Given emerging evidence that learning to play a musical instrument may lead to a number of cognitive benefits for older adults, it is important to clarify how these training programs can be delivered optimally and meaningfully. The effective acquisition of musical and domain-general skills by later-life learners may be influenced by social, cultural and individual factors within the learning environment. The current study examines the effects of a 10-week piano training program on healthy older adult novices’ cognitive and motor skills, (...) in comparison to an inactive waitlisted control group. Fifteen participants completed piano training led by a music facilitator in small groups (max n = 4 per lesson class; two experimental, two waitlisted control groups). Data was collected using an explanatory sequential design: quantitative data from a battery of cognitive and motor tests was collected pre/post-test on all participants, with further post-test data from the waitlisted control group (n = 7). Qualitative data included weekly facilitator observations, participant practice diaries, and an individual, semi-structured, post-experiment interview. Bayesian modelling demonstrated moderate evidence of a strong positive impact of training on part A of the Trail Making test (TMT), indicating improved visuo-motor skills. Moderate evidence for negative impacts of training on part B of the Trail Making Test (and difference score delta) was also found, suggesting no benefit of cognitive... (shrink)

This book is an attempt to make sense of the tension in Nietzsche’s work between the unashamedly egocentric and the apparently mystical. While scholars have tended to downplay one or other of these aspects, this book shows that the two are not only compatible but mutually illuminating. Supporting both of these aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy is a conception of the one and the many that develops from the thought of Goethe. Goethe is not typically given a lot of attention in (...) Anglophone philosophy, and this is the case even in Nietzsche studies. This is a severe limitation as Goethe had an immense influence on many subsequent thinkers, and this is especially true of Nietzsche. Goethe’s conception of the relationship of the one to the many is unique - as Cassirer wrote, such a view “can hardly be found elsewhere in the history of philosophy or of natural science”. Nietzsche as Egoist and Mystic shows how this “Goethean” conception of the one and the many was further developed by Nietzsche, and how it helps to illuminate Nietzsche’s complex and much disputed religious thought. This book is a mediation between Nietzsche and major currents in mystical thought both East and West which shows how previous interpretations fail to adequately account for crucial aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, including his egoism. (shrink)

This dissertation is concerned with theories of mental content, and in particular with the relationships between a theory of content and truth and rationality. My strategy is to examine the metaphysics of various approaches to content and ask certain questions. What is it for a belief to be true on a particular theory? What is it for a thought process to be rational? Are truth and rationality useful explanatory properties on each theory? Are they useful normative or action-guiding properties? Does (...) a theory allow truth and rationality to be valuable? ;I argue that there is a useful categorization of theories of mental content in terms of the kinds of connection they make between content and truth and rationality. Some theories, most notably Donald Davidson's and other theories inspired by his work, make it a constitutive truth, and thus necessary, that any entity that has intentional states must believe mostly truths and be largely rational. This holistic theories can be contrasted with other atomistic approaches, including those championed by Jerry Fodor and others, that deny such necessary connections, and leave the question of just how much truth and falsehood can be believed, and how rational or irrational a believer can be, to be settled by empirical investigation. ;The various chapters of this dissertation examine these different types of theories, and also the teleological theory of Ruth Millikan. I argue that atomistic theories of content have certain undesirable consequences: truth and rationality will no longer be explanatorily or normatively useful properties. On the other hand, holistic theories of content that make truth and rationality necessary features of systems with intentional states face different problems, because the norms they claim are constitutive of content are unlikely to be true of evolved creatures. Teleological theories, which presume a weak, historical connection between content and truth and rationality, fare best against these tests--they make truth and rationality important parts of explanations, and provide some motivation for pursuing them. (shrink)

Perception of music and speech is based on similar auditory skills, and it is often suggested that those with enhanced music perception skills may perceive and learn novel words more easily. The current study tested whether music perception abilities are associated with novel word learning in an ambiguous learning scenario. Using a cross-situational word learning (CSWL) task, nonmusician adults were exposed to word-object pairings between eight novel words and visual referents. Novel words were either non-minimal pairs differing in all sounds (...) or minimal pairs differing in their initial consonant or vowel. In order to be successful in this task, learners need to be able to correctly encode the phonological details of the novel words and have sufficient auditory working memory to remember the correct word-object pairings. Using the Mistuning Perception Test (MPT) and the Melodic Discrimination Test (MDT), we measured learners’ pitch perception and auditory working memory. We predicted that those with higher MPT and MDT values would perform better in the CSWL task and in particular for novel words with high phonological overlap (i.e., minimal pairs). We found that higher musical perception skills led to higher accuracy for non-minimal pairs and minimal pairs differing in their initial consonant. Interestingly, this was not the case for vowel minimal pairs. We discuss the results in relation to theories of second language word learning such as the Second Language Perception model (L2LP). (shrink)