mechanisms that normally filter or attenuate sensory signals that are the result of one’s own actions. The second, less familiar, form of self-monitoring approach draws an important analogy between Wernicke’s aphasia and AVHs in schizophrenia. This style of self-monitoring theory pursues possible connections among AVHs, inserted thoughts, and the disorganized speech characteristic formal thought disorder. (shrink)

Citizen-gathered evidence (CGE) gathered by individuals organized in collectives have the potential to demonstrate environmental and social wrongdoings in court. We identify (collective) agency and resistance in how individuals and communities that have been exposed to socio-environmental stressors turn to gather CGE. We explore the modes through which people gather scientific data, produce CGE, alert authorities to environmental harm, and the methods by which data can be shared with communities, beginning with the case studies of civic environmental monitoring addressing (...) coal ash pollution in North Carolina. We analyze the case studies through a theoretical lens built on (1) the theory of civic monitoring “as resistance;” (2) the argument that CGE can embody “collective intelligence;” and (3) the concept of “crowd science” through a decentralized yet coordinated network. In the first part of the article, we introduce the case studies. Then, we illustrate our theoretical frame as applied to the analysis of the cases. We discuss the cases and in particular the CGE at issue through the prism of the frame. We demonstrate how CGE can be valuable not only for civil society and civic organizations, but also for competent authorities. In our conclusion, we identify critical junctures of our case studies, such as that of “knowledge crowdsourcing” to demand justice that triggers the government to take action and the existence of a “coordinated” yet decentralized crowd to capture the full extension of the problem. Lastly, we outline the limitations of our study, a future research agenda, and still open questions. (shrink)

Error-related electroencephalographic signals have been widely studied concerning the human cognitive capability of differentiating between erroneous and correct actions. Midfrontal error-related negativity and theta band oscillations are believed to underlie post-action error monitoring. However, it remains elusive how early monitoring activity is trackable and what are the pre-response brain mechanisms related to performance monitoring. Moreover, it is still unclear how task-specific parameters, such as cognitive demand or motor control, influence these processes. Here, we aimed to test (...) pre- and post-error EEG patterns for different types of motor responses and investigate the neuronal mechanisms leading to erroneous actions. We implemented a go/no-go paradigm based on keypresses and saccades. Participants received an initial instruction about the direction of response to be given based on a facial cue and a subsequent one about the type of action to be performed based on an object cue. The paradigm was tested in 20 healthy volunteers combining EEG and eye tracking. We found significant differences in reaction time, number, and type of errors between the two actions. Saccadic responses reflected a higher number of premature responses and errors compared to the keypress ones. Nevertheless, both led to similar EEG patterns, supporting previous evidence for increased ERN amplitude and midfrontal theta power during error commission. Moreover, we found pre-error decreased theta activity independent of the type of action. Source analysis suggested different origin for such pre- and post-error neuronal patterns, matching the anterior insular cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, respectively. This opposite pattern supports previous evidence of midfrontal theta not only as a neuronal marker of error commission but also as a predictor of action performance. Midfrontal theta, mostly associated with alert mechanisms triggering behavioral adjustments, also seems to reflect pre-response attentional mechanisms independently of the action to be performed. Our findings also add to the discussion regarding how salience network nodes interact during performance monitoring by suggesting that pre- and post-error patterns have different neuronal sources within this network. (shrink)

The article deals with the Dawson College Massacre, focusing on the story of Kimveer Gill, a 25-year-old man from Laval, Montreal who wished to murder young students in Dawson College. It is argued that the international community should continue working together to devise rules for monitoring specific Internet sites, as human lives are at stake. Preemptive measures could prevent the translation of murderous thoughts into murderous actions. Designated monitoring mechanisms of certain websites that promote violence and seek legitimacy (...) as well as adherents to the actualization of murderous thoughts and hateful messages have a potential of preventing such unfortunate events. Our intention is to draw the attention of the multifaceted international community to the shared interest and need in developing monitoring schemes for certain websites, in order to prevent hideous crimes. (shrink)

The Canadian medical assistance in dying program, based on an ambitious piece of legislation and detailed regulations, has failed to provide Canadians with sufficient publicly accessible evidence to show that it is operating as mandated by the requirements of the law, regulations, and expectations of all stakeholders. The federal law that was adopted in 2016 defined the eligibility criteria and put in place a number of safeguards that had to be satisfied before providing assisted dying to a person in order (...) not to transgress the Criminal Law. The responsibility of monitoring for the purpose of investigating compliance with the eligibility criteria and procedural safeguards was assigned by the Federal Ministry of Health to the provincial and territorial governments. Some of the governments have released statistical data concerning the program, but none have yet issued a comprehensive report on adherence to the eligibility criteria and its safeguards as required by the law and regulations. This paper explains the process, explores the possible reasons for this shortfall, and offers some suggestions for actions that could rectify this aspect of the MAID program. Accountability and transparency are integral to the delivery of MAID and the publications of the mandated federal as well as provincial/territorial monitoring reports are one important approach to achieving confidence and trust in the program. (shrink)

Self-monitoring theory explains the individual differences in using interpersonal adjustment techniques like self-control, self-regulation, and self-presentation. Self-monitoring plays a key role for understanding the social life. Therefore, it has been one of most popular research topics in social psychology. The aim of this study is to find out if there is a meaningful relationship between religious orientation and self-monitoring, and to determine the direction of the relationship if it exists. Besides, examining the effect of religious group membership (...) on self-monitoring is another aim of this study. In accordance with this purpose, Religious Orientation Scale and Revised Self-Monitoring Scale are applied to sample group which consists of 437 female and 369 male participants aged16 to 65+ living in Bursa. The results has revealed that there is a meaningful positive correlation between intrinsic religious orientation and self-monitoring. In addition, no meaningful relationship between religious group membership and self-monitoring has been confirmed.Summary: The adaptation process of the human being as a social creature starts in a mother's womb and becomes more complicated in consequence of coming into the world which is full of stimulus. In the beginning, this process has only a physical aspect, but with the inclusion of emotional, cognitive, and social factors over time turns into developmental tasks that people will struggle throughout their lives. The social development involves the process of becoming of the individual as an organic part of the society. As the individual realizes the existence of the other, he/she develops similar patterns of behavior that can be approved by the other. Because the meaningful relationships that form the backbone of social development constitute an important part of the self. Belonging is one of the main needs, that the individual shapes his emotions, actions, and decisions more or less in line with this need in order not to encounter the possibility of social exclusion. While belonging is a universal need for every healthy individual, there are differences between individuals in terms of directing the course of the relationship, role sharing, and using situational clues. Individual differences in how people construct interpersonal processes led Mark Snyder to systematize and theorize the concept of self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is a concept that expresses individuals' control of self-presentation, expressive behavior, and non-verbal emotional expression and their regulation. Accordingly, individuals with a high tendency to shape their behavior according to the context are classified as high self-monitors and those with low tendency are classified as low self-monitors. It can be said that adherence to religion, which is one of the determinants of social behavior, is related to self-monitoring. In this context, the main subject of this study is the relationship between self-monitoring and religiosity. The study aims to examine the effect of intrinsic-extrinsic religiosity on individuals' self-monitoring levels. Besides, as a form of religiosity, to reveal whether religious group religiosity affects self-monitoring, the study examines also self-monitoring levels of individuals belonging to the religious group and those who are not.The sample of the study was selected by a simple random sampling method and it consists of 806 participants aged 16 to 65+ living in Bursa in 2017. 437 (54.2%) of the participants in the research are women and 369 (45.8%) are men. In this study, a relational screening model was used for determining the presence, direction, and degree of the relationship between the variables. The questionnaire technique was preferred as the method of gathering information. The questionnaire was arranged in a way that does not require asking the participant any other questions apart from the questions on the form. The questionnaire form used in this research consists of 43 items. At the beginning of the questionnaire, there is a 9-item personal information form that includes demographic items consisting of age, gender, educational status, marital status, occupation, place of residence, socio-economic status, levels of subjective religious involvement, and religious group membership. For the measurement of self-monitoring, a 12-item "Self-Monitoring Scale", which was developed by Mark Snyder, revised by Richard Lennox and Raymond Wolfe and adapted by İlknur Özalp Türetgen and Sevim Cesur to Turkish (α =.80) was used. For the measurement of religious orientation, a 22-item “Religious Orientation Scale” developed by Gordon Allport and Michael Ross and adapted to Turkish by Fatma Gül Cirhinlioğlu was used (α =.90). Data collected through scales were processed by One Way Variance Analysis (ANOVA), t-Test, Pearson Correlation Analysis, and Simple Linear Regression Analysis and turned into research findings.According to the results of the simple linear correlation analysis conducted to reveal whether there is a relationship between the self-monitoring scores of the participants and the intrinsic religious orientation scores, there is a positive and significant relationship between the variables (r = 0.102, p = 0.004 0.05). The result of the correlation analysis between self-monitoring and the level of subjective religious involvement shows that no significant relationship is found (r = 0.051, p = 0.146> 0.05).This research expected that there was a negative relationship between self-monitoring and intrinsic religious orientation. However, the analyses has not reported anticipated results as addressed in the previous research. Therefore, this study opens the door for asking new questions about the subject. Religious groups, by their very nature, can refer the individual to self-presentation control, obedience, to act as deemed appropriate by the group, to adapt to the group, to change behavior without attitude change, and therefore, to attitude-behavior inconsistency. It can be argued that not only religious groups but, by their nature, all social groups create harmony-oriented pressure on the individual. Therefore, it can be predicted that belonging to a group, in general, may have a significant effect on the level of self-monitoring. The high self-monitoring scores of the participants, whether religious or non-religious group members of this study may have reduced the observability of the difference between the two groups. Therefore, repeating the study on a different sample may produce different results. (shrink)

Mobile health devices pose novel questions at the intersection of philosophy and technology. Many such applications not only collect sensitive data, but also aim at persuading users to change their lifestyle for the better. A major concern is that persuasion is paternalistic as it intentionally aims at changing the agent’s actions, chipping away at their autonomy. This worry roots in the philosophical conviction that perhaps the most salient feature of living autonomous lives is displayed via agency as opposed to patiency—our (...) lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens to us. Being persuaded by a device telling us how to conduct our lives seemingly renders the agent passive, an inert recipient of technological commands. This agential bias, however, has led to a marginalization of patiential characteristics that are just as much part of our lives as are agential characteristics. To appreciate the inherent interlocking of acting and being acted upon, it is vital to acknowledge that agency and patiency are correlates, not mutually exclusive opposites. Furthermore, it is unclear whether an action can only count as agential so long as its causes are internal. Drawing on the extended mind and extended will framework, I argue that mHealth applications merely serve as volitional aids to the agent’s internal cognition. Autonomously set goals can be achieved more effectively via technology. To be persuaded by an mHealth device does not mainly—let alone exclusively—emphasize patiency; on the contrary, it can be an effective tool for technologically enhancing agency. (shrink)

This paper argues that perception of one's body ‘from the inside’ provides one with an awareness of acting, and that this awareness explains a previously overlooked feature of one's knowledge of one's own actions. Actions are events: they occur during periods of time. Knowledge of such events must be sensitive to their course through time. Perception of one's body ‘from the inside’ allows one to monitor one's actions as they unfold, thereby sustaining one's knowledge of what one is doing over (...) the period of time in which one is doing it. (shrink)

We design and implement an intelligent IoT-based motion monitoring system to realize the monitoring of three important parameters, namely, the type of movement, the number of movements, and the period of movement in physical activities, and optimize the system to support the simultaneous use by multiple users. Considering the motion monitoring scenario for smart fit, the framework of an IoT-based motion monitoring system is proposed. The framework contains components such as active acquisition nodes, wireless access points, (...) data processing servers, and terminals. In terms of algorithm optimization, research related to active pattern recognition and periodic calculation methods is conducted. For active pattern recognition, two types of classification algorithms with different complexity are proposed based on Support Vector Machine and deep neural networks, respectively, to adapt to scenarios with different computational capabilities. For period calculation, a method based on over-zero detection and wavelet transform is proposed to count the number of actions and calculate the period of each action. In 100 times action cycle calculation experiments, the count statistic calculation method achieves 100% calculation accuracy and the active cycle calculation results are close to the real value, which proves the effectiveness of the cycle calculation method. The system provides a multiuser-oriented communication method and realizes accurate and reliable human movement monitoring, which has a wide application prospect in the fields of physical education and rehabilitation training. (shrink)

I want to try to do something rather more speculative than the rest of you have done. I have been thinking recently about how one might explain some features of human reflective consciousness that seem to me to be very much in need of an explanation. I'm trying to see if these features could be understood as solutions to design problems, solutions arrived at by evolution, but also, in the individual, as a result of a process of unconscious self-design. I've (...) been trying to think of this in the context of work in AI on the attempt to design intelligent robots – not "bed-ridden" expert systems, but systems that have to act in real time in the real world. If you want to think about something like this, you have to stray fairly far from experiments and hard empirical data; you have to get fairly speculative. Nevertheless the design efforts of people in AI do seem to bring home to conviction – if not to prove – various design constraints looming large and inescapable. If we can come to see why a system – or an organ or a behavior-pattern – must have certain features or a certain structure in order to do its task, this may help us ask the right questions, or at least keep us from dwelling on some of the wrong questions when we try to explain the machinery in the brain that is responsible for intelligent action. (shrink)

This study examines whether the delegated monitoring of main banks effectively decreases severe agency problems. For example, this includes accounting fraud in bank-dominated corporate governance. In this context, the fraud triangle specifies the three main factors of opportunity, incentive, and rationalization. Main banks may reduce the factor of opportunity through actions such as monitoring, which plays a moderating role by reducing the potential for managerial misconduct, whereas, the incentive factor may be enhanced through the subsequent pressure that influences (...) managers to force turnover when they do not repay debts. The potential influence that the main banks have on the fraud rationalization factor may be stronger in firms that are more dependent on main-bank borrowing. This study analyzed data from publicly listed firms in Japan for the period between 2008 and 2016 to determine how main-bank relationships affected accounting fraud, thus allowing an assessment of delegated monitoring practices. Findings showed that main-bank relationships were helpful for reducing accounting fraud, suggesting its overall effectiveness in delegated monitoring. Results also showed that large audit firms did not necessarily prevent accounting fraud, which implies that main banks can employ their own monitoring as a substitute for the roles typically played by these firms. Here, the main policy implication is that main-bank relationships may strengthen business ethics in the context of bank-dominated corporate governance. In conclusion, the continued analysis of bank monitoring may benefit stakeholders while strengthening business ethics in bank-centered economies. (shrink)

PurposeAs part of an international study of knowledge of and attitudes to Snowden’s revelations about the activities of the National Security Agency/Government Communications Headquarters, this paper aims to deal with Germany, taking its socio-cultural and political environment surrounding privacy and state surveillance into account.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire was answered by 76 German University students. The quantitative responses to the survey were statistically analysed as well as qualitative considerations of free text answers.FindingsSnowden’s revelations have had an important influence over German students’ attitudes toward (...) privacy and state surveillance, and show concerns over the privacy risks associated with Internet activity.Practical implicationsThe study results imply a need to build a collective awareness of the importance of the right to privacy and its responsibilities, the available technological options for individuals to exert their own privacy and security and the democratic means to agree and enforce appropriate legal restrictions on state surveillance.Social implicationsYoung Germans support Snowden’s actions and would be more willing to emulate him in Germany than in the USA. While many believe that people must give up some privacy and freedom for security, few seem to believe that current US or German approaches are valid and justified.Originality/valueThis study is the first attempt to investigate the social impact of Snowden’s revelations on German students’ attitudes toward privacy and state surveillance as part of cross-cultural analyses between eight countries. (shrink)

I offer a new metacognitive account of the feeling of agency over bodily actions. On this model the feeling of agency is the metacognitive monitoring of two cues: i) smoothness of action: done via monitoring the output of the comparison between actual and predicted sensory consequences of action and ii) action outcome: done via monitoring the outcome of action and its success relative to a prior intention. Previous research has shown that the comparator (...) model offers a powerful explanation of the feeling of agency. However, within the literature there is a growing sense of unease with the model; a consensus seems to be building that the model is not up to the task of explaining all of the new discoveries made regarding the feeling of agency since its inception. Most problematically there are paradigms which deeply challenge the comparator model by suggesting that a weak feeling of agency can be elicited even when no motor prediction is formed. The new account offered here inherits the explanatory power of the comparator model whilst avoiding this problem. (shrink)

This study of the workings of neural networks in perception and understanding of situations and simple sentences shows that, and how, distributed conceptual constituents are bound together in episodes within an interactive/dynamic architecture of sensorial and pre-motor maps, and maps of conceptual indicators (semantic memory) and individuating indicators (historical, episodic memory). Activation circuits between these maps make sensorial and pre-motor fields in the brain function as episodic maps creating representations, which are expressions in consciousness. It is argued that all consciousness (...) is episodic, consisting of situational or linguistic representations, and that the mind is the whole of all conscious manifestations of the brain. Thought occurs only in the form of linguistic or image representations. The book also discusses the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. Four recent controversies in consciousness research are discussed and decided along this model of consciousness: • Is consciousness an internal or external monitoring device of brain states? • Do all conscious states involve thought and judgement? • Are there different kinds of consciousness? • Do we have a one-on-one correspondence between certain brain states and conscious states. The book discusses also the role of consciousness in the relationship between causal and denotational semantics, and its role for the possibility of representations and rules. (Series A). (shrink)

The discovery of so-called ‘mirror neurons’ - found to respond both to own actions and the observation of similar actions performed by others - has been enormously influential in the cognitive sciences and beyond. Given the self-other symmetry these neurons have been hypothesized as underlying a ‘mirror mechanism’ that lets us share representations and thereby ground core social cognitive functions from intention understanding to linguistic abilities and empathy. I argue that mirror neurons are important for very different reasons. Rather than (...) a symmetric ubiquitous or context- independent mechanism, I propose that these neurons are part of broader sensorimotor circuits, which help us navigate and predict the social affordance space that we meet others in. To develop both the critical and positive project I analyze the interpretive choices and the debate surrounding the mirror neuron research and show how the field is marred by highly questionable assumptions about respectively motor and social cognition. The discovery of mirror neurons - and the sensorimotor circuits of which these neurons are a part – actually empirically challenge many of these tacit assumptions. Findings of sensorimotor goal representations at levels of abstraction well beyond actual sensory information and kinetic movements challenge the idea of motor cognition as primarily output production. Additionally, the focus on 3rd person mindreading of hidden mental states is misguiding the field of social cognition. Much ‘mind-reading’ seems rooted in sensorimotor representations and a developmentally primary 2nd person understanding of actions and the mental lives of others, which precisely breaks the assumed dichotomy between mind and behavior. I propose a Social Affordance model where parallel fronto-parietal sensorimotor circuits support representations not just of other people’s actions but of the overall social affordance space. It is a process that monitors concrete goals and teleological possibilities that the environment affords respectively oneself and other present agents. With this model I hypothesize that the complex spectrum of sensorimotor integrations are indeed essential not only to normal action choice calibration but also to social cognitive abilities, as the sensorimotor teleological representations let us relate to others and understand their action choices in a shared pragmatic and intentional context. (shrink)

We address the question of the effectiveness of affirmative action agreements concluded by a regulatory body with employers in order to achieve greater equality in employment. We analyse the pattern of affirmative action agreements concluded by the Fair Employment Commission with employers in Northern Ireland between 1990 and 2000. We examine the association between these agreements and changes occurring in the religio-political composition of these employer's workforces during that period, based on a statistical analysis of monitoring data (...) collected by the Commission from employers, compared with employers that did not enter into such agreements. We find that firms reaching agreements with the Commission demonstrated significant evidence of change over the decade. We conclude that such agreements were likely to have been an integral part of the processes driving change in the Northern Ireland labour market in the 1990s. (shrink)

For Merleau-Ponty,consciousness in skillful coping is a matter of prereflective ‘I can’ and not explicit ‘I think that.’ The body unifies many domain-specific capacities. There exists a direct link between the perceived possibilities for action in the situation (‘affordances’) and the organism’s capacities. From Merleau-Ponty’s descriptions it is clear that in a flow of skillful actions, the leading ‘I can’ may change from moment to moment without explicit deliberation. How these transitions occur, however, is less clear. Given that Merleau-Ponty (...) suggested that a better understanding of the self-organization of brain and behavior is important, I will re-read his descriptions of skillful coping in the light of recent ideas on neurodynamics. Affective processes play a crucial role in evaluating the motivational significance of objects and contribute to the individual’s prereflective responsiveness to relevant affordances. (shrink)

This paper offers a framework for consciousness of internal reality. Recent PET experiments are reviewed, showing partial overlap of cortical activation during self-produced actions and actions observed from other people. This overlap suggests that representations for actions may be shared by several individuals, a situation which creates a potential problem for correctly attributing an action to its agent. The neural conditions for correct agency judgments are thus assigned a key role in self/other distinction and self-consciousness. A series of behavioral (...) experiments that demonstrate, in normal subjects, the poor monitoring of action-related signals and the difficulty in recognizing self-produced actions are described. In patients presenting delusions, this difficulty dramatically increases and actions become systematically misattributed. These results point to schizophrenia and related disorders as a paradigmatic alteration of a ''Who?'' system for self-consciousness. (shrink)

It is not well known that in the context of the unofficial artistic and philosophical scene of the ČSSR there was an aesthetically refined and theoretically differentiated reflection on the different degrees and limits of visibility as well as a rethinking of participation – be it aesthetic, epistemic or political. In this paper I first investigate the relation between history and (in)visibility in its broadest sense: questions such as ‘whose history is present’ and ‘what visual memory building strategies are used’ (...) were highly controversial and deeply politicised. For many artists and philosophers such as Zorka Ságlová or Jan Patočka the very act of remembering and the active, critical engagement with (visual) culture and history thus became an act of resistance. I then explore how artists subtly intervened in and transformed the monitored public space, and often tried to undermine given regimes of visibility. I demonstrate that these manifold ‘dissident’ practices engendered new aesthetic experiences and fostered powerful counter-narratives that deconstructed the official propaganda discourse of the communist regime. (shrink)