Journal

Volume 11, Issue 2 (July 30, 2010)

5 articles

• An Affective Approach to Moral Motivation
  by Christine Clavien
  J. CS. 2010, 11(2), 129-160;
  Abstract Over the last few years, there has been a surge of work in a new field called "moral psychology," which uses experimental methods to test the psychological processes underlying human moral activity. In this paper, I shall follow this line of approach with the aim of working out a model of how people... [Read more].
  Abstract Over the last few years, there has been a surge of work in a new field called "moral psychology," which uses experimental methods to test the psychological processes underlying human moral activity. In this paper, I shall follow this line of approach with the aim of working out a model of how people form value judgements and how they are motivated to act morally. I call this model an "affective picture": 'picture' because it remains strictly at the descriptive level and 'affective' because it has an important role for affects and emotions. This affective picture is grounded on a number of plausible and empirically supported hypotheses. The main idea is that we should distinguish between various kinds of value judgements by focusing on the sort of state of mind people find themselves in while uttering a judgement. "Reasoned judgements" are products of rational considerations and are based on preliminary acceptance of norms and values. On the contrary, "basic value judgements" are affective, primitive and non-reflective ways of assessing the world. As we shall see, this analysis has some consequences for the traditional internalism-externalism debate in philosophy; it highlights the fact that motivation is primarily linked to "basic value judgements" and that the judgements we openly defend might not have a particular effect on our actions, unless we are inclined to have an emotional attitude that conforms to them. [Collapse]
• The Neuro-Symbolic Code of Perception
  by Rosemarie Velik
  J. CS. 2010, 11(2), 161-180;
  Abstract Perceptual research has so far been tackled on two different levels: the neural and the cognitive (symbolic) level. These two levels have so far mainly been investigated separately from each other and little is known about their correlations. Here, we present a coding scheme (neuro-symbolic coding) ... [Read more].
  Abstract Perceptual research has so far been tackled on two different levels: the neural and the cognitive (symbolic) level. These two levels have so far mainly been investigated separately from each other and little is known about their correlations. Here, we present a coding scheme (neuro-symbolic coding) and a cognitive architecture (a neuro-symbolic network), which make it possible to unify these two levels. Based on this, hypotheses are presented for how the activation of millions of sensory receptors results in a unified, complex, multimodal perception, what the function of feedbacks in perception is, what influence focus of attention and knowledge have, and how binding is solved in perception. Furthermore, a hypothesis for the mechanisms involved in perceptual learning is proposed. [Collapse]
• An Experimental Study on the Meaning of Urdu Universal Quantifiers
  by Saima Hassan
  J. CS. 2010, 11(2), 181-214;
  Abstract The virtually universal opinion of semanticists is that the collective or distributive construal of English quantified statements results from the collective and distributive properties of different quantifiers with necessarily collective or distributive predicate types. The evidence adduced to supp... [Read more].
  Abstract The virtually universal opinion of semanticists is that the collective or distributive construal of English quantified statements results from the collective and distributive properties of different quantifiers with necessarily collective or distributive predicate types. The evidence adduced to support such analyses is based almost exclusively on previous research on English quantifiers (Vendler, 1967; Hogg, 1977; Dowty, 1987; Szabolcsi, 1997; Beghelli and Stowell, 1997; Kearns, 2000; Tunstall, 1998 among many others). It is generally assumed that adults are essentially error-free in their comprehension of sentences containing universal quantifiers, although they are not as sensitive to semantic anomalies as they are to syntactic violations or do not consider them as serious (Ni et al., 1998; Pearlmutter et al., 1999; Braze et al., 2002; Angrilli et al., 2002; Hagoort, 2003; Sorace and Keller, 2005). The aim of this paper is to subject these beliefs to cross-linguistic scrutiny. I begin by reviewing the evidence that the English universal quantifier all has a bias towards a collective interpretation, while each/every is biased towards a distributive interpretation. Pursuing this idea for the analysis of Urdu, I present a simple questionnaire study carried out on native speakers of Urdu. The questionnaire was designed to explore whether native speakers of Urdu are sensitive to the collective/distributive properties of Urdu universal quantifiers, and whether they are differentially sensitive to semantic/syntactic anomalies in quantified statements. I discuss the implications of this for the cross-linguistic analysis of universal quantifiers. [Collapse]
• Schizophrenia and the Dysfunctional Brain
  by Justin Garson
  J. CS. 2010, 11(2), 215-246;
  Abstract Scientists, philosophers, and even the lay public commonly accept that schizophrenia stems from a biological or internal 'dysfunction.' However, this assessment is typically accompanied neither by well-defined criteria for determining that something is dysfunctional nor empirical evidence that schiz... [Read more].
  Abstract Scientists, philosophers, and even the lay public commonly accept that schizophrenia stems from a biological or internal 'dysfunction.' However, this assessment is typically accompanied neither by well-defined criteria for determining that something is dysfunctional nor empirical evidence that schizophrenia satisfies those criteria. In the following, a concept of biological function is developed and applied to a neurobiological model of schizophrenia. It concludes that current evidence does not warrant the claim that schizophrenia stems from a biological dysfunction, and, in fact, that unusual neural structures associated with schizophrenia may have functional or adaptive significance. The fact that current evidence is ambivalent between these two possibilities (dysfunction versus adaptive function) implies that schizophrenia researchers should be much more cautious in using the 'dysfunction' label than they currently are. This has implications for both psychiatric treatment as well as public perception of mental disorders. [Collapse]
• Book Review: The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics Volume III: Korean
  by Hyun-joo Song & Franklin Chang
  J. CS. 2010, 11(2), 247-255;
  Abstract The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics Volume III: Korean. Ed. by Chungmin Lee, Greg Simpson, and Youngjin Kim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xx, 638. ISBN 9780521833356. $185 (Hb).

  Reviewed by Hyun-joo Song (Yonsei University) ... [Read more].

  Abstract The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics Volume III: Korean. Ed. by Chungmin Lee, Greg Simpson, and Youngjin Kim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xx, 638. ISBN 9780521833356. $185 (Hb).

  Reviewed by Hyun-joo Song (Yonsei University) and Franklin Chang (University of Liverpool)

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