Two experiments were conducted to examine whether the resistance to extinction obtained in evaluative conditioning (EC) studies implies that EC is a qualitatively distinct form of classical conditioning (Baeyens, Eelen, & Crombez, 1995 Baeyens, F, Eelen, P, and Crombez, G, (1995a). Pavlovian associations are forever: On classical conditioning and extinction, Journal of Psychophysiology 9 ((1995a)), pp. 127–141.[Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]a) or whether it is the result of an nonassociative artefact (Field & Davey, 1997 Field, AP, and (...) Davey, GCL, (1997). Conceptual conditioning: Evidence for an artifactual account of evaluative learning, Learning and Motivation 25 ((1997)), pp. 446–464.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar], 1998 Field, AP, and Davey, GCL, (1998). Evaluative conditioning: Arti‐fact or ‐fiction?‐ A reply to Baeyens, De Houwer, Vansteenwegen, and Eelen (1998), Learning and Motivation 29 ((1998)), pp. 475–491.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar], 1999 Field, AP, and Davey, GCL, (1999). Reevaluating evaluative conditioning: A nonassociative explanation of conditioning effects in the visual evaluative conditioning paradigm, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes 25 ((1999)), pp. 211–224.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]). Both experiments included between‐subjects control groups in addition to standard within‐subjects control conditions. In Experiment 1, only verbal ratings were measured in order to evaluate the effect of postacquisition CS‐only exposures on EC whereas in Experiment 2, verbal ratings and postextinction priming effects were measured. The results showed that the EC effects are demonstrable in a between‐subjects design and that the extinction procedure did not have any influence on the acquired evaluative value of CSs regardless of whether the verbal ratings or the priming effects were used as dependent variables. The present results provide evidence that EC is resistant to extinction and suggest an interpretation of EC as a qualitatively distinct form of associative learning. (shrink)

The thylacine was a shy and elusive nonhuman animal who survived in small numbers on the island of Tasmania, Australia, when European settlers arrived in 1803. After a deliberate campaign of eradication, the species disappeared 130 years later. Visual and verbal constructions in the nineteenth century labeled the thylacine a ferocious predator, but photographs of individuals in British and American zoos that were used to illustrate early twentieth-century zoological works presented a very different impression of the animal. The publication of (...) these photographs, however, had little effect on the relentless progress of extermination. This essay focuses on the relationship between photographs of thylacines and the process of extinction, between images and words, and between pictures of dead animals and live ones. The procedures, claims, and limitations of photography are crucial to the messages generated by these images and to the role they played in the representation of the species. This essay explains why the medium of photography and pleas for preservation could not save the thylacine. (shrink)

Two semantic paradoxes, the Liar and Curry’s paradox, are analysed using a newly developed conception of procedural semantics (semantics according to which the truth of propositions is determined algorithmically), whose main characteristic is its departure from methodological realism. Rather than determining pre-existing facts, procedures are constitutive of them. Of this semantics, two versions are considered: closed (where the halting of procedures is presumed) and open (without this presumption). To this end, a procedural approach to deductive reasoning is developed, based on (...) the idea of simulation. As is shown, closed semantics supports classical logic, but cannot in any straightforward way accommodate the concept of truth. In open semantics, where paradoxical propositions naturally ‘belong’, they cease to be paradoxical; yet, it is concluded that the natural choice—for logicians and common people alike—is to stick to closed semantics, pragmatically circumventing problematic utterances. (shrink)

Encoding sensory events entails processing of several physical attributes. Is the processing of any of these attributes a pre-requisite of conscious awareness? This selective review examines a recent set of behavioral and event-related potentials, studies conducted in patients with visual and auditory unilateral neglect or extinction, with the aim of establishing what aspects of initial processing are impaired in these patients. These studies suggest that extinguished visual stimuli excite the sensory cortices, but perhaps to a lesser degree than acknowledged (...) stimuli do. However, encoding spatial attributes of auditory and visual stimuli appear to be preferentially impaired. In light of results from patients with other neuro-behavioral deficits, it is argued that egocentric spatial information is an essential pre-requisite for knowing that an external event occurred. In contrast, information handled by mostly domain-specific circuits, such as in the ventral temporal lobe, supports awareness of the identity of a stimulus, but not of its mere presence. Without spatial information, the stimulus identity will remain implicit. (shrink)

In the opening of the article, the author briefly assesses the existing legal regulations of criminal procedure in the Czech Republic adopted as far back as in 1961. He points out to specific imperfections, which justify the need for their recodification. The mainstay of the article is devoted to the very pre-trial proceedings, i.e. checking and investigation. The existing legal regulations are analysed, and selected application problems are mentioned in relation to the recodification under preparation.

Nick Bostrom’s recently patched ‘‘simulation argument’’ (Bostrom in Philos Q 53:243–255, 2003; Bos- trom and Kulczycki in Analysis 71:54–61, 2011) purports to demonstrate the probability that we ‘‘live’’ now in an ‘‘ancestor simulation’’—that is as a simulation of a period prior to that in which a civilization more advanced than our own—‘‘post-human’’—becomes able to simulate such a state of affairs as ours. As such simulations under consid- eration resemble ‘‘brains in vats’’ (BIVs) and may appear open to similar objections, the (...) paper begins by reviewing objections to BIV-type proposals, specifically those due a presumed mad envatter. In counter example, we explore the motivating rationale behind current work in the development of psychologically realistic social simula- tions. Further concerns about rendering human cognition in a computational medium are confronted through review of current dynamic systems models of cognitive agency. In these models, aspects of the human condition are repro- duced that may in other forms be considered incomputable, i.e., political voice, predictive planning, and consciousness. The paper then argues that simulations afford a unique potential to secure a post-human future, and may be nec- essary for a pre-post-human civilization like our own to achieve and to maintain a post-human situation. Long-s- tanding philosophical interest in tools of this nature for Aristotle’s ‘‘statesman’’ and more recently for E.O. Wilson in the 1990s is observed. Self-extinction-level threats from State and individual levels of organization are compared, and a likely dependence on large-scale psychologically realistic simulations to get past self-extinction-level threats is projected. In the end, Bostrom’s basic argument for the conviction that we exist now in a simulation is reaffirmed. (shrink)

Why should one person obey another? Why (to ask the question from the first-person perspective) ought I to submit to another and follow her judgment rather than my own? In modern political thought, which denies that some are born rulers and others are born to be ruled, the most prominent answer has been: “Because I have consented to her authority.” By making authority conditional on the subjects’ consent, political philosophers have sought to reconcile authority’s hierarchical structure with the equal moral (...) standing of governor and governed. Yet such consent accounts of authority have long been deemed problematic on a number of grounds, not the least of which is that few citizens have given their consent to the state under whose laws they live. So unless we are willing to deny the state’s authority over those who have not consented, or revert to the pre-modern assumption of a natural political hierarchy, we must find another way of reconciling authority with our standing as free and equal moral agents. In recent political and legal philosophy, the most influential solution to this problem has been Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority, according to which legitimate authority, while it does not require the consent of the governed, must exist for their sake, or serve them. The normal way to justify someone’s authority, on the service conception, is to show that, by treating her directives as binding, the subjects are likely better to conform to reasons that apply to them anyway. The service conception has, however, recently been criticized (by, among others, Thomas Christiano, Scott Hershovitz, and Jeremy Waldron) for being insufficiently attuned to the significance that procedural, and in particular democratic, features of political and legal institutions have for the justification of their authority. If these ‘democratic critics’ are right, then two commitments that many in the liberal-democratic tradition may find independently attractive turn out to be in tension: the liberal idea that authority is normally legitimate only insofar as it serves its subjects, and the democratic idea that legitimate authority can (and regularly does) rest on fair procedures. In this article I argue that the critics’ arguments rest on a misunderstanding of the service conception; yet their worries point the way to an under-appreciated and interesting view of democracy as an authoritative arbitration procedure. After introducing the service conception’s view of justified authority, I briefly distinguish a broad and a narrow interpretation of it, and suggest that we should embrace the latter to make sense of the idea that political authority serves its subjects (Section I). Next I turn to the objection raised by the democratic critics: the service conception, they say, cannot make room for the intrinsic fairness of democratic procedures because it is preoccupied with the quality of outcomes (Section II). But, I argue, the objection rests on an illicit identification of two different kinds of outcomes: the outcome of the decision-making procedure on the one hand, the outcome or result of treating that first outcome as authoritative on the other. Distinguishing between these is crucial for an adequate understanding of democracy’s authority. While the service conception is indeed organized around the latter, this does not commit it to an exclusive concern with the former; yet it is a singular commitment to the former that is problematic from a democratic point of view (Section III). To bring home this point, I sketch a model of authority as arbitration that is frequently overlooked in recent discussions of authority even though it is centrally concerned with procedural (and ultimately democratic) values and fits squarely into the service conception of authority (Section IV). (shrink)

Contrary to the widely accepted consensus, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that there are no pre-institutional judicial procedural rights. Thus commonly affirmed rights like the right to a fair trial cannot be assumed in the literature on punishment and legal philosophy as they usually are. Wellman canvasses and rejects a variety of grounds proposed for such rights. I answer his skepticism by proposing two novel grounds for procedural rights. First, a general right against unreasonable risk of punishment grounds rights to an (...) institutionalized system of punishment. Second, to complement and extend the first ground, I more controversially propose a right to provision of the robust good of security. People have a right to others' protecting for avoiding wrongfully harming them: when I take an action that is reasonably expected to threaten the protected interests of others, I must take appropriate care to avoid setting back those interests. Inflicting punishment on someone--intentionally harming them in response to a violation--is prima facie wrongful, so I can only count as taking appropriate care in punishing when I follow familiar procedures that reliably and redundantly test whether they are liable to such punishment, i.e. whether they have forfeited their right against punishment through a culpable act. (shrink)

In his earlier work on the System of Transcendental Idealism, which combined Naturphilosophie and transcendental philosophy, Schelling argued that it is only by becoming-art that philosophy can complete itself as a discipline. He proposed this formulation in response to Kant’s critical inventory of reason offering to reclaim philosophy from its entanglement in pre-critical or dogmatic traditions. But Kant avoided to ground reason in the notion of externality, the in-itself, which, owing to its pre-critical derivation, must give way to the a (...) prioris and categories of the understanding. Meanwhile, by renewing the problem of the in-itself via the self-positing ego, Fichte was the first to challenge the Kantian legacy. But the emphasis on subjectivity through its power of self-positing gave way to what in principle negates nature as the true ground of the initself; in Schelling’s description, the equivalent of the annihilation of nature. Comparatively, Schelling proposed to demonstrate the reverse, which is the extinction of the subject that has continued to nourish the reflexive standpoint of reason. To accomplish this end, Schelling invoked in his Philosophy of Art, one of the places in which he extended his discussion of the so-called identity-system, the concept of the ideal type, or rather, the destroyer of known world established by critical reason. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAvoidance towards innocuous cues is a key diagnostic criterion across anxiety-related disorders. Importantly, the most effective intervention for anxiety-related disorders, exposure therapy with response prevention, sometimes does not prevent the relapse of anxiety's symptomatology. We tested whether extinction effects, the experimental proxy of exposure, are enhanced by increasing the discrepancy between the prediction of an unpleasant event happening, and the actual event. Forty-eight individuals first saw pictures of three stimuli. Two pictures were followed by a shock and one was (...) not. Next, participants learned to avoid the US by pressing a computer key. An extinction and response prevention procedure followed. In the first part of it, participants saw unreinforced presentations of all CSs. In the second part, the single group saw unreinforced presentations of the CSA and CS-. The compound group encountered compound unreinforced prese... (shrink)

ABSTRACTTwo high-powered experiments examined the role of evaluative response production in the extinction of evaluative conditioning by positioning EC in the procedural and conceptual framewo...

In The Principles of Psychology, William James (1981) has long ago suggested that attending to a stimulus can make it appear more ‘vivid and clear.’ Pre-cueing, the procedure in which a cue stimulus is presented to direct a subject’s attention to the location of a test stimulus, has been used to test James’ hypothesis (Posner, 1978; Carrasco et al., 2004; Carrasco, Loula, & Ho, 2006; Yeshurun & Rashal, 2010; Carrasco, 2011). One recent debate concerns whether the effects of pre-cueing (...) and other perceptual changes associated with covert attention are evidence for cognitive penetration. In this paper, we argue that the pre-cueing effects associated with covert attention are similar to perceptual learning effects, despite the former having more transient effects than the latter. -/- . (shrink)

The process of territorial planning is complicated, because there are different and even opposite interest of persons related with particular territory. Administrative legal regulation of territorial planning in Lithuania underlies emergence of a legal conflict, namely the administrative litigation. Investigation of the administrative dispute applying the pre-litigation procedure allows the parties thereof to save both money and time. This article presents the problematic aspects of the pre-trial investigation of the administrative disputes arising in the area of territorial planning. The (...) article is composed of an introduction, three parts and conclusions. In the first part the characteristics of the disputes arising in the area of territorial planning, the preconditions of origin, and the demand for the pre-trial investigation thereof are analyzed. Legal regulation of pre-trial investigation out-of-court of the disputes arising in the area of territorial planning is revealed in the second part. In the third part key provisions of the reform of the pre-trial investigation out-of-court of the disputes arising in the area of territorial planning are discussed. (shrink)

The access to human pre‐implantation embryos that is afforded by procedures now developed for the treatment of infertility presents the possibility of very early prenatal diagnosis, before implantation in the uterus, of certain genetic diseases. Only the normal embryos would be replaced in the mother for initiation of implantation and pregnancy. Early experiments on a mouse model for Lesch‐Nyhan syndrome (HPRT‐deficiency) show that pre‐implantation diagnosis of genetic disease is feasible.

This essay uses the global impact of the Coronavirus as a heuristic semiotic for exploring the future of the church. Unlike the pandemic of 1918, which left few dents on the world's economic, social, and cultural systems, almost all the nations of the world have passed laws and implemented procedures that are only comparable to world wars in their impact on entire populations. Nations are acting in unison, but not in unity. This post-COVID, post-Corona world is the 'time that is (...) given' to the church. But it will not be a post-pandemic world. We may become COVID-proof, but we will never be pandemic-proof. There is no pre-COVID reset. There is only risk assessment from natural extinction risks to existential dangers of our own creation that are catching up to us. Disruption is the new status that is never quo; stability is the new abnormality; global cataclysm is the ever-present peril. The only way to prepare for a future of constant 'the end of the world as we know it?' moments is by developing a high Contextual Quotient, and deepening our Contextual Intelligence so we can choose 'the next right thing' in a world of volcanic volatility. CONTRIBUTION: This essay frames the semiotics of a missional ecclesiology in the COVIDian wake from the hermeneutics of blessings not curses. What virtues might we expect to come out of a virus that is fast-forwarding the future, virtues that will shape the contours of Christianity. What if the pandemic is a shock treatment that is putting the world, and the church, back in a new and better equilibrium? What if there are goldmines on the other side of the landmines and minefields? (shrink)

Two lecture styles were examined to determine which was more effective for enhancing content learning in college students. The same experienced guest lecturer presented information about bipolar disorder (a combination of depression and mania) to college students in human service-related fields. Students in classes assigned to the control group received a standard, didactic lecture. In classes assigned to the experimental group, the presenter began the lecture by informing the students that she had bipolar disorder and enhanced the standard didactic lecture (...) by interspersing descriptions of her personal experiences living with bipolar disorder. Content-specific pre-tests and post-tests developed by the researchers were used to compare acquisition of knowledge about the disorder across groups of students. Results showed that students who received the personal/experiential lecture acquired significantly more knowledge about bipolar disorder than did students who received the standard, didactic lecture. Theories and procedures that may enhance student learning and thinking in related areas are discussed. (shrink)

In ‘What’s Wrong with Colonialism,’ Lea Ypi argues that the wrong of colonialism can be expressed as procedural wrongs, not as wronging territorial rights. On her view, colonial practices went wrong in two ways: they forced residents into political associations, and the terms of the political association were not established through equal and reciprocal negotiations. I argue that because Ypi’s account successfully side-lines all but essential claims to territory, her theory ends up being vulnerable to an objection it means to (...) avoid. Historical residents may be subject to unequal treatment under newly formed political associations because their historical patterns of land use are not considered to have any independent moral weight. My analysis does not rely on any appeal to property or territorial rights. Instead, I appeal to pre-existing obligations holding between residents. (shrink)

Previous studies have offered indications that the way pre-adolescents structure their perceptions of their teacher’s interaction in terms of Agency and Communion differs from adolescents. The purpose of this study was to delineate previous findings by thoroughly examining the structure of pre-adolescents’ perceptions of their teacher’s interpersonal behaviour, and by investigating the extent to which this structure relates to pre-adolescents’ learning outcomes. A mixed methods research design was implemented including a qualitative instrument adaptation procedure followed by a quantitative large-scale (...) administration. Participants for the latter were a random sample of 504 pre-adolescents and 36 teachers. Results showed that participants placed significantly more emphasis on their teachers’ Communion behavioural dimension and this emphasis was illustrated on the association of perceived teacher interaction and students’ learning outcomes. Implications for theory, research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

The process dissociation procedure (PDP) of implicit sequence learning states that the correct inclusion-task response contains the incorrect exclusion-task response. However, there has been no research to test the hypothesis. The current study used a single variable (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony SOA: 850 ms vs. 1350 ms) between-subjects design, with pre-task resting-state fMRI, to test and improve the classical PDP to the mutually exclusive theory (MET). (1) Behavioral data and neuroimaging data demonstrated that the classical PDP has not been validated. (...) In the SOA = 850 ms group, the correct inclusion-task response was at chance, but the incorrect exclusion-task response occurred greater than chance. In the SOA = 850 ms group, the two responses were not correlated, but in the SOA = 1,350 ms group and putting the two groups together, the two responses were in contrast to each other. In each group, brain areas whose amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFFs) in the resting-state related to the two responses were either completely different or opposite to one another. However, the results were perfectly consistent with the MET proposed by the present study which suggests that the correct inclusion-task response is equal to the correct exclusion-task response is equal toC+A1, and the incorrect exclusion-task response is equal toA2.Cdenotes the controlled response andA1andA2denote two different automatic responses. (2) The improved PDP was proposed to categorize the 12 kinds of triplets as delineating four knowledge types, namely non-acquisition of knowledge, uncontrollable knowledge, half-controllable knowledge, and controllable knowledge with the MET. ALFFs in the resting-state could predict the four knowledge types of the improved PDP among two groups. The participants’ control of the four knowledge types (degree of consciousness) gradually improved. Correspondingly, the brain areas in the resting-state positively related to the four knowledge types, gradually changed from the sensory and motor network to the somatic sensorimotor network, and then to the implicit learning network, and then to the consciousness network. The brain areas in the resting-state negatively related to the four knowledge types gradually changed from the consciousness network to the sensory and motor network. As SOA increased, the brain areas associated with almost all the four knowledge types changed. (3) The inhomogeneous hypothesis of the MET is best suited to interpret behavioral and neuroimaging data; it states that the same components among the four knowledge types are not homogeneous, and the same knowledge types are not homogeneous between the two SOA groups. (shrink)

Existing justifications for exclusionary rules and stays of proceedings in response to pre-trial wrongdoing by police officers and prosecutors are often thought to be counter-productive or disproportionate in their consequences. This article begins to explore whether the concept of standing to blame can provide a fresh justification for such responses. It focuses on a vice related to standing—hypocrisy—and a related vice concerning inconsistent blame. It takes seriously the point that criminal justice agencies, although all part of the State, are in (...) real terms separated from each other, and analyses the so-called separation thesis (or theses). It concludes that hypocrisy and inconsistent blame arguments could plausibly justify exclusion and stays only in relation to lower-level offending, and even there only indirectly. This is in the sense that exclusion and stays are expressions of judicial frustration with other bodies for their failure to take pre-trial wrongdoing seriously. (shrink)