Conscious access and complexity of visual features

Imagine you are in your car driving to meet a friend at a restaurant you have never been to before. As an experienced driver, you don’t need to deliberately direct your gaze. Instead, your attention is automatically drawn to crossings far off in the distance, other moving vehicles, and relevant road signs. Without having to assert effort, your brain suppresses details in your immediate surroundings to enhance relevant information. When you arrive at the restaurant, you swiftly search through the crowd of strangers, assessing whether everyone is your friend within a fraction of a second. Your brain effortlessly evaluates each person with templates in your memory, first on crude features such as hair colour or height, and for anyone who fits these criteria, assessment is carried out on finer facial features. With our ability to use logical inferences based on experience we build templates of a target, which we use to efficiently scan through our environment. Regardless of how mundane this everyday task might seem; its completion requires several fundamental computational problems to be overcome. When driving a car and when searching a crowded room, you need to selectively enhance and suppress visual information, as processing all information equally is an inefficient use of resources. It can take several hundred milliseconds to fully process a complex natural scene (Kar et al., 2019), meaning that the processing of several visual objects must be happening in parallel. To add to this complexity, humans are continuously updating their goals (first, search for the bar across the whole room, then search for a person at the bar) based on information we are gaining within each moment. In this dissertation, I will address how the brain organizes information into categories, how items that are processed in parallel can interfere with each other, and at what levels of processing these interferences occur

Extrachromosomal regulators of phenotypic heterogeneity in Saccharomyces species

Phenotypic heterogeneity in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has input from both genetic and epigenetic determinants. In addition to changes in DNA sequence induced by mutagens and error-prone mechanisms, there are a variety of 'non-mutagenic' chemicals that can trigger inherited changes in phenotype. One such agent, guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl), can both generate mitochondrial petite mutants and also induce the loss of various prions from this yeast species. Prions are novel protein-based epigenetic determinants that undergo self-perpetuating,heritable changes in their structure, resulting in the aggregation of an alternative conformational form of a protein. To date, prions have been almost exclusively studied in laboratory-bred strains of S. cerevisiae, and the work in this thesis broadens the study to wild strains i.e. non-laboratory strains of S. cerevisiae and three related Saccharomyces species: S. bayanus, S. mikatae and S. kudriavzevii. The studies outlined here sought to answer two questions; whether the mechanism of petite induction by GdnHCl is the same as leads to prion loss i.e. by inhibition ofthe molecular chaperone Hsp104; and whether we can identify prion-associated traits in other Saccharomyces species by GdnHCl-mediated curing. To answer the first question, the use of S. cerevisiae mutants lacking either Hsp104 or the related mitochondrial chaperone Hsp78 ruled out inhibition of both of these proteins as the mechanism of petite induction by GdnHCl, as both mutants maintained mitochondrial function. Furthermore, GdnHCl also generates respiratory deficient petite mutants in the three Saccharomyces species under test, and a detailedcomparative analysis of the impact of GdnHCl on the ultrastructure and respiratory functions of mitochondria in these species is reported. The search for prion-related phenotypes in these Saccharomyces species uncovered the possible existence of one or more endogenous prion which may control phenotypic traits that impact on a cell's chance of survival in fluctuating environments. Finally, the ability of these genetically-related species to facilitate and perpetuate the formation of other amyloid-forming proteins; Alzheimer's disease associated protein Aβ42 and Huntingtin (Htt)-associated polyglutamine (polyQ) was analysed. The results obtained indicate that each of these species can propagate the amyloid forms of Aβ42 and polyQ, but these amyloid states are differentially impacted upon by the endogenous prion state of the host yeast species. The expansion of studies into alternate species of Saccharomyces has uncovered the possible existence of prions and prion-related phenotypes in these species; and provides considerable potential to develop more disease-relevant models in the future

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music

Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music by Steven Jan is a comprehensive account of the relationships between evolutionary theory and music. Examining the ‘evolutionary algorithm’ that drives biological and musical-cultural evolution, the book provides a distinctive commentary on how musicality and music can shed light on our understanding of Darwin’s famous theory, and vice-versa. Comprised of seven chapters, with several musical examples, figures and definitions of terms, this original and accessible book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the relationships between music and evolutionary thought. Jan guides the reader through key evolutionary ideas and the development of human musicality, before exploring cultural evolution, evolutionary ideas in musical scholarship, animal vocalisations, music generated through technology, and the nature of consciousness as an evolutionary phenomenon. A unique examination of how evolutionary thought intersects with music, Music in Evolution and Evolution in Music is essential to our understanding of how and why music arose in our species and why it is such a significant presence in our lives

From Computer Metaphor to Computational Modeling: The Evolution of Computationalism

In this paper, I argue that computationalism is a progressive research tradition. Its metaphysical assumptions are that nervous systems are computational, and that information processing is necessary for cognition to occur. First, the primary reasons why information processing should explain cognition are reviewed. Then I argue that early formulations of these reasons are outdated. However, by relying on the mechanistic account of physical computation, they can be recast in a compelling way. Next, I contrast two computational models of working memory to show how modeling has progressed over the years. The methodological assumptions of new modeling work are best understood in the mechanistic framework, which is evidenced by the way in which models are empirically validated. Moreover, the methodological and theoretical progress in computational neuroscience vindicates the new mechanistic approach to explanation, which, at the same time, justifies the best practices of computational modeling. Overall, computational modeling is deservedly successful in cognitive (neuro)science. Its successes are related to deep conceptual connections between cognition and computation. Computationalism is not only here to stay, it becomes stronger every year

Social context of creativity

This thesis analyses the long-distance control of the environmentally-situated imagination, in both spatial and temporal dimensions. Central to the project is what I call the extended social brain hypothesis. Grounded in the Peircean conception of 'pragmaticism‘, this re-introduces technical intelligence to Dunbar‘s social brain—conceptually, through Clark‘s 'extended mind‘ philosophy, and materially, through Callon‘s 'actor–network theory‘. I claim that: There is no subjectivity without intersubjectivity. That is to say: as an evolutionary matter, it was necessary for the empathic capacities to evolve before the sense of self we identify as human could emerge. Intersubjectivity is critical to human communication, because of its role in interpreting intention. While the idea that human communication requires three levels of intentionality carries analytical weight, I argue that the inflationary trajectory is wrong as an evolutionary matter. The trend is instead towards increasing powers of individuation. The capacity for tool-use is emphasized less under the social brain hypothesis, but the importance of digital manipulation needs to be reasserted as part of a mature ontology. These claims are modulated to substantiate the work-maker, a socially situated (and embodied) creative agent who draws together Peircean notions of epistemology, phenomenology and oral performance

Fuori di sé. L’empatia nell’orizzonte umano e oltre

L’empatia è tornata alla ribalta grazie agli sviluppi delle neuroscienze affettive e sociali, come un processo emozionale costitutivo non solo dell’intimità personale, ma dell’alterità in generale e del mondo sociale condiviso. Dalle trattazioni filosofiche alle ricerche neurobiologiche, l’empatia illumina la primarietà della dimensione corporea nella comunicazione intersoggettiva, che, inscritta dall’evoluzione nella struttura psicofsica di molte specie animali, offre nuove chiavi di lettura dei fenomeni dell’altruismo. Allo stesso tempo, la capacità umana di espandere indefinitamente l’esperienza empatica all’altro da sé rivela caratteristiche uniche della nostra specie, che hanno aperto nuove prospettive nella filosofia della mente e più in generale nel dibattito sulla natura umana. La pluralità di approcci che il volume ricopre propone una riflessione ad ampio raggio su quanto e in che modo la modificazione prospettica in corso nella scienza, della quale l’empatia è indicatore privilegiato, possa contribuire a influenzare i processi, culturalmente e soggettivamente condizionati, di generazione del valore, e a prospettare un orizzonte motivazionale più ampio e un’immaginazione etica crescentemente inclusiva; ampio, forse, abbastanza da poter far da guida ad un atteggiamento di cura verso l’ambiente

Bridges, Walls, Doors : On Democracy and Nature

The concept of green democracy has been advanced in green political theory as a way to include the natural world in the political and, by that, overcome an alleged wall, a fundamental disunity, separating humans and nature in modernity and substitute it with a unity of identity that would bridge the gap between them. It has also been vested with the coupled power to transform society in a sustainable direction. This study argues that green democracy disqualifies the concept of democracy it adopts and that, instead of bringing humans and nature together in a unity of identity, it reproduces a relation between them according to which they form a unity of difference, a relation where they are connected as if being the inside and outside of a door. Through a historical analysis of medieval, early modern, and modern modes of Western thought, it is shown that modernity does not wall humans off from nature but instead relates them in such a unity of difference and that this particular relation is fundamental for the modern concept of democracy in general, which is shown to have the same meaning as democracy has in the concept of green democracy. A tendency within the modern concept of democracy to disqualify itself is also delineated. The analysis suggests that the conceptualisation of green democracy in green political theory reproduces a unity of difference between humans and nature because it adopts a modern concept of democracy presupposing such a relation, and that it disqualifies its own concept of democracy because modern democracy tends to disqualify itself. Also, this tendency, it is argued, is exacerbated in green democracy

Religious Individualisation

This volume brings together key findings of the research project ‘Religious Individualisation in Historical Perspective’ at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies. Combining a wide range of disciplinary approaches, methods and theories, the volume assembles over 50 contributions that explore and compare processes of religious individualisation in Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe from antiquity to the recent past