Proportionality

2021 ◽  
pp. 357-392
Author(s):  
James Woodward

This chapter discusses, again from both a normative and a descriptive perspective, issues having to do with the role of proportionality in causal judgment. In my treatment, proportionality has to do, roughly, with the extent to which a cause is characterized in such a way that the variation in the effect is captured by variation in the cause. Proportionality was introduced into philosophical discussion by Yablo; this chapter retains the underlying idea of his proposal but reformulates it in order to respond to various philosophical criticisms. It is argued that, so understood, proportionality has a natural normative rationale and that there is experimental evidence that ordinary subjects judge in accord with it. Several different formulations of proportionality are explored and contrasted.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Robert Harrison Brown

Attention has long been characterised within prominent models as reflecting a competition between goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes. It remains unclear, however, how involuntary attentional capture by affective stimuli, such as threat-laden content, fits into such models. While such effects were traditionally held to reflect stimulus-driven processes, recent research has increasingly implicated a critical role of goal-driven processes. Here we test an alternative goal-driven account of involuntary attentional capture by threat, using an experimental manipulation of goal-driven attention. To this end we combined the classic ‘contingent capture’ and ‘emotion-induced blink’ (EIB) paradigms in an RSVP task with both positive or threatening target search goals. Across six experiments, positive and threat distractors were presented in peripheral, parafoveal, and central locations. Across all distractor locations, we found that involuntary attentional capture by irrelevant threatening distractors could be induced via the adoption of a search goal for a threatening category; adopting a goal for a positive category conversely led to capture only by positive stimuli. Our findings provide direct experimental evidence for a causal role of voluntary goals in involuntary capture by irrelevant threat stimuli, and hence demonstrate the plausibility of a top-down account of this phenomenon. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to current cognitive models of attention and clinical disorders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
pp. 102593
Author(s):  
Zina Moldoveanu ◽  
Hitoshi Suzuki ◽  
Colin Reily ◽  
Kenji Satake ◽  
Lea Novak ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Cecilia Oliveira-Nunes ◽  
Glaucia Julião ◽  
Aline Menezes ◽  
Fernanda Mariath ◽  
John A. Hanover ◽  
...  

AbstractGlioblastoma (GBM) is a grade IV glioma highly aggressive and refractory to the therapeutic approaches currently in use. O-GlcNAcylation plays a key role for tumor aggressiveness and progression in different types of cancer; however, experimental evidence of its involvement in GBM are still lacking. Here, we show that O-GlcNAcylation plays a critical role in maintaining the composition of the GBM secretome, whereas inhibition of OGA activity disrupts the intercellular signaling via microvesicles. Using a label-free quantitative proteomics methodology, we identified 51 proteins in the GBM secretome whose abundance was significantly altered by activity inhibition of O-GlcNAcase (iOGA). Among these proteins, we observed that proteins related to proteasome activity and to regulation of immune response in the tumor microenvironment were consistently downregulated in GBM cells upon iOGA. While the proteins IGFBP3, IL-6 and HSPA5 were downregulated in GBM iOGA cells, the protein SQSTM1/p62 was exclusively found in GBM cells under iOGA. These findings were in line with literature evidence on the role of p62/IL-6 signaling axis in suppressing tumor aggressiveness and our experimental evidence showing a decrease in radioresistance potential of these cells. Taken together, our findings provide evidence that OGA activity may regulate the p62 and IL-6 abundance in the GBM secretome. We propose that the assessment of tumor status from the main proteins present in its secretome may contribute to the advancement of diagnostic, prognostic and even therapeutic tools to approach this relevant malignancy.


1980 ◽  
Vol 58 (7) ◽  
pp. 760-765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiji Kamitsubo

Three or four parallel fibrils of ca. 0.1 μm in width attached to each file of chloroplasts in intact internodal cells generate the motive force for cytoplasmic streaming. Experimental evidence for this conclusion is drawn from experiments in which fibrillar motion and streaming are interrupted by centrifugation, microbeam irradiation, and electrical stimulation. The role of Pb2+ in preventing cessation of cytoplasmic streaming after electrical stimulation is interpreted in terms of localized changes in viscosity of the cytoplasm.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Annette D'Onofrio ◽  
Penelope Eckert

Abstract The study of iconic properties of language has been marginalized in linguistics, with the assumption that iconicity, linked with expressivity, is external to the grammar. Yet iconicity plays an essential role in sociolinguistic variation. At a basic level, repetition and phonetic intensification can intensify the indexicality of variables. Iconicity plays a further role in variation in the form of sound symbolism, linking properties of sounds with attributes or objects. Production studies have shown some phonological variables exhibiting sound symbolism, particularly in the expression of affect. In some cases, the observation of sound symbolism has been largely interpretive. But in others, stylistic variability as a function of speaker affect has provided empirical evidence of iconicity. This article examines the role of iconicity and performativity in transcending the limits of reference, reviews iconicity in production studies, and provides experimental evidence that sound symbolism influences how listeners attribute affect to linguistic variation. (Variation, iconicity, affect)


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document