We define our conscious experience by constructing narratives about ourselves and the people with whom we interact. Narrative pervades our lives--conscious experience is not merely linked to the number and variety of personal stories we construct with each other within a cultural frame, but is subsumed by them. The claim, however, that narrative constructions are essential to conscious experience is not useful or informative unless we can also begin to provide a distinct, organized, and empirically consistent explanation for narrative in (...) relation to consciousness. Understanding the role of narrative in determining individual and collective consciousness has been elusive from within traditional academic frameworks. This volume argues that addressing so broad and complex a problem requires an examination from outside our insular disciplinary framework. Such an open examination would be informed by the inquiries and approaches of multiple disciplines. Recognition of the different approaches to examining personal stories will allow for the coordination of how narrative seems, with what mental labor it does, and how it is realized. Only by overcoming the boundaries erected by multiple theoretical and discursive traditions can we begin to comprehend the nature and function of narrative in consciousness. Narrative and Consciousness brings together essays by exceptional scholars and scientists in the disciplines of literary theory, psychology, and neuroscience to examine how stories are constructed, how stories structure lived experience, and how stories are rooted in material reality. The specific topics addressed include narrative in the development of conscious awareness; autobiographical narrative, fiction and the construction of self; trauma and narrative disruptions; narrative, memory and identity; and the physiological and neural substrate of narrative. It is the editors' hope that the multidisciplinary nature of this collection will challenge the reader to move beyond disciplinary confines and toward a coherent interdisciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

The evocation of narrative as a way to understand the content of consciousness, including memory, autobiography, self, and imagination, has sparked truly interdisciplinary work among psychologists, philosophers, and literary critics. Even neuroscientists have taken an interest in the stories people create to understand themselves, their past, and the world around them. The research presented in this volume should appeal to researchers enmeshed in these problems, as well as the general reader with an interest in the philosophical problem of what consciousness (...) is and how it functions in the everyday world. (shrink)

Moral emotions are evolved mechanisms that function in part to optimize social relationships. We discuss two moral emotions— disgust and the “cuteness response”—which modulate social-engagement motives in opposite directions, changing the degree to which the eliciting entity is imbued with mental states (i.e., mentalized). Disgust-inducing entities are hypo-mentalized (i.e., dehumanized); cute entities are hyper-mentalized (i.e., “humanized”). This view of cuteness—which challenges the prevailing view that cuteness is a releaser of parental instincts (Lorenz, 1950/1971)—explains (a) the broad range of affiliative behaviors (...) elicited by cuteness, (b) the marketing of cuteness to children (by toy makers and animators) to elicit play, and (c) the apparent ease and frequency with which cute things are anthropomorphized. (shrink)

Features four case studies that include 'Scripted Teaching', 'Accountability and Merit', 'What is the Value of Caring Relationships?' and 'School Funding'. Using these and other realistic case studies, this book explores the strengths and weaknesses of each approach so that teachers can assess their own philosophical positions on teaching.

The Objective Threshold/Strategic Model proposes that strong, qualitative inferences of unconscious perception can be made if the relationship between perceptual sensitivity and stimulus visibility is nonlinear and nonmonotonic. The model proposes a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold . These predictions were tested with masked semantic priming and repetition priming of a lexical decision task. The visibility of the prime stimuli was systematically varied above and below the objective identification threshold. The obtained relationship between prime visibility and (...) priming facilitation was nonlinear, but the results failed to confirm a nadir in priming effects at the objective identification threshold. We conclude that the objective identification threshold does not necessarily indicate the point where presumably unconscious priming effects might be inhibited by conscious cognitive processes. (shrink)

This article examines difficulties with bureaucratic reform for transitional economies, drawing on the American experience. Bureaucracies have incentive and performance problems that could retard economic growth in transitional economies. A remedy for a politicized corrupt bureaucracy is an autonomous, professional bureaucracy, chosen on the basis of merit. This article argues, however, such a move will not necessarily bring improvement. Political controls over the bureaucracy must be developed and inserted so that the bureaucracy has incentives to be more efficient and to (...) be more responsive to changing citizen demands. The American experience indicates that absent such provisions, a highly-protected, professional bureaucracy can engage in opportunism to advance its interests and those interests may not coincide with promoting economic growth.Cet article examine les difficultés auxquelles font face les tentatives de réforme de la bureaucratie dans les économies en transition en s’inspirant de l’expérience américaine. Les questions d’incitation et l’inefficacité des bureaucraties pourraient retarder la croissance économique dans les économies en transition. Une bureaucratie autonome, professionnelle, choisie sur la base du mérite est un remède à une bureaucratie politiquement corrompue. Cependant, cet article soutient qu’une telle démarche n’engendre pas nécessairement des améliorations. Il faut en plus élaborer des contrôles politiques de la bureaucratie afin que celle-ci soit incitée à être plus efficace et davantage sensible aux besoins changeants des citoyens. L’expérience américaine indique qu’en l’absence de telles dispositions, une bureaucratie professionnelle et très protégée peut se comporter de manière opportuniste en cherchant à promouvoir ses propres intérêts, pas toujours compatibles avec l’accélération de la croissance économique. (shrink)

DNA–protein interactions are fundamental to many biological processes, including the regulation of gene expression. Determining the binding affinities of transcription factors (TFs) to different DNA sequences allows the quantitative modeling of transcriptional regulatory networks and has been a significant technical challenge in molecular biology for many years. A recent paper by Maerkl and Quake1 demonstrated the use of microfluidic technology for the analysis of DNA–protein interactions. An array of short DNA sequences was spotted onto a glass slide, which was then (...) covered with a microfluidic device allowing each spot to be within a chamber into which the flow of materials was controlled by valves. By trapping the DNA–protein complexes on the surface and measuring their concentrations microscopically, they could determine the binding affinity to a large number of DNA sequences that were varied systematically. They studied four TFs from the basic helix–loop–helix family of proteins, all of which bind to E‐box sites with the consensus CAnnTG (where “n” can be any base), and showed that variations in affinity for different sites allows each TF to regulate different genes. BioEssays 29:717–721, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Despite its preeminent position in the just war tradition, the concept of proportionality is not well understood by military leaders. Especially lacking is a realization that there are four distinct types of proportionality. In determining whether a particular resort to war is just, national leaders must consider the proportionality of the conflict, i.e., balance the expected gain or just redress against the total harm likely to be inflicted by the impending armed action. This proportionality consideration is called jus ad bellum (...) proportionality. The second type of proportionality discussed is a continuing re-evaluation of the proportionality, taking into account the changing situation. The last true proportionality discussed is a consideration of hostile action taking during a conflict, or jus in bello proportionality. This consideration weighs the expected military gain of a particular action against the collateral damage and injuries that are expected from the act. Finally, the fourth category addressed is ‘political proportionality’, which is not a true proportionality consideration, but is rather self-interested deliberation on the possible political and military outcomes of actions. In some instances, it could be referred to as a measured response. A better understanding of proportionality in all its forms will help military leaders to give appropriate and moral advice on the potential resort to war, as well as on the conduct of military actions in war. The recent US war with Iraq in the spring of 2003 in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the UN Security Council, and especially with the potential for high noncombatant casualties in Baghdad, makes a discussion of the proper conduct of war even more poignant. (shrink)

Cognitive processing in psychology and semiotics are compared in relation to language processing and memory.Active reconstruction in memory is postulated, as well as the representation of whole messages as signs. The paradigm, then, is based on the study of active reconstruction of verbal messages from their semiotic representations in memory. Differences between original and reconstructed messages are used as dimension of empirical study in the paradigm. Research findings are cited in support of this approach.

The ways in which given and new information are distributed, and the functions associated with the distribution, are examined here in terms of information content of relative and adverbial clauses in oral and written narratives. The conventional view that subordinate clauses tend to code given rather than new information is shown to be inadequate. Moreover, a comparison of oral and written narratives of the same events reveals both extensive differences in the two modalities, and at the same time striking similarities (...) in terms of the information distribution within relative clauses. Relative clauses are found to be far more frequent in oral narratives than in their written analogues. However, when the differences are examined in terms of the relative frequencies of given and new relative clauses, the oral narratives are shown to have far more given relative clauses than the written versions, whereas the frequencies for the new relative clauses is virtually identical in the two modalities. This result is attributed to memory constraints. (shrink)

There have been occasions when the publication of a particular book has had a singular impact on the conceptual world of the chemist. Sometimes the publication occurs near the beginning of a major change in discourse, and sometimes more near the end. Jean Perrin published Les Atomes in 1913 as the culmination of a century-long controversy over the size and physical reality of atoms and molecules. After its publication almost all chemists and physicists agreed that atoms and molecules of the (...) size we currently understand to be appropriate are real physical objects. The story of the background, development, publication, content and response to Les Atomes forms the text of this paper. The content of Les Atomes is also the basis for extended reflection on the philosophical significance of the work of Jean Perrin. (shrink)

This paper examines several contemporary readings of Piaget's texts: M. Chapman's Constructive Evolution provides a wide-ranging exegesis of Piaget's entire body of work; F. Vidal's Piaget before Piaget focuses on Piaget's earliest writings; and H. Beilin's Piaget's New Theory concentrates on Piaget's very last projects. All three contend that in contrast to accepted versions of Piaget's theory, there is a relatively unknown Piaget and a markedly differently way to understand Genetic Epistemology. This brief review attempts to bracket such readings within (...) the purview of postmodern concerns with rationality. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)