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This paper investigates the influence of depth of field on change detection in both pictorial and solid scenes. In this work, a within-subjects experiment is conducted using a flicker paradigm, with which the hit rate and response time for change detection are obtained. The results show that depth of field has effects on change detection: the hit rate is smaller and response time is longer in the scene with small depth of field than in the scene with large depth of field or uniform blur. It is concluded that when depth of field is small and binocular disparity is not zero in a picture, the influence of depth of field on change detection is more significant than binocular disparity. This conclusion leads to the result that the change in the sharp area is detected easier and faster than in the area that is closer to the observer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: It is commonly believed that individuals make choices based upon their preferences and have access to the reasons for their choices. Recent studies in several areas suggest that this is not always the case. In choice blindness paradigms, two-alternative forced-choice in which chosen-options are later replaced by the unselected option, individuals often fail to notice replacement of their chosen option, confabulate explanations for why they chose the unselected option, and even show increased preferences for the unselected-but-replaced options immediately after choice (seconds). Although choice blindness has been replicated across a variety of domains, there are numerous outstanding questions. Firstly, we sought to investigate how individual- or trial-factors modulated detection of the manipulations. Secondly, we examined the nature and temporal duration (minutes vs. days) of the preference alterations induced by these manipulations. Methods: Participants performed a computerized choice blindness task, selecting the more attractive face between presented pairs of female faces, and providing a typewritten explanation for their choice on half of the trials. Chosen-face cue manipulations were produced on a subset of trials by presenting the unselected face during the choice explanation as if it had been selected. Following all choice trials, participants rated the attractiveness of each face individually, and rated the similarity of each face pair. After approximately two weeks, participants re-rated the attractiveness of each individual face online. Results: Participants detected manipulations on only a small proportion of trials, with detections by fewer than half of participants. Detection rates increased with the number of prior detections, and detection rates subsequent to first detection were modulated by the choice certainty. We show clear short-term modulation of preferences in both manipulated and non-manipulated explanation trials compared to choice-only trials (with opposite directions of effect). Preferences were altered in the direction that subjects were led to believe they selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article attempts to show that the metaphorical conception of human being as a machine takes a very specific epistemological standpoint. To make short the complex task of considering the implication of this paradigm for psychological and behavioral sciences, three important mismatches between the machine and the living human will be considered. Experience, agency and plasticity of human being are excluded in the scientific models and research activities when they are situated in the machine paradigm. For this reason, I claim that the machine paradigm does not offer the relevant frame for integrating results from various domains or approaches within human sciences, even if it can sometimes produce relevant scientific knowledge in certain domain at the scale of detailed investigation. Due to the importance of overcoming the fragmentation of scientific knowledge to solve the crisis in psychology, an “organic paradigm” should be elaborated which provides a new epistemological framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine whether and how some intuitions about the nature of our minds are preserved within the paradigm inspired by the hypothesis of the “extended mind”. These intuitions include the ideas of the mind as a locus of cognition, a space in which we exhibit a special (and maybe privileged) access and an unified and homogeneous realm of interrelated states. All these aspects are manifestations of one idea: the authority exhibited by the cognitive agent in the control of her cognitive activity. Along the paper, I present different ways of understanding the programs interested in situating cognitive activities (situated cognition, embodied cognition, embedded cognition, extended cognition, distributed cognition, collective cognition…). I will briefly revise some criticisms of the hypothesis of the extended mind. I will argue that what is at stake is the kind of cognitive authority that exhibits an agent once it is conceived as integrating and coordinating internal and external elements in her cognitive activities. This kind of hybridization is grounded not only in the different contributions of both elements but also in the fact that the cognitive evaluations involved are based on a certain criterion of homogeneity of the intentional and rational space. I will also discuss traditional examples of cognitive extensions through the coordination of internal and external representations, and the use of cognitive artefacts. Finally, I will present some doubts about whether these external elements must be considered as parts of the mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific knowledge as opposed to common-sense knowledge entails a methodological revolution based on a search not for essences, in Aristotelian sense, but for mathematical functions, in Galilean sense, originated from the controlled experiment and founded on the concept of a closed OT isolated system. The Priestley-Lavoisier dispute is an historical example that shows clearly the disjunction between pre-science and science. This methodological revolution has not yet been achieved in the field of "social sciences" for the persisting prejudices about dualism between man and nature. Starting from this situation, the paper emphasizes the need for a definition of the research about man and society that overcomes the obstacles and the presuppositions of philosophical ideology and common sense, according to the distinctive features of scientific inquiry and the corresponding requirements for the scientific language. In particular, with reference to the language of every science, the condition of semantic homogeneity of predicates is analyzed, and the main misunderstandings deriving from the non-conformity to this basic criterion (that have so far not allowed a development of a real social science) are pointed out; namely: (a) the consideration of the languages that designate the different fields of research (economics, psychology and sociology) as pairwise disjoint sets, even if there are clear intersections among them, and (b) the resort within the current "social sciences" language to pseudo-functions, whose domain is a set of internal (cognitive) events, or a set of biological events, and the range is a set of external (behavioral) events. According to these remarks, some criticisms to McIntyre's paper, published in this issue, are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]