Subjective Mental States Research Articles

Children’s Developing Understanding of the Subjectivity of Intentions – A Case of “Advanced Theory of Mind”

ABSTRACT When and how do children develop an understanding of the subjectivity of intentions? Intentions are subjective mental states in many ways. One way concerns their aspectuality: Whether or not a given behavior constitutes an intentional action depends on how, under which aspect, the agent represents it. Oedipus, for example, intended to marry Yocasta, but did not intend to marry his mother (even though in fact, but unbeknownst to him, Yocasta was his mother). In the present study, we investigated the trajectories and determinants of children’s developing understanding of (less dramatic forms of) the aspectuality of intentions. In two studies, children aged 3–9 observed an agent who acted intentionally but based on some mis-representation regarding the target of her action. The agent grasped a box that contained A and B while believing that it only contained A but not B. Children were asked about the aspectuality of the agent’s intention (in particular, whether she intended to grasp B). When asked to do so spontaneously, children younger than 8 failed (falsely claiming that the agent intended to grasp B). In contrast, in a simplified format in which children were scaffolded through the required inferential chains, children from age 6 succeeded. Children’s general capacity for meta-representation appeared to be necessary but not sufficient by itself for understanding the aspectuality of intentions. The present findings suggest that the appreciation of the aspectuality of intentions is part of an advanced theory of mind that develops in much more protracted ways than basic theory of mind.

Beta and Theta Oscillations Correlate With Subjective Time During Musical Improvisation in Ecological and Controlled Settings: A Single Subject Study.

In this paper, we describe the results of a single subject study attempting at a better understanding of the subjective mental state during musical improvisation. In a first experiment, we setup an ecological paradigm measuring EEG on a musician in free improvised concerts with an audience, followed by retrospective rating of the mental state of the improviser. We introduce Subjective Temporal Resolution (STR), a retrospective rating assessing the instantaneous quantization of subjective timing of the improviser. We identified high and low STR states using Hidden Markov Models in two performances, and were able to decode those states using supervised learning on instantaneous EEG power spectrum, showing increases in theta and alpha power with high STR values. In a second experiment, we found an increase of theta and beta power when experimentally manipulating STR in a musical improvisation imagery experiment. These results are interpreted with respect to previous research on flow state in creativity, as well as with the temporal processing literature. We suggest that a component of the subjective state of musical improvisation may be reflected in an underlying mechanism related to the subjective quantization of time. We also demonstrate the feasibility of single case studies of musical improvisation using brain activity measurements and retrospective reports, by obtaining consistent results across multiple sessions.

Contribution of the right temporoparietal junction and ventromedial prefrontal cortex to theory of mind in autism: A randomized, sham-controlled tDCS study.

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute subjective mental states to oneself and others and is significantly impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A frontal-posterior network of regions including the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is involved in ToM. Previous studies show an underactivation of these regions in ASD. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive brain stimulation method for causally investigating brain-behavior relationships via induction of cortical excitability alterations. tDCS, mostly over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, has been increasingly applied for improving behavioral problems in ASD leaving other potentially interesting regions untouched. Here we investigated contribution of the vmPFC and right TPJ in ToM abilities of ASD children via tDCS in a pilot study. Sixteen children with ASD (mean age=10.7± 1.9) underwent three tDCS sessions (1mA, 20 min) in a randomized, sham-controlled design. Stimulation protocols included: (a) anodal vmPFC tDCS, (b) anodal r-TPJ tDCS, and (c) sham tDCS. ToM abilities were explored during tDCS using the theory of mind test (TOMT). Our results show that activation of the vmPFC with anodal tDCS significantly improved ToM in children with ASD compared with both, r-TPJ tDCS, and sham stimulation. Specifically, precursors of ToM (e.g., emotion recognition, perception, and imitation) and elementary ToM skills (e.g., first-order mental state reasoning) were significantly improved by anodal vmPFC tDCS. Based on these results, the vmPFC could be a potential target region for the reduction of ASD symptoms via noninvasive brain stimulation, which should be examined in larger detail in future studies. LAY SUMMARY: Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to infer mental states of oneself and others, which is impaired in autism. Brain imaging studies have shown involvement of two brain regions in ToM (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction) which are underactivated in autism. We increased activation of these regions via noninvasive brain stimulation in this experiment to see how it would affect ToM abilities in autism. We found that increased activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex improved ToM abilities in children with autism.

Distinct signatures of subjective confidence and objective accuracy in speech prosody

Whether speech prosody truly and naturally reflects a speaker's subjective confidence, rather than other dimensions such as objective accuracy, is unclear. Here, using a new approach combing psychophysics with acoustic analysis and automatic classification of verbal reports, we tease apart the contributions of sensory evidence, accuracy, and subjective confidence to speech prosody. We find that subjective confidence and objective accuracy are distinctly reflected in the loudness, duration and intonation of verbal reports. Strikingly, we show that a speaker's accuracy is encoded in speech prosody beyond their own metacognitive awareness, and that it can be automatically decoded from this information alone with performances up to 60%. These findings demonstrate that confidence and accuracy have separable prosodic signatures that are manifested with different timings, and on different acoustic dimensions. Thus, both subjective mental states of confidence, and objective states related to competence, can be directly inferred from this natural behavior.

The Ordinary Concept of a Meaningful Life: The Role of Subjective and Objective Factors in Third-Person Attributions of Meaning

ABSTRACT The desire for a meaningful life is ubiquitous, yet the ordinary concept of a meaningful life is poorly understood. Across six experiments (total N = 2,539), we investigated whether third-person attributions of meaning depend on the psychological states an agent experiences (feelings of interest, engagement, and fulfillment), or on the objective conditions of their life (e.g., their effects on others). Studies 1a–b found that laypeople think subjective and objective factors contribute independently to the meaningfulness of a person’s life. Studies 2a–b found that positive mental states are thought to make a life more meaningful, even if derived from senseless activities (e.g., hand-copying the dictionary). Studies 3a–b found that agents engaged in morally bad activities are not thought to have meaningful lives, even if they feel fulfilled. In short, both an agents’ subjective mental states and objective impact on the world affect how meaningful their lives appear.

Modernism and the Meaning of Corporate Persons by Lisa Siraganian

Reviewed by: Modernism and the Meaning of Corporate Persons by Lisa Siraganian Geoffrey R. Kirsch Lisa Siraganian, Modernism and the Meaning of Corporate Persons. Oxford UP, 2021. v + 270 pp. The primary subject of Lisa Siraganian’s Modernism and the Meaning of Corporate Persons is not a literary but a legal fiction: the artificial personhood of corporations as legal entities endowed with rights and duties of their own. Recently placed in bad eminence by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores (2014), corporate personhood is often encapsulated by critics and proponents alike with a question-begging slogan: corporations are people. In truth, the corporate fiction is no less ambiguous than the literary fictions that Siraganian explores. Is the corporation best understood as an association of individual people, or as an autonomous entity distinct [End Page 803] from its members? Can it form, communicate, and act on intentions in the same manner as a flesh-and-blood person? And how should its differences from natural people inform its legal status? Siraganian’s argument rests on a familiar leitmotif in law and literature scholarship: without the irritable reaching after fact and reason necessary to adjudicating legal responsibility, literature can better probe and problematize the ambiguities of the corporate person. She makes a compelling case for the particular relevance of American modernism, her area of expertise. Not only did modernism roughly coincide with a period of intense debate over corporate personhood among legal scholars; but it also, with its many coteries and (as enunciated most famously by T. S. Eliot) its aesthetic of “impersonality” (33), posed similar tensions between the individual and the collective. Above all, Siraganian writes, modernist writers were “operating a veritable literary and cultural laboratory on the question of collective intention” (30). Intention serves as Siraganian’s primary bridge from the legal to the literary, as she posits a tacit equivalence between the corporation and the modernist art-object by way of a single ontological problem: “how minimal could intention be and still be sufficient?” (31) The relation of the modernist art-object to its creator, Siraganian suggests, resembles that of the corporation to its actions: if a found poem or a Duchamp “Readymade” could offer sufficient indicia of creative intention to constitute art, so even the smallest tokens of collective action and expression might suffice to endow a corporation with mind, intention, and personality. This interest in collective intention, Siraganian suggests provocatively, in turn implies a “genetic connection” (34) between naturalism and modernism: where the latter movement formalizes the problem of collective intention, the former thematizes it. This genealogy helps to justify the fact that in a book titularly about modernism, the two most wholly convincing chapters actually focus on classics of the naturalist canon. While Siraganian is not the first critic to propose corporate personhood as a crux of Frank Norris’s The Octopus and Theodore Dreiser’s The Financier, her readings of these two great novels of business are at once original and eminently persuasive. As Siraganian contends in the first chapter, The Octopus dramatizes “the epistemological difficulty of knowing a corporate person’s meaning” (44). Norris’s farmers mistakenly rely on the “solemn pledges” (68) made in person by individual railroad company agents, when in fact the corporation has carefully avoided entering into any legally enforceable contracts with them. Siraganian shrewdly links Norris’s interest in corporate intention and expression to both the jurist Oliver [End Page 804] Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe: all three thinkers, she explains, conceptualize intent not as a subjective mental state but as a quality of particular actions and expressions. This objective, external redefinition allows for the possibility of corporate intention and meaning, but also produces a cacophony of external signs purporting to represent the corporation’s speech. Chapter 2 examines this unfortunate consequence, first by scrutinizing the equation of corporate money with speech that underwrote Citizens United and then, somewhat anachronistically, by highlighting the incoherent, commodified nature of “corporate speech” (83) in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s late-career writings on Hollywood. Chapter 3 in turn moves from speech and intention to the broader question of...

Technology of design of accelerated swimming training for junior schoolchildren in the conditions of summer health camps

The article presents the structural components of pedagogical technology, the peculiarity of which is the application of adapted Ukrainian folk games to accelerated learning to swim in open water and taking into account the need to create a "success situation" as a subjective mental state of self-satisfaction. The research was conducted at swimming training sessions based on the summer health camp "Red Sails" (Skadovsk) during August 2019. The camp shift lasted 14 days. The study involved 15 people (9 girls and 6 boys) 8-9 years. To determine the assessment of children's swimming readiness during the study, we developed a system of control exercises, which included: fear of water; immersion of the face in the water; squats in water; diving; respiratory arrest in water; ability to perform a "star"; ability to push and slide; ability to slide and work with your feet; ability to slide and work with hands; ability to swim in coordination. The results showed that younger students significantly reduced the feeling of fear of water by 22.5% (p <0.01). A slightly smaller increase in results was obtained in the tests: "jumping into the water" 12% (p <0.01), "respiratory arrest in the water" and "star" 15% (p <0.01). The highest growth rate was found in the control exercises "ability to swim in coordination" and "squats in the water" - 21.8% (p <0.01). The obtained test results and the indicator of the learning coefficient (0.63), which increased by 0.33 units, indicate the effectiveness of the implementation of the author's technology, which ensured the achievement of this goal.

Effect of Tranquil and Active Video Representations of an Unfamiliar Dog on Subjective Mental States

Abstract The aim of this pilot study was to examine the effects of different videos of an unfamiliar dog (tranquil and active) on subjective mental state measures. All participants watched two videos of an unfamiliar dog (tranquil and active). Subjective measures of stress, anxiety, alertness, attention, likeability, and cuteness were assessed. The results showed that the tranquil dog video significantly decreased anxiety only. Additionally, the active dog video significantly decreased stress and anxiety. Across the videos, the results showed the active dog video significantly improved subjective alertness and attention when compared with the tranquil dog video. Lastly, the active dog video was rated more likeable and cuter relative to the tranquil dog video. The practical implications of these findings could include how to improve various subjective mental states for humans in public settings (e.g., hospital) where nonhuman animals are not always allowed.

Kineziologija i održiva budućnost

On the basis of a series of definitions (Findak, 1995; Klavora, 2008; Momirović, 1969; Mraković, 1971, 1992, 1997), Kinesiology as a science "studies the effectiveness of human movements, the controlled process of exercise, its principles and its consequences on human body in the broadest sense" (Prskalo & Sporiš, 2016, p. 12), and strives to realize its futuristic role in securing the future of humankind, especially with reference to its most sensitive and vulnerable members. This role is realized through all its applied areas and branches, and especially through kinesiology education, which is the only one that, in the course of every individual’s compulsory education, includes the entire population within the compulsory school subject Physical and Health Education. Apart from the already consensually accepted values ​of physical and health education: biological, economic, health, cultural and pedagogical (Findak, 1999), the same author (2014) highlighted the importance of changing the name Physical and Health Education to Kinesiology Education, which would reflect the attitudes of the fundamental science and profession; however, this change has not happened yet. In addition to the values realized through the school subject, whose name should be Kinesiology Education because of its scientific foundations, the value of kinesiology education has been confirmed in accomplishing a series of anthropological and educational tasks, and has even become the basis of different virtues including religion (Prskalo, 2017), which may be defined as a subjective mental state, a certain lifestyle and consistency in faith (Enciklopedijski teološki rječnik, 2009). Prskalo (2018) points out that the issues of sustainable development contained in the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations with goals attainable by 2015 and the ones applicable today (Državni zavod za statistiku et al., 2006; Pavić-Rogošić, 2016), such as world without poverty and hunger, health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable energy from clean sources, dignified work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reducing inequality, sustainable cities and communities, responsible spending and production, climate protection, preservation of life on Earth, peace, justice and strong institutions, and consolidation of global partnership for sustainable development, are not exclusively related to one ​​scientific area or discipline. On the contrary, these issues belong to the field of kinesiology and all its applied fields. Key words: kinesiology, Kinesiology Education, sustainable development, students.

Individual Differences in the Association Between Subjective Stress and Heart Rate Are Related to Psychological and Physical Well-Being

The physiological response to stress is intertwined with, but distinct from, the subjective feeling of stress, although both systems must work in concert to enable adaptive responses. We investigated 1,065 participants from the Midlife in the United States 2 study who completed a self-report battery and a stress-induction procedure while physiological and self-report measures of stress were recorded. Individual differences in the association between heart rate and self-reported stress were analyzed in relation to measures that reflect psychological well-being (self-report measures of well-being, anxiety, depression), denial coping, and physical well-being (proinflammatory biomarkers interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein). The within-participants association between heart rate and self-reported stress was significantly related to higher psychological well-being, fewer depressive symptoms, lower trait anxiety, less use of denial coping, and lower levels of proinflammatory biomarkers. Our results highlight the importance of studying individual differences in coherence between physiological measures and subjective mental states in relation to well-being.

Subjective perceptions and psychological distress associated with the deep underground: A cross-sectional study in a deep gold mine in China.

This study reports the subjective perceptions and mental state of employees working in the Erdaogou Mine, affiliated with Jiapigou Minerals Limited Corporation of China National Gold Group Corporation (CJEM); these employees are pioneers working at the deepest point below ground in China. The data represent a valuable baseline from which to assess the effects of the environmental factors in the deep-underground on human physiology, psychology, and pathology.The air pressure, relative humidity, temperature, total γ radiation dose-rate, and oxygen concentration in the CJEM in the aisles in goafs at 4 depths below ground were measured. Study subjects were administered a study-specific questionnaire that included items that targeted factors with potential to affect respondents’ health and wellbeing and included the symptom checklist-90-revised (SCL-90-R).Air pressure, relative humidity, and temperature rose, total γ radiation dose-rate decreased, and there was no change in oxygen concentration with increasing depth below ground. Most (97.2%) respondents had a negative impression of the ambient conditions in the deep-underground space. The most commonly perceived adverse factors included moisture (74.9%), heat (33.5%), and poor ventilation (32.4%). 93.29% of respondents associated ≥1 self-reported negative physical symptom with working in the deep-underground space; the most frequent symptoms were being easily tired (48.7%), tinnitus (47.5%), and hearing loss (44.1%). Higher SCL-90-R scores were associated with the perception of >1 adverse factor in the deep-underground, spending >8 hours continuously in the deep-underground space, or working at a depth > 1000 m below ground. >1 perceived adverse factor in the deep-underground and continuously spending >8 hours in the deep-underground space were significant predictors of high SCL-90-R scores.Adverse factors, including high temperature, humidity, and dim light, may have negative impacts on the physical and psychological health of people who spend long periods of time living and/or working in the deep-underground space.

Judgement bias testing in group-housed gestating sows

Societal concerns about animal welfare have triggered the movement of gestating sows from individual stalls to group housing in many countries. Common methods of assessing sow welfare focus on overt physical ailments, and potentially neglect psychological stressors. A judgement bias task may allow researchers to evaluate an animal’s subjective mental or affective state to provide a more comprehensive welfare assessment. Thus, group housed sows were trained to a spatial differentiation task to evaluate their ability to be assessed for individual judgement bias. A total of 45 sows were trained to the task across two replicates, with 24 successfully meeting the learning criteria required to be tested for a judgement bias. In the first replicate, 60% of sows displayed positive bias while 40% displayed negative biases. In the second replicate, 52% of sows displayed positive biases while 33% of sows displayed negative biases. A linear mixed effects model revealed that feed rank affected the latency to approach the ambiguous stimulus (χ2 (1) = 9.47, p = 0.002) with more dominant animals being more likely to exhibit a positive bias. Given that all sows in the present study were group housed, as well as fed and managed similarly, these findings highlight the complexities underlying judgement bias outcomes.

Assessment of UAV's Operator Cognitive State Based on Behavior Signals

For exploring the relationship between the mental or cognitive state and metric of vigilance test for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), a vigilance state evaluation method and sphere of application based on behavior signals is established. A classical vigilance test avoiding to crash is set. During the experiments, the subjective ratings as well as behavior signals (Response Time, Lapse) are recording. The dynamic changing of behavior signals is analyzed using statistical analysis. The results demonstrate that compared with continuous PVT test, the subject's mental workload in rest PVT test decreases dramatically. Compared other metrics, the speed of response time can reflect the dynamic changing of subject's mental state. The metric of Q-50 has a strong robustness for outlier of subject. Considering that the metrics have strong correlation with operator's cognitive state, they can effectively analyze the different workload.

Subjective Experience, Heterophenomenology, or Neuroimaging? A Perspective on the Meaning and Application of Mental Disorder Terms, in Particular Major Depressive Disorder.

Increasing research efforts try to identify biological markers in order to support or eventually replace current practices of diagnosing mental disorders. Inasmuch as these disorders refer to subjective mental states, such efforts amount to their objectification. This gives rise to conceptual as well as empirical challenges: What kind of things are mental disorders? And how to deal with situations where subjective reports, clinical decisions, and brain scans contradict each other? The present paper starts out with a discussion of recent efforts to objectify beauty. Such attempts to quantify and localize psychological constructs in the brain are compared to earlier examples from the history of psychology. The paper then discusses personal and social implications of the objectification of subjective mental states, including mental disorders. The construct of Major Depressive Disorder, one of the most prevalent mental disorders, is then analyzed in more detail. It turns out that this is a very complex construct probably associated with highly heterogeneous actual instances of the disorder. It is then shown that it is unlikely to replace these symptoms’ descriptions with patterns of brain activations, at least in the near future, given these patterns’ empirical lack of specificity. The paper then discusses which of the disorder’s core symptoms are more or less amenable to behavioral or neuroscientific investigation and analyses whether the heterophenomenological method can solve the problem. The conclusion is that the disorder construct is neither entirely subjective, nor completely objectifiable, and that clinical experts do well by continuing to take a pragmatical stance.

PENERAPAN REWARD AND PUNISHMENT DALAM TEORI BELAJAR BEHAVIORISME

Behaviorism learning theory has a doctrine that human or animal psychology can be accurately studied only through the examination and analysis of objectively observable and quantifiable behavioral events, in contrast with subjective mental states. In this theory have characteristic at reinforcement on individual behavior, the actualization of reinforcement in behaviorism often use the model of reward and punishment method to give reinforcer on student behavior. The issues were I write in this article, many teachers mistook in use the practice of reward and punishment at reinforcement. Many teachers interpret on the reinforcement practice often by punishment (negative reinforce). The truth reinforcement isn't rewarding and punishment, but it’s the shape to make behavior on a student without the violence. Such, many educators regard as the punishment in learning is still the effective method. The enforcement of the shape the student behavior not must by punishment and reward, but use the continuous stimulus.

Antidopaminergic medication in healthy subjects provokes subjective and objective mental impairments tightly correlated with perturbation of biogenic monoamine metabolism and prolactin secretion.

ObjectivesOff-label prescription of antipsychotics to patients without psychotic symptoms has become a routine matter for many psychiatrists and also some general practitioners. Nonetheless, little is known about the possibly detrimental effects of antidopaminergic medications on general psychopathology, subjective mental state, or a possible association with physiological parameters in nonpsychotic individuals.MethodsIn this randomized, single-blinded study, groups of healthy volunteers (n=18) received low doses of reserpine, aripiprazole, haloperidol, or placebo on 7 successive days. Relevant physiological parameters (plasma prolactin, concentrations of catecholamine metabolites in plasma, and 24-hour urine) and each subject’s mental state (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, visual analogue scale, Beck Depression Inventory II) were assessed at the start and end of the trial.ResultsOf the three active treatments, only reserpine caused a significant increase in some plasma- and urine-catecholamine metabolites, but all three medications evoked objective and subjective changes in general psychopathology scores, which correlated with individual increases in plasma homovanillic acid concentrations. Both objective and subjective impairments were significantly more pronounced in the subgroup with greatest increase of plasma prolactin. Subjects experiencing the most pronounced side effects under haloperidol, which compelled them to drop out, showed significantly higher prolactin concentration increases than those who tolerated haloperidol well.ConclusionWe found consistent associations between altered markers of dopamine transmission and several objective and subjective mental impairments in healthy volunteers after 1 week’s treatment with antidopaminergic medications. These findings should draw attention to a more intensive risk–benefit evaluation in cases of off-label prescription of antipsychotic medications.

Using the Five Domains Model to Assess the Adverse Impacts of Husbandry, Veterinary, and Equitation Interventions on Horse Welfare.

Simple SummaryUsing an adaptation of the domain-based welfare assessment model, a panel of horse welfare professionals (with professional expertise in psychology, equitation science, veterinary science, education, welfare, equestrian coaching, advocacy, and community engagement) assessed the perceived harms, if any, resulting from 116 interventions that are commonly applied to horses. Scores for Domain 5 (the integrated mental impact) gathered after extensive discussion during a four-day workshop aligned well with overall impact scores assigned by the same panellists individually before the workshop, although some rankings changed after workshop participation. Domain 4 (Behaviour) had the strongest association with Domain 5, whilst Domain 1 (Nutrition) had the weakest association with Domain 5, implying that the panellists considered commonly applied nutritional interventions to have less of a bearing on subjective mental state than commonly applied behavioural restrictions. The workshop defined each intervention, and stated assumptions around each, resulting in a set of exemplar procedures that could be used in future equine welfare assessments.The aim of this study was to conduct a series of paper-based exercises in order to assess the negative (adverse) welfare impacts, if any, of common interventions on domestic horses across a broad range of different contexts of equine care and training. An international panel (with professional expertise in psychology, equitation science, veterinary science, education, welfare, equestrian coaching, advocacy, and community engagement; n = 16) met over a four-day period to define and assess these interventions, using an adaptation of the domain-based assessment model. The interventions were considered within 14 contexts: C1 Weaning; C2 Diet; C3 Housing; C4 Foundation training; C5 Ill-health and veterinary interventions (chiefly medical); C6 Ill-health and veterinary interventions (chiefly surgical); C7 Elective procedures; C8 Care procedures; C9 Restraint for management procedures; C10 Road transport; C11 Activity—competition; C12 Activity—work; C13 Activity—breeding females; and C14 Activity—breeding males. Scores on a 1–10 scale for Domain 5 (the mental domain) gathered during the workshop were compared with overall impact scores on a 1–10 scale assigned by the same panellists individually before the workshop. The most severe (median and interquartile range, IQR) impacts within each context were identified during the workshop as: C1 abrupt, individual weaning (10 IQR 1); C2 feeding 100% low-energy concentrate (8 IQR 2.5); C3 indoor tie stalls with no social contact (9 IQR 1.5); C4 both (i) dropping horse with ropes (9 IQR 0.5) and forced flexion (9 IQR 0.5); C5 long-term curative medical treatments (8 IQR 3); C6 major deep intracavity surgery (8.5 IQR 1); C7 castration without veterinary supervision (10 IQR 1); C8 both (i) tongue ties (8 IQR 2.5) and (ii) restrictive nosebands (8 IQR 2.5); C9 ear twitch (8 IQR 1); C10 both (i) individual transport (7.00 IQR 1.5) and group transport with unfamiliar companions (7 IQR 1.5); C11 both (i) jumps racing (8 IQR 2.5) and Western performance (8 IQR 1.5); C12 carriage and haulage work (6 IQR 1.5); C13 wet nurse during transition between foals (7.5 IQR 3.75); and C14 teaser horse (7 IQR 8). Associations between pre-workshop and workshop scores were high, but some rankings changed after workshop participation, particularly relating to breeding practices. Domain 1 had the weakest association with Domain 5. The current article discusses the use of the domain-based model in equine welfare assessment, and offers a series of assumptions within each context that future users of the same approach may make when assessing animal welfare under the categories reported here. It also discusses some limitations in the framework that was used to apply the model.

A Perfect Match? Are Dogmatic Belief Systems Simply a Reconciliation of Cognitive and Emotional Human Needs?

AbstractThis paper uses theoretical and empirical literature of various disciplines to develop a conceptual framework for explaining violent social conflicts. This interdisciplinary framework identifies crucial individual and social mechanisms, and suggests three constitutive sets of elements that define the “anatomy of violent civil conflicts”: (i) we begin by considering the role of socio-economic and political conditions and subjective mental states that trigger cognitive and emotional demands such as the demand for safety, order, social belongingness, and self-esteem. (ii) To satisfy the emerging demands and to manage accrued negative emotions and subjectively experienced conflicts, individuals tend to search for reconciliation strategies. While direct physical solutions might offer a practical approach, particular mind-sets tend to provide a cognitive framework to understand and evaluate social reality. They absorb accrued negative emotions and deliver narratives for identification with like-minded individuals who share a set of ideas, goals, guidelines and interpretations. But beyond peaceful ideas, ideologies can be aggressive and totalitarian, such as Religious Fundamentalism, Right-Wing Extremism or Racism, covering irrevocable and static dogmas. (iii) In this case, the dogmatic ideological framework presents a clear, focused and guiding image of the world, which shapes a rigid pattern of coherence and contrast and which is perceived as a vital resource for motivation and recruitment. To understand at first the decision-making process of individuals, it is of vital importance to combine rational economic thinking with the dynamic processes of external threats, social belongingness and individual psychologic dispositions.

Mens rea, the Achilles’ Heel of Criminal Law

The evolution of criminal law in Western legal systems is often portrayed as a path leading from objective to subjective notions of criminal responsibility. By examining the historical development of the notions of subjective responsibility, this article suggests that the function of a wrongdoer’s subjective mental state, in both its substantive and procedural aspect, as an element in the process of attributing criminal responsibility, remains much the same today as it was in antiquity. This is indicated by what subjectivity, as an essential condition of culpability (actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea), is said to imply: the distinction between intentional and unintentional acts. Although the notions of intent and malice aforethought are attested to in various sources on ancient Athenian law, there are several kinds of cases in which the role played by these aspects—traditionally referred to as mens rea (“guilty mind”)—remain unsolved in contemporary jurisprudence and legal practice. Yet despite the difficulties of establishing facts in particularly complex criminal cases, setting the boundary between “intentional” and “unintentional” remains crucially important in determining criminal responsibility and thus in distinguishing the “licit” from the “illicit,” which is the very foundation of the rule of law.

Empathic Knowledge: The Import of Empathy’s Social Epistemology

The epistemic and moral worth of empathy is deeply contested. Some doubt the possibility and sufficiency of empathic knowledge (can we mirror another’s subjective mental state?). Others question whether knowing how another feels is causally linked to moral actions (e.g. acts of beneficence or altruism). Though some have defended empathy as a form of knowing or an important epistemic endeavor, there is a gap in these responses that weakens their force against empathy’s skeptics. On the one hand, the epistemologists tend to focus on individuals (individual neurology, epistemic content, etc.). On the other hand, the moral theorists and moral-epistemologists tend to focus on the social (interpersonal harms, social benefit, etc.). Here, I contend that the first group could learn from the second and, together, form a stronger defense of empathy’s epistemic import. Namely, if, as epistemologists, we can begin from a conceptualization of empathy as a social epistemic practice within which knowledge is formed and confirmed with others, then we can better allow for (1) possibility in understanding how another feels, (2) reliability in empathic processes, and (3) appropriate sensitivity to variance and degrees of empathic knowing.