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Ransom, Fazelpour, and Mole (this journal - 2017) raise an important puzzle for the ‘prediction error minimization’ account of cognitive processing. That account depicts all cognitive processing as fundamentally in the business of minimizing prediction errors concerning the evolving flow of sensory information. One of the cornerstones of these highly ambitious, would-be unifying accounts is their depiction of attention as nothing other than the process of optimizing the precision (inverse variance) of critical prediction error signals. But that story, Ransom et al. suggest, cannot accommodate voluntary shifts of attention. In this paper, I show why this challenge to the grand unifying project fails. It fails because it locates the origins of voluntary attention in complexes of unanalyzed desire rather than in changing complexes of beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dissociation between the processing of verbs and nouns has been debated in light of the Embodied Cognition Theory (EC). The objective of this paper is to verify how action and verb processing deficits of PD patients are modulated by different tasks with different cognitive demands. Action and object lexical-semantic processing was evaluated in patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) and cognitively healthy controls through three different tasks (verbal fluency, naming and semantic association). Compared to controls, PD patients presented worse performance in naming actions and in the two semantic association tasks (action/object). Action verbal fluency performance was significantly associated with PD severity whereas object semantic association deficits and noun verbal fluency scores were associated to lower scores in measures of global cognitive functioning. Our data suggest that semantic deficits are related to the type of cognitive processing and this is in the line with more flexible EC accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been substantial growth in neuroimaging studies investigating neural correlates of symbolic (e.g. Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (e.g. dot arrays) number processing. At present it remains contested whether number is represented abstractly, or if number representations in the brain are format-dependent. In order to quantitatively evaluate the available neuroimaging evidence, we used activation likelihood estimation (ALE) to conduct quantitative meta-analyses of the results reported in 57 neuroimaging papers. Consistent with the existence of an abstract representation of number in the brain, conjunction analyses revealed overlapping activation for symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers in frontal and parietal lobes. Consistent with the notion of format-dependent activation, contrast analyses demonstrated anatomically distinct fronto-parietal activation for symbolic and non-symbolic processing. Therefore, symbolic and non-symbolic numbers are subserved by format-dependent and abstract neural systems. Moreover, the present results suggest that regions across the parietal cortex, not just the intraparietal sulcus, are engaged in both symbolic and non-symbolic number processing, challenging the notion that the intraparietal sulcus is the key region for number processing. Additionally, our analyses indicate that regions in the frontal cortex subserve magnitude representations rather than non-numerical cognitive processes associated with number tasks, thereby highlighting the importance of considering both frontal and parietal regions as important for number processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main thrust of this paper is to argue that teleology is the way by which we tend to understand ourselves and others in routine cases. Since teleology has an inbuilt slant towards cooperation, it may be the essence of what made Homo sapiens , starting with Homo heidelbergensis , the cooperative species it is. We present the critical features of the teleological approach in terms of justifying reasons for action. These features differentiate teleology from theory of mind (theory theory) and mental simulation. Our emphasis on justifying reasons also distinguishes our teleology from other approaches under the same heading. We also point out the limitations of teleology when it comes to competition, understanding subjective mental perspectives and cultural differences. Although our grand picture is speculative, we firm up our claims with data from children's cooperation and their appreciation of competition that appear in stages reminiscent of Piaget's view on development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Fechner remains virtually unknown for his psychological research on the unconscious. However, he was one of the most prominent theorists of unconscious cognition of the 19th century, in the context of the rise of scientific investigations on the unconscious in German psychology. In line with the models previously developed by Leibniz and Herbart, Fechner proposes an explanative system of unconscious phenomena based on a modular conception of the mind and on the idea of a functional dissociation between representational and attentional activity. For Fechner, the unconscious is a state of consciousness resulting from the isolation of representational activity from the rest of psychical life. Unconscious mental phenomena are unattended mental states that behave autonomously while remaining able to act on consciousness. This paper aims to revisit Fechner’s contribution to the history of the unconscious, but also the theoretical significance of the Fechnerian unconscious vis-à-vis current research on the cognitive unconscious. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The extended mind thesis (EM) asserts that some cognitive processes are (partially) composed of actions consisting of the manipulation and exploitation of environmental structures. Might some processes at the root of social cognition have a similarly extended structure? In this paper, I argue that social cognition is fundamentally an interactive form of space management—the negotiation and management of “we-space”—and that some of the expressive actions involved in the negotiation and management of we-space (gesture, touch, facial and whole-body expressions) drive basic processes of interpersonal understanding and thus do genuine social-cognitive work. Social interaction is a kind of extended social cognition, driven and at least partially constituted by environmental (non-neural) scaffolding. Challenging the Theory of Mind paradigm, I draw upon research from gesture studies, developmental psychology, and work on Moebius Syndrome to support this thesis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Facial aging, a new dimension that has recently been added to the problem of face recognition, poses interesting theoretical and practical challenges to the research community. The problem which originally generated interest in the psychophysics and human perception community has recently found enhanced interest in the computer vision community. How do humans perceive age? What constitutes an age-invariant signature that can be derived from faces? How compactly can the facial growth event be described? How does facial aging impact recognition performance? In this paper, we give a thorough analysis on the problem of facial aging and further provide a complete account of the many interesting studies that have been performed on this topic from different fields. We offer a comparative analysis of various approaches that have been proposed for problems such as age estimation, appearance prediction, face verification, etc. and offer insights into future research on this topic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper it is proposed that the prefrontal lobe participates in two closely related but different executive function abilities: (1) “metacognitive executive functions”: problem solving, planning, concept formation, strategy development and implementation, controlling attention, working memory, and the like; that is, executive functions as they are usually understood in contemporary neuroscience; and (2) “emotional/motivational executive functions”: coordinating cognition and emotion/motivation (that is, fulfilling biological needs according to some existing conditions). The first one depends on the dorsolateral prefrontal areas, whereas the second one is associated with orbitofrontal and medial frontal areas. Current tests of executive functions basically tap the first ability (metacognitive). Solving everyday problems (functional application of executive functions), however, mostly requires the second ability (emotional/motivational); therefore, these tests have limited ecological validity. Contrary to the traditional points of view, recent evidence suggests that the human prefrontal lobe is similar to other primates and hominids. Other primates and hominids may possess the second (emotional executive functions) prefrontal ability, -but not the first (metacognitive executive functions) one. It is argued that metacognitive executive functions are significantly dependent on culture and cultural instruments. They probably are the result of the development and evolution of some “conceptualization instruments”; language (and written language as an extension of oral language) may represent the most important one. The second executive function ability (emotional/motivational) probably is the result of a biological evolution shared by other primates. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Based on structural differences between spoken and written language, the purpose of this paper was to investigate whether spoken and written communication imply a different representation in reporting an experienced dream. In fact, the clausal-dynamic quality of the former and nominal-synoptic quality of the latter, with the consequent differences in length, cohesion and density, could enhance/reduce the perceptual character and narrative structure of report features often considered in order to assess sleep mentation. In particular, we wondered whether, after eliminating all the elements responsible for the more conspicuous quantitative differences across the two forms (false starts, repetitions, digressions, redundancies), we would obtain two equivalent ways of reporting dreams. Three hundred and two (101 males and 201 females) subjects, raging in age from 18 to 40 years, participated as volunteers in the study and were asked to complete a dream diary daily for 14 days, by tape-recording their own dreams and putting them down in writing. The reports were analyzed by a psycholinguistic system. Results indicated that the report modality is able to affect the dream experience representation, conditioning the figurative (re)translation carried out by the tester: written forms show a loss of hallucinatory information and a non-complete correspondence also of the bizarreness features with respect to the spoken texts. Partialling out for length eliminated any difference between spoken and written dream reports on bizarreness; on the other hand, controlling the sequence effect of the report did not introduce changes. Methodological and theoretical implications were discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper contributes an analysis and formalisation of Damasio’s theory on core consciousness. Three important concepts in this theory are ‘emotion’, ‘feeling’ and ‘feeling a feeling’ (or core consciousness). In particular, a simulation model is described of the dynamics of basic mechanisms leading via emotion and feeling to core consciousness, and dynamic properties are formally specified that hold for these dynamics at a more global level. These properties have been automatically checked for the simulation model. Moreover, a formal analysis is made of relevant notions of representation used by Damasio. As part of this analysis, specifications of representation relations have been verified and confirmed against the simulation model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: According to the majority of the textbooks, the history of modern, scientific psychology can be tidily encapsulated in the following three stages. Scientific psychology began with a commitment to the study of mind, but based on the method of introspection. Watson rejected introspectionism as both unreliable and effete, and redefined psychology, instead, as the science of behaviour. The cognitive revolution, in turn, replaced the mind as the subject of study, and rejected both behaviourism and a reliance on introspection. This paper argues that all three stages of this history are largely mythical. Introspectionism was never a dominant movement within modern psychology, and the method of introspection never went away. Furthermore, this version of psychology’s history obscures some deep conceptual problems, not least surrounding the modern conception of “behaviour,” that continues to make the scientific study of consciousness seem so weird. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper uses whole brain functional neuroimaging in neurologically normal participants to explore how reading aloud differs from object naming in terms of neuronal implementation. In the first experiment, we directly compared brain activation during reading aloud and object naming. This revealed greater activation for reading in bilateral premotor, left posterior superior temporal and precuneus regions. In a second experiment, we segregated the object-naming system into object recognition and speech production areas by factorially manipulating the presence or absence of objects (pictures of objects or their meaningless scrambled counterparts) with the presence or absence of speech production (vocal vs. finger press responses). This demonstrated that the areas associated with speech production (object naming and repetitively saying “OK” to meaningless scrambled pictures) corresponded exactly to the areas where responses were higher for reading aloud than object naming in Experiment 1. Collectively the results suggest that, relative to object naming, reading increases the demands on shared speech production processes. At a cognitive level, enhanced activation for reading in speech production areas may reflect the multiple and competing phonological codes that are generated from the sublexical parts of written words. At a neuronal level, it may reflect differences in the speed with which different areas are activated and integrate with one another. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Examines how theories of self-regulation relate to emotion regulation in young children. • Executive functioning and effortful control perspectives are integrated. • Distinctions between cognitive and emotional emphases of theories are described. • We recommend multi-method assessments including neurophysiological measures. • Future work will focus on emotion regulation and reactivity in the same studies. In this paper, we address how the concept of self-regulation relates to emotion regulation in young children. We define self-regulation as the ability to regulate one's emotions, attention, behavior, and cognition, and emotion regulation as the intrinsic processes used to manage and change one's experience of emotions, emotion-related states, and the behavioral expression of emotions. "Hot" and "cool" processes of self-regulation, and the two primary theoretical perspectives on self-regulation, executive functioning and effortful control are then discussed, delineating the primary dimensions of each, and how both intersect with emotion regulation. Although theory and research on emotion regulation and self-regulation is not typically integrated, conceptually, we view self-regulation as a broader construct within which the intrinsic aspects of emotion regulation are included. Our attempt to integrate both self-regulation perspectives with emotion regulation includes explaining how inhibitory control (a primary executive functioning and effortful control skill) relates to the regulation of emotion, the relative emphasis of emotion and cognition in each theory, and the distinction between automatic (often described as "hot") and conscious ("cool") regulation processes. We then recommend an integration of the theoretical perspectives and employment of multi-method assessment regulation strategies. In addition to using both parent-rated and lab-based observational methods, ongoing and future work in this area will incorporate both executive functioning and effortful control assessments, and neurophysiological measures. One final future research direction will be to focus on emotion regulation and emotional reactivity in the same longitudinal investigations during early childhood, examining optimal regulation for best moderating emotional reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a normative-descriptive strategy for cognitive research. In a set of illustrative experiments based on models from physics, subjects were asked to judge the positions and weights necessary to maintain equilibrium in mechanical displays of varying complexity. Whenever possible subjects' judgments were accounted for through the appropriate normative models; otherwise descriptive models were generated from the normative models and from the results of the other experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part I of this paper is a review of the literature concerning the effects of culture on cognition. The relevance of these studies to interpersonal relations in international organizations is explored. A number of broad hypotheses are suggested. At a more specific level three hypotheses are presented. In the case of high-status visitors working in a low-status culture: (1), the visitor's stereotype of the hosts will be negative; (2) the visitor's stereotype of the host culture will be more negative than the stereotype of members of the visitor's culture who have not come into face-to-face relationships with the host culture; and (3) the stereotype of the hosts toward the visitors will be negative, but will also reflect the presumed higher competence of the visitors. Part II reports a study which supports these hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]