It has been known for over a century that there is an afferent, as well as an efferent, component to the visceral-atonomic nervous system. Despite the fundamental importance of bodily afferent information- sometimes called interoception- to central nervous system control of visceral organ function, emotional-motivational processes, and dysfunction of these processes, including psychosomatic disorders, its role did not receive much attention until quite recently. This is the first comprehensive review of this topic and it covers both neurobiological and psychobiological aspects. (...) The author first defines the issue and gives an historical background starting with the James-Lange theory of emotion, and addresses learning and motivation, roots in Pavlovian conditioning research, and operant conditioning of visceral function. In the second section he reviews recent scientific findings in the neural basis of visceral perception and studies in cardiovascular-respiratory and alimentary interoception. Finally, he discusses several related areas of research and theory including drug state issues, interoception and psychiatric disorders, and bodily consciousness, and suggests directions for future investigation. The book will be of interest to scientists in neurobiology, psychology, and brain imaging, to indivuals in related clinical fields such as psychiatry, neurology, cardiology, gastroenterology, and clinical psychology, and to their students and trainees. (shrink)

Recent discussions of ontology have shown an interest in the relation between logic, language and ontology. Quine, for example, has shown how sentences translated into canonical form determine ontological commitment in terms of the values over which bound variables range, while Strawson has maintained that conditions inherent to language determine a system of ontological concepts. But in these discussions the role linguistics might have in the construction of ontological schemes is seldom seriously considered. Except for Benjamin Lee Whorf’s examination through (...) the use of descriptive linguistic techniques of the relation between ontological schemes and the structure of languages, little has been done to apply the results of linguistic research to questions of ontology. In the past this could be attributed to the absence in structural linguistics of significant generalizations about language above the morphophonemic level. This situation has altered with the development of transformational linguistic theory. That theory contains an extensive set of generalizations about the form and content of any natural language. (shrink)

One finds throughout the history of philosophy repeated though apparently unsuccessful attempts to decide upon the nature or essence of language. This is not a trivial problem. When philosophers themselves have tried to resolve it they seem inevitably to postulate some nonovert level of linguistic form which is more basic to language than its overt grammatical forms. Now linguists have become involved in making similar claims. This is in large measure due to Noam Chomsky’s revolutionary work in transformational generative grammar, (...) research which has lead to a new conception of the goals and nature of linguistic theory. Whatever might be the ultimate fate of Chomsky’s own proposals concerning the nature of language, his insistence on descriptive precision and on theoretically sophisticated models in linguistics will remain paradigmatic. What is in fact most revolutionary about transformational linguistics is not the construction of precise and detailed grammars per se, but the parallel claim that there exist underlying realities of language which to a large extent dictate its overt form and content. For Chomsky these realities are part of the deep structure of language. Although other linguists do not share his view that there is an exclusively syntactically based deep structure, transformationalists generally do agree that there is some linguistic level underlying surface structure which accounts for it. Disagreement exists over the nature of this underlying reality, and it is on this issue that linguistics has a significant point of contact with philosophy. (shrink)

Karl Buhler was a professor of psychology at the University of Vienna when, in 1933, he published "The Axiomatization of the Language Sciences." This book is a translation of that essay, together with an opening, expository and critical essay by Innis of about equal length which deals with Buhler's total language theory. Buhler's work is not well known among English speaking philosophers and psychologists of language, and this exposition and translation provides a proper introduction to him. It is an appropriate (...) project both because his work had a marked influence with some well known German philosophers of language, particularly Ernst Cassirer, and because his own views on language and its characteristic structure are consonant with many aspects of recent semiological and phenomenological views of language. Thus, at the very least this volume provides a missing historical link designed to remind some linguistic researchers of a past they might not know they possess. (shrink)

Increasing interest in farmers’ local soil knowledge and soil management practice as a way to promote sustainable agriculture and soil conservation needs a reliable means to connect to it. This study sought to examine if Visual Soil Assessment and farmer workshops were suitable means to engage, communicate and preserve farmers’ LSK in two mountainous communes of Central Vietnam. Twenty-four farmers with reasonable or comprehensive LSK from previously studied communes were selected for the efficacy of VSA and farmer workshops for integrating (...) LSK into a well-accepted soil assessment tool. In field sites chosen by the farmers, VSA was independently executed by both farmers and scientists at the same time. Close congruence of VSA scores between the two groups highlighted that farmers could competently undertake VSA. Farmers’ VSA score was compared with their perception of field’s soil quality. For the majority of farmers’ perception of soil quality was consistent to their VSA score, while the remainder perceived their soil quality was lower than their VSA score. For most farmers their assessment of soil quality using VSA valued their LSK, and the two measures were well aligned. Soil colour and presence or vulnerability to erosion were common soil characteristics mentioned by farmers and affected the final VSA score. Farmers’ participation in VSA and workshops strengthen farmers’ confidence in their LSK and provided guidance on the impact of their soil management on soil improvement and conservation. (shrink)

In De Anima 2.4, Aristotle claims that nutritive soul encompasses two distinct biological functions: nutrition and reproduction. We challenge a pervasive interpretation which posits ‘nutrients’ as the correlative object of the nutritive capacity. Instead, the shared object of nutrition and reproduction is that which is nourished and reproduced: the ensouled body, qua ensouled. Both functions aim at preserving this object, and thus at preserving the form, life, and being of the individual organism. In each case, we show how Aristotle’s detailed (...) biological analysis supports this ontological argument. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making frameworks assist in identifying the issues at stake in a particular setting and thinking through, in a methodical manner, the ethical issues that require consideration as well as the values that need to be considered and promoted. Decisions made about the use, sharing, and re-use of big data are complex and laden with values. This paper sets out an Ethics Framework for Big Data in Health and Research developed by a working group convened by the Science, Health and (...) Policy-relevant Ethics in Singapore Initiative. It presents the aim and rationale for this framework supported by the underlying ethical concerns that relate to all health and research contexts. It also describes a set of substantive and procedural values that can be weighed up in addressing these concerns, and a step-by-step process for identifying, considering, and resolving the ethical issues arising from big data uses in health and research. This Framework is subsequently applied in the papers published in this Special Issue. These papers each address one of six domains where big data is currently employed: openness in big data and data repositories, precision medicine and big data, real-world data to generate evidence about healthcare interventions, AI-assisted decision-making in healthcare, public-private partnerships in healthcare and research, and cross-sectoral big data. (shrink)

Why and under what conditions are individuals altruistic to family and friends in their social networks? Evolutionary psychology suggests that such behaviour is primarily the product of adaptations for kin- and reciprocal altruism, dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness and exchange of benefits, respectively. For this reason, individuals are expected to be more altruistic to family members than to friends: whereas family members can be the recipients of kin and reciprocal altruism, friends can be the recipients of reciprocal altruism (...) only. However, there is a question about how the effect of kinship is implemented at the proximate psychological level. One possibility is that kinship contributes to some general measure of relationship quality (such as ‘emotional closeness’), which in turn explains altruism. Another possibility is that the effect of kinship is independent of relationship quality. The present study tests between these two possibilities. Participants (N= 111) completed a self-report questionnaire about their willingness to be altruistic, and their emotional closeness, to 12 family members and friends at different positions in their extended social networks. As expected, altruism was greater for family than friends, and greater for more central layers of the network. Crucially, the results showed that kinship made a significant unique contribution to altruism, even when controlling for the effects of emotional closeness. Thus, participants were more altruistic towards kin than would be expected if altruism was dependent on emotional closeness alone – a phenomenon we label a ‘kinship premium’. These results have implications for the ongoing debate about the extent to which kin relations and friendships are distinct kinds of social relationships, and how to measure the ‘strength of ties’ in social networks. (shrink)

Improving structural theories of international politics -- Socializing states in the international system -- Socializing the United States: emergence to major member -- Socializing the United States: structural imperatives and great power status -- Socializing Israel: emergence to major member.

Upper echelons theory posits that organisational performance reflects the personal values and cognitive frames of the top management team and, crucially, that greater heterogeneity in individual backgrounds of senior executives leads to better outcomes. However, often missing from this research is a more developed account of how this relationship between the characteristics of TMTs and performance is also mediated by internal conditions within organisations. In this paper we begin to address this deficiency focusing on the mediating impact of employee satisfaction (...) and the styles and practices of line managers. Looking at the empirical case of English National Health Services acute care hospital trusts, we use a multiple mediation model to analyse the relationship between board heterogeneity, performance and these two organisational factors. A variance-based structural equation modelling approach is applied to a sample of 102 boards of directors. First, the results lend support to the UE hypothesis that there is a positive impact of board heterogeneity and hospital-level performance. Second, the analysis shows that the relationship heterogeneity–performance is positively influenced by: the styles and practices of line managers; the levels of staff satisfaction; and by their mutually reinforcing roles. (shrink)

Reciprocal altruism involves foregoing an immediate benefit for the sake of a greater long-term reward. It follows that individuals who exhibit a stronger preference for future over immediate rewards should be more disposed to engage in reciprocal altruism – in other words, ‘patient’ people should be more cooperative. The present study tested this prediction by investigating whether participants’ contributions in a public-good game correlated with their ‘discount rate’. The hypothesis was supported: patient people are indeed more cooperative. The paper discusses (...) alternative interpretations of this result, and makes some suggestions for future research. (shrink)

It is considered in some quarters that hypothesis‐driven methods are the only valuable, reliable or significant means of scientific advance. Data‐driven or ‘inductive’ advances in scientific knowledge are then seen as marginal, irrelevant, insecure or wrong‐headed, while the development of technology—which is not of itself ‘hypothesis‐led’ (beyond the recognition that such tools might be of value)—must be seen as equally irrelevant to the hypothetico‐deductive scientific agenda. We argue here that data‐ and technology‐driven programmes are not alternatives to hypothesis‐led studies in (...) scientific knowledge discovery but are complementary and iterative partners with them. Many fields are data‐rich but hypothesis‐poor. Here, computational methods of data analysis, which may be automated, provide the means of generating novel hypotheses, especially in the post‐genomic era. BioEssays 26:99–105, 2004. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Though emotional faces preferentially reach awareness, the present study utilised both objective and subjective indices of awareness to determine whether they enhance subjective awareness and “blindsight”. Under continuous flash suppression, participants localised a disgusted, fearful or neutral face (objective index), and rated their confidence (subjective index). Psychopathic traits were also measured to investigate their influence on emotion perception. As predicted, fear increased localisation accuracy, subjective awareness and “blindsight” of upright faces. Coldhearted traits were inversely related to subjective awareness, but not (...) “blindsight”, of upright fearful faces. In a follow-up experiment using inverted faces, increased localisation accuracy and awareness, but not “blindsight”, were observed for fear. Surprisingly, awareness of inverted fearful faces was positively correlated with coldheartedness. These results suggest that emotion enhances both pre-conscious processing and the qualitative experience of awareness, but that pre-conscious and conscious processing of emotional faces rely on at least partially dissociable cognitive mechanisms. (shrink)