Workings Of Mind Research Articles

An explorer in a cardboard land: emotion, memory, and the embodied experience of doing jigsaw puzzles

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how playing a game or engaging in a leisure activity provides the participant with an experience which integrates physical, mental, and emotional elements. I use an autoethnographic approach to study the process of completing jigsaw puzzles. The main focal point of the paper is the connection between engagement in a physical activity (completing a puzzle) and how the mind works and where it goes during the performance of that activity. The goal of the paper is to illustrate the connections between action and thought, and to show how one of the benefits, pleasures or rewards of engagement in leisure activities is the way these activities facilitate the wandering of our minds toward productive thoughts, images, insights, memories, and emotions. These findings may aid our understanding of the nature and appeal of playing games or participating in various types of leisure activities.

Saussurian Binary Opposition as the Narrative Structure of Williams� Summer and Smoke.

The Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, is one of the forefathers of structuralism whose works have inspired and influenced many of current modern thinkers. Binary opposition is one of many of his thoughts. This notion came up from his theory explaining that in fact in humans attempt at deriving conceptual meanings, their minds work by distinguishing the differences between things. Thus, Saussure basically suggests the idea that humans first logical operation is by discerning things through their relationships; one of Saussures basic relationships is binary opposition. For this reason, this study is conducted to prove this basic yet comprehensive theory as the narrative structure of Williams Summer and Smoke. Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke (1948) is chosen since it is richly endowed with binary symbols and characters. Moreover, the course of the narrative is also structured in dichotomies.The results of this study are: first, the binary symbols and characteristics found in the play reveal the dichotomies concerning the importance of soul/body, spirituality/sexuality, life/death, physical lust/divine love; second, the binary symbols and characters prove that the narrative structure of Summer and Smoke is constructed upon the binary oppositions as proven by the binary quests of soul and body and the binary role transformations between Alma and John as revealed by A.J. Greimas three pairs of actantial model.

Melloni’s Experiments and the Search for the Nature of Infrared Radiation

We repeated the historical infra-red radiation experiments performed by Melloni, to investigate why, at the end of his life, he came to the conclusion that radiation from light and heat rely on the same basic principle, what has been translated as the so called unitary formalism. In doing so, we profited from a Master thesis on heat radiation and Melloni’s related effort, organized by our museum. We also investigated how Melloni fits into Kuhn’s structure of scientific revolutions, and concept of paradigm shift, with Melloni’s experimental work in mind. We conclude that Melloni did not come to this opinion on the unitary principle of the phenomenon of light and heat on the basis of any philosophical considerations, but on facts and observations and similarities between both phenomena.

Leading in Multiple Dimensions: A Cognitive Frame Account of Public Virtue

This chapter presents a normative account of ethical leading as an agent centered form of public virtue. In this account public virtue involves an individual who uses focused reflection and judgment that rely on a disciplined pattern of self-awareness. Self-aware leaders intentionally work through four cognitive dimensions of public action. The ethical success of leading depends heavily upon addressing the four dimensions. As an account of virtue it assumes individual leaders accept personal responsibility for the consequences that flow from their action. This responsibility obligates leaders to structure their thinking to account for ethical and political facets that shape long term resilient policy and institutional outcomes. The dimensions work like mental models or frames that can be learned with experience and that structure cognitive, emotional and perceptual judgments. The chapter integrates traditional understandings of virtue as habit and practice with modern cognitive understandings of how the mind and mental frames work. Individuals can strengthen their public virtue by adopting these four mental dimensions as an integrated frame and use them to discipline their thinking. The four dimensions can give content to virtuous reflection, and two masked real life examples illustrate how public virtue can look in practice.

Re-evaluation of batoid pectoral morphology reveals novel patterns of diversity among major lineages.

Batoids (Chondrichthyes: Batoidea) are a diverse group of cartilaginous fishes which comprise a monophyletic sister lineage to all neoselachians or modern sharks. All species in this group possess anteroposteriorly expanded-pectoral fins, giving them a unique disc-like body form. Reliance on pectoral fins for propulsion ranges from minimal (sawfish) to almost complete dependence (skates and rays). A recent study on the diversity of planform pectoral fin shape in batoids compared overall patterns of morphological variation within the group. However, inconsistent pectoral homology prevented the study from accurately representing relationships within and among major batoid taxa. With previous work in mind, we undertook an independent investigation of pectoral form in batoids and evaluated the implications of shape diversity on locomotion and lifestyle, particularly in the skates (Rajoidei) and rays (Myliobatoidei). We used geometric morphometrics with sliding semilandmarks to analyze pectoral fin outlines and also calculate fin aspect ratios (AR), a functional trait linked to locomotion. In agreement with previous work, our results indicated that much of the evolution of batoid pectoral shape has occurred along a morphological axis that is closely related to AR. For species where kinematic data were available, both shape and AR were associated with swimming mode. This work further revealed novel patterns of shape variation among batoids, including strong bimodality of shape in rays, an intermediate location of skate species in the morphospace between benthic/demersal and pelagic rays, and approximately parallel shape trajectories in the benthic/demersal rays and skates. Finally, manipulation of landmarks verified the need for a consistent and accurate definition of homology for the outcome and efficacy of analyses of pectoral form and function in batoids.

“Speaking with the Elgin marbles in his mouth?”: Modernism and translation in Welsh writing in English

ABSTRACTThis article claims that one of the most salient aspects of Welsh anglophone modernism – that which makes it distinctive, and distinctively modernist – is that it emerges from the uneasy relationship between languages; it is a literature in translation. The article proceeds to explore the role of translation from Welsh into English in the anglophone modernism of Wales by discussing Caradoc Evans’ alleged exposure of the warped working of the Welsh mind, David Jones’ revisionist history of Britain and Margiad Evans’ sympathetic depiction of Welsh-speaking communities. While the process of translation from Welsh makes anglophone Welsh modernism distinctive, the depiction of Welsh-language communities in English-language texts – whether prejudicial or sympathetic – is always problematic. The article ends by arguing against the tendency, manifest in Welsh anglophone modernism, as in contemporary literary criticism, to equate language difference with racial difference.

Book Review: Future Memory: How Those Who "See the Future" Shed New Light on the Workings of the Human Mind

Review of the book "Future Memory: How Those Who 'See the Future' Shed New Light on the Workings of the Human Mind" by researcher P. M. H. Atwater.

Religious Discourse in Modern Japan: Religion, State, and Shintō by Isomae Jun’ichi

Reviewed by: Religious Discourse in Modern Japan: Religion, State, and Shintō by Isomae Jun’ichi Jolyon Baraka Thomas Religious Discourse in Modern Japan: Religion, State, and Shintō. By Isomae Jun’ichi. Translated by Galen Amstutz and Lynne E. Riggs. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 501 pages. Softcover $209.00. When I was a visiting research student in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tokyo between 2006 and 2007, Isomae Jun’ichi’s 2003 monograph Kindai Nihon no shūkyō gensetsu to sono keifu: Shūkyō, kokka, shintō was indispensable reading. In that Japanese-language predecessor of the book under review here, Isomae refreshingly traced the adventitious process whereby shūkyō came to be the default translation for the English word “religion.” He also showed how the discursive structures of the religious studies field—including the assumed naturalness of the very word “religion”—shape the research questions scholars have been inclined to ask. Isomae’s willingness to critically examine religious studies was a stimulant for the field in general, and it would be no overstatement to say that his treatment of the political effects of the “R word” provided inspiration for my own current research on religious freedom in modern Japan. The sharp critiques that follow must be read with this indebtedness and profound respect for Isomae’s pathbreaking work in mind. Although the titles are similar, the English-language edition departs in significant ways from Isomae’s 2003 work, incorporating several new sections that reflect his voluminous output in the intervening years. While its topic is of indisputable importance to those of us who professionally study “Japanese religions” (a phrase I use here out of convenience), frankly the book would have benefited from some ruthless editing, a clearer framing of the argument, and a more rigorous chronological presentation. The introduction, for example, is a literature review of the sort one expects to find in some doctoral dissertations but cannot be justified in an academic monograph. Subsequent chapters are redundant, retracing the same material several times rather than providing a cogent presentation from start to finish. Translators Galen Amstutz and Lynne E. Riggs deserve congratulations for rendering Isomae’s text with fidelity to his idiosyncratic tone. Isomae habitually writes in the passive voice or—when using more active verbs—speaks of objects or institutions as if they were agents: “Shinto succeeded in prescribing its acts of religiosity as the public [End Page 186] duty of all the people of the state regardless of what beliefs they might hold as private individuals” (p. xix). He also speaks unhesitatingly about what Japanese people felt or believed without offering any evidence to support his claims. This creates the unavoidable impression that Isomae’s rigid binary between “the West” and “the non-West” and his sharp division of Japanese history into pre- and post-“religion” are premised on a rather naïve assumption that premodern Japanese people were somehow more noble or pure for lacking the modern concept of religion. Indeed, in Isomae’s telling the concept of religion becomes a sort of polluting agent or irritant. It is the small foreign body around which modern Japanese identity, the field of religious studies, and the religion/secular distinctions of the modern Japanese state cohered. This last claim that the foreign category of religion constructed modern Japanese governance is not dissimilar to Trent Maxey’s recent argument in The “Greatest Problem”: Religion and State Formation in Meiji Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2014). In contrast with Maxey’s stolid historical approach, however, Isomae advances an activist project that aims to recuperate a romanticized Japanese past while dreamily idealizing a different future for the study of religion. Isomae is on slightly firmer ground when he turns to actual historical data in part 1, “The Formation of the Concept of ‘Religion’ and Modern Academic Discourse.” Chapter 1 provides a sweeping overview of the introduction of the category “religion” to Japan and the diplomatic difficulties and domestic policy implications it engendered. Isomae sees the introduction of religion as a problem of the imposition of “Western logic” on Japan. But because he never clearly defines the “Japanese logic” against which he juxtaposes this (similarly undefined) “Western logic,” the reader...

Developing New Educational Frontiers through Breakthroughs in Cognitive Computation and New Dimensions in Pedagogical Technology

Abstract—The world of higher education is being transformed by three forces addressing three fundamental aspects of education: access to high quality education; models for how the mind works, and what its capabilities and limitations are; and the use of technology for the implementation of pedagogical strategies that will lead to optimal learning experiences. This article reviews: some of the major changes is online access to higher education around the world; the fundamental ideas that cognitive sciences and computation are advancing for a new educational system; and a set of specific examples where this access and these methodologies are being implemented in the real world. Index Terms—Computational thinking, online education, cognitive sciences, lifelong learning teaching. I. ONLINE ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION Our research team has focused its teaching and research activities of the last decade in the area of technology and e-learning in higher education. The team was able to analyze, experiment with, and implement systematic studies of courses offered in these platforms. The first section of this paper describes our analysis of the implications of MOOC platforms and their potential impact in the future model of Universities as they expand to new geographic areas and new demographic groups. A. MOOCs

Gap between Perceived and Desired Levels in Commercial Banks in Madurai

Customer perception is an important component of bank’s relationship with its customers. A customer may make such comparisons for each part of an offer called ‘‘domain-specific satisfaction’’ or for the offer in total called ‘‘global satisfaction’’. The working of the customer's mind is a mystery which is difficult to unfathomed and understanding the nuances of what perception the customer has to attain satisfaction is, a challenging task. The banks would recognize where they need to make changes to create improvements and determine if these changes, after implementation, have led to increased customer satisfaction. The present study is based on both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected from the customers of commercial banks by sample survey through structural interview schedule. Field work for this study was carried out by the researcher himself. The researcher had used the interview schedule for collecting data from bank customers.

Contemporary cognitive architectures: a comparative study of structures and adaptability

Cognitive architectures aim to provide blueprints for achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). Cognitive models that can provide crucial clues to the working of human mind are typically built on top of cognitive architectures. This paper reviews contemporary cognitive architectures including Soar, ACT-R, CLARION, OpenCog Prime and ICARUS in terms of architecture and components, knowledge and representation, learning and adaptability, and memory models. It then evaluates these architectures based on certain evaluation criteria. In addition, this paper reviews recent research focus in these architectures and their usage in real-world applications. Finally, this paper discusses the trends and challenges ahead in building effective cognitive architectures.

Contemporary cognitive architectures: a comparative study of structures and adaptability

Cognitive architectures aim to provide blueprints for achieving artificial general intelligence AGI. Cognitive models that can provide crucial clues to the working of human mind are typically built on top of cognitive architectures. This paper reviews contemporary cognitive architectures including Soar, ACT-R, CLARION, OpenCog Prime and ICARUS in terms of architecture and components, knowledge and representation, learning and adaptability, and memory models. It then evaluates these architectures based on certain evaluation criteria. In addition, this paper reviews recent research focus in these architectures and their usage in real-world applications. Finally, this paper discusses the trends and challenges ahead in building effective cognitive architectures.

Modal Representations and their Role in the Learning Process: A Theoretical and Pragmatic Analysis

Recent developments in science and technology which resulted in improvements in learning and teaching environments have brought the concept of multimedia to the forefront. Multimedia is defined as a combination of multiple technical resources with the aim of representing new technologies and information (Schnotz & Lowe, 2003). Simply put, multimedia represents an environment that appeals to the senses and hence has an important role in the learning-teaching process (Akkoyunlu & Yilmaz, 2005). Akkoyunlu and Yilmaz (2005) elaborated on this concept, suggesting that it improves student motivation and achievement by addressing more than one sensory organ through the use of various resources. In this context, Mayer (2003) suggested that using various technologies does not change the nature of how the human mind works; however, when instructional technologies are intelligently designed, they can work as a powerful tool for human cognition. Furthermore, according to Mayer, students can learn more easily by building mental representations from the pictures and words presented to them in multimedia learning environments.Akkoyunlu and Yilmaz (2005) consider instructional technologies as the primary resources of multimedia learning environments and have classified them according to the sensory organs they address as follows: visual media such as books, whiteboards, pictures, charts, graphs, real objects, or models; audio media such as radio, records, cassettes, and audio tapes; and audiovisual media which includes films, animations, television, and video. According to Schnotz and Lowe (2003), multimedia resources can be analyzed in three different levels: technical, such as computers and networks; sensory, which indicates the stimulation of senses using visual or auditory modality; and semiotic, which refers to representational formats such as text, pictures, and audio. Investigating the literature on teaching and learning based on these levels, Schnotz and Lowe concluded that the majority of research in this field has focused on the technical level rather than the sensory or semiotic. Therefore, the impact of the semiotic and sensory levels on learning is still open to investigation.The main goal of multimedia learning is to initiate deep learning in students through the use of multimedia messages involving words, symbolic representations, and pictures rather than a mode of communication based solely on words (Mayer, 2003). Mayer further explained that the factors that initiate learning are not just media environments but also the contribution of media environments to cognitive processing. In other words, multimedia learning environments provide individuals with representations of various forms and alternative learning methods (Schnotz & Bannert, 2003). In these representations, the target content is presented using modes.Modes consist of representations such as pictures, graphs, and diagrams. Representations can be composed of a single mode or multimode involving more than one mode. Representations play a role in the cognitive structure of an individual and how it selects and organizes information, examines symbolic structures, and maps exemplary structures (Schnotz & Bannert, 2003). In addition, a variety of representations in visual and auditory dimensions enriches cognitive processes and triggers the processes of selection, organization, and integration, which in turn promotes meaningful learning (Mayer, 2003). The effective use of representations for predefined purposes also provides cognitive diversity and depth to the learning and thinking processes. Thus, it has a potential to offer significant benefits that help achieve the desired outcomes (Gero & Reffat, 1997). In parallel with the growing interest in representations and their relationship to learning in various fields, research in science education in this particular area has also increased both nationally and internationally.The research available in Turkey has focused on the impact of representations on learning the subjects of science, physics, and chemistry in primary, secondary, and university schools (Yesildag & Gunel, 2009; Koc, Kingir, & Gunel, 2012); analyzing the transitions between different modes of representations (Celik & Saglam-Arslan, 2012); and identifying the modal representations used in educational research (Demirbag & Gunel, 2014). …

Географічна освіта в Львівській області

In the context of reforming secondary and high school education in Ukraine, the geographic education of the region and the country as a whole should be considered as a system that includes initial, basic, preprofessional and professional level. Currently, there is no overall picture of the status and trends of development of the various segments of geographic education in the Lviv region that are necessary to consider while constructing regional education policy. The article defines quantitative indicators of the subjects of the learning process in geography on various educational levels and in territorial aspect. This study reveals that during next five years, the best prospects regarding quantitative indicators will have basic geographical education, due to relatively favorable situation with the number of pupils in primary schools of the region. The article shows in detail the educational achievements of geography students at regional and national levels; points the centers for optimal development of geographic education such as Lviv, Drohobych, Sambir, Stryi, Chervonograd; and reveals scientific and methodological improvements of teachers of geography in the region. The research analyzes the contradictory trend between quantitative growth of professional sector of geographical education (opening of new regional university departments) and the needs of secondary school in specialists, and between socially conditioned restriction of employment of young professionals because of growing proportion of retired among teachers of geography. It was found that 65% of graduate students of department of geography at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv do not mind working in education and respectively can replace within 5–7 years all teachers of geography at pre-retirement and retirement age in the region. However, the lack of effective educational policies at national and regional levels prevents replenishment of school’s segment of geographical education by young professionals, and thus slows down the process of modernization of education and its real reform. Key words: geographic education, levels of geographic education, the quality of knowledge on geography, age structure of geography’s teachers, teaching achievements of the geography teachers of the region, professional intentions of the graduates of Geography Department.

Theory of Mind: Overcoming the Dichotomy Between Culture and Nature

Theory of Mind: Overcoming the Dichotomy Between Culture and Nature

Peirce, Immediate Perception, and the “New” Unconscious: Neuroscience and Empirical Psychology in Support of a “Well-Known Doctrine”

ABSTRACT This article defends Charles Peirce's “doctrine of immediate perception.” This realistic view holds that conscious agents, due to the work of unconscious mind, directly perceive the world and often know objects, events, and persons as they truly are, independently of how we might prefer to think of them (what is known as our realist intuition). The doctrine provides a promising alternative to more recent views insisting that all experience of the world and other persons is ineluctably mediated by language, along with the categories and biases language inevitably imposes. Peirce's view is further explicated in terms of what neuroscientists now call the “new” unconscious (but to which Peirce contributed to earlier) and supported by recent work in both neuroscience and empirical psychology, especially experiments involving infants. The article supports the conclusion that, while much experience is mediated by language (often helpfully so), direct (and desirable) access to a world that informs and often surprises us persists throughout conscious experience.

Brain, Mind, and Media

Brain, Mind, and Media

Evolutionary Psychology as a Metatheory for the Social Sciences: How to Gather Interdisciplinary Evidence for a Psychological Adaptation

Evolutionary psychology has been proposed as a new metatheory for the social sciences ( Buss, 1995 ). Evolutionary psychology is an approach that emphasizes the evolutionary background of psychological phenomena (e.g., cognition, motivation, perception), with the expectation that knowledge about this background enhances our understanding of the working of the present human mind. This proposal has met with both enthusiasm and criticism. An important criticism is that it is hard, if possible at all, to find empirical evidence for a hypothesized psychological adaptation. This criticism has been addressed with the proposal to build a nomological network of evidence around a hypothesized psychological adaptation ( Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004 ). In this article, we show that it is possible to use this nomological network of evidence to support the hypothesis that face recognition is an adaptation. We reviewed the literature on face recognition from different disciplines (psychology, medicine, neuroscience, genetics, primatology, and anthropology) and conclude that there is an extensive network of evidence for the proposed hypothesis. We argue that building a nomological network of evidence is a promising way to address several criticisms of evolutionary psychology, and that such a network can serve as a metatheoretical framework for the social sciences.

Arduino based Wireless Powered Chess

This paper concentrate on designing of chess boards using Arduino mega and Reed Switches. The Arduino is the open source platform. The normal chess procedure is just so sit next to each other and enjoy the game but if you don’t find anyone near you to play, And if you find a person who has a same skills as you but live for five block ahead and can’t come to your place to play and what happen when you are in hospital and you want to kill the time by playing the game. The wireless powered chess has solutions of all the problems. Already build system requires computer and laptop to enjoy the game which affects cost and complexity. In the result and simulation part this paper will focus to enjoy the game at distance.When we play an ancient and noble game of Chess, we grapple with ideas about honesty, deceitfulness, bravery, fear, aggression, beauty and creativity which echo the attitude we take up in daily lives. Chess is an activity in which we deploy almost all our available cognitive resources; therefore it makes an ideal laboratory for investigation into the working of human mind. This study will focus on automatically operated chess board with the help of Bluetooth and Arduino Processesor. In this process two chess boards are connected with the help of Bluetooth and by using Arduino processors the interfacing between the two boards is done. The idea to carry on this project is taken up from “Computer Controlled Chinese Chess” in which the program is written in visual basis (VB) language and the commands are given with the help of computer to microcontroller which manages the different RF receiver robots at RF frequency and moves the different major and minor pieces and performs the operation of castling .The Complete operation is done at RF frequency and the moves done on computer is perform on the board as well. In the proposed wireless powered chess project, since both the chess boards are connected with Arduino Microprocessor, the move performed on manually attended boards is also seen on other board without operating by the player. This study of Wireless powered chess will facilitate playing chess sitting at different location in a limited surrounding.

N400 Event-Related Potential and Standardized Measures of Reading in Late Elementary School Children: Correlated or Independent?

We investigated whether and how standardized behavioral measures of reading and electrophysiological measures of reading were related in 72 typically developing, late elementary school children. Behavioral measures included standardized tests of spelling, phonological processing, vocabulary, comprehension, naming speed, and memory. Electrophysiological measures were composed of the amplitude of the N400 component of the event-related potential waveform elicited by real words, pseudowords, nonpronounceable letter strings, and strings of letter-like symbols (false fonts). The only significant brain-behavior correlations were between standard scores on the vocabulary test and N400 mean amplitude to real words (r = -.272) and pseudowords (r = -.235). We conclude that, while these specific sets of standardized behavioral and electrophysiological measures both provide an index of reading, for the most part, they are independent and draw upon different underlying processing resources. [T]o completely analyze what we do when we read… would be to describe very many of the most intricate workings of the human mind, as well as to unravel the tangled story of the most remarkable specific performance that civilization has learned in all its history(Huey, 1908/1968, p. 3).