Cognitive Context Research Articles

Electroconvulsive therapy "corrects" the neural architecture of visuospatial memory: Implications for typical cognitive-affective functioning.

Although electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a widely used and effective treatment for refractory depression, the neural underpinnings of its therapeutic effects remain poorly understood. To address this issue, here, we focused on a core cognitive deficit associated with depression, which tends to be reliably ameliorated through ECT, specifically, the ability to learn visuospatial information. Thus, we pursued three goals. First, we tested whether ECT can “normalize” the functional brain organization patterns associated with visuospatial memory and whether such corrections would predict post-ECT improvements in learning visuospatial information. Second, we investigated whether, among healthy individuals, stronger expression of the neural pattern, susceptible to adjustments through ECT, would predict reduced incidence of depression-relevant cognition and affect. Third, we sought to quantify the heritability of the ECT-correctable neural profile. Thus, in a task fMRI study with a clinical and a healthy comparison sample, we characterized two functional connectome patterns: one that typifies trait depression (i.e., differentiates patients from healthy individuals) and another that is susceptible to “normalization” through ECT. Both before and after ECT, greater expression of the trait depression neural profile was associated with more frequent repetitive thinking about past personal events (affective persistence), a hallmark of depressogenic cognition. Complementarily, post-treatment, stronger expression of the ECT-corrected neural profile was linked to improvements in visuospatial learning, a mental ability which is markedly impaired in depression. Subsequently, using data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) (N = 333), we demonstrated that the functional brain organization of healthy participants with greater levels of subclinical depression and higher incidence of its associated cognitive deficits (affective persistence, impaired learning) shows greater similarity to the trait depression neural profile and reduced similarity to the ECT-correctable neural profile, as identified in the patient sample. These results tended to be specific to learning-relevant task contexts (working memory, perceptual relational processing). Genetic analyses based on HCP twin data (N = 128 pairs) suggested that, among healthy individuals, a functional brain organization similar to the one normalized by ECT in the patient sample is endogenous to cognitive contexts that require visuospatial processing that extends beyond the here-and-now. Broadly, the present findings supported our hypothesis that some of the therapeutic effects of ECT may be due to its correcting the expression of a naturally occurring pattern of functional brain organization that facilitates integration of internal and external cognition beyond the immediate present. Given their substantial susceptibility to both genetic and environmental effects, such mechanisms may be useful both for identifying at risk individuals and for monitoring progress of interventions targeting mood-related pathology.

Advanced Classification of Coffee Beans with Fatty Acids Profiling to Block Information Loss

Classification is a kernel process in the standardization, grading, and sensory aspects of coffee industries. The chemometric data of fatty acids and crude fat are used to characterize the varieties of coffee. Two category classifiers were used to distinguish the species and roasting degree of coffee beans. However, the fatty acid profiling with normalized data gave a bad discriminant result in the classification study with mixed dimensions in species and roasted degree. The result of the predictive model is in conflict with the context of human cognition, since roasted coffee beans are easily visually distinguished from green coffee beans. By exploring the effects of error analysis and information processing technologies, the lost information was identified as a bias–variance tradeoff derived from the percentile normalization. The roasting degree as extensive information was attenuated by the percentile normalization, but the cultivars as intensive information were enhanced. An informational spiking technique is proposed to patch the dataset and block the information loss. The identified blocking of informational loss could be available for multidimensional classification systems based on the chemometric data.

Translation of Chinese Political Terms in Frog From the Perspective of Cultural Identity of Translator

Mo Yan’s masterpiece Frog has a large number of Chinese political terms which reflect the characteristics of the times during the Cultural Revolution and family planning period. Howard Goldblatt translates this novel and achieves a big success in transmitting the meaning of the original text to English readers. Howard Goldblatt’s English translation version maintains the feature of Chinese culture and conforms to the expression habit of English readers, which conveys the Chinese culture and makes foreign readers easy to understand. This paper analyzes the translation of Chinese political terms in Mo Yan’s novel Frog in the light of cultural identity of translator in order to provide a new perspective for the translation of Chinese political terms. Some translation methods are adopted in translation: The method of literal translation maintains the feature of Chinese culture and makes the translated text faithful to the original text; Amplification can make the translated text clear for foreign readers to understand; Omission considers the cognitive context of foreign readers and omits some unnecessary words in the process of translation; Free translation is used to explain the meaning of Chinese political terms in the original text.

Working memory benchmarks-A missed opportunity: Comment on Oberauer et al. (2018).

This commentary addresses a number of problems with the benchmarks proposed for evaluating theories of short-term and working memory (Oberauer et al., 2018). First, it is shown that the proposed benchmarks intentionally exclude findings regarding the core of the working memory construct and also miss some important findings from other subdomains. For these reasons, the benchmarks cannot be considered as a valid representation of the findings on short-term and working memory. Second, it is shown that although theory-neutrality of the benchmarks was aimed for, this goal was not achieved because theory-neutrality in the formulation of the benchmarks does not guarantee inclusion of all theory-dependent findings. For these reasons, the benchmarks miss their purpose and are defined in such a way as to encourage a future theory development that studies working memory in isolation from other cognitive activities and thus misses the opportunity to stimulate a better integrative understanding of working memory in the broader context of cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

Theoconcept Structure Reconstruction as Multi-Dimensional Matrix Formation

The article addresses the problem of structure reconstruction of the theoconcept as a sensecreating basic component of religious picture of the world. The theoconcept is interpreted as a multi-dimensional formation which embodies experience of a man (people), both physical and spiritual; and is at the same time typified by a historically conditioned worldview constituent. The rational for employing the diachronic-synchronic approach to account for the concept structure is provided. Major emphasis is placed on the study of theoconcepts against concepts of other types and their modes, particularly, as abstract ontological-intuitive mental entities.Reconstruction of seven levels of the theoconcept REPENTANCE structure is conducted; it bears evidence that this formation is of cognitive-matrix format. It is found that the kernel content of the theoconcept REPENTANCE has been developed on the base of a meaning “turn”, which, according to the Biblical context of conceptualization, reconstructs the essence of repentance (level one). The kernel-centered (circumnuclear) area is formed by such meanings, as “confession”, “sacrament”, “penance”, “reconciliation”, “testament”, “reunion”, with basics of Orthodox doctrine as cognitive contexts (level two). Ethnic coloring of the concept meaning is revealed through such spiritual sense of the theoconcept REPENTANCE, as “congregational confession” (level three). The image of repentance as “the second baptism” emerges in the context of Christian symbolic meanings (level four). The shade of meaning “to turn away” (“military command”) has been developed in a process of its folk-etymological conceptualization, and constitutes the periphery of the concept (level fife). In a context of monastic movement in Ukrainian lands, and life of monks (level six) shades of meanings “atonement”, “asceticism”, “hermitage”, “anchorite” are being actualized. The last level (distant area) of senses embraces the individual-specific shades of senses, personal shades of senses of the concept under consideration, present in idiolects of the faithful. Finally, the results indicate that reconstructed sense levels are the cognitive contexts to interpret the kernel meaning of the theoconcept REPENTANCE. They bring into focus (highlight) its other senses, which interplay and produce its conceptual multi-aspectedness and multi-dimensionality that is nothing but matrix.

Combinatorial Syntagmatics: from the Theory of Valency to the Theory of Conceptual Integration

The topical and complicated problem of modern linguistics has been examined in the article. It deals with the study of the processes and mechanisms of creating new senses by the various combinations of both language signs among themselves and the transformation of the meanings of ready-made signs. This problem was begun to be solved in structural linguistics by the representatives of the theory of valency and the theory of distribution. The following conclusion has been made: developing in parallel as two directions of syntagmatics, both the theory of valency and the theory of distribution caused a lot of discussions on their correlation between them, as well as with the understanding of the problem of compatibility in general. However, their representatives agreed that these categories are in a relationship of matching: inclusion, cohesion and interdependence. They are represented with two levels of combinatorial syntagmatics: while the language level is more typical for valency, then the speech one is, predominantly, for distribution. The particular attention is paid to a new cognitive view of the essence of the valency and distribution. It helps to assume that both notions are broadly understood to be cognitive categories that reflect the ability of native speakers to associate certain language signs in a specific communicative situation, usually called the context. It is pointed out that the development of this problem was reflected in the works of representatives of compositional semantics. They first focused their attention on studying the relationship among the configurations of components of complex signs from the cognitive point of view. The arguments are given to justify a new stage in the development of combinatorial syntagmatics, developed by J. Fauconnier and M. Turner, the supporters of the theory of the conceptual integration. According to it the creation of new senses by the configuration of language signs occurs in the system of mental spaces – the mental spheres (cognitive contexts reflected in the consciousness of the carriers of a certain language), connected with the comprehension by a person of various situations and having a cognitive status, i.e. with the process of cognition of the phenomena of the surrounding reality.

„Огънят“ като понятие в контекста на единното познание

„Огънят“ като понятие в контекста на единното познание

The Way We Do the Things We Do: How Cognitive Contexts Shape the Neural Dynamics of Motor Areas in Humans.

In spontaneously triggered movements the nature of the executed response has a prominent effect on the intensity and the dynamics of motor areas recruitment. Under time pressure, the time course of motor areas recruitment is necessarily shorter than that of spontaneously triggered movements because RTs may be extremely short. Moreover, different classes of RT tasks allow examining the nature and the dynamics of motor areas activation in different cognitive contexts. In the present article, we review experimental results obtained from high temporal resolution methods (mainly, but not exclusively EEG ones), during voluntary movements; these results indicate that the activity of motor areas not only depends on the nature of the executed movement but also on the cognitive context in which these movements have to be executed.

Citra Islam Moderat: Aksi Cyber PR dari PWNU Jawa Timur

ABSTRACT
 Religious traditions in Indonesia are known to be very moderate and tolerant abroad is a reflection of the character of a great noble nation. Between religion, tradition and culture are able to perform compounds so as to create a genuine religious harmony. Because of this reality Indonesia is regarded as the largest Muslim majority country in the world that almost without conflict, in the midst of reality Muslim countries in the Middle East that impressed the dispute into the daily menu. However, the reality of Indonesia as a moderate nation is injured by the act of a group that is fond of terrorism and radicalism by riding Islamic religious teachings. Thus, this reversed religion is assumed as a source of cruelty.
 
 It is through that phenomenon researcher, feel the need to examine the strategy of disseminating moderate Islam by Nahdlatul Ulama. The selection of this Islamic organization according to the authors due to its success in moderating Islam in Indonesia. In this study, the study using a qualitative approach or method as well as adopting the theory of Van Dijk discourse analysis as a scalpel to peel the discourse of moderate Islam published by PWNU East Java through the website.
 As for this research, the findings are important, among others are: 1) moderate Islamic discourse campaigned by Nahdlatul Ulama East Java is categorized into three segments, namely social, religious and nationality. 2) the text structure that builds moderate Islamic discourse NU East Java in Van Dijk perspective constructed in three domains, namely text, social cognition and social context. 3) the principles of Public Relationship implemented by NU through cyber (online media), among others; News publications and expert opinions, production of image and video-based information, and updating official NU information to the public about their attitudes and views on the phenomena that occur by promoting the values of Islamic moderatism.
 Key Word : Islamic Moderatism, Nahdlatul Ulama, Cyber Public Relationship

Dialogue Model, Conflict, and Context in Drama Text Works by Arifin C. Noer

Dialogue, conflict, and context are paramount in the drama text. The research of these three things can reveal the meaning, aesthetics, and ideology that blend in the drama text. Drama text research has not obtained comprehensive results if it has not revealed all three. The purpose of this research is to find the dialogue model, conflict, and context in drama text by Arifin C. Noer. The approach used in this research is the critical discourse of Teun A. Van Dijk. Data are analyzed in three dimensions, namely text, social cognition, and social context through macro structures, superstructures, and microstructures. The global macro structure is reflected in the synopsis, the superstructure is seen from its builder elements, and the microstructure contains the use of language. The results of the microstructure research found that the dialogue can be configured in several models, i.e. by topic, principles of cooperation, principles of politeness, speech acts, and speech series. The conflict was created with a model of pragmatic, socio-psychology, and ideological principles use. The context model is the use of physical, epistemic, linguistic, and social context. The results of this research contribute to the increased appreciation of drama and reference texts in its teaching.

Managing skills for open innovation: the case of biotechnology

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the composition of skillsets in biotechnology from the perspective of employers and its relation to open innovation processes in the sector. It provides conclusions for HR management practice.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on job advertisements content analysis and in-depth interviews with chiefs of research and development companies. It uses biotechnology as an example of industry where open innovation practice implementation is expanding. The authors have used data from American, British and Russian job search engines.FindingsIt is demonstrated that skills composition required in biotechnology does not vary significantly among selected countries as the market becomes increasingly globalized in terms of not only technology used but also personnel hired. Companies stress more on hard and digital skills, while soft skills appear to be a “must have without saying,” The mismatch between skills presented in the advertisements and articulated in the interviews has been found as employers tend to demonstrate innovation friendly company culture for possible applicants.Originality/valueThe present paper enriches literature on employee skills for open innovation. It gives comprehensive lists of biotech skills in-demand divided into hard, digital and soft categories and interprets them within the context of employee cognition and behavior. The new insight into employee skills articulated by the companies as a strong element of organizational culture is presented.

Summary and Development of Textual Context Theory

In linguistics, context has developed a dynamic context from a static language context (context) with the development of contextual theory in three fields: linguistics, new criticism and stylistics. I. A. Richards used the theory when context entered the field of literary studies, opening the situational context of the author and the reader of the text and the cognitive context of psychology reading level. The theory of new criticism also promotes language context. Three basic forms of textual context of linguistic context, situational context (including cultural context) and cognitive context have been formed. The study of stylistics has inherited linguistics and literature research, which has further enriched the study of contextual theory, especially in situational context. Although the development of cognitive context is weak, it has shown a parallel trend of development with situational context.

The Linguistic Realization of Contrastive Discourse Relations in Context: Contextualization and discourse common ground

This paper compares the contextualization and linguistic realization of contrastive discourse relations in monadic and dyadic editing tasks produced in an experimental setting. Participants were asked to produce a well-formed argumentative text based on a skeleton text reduced to minimal propositional information while still containing the original argumentative sequential organization and default configuration of events. The goal was to understand the role of context in the production and processing of discourse against the background of the negotiation of discourse common ground and construal of discourse coherence. Context is conceived of as a dynamic relational construct, comprising social context, linguistic context (or: co-text) and cognitive context. The study is methodologically compositional across functional approaches to discourse grammar, discourse representation, and discourse pragmatics. The results of the experiment show that dyadic and monadic texts contextualize contrastive discourse relations and construe discourse coherence by utilizing a pool of contrastive discourse connectives and coherence strands, with monadic texts additionally entextualising social context, embedding contrastive contributions accordingly.

Default Mode Network Engagement Beyond Self-Referential Internal Mentation.

The default mode network (DMN) is typically associated with off-task internal mentation, or with goal-oriented tasks that require self-referential processing such as autobiographical planning. However, recent reports suggest a broader involvement of the DMN in higher cognition. In line with this view, we report global connectivity changes that are centered on the main DMN hubs of precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex during a functional magnetic resonance imaging-based visuospatial version of the Tower of London planning task. Importantly, functional connectivity of these regions with the left caudate shows a significant relationship with faster reaction time to correct responses only during the high-demand planning condition, thus offering further evidence for the DMN's engagement during visuospatial planning. The results of this study not only provide robust evidence against the widely held notion of DMN disengagement during goal-oriented, attention-demanding, externally directed tasks but also support its involvement in a broader cognitive context with a memory-related role that extends beyond self-referential, internally directed mentation.

Situating mental time travel in the broad context of temporal cognition: A neural systems approach

Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability of remembering personal past events or thinking about possible personal future happenings. This mental property is possible due to our capacity to be aware of subjective time, which enables us to experience the flow of time, to conceive non-present times, and to process time as a dimension of real world phenomena. Temporal cognition encompasses the mental functions which rely on temporal information enabling the experience of the temporal flow and the processing of the temporal dimension of external phenomena. Given the broad range of our time experiences and, hence, the broad scope of our temporal cognition, it is expected that certain kinds of temporal information can be of particular importance when we mentally transport ourselves to events in the past or future, whereas others could be unrelated to this mental property. The present paper seeks to situate the process of MTT within human temporal cognition. This will be done by identifying the commonalities and differences in the neural correlates of MTT and those of the three main subjective time processing systems, namely metric timing, ordinal timing and autobiographical timing.Keywords: mental time travel, time perception, temporal cognition.

Generating Cognitive Context with Feature-Extracting Bidirectional Associative Memory

Cognitive contexts (CC) have been proposed as a solution to distinguish highly similar patterns during associative learning by using orthogonal contextual information. However, this method relied on the use of arbitrary components, limiting its cognitive plausibility. In this paper, a feature-extracting bidirectional associative memory (FEBAM) was used to generate CC. Results showed these generated CC can be retrieved under noise as effectively as arbitrary orthogonal CC. Furthermore, a network comprised of multiple FEBAMs generated CC of low correlation. These CC can achieve the same improvements in learning and recall performance found with orthogonal components.

Culture as a Cultural Concept within the Cognitive Context

Culture as a Cultural Concept within the Cognitive Context

Resting state versus Task Based Exploration of Age-Related Changes of the Neurofunctional Connectome.

Event Abstract Back to Event Resting state versus Task Based Exploration of Age-Related Changes of the Neurofunctional Connectome. Perrine Ferre1* 1 Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Canada According to the World Health Organization, the proportion of individuals over age 60 is expected to double by 2050. Cognitive impairments can be extremely frequent in particular in older age, and has been recurrently shown to be the most feared health conditions associated with aging. In this context, a better understanding of the mechanisms that can support cognitive health during aging is crucial. Most of the current knowledge about the aged-related changes in brain neurofunctional organization stems from studies using cognitive tasks for which performance has a tendency to decrease with aging (e.g.: working memory). Few of those studies have looked at language processing related to vocabulary and semantic knowledge, abilities that have been shown to be relatively preserved in aging. The way by which the aging brain can continue to be efficient such as it is the case for vocabulary and semantic knowledge is still poorly looked at. Over the last decade, an increasing interest has been devoted to describing age-related changes in the functional connectivity of the brain. However, in most cases, these studies have been conducted while participants were in a “resting state”, namely without engaging in any particular cognitive task. Important changes in the pattern of functional connectivity has been described in such resting state conditions. It remains to be determined if age-related differences in functional connectivity are also present within the neurofunctional organization in specific cognitive contexts, and in particular when participants are engaged in tasks requiring verbal and semantic processing of words. In the present study, a brain connectome analysis was performed on 300 adults ranging from 18 to 80 years old. They were tested systematically for whole brain connectivity to search for consistent differences as a function of age, performance, education or cognitive reserve factors during an fMRI session of resting-state and while performing three lexical-semantic tasks (antonyms, synonyms, picture naming). Then, similarities in age effect on brain connectivity across all tasks was examined for language-related seed regions. Results confirm that performances for the lexical-semantic tasks are preserved. Brain imaging also shows the existence of qualitative discrepancies between task-evoked and resting state connectivity patterns. Mean functional connectivity shows a general tendency to decrease with age, whatever the cognitive context. However, during lexical-semantic tasks, enhanced connectivity in semantic and visual-attentional regions is revealed. No interactions were to be found between connectivity patterns and performance, education or cognitive reserve as a function of age, thus not bringing imaging support to some of the determinants of presumed compensation of cognitive aging. The results of the present study suggest that investigation of functional connectivity in aging cannot solely rely on resting-state imaging data, especially when interpretation of cognitive processes is at stake. Our results also challenge the current models of aging in their ability to account for age differences in the semantic-language domain. Keywords: lexical-semantics, Aging, functional connectivity (FC), Resting-state fMRI, Task-based functional connectivity Conference: Academy of Aphasia 56th Annual Meeting, Montreal, Canada, 21 Oct - 23 Oct, 2018. Presentation Type: poster presentation Topic: not eligible for a student prize Citation: Ferre P (2019). Resting state versus Task Based Exploration of Age-Related Changes of the Neurofunctional Connectome. . Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 56th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.228.00011 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 25 Apr 2018; Published Online: 22 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Miss. Perrine Ferre, Centre de Recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montréal, Canada, perrine_ferre@hotmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Perrine Ferre Google Perrine Ferre Google Scholar Perrine Ferre PubMed Perrine Ferre Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. 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Adding culture and context improves evolutionary theorizing about human cognition.

Boyer & Petersen (B&P) lay out an evolutionarily grounded framework to produce concrete, testable predictions about economic phenomena. We commend this step forward, but suggest the framework requires more consideration of cultural contexts that provide necessary input for cognitive systems to operate on. We discuss the role of culture when examining both evolved cognitive systems and social exchange contexts.

The Boundaries of Art and Social Space in Rome: The Caged Bird and Other Art Forms by Frederick Jones

Reviewed by: The Boundaries of Art and Social Space in Rome: The Caged Bird and Other Art Formsby Frederick Jones Michael Squire F rederickJ ones. The Boundaries of Art and Social Space in Rome: The Caged Bird and Other Art Forms. Bloomsbury Classical Studies Monographs. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. 10 black-and-white figs. xii + 196 pp. Cloth, $114. This is a short book with grand designs. Frederick Jones explores how "boundaries" were delineated in Roman culture, literature and art—in his words, "the way certain cultural artefacts imply a pattern of concentric circles dividing insides and outsides, but dividing in such a way as to allow the boundary to be crossed and recrossed" (115). However "peripheral" the subject, though, the book also stakes a central question about the "limits" of art in the late Roman Republic and early Empire: "the uncertainty of the boundary," Jones nicely puts it, "says something about what art is and how we decide what is art" (vii). Rather than offering a theoretical introduction or historiographical overview, the book is structured around four particular case studies, topped and tailed with an introductory chapter ("Art") and conclusion ("Self-projecting inside and outside"). Jones explains the thinking at the outset: "this book is about four elements of Roman visual culture that have special connections with the domusand manifold connections with the cultural and cognitive contexts of the Roman citizen" (1). The chapters that follow explore artistic "boundaries" through the respective lenses of gardens, garden-paintings, tapestries and the "caged bird" motif. What we have here, in effect, are four self-contained studies (three of them adapted, in fact, from published journal articles). The introduction tries to [End Page 161]explain the interconnections, homing in on the limits of art, and asking whether or not we can talk about Roman "art" as meaningful hermeneutic category. Jones makes no mention here of the Kantian parergon—or indeed its Derridean deconstructions: some readers will no doubt be grateful. Instead, there are some timely comments concerning the "literary learnedness and intertextuality of Roman painting and statuary" (13), for example, and the status of artists (10–11). Yet the precise argument—about Roman aesthetics, or about the relationships between pre- and post-Enlightenment traditions—is unclear. Generalizations abound ("Art is mimetic, not primarily in the sense that it imitates its subjects, but in the sense that the incipient artist has a subjective experience of art and thinks 'I can do that,'" 2). But the comparison with art in the "nineteenth and sixteenth-seventeenth centuries" (3) yields little, and ancient sound-bites are introduced without adequate contextual or interpretative focus. Jones seeks to introduce the "problematic" question "of what art is" (1), but relies heavily on the online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; the references to "Bordieu" ( sic) are especially unfortunate (132, n. 10; 172). The author is on a firmer footing in the second chapter, which turns to "The Roman garden." Here Jones revisits some of the themes from his eloquent 2011 book, Virgil's Garden: The Nature of Bucolic Space: approaching the Roman garden "as cultural phenomenon," and introducing a host of ancient authors (among them, Cicero, Varro, Horace, Ovid, Pliny and Seneca), the chapter demonstrates how "'the garden' becomes a place for mental play and for thinking about literature, history, identity, gender, and pleasure" (25; John Henderson's pioneering 2004 book, Hortus: The Roman Book of Gardening, might have been helpful here). Less successful, in my view, are the long digressions about "cognitive processes," "concept formation" and the "cognitive development of the Roman child" (44–5). The argument seems to be about "mental modelling" (48)—that is, about concepts of "inside" and "outside" which structure Roman horticultural attitudes. But the precise relevance of such excursions, at least for this reader, is indecipherable ("The domus-garden pattern, as a model of a whole set of inners and outers, influences the way the subject's thinking about the world develops, but in addition, as observed above, the element of imagination in child-play prepares for the adult flights of the imagination we considered earlier," 48). The third chapter, dedicated to "The garden room at Prima Porta," at once extends and narrows...