Ignoratio elenchi (also to known as irrelevantconclusion or missing the point) is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid and sound, but (whose conclusion) fails to address the issue in question (from Ancient Greek ἔλεγχος elenchos, meaning ‘an argument of disproof or refutation’). It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies.
Irrelevantconclusion should not be confused with formal fallacy, an argument whose conclusiondoes not follow from its premises (cf. belief bias)
Ignoratio elenchi is one of the fallacies identified by Aristotle in his Organon. In a broader sense he asserted that all fallacies are a form of ignoratio elenchi. A related concept is that of the red herring, which is a deliberate attempt to divert a process of enquiry by changing the subject. Ignoratio elenchi is sometimes confused with straw man argument.
Ignoratio Elenchi, according to Aristotle, is a fallacy which arises from “ignorance of the nature of refutation”. In order to refute an assertion, Aristotle says we must prove its contradictory; the proof, consequently, of a proposition which stood in any other relation than that to the original, would be an ignoratio elenchi. Since Aristotle, the scope of the fallacy has been extended to include all cases of proving the wrong point… “I am required to prove a certain conclusion; I prove, not that, but one which is likely to be mistaken for it; in that lies the fallacy… For instance, instead of proving that ‘this person has committed an atrocious fraud’, you prove that ‘this fraud he is accused of is atrocious;’” … The nature of the fallacy, then, consists in substituting for a certain issue another which is more or less closely related to it, and arguing the substituted issue. The fallacy does not take into account whether the arguments do or do not really support the substituted issue, it only calls attention to the fact that they do not constitute a proof of the original one… It is a particularly prevalent and subtle fallacy and it assumes a great variety of forms. But whenever it occurs and whatever form it takes, it is brought about by an assumption that leads the person guilty of it to substitute for a definite subject of inquiry another which is in close relation with it.
— Arthur Ernest Davies, “Fallacies” in ‘A Text-Book of Logic’
Example 1: A and B are debating as to whether criticizing indirectly has any merit in general.
A: There is no point in people ranting on social media about politics; the president is not going to read it anyway.
B: But it is their social media. People can agree on making a petition or convey notice from many others that they will be signing one based on their concerns.
A: Well, I do not keep up with it anyway.
A attempts to support their position with an argument that politics ought not to be criticized on social media because the message is not directly being heard by the head of state; this would make them guilty of ignoratio elenchi, as people such as B may be criticizing politics because they have a strong message for their peers, or because they wish to bring attention to political matters, rather than ever intending that their views would be directly read by the president.
Example 2: A and B are debating about the law.
A: Does the law allow me to do that?
B: The law should allow you to do that because this and that.
B missed the point. The question was not if the law should allow, but if it does or not.
Dr Johnson’s unique “refutation” of Bishop Berkeley’s immaterialism, his claim that matter did not actually exist but only seemed to exist, has been described as ignoratio elenchi: during a conversation with Boswell, Johnson powerfully kicked a nearby stone and proclaimed of Berkeley’s theory, “I refute it thus!” (See also argumentum ad lapidem.)
Etymology
The phrase ignoratio elenchi is from Latin, meaning ‘an ignoring of a refutation’. Here elenchi is the genitive singular of the Latin noun elenchus, which is from Ancient Greek ἔλεγχος (elenchos), meaning ‘an argument of disproof or refutation’. The translation in English of the Latin expression has varied somewhat. Hamblin proposed “misconception of refutation” or “ignorance of refutation” as a literal translation, John Arthur Oesterle preferred “ignoring the issue”, and Irving Copi, Christopher Tindale and others used “irrelevant conclusion”.
Walton, D.. (1984). Ignoratio Elenchi: The Red Herring Fallacy. Informal Logic, 2(3)
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg‘s leadership. There is ongoing debate as to whether or not he and the other members of the team actively and willingly pursued the development of a nuclear bomb for Germany during this time.
A member of the prominent Weizsäcker family, he was son of the diplomat Ernst von Weizsäcker, elder brother of the former German PresidentRichard von Weizsäcker, father of the physicist and environmental researcher Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and father-in-law of the former General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Konrad Raiser.
Weizsäcker made important theoretical discoveries regarding energy production in stars from nuclear fusion processes. He also did influential theoretical work on planetary formation in the early Solar System.
In his late career, he focused more on philosophical and ethical issues, and was awarded several international honors for his work in those areas.
Der bedrohte Friede. Politische Aufsätze 1945–1981, Hanser, München 1981, ISBN 3-446-13454-9.
Adolf Hitler was a German politician, demagogue, and Pan-German revolutionary, who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.
Author: Henry A. Murray, M. D.
Print Source:Nuremberg, Germany: International Military Tribunal, 1943-10-00
Publication Info: Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Law Library hitler
José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado (August 8, 1915 – September 15, 2011) was a Spanish professor of physiology at Yale University, famed for his research on mind control through electrical stimulation of the brain.
Delgrado used permanent brain implants to control behaviour. Later he utilised non-inversive methods.
José Manuel Rodríguez Delgado (1969). Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society. Harper and Row. ISBN 978-0-06-090208-7.
Delgado JM (1977–1978). “Instrumentation, working hypotheses, and clinical aspects of neurostimulation”. Applied Neurophysiology. 40 (2–4): 88–110.
Delgado, Jose M.; et al. Intracerebral Radio Stimulation and recording in Completely Free Patients, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Vol 147(4), 1968, 329-340.
Delgado, José M.R. (1964). Free Behavior and Brain Stimulation. International Review of Neurobiology. 6. pp. 349–449. doi:10.1016/S0074-7742(08)60773-4.
Abstract - Free behaviour and brain stimulation (1964)
Of the methods used to investigate the neurophysiological basis of behavior, perhaps the most direct and dramatic is electrical stimulation of the brain. Direct stimulation of the brain is considered a crude method for the exploration of cerebral functions, and the understanding of the results is limited. The chapter describes methodology for cinemanalysis, telerecording, and telestimulation to study free behavior during brain stimulation. It also demonstrates that spontaneous activities are recorded, identified and quantified, allowing the systematic study of free and evoked behavior on both individual and social levels. The chapter also discusses the types and significance of behavior evoked by brain stimulation in unrestrained subjects and presents a theory of fragmental organization of behavior. Brain stimulation evokes (1) stereotyped tonic or phasic activity without any emotional disturbance, (2) driving activity to reach an objective with a motor performance adapted to the relations between subject and purpose, (3) changes in behavioral tuning that are detected in isolated animals because of the lack of manifestations, but may modify decisively the character of response to normal stimuli, (4) inhibition of spontaneous or evoked behavior, and (5) abnormal effects such as tremor or seizures. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0074774208607734
Rodríguez Delgado’s research interests centered on the use of electrical signals to evoke responses in the brain. His earliest work was with cats, but he later did experiments with monkeys and humans, including psychiatric patients.[3][4]
Much of Rodríguez Delgado’s work was with an invention he called a stimoceiver, a radio which joined a stimulator of brain waves with a receiver which monitored E.E.G. waves and sent them back on separate radio channels. Some of these stimoceivers were as small as half-dollars. This allowed the subject of the experiment full freedom of movement while allowing the experimenter to control the experiment. This was a great improvement from his early equipment which included visual disturbance in those whose wires ran from the brain to bulky equipment that both recorded data and delivered the desired electrical charges to the brain. This early equipment, while not allowing for a free range of movement, was also the cause of infection in many subjects.[5]
The stimoceiver could be used to stimulate emotions and control behavior. According to Rodríguez Delgado, “Radio Stimulation of different points in the amygdala and hippocampus in the four patients produced a variety of effects, including pleasant sensations, elation, deep, thoughtful concentration, odd feelings, super relaxation, colored visions, and other responses.” Rodríguez Delgado stated that “brain transmitters can remain in a person’s head for life. The energy to activate the brain transmitter is transmitted by way of radio frequencies.”[6]
Using the stimoceiver, Rodríguez Delgado found that he could not only elicit emotions, but he could also elicit specific physical reactions. These specific physical reactions, such as the movement of a limb or the clenching of a fist, were achieved when Rodríguez Delgado stimulated the motor cortex. A human whose implants were stimulated to produce a reaction were unable to resist the reaction and so one patient said “I guess, doctor, that your electricity is stronger than my will”. Some consider one of Rodríguez Delgado‘s most promising finds is that of an area called the septum within the limbic region. This area, when stimulated by Rodríguez Delgado, produced feelings of strong euphoria. These euphoric feelings were sometimes strong enough to overcome physical pain and depression.[2]
Rodríguez Delgado created many inventions and was called a “technological wizard” by one of his Yale colleagues. Other than the stimoceiver, Rodríguez Delgado also created a “chemitrode” which was an implantable device that released controlled amounts of a drug into specific brain areas. Rodríguez Delgado also invented an early version of what is now a cardiac pacemaker.[2]
In Rhode Island, Rodríguez Delgado did some work at what is now a closed mental hospital. He chose patients who were “desperately ill patients whose disorders had resisted all previous treatments” and implanted electrodes in about 25 of them. Most of these patients were either schizophrenics or epileptics. To determine the best placement of electrodes within the human patients, Delgado initially looked to the work of Wilder Penfield, who studied epileptics’ brains in the 1930s, as well as earlier animal experiments, and studies of brain-damaged people.[2]
The most famous example of the stimoceiver in action occurred at a Córdoba bull breeding ranch. Rodríguez Delgado stepped into the ring with a bull which had had a stimoceiver implanted within its brain. The bull charged Delgado, who pressed a remote control button which caused the bull to stop its charge. Always one for theatrics, he taped this stunt and it can be seen today.[7] The region of the brain Rodríguez Delgado stimulated when he pressed the hand-held transmitter was the caudate nucleus. This region was chosen to be stimulated because the caudate nucleus is involved in controlling voluntary movements.[2] Rodríguez Delgado claimed that the stimulus caused the bull to lose its aggressive instinct.
Although the bull incident was widely mentioned in the popular media, Rodríguez Delgado believed that his experiment with a female chimpanzee named Paddy was more significant. Paddy was fitted with a stimoceiver linked to a computer that detected the brain signal called a spindle which was emitted by her part of the brain called the amygdala. When the spindle was recognized, the stimoceiver sent a signal to the central gray area of Paddy’s brain, producing an ‘aversive reaction’. In this case, the aversive reaction was an unpleasant or painful feeling. The result of the aversive reaction to the stimulus was a negative feedback to the brain.[2] Within hours her brain was producing fewer spindles as a result of the negative feedback.[8] As a result, Paddy became “quieter, less attentive and less motivated during behavioral testing”. Although Paddy’s reaction was not exactly ideal, Rodríguez Delgado hypothesized that the method used on Paddy could be used on others to stop panic attacks, seizures, and other disorders controlled by certain signals within the brain.[2] [9][10]
Publication
José Rodríguez Delgado authored 134 scientific publications within two decades (1950-1970) on electrical stimulation on cats, monkeys and patients – psychotic and non-psychotic. In 1963, New York Times featured his experiments on their front page. Rodríguez Delgado had implanted a stimoceiver in the caudate nucleus of a fighting bull. He could stop the animal mid-way that would come running towards a waving red flag.[11]
He was invited to write his book Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilised Society as the forty-first volume in a series entitled World Perspectives edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen. In it Rodríguez Delgado has discussed how we have managed to tame and civilize our surrounding nature, arguing that now it was time to civilize our inner being. The book has been a centre of controversy since its release.[1] The tone of the book was challenging and the philosophical speculations went beyond the data. Its intent was to encourage less cruelty, and a more benevolent, happier, better man, however it clashed religious sentiments.
José Rodríguez Delgado continued to publish his research and philosophical ideas through articles and books for the next quarter century. He in all wrote over 500 articles and six books. His final book in 1989, was named Happiness and had 14 editions.
Delgado later learned he could duplicate the results he got with the stimoceiver without any implants at all, using only specific types of electromagnetic radiation interacting with the brain. He lamented he didn’t have access to the technology when Franco was in power, as it would have allowed him to control the dictator at a distance.
Maggie Scarf (1971-11-25). “Brain Researcher Jose Delgado Asks “What Kind of Humans Would We Like to Construct?““. New York Times.
Delgado JM (1977–1978). “Instrumentation, working hypotheses, and clinical aspects of neurostimulation”. Applied Neurophysiology. 40 (2–4): 88–110. doi:10.1159/000102436. PMID101139.
Books
Elliot S. Valenstein (1973). Brain Control: A Critical Examination of Brain Stimulation and Psychosurgery. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-0-471-89784-2.
Delgado, J. M. R.. (1970). SCIENCE AND HUMAN VALUES. Zygon®
“A brief study of the generic features of science and of man’s patterns of behaviour shows that there is scope for the establishment of a science in the field of human values. an essential premise to the argument is that there can be an absolute form of contingence without absolute determination of the actual course of events, the law of nature providing alternative consequences depending on the subject’s choice of action.”
Blackwell, B.. (2012). Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado. Neuropsychopharmacology
“Presents an obituary of jose manuel rodriguez delgado (1915-2011). jose enrolled in madrid medical school in 1933 to study both medicine and physiology. in 1936, the spanish civil war erupted, his mentor juan negri fled the country and jose joined the republican side as a medical corpsman. from 1942 to 1950, he began research in neurophysiology on selective brain ablation and electrical stimulation in animals, published 14 articles and won several prizes. in 1950, delgado won a scholarship to the yale university in the department of physiology under the direction of john fulton whose pioneer work on pre-frontal lobotomy in chimpanzees encouraged the portuguese psychiatrist egas moniz to perform the operation in schizophrenic patients, for which he received the noble prize in 1949. delgado positioned himself between growing disapproval of mutilating brain surgery and his own belief that electrical stimulation of specific brain areas was scientifically superior to oral administration of drugs whose effects were mitigated by liver metabolism, the blood-brain barrier, and uncertain distribution. in the last years of his life, jose and his wife returned to america and lived in san diego where he died unheralded. unjustly treated and harshly judged by segments of the public and his profession, jose delgado’s ground breaking research, benevolent philosophy, and memory deserve better recognition. his career trajectory may provide budding scientists with a cautionary note about the pitfalls of mingling science with philosophy. (psycinfo database record (c) 2016 apa, all rights reserved)”
Delgado-García, J. M.. (2000). Why move the eyes if we can move the head?. Brain Research Bulletin
“To see while moving is a very basic and integrative sensorimotor function in vertebrates. to maintain visual acuity, the oculomotor system provides efficient compensatory eye movements for head and visual field displacements. other types of eye movement allow the selection of new visual targets and binocular vision and stereopsis. motor and premotor neuronal circuits involved in the genesis and control of eye movements are briefly described. the peculiar properties and robust biomechanics of the oculomotor system have allowed it to survive almost unchanged through vertebrate evolution. (c) 2000 elsevier science inc.”
Delgado-García, J. M.. (2001). Estructura y función del cerebelo. Revista de Neurologia
Show/hide publication abstract
“INTRODUCTION the cerebellum is a neural structure, of a crystalline like organization, present in all vertebrates. its progressive growth from fishes to mammals, and particularly in primates, takes place following the repetition of a primitive cellular plan and connectivity. development the cerebellum is organized in folia located one behind the other in the rostrocaudal axis, and placed transversally on the brain stem. the cerebellar cortex has five types of neuron: purkinje, stellate, basket, golgi and granule cells. apart from granule cells, the other cell types are inhibitory in nature. afferent fibers to the cerebellar cortex are of two types (mossy and climbing) and carry information from somatosensory, vestibular, acoustic and visual origins, as well as from the cerebral cortex and other brain stem and spinal motor centers. the only neural output from the cerebellar cortex is represented by purkinje axons that synapse on the underlying deep nuclei. cerebellar nuclei send their axons towards many brain stem centers and, by thalamic relay nuclei, act on different cortical areas. functionally, the cerebellum seems to be organized in small modules, similar in structure, but different in the origin and end of their afferent and efferent fibers. the cerebellum is involved in the coordination or integration of motor and cognitive processes. conclusion although cerebellar lesion does not produce severe motor paralysis, loss of sensory inputs or definite deficits in cognitive functions, its certainly affects motor performance and specific perceptive and cognitive phenomena.”
Wilder, J.. (2018). Physical Control of the Mind. Toward a Psychocivilized Society. American Journal of Psychotherapy
“Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jos%c3%a9_manuel_rodriguez_delgado josé manuel rodriguez delgado from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia jump to: navigation, search ‘jose delgado’ redirects here. for the comic book character, see gangbuster. text document with red question mark.svg tthis article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (may 2010) dr. josé manuel rodriguez delgado (born august 8, 1915) is a spanish professor of physiology at yale university, famed for his research into mind control through electrical stimulation of regions in the brain. contents [hide] * 1 biography * 2 research * 3 references * 4 further reading * 5 external links [edit] biography delgado was born in ronda, spain in 1915. he received a doctor of medicine degree from the university of madrid just before the outbreak of the spanish civil war, in which he served as a medical corpsman on the republican side. after the war he had to repeat his m.d. degree, and then took a ph.d. at the cajal institute in madrid. ”
Molaee-Ardekani, B., Márquez-Ruiz, J., Merlet, I., Leal-Campanario, R., Gruart, A., Sánchez-Campusano, R., … Wendling, F.. (2013). Effects of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) on cortical activity: A computational modeling study. Brain Stimulation
“Of the methods used to investigate the neurophysiological basis of behavior, perhaps the most direct and dramatic is electrical stimulation of the brain. direct stimulation of the brain is considered a crude method for the exploration of cerebral functions, and the understanding of the results is limited. the chapter describes methodology for cinemanalysis, telerecording, and telestimulation to study free behavior during brain stimulation. it also demonstrates that spontaneous activities are recorded, identified and quantified, allowing the systematic study of free and evoked behavior on both individual and social levels. the chapter also discusses the types and significance of behavior evoked by brain stimulation in unrestrained subjects and presents a theory of fragmental organization of behavior. brain stimulation evokes (1) stereotyped tonic or phasic activity without any emotional disturbance, (2) driving activity to reach an objective with a motor performance adapted to the relations between subject and purpose, (3) changes in behavioral tuning that are detected in isolated animals because of the lack of manifestations, but may modify decisively the character of response to normal stimuli, (4) inhibition of spontaneous or evoked behavior, and (5) abnormal effects such as tremor or seizures.”
Delgado, J. M. R., Hamlin, H., & Chapman, W. P.. (1952). Technique of Intracranial Electrode Implacement for Recording and Stimulation and its Possible Therapeutic Value in Psychotic Patients. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery
“THe method for the permanent placement of multiple lead electrodes in the brain of animals was developed by one of us four years ago. during this time, its use in the conscious cat and monkey has revealed that motor effects and changes in behavior can be elicited by electrical stimulation of various parts of the brain; the placement of the electrode has not been associated with infection and during several months time has caused only slight gliosis formation about the needle electrode. with this experience in animals and in the hope that it might be helpful in establishing a more physiological basis for psychosurgical procedures, we have modified this technique for use in psychotic patients.”
Delgado-García, J. M., & Gruart, A.. (2005). Firing activities of identified posterior interpositus nucleus neurons during associative learning in behaving cats. Brain Research Reviews
Márquez-Ruiz, J., Ammann, C., Leal-Campanario, R., Ruffini, G., Gruart, A., & Delgado-García, J. M.. (2016). Synthetic tactile perception induced by transcranial alternating-current stimulation can substitute for natural sensory stimulus in behaving rabbits. Scientific Reports
“The use of brain-derived signals for controlling external devices has long attracted the attention from neuroscientists and engineers during last decades. although much effort has been dedicated to establishing effective brain-to-computer communication, computer-to-brain communication feedback for closing the loop” is now becoming a major research theme. while intracortical microstimulation of the sensory cortex has already been successfully used for this purpose, its future application in humans partly relies on the use of non-invasive brain stimulation technologies. in the present study, we explore the potential use of transcranial alternating-current stimulation (tacs) for synthetic tactile perception in alert behaving animals. more specifically, we determined the effects of tacs on sensory local field potentials (lfps) and motor output and tested its capability for inducing tactile perception using classical eyeblink conditioning in the behaving animal. we demonstrated that tacs of the primary somatosensory cortex vibrissa area could indeed substitute natural stimuli during training in the associative learning paradigm.”
“Sociologists have long studied how moral entrepreneurs construct claims-making campaigns. however, their opponents’ strategies to mount counterclaimsmaking campaigns are less studied. this article examines how the world wrestling federation (wwf) used humor to attack its enemy, the parents television council. by using narrative structures familiar to its fans, the wwf exploited characteristics of its opponent suitable for parody. it created a group of wrestlers called the right to censor who preached the moral values espoused by the parents television council, yet were the most flagrant cheaters in the industry. this case study shows that under the right circumstances counterclaimsmaking using irony and satire can be effective. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved) (journal abstract).”
Kurt, W.. (2014). An Interview with Jaron Lanier. Serials Review
“Will kurt interviewed jaron lanier, the author of ‘digital maoism: the hazards of the new online collectivism’ and keynote speaker for the 2007 allen press emerging trends in scholarly communications seminar. lanier shares his thoughts on a variety of topics including the negative and positive effects of online collectives, the changing economics of information, and the future of scholarly communications in the online world. [copyright &y& elsevier]”
Williams, P. J.. (2001). Payback time. Index on Censorship
“The digital revolution is making us poorer rather than creating the bright shiny future of sci-fi canon, says jaron lanier, and we need to take back control of our data”
You are not a gadget: a manifesto. (2013). Choice Reviews Online
“Something went wrong around the start of the 21st century. individual creativity began to go out of fashion. music became an endless rehashing of the past. scientists were in danger of no longer understanding their own research. indeed, not only was individual creativity old-fashioned but individuals themselves. the crowd was wise. machines, specifically computers, were no longer tools to be used by human minds they were better than humans. welcome to the world of the digital revolution. yet what if, by devaluing individuals, we are deadening creativity, endlessly rehashing past culture, risking weaker design in engineering and science, losing democracy, and reducing development in every sphere? in you are not a gadget, jaron lanier, digital guru, and inventor of virtual reality, delivers a searing manifesto in support of the human and reflects on the good and bad developments in design and thought twenty years after the invention of the web. controversial and fascinating, you are not a gadget is a deeply felt defence of the individual from an author uniquely qualified to comment on the way technology interacts with our culture.”
Gonzalez-Franco, M., & Lanier, J.. (2017). Model of illusions and virtual reality. Frontiers in Psychology
“In virtual reality (vr) it is possible to induce illusions in which users report and behave as if they have entered into altered situations and identities. the effect can be robust enough for participants to respond ‘realistically’, meaning behaviors are altered as if subjects had been exposed to the scenarios in reality. the circumstances in which such vr illusions take place were first introduced in the 80’s. since then, rigorous empirical evidence has explored a wide set of illusory experiences in vr. here we compile this research and propose a neuroscientific model explaining the underlying perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that enable illusions in vr. furthermore, we describe the minimum instrumentation requirements to support illusory experiences in vr, and discuss the importance and shortcomings of the generic model.”
“VPL research was a company founded in 1984 by jaron lanier, who is often regarded as the person who coined the term virtual reality. he is also credited with further popularising the term. the company was started in the corner of lanier’s cottage, in palo alto, a city in the san francisco bay area, made famous for its dense population of high-tech companies and technology enthusiasts.”
Kurt, W.. (2007). Virtual reality: an interview with Jaron Lanier. Serials Review
“Will kurt interviewed jaron lanier, the author of ‘digital maoism: the hazards of the new online collectivism’ and keynote speaker for the 2007 allen press emerging trends in scholarly communications seminar. lanier shares his thoughts on a variety of topics including the negative and positive effects of online collectives, the changing economics of information, and the future of scholarly communications in the online world. [copyright &y& elsevier]”
Frith, J., Morain, M., Cummings, C., & Berube, D.. (2011). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains You are not a gadget: A manifesto. Journal of Communication
“Reviews the books, the shallows: what the internet is doing to our brains by nicholas carr (2010) and you are not a gadget: a manifesto by jaron lanier ( 2010). in the july/august 2008 issue of the atlantic, nicholas carr published the highly influential article ‘is google making us stupid?’ the shallows is basically an extension of that 6-page article into a 275-page book. in the shallows, carr recognizes that the same argument has been made about pretty much every major form of media ever adopted, tracing at least as far back as socrates’ criticism of the effects writing has on memory in the phaedrus. he draws from cognitive neuroscience and findings on the plasticity of the mind to show how our ability to engage with difficult material and think linearly is slipping away. jaron lanier shares many of the same strengths and weaknesses as carr. lanier’s strongest argument comes when he takes on what he calls the ‘hive mind’ culture of the internet. the problem with the text, however, is similar to carr’s: lanier misuses evidence or makes sweeping arguments with little to no evidence. gadget is riddled with inflammatory claims about contemporary culture that spiral into unsupported generational warfare. the strengths of these books are their ability to question widely held beliefs of digital evangelism and to make their criticisms accessible to mainstream audiences. students would be able to read accessible accounts questioning widely accepted orthodoxy, and they would also be able to evaluate areas where each author takes his argument further than evidence allows. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved)”
LANIER, J.. (2010). ESSAY; Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind?. New York Times Magazine
Show/hide publication abstract
“Adding to an already rich life, my father decided in middle age to become an elementary-school teacher in a working-class neighborhood in new mexico. to this day, people who run grocery stores and work on construction sites, and who are now in late middle age themselves, come out when i’m visiting to tell me how mr. lanier changed their lives. go up to any adult with a good life, no matter what his or her station, and ask if a teacher made a difference, and you’ll always see a face light up. the human element, a magical connection, is at the heart of successful education, and you can’t bottle it.”
Lanier, J.. (1998). The serfdom of crowds. Harper’s Magazine
Show/hide publication abstract
“By jaron lanier, from you are not a gadget, published in january by knopf. lanier, a computer scientist, popularized the term ‘virtual reality.’ his ‘moving beyond muzak’ was published in the march 1998 issue of harper’s magazine.”
Kurt, W., & Parks, B.. (2007). An Interview with Jaron Lanier. Serials Review
Show/hide publication abstract
“Will kurt interviewed jaron lanier, the author of ‘digital maoism: the hazards of the new online collectivism’ and keynote speaker for the 2007 allen press emerging trends in scholarly communications seminar. lanier shares his thoughts on a variety of topics including the negative and positive effects of online collectives, the changing economics of information, and the future of scholarly communications in the online world. [copyright &y& elsevier]”
“The snowden revelations about national security agency surveillance; starting in 2013; along with the ambiguous complicity of internet companies and the international controversies that followed provide a perfect segue into con- temporary conundrums of surveillance and big data. attention has shifted from late c20th information technologies and networks to a c21st focus on data; currently crystallized in ‘“big data.”’ big data intensifies certain surveillance trends associated with information technology and networks; and is thus implicated in fresh but fluid configurations. this is considered in three main ways: one; the capacities of big data (including metadata) intensify surveillance by expanding interconnected datasets and analytical tools. existing dynamics of influence; risk-management; and control increase their speed and scope through new techniques; especially predictive analytics. two; while big data appears to be about size; qualitative change in surveillance practices is also perceptible; accenting consequences. important trends persist – the control motif; faith in technology; public-private synergies; and user-involvement – but the future-orientation increasingly severs surveillance from history and memory and the quest for pattern-discovery is used to justify unprecedented access to data. three; the ethical turn becomes more urgent as a mode of critique. modernity’s predilection for certain definitions of privacy betrays the subjects of surveillance who; so far from conforming to the abstract; disembodied image of both computing and legal practices; are engaged and embodied users-in-relation whose activities both fuel and foreclose surveillance.”
Bauman, Z., Bigo, D., Esteves, P., Guild, E., Jabri, V., Lyon, D., & Walker, R. B. J.. (2014). After Snowden: Rethinking the impact of surveillance. International Political Sociology
“Current revelations about the secret us-nsa program, prism, have con-firmed the large-scale mass surveillance of the telecommunication and electronic messages of governments, companies, and citizens, including the united states’ closest allies in europe and latin america. the trans-national ramifications of surveillance call for a re-evaluation of contempo-rary world politics’ practices. the debate cannot be limited to the united states versus the rest of the world or to surveillance versus privacy; much more is at stake. this collective article briefly describes the specificities of cyber mass surveillance, including its mix of the practices of intelligence services and those of private companies providing services around the world. it then investigates the impact of these practices on national secu-rity, diplomacy, human rights, democracy, subjectivity, and obedience.”
Landau, S.. (2013). Making sense from snowden: What’s significant in the NSA surveillance revelations. IEEE Security and Privacy
“Did edward snowden cause irreparable harm, or did he reveal facts that should be publicly examined? what are the facts, anyhow? this article seeks to put the snowden revelations in context, explaining what’s new, why it matters, and what might happen next.”
Preibusch, S.. (2015). Privacy behaviors after Snowden. Communications of the ACM
“The article explores privacy behavior and u.s. public attitudes towards mass media following the release of information on state-surveillance detailed by former national security administration (nsa) contractor edward j. snowden. the author reflects on public knowledge about the prism program and related cyberintelligence initiatives. emphasis is given to a study using the metrics of information seeking, privacy-enhancing configurations, and new webpages. other topics include internet search habits, public interest in privacy services, and the relevance of longitudinal research.”
Hope, A.. (2016). Surveillance after Snowden. Information, Communication & Society
“In 2013, edward snowden revealed that the nsa and its partners had been engaging in warrantless mass surveillance, using the internet and cellphone data, and driven by fear of terrorism under the sign of ’security’. in this compelling account, surveillance expert david lyon guides the reader through snowden’s ongoing disclosures: the technological shifts involved, the steady rise of invisible monitoring of innocent citizens, the collusion of government agencies and for-profit companies and the implications for how we conceive of privacy in a democratic society infused by the lure of big data. lyon discusses the distinct global reactions to snowden and shows why some basic issues must be faced: how we frame surveillance, and the place of the human in a digital world.surveillance after snowden is crucial reading for anyone interested in politics, technology and society.”
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Qin, J.. (2015). Hero on Twitter, Traitor on News: How Social Media and Legacy News Frame Snowden. International Journal of Press/Politics
“Is edward snowden a hero or traitor? in what ways do frames on social media and legacy news differ in covering the incident of >edward snowden? utilizing the approach of semantic network analysis, the study found social media users associated snowden’s case with other whistle-blowers, bipartisan issues, and personal privacy issues, while professional journalists associated the snowden incident with issues of n>ational security and international relations. frames on social media portray edward snowden as a hero while the frames on legacy news make him a trai>tor. the study further identified media frames on social media and legacy news differ in two ways: word selection and word salience. in addition, the study discussed the challenges and opportunities of framing analysis in the context of social media.”
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Rainie, L., & Madden, M.. (2015). Americans’ privacy strategies Post-Snowden. Pew Research Centeran><br< span=””>>
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tract”>“It has been nearly two years since the first disclosures of government surveillance programs by former natipan>onal security agency contractor edward snowden and americans are still coming to terms with how they feel about the programs and how to live in light of them. the documents leaked by snowden revealed an array of activities in dozens of intelligence programs that collected data from large american technology companies, as well as the buln”>k collection of phone ‘metadata’ from telecommunications companies that officials say are important to protecting national security. the metadata includes information about who phone users call, when they call, and for how long. the documents further detail the collection of web traffic around the globe, and efforts to break the security of mobile phones and web infrastructure. a new survey by the pew research center asked american adults what they think of the programs, the way they are run and monitored, and whether they have altered their communication habits and online activities since learning about the details of the surveillance. the notable findings in this survey fall into two broad categories: 1) the ways people have personally responded in light of their awareness of the government surveillance programs and 2) their views about the way the programs are run and the people who should be targeted by government surveillance.”
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Intelligence: from secrets to policy. (2013). >Choice Reviews Online
act”>“Mark m. lowenthal’s trusted guide is the go-to resource for understanding how the intelligence community’s history, structure, procedures, and functions affect policy decisions. in this sixth edition, the author highlights new challenges facing the intelligence community, examining nsa programs, uavs, the impact of social media, and the effects of the snowden leaks on collection and congressional oversight. all transnational issues have been updated, especially to rpan>eflect changes in the war on terror. new analytic issues receive attention, including big data, multi-intelligence analysis, and shifting demands on the workfor</span>ce. an expanded chapter on oversight scruan>tinizes the role of the fisa court, omb, and gao. new to this edition: implications of a de-emphasis on the war on terror intelligence implications of the obama administration’s ‘rebalance to the pacific’ ongoing effects of the manning and snowden leaks role of the foreign intelligence surveillance court key features: highlights new challenges facing the intelligence community a new chapter on oversight analytic issues examined”
Ring, T.. (2015). The enemy within. Computer Fraud and Security
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/S1361-3723(15)30111-1 DOI URL directSciHub download
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efabstract”>“Malicious insiders are the ultimate corporate nightmare: trusted individuals who decide to abuse their status and knowledge to compromise their company. experts are warning that this insider cyber threat is significantly under-estimated and growing. so what can you do to stop employees who are determined to wreak their revenge while hiding their true intent until it is too late? tim ring speaks to threat experts to find the answer. whether you think him a hero or villain, whistltannotation”>eblower edward snowden is the ultimate ‘malicious insider’. a man of impeccable credentials – he volunteered to serve in the iraq war and was one of the cia’s top computer security experts – snan>owden became so disillusioned with the electronic espis=”textannotation”>onage by the us on its citizens that he used his privileged access at the nsa’s office in hawaii to steal over a million confidential documents. in may 2013, he fled to hong kong and began revealing the data cache that led to the unravelling of western government policy on secret mass surveillance.”
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Deibert, R.. (2015). The geopolitics of cyberspace after snowden. journal”>Current History
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“The aims of the internet economy and those of state security converge around the same functional needs: collecting, monitoring, and analyzing as much data as possible”
“The nsa’s illegal surveillance techniques are leaked to the public by oclass=”textannotation”>;3″ class=”textannotation”>ne of the agency’s employees, edward snowden, in the form of thousands of classified documents distributed to the press.”
Scheuerman, W. E.. (ss=”refyear”>2014). Whistleblowing as civil disobedience: The case of Edward Snowden. Philosophy and Social Criticism
“The media hoop-la about edward snowden has obscured a less flashy yet more vtation”>ital – and philosophically relevant – part of the story, namely the moral and political seriousness with which he acted to make the hitherto covert scope and scale of nsa surveillance public knowledge. here i argue th>at we should interpret snowden’s actions as meeting most of the demanding tests outlined in sophisticated political thinking about civil disobedience. like thoreau, gandhi, king and countless other (forgotten) grass-roots activists, snowden has in fact articulated a powerful defense of why he was morally obligated to engage in politically motivated law-breaking. he has also undertaken impressive efforts to explain how his actions are distinguishable from ordinary criminality, and why they need not cu</span>lminate in reckless lawlessness. in fact, his example can perhaps help us advance liberal and democratic ideas about civil disobedience. first, it highlights sound reasons why, pace the orthodox view, the acceptance of punishment by those engaging in civil disobedience should not be seen as a precondition of its legitimacy. second, snowden reminds us that ours is an era in which intensified globalization processes directly shape every feature of political existence. defenders of civil disobedience need to update their reflections accordingly.”
The nucleus accumbens has a significant role in the cognitive processing of motivation, aversion, reward (i.e., incentive salience, pleasure, and positive reinforcement), and reinforcement learning (e.g., Pavlovian-instrumental transfer).
Sagittal MRI slice with highlighting (red) indicating the nucleus accumbens.
The nucleus accumbens (NAc or NAcc), also known as the accumbens nucleus, or formerly as the nucleus accumbens septi (Latin for nucleus adjacent to the septum) is a region in the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area of the hypothalamus.[1] The nucleus accumbens and the olfactory tubercle collectively form the ventral striatum. The ventral striatum and dorsal striatum collectively form the striatum, which is the main component of the basal ganglia.The dopaminergic neurons of the mesolimbic pathway project onto the GABAergic medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens and olfactory tubercle. Each cerebral hemisphere has its own nucleus accumbens, which can be divided into two structures: the nucleus accumbens core and the nucleus accumbens shell. These substructures have different morphology and functions.
Different NAcc subregions (core vs shell) and neuron subpopulations within each region (D1-type vs D2-type medium spiny neurons) are responsible for different cognitive functions. As a whole, the nucleus accumbens has a significant role in the cognitive processing of motivation, aversion, reward (i.e., incentive salience, pleasure, and positive reinforcement), and reinforcement learning (e.g., Pavlovian-instrumental transfer); hence, it has a significant role in addiction. In addition, part of the nucleus accumbens core is centrally involved in the induction of slow-wave sleep. The nucleus accumbens plays a lesser role in processing fear (a form of aversion), impulsivity, and the placebo effect. It is involved in the encoding of new motor programs as well.
Dölen, G., Darvishzadeh, A., Huang, K. W., & Malenka, R. C.. (2013). Social reward requires coordinated activity of nucleus accumbens oxytocin and serotonin. Nature
“Social behaviours in species as diverse as honey bees and humans promote group survival but often come at some cost to the individual. although reinforcement of adaptive social interactions is ostensibly required for the evolutionary persistence of these behaviours, the neural mechanisms by which social reward is encoded by the brain are largely unknown. here we demonstrate that in mice oxytocin acts as a social reinforcement signal within the nucleus accumbens core, where it elicits a presynaptically expressed long-term depression of excitatory synaptic transmission in medium spiny neurons. although the nucleus accumbens receives oxytocin-receptor-containing inputs from several brain regions, genetic deletion of these receptors specifically from dorsal raphe nucleus, which provides serotonergic (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-ht) innervation to the nucleus accumbens, abolishes the reinforcing properties of social interaction. furthermore, oxytocin-induced synaptic plasticity requires activation of nucleus accumbens 5-ht1b receptors, the blockade of which prevents social reward. these results demonstrate that the rewarding properties of social interaction in mice require the coordinated activity of oxytocin and 5-ht in the nucleus accumbens, a mechanistic insight with implications for understanding the pathogenesis of social dysfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism.”
Trezza, V., Damsteegt, R., Achterberg, E. J. M., & Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J.. (2011). Nucleus Accumbens -Opioid Receptors Mediate Social Reward. Journal of Neuroscience
“Positive social interactions are essential for emotional well-being and proper behavioral development of young individuals. here, we studied the neural underpinnings of social reward by investigating the involvement of opioid neurotransmission in the nucleus accumbens (nac) in social play behavior, a highly rewarding social interaction in adolescent rats. intra-nac infusion of morphine (0.05-0.1 μg) increased pinning and pouncing, characteristic elements of social play behavior in rats, and blockade of nac opioid receptors with naloxone (0.5 μg) prevented the play-enhancing effects of systemic morphine (1 mg/kg, s.c.) administration. thus, stimulation of opioid receptors in the nac was necessary and sufficient for morphine to increase social play. intra-nac treatment with the selective μ-opioid receptor agonist [d-ala(2),n-mephe(4),gly(5)-ol]enkephalin (damgo) (0.1-10 ng) and the μ-opioid receptor antagonist cys-tyr-d-trp-arg-thr-pen-thr-nh(2) (ctap) (0.3-3 μg) increased and decreased social play, respectively. the δ-opioid receptor agonist dpdpe ([d-pen(2),d-pen(5)]-enkephalin) (0.3-3 μg) had no effects, whereas the κ-opioid receptor agonist u69593 (n-methyl-2-phenyl-n-[(5r,7s,8s)-7-(pyrrolidin-1-yl)-1-oxaspiro[4.5]dec-8-yl]acetamide) (0.01-1 μg) decreased social play. intra-nac treatment with β-endorphin (0.01-1 μg) increased social play, but met-enkephalin (0.1-5 μg) and the enkephalinase inhibitor thiorphan (0.1-1 μg) were ineffective. damgo (0.1-10 ng) increased social play after infusion into both the shell and core subregions of the nac. last, intra-nac infusion of ctap (3 μg) prevented the development of social play-induced conditioned place preference. these findings identify nac μ-opioid receptor stimulation as an important neural mechanism for the attribution of positive value to social interactions in adolescent rats. altered nac μ-opioid receptor function may underlie social impairments in psychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, or personality disorders.”
Day, J. J., Roitman, M. F., Wightman, R. M., & Carelli, R. M.. (2007). Associative learning mediates dynamic shifts in dopamine signaling in the nucleus accumbens. Nature Neuroscience
“The ability to predict favorable outcomes using environmental cues is an essential part of learned behavior. dopamine neurons in the midbrain encode such stimulus-reward relationships in a manner consistent with contemporary learning models, but it is unclear how encoding this translates into actual dopamine release in target regions. here, we sampled dopamine levels in the rat nucleus accumbens on a rapid (100 ms) timescale using electrochemical technology during a classical conditioning procedure. early in conditioning, transient dopamine-release events signaled a primary reward, but not predictive cues. after repeated cue-reward pairings, dopamine signals shifted in time to predictive cue onset and were no longer observed at reward delivery. in the absence of stimulus-reward conditioning, there was no shift in the dopamine signal. consistent with proposed roles in reward prediction and incentive salience, these results indicate that rapid dopamine release provides a reward signal that is dynamically modified by associative learning.”
Wise, R.. (1989). Brain Dopamine And Reward. Annual Review of Psychology
“While the evidence is strong that dopamine plays some fundamental and special role in the rewarding effects of brain stimulation, psychomotor stimulants, opiates, and food, the exact nature of that role is not clear. one thing is clear: dopamine is not the only reward transmitter, and dopaminergic neurons are not the final common path for all rewards. dopamine antagonists and lesions of the dopamine systems appear to spare the rewarding effects of nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex brain stimulation (simon et al 1979) and certainly spare the rewarding effects of apomorphine (roberts & vickers 1988). it is clear that reward circuitry is multisynaptic, and since dopamine cells do not send axons to each other or receive axons from each other, dopamine can at best serve as but a single link in this circuitry. if dopamine is not a final common path for all rewards, could it be an intermediate common path for most rewards? some workers have argued against such a view, but at present they must do so on incomplete evidence. for example, phillips (1984) has argued that there must be multiple reward systems, functionally independent and organized in parallel with one another. his primary evidence, however, is the fact that brain stimulation is rewarding at different levels of the nervous system. as we have seen in the case of midline mesencephalic stimulation, the location of the electrode tip in relation to the dopamine cells and fibers tells us little about the role of dopamine in brain stimulation reward. it seems clear that the ventral tegmental dopamine system plays a critical role in midline mesencephalic reward, despite the distance from the electrode tip to the dopamine cells where morphine causes its dopamine-dependent facilitory effects or to the dopamine terminals where low-dose neuroleptics presumably cause theirs. until pharmacological challenge has been extended to the cases discussed by phillips, we can only speculate as to the role of dopamine in each of those cases. in the cases where pharmacological challenge has been examined, only nucleus accumbens and frontal cortex have been found to have dopamine-independent reward sites. it is not consistent with the dopamine hypothesis that dopamine-independent reward sites should exist in these areas, since any reward signals carried to nucleus accumbens or frontal cortex by dopamine fibers would-unless we are to believe that reward ‘happens’ at these sites-have to be carried to the next stage of the c…”
www.uni-kiel.de/psychologie/mausfeld/ Mausfeld_Why do the lambs remain silent_2015
Mausfeld focuses on perceptual psychology and also works on the theoretical foundations of experimental psychology and the psychology of understanding. He also deals with the rivalry of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience in cognitive science. Another area of interest is the history of ideas in the natural sciences. He sees a major problem of the relationship between psychology and biology in neurological neo-reductionism. In contrast to biologistic approaches, he sees the peculiarity of the spiritual, inter alia, in the intrinsic multiperspectivity of the mind.
Mausfeld points out that knowledge of neural circuitry and activity is not enough to explain consciousness and thought processes. Not even the behavior of nematodes can be deduced from the activity of their 302 neurons. According to Mausfeld’s view, the relationship between nature and mind must be below the neural level in the sphere of physics. Evidence is given by the fact that nature is actually more enigmatic to us than our consciousness in itself. In modern physics it has become clear that the physical does not have the properties of matter ascribed to it. Mausfeld sees the special aspect of consciousness in the simplicity and wholeness of the subjective experience, which, however, reveals itself to the psychologist as a complex interaction of unconscious factors. The intrinsic multiperspectivity of thinking, which first opens up the possibilities for thought and action alternatives to humans after mouse field, results from the complex interplay of the most varied of factors. White torture and responsibility of science
In his work, Mausfeld illustrates the role of psychologists in the development, application and justification of modern white torture methods. These goals are not, as claimed, the extraction of information, but rather breaking the will, disciplining, humiliating and shaming the victims. In his account, an American Psychological Association (APA) working group to investigate the involvement of psychologists acting on behalf of the Defense Secretary. Mausfeld uses the example of torture research to define ethical and legal principles and limits of scientific work. He regards the observance of human rights as fully binding.
Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychology , ’ white torture ’ and the responsibility of scientists. Psychologische Rundschau
According to Mausfeld, the cognitive ones are more important than the affective techniques, since opinions are more stable than emotions. Here Mausfeld examines the following methods:
Representation of facts as opinion
Fragmenting coherent facts so that the context, such as the historical context, is lost
Decontextualization of facts: The context of the facts is removed, so that the facts become incomprehensible isolated individual cases, which have no general relevance
Misleading recontextualization: Information is embedded in a foreign context, so that they take on a different character and, for example, no longer lead to outrage in human rights violations.
Repetition supports the “perceived truth”
Designing the range of opinions so that the desired seems to be in the middle, which most people strive for, if they are unfamiliar, because they then keep to the middle seein it as “neutral and balanced”
Making facts invisible through media selection, distraction and attention control
“Meta-propaganda”: It is part of every propaganda to claim that the news of the enemy is wrong because it is propaganda
The development of more efficient manipulation techniques rests on identifying psychological “weak spots” – those intrinsic design aspects of our mind and principles of human information processing that can be exploited for manipulation purposes. Most importantly, such principles are, by the very nature of our cognitive architecture, beyond conscious control. (…) Our mind has many hard-wired weaknesses that can be exploited for manipulative purposes, that facilitate our utilitarian abuse by the political and economic elites for maintaining and expanding their power. However, we also innately dispose of a rich repertoire of ways to use our reasoning capabilities to recognize manipulative contexts and to actively avoid them. This repertoire is akin to a natural cognitive immune system against being manipulated, but we have to take the deliberate decision to actually use it.
“The cognitive neurosciences are based on the idea that the level of neurons or neural networks constitutes a privileged level of analysis for the explanation of mental phenomena. this paper brings to mind several arguments to the effect that this presumption is ill-conceived and unwarranted in light of what is currently understood about the physical principles underlying mental achievements. it then scrutinizes the question why such conceptions are nevertheless currently prevailing in many areas of psychology. the paper argues that corresponding conceptions are rooted in four different aspects of our common-sense conception of mental phenomena and their explanation, which are illegitimately transferred to scientific enquiry. these four aspects pertain to the notion of explanation, to conceptions about which mental phenomena are singled out for enquiry, to an inductivist epistemology, and, in the wake of behavioristic conceptions, to a bias favoring investigations of input-output relations at the expense of enquiries into internal principles. to the extent that the cognitive neurosciences methodologically adhere to these tacit assumptions, they are prone to turn into a largely a-theoretical and data-driven endeavor while at the same time enhancing the prospects for receiving widespread public appreciation of their empirical findings.”
Mausfeld, R., & Heyer, D.. (2012). Colour Perception: Mind and the physical world. Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World
“ContentsnPrefacen1. perspectives on colour space , jan j. koenderink and andrea j. van doornncommentaries: from physics to perception through colorimetry: a bridge too far? , donald i.a. macleodncolorimetry fortified , paul whittlen2. light adaptation, contract adaptation, and human colour vision , michael a. websterncommentary: adaptation and the ambiguity of response measures with respect to internal structure , franz fauln3. contrast colours , paul whittlencommentaries: a background to color vision , michael a. websterncontrast coding and what else? , hans irteln4. colour and the processing of chromatic information , michael d’zmurancommentary: the processing of chromatic information , laurence t. maloneyn5. the pleistochrome: optimal opponent codes for natural colours , donald i.a. macleod and t. von der twerncommentary: thinking outside the black box , michael a. webstern6. objectivity and subjectivity revisited: colour as a psychobiological property , gary hatfieldncommentary: why is this game still being played? , paul whittlen7. a computational analysis of colour constancy , donald i.a. macleod and jurgen golzncommentary: the importance of realistic models of surface and light in the study of human colour vision , laurence t. maloneyn8. backgrounds and illuminants: the yin and yang of colour constancy , richard o. brownncommentaries: colour construction , don hoffmannfitting linear models to data , laurence t. maloneyn9. surface colour perception and environmental constraints , laurence t. maloneyncommentaries: on the function of colour vision , gary hatfieldnintrinsic colours – and what it is like to see them , zoltan jacobn10. colour constancy: developing empirical tests of computational models , david h. brainard, james m. kraft, and philippe longerencommentaries: surface colour perception and its environments , laurence t. maloneyncomparing the behaviour of machine vision algorithms and human observers , vebjorn ekroll and jurgen golzn11. the illuminant estimation hypothesis and surface colour perception , laurence t. maloney and joong nam yangncommentary: surface colour appearance in nearly natural images , david h. brainardn12. the interaction of colour and motion , donald d. hoffmanncommentary: the interaction of perceived colour and perceived motion , richard brownn13. the dual coding of colour: ‘Surface colour’ and ‘illumination colour’ as constituents of the representationalformat of perceptual primitives…”
Mausfeld, R.. (2005). The Physicalistic Trap in Perception Theory. In Perception and the Physical World
“This chapter contains sections titled: * introduction * the physicalistic trap in elementaristic approaches to perception * the physicalistic trap in functionalist and computational approaches to perception * perception theory beyond the physicalistic trap * appendix * acknowledgement * notes * references”
Mausfeld, R.. (2012). Der Schein des Realen.. Näher Dran? Zur Phänomenologie Des Wahrnehmens
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“Die traditionelle wahrnehmungspsychologie hat durch ihre physiologistische und physikalistische orientierung und die damit verbundene fokussierung auf elementaristische wahrnehmungsattribute die interne struktur der wahrnehmung und damit die explanatorischen aufgaben der wahrnehmungs- psychologie in grundlegender weise mißverstanden. ihre zugangsweise ist nicht nur phänomenolo- gisch inadäquat, sondern hat sich auch explanatorisch als unfruchtbar erwiesen. dieser beitrag zeigt dies am beispiel des wahrnehmungsattributs ‚phänomenal real’ auf, das in der traditionellen wahr- nehmungspsychologie als wenig erklärungsbedürftig angesehen wird. tatsächlich stellt jedoch ‚real‘ ein internes attribut dar, dessen zuweisung zu wahrnehmungsobjekten und situationen eigenen psychologischen gesetzmäßigkeiten folgt, die sich aus physiologistischer und physikalistischer per- spektive nicht verstehen lassen. erst in den letzten jahren wird im zusammenhang mit problemen, die sich insbesondere bei virtual reality environments ergeben, die frage nach den auslösebedingungen für das attribut ‚real’ wieder thematisiert. offensichtlich verfügt unser wahrnehmungssystem über eine (biologisch vorgegebene und kulturell überformte) ‚interne semantik‘ für die zuschreibung des attributes ‚real‘, von deren komplexen möglichkeiten wir in der kultur (z.b. beim film oder theater) vielfältigen gebrauch machen. i.”
Mausfeld, R.. (2009). Psychologie, weiße folter’ und die verantwortlichkeit von wissenschaftlern. Psychologische Rundschau
Wendt, G., Faul, F., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Highlight disparity contributes to the authenticity and strength of perceived glossiness. Journal of Vision
“The disparity of highlights on specular reflecting surfaces usually differs from the disparity of the surface points. a. kirschmann (1895) proposed that this fact may be used as a binocular cue for gloss perception. this was confirmed by a. blake and h. bülthoff (1990) who found that subjects judged the glossiness of convex ellipsoidal surfaces as most realistic if the disparity of the highlights was close to the physical correct one. extending on this finding, we investigate more closely whether the effect of highlight disparity depends on the sharpness of the highlight and the relative amount of diffuse and specular reflection. we measured the effect of highlight disparity on both perceived strength and perceived authenticity of gloss. we used complex, three-dimensional curved surfaces that were stereoscopically presented on a crt. the reflection characteristics were varied using the phong lighting model. highlights were presented either with or without highlight disparity. in a rating experiment, subjects were asked to judge the strength and the authenticity of the perceived surface glossiness. the presence of highlight disparity lead to an enhancement of both the authenticity and the strength of perceived glossiness. the latter finding was confirmed in an additional matching experiment.”
Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Psychologie, biologie, kognitive neurowissenschaften zur gegenwärtigen dominanz neuroreduktionistischer positionen zu ihren stillschweigenden grundannahmen. Psychologische Rundschau
“The cognitive neurosciences are based on the idea that the level of neurons constitutes a privileged level of analysis for the explanation of mental phenomena. this paper brings to mind several arguments to elucidate that this presumption is ill-conceived and unwarranted in light of what is currently understood about the physical principles underlying mental achievements. it then scrutinizes the question why nevertheless such conceptions are currently prevailing in many areas of psychology. the paper argues that neuroreductionist conceptions are rooted in four different aspects of our common-sense conception of mental phenomena and their explanation that are illegitimately transferred to scientific inquiry. these four aspects pertain to the notion of explanation, to conceptions about which mental phenomena are singled out for inquiry, to an inductivist epistemology, and, in the wake of behavioristic conceptions, to a bias favoring investigations of input-output relations at the expense of inquiries into internal principles. to the extent that the cognitive neurosciences methodologically adhere to these tacit assumptions, they are prone to turn into a largely atheoretical and data-driven endeavour while at the same time receiving wide-spread public appreciation of their empirical findings. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved)”
Heyer, D., & Mausfeld, R.. (2002). Perception and the physical world: psychological and philosophical issues in perception. Perception
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“The focus of this book is on conceptual and philosophical issues of perception including the classic notion of unconscious inferences in perception. the book consists of contributions from a group of internationally renowned researchers who spent a year together as distinguised fellows at the german centre for advanced study. each chapter concludes with a lively, informative debate in the form of comments and replies from the contributors of the book. contributors are of prominent international reputation each chapter concludes with comments and replies from the contributors of the book to give informative debate the only book available to blend perception and philosophy in this fashion”
Narens, L., & Mausfeld, R.. (1992). On the Relationship of the Psychological and the Physical in Psychophysics. Psychological Review
“Presents a theory of the relationship of the psychological and the physical and uses it to formulate a new kind of meaningfulness principle for psychophysical application. this new principle calls into question the psychological relevance of many kinds of quantitative psychophysical relationships. as an illustration, it is used to study comparisons of sensitivity involving weber fractions, particularly comparisons across sensory modalities. the methods of the illustration extend easily to other psychophysical situations. (psyclit database copyright 1992 american psychological assn, all rights reserved)”
Mausfeld, R.. (2012). “Colour” As Part of the Format of Different Perceptual Primitives: The Dual Coding of Colour. In Colour Perception: Mind and the Physical World
“The field of colour perception has often been praised in recent years as a paradigm of cognitive science. while this certainly has some validity, it contrasts with the fact that the field makes very little contact with the sort of inquiries into mental representations to be found elsewhere in cognitive science (understood as naturalistic inquiries of the mind/brain). i find this quite puzzling, because in the earlier literature of the field it was clearly recognised-for instance by bühler, gelb, kardos, koffka-that ʹcolourʹ could be understood only as part of the general problem of perceptual representations. their insights could not, of course, take advantage of the theoretical language provided by what has been called the cognitive revolution. for that reason, and also because they were overshadowed by the success of more technical fields, they fell almost entirely into oblivion. the technical fields, successful with respect to their own specific goals, were colorimetry, neurophysiological investigations into peripheral colour coding, and more recently, functionalist-computational approaches that emphasise certain pre-given performance criteria.. the success of these fields has not been hampered by the fact that they share certain common-sense conceptions of colour, particularly the idea that colour is an autonomous attribute that can be studied almost in isolation from other perceptual attributes. because such common-sense conceptions of colour appear to be, by and large, innocuous to advances in these fields, no need has arisen so far to relinquish them. however, precisely because of the successes of these fields inquiries into colour perception, understood as the endeavour to develop explanatory frameworks for the role of ʹcolourʹ within our perceptual and cognitive architecture, have suffered a less fortunate fate. the conceptual vocabulary which inquiries into colour perception 1 borrowed from fields, such as neurophysiology, that pursue different explanatory purposes has remained alien to its intrinsic structure and has veiled its core problems. my interest in colour perception (which, a long time ago, was incited by russellʹs problems of philosophy) has been motivated by the question of how we can, within naturalistic inquiry, describe the conceptual structure with which our perceptual system is biologically endowed. such questions have long been pursued in ethology and have yielded intriguing results. the theoretical picture that is emerging h…”
Mausfeld, R.. (2013). The Attribute of Realness and the Internal Organization of Perceptual Reality. In Handbook of Experimental Phenomenology: Visual Perception of Shape, Space and Appearance
“The chapter deals with the notion of phenomenal realness, which was first systematically explored by albert michotte. phenomenal realness refers to the impression that a perceptual object is perceived to have an autonomous existence in our mind-independent world. perceptual psychology provides an abundance of phenomena, ranging from amodal completion to picture perception, that indicate that phenomenal realness is an independent perceptual attribute that can be conferred to perceptual objects in different degrees. the chapter outlines a theoretical framework that appears particularly well-suited for dealing with corresponding phenomena. according to this framework, perception can be under- stood as a triggering of conceptual forms by sensor inputs. it is argued that the attribute of phenomenal realness is based on specific types of internal evaluation functions which deal with the segregation of causes conceived as ‘external’ from those conceived as ‘internal’. these evaluation functions integrate different internal sources of ‘knowledge’ about the potential causes for the activation of conceptual forms and provide markers by which conceptual forms can be tagged as ‘external world objects’. ‘reality’,”
Mausfeld, R.. (2001). What’s within? Can the internal structure of perception be derived from regularities of the external world?. Behavioral and Brain Sciences
“Page 1. table 1. commentators for special sleep and dreams issue target article and precommentary authors commentators shepard barlow hecht kubovy & epstein schwartz tenenbaum & griffiths todorovic baddeley, r., osorio, d., jbt”
Mausfeld, R., & Andres, J.. (2002). Second-order statistics of colour codes modulate transformations that effectuate varying degrees of scene invariance and illumination invariance. Perception
“We argue, from an ethology-inspired perspective, that the internal concepts ‘surface colours’ and ‘illumination colours’ are part of the data format of two different representational primitives. thus, the internal concept of ‘colour’ is not a unitary one but rather refers to two different types of ‘data structure’, each with its own proprietary types of parameters and relations. the relation of these representational structures is modulated by a class of parameterised transformations whose effects are mirrored in the idealised computational achievements of illumination invariance of colour codes, on the one hand, and scene invariance, on the other hand. because the same characteristics of a light array reaching the eye can be physically produced in many different ways, the visual system, then, has to make an ‘inference’ whether a chromatic deviation of the space-averaged colour codes from the neutral point is due to a ‘non-normal’, ie chromatic, illumination or due to an imbalanced spectral reflectance composition. we provide evidence that the visual system uses second-order statistics of chromatic codes of a single view of a scene in order to modulate corresponding transformations. in our experiments we used centre surround configurations with inhomogeneous surrounds given by a random structure of overlapping circles, referred to as seurat configurations. each family of surrounds has a fixed space-average of colour codes, but differs with respect to the covariance matrix of colour codes of pixels that defines the chromatic variance along some chromatic axis and the covariance between luminance and chromatic channels. we found that dominant wavelengths of red-green equilibrium settings of the infield exhibited a stable and strong dependence on the chromatic variance of the surround. high variances resulted in a tendency towards ‘scene invariance’, low variances in a tendency towards ‘illumination invariance’ of the infield.”
Mausfeld, R.. (2006). Wahrnehmung: Geschichte und Ansätze. In Handbuch der Allgemeinen Psychologie – Kognition
“The interpretation of the role of hla-dpb1 in unrelated haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (hsct) is subject to discussion. we have investigated the role of hla-dpb1 allele matching in hsct outcomes in 161 recipients who were hla-a, -b, -c, -drb1 and -dqb1-matched with their unrelated donors at the allelic level (10/10). in addition, we analysed the association of polymorphic amino acid mismatches of dpb1 molecule with hsct end-points, and a previously published permissiveness concept. hla-dpb1 allele mismatches were significantly associated with an increased incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease (agvhd) and worse overall survival (os). the mismatch at amino acid position 69 significantly increased the risk for transplant-related mortality (trm). risk factors for agvhd also included mismatches at positions 8, 9, 35, 76 and 84. this is to our knowledge, the first report of an in vivo effect of single amino acid mismatches on hsct outcomes. in this study, grouping of allelic mismatches into permissive and non-permissive categories and their association with transplantation end-points was relevant for trm but not for other clinical end-points.”
Mausfeld, R.. (2010). Intrinsic multiperspectivity: On the architectural foundations of a distinctive mental capacity. In Cognition and Neuropsychology: International Perspectives on Psychological Science
“Sensory systems serve to link the organism to functionally relevant aspects of the physical environment. a mobile organism requires diverse information from the biologi-cal and physical environment and about its internal state for orientation and movement in space and in order to regulate and control its body and behavior. in the course of evolution, with the increased complexity of tasks serv-ing towards orientation and behavioral control there was a growing need to interrelate the diverse sensory chan-nels and also to integrate information about the internal state of the body. this sensory integration required a regulation of awareness to develop which would be able to fi lter the external signals according to internal motiva-tional and emotional states. as sensory systems are cen-tral for behavioral control, the neuronal architecture of sensory systems is intricately interwoven with the motor system. furthermore, evolutionary considerations sug-gest that fundamental features of perception formed the basis for more abstract cognitive achievements and that the underlying general principles are thus also re fl ected in the organization of cognitive processes. for humans, the sensory integratory achievements pertain not only to haptic, visual, auditive, olfactory, and gustatory perception, but also to the perception of the body and its parts [ 6, 27 ] and the relative position of these parts in relation to each other (proprioception) and to their environment, the perception of the viscera (entero-or visceroception), the perception of pain, the perception of physiognomy and body movements and the thus communicated affective expressions and sig-nals, as well as the perception of speech, events, or time. biological species may differently exploit and utilize the physical energies impinging on the organism and organize these energies in the form of sensory modali-ties . by far the largest part of the impinging spatiotempo-ral energy pattern is not processed for biological purposes. only a highly restricted range of this energy pattern is used for the biological function of coupling the organism to its environment (e.g., humans neither can perceive the plain of polarized light nor the direction of the magnetic fi eld). the physical energy is transduced into neural codes in such a way that the particular physical origin of the resulting code is unidenti fi able (e.g., light perception at the eye may originate from optical, mechanical, or electrical stimuli). t…”
Andres, J., & Mausfeld, R.. (2008). Structural description and qualitative content in perception theory. Consciousness and Cognition
Mausfeld, R., Wendt, G., & Golz, J.. (2014). Lustrous material Appearances: Internal and external constraints on triggering conditions for binocular lustre. I-Perception
“Lustrous surface appearances can be elicited by simple image configurations with no texture or specular highlights, as most prominently illustrated by helmholtz’ demonstration of stereoscopic lustre. three types of explanatory framework have been proposed for stereoscopic lustre, which attribute the phenomenon to a binocular luminance conflict, an internalised physical regularity (helmholtz), or to a disentangling of ‘essential’ and ‘accidental’ attributes in surface representations (hering). in order to investigate these frameworks, we used haploscopically fused half-images of centre-surround configurations in which the luminances of the test patch were dynamically modulated. experiment 1 shows that stereoscopic lustre is not specifically tied to situations of a luminance conflict between the eyes. experiment 2 identifies a novel aspect in the binocular temporal dynamics that provides a physical basis for lustrous appearances, namely the occurrence of a temporal luminance counter-modulation between the eyes. this feature sheds some light on the internal principles underlying a disentangling of ‘accidental’ and ‘essential’ surface attributes. experiment 3 reveals an asymmetry between a light and a dark reference level for the counter-modulations. this finding again suggests an interpretation in terms of an internalised physical regularity with respect to the dynamics of perceiving illuminated surfaces.”
The Nayirah testimony (aka the incubator lie) is a paradigmatic case as it demonstrates how the psychology of emotions is abused in the mass-media. Psychology in action!
The whole things was a staged PsyOp by the PR firm “Hill and Knowlton”.
Marlin, R.. (1993). Public Relations Ethics: Ivy Lee, Hill and Knowlton, and the Gulf War. International Journal of Moral and Social Studies
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“The public relations firm of hill and knowlton has received severe criticism for the methods it used on behalf of its client, citizens for a free kuwait, to persuade the us congress and the american people to wage war on iraq. in particular, a widely circulated story about iraqis removing 312 babies from incubators and leaving them to die on the floor fuelled anger against the iraqis. the story was later discredited, though other atrocities have been documented. a major factor in public acceptance of the story was endorsement by amnesty international and emotional testimony by a girl identified only as nayirah’. the incident underscores the importance of the most central ethical concern expressed by the highly successful early practitioner and theorist of public relations, ivy lee; namely, that the source of persuasive materials presented to the public should never be disguised. the factual record of the incubator story and lee’s ethical writings are both examined with a view to exploring the ethics of the case.”
Fowler, G., & Fedler, F.. (1994). A Farewell to Truth: Lies, Rumors and Propaganda as the Press Goes to War.. Florida Communication Journal
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“The article stresses that for each new generation of news people the lessons of history, and of journalism’s obligation to report, not to cheerlead at the expense of veracity, seem to need relearning. it illustrates the case of the 5-year-old nayirah who had described the iraqi infanticide in testimony before the congressional human rights caucus in october of 1990 but at that time the media had not done anything to probe nayirah’s identity or her whereabouts during the alleged acts of atrocity in kuwait city. it shows that the press, having been fed a sensational story, committed the unreporterly blunder of failing to check it out.”
Dr. Tharoor delivers a lecture, entitled ‘Looking Back at the British Raj in India’, and discuses how the British empire ruthlessly has exploited and devastated India. He cogently argues that the British have to pay reparations to India.
Further References
Cohn, B. S.. (1996). Colonialism and its forms of knowledge : the British in India. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press
“A very interesting and important book. after reading it, we begin thinking about the colonial theater in a different way.this book analyses the interconnections between the empire and india and the indian’s influences to the rag. people who studies about these subjects must read this book.”
Smith, D. L.. (1999). English and the Discourses of Colonialism. Asian Englishes
“English and the discourses of colonialism opens with the british departure from hong kong marking the end of british colonialism. yet alastair pennycook argues that this dramatic exit masks the crucial issue that the traces left by colonialism run deep. this challenging and provocative book looks particularly at english, english language teaching, and colonialism. it reveals how the practice of colonialism permeated the cultures and discourses of both the colonial and colonized nations, the effects of which are still evident today. pennycook explores the extent to which english is, as commonly assumed, a language of neutrality and global communication, and to what extent it is, by contrast, a language laden with meanings and still weighed down with colonial discourses that have come to adhere to it. travel writing, newspaper articles and popular books on english, are all referred to, as well as personal experiences and interviews with learners of english in india, malaysia, china and australia. pennycook concludes by appealing to postcolonial writing, to create a politics of opposition and dislodge the discourses of colonialism from english.”
Bernhard, M., Reenock, C., & Nordstrom, T.. (2004). The legacy of western overseas colonialism on democratic survival. International Studies Quarterly
“Using an original dataset that covers the period from 1951 to 1995, we consider the enduring effects of western overseas colonialism on the democratic survival of postcolonial democracies. we treat colonialism as a holistic phenomenon and differentiate the relative effects of its legacies with regard to the level of economic development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society. we find that western overseas colonialism, a factor often overlooked in recent large-n studies, continues to have an effect on the survival of democratic regimes. we further find that the legacy of specific colonial powers has an important effect on survival as well. unlike previous studies, we find that former spanish colonies outperform british colonies when colonialism is conceptualized holistically. however, when we break colonial legacy into separate components (development, social fragmentation, and the relationship between the state and civil society), we find that the advantages former british colonies enjoy are attributable to the legacy of the state/civil society relationship. moreover, we show that at least in the case of former british colonies, time spent under colonial rule is positively associated with democratic survival.”
Author, B., & Gilmartin, D.. (1994). Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus. Source: The Journal of Asian Studies
“DAVID gilmartin analyzes a conflict within the british colonial administration of india. it pitted those british responsible for the development of irrigation works in the punjab against other officials responsible for the regular administration of the same territory. the british engineers, who are represented by the ‘imperial science’ in gilmartin’s title, proposed a modern hydro-irrigation system based on the conception of dominating and controlling nature. the british administrators, who represent gilmartin’s ‘scientific empire,’ opposed these technocratic schemes based on their carefully collected, organized, and analyzed data about the local society. the administrators, unlike the technocrats, saw domination and control of the indian population as their main goal. gilmartin concludes that these differences were not settled in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, even though the technocratic arguments became increasingly powerful. instead, he believes that postcolonial india has inherited these two ‘discourses’ as part of its heritage from the british raj.”
Arnold, D.. (1986). Cholera and colonialism in British India. Past and Present
