Enactivism, other minds, and mental disorders

Although enactive approaches to cognition vary in terms of their character and scope, all endorse several core claims. The first is that cognition is tied to action. The second is that cognition is composed of more than just in-the-head processes; cognitive activities are externalized via features of our embodiment and in our ecological dealings with the people and things around us. I appeal to these two enactive claims to consider a view called “direct social perception” : the idea that we can sometimes perceive features of other minds directly in the character of their embodiment and environmental interactions. I argue that if DSP is true, we can probably also perceive certain features of mental disorders as well. I draw upon the developmental psychologist Daniel Stern’s notion of “forms of vitality”—largely overlooked in these debates—to develop this idea, and I use autism as a case study. I argue further that an enactive approach to DSP can clarify some ways we play a regulative role in shaping the temporal and phenomenal character of the disorder in question, and it may therefore have practical significance for both the clinical and therapeutic encounter

A survey of comics research in computer science

Graphical novels such as comics and mangas are well known all over the world. The digital transition started to change the way people are reading comics, more and more on smartphones and tablets and less and less on paper. In the recent years, a wide variety of research about comics has been proposed and might change the way comics are created, distributed and read in future years. Early work focuses on low level document image analysis: indeed comic books are complex, they contains text, drawings, balloon, panels, onomatopoeia, etc. Different fields of computer science covered research about user interaction and content generation such as multimedia, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, etc. with different sets of values. We propose in this paper to review the previous research about comics in computer science, to state what have been done and to give some insights about the main outlooks

Navigational style influences eye movement pattern during exploration and learning of an environmental map

During navigation people may adopt three different spatial styles (i.e., Landmark, Route, and Survey). Landmark style (LS) people are able to recall familiar landmarks but cannot combine them with directional information; Route style (RS) people connect landmarks to each other using egocentric information about direction; Survey style (SS) people use a map-like representation of the environment. SS individuals generally navigate better than LS and RS people. Fifty-one college students (20 LS; 17 RS, and 14 SS) took part in the experiment. The spatial cognitive style (SCS) was assessed by means of the SCS test; participants then had to learn a schematic map of a city, and after 5 min had to recall the path depicted on it. During the learning and delayed recall phases, eye-movements were recorded. Our intent was to investigate whether there is a peculiar way to explore an environmental map related to the individual's spatial style. Results support the presence of differences in the strategy used by the three spatial styles for learning the path and its delayed recall. Specifically, LS individuals produced a greater number of fixations of short duration, while the opposite eye movement pattern characterized SS individuals. Moreover, SS individuals showed a more spread and comprehensive explorative pattern of the map, while LS individuals focused their exploration on the path and related targets. RS individuals showed a pattern of exploration at a level of proficiency between LS and SS individuals. We discuss the clinical and anatomical implications of our data

The Full Wealth of Conviction and Cognition: Psychology\'s Modernist Critique of Fundamentalism in Postmodern Perspective

The author draws parallels between psychology and religious modernism as exemplified in the writings of such figures as Harry Emerson Fosdick. Miller suggests that psychological research arguing that fundamentalists are \"cognitivcly challenged\" is more reflective of psychology\'s unacknowledged modernist assumptions than descriptive of fundamentalists. A post-modernist recognition of psychology\'s bias should help redirect efforts toward understanding fundamentalists\' pressing desire to preserve a particular orderly culture

Rethinking Populism in the Digital Age: Social Networks, Political Affects and Post-Truth Democracies

Although populism is not a new phenomena, its rise in the aftermath of the financial crisis presents some novelties that are worth exploring. Mostly, they refer to the transformation of the public sphere in the digital era, which has changed how political actors and citizens relate to each other and hence the discursive and non-discursive practices chosen by the former. This includes a more direct communication between populist leaders and their base, the creation of channels that sideline those of the mainstream media, as well as the emergence of "post-truth" as a framework that gives new value to narratives as conveyors of political values that disrupt established social conventions. In order to understand these features -which, their novelty notwithstanding, do not change populism's "thin" ideological core- attention is due to the emotional dimension of populist practices. Strictly speaking, they are not new: new are the lens through which we observe them after the affective turn experienced by social sciences in the last decade. Yet social networks are in themselves rather affective technologies, fostering an emotionally charged communication and facilitating the means by which individuals can feel engaged with their "moral tribe" -isolating themselves from other discourses or narratives. This paper will reflect upon these transformations from the vantage point of political theory, emphasizing how the digitization of the public sphere has influenced the way in which populist actors across liberal democracies create their publics and address them, as well as the increasing relevance of affects in explanations about political life.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Understanding Dance Understanding

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