In recent years, Bayesian probability theory has emerged not only as a powerful tool for building computational theories of vision, but also as a general paradigm for studying human visual perception. This book provides an introduction to and critical analysis of the Bayesian paradigm. Leading researchers in computer vision and experimental vision science describe general theoretical frameworks for modeling vision, detailed applications to specific problems and implications for experimental studies of human perception. The book provides a dialogue between different perspectives (...) both within chapters, which draw on insights from experimental and computational work, and between chapters, through commentaries written by the contributors on each other's work. Students and researchers in cognitive and visual science will find much to interest them in this thought-provoking collection. (shrink)

The 14 essays assembled in this volume, along with their intensive scholarship, create somewhat the impression of a Who's Who of contemporary literary studies of Ralph Waldo Emerson and the American Transcendentalists. All has been brought together by Mott and Burkholder to honor Joel Myerson, with the words of Emerson's famous remark to Walt Whitman, "We greet You at the Mid-point of a Great Career" (p. xi). An authority on Transcendentalism, textual and bibliographical studies, Myerson has written, edited, or (...) co-edited nearly sixty books, including most recently, Emerson's Antislavery Writings (with Len Gougeon, 1995), The Selected Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1997), and the Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson (with Ronald A. Bosco). The career, like the present book, provides a marvelous contemporary focus on the 19th century American literary renaissance. Anyone writing on Emerson's thought will best view this volume as essential reading. (shrink)

It is traditionally believed that cerebral activation (the presence of low voltage fast electrical activity in the neocortex and rhythmical slow activity in the hippocampus) is correlated with arousal, while deactivation (the presence of large amplitude irregular slow waves or spindles in both the neocortex and the hippocampus) is correlated with sleep or coma. However, since there are many exceptions, these generalizations have only limited validity. Activated patterns occur in normal sleep (active or paradoxical sleep) and during states of anesthesia (...) and coma. Deactivated patterns occur, at times, during normal waking, or during behavior in awake animals treated with atropinic drugs. Also, the fact that patterns characteristic of sleep, arousal, and waking behavior continue in decorticate animals indicates that reticulo-cortical mechanisms are not essential for these aspects of behavior. (shrink)

Both Carnap and Quine made significant contributions to the philosophy of mathematics despite their diversedviews. Carnap endorsed the dichotomy between analytic and synthetic knowledge and classified certainmathematical questions as internal questions appealing to logic and convention. On the contrary, Quine wasopposed to the analytic-synthetic distinction and promoted a holistic view of scientific inquiry. The purpose of thispaper is to argue that in light of the recent advancement of experimental mathematics such as Monte Carlosimulations, limiting mathematical inquiry to the domain of (...) logic is unjustified. Robustness studies implemented inMonte Carlo Studies demonstrate that mathematics is on par with other experimental-based sciences. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Editorial introduction to the special issue on the work of Castoriadis.