The programme of work -- Towards a theory of jokes -- The process of joke comprehension -- Text comprehension -- Processing and prediction -- Logic in jokes -- Incongruity and resolution -- Surprise -- The role of language -- Impropriety -- Superiority and aggression -- What's in a joke? -- Applying the framework -- The way forward.

ObjectiveThe Spatial Learning Task of Lhermitte and Signoret is an object-location arbitrary associative learning task. The task was originally developed to evaluate adults with severe amnesia. It is currently used in populations where the memory system either is not yet fully developed or where it has been compromised (e.g. epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, electroconvulsive therapy, cerebrovascular disease and dementia). Normative data have been published for paediatric cohorts and for older adults, however no data exist for the intervening adult years.MethodHere, we (...) address this gap, collecting normative data from 101 adults aged 18–45.ResultsOur data indicate that performance on the Spatial Learning Task is not influenced by age, gender, level of education or overall IQ. Less than 10% of the variance in learning scores is associated with variability in verbal memory. Ninety percent of participants achieved perfect scores on two successive trials (T2Cr) within five or fewer trials on the Spatial Learning Task. A T2Cr score of 6 is suggestive of impairment and a T2Cr score of 7 or more is statistically abnormal.ConclusionThese data expand the clinical utility of the Spatial Learning Task in the adult population. Future work should examine performance in lower IQ cohorts, including intellectual disability, and explore sensitivity to disease factors such as laterality of mesial temporal lobe damage. (shrink)

Over recent decades there has been a growing interest in the question of whether computer programs are capable of genuinely creative activity. Although this notion can be explored as a purely philosophical debate, an alternative perspective is to consider what aspects of the behaviour of a program might be noted or measured in order to arrive at an empirically supported judgement that creativity has occurred. We sketch out, in general abstract terms, what goes on when a potentially creative program is (...) constructed and run, and list some of the relationships (for example, between input and output) which might contribute to a decision about creativity. Specifically, we list a number of criteria which might indicate interesting properties of a program’s behaviour, from the perspective of possible creativity. We go on to review some ways in which these criteria have been applied to actual implementations, and some possible improvements to this way of assessing creativity. (shrink)

There is a short answer to the question, whether scientific method can be applied to the study of the social relations of men, or, whether social sciences are possible; it is that these sciences exist and are in fact among the most ancient. Their success has perhaps been less startling than that of the physical sciences and they have perhaps been pursued with less enthusiasm. But there are reasons for this inherent in the nature of the social sciences, as I (...) shall try to show. (shrink)

Everybody is to some extent pacific, as everybody prefers to attain his ends by peaceful means if he can. Even the most bloodthirsty militarist uses threats of war rather than war, if threats will do the work. Though most people prefer persuasion to violence and peace to war, they are prepared as a last resort to go to war and use violence, when that seems the only means to attaining some end they consider to be of vital importance. The one (...) hundred per cent pacifist, however, refuses to engage in war or support warlike action under any circumstances whatever. It is his case that I wish to consider. It is not my purpose to try to persuade anyone to be a pacifist or to be the opposite, but to point out that absolute pacifism carries with it certain logical consequences which are not particularly palatable. The opposed view, which I shall call the case for civic virtues, also carries unpalatable though different consequences. These two appear to be simple and clear-cut opposed views which I propose to state as fairly as I can, with their consequences. Certain qualifications and modifications will have to be considered later, but I do not think that there is actually any possible mean position which avoids the dilemma I am concerned to present. I shall state the case for civic virtue first and the pacifist case second. (shrink)

There are many possible ways of approach to philosophy, and there is also an impossible one, though one that has often been tried. That the philosopher can somehow spin his philosophy out of what he finds inside himself; that he has some private internal source of information in virtue of which he can decide what the Universe must be, without needing to take the trouble to look at it, is a belief that dies hard. But it is now dying, if (...) not dead, so that it is hardly necessary to refute it in detail. It should suffice to say that anybody who cherishes the belief will not find anything to interest him in what follows. I shall simply assume that the philosopher is, what we all are to some extent, a spectator of the world and of man's life in it and a commentator on what he sees. Where the philosopher differs from others is in the kind of interest he takes in the facts, not in the kind of facts that are there to be interested in. (shrink)

The claims that Dr. F. H. George makes on behalf of his machines are obscurely stated. Does he claim that a machine has been made and has actually produced a kind of response which is incalculable, given the specification to which it has been built and also the prescribed conditions, what is put in for the particular performance in question? “Incalculable” does not mean that nobody has bothered to calculate, but that somebody has bothered, that the calculations show that the (...) response in question is not among the calculated ones, that it is not chance or mechanical breakdown, but a specific response to something specific among the given conditions. If he could substantiate this claim, then I would reluctantly agree that some machines are cleverer and more thoughtful than I thought possible, and some men sillier and less thoughtful, for they deliberately design machines to do they know not what. (shrink)

Positivists have excelled at destructive criticism. This criticism has been useful for pruning away absurd and superfluous theories but it is liable to be used to prune away everything else. The latest exponents, the Logical Positivists, are no less adept at criticism than their predecessors. The doctrines of this school have been surrounded with an air of mystery and inquirers have been frightened off by alarming technical apparatus. We all know that the Logical Positivists had proved that everybody else talked (...) nonsense, but we did not know what they themselves talked. Mr. A. J. Ayer's exposition of the doctrine, Language, Truth and Logic , is therefore welcome as it is simple. (shrink)

Those who have advocated belief in immortality have often spoiled their case by arguing for different theories without realizing that they were different. Those who have opposed the belief have been apt to think that when they had disposed of one theory they had done all they set out to do. The first condition for clarity of thought on the subject is therefore to distinguish the different types of theory which have been put forward. This is my primary aim in (...) the following discussion. If, in the course of it, I speak more favourably of one theory and less favourably of others, it must be understood that this bias is incidental to my present theme, which is to examine assertions rather than to assert. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

We examined the extent to which the perceived changes in visual imagery colorfulness impact on the affect intensity associated with ordinary autobiographical events across time. We garnered support for the hypothesis that recent events become memorial phenomena via an emotion regulation process such that positive events retained their affective pleasantness longer than negative events retained affective unpleasantness because, in part, across 2 weeks the former retained their imagery colorfulness longer than the latter events did. A similar but distinct model was (...) unsupported. We discuss the significance of imagery colorfulness and affect intensity in the context of memory for everyday autobiographical events. (shrink)