Abstract:   Recent literature on the role of pictorial representation in the life sciences has focused on the relationship between detailed representations of empirical data and more abstract, formal representations of theory. The standard argument is that in both a historical and epistemic sense, this relationship is a directional one: beginning with raw, unmediated images and moving towards diagrams that are more interpreted and more theoretically rich. Using the neural network diagrams of Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts as a case study, I argue that while in the empirical sciences, pictorial representation tends to move from data to theory, in areas of the life sciences that are predominantly theoretical, when abstraction occurs at the outset, the relationship between detail and abstraction in pictorial representations can be of a different character

Abstract: Repression has remained controversial for nearly a century on account of the lack of well-controlled evidence validating it. Here we argue that the conceptual and methodological tools now exist for a rigorous scientific examination of repression, and that a nascent cognitive neuroscience of repression is emerging. We review progress in this area and highlight important questions for this field to address

Abstract: The article analyzes the neural and functional grounding of language skills as well as their emergence in hominid evolution, hypothesizing stages leading from abilities known to exist in monkeys and apes and presumed to exist in our hominid ancestors right through to modern spoken and signed languages. The starting point is the observation that both premotor area F5 in monkeys and Broca's area in humans contain a “mirror system” active for both execution and observation of manual actions, and that F5 and Broca's area are homologous brain regions. This grounded the mirror system hypothesis of Rizzolatti and Arbib (1998) which offers the mirror system for grasping as a key neural “missing link” between the abilities of our nonhuman ancestors of 20 million years ago and modern human language, with manual gestures rather than a system for vocal communication providing the initial seed for this evolutionary process. The present article, however, goes “beyond the mirror” to offer hypotheses on evolutionary changes within and outside the mirror systems which may have occurred to equip Homo sapiens with a language-ready brain. Crucial to the early stages of this progression is the mirror system for grasping and its extension to permit imitation. Imitation is seen as evolving via a so-called simple system such as that found in chimpanzees (which allows imitation of complex “object-oriented” sequences but only as the result of extensive practice) to a so-called complex system found in humans (which allows rapid imitation even of complex sequences, under appropriate conditions) which supports pantomime. This is hypothesized to have provided the substrate for the development of protosign, a combinatorially open repertoire of manual gestures, which then provides the scaffolding for the emergence of protospeech (which thus owes little to nonhuman vocalizations), with protosign and protospeech then developing in an expanding spiral. It is argued that these stages involve biological evolution of both brain and body. By contrast, it is argued that the progression from protosign and protospeech to languages with full-blown syntax and compositional semantics was a historical phenomenon in the development of Homo sapiens, involving few if any further biological changes. Key Words: gestures; hominids; language evolution; mirror system; neurolinguistics; primates; protolanguage; sign language; speech; vocalization

Abstract: The prevailing concept in modern cognitive neuroscience is that cognitive functions are performed predominantly at the network level, whereas the role of individual neurons is unlikely to extend beyond forming the simple basic elements of these networks. Within this conceptual framework, individuals of outstanding cognitive abilities appear as a result of a favorable configuration of the microarchitecture of the cognitive-implicated networks, whose final formation in ontogenesis may occur in a relatively random way. Here I suggest an alternative concept, which is based on neurological data and on data from human behavioral genetics. I hypothesize that cognitive functions are performed mainly at the intracellular, probably at the molecular level. Central to this hypothesis is the idea that the neurons forming the networks involved in cognitive processes are complex elements whose functions are not limited to generating electrical potentials and releasing neurotransmitters. According to this hypothesis, individuals of outstanding abilities are so due to a lucky combination of specific genes that determine the intrinsic properties of neurons involved in cognitive functions of the brain

Abstract: Stress-induced brain-mediated immunoregulation is effected by two pathways: autonomic outflow and (neuro)endocrine outflow. Particular attention is given to the interaction-effects of chronic an acute stress. Recent data have established that cells of the immune system produce neuro-peptides and hormones. In concert with cytokines released by these immune cells the brain can be informed on the nature of ongoing immune activity. The significance of conditioning of immune responses is discussed

Abstract: Evolutionary theory and methods are central to understanding the design of organisms, including their brains. This book does much to demonstrate the value of evolutionary neuroscience. Further work is needed to clarify the ways that neural systems evolved in general (specifically, the interaction between mosaic and coordinated evolution of brain components), and phylogenetic methods should be given a more prominent role in the analysis of comparative data

Abstract: In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha and E. Itkonen (Eds.) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, in press

Abstract: 2. Daugman, J. G. Brain metaphor and brain theory 3. Mundale, J. Neuroanatomical Foundations of Cognition: Connecting the Neuronal Level with the Study of Higher Brain Areas

Abstract: It is no secret that scientists argue. They argue about theories. But even more, they argue about the evidence for theories. Is the evidence itself trustworthy? This is a bit surprising from the perspective of traditional empiricist accounts of scientific methodology according to which the evidence for scientific theories stems from observation, especially observation with the naked eye. These accounts portray the testing of scientific theories as a matter of comparing the predictions of the theory with the data generated by these observations, which are taken to provide an objective link to reality

Abstract: Phillips & Silverstein (P&S, 2003) propose that NMDA-receptor dysfunction may be the fundamental neurobiological mechanism underlying and associating impaired holistic perception and cognitive coordination with schizophrenic psychopathology. We discuss how the P&S hypothesis shares different aspects of the weak central coherence account of autism from both theoretical and experimental perspectives. Specifically, we believe that neither those persons with autism nor those with schizophrenia integrate visuo-perceptual information efficiently, resulting in incongruous internal representations of their external world. However, although NMDA-hypofunction may be responsible for perceptual impairments in schizophrenia and possibly autism, we suggest that it is highly unlikely that NMDA-hypofunction is specifically responsible for the autistic behavioral symptomology, as described by P&S in their target article

Abstract: An important part of Grodzinsky's claim regarding the neurology of syntax depends on agrammatic data partitioned by the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH), which is a combination of trace-deletion and default strategy. However, there is convincing evidence that the default strategy is consistently avoided by agrammatics. The TDH, therefore, is in no position to support claims about agrammatic data or the neurology of syntax

Abstract: Mirror neurons form a poor basis for Arbib's account of language evolution, failing to explain the creativity that must precede imitation, and requiring capacities (improbable in hominids) for categorizing situations and unambiguously miming them. They also commit Arbib to an implausible holophrastic protolanguage. His model is further vitiated by failure to address the origins of symbolization and the real nature of syntax

Abstract: This target article considers the relation of fluid cognitive functioning to general intelligence. A neurobiological model differentiating working memory/executive function cognitive processes of the prefrontal cortex from aspects of psychometrically defined general intelligence is presented. Work examining the rise in mean intelligence-test performance between normative cohorts, the neuropsychology and neuroscience of cognitive function in typically and atypically developing human populations, and stress, brain development, and corticolimbic connectivity in human and nonhuman animal models is reviewed and found to provide evidence of mechanisms through which early experience affects the development of an aspect of cognition closely related to, but distinct from, general intelligence. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of emotion in fluid cognition and on research indicating fluid cognitive deficits associated with early hippocampal pathology and with dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress-response system. Findings are seen to be consistent with the idea of an independent fluid cognitive construct and to assist with the interpretation of findings from the study of early compensatory education for children facing psychosocial adversity and from behavior genetic research on intelligence. It is concluded that ongoing development of neurobiologically grounded measures of fluid cognitive skills appropriate for young children will play a key role in understanding early mental development and the adaptive success to which it is related, particularly for young children facing social and economic disadvantage. Specifically, in the evaluation of the efficacy of compensatory education efforts such as Head Start and the readiness for school of children from diverse backgrounds, it is important to distinguish fluid cognition from psychometrically defined general intelligence. (Published Online April 5 2006) Key Words: cognition; cognition-emotion reciprocity; developmental disorders; emotion; fluid cognition; Flynn effect; general intelligence; limbic system; neuroscience; phenylketonuria; prefrontal cortex; psychometrics; schizophrenia

Abstract: Grodzinsky's hypotheses need different theories of grammar for comprehension and for production. These predictions are undesirable. Hungarian data are incompatible with the Trace Deletion Hypothesis

Abstract: According to a received doctrine, espoused, by Karl Popper and Harry Collins, and taken for granted by many others, poorly replicated evidence should be epistemically defective and incapable of persuading scientists to accept the views it is used to argue for. But John Hughlings Jackson used poorly replicated clinical and post-mortem evidence to mount rationally compelling and influential arguments for a highly progressive theory of the organization of the brain and its functions. This paper sets out a number of Jackson's arguments from his evidence and argues that they constitute a counter example against the received doctrine

Abstract: Arbib et al. describe mathematical and computational models in neuroscience as well as neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of several important brain structures. This is a useful guide to mathematical and computational modelling of the structure and function of nervous system. The book highlights the need to develop a theory of brain functioning, and it offers some useful approaches and concepts

Abstract: Mirror neurons are neurons which fire in two distinct conditions: (i) when an agent performs a specific action, like a precision grasp of an object using fingers, and (ii) when an agent observes that action performed by another. Some theorists have suggested that the existence of such neurons may lend support to the simulation approach to mindreading (e.g. Gallese and Goldman, 1998, 'Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind reading'). In this note I critically examine this suggestion, in both its original and a revised form (due to Iacoboni et al., 2005, 'Grasping the intentions of others with one's own mirror neuron system'), and argue that the existence of mirror neurons can in fact tell us very little about how intentional attribution actually proceeds

Abstract: This commentary validates the fundamental evolutionary interconnection between the emergence of imitation and the mirror system. We present a novel computational framework for studying the evolutionary origins of imitative behavior and examining the emerging underlying mechanisms. Evolutionary adaptive agents that evolved in this framework demonstrate the emergence of neural “mirror” mechanisms analogous to those found in biological systems

Abstract: The DSM-III, DSM-IV, DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 have judiciously minimized discussion of etiologies to distance clinical psychiatry from Freudian psychoanalysis. With this goal mostly achieved, discussion of etiological factors should be reintroduced into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V). A research agenda for the DSM-V advocated the "development of a pathophysiologically based classification system". The author critically reviews the neuroevolutionary literature on stress-induced and fear circuitry disorders and related amygdala-driven, species-atypical fear behaviors of clinical severity in adult humans. Over 30 empirically testable/falsifiable predictions are presented. It is noted that in DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10, the classification of stress and fear circuitry disorders is neither mode-of-acquisition-based nor brain-evolution-based. For example, snake phobia (innate) and dog phobia (overconsolidational) are clustered together. Similarly, research on blood-injection-injury-type-specific phobia clusters two fears different in their innateness: 1) an arguably ontogenetic memory-trace-overconsolidation-based fear (hospital phobia) and 2) a hardwired (innate) fear of the sight of one's blood or a sharp object penetrating one's skin. Genetic architecture-charting of fear-circuitry-related traits has been challenging. Various, non-phenotype-based architectures can serve as targets for research. In this article, the author will propose one such alternative genetic architecture. This article was inspired by the following: A) Nesse's "Smoke-Detector Principle", B) the increasing suspicion that the "smooth" rather than "lumpy" distribution of complex psychiatric phenotypes (including fear-circuitry disorders) may in some cases be accounted for by oligogenic (and not necessarily polygenic) transmission, and C) insights from the initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome by the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium published in late 2005. Neuroevolutionary insights relevant to fear circuitry symptoms that primarily emerge overconsolidationally (especially Combat related Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) are presented. Also introduced is a human-evolution-based principle for clustering innate fear traits. The "Neuroevolutionary Time-depth Principle" of innate fears proposed in this article may be useful in the development of a neuroevolution-based taxonomic re-clustering of stress-triggered and fear-circuitry disorders in DSM-V. Four broad clusters of evolved fear circuits are proposed based on their time-depths: 1) Mesozoic (mammalian-wide) circuits hardwired by wild-type alleles driven to fixation by Mesozoic selective sweeps; 2) Cenozoic (simian-wide) circuits relevant to many specific phobias; 3) mid Paleolithic and upper Paleolithic (Homo sapiens-specific) circuits (arguably resulting mostly from mate-choice-driven stabilizing selection); 4) Neolithic circuits (arguably mostly related to stabilizing selection driven by gene-culture co-evolution). More importantly, the author presents evolutionary perspectives on warzone-related PTSD, Combat-Stress Reaction, Combat-related Stress, Operational-Stress, and other deployment-stress-induced symptoms. The Neuroevolutionary Time-depth Principle presented in this article may help explain the dissimilar stress-resilience levels following different types of acute threat to survival of oneself or one's progency (aka DSM-III and DSM-V PTSD Criterion-A events). PTSD rates following exposure to lethal inter-group violence (combat, warzone exposure or intentionally caused disasters such as terrorism) are usually 5-10 times higher than rates following large-scale natural disasters such as forest fires, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. The author predicts that both intentionally-caused large-scale bioevent-disasters, as well as natural bioevents such as SARS and avian flu pandemics will be an exception and are likely to be followed by PTSD rates approaching those that follow warzone exposure. During bioevents, Amygdala-driven and locus-coeruleus-driven epidemic pseudosomatic symptoms may be an order of magnitude more common than infection-caused cytokine-driven symptoms. Implications for the red cross and FEMA are discussed. It is also argued that hospital phobia as well as dog phobia, bird phobia and bat phobia require re-taxonomization in DSM-V in a new "overconsolidational disorders" category anchored around PTSD. The overconsolidational spectrum category may be conceptualized as straddling the fear circuitry spectrum disorders and the affective spectrum disorders categories, and may be a category for which Pitman's secondary prevention propranolol regimen may be specifically indicated as a "morning after pill" intervention. Predictions are presented regarding obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (e.g., female-pattern hoarding vs. male-pattern hoarding) and "culture-bound" acute anxiety symptoms (taijin-kyofusho, koro, shuk yang, shook yong, suo yang, rok-joo, jinjinia-bemar, karoshi, gwarosa, Voodoo death). Also discussed are insights relevant to pseudoneurological symptoms and to the forthcoming Dissociative-Conversive disorders category in DSM-V, including what the author terms fright-triggered acute pseudo-localized symptoms (i.e., pseudoparalysis, pseudocerebellar imbalance, psychogenic blindness, pseudoseizures, and epidemic sociogenic illness). Speculations based on studies of the human abnormal-spindle-like, microcephaly-associated (ASPM) gene, the microcephaly primary autosomal recessive (MCPH) gene, and the forkhead box p2 (FOXP2) gene are made and incorporated into what is termed "The pre-FOXP2 Hypothesis of Blood-Injection-Injury Phobia." Finally, the author argues for a non-reductionistic fusion of "distal (evolutionary) neurobiology" with clinical "proximal neurobiology," utilizing neurological heuristics. It is noted that the value of re-clustering fear traits based on behavioral ethology, human-phylogenomics-derived endophenotypes and on ontogenomics (gene-environment interactions) can be confirmed or disconfirmed using epidemiological or twin studies and psychiatric genomics

Abstract: Falk's hominin mother-infant model presupposes an emerging infant capacity to perceive and learn from afforded gestures and vocalizations. Unlike back-riding offspring of other primates, who were in no need to decenter their own body-centered perspective, a mirror neurons system may have been adapted in hominin infants to subserve the kind of (m)other-centered mirroring we now see manifested by human infants soon after birth

Abstract: This volume provides an up to date and comprehensive overview of the philosophy and neuroscience movement, which applies the methods of neuroscience to traditional philosophical problems and uses philosophical methods to illuminate issues in neuroscience. At the heart of the movement is the conviction that basic questions about human cognition, many of which have been studied for millennia, can be answered only by a philosophically sophisticated grasp of neuroscience's insights into the processing of information by the human brain. Essays in this volume are clustered around five major themes: data and theory in neuroscience; neural representation and computation; visuomotor transformations; color vision; and consciousness

Abstract: The aim of cognitive neuropsychology is to articulate the functional architecture underlying normal cognition, on the basis of congnitive performance data involving brain-damaged subjects. Throughout the history of the subject, questions have been raised as to whether the methods of neuropsychology are adequate to its goals. The question has been reopened by Glymour [1994], who formulates a discovery problem for cognitive neuropsychology, in the sense of formal learning theory, concerning the existence of a reliable methodology. It appears that the discovery problem may be insoluble in principle! I propose a modified formulation of Glymour's discovery problem and argue that a sceptical conclusion about the possiblity of cognitive neuropsychology as an empirical science is not warranted

Abstract: Blair proposes that fluid intelligence, working memory, and executive function form a unitary construct: fluid cognition. Recently, our group has utilized a combined correlational–experimental cognitive neuroscience approach, which we argue is beneficial for investigating relationships among these individual differences in terms of neural mechanisms underlying them. Our data do not completely support Blair's strong position. (Published Online April 5 2006)

Abstract: Hemispatial neglect in imagery implies a spatially organised representation. Reaction times in memory for arrays of locations from shifted viewpoints indicate processes analogous to actual bodily movement through space. Behavioral data indicate a privileged role for this process in memory. A proposed spatial mechanism makes contact with direct recordings of the representations of location and orientation in the mammalian brain

Abstract: Hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs) accompanying sleep paralysis (SP) are often cited as sources of accounts of supernatural nocturnal assaults and paranormal experiences. Descriptions of such experiences are remarkably consistent across time and cultures and consistent also with known mechanisms of REM states. A three-factor structural model of HHEs based on their relations both to cultural narratives and REM neurophysiology is developed and tested with several large samples. One factor, labeled Intruder, consisting of sensed presence, fear, and auditory and visual hallucinations, is conjectured to originate in a hypervigilant state initiated in the midbrain. Another factor, Incubus, comprising pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties, and pain, is attributed to effects of hyperpolarization of motoneurons on perceptions of respiration. These two factors have in common an implied alien ''other'' consistent with occult narratives identified in numerous contemporary and historical cultures. A third factor, labeled Unusual Bodily Experiences, consisting of floating/flying sensations, out-of-body experiences, and feelings of bliss, is related to physically impossible experiences generated by conflicts of endogenous and exogenous activation related to body position, orientation, and movement. Implications of this last factor for understanding of orientational primacy in self-consciousness are considered. Central features of the model developed here are consistent with recent work on hallucinations associated with hypnosis and schizophrenia

Abstract: At the global as well as local scales, some of the geometry of types of neuron arbors—both dendrites and axons—appears to be self-organizing: Their morphogenesis behaves like flowing water, that is, fluid dynamically; waterflow in branching networks in turn acts like a tree composed of cords under tension, that is, vector mechanically. Branch diameters and angles and junction sites conform significantly to this model. The result is that such neuron tree samples globally minimize their total volume—rather than, for example, surface area or branch length. In addition, the arbors perform well at generating the cheapest topology interconnecting their terminals: their large-scale layouts are among the best of all such possible connecting patterns, approaching 5% of optimum. This model also applies comparably to arterial and river networks. S1063-651X 99 16205-6..

Abstract: Combinatorial network optimization appears to fit well as a model of brain structure: connections in the brain are a critically constrained resource, hence their deployment in a wide range of cases is finely optimized to “‘save wire". This review focuses on minimization of large-scale costs, such as total volume for mammal dendrite and axon arbors and total wirelength for positioning of connected neural components such as roundworm ganglia (and also mammal cortex areas). Phenomena of good optimization raise questions about mechanisms for their achievement: the examples of optimized neuroanatomy here turn out to include candidates for some of the most complex biological structures known to be derivable purely from simple physical energy minimization processes. Part of the functional role of such fine-tuned wiring optimization may be as a compact strategy for generating self-organizing complex neuroanatomical..

Abstract: For the uninitiated, there are two major tendencies in the modeling of human cognition. The older, tradtional school believes, in essence, that full human cognition can be modeled by dividing the world up into distinct entities -- called __symbol s__-- such as “dog”, “cat”, “run”, “bite”, “happy”, “tumbleweed”, and so on, and then manipulating this vast set of symbols by a very complex and very subtle set of rules. The opposing school claims that this system, while it might be good at concluding that Paris is the capital of France or that there must be blood flowing in the left-rear leg of a cow, can never capture the full measure -- indeed, the essence -- of human cognition. For them, the essential features of cognition emerge from the combined effects of myriad, tiny actions far below the surface of consciousness. This is the camp to which Paul Churchland belongs

Abstract: Information processing theories of memory and skills can be reformulated in terms of how categories are physically and temporally related, a process called conceptual coordination. Dreaming can then be understood as a story-understanding process in which two mechanisms found in everyday comprehension are missing: conceiving sequences (chunking categories in time as a higher-order categorization) and coordinating across modalities (e.g., relating the sound of a word and the image of its meaning). On this basis, we can readily identify isomorphisms between dream phenomenology and neurophysiology, and explain the function of dreaming as facilitating future coordination of sequential, cross-modal categorization (i.e., REM sleep lowers activation thresholds, “unlearning”). [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms; Revonsuo; Vertes & Eastman]

Abstract: As Striedter explores the concerted principles that drive brain evolution and the departures that create uniqueness, he scrutinizes and ultimately supports the (unnecessarily controversial) Finlay/Darlington model in which mathematical relationships across mammalian neural development are identified (Finlay & Darlington 1995). Pragmatic impact includes the ability to make novel comparisons across developing species, including humans

Abstract: Symbols in computer programs are not necessarily isomorphic in form or capability to neural processes. Representations in our models are stored descriptions of the world and human behavior, created by a human interpreter; representations in the brain are neither immutable forms nor encoded in some language. Although the term "symbol" can be usefully applied to describe words, smoke signals, neural maps, and graphic icons, a science of symbol processing requires distinguishing between the structural, developmental, and interactive nature of different forms of representing

Abstract: Just like the sequel to a successful movie, O’Reilly and Munakata’s “Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience” aims to follow up and expand on the original 1986 “Parallel Distributed Processing” volumes edited by James McClelland, David Rumelhart and the PDP research group. This kinship, which is explicitly recognized by the authors as the book is prefaced by Jay McClelland, is perceptible throughout Computational Explorations: Not only does this volume visit many of the problems and paradigms that the original books were focused on (so making Computational Explorations feel more like a remake than like a sequel), but there also is an instantly recognizable, and clearly “psychological” approach to the role of computational modelling in the cognitive neurosciences. The result is a highly effective, wonderful introduction to the ideas, methods, and problems that characterize this still burgeoning domain

Abstract: One function of sleep is hypothesized to be the reprocessparticipate in the optimization of the network that subing and consolidation of memory traces (Smith, 1995; Gais tends subject's visuo^motor response. The optimization of et al., 2000; McGaugh, 2000; Stickgold et al., 2000). At..

Abstract: Paul MacLean, founder and long-time chief ofthe Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior,National Institutes of Health, is a pioneeringfigure in the emergent field of evolutionaryneuroscience. His influence has been widelyfelt in the development of biologicalpsychiatry and has led to a considerableliterature on evolutionary approaches toclinical issues. MacLean's work is alsoenjoying a resurgence of interest in academicareas of neuroscience and evolutionarypsychology which have previously shown littleinterest or knowledge of his extensive work. This chapter builds on MacLean's work to bringtogether new insights into the neuralarchitecture of human development, hierarchy,conflict behavior, and reciprocity in the formof the Conflict Systems Neurobehavioral (CSN)Model. Hamilton's rule of kinship altruism orinclusive fitness is proposed to be the gene'seye complement to MacLean's evolutionaryneuroscience and the CSN Model derivedtherefrom. Hierarchy, conflict behavior andreciprocity are also central issues in healthydevelopment as well as in clinical syndromes ofdepression, mania, and other socialmaladjustments. The emerging insights permitthe integration of the concept of inclusivefitness underpinning evolutionary psychologywith MacLean's perspective on evolutionaryneuroscience as well as the definition of newchallenges for mental health and socialstability. The policy implications areindicated

Abstract: It is a common assumption in contemporary cognitive neuroscience that discovering a putative realized kind to be dissociably realized (i.e., to be realized in each instance by two or more distinct realizers) mandates splitting that kind. Here I explore some limits on this inference using two deceptively similar examples: the dissociation of declarative and procedural memory and Ramachandran's argument that the self is an illusion

Abstract: I discuss Husserl's account of intersubjectivity in the fifth Cartesian Meditation. I focus on the problem of perceived similarity. I argue that recent work in developmental psychology and neuroscience, concerning intermodal representation and the mirror neuron system, fails to constitute a naturalistic solution to the problem. This can be seen via a comparison between the Husserlian project, on the one hand, and Molyneux's Question on the other.

Abstract: : This paper represents the authors' attempt to provide a useful framework for discussing and investigating the links between the apparently disparate disciplines of neuroscience and dance. This attempt arose from an interdisciplinary course offering on this topic. A clear need apparent in preparing for an exploration of such uncharted territory was for some definition of the relevant landmarks in the form of a conceptual framework. The current status of that developing framework is presented here, as we consider the historical context that contributed to the cultural distance between neuroscience and dance as disciplines; the conceptual and technical obstacles to collaborative work between these disciplines; and the recent developments, both conceptual and technological, that make the interface between neuroscience and dance a particularly fruitful source of inspiration not only for dancers and neuroscientists but potentially for a wide variety of disciplines touching on health and education in general

Abstract: I argue that Gold & Stoljar's “trivial neuron doctrine” is not in fact trivial. Many familiar positions in the philosophy of mind run afoul of it, and it is unclear that even those whom Gold & Stoljar identify as adherents of the trivial neuron doctrine can be comfortably described as such

Abstract: To date, a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship has done little to clarify either the why or the how of empathy. Preston & de Waal (P&deW) attempt to remedy this, although it remains unclear whether empathy consists of two discrete processes, or whether a perceptual and motor component are joined in some sort of behavioral inevitability. Although it is appealing to offer a neuroanatomy of empathy, the present level of neuropsychology may not support such reductionism

Abstract: To explore the neural mechanisms engaged by the perception of action with the intent to imitate, positron emission tomographic activation studies were performed in healthy human subjects. We discuss the results in light of the framework proposed by Byrne & Russon, especially the distinction between mechanisms subserving action-level and program-level imitation

Abstract: There is converging evidence from developmental and cognitive psychology, as well as from neuroscience, to suggest that the self is both special and social, and that self-other interaction is the driving force behind self-development. We review experimental findings which demonstrate that human infants are motivated for social interactions and suggest that the development of an awareness of other minds is rooted in the implicit notion that others are like the self. We then marshal evidence from functional neuroimaging explorations of the neurophysiological substrate of shared representations between the self and others, using various ecological paradigms such as mentally representing one's own actions versus others' actions, watching the actions executed by others, imitating the others' actions versus being imitated by others. We suggest that within this shared neural network the inferior parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex in the right hemisphere play a special role in the essential ability to distinguish the self from others, and in the way the self represents the other. Interestingly, the right hemisphere develops its functions earlier than the left

Abstract: Quartz & Sejnowski's (Q&S's) constructivist manifesto promotes a return to an extreme form of empiricism. In defense of learning by selection, we argue that at the neurobiological level all the data presented by Q&S in support of their constructive model are in fact compatible with a model comprising multiple overlapping stages of synaptic overproduction and selection. We briefly review developmental studies at the behavioral level in humans providing evidence in favor of a selectionist view of development

Abstract: Bennett and Hacker’s _Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience_ (Blackwell, 2003), a collaboration between a philosopher (Hacker) and a neuroscientist (Bennett), is an ambitious attempt to reformulate the research agenda of cognitive neuroscience by demonstrating that cognitive scientists and other theorists, myself among them, have been bewitching each other by misusing language in a systematically “incoherent” and conceptually “confused” way. In both style and substance, the book harks back to Oxford in the early 1960's, when Ordinary Language Philosophy ruled, and Ryle and Wittgenstein were the authorities on the meanings of our everyday mentalistic or psychological terms. I myself am a product of that time and place (as is Searle, for that matter), and I find much to agree with in their goals and presuppositions, and before turning to my criticisms, which will be severe, I want to highlight what I think is exactly right in their approach–the oft-forgotten lessons of Ordinary Language Philosophy

Abstract: Because little is known about the human trait of affiliation, we provide a novel neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding. Discussion is organized around processes of reward and memory formation that occur during approach and consummatory phases of affiliation. Appetitive and consummatory reward processes are mediated independently by the activity of the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA)–nucleus accumbens shell (NAS) pathway and the central corticolimbic projections of the u-opiate system of the medial basal arcuate nucleus, respectively, although these two projection systems functionally interact across time. We next explicate the manner in which DA and glutamate interact in both the VTA and NAS to form incentive-encoded contextual memory ensembles that are predictive of reward derived from affiliative objects. Affiliative stimuli, in particular, are incorporated within contextual ensembles predictive of affiliative reward via: (a) the binding of affiliative stimuli in the rostral circuit of the medial extended amygdala and subsequent transmission to the NAS shell; (b) affiliative stimulus-induced opiate potentiation of DA processes in the VTA and NAS; and (c) permissive or facilitatory effects of gonadal steroids, oxytocin (in interaction with DA), and vasopressin on (i) sensory, perceptual, and attentional processing of affiliative stimuli and (ii) formation of social memories. Among these various processes, we propose that the capacity to experience affiliative reward via opiate functioning has a disproportionate weight in determining individual differences in affiliation. We delineate sources of these individual differences, and provide the first human data that support an association between opiate functioning and variation in trait affiliation. Key Words: affiliation corticolimbic-striatal networks; appetitive and consummatory reward; dopamine; oxytocin; personality; social bonds; social memory; u-opiates

Abstract: New findings point to a role for mesolimbic DA circuits in the generation of dreaming. We disagree with Solms about these structures having an exclusive role in generating dreams. We review data suggesting that dreaming can be interrupted at different levels of processing and that anterior-subcortical lesions associated with dream cessation are unlikely to produce selective hypodopaminergic dynamic impairments. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms]

Abstract: The “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches have been thought to exhaust the possibilities for doing cognitive neuroscience. We argue that neither approach is likely to succeed in providing a theory that enables us to understand how cognition is achieved in biological creatures like ourselves. We consider a promising third way of doing cognitive neuroscience, what might be called the “neural dynamic systems” approach, that construes cognitive neuroscience as an autonomous explanatory endeavor, aiming to characterize in its own terms the states and processes responsible for brain-based cognition. We sketch the basic motivation for the approach, describe a particular version of the approach, so-called ‘Dynamic Causal Modeling’ (DCM), and consider a concrete example of DCM. This third way, we argue, has the potential to avoid the problems that afflict the other two approaches

Abstract: We present select examples of how visual phenomena can serve as tools to uncoverbrain mechanisms. Specifically, receptive field organization is proposed as a Gestalt-like neural mechanism of perceptual organization. Appropriate phenomena, such as brightness and orientation contrast, subjective contours, filling-in, and aperture-viewed motion, allow for a quantitative comparison between receptive fields and their psychophysical counterparts, perceptive fields. Phenomenology might thus be extended from the study of perceptual qualities to their transphenomenal substrates, including memory functions. In conclusion, classic issues of Gestalt psychology can now be related to modern

Abstract: Keywords: computational neuroscience, neural coding, brain function, neural modeling, cognitive modeling, computation, representation, neuroscience, neuropsychology, semantics, theoretical psychology, theoretical neuroscience

Abstract: To have a fully integrated understanding of neurobiological systems, we must address two fundamental questions: 1. What do brains do (what is their function)? and 2. How do brains do whatever it is that they do (how is that function implemented)? I begin by arguing that these questions are necessarily inter-related. Thus, addressing one without consideration of an answer to the other, as is often done, is a mistake. I then describe what I take to be the best available approach to addressing both questions. Specifically, to address 2, I adopt the Neural Engineering Framework (NEF) of Eliasmith & Anderson [Neural engineering: Computation representation and dynamics in neurobiological systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003] which identifies implementational principles for neural models. To address 1, I suggest that adopting statistical modeling methods for perception and action will be functionally sufficient for capturing biological behavior. I show how these two answers will be mutually constraining, since the process of model selection for the statistical method in this approach can be informed by known anatomical and physiological properties of the brain, captured by the NEF. Similarly, the application of the NEF must be informed by functional hypotheses, captured by the statistical modeling approach

Abstract: Developmental psychology should play an essential constraining role in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Theories of neural development must account explicitly for the early emergence of knowledge and abilities in infants and young children documented in developmental research. Especially in need of explanation at the neural level is the early emergence of meta-representation

Abstract: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision begins by introducing the reader to the anatomy of the eye and visual cortex and then proceeds to discuss image and...

Abstract: Cortex functional connectivity associated with hypnosis was investigated in a single highly hypnotizable subject in a normal baseline condition

and under neutral hypnosis during two sessions separated by a year. After the hypnotic induction, but without further suggestions as compared to

the baseline condition, all studied parameters of local and remote functional connectivity were significantly changed. The significant differences

between hypnosis and the baseline condition were observable (to different extent) in five studied independent frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha,

beta, and gamma). The results were consistent and stable after 1 year. Based on these findings we conclude that alteration in functional connectivity of the brain may be regarded as a neuronal correlate of hypnosis (at least in very highly hypnotizable subjects) in which separate cognitive modules and subsystems may be temporarily incapable of communicating with each other normally.

Abstract: The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World is my attempt to explain whether and how existential meaning is possible in a material world, and how such meaning is best conceived naturalistically. Neuroexistentialism conceives of our predicament in accordance with Darwin plus neuroscience. The prospects for our kind of being-in-the-world are limited by our natures as smart but fully embodied short-lived animals. Many find this picture disenchanting, even depressing. I respond to four criticisms of my relentless upbeat naturalism: that naturalism can make no room for norms, for values; that I overvalue truth at the expense of happiness; that I underestimate the extent to which supernaturalism has made peace with naturalism; and that I can give no account for why humans as finite animals should want to overcome our given natures and seek impersonal, self-transcendent value

Abstract: Quartz & Sejnowski's (Q&S's) main accomplishment is the presentation of increasing complexity in the developing brain. Although this cuts a colorful swath through current theories of learning, it leaves the central question untouched: How does the environment direct neural structure? In answer, Q&S offer us only Hebb's half-century-old suggestion once again

Abstract: This study tested the two main neurocognitive models of dreaming by using cognitive data elicited from REM sleep in normals and narcoleptics. The two models were the ''activation-only'' view which holds that, in the context of sleep, overall activation of the brain is sufficient for consciousness to proceed in the manner of dreaming (e.g., Antrobus, 1991; Foulkes, 1993; Vogel, 1978); and the Activation, Input source, Modulation (AIM model), which predicts that not only brain activation level but also neurochemical modulatory systems exert widespread effects upon dreaming (Hobson & McCarley, 1977; Hobson, Pace-Schott, & Stickgold, 2000). Mental activity was studied in nocturnal REM in 15 narcoleptics and 9 normal healthy persons and in REM at the onset of daytime naps and nighttime sleep (SOREM) in narcoleptics. The study was performed in the subjects' homes, using instrumental awakenings and ambulatory polysomnographic techniques, and focused upon visual vividness, mentation report length, improbable and discontinuous bizarre features, and reflective consciousness. Within each subject group, most cognitive variables tended to fluctuate in line with expected variations in circadian activation level. When comparing the cognitive variables between the two groups, reflective consciousness was clearly highest in narcoleptics, whereas improbabilities and discontinuities were lower, with mentation report length and visual vividness differing less between the groups. These findings are consistent with the AIM model of sleep mentation, but not with the activation-only model

Abstract: The time honoured philosophical issue of how to resolve the mind/body problem has taken a more scientific turn of late. Instead of discussing issues of the soul and emotion and person and their reduction to a physical form, we now ask ourselves how well-understood cognitive and social concepts fit into the growing and changing field of neuropsychology. One of the many projects that have come out of this new scientific endeavour is Zaidel’s (2005) inquiry into the neuropsychological bases of art

Abstract: Positing the importance of sensorimotor contingencies for perception is by no means denying the presence and importance of representations. Using the evidence of mirror neurons we will show the intrinsic relationship between action control and representation within the logic of forward models

Abstract: Psychology is dead. The self is a fiction invented by the brain. Brain plasticity isnÂ’t all itÂ’s cracked up to be. Our conscious learning is an observation post factum , a recollection of something already accomplished by the brain. We donÂ’t learn to speak; speech is generated when the brain is ready to say something. False memories are more prevalent than one might think, and they arenÂ’t all that bad. We think weÂ’re in charge of our lives, but actually we are not. On top of all this, the common belief that reading to a young child will make her brain more attuned to reading is simply untrue

Abstract: This commentary makes a case for a connection between the hierarchically organized skills emphasized in Greenfield's (1991t) target article and rhythmic skills utilized in music. It also links hierarchical organization with automated processing. Implicit is the notion that lower levels of a hierarchy become automatic, as they go under control of higher levels of organization

Abstract: Contemporary cognitive neuropsychology attempts to infer unobserved features of normal human cognition, or ?cognitive architecture?, from experiments with normals and with brain-damaged subjects in whom certain normal cognitive capacities are altered, diminished, or absent. Fundamental methodological issues about the enterprise of cognitive neuropsychology concern the characterization of methods by which features of normal cognitive architecture can be identified from such data, the assumptions upon which the reliability of such methods are premised, and the limits of such methods?even granting their assumptions?in resolving uncertainties about that architecture. With some idealization, the question of the capacities of various experimental designs in cognitive neuropsychology to uncover cognitive architecture can be reduced to comparatively simple questions about the prior assumptions investigators are willing to make. This paper presents some of simplest of those reductions. 1Research for this paper was made possible by a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and by grant number SBE-9212264 from the National Science Foundation. I thank Martha Farah for teaching me what little I know of cognitive neuropsychology, Jeffrey Bub for stimulating me to think about these issues and for commenting on drafts of this paper, and Peter Slezak for additional comments. Alfonso Caramazza and Michael McCloskey provided very helpful comments on a second draft

Abstract: Observations on patients who lost visual imagery after brain damage call into question the notion that the knowledge subserving visual imagery is “tacit.” Dissociations between deficient imagery and preserved recognition of objects suggest that imagery is exclusively based on explicit knowledge, whereas retrieval of “tacit” visual knowledge is bound to the presence of the object and the task of recognizing it

Abstract: The frame/content theory of speech production is restricted to output mechanisms in the target article; we suggest that these ideas might best be viewed in the context of language production proceeding as a coordinated dynamical whole. The role of the medial premotor system in generating frames matches the important role it may play in the internally dependent timing of motor acts. The proposed coevolution of cortical architectonics and language production mechanisms suggests a significant divergence between primate and cetacean species corresponding to major differences in areal differentiation trends in cerebral cortex

Abstract: People are minded creatures; we have thoughts, feelings and emotions. More intriguingly, we grasp our own mental states, and conduct the business of ascribing them to ourselves and others without instruction in formal psychology. How do we do this? And what are the dimensions of our grasp of the mental realm? In this book, Alvin I. Goldman explores these questions with the tools of philosophy, developmental psychology, social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. He refines an approach called simulation theory, which starts from the familiar idea that we understand others by putting ourselves in their mental shoes. Can this intuitive idea be rendered precise in a philosophically respectable manner, without allowing simulation to collapse into theorizing? Given a suitable definition, do empirical results support the notion that minds literally create (or attempt to create) surrogates of other peoples mental states in the process of mindreading? Goldman amasses a surprising array of evidence from psychology and neuroscience that supports this hypothesis

Abstract: Cognitive neuroscience aims to improve our understanding of aspects of human learning and performance by combining data acquired with the new brain imaging technologies with data acquired in cognitive psychology paradigms. Both neuroscience and psychology use the philosophical assumptions underpinning the natural sciences, namely the scientific method, whereby hypotheses are proposed and tested using quantitative approaches. The relevance of 'brain science' for the classroom has proved controversial with some educators, perhaps because of distrust of the applicability of so-called 'medical models' to education. Nevertheless, the brain is the main organ of learning, and so a deeper understanding of the brain would appear highly relevant to education. Modern science is revealing the crucial role of biology in every aspect of human experience and performance. This does not mean that biology determines outcomes. Rather, there is a complex interplay between biology and environments. Improved knowledge about how the brain learns should assist educators in creating optimal learning environments. Neuroscience can also identify 'biomarkers' of educational risk, and provide new methodologies to test the effects of educational interventions

Abstract: It has been suggested that moods are higher order-dispositions. This proposal is considered, and various shortcomings uncovered. The notion of a higher-order disposition is replaced by the more general notion of a higher-order functional state. An account is given in which moods are higher-order functional states, and the overall system of moods is a higher-order functional description of the mind. This proposal is defended in two ways. First, it is shown to capture some central features of our pre-scientific conception of moods. Secondly, it is argued that the account is more likely to be psychologically realistic (in a sense to be defined) than accounts which are behaviourally equivalent, but which do not employ a hierarchy of functional descriptions. It is suggested that the hierarchical structure of the model mirrors a feature of the physical states that realise moods and emotions

Abstract: Nowhere in the psychological sciences has the philosophy of mind had more influence than on the child development literature generally referred to as children’s ‘theory of mind.’ Developmental journals may seem to be an unlikely place to find Brentano, Frege, and Dennett alongside descriptions of referential opacity and the principle of substitutivity, but it is not at all uncommon in this literature. While the many problems and complexities of the propositional attitude literature are still hotly debated by philosophers, and often ill understood by scientists working in this area, a great deal of empirical progress has already been made. We have Dan Dennett to thank for this extraordinary dialogue between these disciplines

Abstract: Lewis proposes a “reconceptualization” of how to link the psychology and neurobiology of emotion and cognitive-emotional interactions. His main proposed themes have actually been actively and quantitatively developed in the neural modeling literature for more than 30 years. This commentary summarizes some of these themes and points to areas of particularly active research in this area

Abstract: Short-term memory, nonattentional task effects and nonspatial extraretinal representations in the visual system are signs of cognitive penetration. All of these have been found physiologically, arguing against the cognitive impenetrability of vision as a whole. Instead, parallel subcircuits in the brain, each subserving a different competency including sensory and cognitive (and in some cases motor) aspects, may have cognitively impenetrable components

Abstract: My focus is on the inability of neuron doctrines to provide an explanatory context for aspects of consciousness that give rise to the mind–body and other minds problem(s). Neuroscience and related psychological sciences may be viewed as richly contributing to our taxonomic understanding of the mind and conditions underlying consciousness, without illuminating mind–body and other minds perplexities

Abstract: Recent neuroscience and psychology of behavior have suggested that conscious decisions may have no causal role in the etiology of intentional action. Such results pose a threat to traditional philosophical analyses of action. On such views beliefs, desires and conscious willing are part of the causal structure of intentional action. But if the suggestions from neuroscience/psychology are correct, analyses of this kind are wrong. Conscious antecedents of action are epiphenomenal. This essay explores this consequence. It also notes that the traditional alternative to causal analyses of intentional action is not threatened by the putative scientific findings. This, in turn, is ironic in that defenders of the noncausal accounts of action were thought to be in opposition to the natural sciences of action whereas the analyses in the causal style were "on the side of physicalism." This result is also assessed in what follows

Abstract: Le modele d'ancrage propose ici est simple a recapituler. Les projections sensorielles analogiques sont les intrants des reseaux neuronaux qui doivent apprendre a connecter certaines des projections avec certains symboles (le nom de leur categorie) et certaines autres projections avec d'autres symboles (les noms d'autres categories pouvant se confondre les unes aux autres), en trouvant et en utilisant les invariants qui les representent de facon a favoriser l'accomplissement d'une categorisation juste. Les symboles ancres sont alors enfiles dans des combinaisons d'ordre superieur (descriptions symboliques ancrees) par un deuxieme processus combinatoire qui presente une difference critique a l'egard de la manipulation symbolique classique. Dans la manipulation symbolique standard (non ancree), la syntaxe est la seule contrainte a laquelle les combinaisons de symboles sont soumises et elle s'applique a la configuration (arbitraire) des symboles. Dans un systeme symbolique ancre, on doit tenir compte d'une deuxieme contrainte, celle de la forme non arbitraire des invariants sensoriels qui connectent le symbole a la projection sensorielle analogique de l'objet auquel il se rapporte. Je ne peux m'etendre sur la nature de ces systemes symboliques ancres a double contrainte , si ce n'est que pour indiquer que la perception categorielle humaine peut apporter quelques indices quant a la nature de cette interaction entre les contraintes analogiques et syntaxiques

Abstract: This article examines how scientists move from physical measurementsto actual observation of single-cell recordings in the brain. We highlight how easy it is to change the fundamental nature of ourobservations using accepted methodological techniques for manipulatingraw data. Collecting single-cell data is thoroughly pragmatic. Weconclude that there is no deep or interesting difference betweenaccounting for observations by measurements and accounting forobservations by theories

Abstract: Gold & Stoljar's “trivial” neuron doctrine is neither a truism in cognitive science nor trivial; it has serious consequences for the future direction of the mind/brain sciences. Not everyone would agree that these consequences are desirable. The authors' “radical” doctrine is not so radical; their division between cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology is largely artificial. Indeed, there is no sharp distinction between cognitive neuroscience and other areas of the brain sciences

Abstract: Studies of normal individuals reveal an asymmetry in the folk concept of intentional action: an action is more likely to be thought of as intentional when it is morally bad than when it is morally good. One interpretation of these results comes from the hypothesis that emotion plays a critical mediating role in the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status. According to this hypothesis, the negative emotional response triggered by a morally bad action drives the attribution of intent to the actor, or the judgment that the actor acted intentionally. We test this hypothesis by presenting cases of morally bad and morally good action to seven individuals with deficits in emotional processing resulting from damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). If normal emotional processing is necessary for the observed asymmetry, then individuals with VMPC lesions should show no asymmetry. Our results provide no support for this hypothesis: like normal individuals, those with VMPC lesions showed the same asymmetry, tending to judge that an action was intentional when it was morally bad but not when it was morally good. Based on this finding, we suggest that normal emotional processing is not responsible for the observed asymmetry of intentional attributions and thus does not mediate the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status

Abstract: This is the first major response to the new challenge of neuroscience to religion. There have been limited responses from a purely Christian point of view, but this takes account of eastern as well as western forms of religious experience. It challenges the prevailing naturalistic assumption of our culture, including the idea that the mind is either identical with or a temporary by-product of brain activity. It also discusses religion as institutions and religion as inner experience of the Transcendent, and suggests a form of spirituality for today

Abstract: In order to reach a better understanding of brain function, conceptual synergies linking empirical neurobiological studies and neurocomputational studies should be pursued. I describe an example of a potential synergy based on studies of neural network pruning. Simulations demonstrate that selective elimination of connections enhances the computational capacity of networks capable of temporal processing. These findings may shed light on the functional significance of postnatal neuro-developmental pruning of cortical connections that occurs in mammals

Abstract: Different cognitive functions recruit a number of different, often overlapping, areas of the brain. Theories in cognitive and computational neuroscience are beginning to take this kind of functional integration into account. The contributions to this special issue consider what functional integration tells us about various aspects of the mind such as perception, language, volition, agency, and reward. Here, I consider how and why functional integration may matter for the mind; I discuss a general theoretical framework, based on generative models, that may unify many of the debates surrounding functional integration and the mind; and I briefly introduce each of the contributions

Abstract: Interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) is a burgeoning interdisciplinary field that focuses on ways in which relationships shape and transform the architecture and functioning of the human brain. IPNB points to four specific conditions that appear to encourage the emergence of empathy. Further, these conditions, when gathered together, may constitute the core components of a spirituality of compassion. Following definitions and a discussion of interdisciplinary method, this essay delineates IPNB's main tenets and demonstrates ways in which IPNB sheds light on important aspects of human empathy and compassion. Drawing on this analysis, it introduces the four conditions that encourage the emergence of empathy in individuals and groups and shows why they may be central elements of a spirituality of compassion. A case study, in which the Native American Ojibwe practice of the talking circle is described and assessed through the lens of the IPNB-derived spirituality of compassion, demonstrates the evaluative usefulness of this set of conditions

Abstract: Arbib offers a comprehensive, elegant formulation of brain/language evolution; with significant implications for social as well as biological sciences. Important psychological antecedents and later correlates are presupposed; their conceptual enrichment through protosign and protospeech is abbreviated in favor of practical communication. What culture “is” and whether protosign and protospeech involve a protoculture are not considered. Arbib also avoids dealing with the question of evolution of mind, consciousness, and self

Abstract: A translation of the renowned French reference book, Vocabulaire de sciences cognitives , the Dictionary of Cognitive Science presents comprehensive definitions of more than 120 terms. The editor and advisory board of specialists have brought together 60 internationally recognized scholars to give the reader a comprehensive understanding of the most current and dynamic thinking in cognitive science. Topics range from Abduction to Writing, and each entry covers its subject from as many perspectives as possible within the domains of psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics. This multidisciplinary work is an invaluable resource for all collections

Abstract: Jackendoff's criticisms of the current state of theorization in cognitive neuroscience are defused by recent work on the computational complementarity of the hippocampus and neocortex. Such considerations lead to a grounding of Jackendoff's processing model in the complementary methods of pattern analysis effected by independent component analysis (ICA) and principle component analysis (PCA)

Abstract: This article examines how discussions around the new interdisciplinary research area combining neuroscience and education have brought into sharp relief differences in the philosophies of learning in these two areas. It considers the difficulties faced by those working at the interface between these two areas and, in particular, it focuses on the challenge of avoiding 'non-sense' when attempting to include the brain in educational argument. The paper relates common transgressions in sense-making with dualist and monist notions of the mind-brain relationship. It then extends a brain-mind-behaviour model from cognitive neuroscience to include a greater emphasis on social interaction and construction. This creates a tool for examining the potentially complex interrelationships between the different learning philosophies in this emerging new field

Abstract: Spinoza speculated on how ethics could emerge from biology and psychology rather than disrupt them and recent evidence suggests he might have gotten it right. His radical deconstruction and reconstruction of ethics is supported by a number of avenues of research in the cognitive and neurosciences. This paper gathers together and presents a composite picture of recent research that supports Spinoza’s theory of the emotions and of the natural origins of ethics. It enumerates twelve naturalist claims of Spinoza that now seem to be supported by substantial evidence from the neurosciences and recent cognitive science. I focus on the evidence provided by Lakoff and Johnson in their summary of recent cognitive science in Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999); by Antonio Damasio in his assessment of the state of affective neuroscience in Descartes’ Error (1994) and in The Feeling of What Happens (1999) (with passing references to his recent Looking for Spinoza (2003); and by Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallese and their colleagues in the neural basis of emotional contagion and resonance, i.e., the neural basis of primitive sociality and intersubjectivity, that bear out Spinoza’s account of social psychology as rooted in the mechanism he called attention to and identified as affective imitation

Abstract: Category-specific impairments of object recognition and naming are among the most intriguing disorders in neuropsychology, affecting the retrieval of knowledge about either living or nonliving things. They can give us insight into the nature of our representations of objects: Have we evolved different neural systems for recognizing different categories of object? What kinds of knowledge are important for recognizing particular objects? How does visual similarity within a category influence object recognition and representation? What is the nature of our semantic knowledge about different objects? We review the evidence on category-specific impairments, arguing that deficits even for one class of object (e.g., living things) cannot be accounted for in terms of a single information processing disorder across all patients; problems arise at contrasting loci in different patients. The same apparent pattern of impairment can be produced by damage to different loci. According to a new processing framework for object recognition and naming, the hierarchical interactive theory (HIT), we have a hierarchy of highly interactive stored representations. HIT explains the variety of patients in terms of (1) lesions at different levels of processing and (2) different forms of stored knowledge used both for particular tasks and for particular categories of object. Key Words: category-specific deficits; functional imaging; hierarchical models; interactive activation models; neuropsychology; object recognition; perceptual and functional knowledge

Abstract: In this book Hundert proposes a new, unified view of the mind, one that integrates the insights of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. Through a detailed discussion of major theories from these and related disciplines, he gradually reveals links between what were previously unconnected approaches to human thought and experience

Abstract:   According to an influential view, one function of mirror neurons (MNs), first discovered in the brain of monkeys, is to underlie third-person mindreading. This view relies on two assumptions: the activity of MNs in an observer’s brain matches (simulates or resonates with) that of MNs in an agent’s brain and this resonance process retrodictively generates a representation of the agent’s intention from a perception of her movement. In this paper, I criticize both assumptions and I argue instead that the activity of MNs in an observer’s brain is enhanced by a prior representation of the agent’s intention and that their task is to predictively compute the best motor command suitable to satisfy the agent’s intention

Abstract: William James has been characterized as “the major whipping boy of the later Wittgenstein,” and the currency of this impression of the relation between James and Wittgenstein is understandable. Reading Wittgenstein and his commentators can leave one with the impression that James was a badly muddled “exponent of the tradition in the philosophy of mind that [Wittgenstein] was opposing.” There have been recent attempts to resist this trend, but even these tend to focus on the affinities between the two philosophers, still accepting the prevailing view that Wittgenstein was often critical of James, and that in such cases Wittgenstein was always right and James was always wrong. By contrast, by focusing on Wittgenstein’s discussion of James’s “if-feeling”, it will be argued that Wittgenstein’s criticisms of James are often not as damaging, or even as extensive, as has often been assumed

Abstract: In this study I propose an epistemological discussion of multiple spatio-temporal scales in neuroscience. Are such scales merely convenient levels of description of structure and function, or do they correspond to irreducible levels of brain organization? What criteria should we employ in order to reduce one level to another, or to identify levels that are not reducible to others? Should we think of these criteria as based on empirical and/or theoretical reasons? Beginning with an empirical criterion – the necessity of different experimental methodologies for the measurement of different phenomena in the same system – I summarize spatial and temporal scales currently used in neuroscience and discuss the possibility of a more general theoretical criterion. I conclude that multiscaling should be recognized as a central concept in the epistemology of neuroscience

Abstract: Atran's putative module for folk biology is evaluated with respect to evidence from patients showing category-specific impairments for living kinds. Existing neuropsychological evidence provides no support for the primacy of categorization at the generic species level. We outline reasons for this and emphasize that such claims should be tested using inductive reasoning tasks

Abstract: LeDoux (1996) has identified a sub-cortical neural circuit that mediates fear responses in rats. The existence of this neural circuit has been used to support the claim that emotion is a non-cognitive process. In this paper I argue that this sub-cortical circuit cannot have a role in the explanation of emotions in humans. This worry is raised by looking at the properties of this neural pathway, which does not have the capacity to respond to the types of stimuli that are generally taken to trigger emotion responses. In particular, the neurons in this pathway cannot represent the stimulus as a complete object or event, rather they represent the simple information that is encoded at the periphery. If it is assumed that an object or event in the world is what, even in simple cases, causes an emotion, then this sub-cortical pathway has limited use in a theory of emotion.

Abstract: This article examines the imagination by way of various studies in cognitive science. It opens by examining the neural correlates of bodily metaphors. It assumes a basic knowledge of metaphor studies, or the primary finding that has emerged from this field: that large swathes of human conceptualization are structured by bodily relations. I examine the neural correlates of metaphor, concentrating on the relation between the sensory motor cortices and linguistic conceptualization. This discussion, however, leaves many questions unanswered. If it is the case that the sensory motor cortices are appropriated in language acquisition, how does this process occur at the neural level? What neural preconditions exist such that this appropriation is possible? It is with these questions in mind that I will turn my attention to studies of neural plasticity, degeneracy and the mirror neuron activation. Whereas some scholarship in philosophy and cognitive neuroscience has aimed to identify the neurological correlates of consciousness, examining plasticity, degeneracy and activation shifts the discussion away from a study of correlates toward an exploration of the neurological dynamics of thought. This shift seems appropriate if we are to examine the processes of the “imagination.”

Abstract: Neuroscience offers more than new empirical evidence about the details of cognitive functions such as language, perception and action. Since it also shows many functions to be highly distributed, interconnected and dependent on mechanisms at different levels of processing, it challenges concepts that are traditionally used to describe these functions. The question is how to accommodate these concepts to the recent evidence. A recent proposal, made in Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003) by Bennett and Hacker, is that concepts play a foundational role in neuroscience, that empirical research needs to presuppose them and that changing concepts is a philosophical task. In defending this perspective, PFN shows much neuroscientific writing to be dualistic in nature due to our poor grasp of its foundations. In our review article we take a different approach. Instead of foundationalism we plead for a mild coherentism, which allows for a gradual and continuous alteration of concepts in light of new evidence. Following this approach it is also easier to deal with some neurological conditions (like blindsight, synaesthesia) that pose difficulties for our concepts. Finally, although words and concepts seem to seduce us to thinking that many skills and tasks function separately, it is language skill that – as neuroscientific evidence shows – co-emerges with action/perception cycles and thus seems to require revision of some of our central concepts.

Abstract: Jackendoff (2002) argues that grammatically relevant and irrelevant components of meaning do not occupy distinct levels of the semantic system. However, neuropsychological studies have found that the two components doubly dissociate in brain-damaged subjects, suggesting that they are in fact segregated. Neural regionalization of these multidimensional semantic subsystems might take place during language development

Abstract: Biomedical science has been remarkably successful in explaining illness by categorizing diseases and then by identifying localizable lesions such as a virus and neoplasm in the body that cause those diseases. Not surprisingly, researchers have aspired to apply this powerful paradigm to addiction. So, for example, in a review of the neuroscience of addiction literature, Hyman and Malenka (2001, p. 695) acknowledge a general consensus among addiction researchers that “[a]ddiction can appropriately be considered as a chronic medical illness.” Like other diseases, “Once addiction has taken hold, it tends to follow a chronic course.” (Koob and La Moal 2006, p. ?). Working from this perspective, much effort has gone into characterizing the symptomology of addiction and the brain changes that underlie them. Evidence for involvement of dopamine transmission changes in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) have received the greatest attention. Kauer and Malenka (2007, p. 844) put it well: “drugs of abuse can co-opt synaptic plasticity mechanisms in brain circuits involved in reinforcement and reward processing”. Our goal in this chapter to provide an explicit description of the assumptions of medical models, the different forms they may take, and the challenges they face in providing explanations with solid evidence of addiction.

Abstract: Advancing a general Darwinian framework to explain culture is an exciting endeavor. It requires that we face up to the challenge of identifying the specific components that are effective in replication processes in culture. This challenge includes the unsolved problem of explaining cultural inheritance, both at the level of individuals and at the level of social organizations and institutions. (Published Online November 9 2006)

Abstract: In this article I will compare two approaches for defining theoretical terms, that of Logical Empirism (especially the approach of R. Carnap) and that of Structuralism (according to the works of J. Sneed and W. Stegmüller). I will determine explicitly the accounts of theoreticity in both Logical Empirism and Structuralism, and compare them by means of a case study: a structuralistic reconstruction of Neurobiological Constructivism (according to the theory of G. Roth). I will point out that the structuralistic criticism on the account of theoreticity of Logical Empirism is insufficient and that the structuralistic criterion of theoreticity does not satisfy the requirements of demarcation for theoretical terms demanded by Logical Empirism

Abstract: One of the main aspects of a neurobiological theory of language is the problem of meaning (or semantic content) in the brain. A full explanation of meaning requires a combined approach to semantic typing and the semantic success of cerebral states or processes. Pulvermüller presents his Hebbian model of language in the brain (HML) as an account of semantic success. If his proposal turns out to be viable, however, it may also promote a theory of semantic typing

Abstract: Examples of terror generated by an aircraft disaster, of human courtship behaviour, and of the application of laboratory techniques to the commercial training of animals suggest (1) that emotion is simply the subjective counterpart of (objective) motivation (so that separate brain mechanisms would be an embarrassment) and (2) the apparent involvement of reward and punishment is a consequence of the excessively narrow range of experimental procedures used and has no foundation in the design of the brain

Abstract: Most of us would agree that the world of our experience is different than the extramental reality of which we are a part. Indeed, the evidence pertaining to cultural cosmologies around the globe suggests that virtually all peoples recognize this distinction—hence the focus upon the "hidden" forces behind everyday events. That said, the struggle to comprehend the relationship between our consciousness and reality, even the reality of ourselves, has led to controversy and debate for centuries in Western philosophy. In this article, we address this problem from an anthropological perspective and argue that the generative route to a solution of the experience–reality "gap" is by way of an anthropologically informed cultural neurophenomenology . By this we mean a perspective and methodology that applies a phenomenology that controls for cultural variation in perception and interpretation, coupled with the latest information from the neurosciences about how the organ of experience—the brain—is structured

Abstract: The shapes of neurons and glial cells dictate many important aspects of their functions. In olfactory systems, certain architectural features are characteristics of these two cell types across a wide variety of species. The accumulated evidence suggests that these common features may play fundamental roles in olfactoryinformation processing. For instance, the primary olfactory neuropil in most vertebrate and invertebrate olfactory systems is organized into discrete modules called glomeruli. Inside each glomerulus, sensory axons and CNS neurons branch and synapse in patterns that are repeated across species. In many species, moreover, the glomeruli are enveloped by a thin and ordered layer of glial processes. Theglomerular arrangement reflects the processing of odor information in modules that encode the discrete molecular attributes of odorant stimuli being processed. Recent studies of the mechanisms that guide the development of olfactory neurons and glial cells have revealed complex reciprocal interactions between these two cell types, which may be necessary for the establishment of modular compartments. Collectively, the findings reviewed here suggest that specialized cellular architecture plays key functional roles in the detection, analysis, and discrimination of odors at early steps in olfactory processing

Abstract: This article argues that understanding everyday practices in neurobiological labs requires us to take into account a variety of different action positions: self-conscious social actors, technical artifacts, conscious organisms, and organisms being merely alive. In order to understand the interactions among such diverse entities, highly differentiated conceptual tools are required. Drawing on the theory of the German philosopher and sociologist Helmuth Plessner, the paper analyzes experimenters as self-conscious social persons who recognize monkeys as conscious organisms. Integrating Plessner’s ideas into the stock of concepts used in science and technology studies provides richer descriptions of laboratory life. In particular, this theory allows an understanding of a crucial feature of neurobiological brain research: the construction of the brain as the epistemic object of brain research. As such, the brain must be isolated from the acting and interacting organism in a complicated process

Abstract: The rapid development of connectionist models in computer science and of powerful computational tools in neuroscience has encouraged eliminativist materialist philosophers to propose specific alternatives to traditional mentalistic theories of mind. One of the problems associated with such a move is that elimination of the mental would seem to remove access to ideas like truth as the foundations of normative epistemology. Thus, a successful elimination of propositional or sentential theories of mind must not only replace them for purposes of our psychology, it must also replace them for purposes of the evaluation of our theories and explanations, psychological and otherwise. This paper briefly reviews eliminativist arguments for doubting the correctness of sentential accounts of explanation, understanding, and normative evaluation. It then considers Paul Churchland's (1989) proposed alternative norms, which are framed neurocomputationally. The alternative is found wanting in several specific ways. The arguments for eliminating propositionally-based norms are then re-examined and it is suggested that the need for wholesale elimination is overstated. A clear gap in the traditional epistemological story is identified, however, and a more modest set of norms is proposed as a way of filling this gap, rather than as a way of entirely replacing the traditional framework

Abstract: Surveys theories in contemporary neuroscience, exploring many of its methodological techniques and problems.

Abstract: A movement dedicated to applying neuroscience to traditional philosophical problems and using philosophical methods to illuminate issues in neuroscience began about twenty-five years ago. Results in neuroscience have affected how we see traditional areas of philosophical concern such as perception, belief-formation, and consciousness. There is an interesting interaction between some of the distinctive features of neuroscience and important general issues in the philosophy of science. And recent neuroscience has thrown up a few conceptual issues that philosophers are perhaps best trained to deal with. After sketching the history of the movement, we explore the relationships between neuroscience and philosophy and introduce some of the specific issues that have arisen

Abstract: This novel approach plunges the reader into the depths of our own brain.

Abstract: Despite its significance in neuroscience and computation, McCulloch and Pitts's celebrated 1943 paper has received little historical and philosophical attention. In 1943 there already existed a lively community of biophysicists doing mathematical work on neural networks. What was novel in McCulloch and Pitts's paper was their use of logic and computation to understand neural, and thus mental, activity. McCulloch and Pitts's contributions included (i) a formalism whose refinement and generalization led to the notion of finite automata (an important formalism in computability theory), (ii) a technique that inspired the notion of logic design (a fundamental part of modern computer design), (iii) the first use of computation to address the mind–body problem, and (iv) the first modern computational theory of mind and brain.

Abstract: This paper proposes that neurodynamic system theory may be used to connect structural and functional aspects of neural organization. The paper claims that generalized causal dynamic models are proper tools for describing the self-organizing mechanism of the nervous system. In particular, it is pointed out that ontogeny, development, normal performance, learning, and plasticity, can be treated by coherent concepts and formalism. Taking into account the self-referential character of the brain, autopoiesis, endophysics and hermeneutics are offered as elements of a poststructuralist brain (-mind-computer) theory

Abstract: The unity of mind and body need not imply accepting the unity of mind and brain, because the mind-brain identity is something that science has presupposed, not discovered. I cite evidence from modern neuroscience that cognitive activities are distributed throughout the human nervous system, which challenges the 'scientific' assumption (believed by Descartes, among others) that the brain is the seat of the soul, and the rest of the nerves are mere message cables to the brain. Dennett comes close to accepting this point when he criticizes 'Cartesian materialism', and yet he still claims that Vie head is headquarters'. Accepting that the mind is the entire nervous system solves some philosophical problems, for Dennett and others. There is also some evidence that indicates that some cognitive activities may be hormonal rather than neural, which raises some challenging problems for the once obvious distinction between causing a mental state and embodying that state

Abstract: The ability to predict is the most importantability of the brain. Somehow, the cortex isable to extract regularities from theenvironment and use those regularities as abasis for prediction. This is a most remarkableskill, considering that behaviourallysignificant environmental regularities are noteasy to discern: they operate not only betweenpairs of simple environmental conditions, astraditional associationism has assumed, butamong complex functions of conditions that areorders of complexity removed from raw sensoryinputs. We propose that the brain's basicmechanism for discovering such complexregularities is implemented in the dendritictrees of individual pyramidal cells in thecerebral cortex. Pyramidal cells have 5–8principal dendrites, each of which is capableof learning nonlinear input-to-outputtransfer functions. We propose that eachdendrite is trained, in learning its transferfunction, by all the other principal dendritesof the same cell. These dendrites teach eachother to respond to their separate inputs with matching outputs. Exposed to differentbut related information about the sensoryenvironment, principal dendrites of the samecell tune to functions over environmentalconditions that, while different, are correlated . As a result, the cell as awhole tunes to the source of the regularitiesdiscovered by the cooperating dendrites,creating a new representation. When organizedinto feed-forward/feedback layers, pyramidalcells can build their discoveries on thediscoveries of other cells, graduallyuncovering nature's hidden order. Theresulting associative network is powerfulenough to meet a troubling traditionalobjection to associationism: that it is toosimple an architecture to implement rationalprocesses

Abstract: In this long and detailed book Bennett and Hacker set themselves two ambitious tasks. The first is to offer a philosophical critique of, what they argue are, philosophical confusions within contemporary cognitive neuroscience. The second is to present a ‘conceptual reference work for cognitive neuroscientists who wish to check the contour lines of the psychological concept relevant to their investigation’ (p.7). In the process they cover an astonishing amount of material. The first two chapters present a critical history of neuroscience from Aristotle to Sherrington, Eccles and Penfield. Chapter three (to which I shall return), offers the philosophical basis for much of the book. Chapters four to twelve present detailed philosophical criticisms of a wide variety of neuroscientists (and some philosophers) on a large number of topics. These include: Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Marr and Frisby on perception (particularly the primary/secondary quality distinction and the binding problem); Milner, Squire and Kandel on memory; Blakemore and others on mental imagery; LaDoux and Damasio on the emotions; Libet on voluntary movement; and Baars, Crick, Edelman, Damasio, Penrose, Searle, Chalmers, and Nagel on consciousness (with a great deal on qualia and self-consciousness). Chapters thirteen and fourteen, along with the two appendices, contain an elaboration and defence of the book’s methodology and present explicit contrasts with the Churchlands, Dennett and Searle. Bennett and Hacker maintain that whilst neuroscientists have made significant discoveries concerning the workings of the brain, these discoveries have been obscured by their presentation within an incoherent conceptual framework. Their complaints, therefore, are often not with neuroscience itself but with what might be called its philosophical self image

Abstract:   The concept of voluntary motor control(VMC) frequently appears in the neuroscientific literature, specifically in the context of cortically-mediated, intentional motor actions. For cognitive scientists, this concept of VMC raises a number of interesting questions:(i) Are there dedicated, modular-like structures within the motor system associated with VMC? Or (ii) is it the case that VMC is distributed over multiple cortical as well as subcortical structures?(iii) Is there any one place within the so-calledhierarchy of motor control where voluntary movements could be said to originate? And (iv) in the current neurological literature how is the adjective voluntary in VMC being used? These questions are here considered in the context of how higher- and lower-levels of motor control, plan, initiate, coordinate, sequence, and modulate goal-directed motor outputs in response to changing internal and external inputs. Particularly relevant are the conceptual implications of current neurological modeling of VMC concerning causal agency

Abstract: I examine different arguments that could be used to establish indeterminism of neurological processes. Even though scenarios where single events at the molecular level make the difference in the outcome of such processes are realistic, this falls short of establishing indeterminism, because it is not clear that these molecular events are subject to quantum mechanical uncertainty. Furthermore, attempts to argue for indeterminism autonomously (i.e., independently of quantum mechanics) fail, because both deterministic and indeterministic models can account for the empirically observed behavior of ion channels

Abstract: Exploring the relevance of biological discovery to philosophical topics such as perception, freedom, determinism, and ethical values, J.Z. Young's provocative book illuminates the significant links between these philosophical concepts and recent developments in biology and the neurosciences. In clear-cut language, Young describes the brain and its functions, examining questions concerning physical makeup versus "real" self, the awareness of our moral sense, and how human consciousness differs from that of other animals. He approaches perception not as a passive process but as an active search for information, suggesting that human knowledge develops from a special process--essential to all organisms--of gathering information for survival