In three experiments, we found that after a subtle suggestion, subjects falsely recognized words from their own dreams and thought they had been presented during the waking state. The procedure used in these studies involved three phases. Subjects studied a list of words on Day 1. On Day 2, they received a false suggestion that some words from their previously reported dreams had been presented on the list. On Day 3, they tried to recall only what had occurred on the (...) initial list. Subjects falsely recognized their dream words at a very high rate—sometimes as often as they accurately recognized true words. They reported that they genuinely “remembered” the dream words, as opposed to simply “knowing” that they had been previously presented. These findings, which suggest that dreams can sometimes be mistaken for reality, have significant implications for the practice of psychotherapy. (shrink)

We administered suggestions to see a gray-scale pattern as colored and a colored pattern in shades of gray to 30 high suggestible and eight low suggestible students. The suggestions were administered twice, once following the induction of hypnosis and once without an induction. Besides rating the degree of color they saw in the stimuli differently, participants also rated their states of consciousness as normal, relaxed, hypnotized, or deeply hypnotized. Reports of being hypnotized were limited to highly suggestible participants and only (...) after the hypnotic induction had been administered. Reports of altered color perception were also limited to high suggestibles, but were roughly comparable regardless of whether hypnosis had been induced. These data indicate that suggestible individuals do not slip into a hypnotic state when given imaginative suggestions without the induction of hypnosis, but nevertheless report experiencing difficult suggestions for profound perceptual alterations that are pheonomenologically similar to what they report in hypnosis. (shrink)

Pezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. . What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been misusing the term “false memory,” relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims (...) and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors. (shrink)

This commentary deals with criteria for assigning truth values to memory contents. A parallel with perception shows how truth values can be assigned by considering subjects' beliefs about the truth state of the memory content. This topic is also relevant to the study of processes of control over retrieval.

The ‘default mode’ network refers to cortical areas that are active in the absence of goal-directed activity. In previous studies, decreased activity in the ‘default mode’ has always been associated with increased activation in task-relevant areas. We show that the induction of hypnosis can reduce anterior default mode activity during rest without increasing activity in other cortical regions. We assessed brain activation patterns of high and low suggestible people while resting in the fMRI scanner and while engaged in visual tasks, (...) in and out of hypnosis. High suggestible participants in hypnosis showed decreased brain activity in the anterior parts of the default mode circuit. In low suggestible people, hypnotic induction produced no detectable changes in these regions, but instead deactivated areas involved in alertness. The findings indicate that hypnotic induction creates a distinctive and unique pattern of brain activation in highly suggestible subjects. (shrink)

As reported by Vertes & Eastman, convincing evidence rules out any role for REM sleep in memory consolidation. However, they do not provide convincing evidence for their claim that sleep in generaI – as opposed to REM sleep per se – has no influence on memory consolidation. Recent correlational data suggest that the number of NREM/REM cycles is associated with performance on a verbal recall task. [Vertes & Eastman].

We examined two potential correlates of hypnotic suggestibility: dissociation and cognitive inhibition. Dissociation is the foundation of two of the major theories of hypnosis and other theories commonly postulate that hypnotic responding is a result of attentional abilities . Participants were administered the Waterloo-Stanford Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form C. Under the guise of an unrelated study, 180 of these participants also completed: a version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale that is normally distributed in non-clinical populations; a latent inhibition (...) task, a spatial negative priming task, and a memory task designed to measure negative priming. The data ruled out even moderate correlations between hypnotic suggestibility and all the measures of dissociation and cognitive inhibition overall, though they also indicated gender differences. The results are a challenge for existing theories of hypnosis. (shrink)

This functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study investigated high and low suggestible people responding to two visual hallucination suggestions with and without a hypnotic induction. Participants in the study were asked to see color while looking at a grey image, and to see shades of grey while looking at a color image. High suggestible participants reported successful alterations in color perception in both tasks, both in and out of hypnosis, and showed a small benefit if hypnosis was induced. Low suggestible people (...) could not perform the tasks successfully with or without the hypnotic induction. The fMRI results supported the self report data, and changes in brain activity were found in a number of visual areas. The results indicate that a hypnotic induction, although having the potential to enhance the ability of high suggestible people, is not necessary for the effective alteration of color perception by suggestion. (shrink)

La Fin du sens de l’histoire deals with the problem of the relationship between temporality and politics, tackled through a critical reading of the works of Eric Voegelin and Karl Löwith, two autho...

Our paper contributes to the rapidly expanding body of experimental research on transformative decision making, and in the process, marks out a novel empirical interpretation for assessments of subjective value in transformative contexts. We start with a discussion of the role of subjective value in transformative decisions, and then critique extant experimental work that explores this role, with special attention to Reuter and Messerli (2018). We argue that current empirical treatments miss a crucial feature of practical deliberation manifesting across a (...) variety of everyday decisions: often, people attach more weight to decision criteria that they can know—a phenomenon known as the “evaluability bias.” In transformative contexts, if people cannot know the subjective value of an option, they are unlikely to attach it much weight. Despite this, people may care very much about such value. We then use this point to develop and present new empirical results that, in addition to supporting our concerns about evaluability bias, support the hypothesis that people care about subjective value. Our work enriches the current philosophical understanding of transformative decisions and helps to frame the emerging experimental paradigm for the empirical dimensions of the debate. (shrink)

To begin with, can we possibly call esthetic activity a cognitive function , that is, do the products of esthetic activity possess, along with their other characteristics, a certain cognitive value?

How did bioethics manage to grow, flourish and ultimately do so well from a very unpromising birth in the 1970s? Many explanations have been advanced. Some ascribe the field9s growth to a puzzling, voluntary abnegation of moral authority by medicine to non-physicians. Some think bioethics survived by selling out to the biomedical establishment—public and private. This transaction involved bestowing moral approbation on all manner of biomedicine9s doings for a seat at a well-stocked funding table. Some see a sort of clever (...) intellectual bamboozlement at work wherein bioethicists pitched a moral elixir of objective expertise that the morally needy but unsophisticated in medicine and the biological sciences were eager to swallow. While each of these reasons has its defenders, I think the main reason that bioethics did well was that it did good. By using the media to move into the public arena, the field engaged the public imagination, provoked dialogue and debate, and contributed to policy changes that benefitted patients and healthcare providers. (shrink)

В книге продолжается обсуждение тем, представленных в труде "Психология нравственности", изданном в 2010 году. Авторы обсуждают пути решения проблем и преодоления переживаемого нашим обществом глубокого нравственного кризиса.

Background: International developments suggest that providing clinical ethics services to help clinicians negotiate ethical issues that arise in clinical practice is beneficial and reflects best practice in promoting high ethical standards and patient-centered care. The aim of this study was to explore the needs and experiences of clinical staff members to inform the development of future clinical ethics support. Methods: Health professionals at a large regional health service completed an online survey containing questions about the frequency of ethical and legal (...) issues encountered in clinical practice, the type of situations that gave rise to the ethical and/or legal uncertainty or concern, how clinicians currently address these issues, and what support would be welcome. Results: The survey was completed by 369 staff members, including 61% with more than 10 years in the profession and 51% in nursing/midwifery. Two-thirds (66%) indicated they often considered ethical implications of their clinical decisions, and half (49%) often considered the legal implications. More than half (58%) were often/occasionally concerned about the ethically right thing to do. Patient requests for borderline treatment (47%), staff disagreements about patient care (48%), and patients declining recommended treatment (54%) were the most frequent reasons given for ethical or legal uncertainty. Sixty-nine percent of respondents indicated that the way their department addressed ethical issues could be improved and 85% agreed that there is a need for more discussion on ethical issues. The majority (82%) of respondents had encountered ethically challenging clinical situations where additional support would have helped. Common approaches to issues were discussion with colleagues/supervisor (91.1%), discussion at handover/group forums (50.8%), and consultation with guidelines/protocols (60.9%). Conclusions: A majority of clinical staff members surveyed have encountered ethically/legally challenging cases daily for which they have often sought additional advice. This study indicates that many clinical staff members would welcome some form of additional clinical ethics support including advice and education. (shrink)

It is important to recognize that the problem dealt with by Plato in the central part of the Sophist is one which arises from the use of certain Greek phrases, and has no necessary or direct connexion with metaphysics. We tend to obscure this fact if we use English terms such as ‘Being’, ‘Reality’, ‘Existence’, etc., in discussing the dialogue, and indeed make it almost impossible to understand what Plato is trying to do. It is the way in which die (...) Greek terms ỗν and μή ỗν and other such terms are used by the ‘sophists’ which gives rise to the problem. (shrink)

A solution of the sourceless Einstein's equation with an infinite value for the cosmological constant Λ is discussed by using Inönü–Wigner contractions of the de Sitter groups and spaces. When Λ→∞, spacetime becomes a four-dimensional cone, dual to Minkowski space by a spacetime inversion. This inversion relates the four-cone vertex to the infinity of Minkowski space, and the four-cone infinity to the Minkowski light-cone. The non-relativistic limit c→∞ is further considered, the kinematical group in this case being a modified Galilei (...) group in which the space and time translations are replaced by the non-relativistic limits of the corresponding proper conformal transformations. This group presents the same abstract Lie algebra as the Galilei group and can be named the conformal Galilei group. The results may be of interest to the early Universe Cosmology. (shrink)