One of the things I've been fascinated with is "blackout" or
"reflex" violence, when a person claims that "something snaps" and then
they have to infer, after the fact, that they must have performed a
violent act. I've treated this in passing in my papers on Columbine and on contemporary military training. In this New York Times
article, we see in the first anecdote what sounds like blackout or
reflex violence. I wonder if the person in question here had received
"shoot / no shoot" training, which I talk about in the military
training paper?
If people would like to share cab rides from the Orlando airport to the conference hotel, you can use the comments section here to say when you're arriving. Then others can contact you if they arrive near that time and arrange to meet at the cab stand to share the ride. I'll start the process by posting my arrival time and email in the first comment.
I'm doing a bit of a crash course in neuroethics, preparing for the neuroethics workshop following the upcoming 4E Conference at UCF. I'm also refreshing my research on military applications of cog
sci stuff, since that's what my presentation is about (I'm presenting stuff from a paper I co-wrote with Roger Pippin of Communication Studies at U South Florida).
In poking about on the web in this research, I came across this logo
which perfectly captures the video game / military interface. One thing of note is the new term “warfighter” in place of “soldier.”
Very interesting. As Clausewitzian war (between nation states) is being replaced by
4GW,
and hence the conceptual horizon of “war” is shifting, we get this seemingly
archaic formulation. Why? Well, there is that whole faux-medievalist aspect to a lot of
gaming and “warfighter” seems somehow Anglo-Saxon to me. Something about
reclaiming a human angle to the Cyborg way of war?
All sorts of questions provoked by this article from Salon, reporting on the extraordinary -- to say the least -- conclusions of a study on a young woman diagnosed as being in a PVS (Persistent Vegetative State). There's almost too much to unravel here, but the Salon author does a good job at highlighting one of the major issues: the presence of brain activity doesn't necessarily entail subjective intention. Yet the conclusion of the study is dotted with phrases like:
non-communicative
patients, including those diagnosed as vegetative, minimally conscious
or locked in, may be able to use their residual cognitive capabilities
to communicate their thoughts to those around them by modulating their
own neural activity.
The neuroethics angle is somewhat underplayed in the Salon article, but I think the study's conclusions, by positing a subject that modulates its "own" neural activity, might be used by those looking to forbid disconnection of feeding tubes (in the US, such negative actions are the only possible) in PVS cases. But as I argue in my paper on the Schiavo case,* it's by no means clear that should we be able, ex hypothesi, to communicate with PVS patients,** that they themselves would not want to have the feeding tubes disconnected (or to have some other more active means of killing themselves).
* As was clear from brain imaging studies, and as was confirmed in autopsy, Terri Schiavo suffered massive organic damage and brain atropy. It's unclear what level of organic damage has been suffered by the patient in the case reported here.
** We have to distinguish between PVS and locked-in syndrome, in which the patient is conscious but unable to exert any muscle control, except for eye movements, which can be used for communication.
I found this a very interesting video for several reasons. The Republican mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, is announcing a change of position so that he now supports gay marriage, rather than the "separate but equal" option of civil unions for gays in addition to marriage for straights.
First, there's the emotional charge the mayor feels. Isolating the cognitive content of his statements, as I do above, doesn't necessarily predict that he would feel this emotional. What is it about changing a political position that brings this out? Psychologically, we'd say it has to do with a change in self-image, worry about the possible effects on his career, and similar reasons. In his case, there's also the love he feels for his daughter, the affection for his staff members, and the weight of his realization that powerful American ideals of equality are bound up with this issue. The "separate but equal" phrase puts it in the legacy of the African-American civil rights movement, which itself ties into long-standing Western myths of liberation after long struggle ("let my people go").
Second, there's the "emotional contagion" I felt in watching the clip. I certainly got choked up watching it. Partially that's because of my feeling for my gay brother and my gay friends. Intellectually, I support the position that our republic should not sanction marriages, but only civil unions. Let all couples formalize their union in the eyes of the republic through government officials; then, should some then desire to go to a shaman or other religious figure and have another, private ceremony, then it's none of the republic's business. Despite this being the cognitive content of my beliefs -- in other words, despite the fact that I think the mayor is adopting the wrong political position -- I was powerfully moved by the mayor's performance. Part of that is the undoubted sincerity of his talk. For me, this reaction is evidence in favor of a simulation theory: I shared his feeling; I didn't infer his inner state from seeing his outer actions. Of course it's not that simple, but this is the sort of phenomenon that needs to be accounted for both by theory theory and simulation theory.
If you're a subscriber to Harper's (and if you're not, why aren't you?), you can read her article on the topic here. I'll be interested to see how her ideas resonate with what I've been calling "political physiology."
This story is interesting from several perspectives.
First, in a science in the media perspective, there's the headline about "Brain Tests," when the article seems to mention only cognitive function tests rather than fMRIs or other imaging tests.
Second, in a neuroethics perspective, there's the fear expressed by the veterans group that the Army might try to deny care based on comparing pre- and post-service results on the test.
One veterans group wants to ensure the Army doesn't use the results
to deny treatment by claiming that soldiers' problems came from
pre-existing conditions.
"We certainly think these tests should
not be used to reduce the responsibility that the Army has to treat the
soldiers who have served," said Jason Forrester, director of policy for
Veterans for America.
Recent works in the cognitive sciences have championed various
approaches to embodied and situated cognition, including concepts of
enactive perception and extended minds. The assumption that cognition
can be studied by looking exclusively at what goes on in the head or in
the brain has undergone considerable criticism. A diverse and growing
number of researchers now claim that an organism’s cognitive abilities
are partly constituted by proprioception, action, environmental
manipulation and intricate couplings that spread the causality across
organisms and structures in their physical, social, and technological
environments. Research in this area is interdisciplinary in nature,
drawing on fields such as philosophy, cognitive science, developmental
studies, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, simulation science and
robotics. Much of it is inspired by or complemented by the insights of
thinkers in the phenomenological tradition, such as Heidegger and
Merleau-Ponty, who emphasize the ways in which experience and thought
are structured by bodily constraints and environmental interaction.
Special focus will be on topics related to extended and augmented
cognition.
I've invited some colleagues to join me in a group blog on "4EA Cognition." The "4EA" in the title stands for "Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective" Cognition. It's a purposefully long list of attributes that signals our desire to explore ways of thinking about cognition that depart from standard cognitivist models.
I'll be sending out the invitations today, having gauged preliminary interest over the summer. Let's see what happens!
