Dream content is more coherent, consistent over time, and continuous with waking emotional concerns than most brainstem-driven theories of dreaming allow, but dreaming probably has no adaptive function. A new neurocognitive perspective focusing on the forebrain system of dream generation should begin with the findings on dream content in adults and the developmental nature of dreaming in children. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Revonsuo; Solms; Vertes & Eastman].

Deaf or hard-of-hearing children who use auditory-oral communication display considerable variability in spoken language and executive functioning outcomes. Furthermore, language and executive functioning skills are strongly associated with each other in DHH children, which may be relevant for explaining this variability in outcomes. However, longitudinal investigations of language and executive functioning during the important preschool period of development in DHH children are rare. This study examined the predictive, reciprocal associations between executive functioning and spoken language over a 1-year period in (...) samples of 53 DHH and 59 typically hearing children between ages 3–8 years at baseline. Participants were assessed on measures of receptive spoken language and caregiver-completed executive functioning child behavior checklists during two in-person home visits separated by 1 year. In the sample of DHH children, better executive functioning at baseline was associated with better performance on the higher-order language measures 1 year later. In contrast, none of the Time 1 language measures were associated with better executive functioning in Time 2 in the DHH sample. TH children showed no significant language-executive functioning correlations over the 1-year study period. In regression analyses controlling for Time 1 language scores, Time 1 executive functioning predicted Time 2 language outcomes in the combined DHH and TH samples, and for vocabulary, that association was stronger in the DHH than in the TH sample. In contrast, after controlling for Time 1 executive functioning, none of the regression analyses predicting Time 2 executive functioning from Time 1 language were statistically significant. These results are the first findings to demonstrate that everyday parent-rated executive functioning behaviors predict basic and higher-order spoken language development 1 year later in young DHH children, even after accounting for initial baseline language skills. (shrink)

Henri Bergson created a rich and detailed theory of consciousness beginning with the publication of Time and Free Will in 1889 and continuing through the publication of The Two Sources of Morality and Religion in 1932. His theory had much in common with William James’s views in that both emphasized consciousness as a continuous process. James's famous ‘stream of consciousness’ is strikingly similar to Bergson's early notion of duration (duree), even if Bergson more strongly emphasized the temporal qualities of consciousness. (...) Bergson later modified his understanding of consciousness, creating a metaphysical vision that he hoped might not only overcome determinism and materialism, but also offer a sophisticated way to understand parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy and clairvoyance (topics of concern to many major theorists of the time). During his life, Bergson’s ideas were widely celebrated in the United States and in Europe. (shrink)

The first book on consciousness that offers sufficient breadth and depth to serve as a stand-alone text for courses on consciousness. Also ideally organized as a supplement for instructors who discuss topics of consciousness in other courses. Journey into the fascinating world of human consciousness with this comprehensive survey that covers topics of consciousness from both a natural science and cognitive psychology viewpoint. Based on the belief that consciousness is a natural phenomenon and product of the brain's functioning, Dr. Farthing's (...) captivating book emphasizes systematic research and theoretical interpretations and also discusses clinical applications and pertinent conceptual and philosophical issues. (shrink)

This essay first draws upon the work of William James and others to propose a nonphysicalistic understanding of the relationship between the brain and consciousness in order to articulate a philosophical perspective that can understand entheogenic visionary/mystical experiences as something other than hallucinations. It then focuses on the Santo Daime tradition, a religious movement that began in Brazil in the early part of the twentieth century, to provide an example of the personal and social ramifications of taking an entheogen (ayahuasca) (...) within a disciplined religious context. The essay claims that the Santo Daime is one example of a contemporary mystery school; gives a brief history of the development of this religion; discusses the key theological assumptions of this movement; investigates the important role played by visionary/mystical experiences within this religion; underscores the centrality of healing and spiritual transformation for members of this tradition; and ends with an examination of the crucial significance of spiritual discipline within this entheogenically based religion. (shrink)

In the past, hypothesis testing in medicine has employed the paradigm of the repeatable experiment. In statistical hypothesis testing, an unbiased sample is drawn from a larger source population, and a calculated statistic is compared to a preassigned critical region, on the assumption that the comparison could be repeated an indefinite number of times. However, repeated experiments often cannot be performed on human beings, due to ethical or economic constraints. We describe a new paradigm for hypothesis testing which uses only (...) rearrangements of data present within the observed data set. The token swap test, based on this new paradigm, is applied to three data sets from cardiovascular pathology, and computational experiments suggest that the token swap test satisfies the Neyman Pearson condition. (shrink)

It has been demonstrated that death certificates do not accurately record the actual cause of death in up to one-fourth of cases, as determined from subsequent autopsy findings. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of natural language autopsy data bases as an automated quality assurance mechanism. We translated the account of the major process leading to death, or the primary diagnosis, from all 45,564 narrative autopsy reports obtained at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between May 28, 1889, (...) and June 30, 1987, into the hierarchical system of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) titles. We obtained a total of 125,772 MeSH title translations, 1,563 of them distinct (average 2.8 per case), ranging in frequency from 6,029 occurrences of LUNG to 1 occurrence apiece of 357 MeSH titles. The natural-language-to-MeSH translations showed expected trends over the past century: fewer infectious diseases; more cardiovascular and neoplastic disease among adults; and more respiratory diseases and congenital malformations in the pediatric age group. The greater availability of autopsy documents in electronic form should increase the value of this resource for quality assurance. (shrink)

This paper shows how the dream archive and search engine on DreamBank.net, a Web site containing over 22,000 dream reports, can be used to generate new findings on dream content, some of which raise interesting questions about the relationship between dreaming and various forms of waking thought. It begins with studies that draw dream reports from DreamBank.net for studies of social networks in dreams, and then demonstrates the usefulness of the search engine by employing word strings relating to religious and (...) sexual elements. Examples from two lengthy individual dream series are used to show how the dreams of one person can be studied for characters, activities, and emotions. A final example shows that accurate inferences about a person’s religious beliefs can be made on the basis of reading through dreams retrieved with a few keywords. The overall findings are similar to those in studies using traditional forms of content analysis. (shrink)

This lavishly illustrated book highlights the conservation importance of congregatory animals species--those which gather in vast groups. It also focuses on the irreplaceability of the congregation sites which are able to support such large gatherings of animals, fish, or birds.

Medical decisions, including diagnosis, prognosis, and disease classification, must often be made on the basis of incomplete or unsatisfactory information. Data which are essential to the care of one patient may be unobtainable for technical or ethical reasons in another patient. For this reason the principles of controlled experimentation may be impossible to satisfy in human studies. In this paper, some formal aspects of medical decision making are discussed. Special operators for the intuitive concepts of certainty, demand, and effort, akin (...) to the operators of modal logic, are used to accommodate the technical and ethical limitations on human studies. Theorems are stated and proved which show how this system handles incomplete information. The embryogenesis of the human heart is presented as a sample problem in classification. (shrink)

Despite the salient experience of encoding threatening events, these memories are prone to distortions and often non-veridical from encoding to recall. Further, threat has been shown to preferentially disrupt the binding of event details and enhance goal-relevant information. While extensive work has characterised distinctive features of emotional memory, research has not fully explored the influence threat has on temporal memory, a process putatively supported by the binding of event details into a temporal context. Two primary competing hypotheses have been proposed; (...) that threat can impair or enhance temporal memory. We analysed two datasets to assess temporal memory for an in-person haunted house experience. In study 1, we examined the temporal structure of memory by characterising memory contiguity in free recall as a function of individual levels of heart rate as a proxy of threat. In study 2, we replicated marginal findings of threat-related increases in memory contiguity found in study 1. We extended these findings by showing threat-related increases in recency discriminations, an explicit test of temporal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat enhances temporal memory regarding free recall structure and during explicit memory judgments. (shrink)

This innovative volume brings together specialists in international relations to tackle a set of difficult questions about what it means to live in a globalized world where the purpose and direction of world politics are no longer clear-cut. What emerges from these essays is a very clear sense that while we may be living in an era that lacks a single, universal purpose, ours is still a world replete with meaning. The authors in this volume stress the need for a (...) pluralistic conception of meaning in a globalized world and demonstrate how increased communication and interaction in transnational spaces work to produce complex tapestries of culture and politics. Meaning and International Relations also makes an original and convincing case for the relevance of hermeneutic approaches to understanding contemporary international relations. (shrink)

Bernard Williams argues that human mortality is a good thing because living forever would necessarily be intolerably boring. His argument is often attacked for unfoundedly proposing asymmetrical requirements on the desirability of living for mortal and immortal lives. My first aim in this paper is to advance a new interpretation of Williams' argument that avoids these objections, drawing in part on some of his other writings to contextualize it. My second aim is to show how even the best (...) version of his argument only supports a somewhat weaker thesis: it may be possible for some people with certain special psychological features to enjoy an immortal life, but no one has good reason to bet on being such a person. (shrink)

In an adaptive clinical trial , key trial characteristics may be altered during the course of the trial according to predefined rules in response to information that accumulates within the trial itself. In addition to having distinguishing scientific features, adaptive trials also may involve ethical considerations that differ from more traditional randomized trials. Better understanding of clinical trial experts’ views about the ethical aspects of adaptive designs could assist those planning ACTs. Our aim was to elucidate the opinions of clinical (...) trial experts regarding their beliefs about ethical aspects of ACTs. (shrink)

Bateson's belated acceptance of the chromosome theory came in two main stages, and was permanent, although he retained to the end reservations about some implications and extensions of the theory. Coleman's attempt to explain Bateson's resistance in terms of his conservative mode of thought is critically examined, and rejected: the attributes Coleman assigns to Bateson are all either inappropriate, or irrelevant to chromosome theory, or both. Instead, the diverse factors which contributed to Bateson's resistance are enumerated and discussed. These include (...) deficiencies in the evidence then available to support the theory; embryological difficulties; Bateson's aversion to microscopy combined with the lack of a close colleague skilled in cytology; his iconoclastic temperament, and the fact that he found T. H. Morgan, the leader of the Drosophila school, an uncongenial personality. Taken together, these factors suffice to account for his resistance. Bateson's position is contrasted with that of the other most eminent opponent, W. Johannsen, whose organismic outlook was the main obstacle to acceptance. (shrink)

T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) was not only an active protagonist in the religious and scientific upheaval that followed the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution but also a harbinger of the sociobiological debates about the implications of evolution that are now going on. His seminal lecture Evolution and Ethics, reprinted here with its introductory Prolegomena, argues that the human psyche is at war with itself, that humans are alienated in a cosmos that has no special reference to their needs, and (...) that moral societies are of necessity in conflict with the natural conditions of their existence. Seen in the light of current understanding of the mechanisms of evolution, these claims remain as controversial today as they were when Huxley proposed them. In this volume George Williams, one of the best-known evolutionary biologists of our time, asserts that recent biological ideas and data justify a more extreme condemnation of the "cosmic process" than Huxley advocated and more extreme denial that the forces that got us here are capable of maintaining a viable world. James Paradis, an expert in Victorian studies, has written an introduction that sets the celebrated lecture in the context of cultural history, revealing it to be an impressive synthesis of Victorian thinking, as well as a challenge to eighteenth-century assumptions about the harmony of of nature. With Huxley's lecture as a focal point, the three parts of this book unite philosophy and science in a shared quest that recalls their common origins as systems of knowledge. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Childhood obesity has become a central concern in many countries and a range of policies have been implemented or proposed to address it. This co-authored book is the first to focus on the ethical and policy questions raised by childhood obesity and its prevention. -/- Throughout the book, the authors emphasize that childhood obesity is a multi-faceted phenomenon, and just one of many issues that parents, schools and societies face. They argue that it is important to acknowledge the resulting complexities (...) and not to think in terms "single-issue" policies. -/- After first reviewing some of the factual uncertainties about childhood obesity, the authors explore central ethical questions. What priority should be given to preventing obesity? To what extent are parents responsible? How should we think about questions of stigma and inequality? In the second part of the book, the authors consider key policy issues, including the concept of the 'obesogenic environment,' debates about taxation and marketing, and the role that schools can play in obesity prevention. -/- The authors argue that political debate is needed to decide the importance given to childhood obesity and how to divide responsibilities for action. These debates have no simple answers. Nonetheless, the authors argue that there are reasons for hope. There are a wide range of opportunities for action. Many of these options also promise wider social benefits. (shrink)

Attention Restoration Theory proposes that exposure to natural environments helps to restore attention. For sustained attention—the ongoing application of focus to a task, the effect appears to be modest, and the underlying mechanisms of attention restoration remain unclear. Exposure to nature may improve attention performance through many means: modulation of alertness and one’s connection to nature were investigated here, in two separate studies. In both studies, participants performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task before and immediately after viewing a meadow, (...) ocean, or urban image for 40 s, and then completed the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. In Study 1, an eye-tracker recorded the participants’ tonic pupil diameter during the SARTs, providing a measure of alertness. In Study 2, the effects of connectedness to nature on SART performance and perceived restoration were studied. In both studies, the image viewed was not associated with participants’ sustained attention performance; both nature images were perceived as equally restorative, and more restorative than the urban image. The image viewed was not associated with changes in alertness. Connectedness to nature was not associated with sustained attention performance, but it did moderate the relation between viewing the natural images and perceived restorativeness; participants reporting a higher connection to nature also reported feeling more restored after viewing the nature, but not the urban, images. Dissociation was found between the physiological and behavioral measures and the perceived restorativeness of the images. The results suggest that restoration associated with nature exposure is not associated with modulation of alertness but is associated with connectedness with nature. (shrink)

By considering the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a case study, I bring Tolkien’s explication of mythopoesis in “On Fairy Stories” to bear on the current popularity of superhero films to argue that such works qualify as cinematic examples of Tolkienesque fantasy tales. After summarizing Tolkien’s criteria for the genre in Nietzschean aesthetic terms, I both demonstrate how the builders of the MCU have crafted a sub-created fictional world and defend the existence of fairy stories in visual media (...) from Tolkien’s own criticism of such a possibility. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the current state of educational research through the framework of “use‐inspired” knowledge. Previous discussions regarding the nature of educational research have disproportionately focused on the soft/applied nature of knowledge in the discipline or a need for methodological priority. After acknowledging these arguments, we consider the role of education as a professional discipline in American colleges and universities, and explore the inherent relationship between researchers and practitioners. Use‐inspired knowledge prioritises practice, encourages translational research, fosters interdisciplinarity and (...) dissolves rigid educational structures. (shrink)