Cognitive Science
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Some brief thoughts on Theory of Mind as an information-processing theory of social cognition. It is plausible that our intersubjective understanding of one another is a matter of processing input data? I explore a parallel case: does Big... more
Some brief thoughts on Theory of Mind as an information-processing theory of social cognition. It is plausible that our intersubjective understanding of one another is a matter of processing input data? I explore a parallel case: does Big Data let us know one another? After all, it gives us rich information about actions, intentions, habits, and personality. I conclude that neither BIg Data nor information-processing generally is reasonable, plausible, or adequate way to think about social cognition.
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"The conduct of any science is influenced by methodological commitments of its scientists. These commitments vary between theoretical schools, and become most apparent in the context of a theoretical conflict. Psychology is particularly... more
"The conduct of any science is influenced by methodological commitments of its scientists. These commitments vary between theoretical schools, and become most apparent in the context of a theoretical conflict. Psychology is particularly influenced by psychologists' epistemological views, views on the nature of scientific knowledge and how it is best obtained. The notion of "epistemological parity" is here introduced as a mechanism by which a psychologist's substantive theory and epistemological views are adjusted one to another. The interaction between epistemology and substantive theory is examined in a historical case study of the "place versus response" controversy. This dispute matched a group of S-R behaviorists against a group of cognitive psychologists headed by E. C. Tolman. The issue is commonly called a "pseudoproblem" by behaviorists. It is argued that the great difficulty in resolving the issue was due to unacknowledged differences in epistemology between the parties. The two sides of the dispute each achieved epistemological parity, but in very different ways. Such theory/epistemology interactions influence the course of debate and experiment in ways unique to psychology. A second contribution of this study is its discussion
of the pre-1950 roots of modern cognitive psychology.
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of the pre-1950 roots of modern cognitive psychology.
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In “Neurosentimentalism and Moral Agency” (Mind 2010) Philip Gerrans and Jeanette Kennett argue that prominent versions of metaethical sentimentalism and moral realism ignore the importance, for moral agency and moral judgment, of the... more
In “Neurosentimentalism and Moral Agency” (Mind 2010) Philip Gerrans and Jeanette Kennett argue that prominent versions of metaethical sentimentalism and moral realism ignore the importance, for moral agency and moral judgment, of the capacity to experientially project oneself into the past and possible futures – to engage in ‘mental time travel’ (MTT). They argue that such views are committed to taking subjects with impaired capacities for MTT to be moral judgers, and thus confront a dilemma: either allow that these subjects are moral agents, or deny that moral agency is required for moral judgment. In reply, we argue for two main claims. First, it is implausible that moral agency is required for moral judgment, and Gerrans and Kennett give us no good reason for thinking it is. Second, at least some of the subjects in question seem able to make moral judgments, and Gerrans and Kennett give us no good reason to doubt that they can. We conclude that they have not shown a problem for any of the metaethical views in question.
The hippocampus is essential for the formation and retrieval of memories and is a crucial neural structure sub-serving complex cognition. Adult hippocampal neurogenesis, the birth, migration and integration of new neurons, is thought to... more
The hippocampus is essential for the formation and retrieval of memories and is a crucial neural structure sub-serving complex cognition. Adult hippocampal neurogenesis, the birth, migration and integration of new neurons, is thought to contribute to hippocampal circuit plasticity to augment function. We evaluated hippocampal volume in relation to brain volume in 375 mammal species and examined 71 mammal species for the presence of adult hippocampal neurogenesis using immunohistochemistry for doublecortin, an endogenous marker of immature neurons that can be used as a proxy marker for the presence of adult neurogenesis. We identified that the hippocampus in cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) is both absolutely and relatively small for their overall brain size, and found that the mammalian hippocampus scaled as an exponential function in relation to brain volume. In contrast, the amygdala was found to scale as a linear function of brain volume, but again, the relative size of the amygdala in cetaceans was small. The cetacean hippocampus lacks staining for doublecortin in the dentate gyrus and thus shows no clear signs of adult hippocampal neurogenesis. This lack of evidence of adult hippocampal neurogenesis, along with the small hippocampus, questions current assumptions regarding cognitive abilities associated with hippocampal function in the cetaceans. These anatomical features of the cetacean hippocampus may be related to the lack of postnatal sleep, causing a postnatal cessation of hippocampal neurogenesis.
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