Feel, Don\u27t Think Review of the Application of Neuroscience Methods for Conversational Agent Research

Conversational agents (CAs) equipped with human-like features (e.g., name, avatar) have been reported to induce the perception of humanness and social presence in users, which can also increase other aspects of users’ affection, cognition, and behavior. However, current research is primarily based on self-reported measurements, leaving the door open for errors related to the self-serving bias, socially desired responding, negativity bias and others. In this context, applying neuroscience methods (e.g., EEG or MRI) could provide a means to supplement current research. However, it is unclear to what extent such methods have already been applied and what future directions for their application might be. Against this background, we conducted a comprehensive and transdisciplinary review. Based on our sample of 37 articles, we find an increased interest in the topic after 2017, with neural signal and trust/decision-making as upcoming areas of research and five separate research clusters, describing current research trends

Rhetorics of pain: agency and regulation in the medical-industrial complex

This dissertation explores the rhetorical mechanisms of agency and regulation in the medical-industrial complex. It presents the results of over two years of ethnographic observation and interviews with a multidisciplinary pain management organization. Additionally, it interrogates two broader cases of agency and regulation in pain science: 1) the debate over the nature of the sinus headache and 2) the debate surrounding the legitimacy of the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia. Following recent theoretical work in rhetorical studies, this dissertation argues that the rhetoric of pain science corroborates recent theoretical suggestions that the exercise of both agency and regulation is predicated on structures of authority. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest that when clinicians seek change in medical science or healthcare regulation, they rely on authority provided to them by their disciplinary identity--an identity supported by the same structures they seek to change. Similarly, the exercise of regulation in the medical-industrial complex is often based on identical structures of authority. Finally, in exploring these issues, this dissertation also argues for more inquiry in the emerging subfield known as rhetoric of technoscience. The work of this dissertation demonstrates the methods and modes of inquiry for rhetoric of technoscience and reflects on how such modes of inquiry are different from rhetorics of science and technology, as traditionally conceived. Ultimately, this work argues for greater attention to issues of ontology and materiality as well as continued exploration into how those issues impact scientific and policy discourses

Are abstract concepts like dinosaur feathers?

Ewolucja ludzkiego układu nerwowego pozwoliła nam na wykonywanie niezwykle skomplikowanych czynności takich jak obliczenia matematyczne, analizy gospodarcze czy choćby napisanie tej książki. Mimo to wciąż nie jesteśmy pewni jak i dlaczego człowiek nabył zdolność abstrakcyjnego myślenia. Jedna z teorii sugeruje, że myślenie abstrakcyjne i konkretne opierają się na tym samym mechanizmie: doświadczeniu. Według tej teorii, nazwanej teorią ucieleśnionego poznania, świat rozumiemy dzięki doświadczeniom fizycznym. Kiedy opisujemy jakiś argument jako "chwiejny" albo pogląd jako "bezpodstawny" to korzystamy z doświadczeń, które zdobyliśmy bawiąc się kolckami jako dzieci. W tej książce zadaję postawione przez psychologa Daniela Casasanto pytanie: „czy pojęcia abstrakcyjne są jak pióra dinozaurów”. Jakie procesy ewolucyjne doprowadziły do tego, że jesteśmy w stanie opisać nawet bardzo abstrakcyjne zagadnienia w odniesieniu do konkretnych zjawisk? Przedstawiając wyniki badań nad mową i gestem osób widzących, słabowidzących oraz niewidomych, staram się pokazać, że podstawy zrozumienia wielu pojęć abstrakcyjnych szukać można w geście

Are abstract concepts like dinosaur feathers? Objectification as a conceptual tool: evidence from language and gesture of English and Polish native speakers

Studies based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999) usually identify conceptual metaphors by analysing linguistic expressions and creating a post hoc interpretation of the findings. This method has been questioned for a variety of reasons, including its circularity (Müller, 2008), lack of falsifiability (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 1996, 2004), and lack of predictive power (Ritchie, 2003). It has been argued that CTM requires additional constraints to improve its applicability for empirical research (Gibbs, 2011; Ritchie, 2003). This paper sets out to propose additional methodological structure to CTM, a theory of conceptual metaphor in which much of abstract thought is generated by metaphorical mapping from embodied experience (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & Pérez Hernández, 2011). Introducing Objectification Theory defined by Szwedek (2002, 2007, 2011) ameliorates a number of methodological issues in CTM. First, the embodiment claim of CTM in its current form cannot be empirically proven incorrect (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 2004) as any mapping within it is possible (although only some actually happen). Objectification introduces pre-metaphorical structure of the kind suggested by Glucksberg (2001), constraining source and target domain selection, predicting which mappings are more likely to happen. Second, while many claim that metaphors trace back to a literal concept based on embodied physical experience (Gibbs, Costa Lima, & Francozo, 2004), it is unclear what criteria are used to define „physical”. Metaphorical domains are often described using the terms „abstract” and „concrete”, Objectification proposes objective criteria for deciding whether a concept is experientially grounded. Finally, Objectification provides grounds for introducing a hierarchical framework for metaphor typology, preventing post-hoc addition of metaphor types if and when suitable for the explanation of a phenomenon; thus increasing the consistency of the CTM framework, both internally and with other cognitive science disciplines. This thesis focuses on providing evidence for Objectification Theory and identifying its applications in metaphor and gesture research

Eye quietness and quiet eye in expert and novice golf performance: an electrooculographic analysis

Quiet eye (QE) is the final ocular fixation on the target of an action (e.g., the ball in golf putting). Camerabased eye-tracking studies have consistently found longer QE durations in experts than novices; however, mechanisms underlying QE are not known. To offer a new perspective we examined the feasibility of measuring the QE using electrooculography (EOG) and developed an index to assess ocular activity across time: eye quietness (EQ). Ten expert and ten novice golfers putted 60 balls to a 2.4 m distant hole. Horizontal EOG (2ms resolution) was recorded from two electrodes placed on the outer sides of the eyes. QE duration was measured using a EOG voltage threshold and comprised the sum of the pre-movement and post-movement initiation components. EQ was computed as the standard deviation of the EOG in 0.5 s bins from –4 to +2 s, relative to backswing initiation: lower values indicate less movement of the eyes, hence greater quietness. Finally, we measured club-ball address and swing durations. T-tests showed that total QE did not differ between groups (p = .31); however, experts had marginally shorter pre-movement QE (p = .08) and longer post-movement QE (p < .001) than novices. A group × time ANOVA revealed that experts had less EQ before backswing initiation and greater EQ after backswing initiation (p = .002). QE durations were inversely correlated with EQ from –1.5 to 1 s (rs = –.48 - –.90, ps = .03 - .001). Experts had longer swing durations than novices (p = .01) and, importantly, swing durations correlated positively with post-movement QE (r = .52, p = .02) and negatively with EQ from 0.5 to 1s (r = –.63, p = .003). This study demonstrates the feasibility of measuring ocular activity using EOG and validates EQ as an index of ocular activity. Its findings challenge the dominant perspective on QE and provide new evidence that expert-novice differences in ocular activity may reflect differences in the kinematics of how experts and novices execute skills

Controversies in Counselling: Re-thinking Therapy’s Ethical Base

This is a theoretical thesis about ethical counselling/psychotherapy. Its aim is to re-think some of the many problems that beset the “psy” professions, by addressing some of therapy’s foundational assumptions. It takes the view that these are still expressed in five ethical principles: autonomy, fidelity, justice, non-maleficence and beneficence. It considers this re-thinking a prerequisite to the development of “just” practice in the twenty-first century. Counselling/psychotherapy is still an emerging profession and contains many contradictions and unanswered questions. The thesis begins by foregrounding the ambiguous relationship of therapy to social justice and to the global environment. It describes the range of internal disruptions and discrepancies which the profession contains. It then presents ethical commitment as the uniting factor, and as the topic of study for the rest of the thesis. The re-thinking draws on a variety of poststructural tools and reviews literature throughout. It takes a discursive approach, drawing in particular on a framework suggested by Foucault in 1968. Each of chapters three to seven focuses on one of the five ethical principles. Each principle is subjected to both a meta-analysis, which locates it within wider discursive contexts and a micro-analysis, which tracks its expression in various versions of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors’ ethical codes. This re-thinking seeks to foreground other “truths” that may have been excluded. The thesis finds that various controversies play a distracting role in a discourse that struggles to exclude immanent relationship with “other things”, including the planet. It finds that therapy continues to play out traditional and oppositional philosophical themes. It finds that morality, expressed rationally as ethics, suffers an erasure. It becomes mis-represented. The thesis ends by proposing a theory of materiality that bridges the gap between discourse analysis and identity politics. It concludes that ethical therapy would do better to free itself from reason’s stranglehold. It calls for an emphasis on dialogic community and the honouring of irrational relationship with the natural environment

Controversies in Counselling: Re-thinking Therapy’s Ethical Base

This is a theoretical thesis about ethical counselling/psychotherapy. Its aim is to re-think some of the many problems that beset the “psy” professions, by addressing some of therapy’s foundational assumptions. It takes the view that these are still expressed in five ethical principles: autonomy, fidelity, justice, non-maleficence and beneficence. It considers this re-thinking a prerequisite to the development of “just” practice in the twenty-first century. Counselling/psychotherapy is still an emerging profession and contains many contradictions and unanswered questions. The thesis begins by foregrounding the ambiguous relationship of therapy to social justice and to the global environment. It describes the range of internal disruptions and discrepancies which the profession contains. It then presents ethical commitment as the uniting factor, and as the topic of study for the rest of the thesis. The re-thinking draws on a variety of poststructural tools and reviews literature throughout. It takes a discursive approach, drawing in particular on a framework suggested by Foucault in 1968. Each of chapters three to seven focuses on one of the five ethical principles. Each principle is subjected to both a meta-analysis, which locates it within wider discursive contexts and a micro-analysis, which tracks its expression in various versions of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors’ ethical codes. This re-thinking seeks to foreground other “truths” that may have been excluded. The thesis finds that various controversies play a distracting role in a discourse that struggles to exclude immanent relationship with “other things”, including the planet. It finds that therapy continues to play out traditional and oppositional philosophical themes. It finds that morality, expressed rationally as ethics, suffers an erasure. It becomes mis-represented. The thesis ends by proposing a theory of materiality that bridges the gap between discourse analysis and identity politics. It concludes that ethical therapy would do better to free itself from reason’s stranglehold. It calls for an emphasis on dialogic community and the honouring of irrational relationship with the natural environment

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume 5. Gender and Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume

Time Distortions in Mind

Time Distortions in Mind brings together current research on temporal processing in clinical populations to elucidate the interdependence between perturbations in timing and disturbances in the mind and brain. For the student, the scientist, and the stepping-stone for further research

Time Distortions in Mind

Time Distortions in Mind brings together current research on temporal processing in clinical populations to elucidate the interdependence between perturbations in timing and disturbances in the mind and brain. For the student, the scientist, and the stepping-stone for further research. Readership: An excellent reference for the student and the scientist interested in aspects of temporal processing and abnormal psychology