Can the Berkeleyan Idealist Resist Spinozist Panpsychism?

We argue that prevailing definitions of Berkeley’s idealism fail to rule out a nearby Spinozist rival view that we call ‘mind-body identity panpsychism.’ Since Berkeley certainly does not agree with Spinoza on this issue, we call for more care in defining Berkeley’s view. After we propose our own definition of Berkeley’s idealism, we survey two Berkeleyan strategies to block the mind-body identity panpsychist and establish his idealism. We argue that Berkeley should follow Leibniz and further develop his account of the mind’s unity. Unity—not activity—is the best way for Berkeley to establish his view at the expense of his panpsychist competitors

Electrophysiological indices of anterior cingulate cortex function reveal changing levels of cognitive effort and reward valuation that sustain task performance

Successful execution of goal-directed behaviors often requires the deployment of cognitive control, which is thought to require cognitive effort. Recent theories have proposed that anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) regulates control levels by weighing the reward-related benefits of control against its effort-related costs. However, given that the sensations of cognitive effort and reward valuation are available only to introspection, this hypothesis is difficult to investigate empirically. We have proposed that two electrophysiological indices of ACC function, frontal midline theta and the reward positivity (RewP), provide objective measures of these functions. To explore this issue, we recorded the electroencephalogram (EEG) from participants engaged in an extended, cognitively-demanding task. Participants performed a time estimation task for 2 h in which they received reward and error feedback according to their task performance. We observed that the amplitude of the RewP, a feedback-locked component of the event related brain potential associated with reward processing, decreased with time-on-task. Conversely, frontal midline theta power, which consists of 4-8 Hz EEG oscillations associated with cognitive effort, increased with time-on-task. We also explored how these phenomena changed over time by conducting within-participant multi-level modeling analyses. Our results suggest that extended execution of a cognitively-demanding task is characterized by an early phase in which high control levels foster rapid improvements in task performance, and a later phase in which high control levels were necessary to maintain stable task performance, perhaps counteracting waning reward valuation

Error-related scalp potentials elicited by hand and foot movements : evidence for an output-independent error-processing system in humans

The error-related negativity (ERN) is a fronto-centrally distributed component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) that occurs when human subjects make errors in a variety of experimental tasks. In the present study, we recorded ERPs from 128 scalp electrodes while subjects performed a choice reaction time task using either their hands or feet. We applied the brain electric source analysis technique to compare ERNs elicited by hand and foot errors. The scalp distributions of these error potentials suggest that they share the same neural generator and, therefore, that the ERN process is output-independent. Together with other findings, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that the ERN is generated within the anterior cingulate cortex and is elicited by the activation of a generic error-processing system. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd

Lead Pipes and Child Mortality

Beginning around 1880, public health issues and engineering advances spurred the installation of city water and sewer systems. As part of this growth, many cities chose to use lead service pipes to connect residences to city water systems. This choice had negative consequences for child mortality, although the consequences were often hard to observe amid the overall falling death rates. This paper uses national data from the public use sample of the 1900 Census of Population and data on city use of lead pipes in 1897 to estimate the effect of lead pipes on child mortality. In 1900, 29 percent of the married women in the United States who had given birth to at least one child and were age forty-five or younger lived in locations where lead service pipes were used to deliver water. Because the effect of lead pipes depended on the acidity and hardness of the water, much of the negative effect was concentrated on the densely populated eastern seaboard. In the full sample, women who lived on the eastern seaboard in cities with lead pipes experienced increased child mortality of 9.3 percent relative to the sample average. These estimates suggest that the number of child deaths attributable to the use of lead pipes numbered in the tens of thousands. Many surviving children may have experienced substantial IQ impairment as a result of lead exposure. The tragedy is that lead problems were avoidable, particularly once data became available on the toxicity of lead. These findings have implications for current policy and events.

Staying with and telling different stories: Toward a theory of environmental advocacy that bridges the scholarly and political selves

As human agents, narratives allow us to make sense of the world. They weave together lived experiences into meaningful webs of understanding. One such web of understanding is the way we narratively make sense of our relationship with the environment in which we find ourselves. The aim of this project is take a closer look at how many current environmental narratives establish an understanding that places the human agent as superior to, and thus master of, the environment within that relationship. This project works to articulate different ways of changing those narratives so that the agency of non-human actants is recognized as an integral part of an. To that end three different approaches to understanding the relationship between human agents, non-human agents, and the environment were used as a means for crafting new ways of storying that interaction. Those three approaches are informed by Donna Haraway, Stacy Alaimo, and finally Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Jane Bennett. These approaches provide a foundation for working through different narratives that allow for rearticulated ontological understandings of those we live alongside within an environment. Space is held open for acknowledging the role diverse agents, human and non-human, play in an environment, thus working against anthropocentric narratives of the superior human-agent. Finally, the project ends with a brief discussion for how the work done can inform environmental advocacy and scholarship by working to tell new stories as a means of both practicing as well as working through new ontologies

A novel neural prediction error found in anterior cingulate cortex ensembles

The function of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) remains controversial, yet many theories suggest a role in behavioral adaptation, partly because a robust event-related potential, the feedback-related negativity (FN), is evoked over the ACC whenever expectations are violated. We recorded from the ACC as rats performed a task identical to one that reliably evokes an FN in humans. A subset of neurons was found that encoded expected outcomes as abstract outcome representations. The degree to which a reward/non-reward outcome representation emerged during a trial depended on the history of outcomes that preceded it. A prediction error was generated on incongruent trials as the ensembles shifted from representing the expected to the actual outcome, at the same time point we have previously reported an FN in the local field potential. The results describe a novel mode of prediction error signaling by ACC neurons that is associated with the generation of an FN

Reward-based contextual learning supported by anterior cingulate cortex

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is commonly associated with cognitive control and decision making, but its specific function is highly debated. To explore a recent theory that the ACC learns the reward values of task contexts (Holroyd & McClure in Psychological Review, 122, 54-83, 2015; Holroyd & Yeung in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16, 122-128, 2012), we recorded the event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from participants as they played a novel gambling task. The participants were first required to select from among three games in one "virtual casino," and subsequently they were required to select from among three different games in a different virtual casino; unbeknownst to them, the payoffs for the games were higher in one casino than in the other. Analysis of the reward positivity, an ERP component believed to reflect reward-related signals carried to the ACC by the midbrain dopamine system, revealed that the ACC is sensitive to differences in the reward values associated with both the casinos and the games inside the casinos, indicating that participants learned the values of the contexts in which rewards were delivered. These results highlight the importance of the ACC in learning the reward values of task contexts in order to guide action selection

The tangential velocity profile and momentum transfer within a microgravity, vortex separator

Liquid and gas do not separate naturally in microgravity, presenting a problem for twophase space systems. Increased integration of multiphase systems requires a separation method adaptable to a variety of systems. Researchers at Texas A&M University (TAMU) have developed a microgravity vortex separator (MVS) capable of handling both a wide range of inlet conditions and changes in these conditions. To optimize the MVS design, the effects of nozzle area, separator geometry, and inlet flow rate must be understood. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), in the form of Adapco’s Star-CD, is used, along with laboratory testing, to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, as analysis aids for the laboratory data and CFD results, relationships for radial pressure, bubble transit time, and momentum transfer were developed. Ground testing data showed a linear relationship between rotational speed and inlet flow rate. The CFD results compared well with the ground data and indicated that the majority of the rotational flow travels at nearly the same rotational speed. Examination of the tangential velocity profile also showed that a reduction of nozzle outlet area resulted in increased tangential velocities. Using dimensional analysis, a relationship between separator radius, inlet momentum rate, fluid properties, and rotational speed was found. Applying this relationship to the ground data and CFD results showed a strong correlation between the two dimensionless groups. Linear regression provided an equation linking rotational speed to the separator parameters. This equation was tested against the ground data and shown to predict average rotational speed well for all separator models. These results were used to calculate the radial and axial transit times of gas bubbles within the separation volume. Radial transit time was found to decrease more rapidly than axial transit time as gas volume increased, indicating axial and radial transit times are closest in value for the all liquid case and increasing gas core diameter improves the operational characteristics of the separator. From a design standpoint, the all liquid case provides a minimum flow rate for successful phase separation. Maximum flow rate depends on the pressure resources of the system