scholarly journals Explaining Imagination

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Langland-Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
Psychological States

Imagination will remain a mystery—we will not be able to explain imagination—until we can break it into simpler parts that are more easily understood. Explaining Imagination is a guidebook for doing just that, where the simpler parts are other familiar mental states like beliefs, desires, judgments, decisions, and intentions. In different combinations and contexts, these states constitute cases of imagining. This reductive approach to imagination is at direct odds with the current orthodoxy, which sees imagination as an irreducible, sui generis mental state or process—one that influences our judgments, beliefs, desires, and so on, without being constituted by them. Explaining Imagination looks closely at the main contexts where imagination is thought to be at work and argues that, in each case, the capacity is best explained by appeal to a person’s beliefs, judgments, desires, intentions, or decisions. The proper conclusion is not that there are no imaginings after all, but that these other states simply constitute the relevant cases of imagining. Contexts explored in depth include: hypothetical and counterfactual reasoning, engaging in pretense, appreciating fictions, and generating creative works. The special role of mental imagery within states like beliefs, desires, and judgments is explained in a way that is compatible with reducing imagination to more basic folk psychological states. A significant upshot is that, in order to create an artificial mind with an imagination, we need only give it these more ordinary mental states.

scholarly journals Attributing Minds to Triangles: Kinematics and Observer-Animator Kinematic Similarity predict Mental State Attribution in the Animations Task

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca A. Schuster ◽  
Dagmar S. Fraser ◽  
Jasper J. F. van den Bosch ◽  
Sophie Sowden ◽  
Andrew S. Gordon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
Clinical Populations

Abstract The ability to ascribe mental states, such as beliefs or desires to oneself and other individuals forms an integral part of everyday social interaction. One task that has been extensively used to test mental state attribution in a variety of clinical populations is the animations task, where participants are asked to infer mental states from short videos of interacting triangles. In this task, individuals with clinical conditions such as autism spectrum disorders typically offer fewer and less appropriate mental state descriptions than controls, however little is currently known about why they show these difficulties. Previous studies have hinted at the similarity between an observer’s and the triangles’ movements as a key factor for the successful interpretation of these animations. In this study we present a novel adaptation of the animations task, suitable to track and compare animation generator and -observer kinematics. Using this task and a population-derived stimulus database, we demonstrate that an animation’s kinematics and kinematic similarity between observer and generator are integral for the correct identification of that animation. Our results shed light on why some clinical populations show difficulties in this task and highlight the role of participants’ own movement and specific perceptual properties of the stimuli.

6.  Mental State Decoding in Dysphoric Individuals: The Role of Motivation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Sinclair
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Depression Symptoms ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
Decoding Ability

Depression is associated with pervasive impairments in social and interpersonal functioning. Research demonstrates that individuals with depression have difficulty interacting with peers and show lower levels of social activity than do nondepressed individuals (Levendosky, Okun, & Parker, 1995). In addition, depressed individuals report that their social interactions are less supportive and less rewarding than those of non‐depressed individuals (Nezlek, Hamptom, & Shean, 2000). This reduced social competence may cause depressed individuals to disengage from social interaction, which may in turn exacerbate their state of depression (Rippere, 1980). It is thus important to understand and identify the mechanisms beneath these deficits.  Researchers commonly use the theory of mind framework to understand impaired social functioning in clinical conditions. Theory of mind refers to the ability to make judgments about others’ mental states to understand and predict their social behaviour. Research has found a relationship between theory of mind and dysphoria (i.e., elevated scores on a measure of depression symptoms, but not necessarily a diagnosis of clinical depression). Specifically, dysphoric individuals demonstrate enhanced mental state judgments (Harkness, Sabbagh, Jacobson, Chowdrey, & Chen, 2005).  My research investigates social motivation as an underlying mechanism for dysphoric individuals’ enhanced decoding ability. A sample of undergraduates will participate in a theory of mind decoding task following social, monetary or no motivation. I hypothesize that dysphoric individuals will make significantly more accurate judgments than non‐dysphoric individuals. Further, I predict that social motivation will enhance non‐dysphoric individuals’ sensitivity to others’ mental states.

scholarly journals The Pervasive Impact of Ignorance

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Kirfel ◽  
Jonathan Scott Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Counterfactual Reasoning ◽  
Norm Violations ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Normative Judgments

Norm violations have been demonstrated to impact a wide range of seemingly non-normative judgments. Among other things, when agents' actions violate prescriptive norms they tend to be seen as having done those actions more freely, as having acted more intentionally, as being more of a cause of subsequent outcomes, and even as being less happy. The explanation of this effect continues to be debated, with some researchers appealing to features of actions that violate norms, and other researchers emphasising the importance of agents' mental states when acting. Here, we report the results of two large-scale experiments that replicate and extend twelve of the studies that originally demonstrated the pervasive impact of norm violations. In each case, we build on the pre-existing experimental paradigms to additionally manipulate whether the agents knew that they were violating a norm while holding fixed the action done. We find evidence for a pervasive impact of ignorance: the impact of norm violations on non-normative judgments depends largely on the agent knowing that they were violating a norm when acting. Moreover, we find evidence that the reduction in the impact of normality is underpinned by people's counterfactual reasoning: people are less likely to consider an alternative to the agent’s action if the agent is ignorant. We situate our findings in the wider debate around the role of normality in people's reasoning.

scholarly journals Mental Mechanisms of Psychological States Regulation

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 182-204
Author(s):  
A.O. Prokhorov
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Mental States ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Regulatory Process ◽  
The Self ◽  
Psychological State ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Analytical Review

The article presents the analytical review of theories and studies of the psychological state regulation through the “self-processes — self-regulation” aspect. The main objective of the article is the analysis of concepts, mechanisms and the role of consciousness structures in the regulatory process. The theories of mental states self-regulation are analyzed: system-activity, system-functional and structures-functional. The specificity of each approach to the regulatory process is shown. It was found that the less developed area in presented theoretical constructions is the mental component of regulation: the contribution of the consciousness structures to the regulation of states, their significance and functions in the regulatory process, the specificity of the influence of individual structures on regulation and their synergy during self-regulation, etc. Review of the concepts of the mental states regulation’s mechanisms points the key role of the consciousness structures in the regulatory process. The consciousness structures are an integral part of the individual’s mental subjective experience. Subjective mental experience integrates meanings with categorical structures of consciousness, goal features, semantic structures of consciousness (personal meaning, values, semantic attitudes, etc.), reflection and its types, experiences, mental representations (imaginative characteristics), the self-system. The relationship between the consciousness structures in the process of mental states regulation is considered. It is shown that the integration of the consciousness components is aimed at the goal achieving — the regulation of the subject’s mental stateThe operational side of the regulatory process is associated with the actions of the subject, aimed at changing the state, feedback and time characteristics.

scholarly journals Attributing Minds to Triangles: Kinematics and Observer-Animator Kinematic Similarity predict Mental State Attribution in the Animations Task

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca A. Schuster ◽  
Dagmar S. Fraser ◽  
Jasper J. F. van den Bosch ◽  
Sophie Sowden ◽  
Andrew S. Gordon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Correct Identification ◽  
Mental State Attribution ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Clinical Conditions ◽  
Clinical Populations

Abstract The ability to ascribe mental states, such as beliefs or desires to oneself and other individuals forms an integral part of everyday social interaction. One task that has been extensively used to test mental state attribution in a variety of clinical populations is the animations task, where participants are asked to infer mental states from short videos of interacting triangles. In this task, individuals with clinical conditions such as autism spectrum disorders typically offer fewer and less appropriate mental state descriptions than controls, however little is currently known about why they show these difficulties. Previous studies have hinted at the similarity between an observer’s and the triangles’ movements as a key factor for the successful interpretation of these animations. In this study we present a novel adaptation of the animations task, suitable to track and compare animation generator and -observer kinematics. Using this task and a population-derived stimulus database, we demonstrate that an animation’s kinematics and kinematic similarity between observer and generator are integral for the correct identification of that animation. Our results shed light on why some clinical populations show difficulties in this task and highlight the role of participants’ own movement and specific perceptual properties of the stimuli.

scholarly journals Comorbidity between depression and anxiety: assessing the role of bridge mental states in dynamic psychological networks

BMC Medicine ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin N. Groen ◽  
Oisín Ryan ◽  
Johanna T. W. Wigman ◽  
Harriëtte Riese ◽  
Brenda W. J. H. Penninx ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Symptom Clusters ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Comorbid Depression ◽  
Vector Autoregressive ◽  
Credible Intervals ◽  
The Difference ◽  
First Time

Abstract Background Comorbidity between depressive and anxiety disorders is common. A hypothesis of the network perspective on psychopathology is that comorbidity arises due to the interplay of symptoms shared by both disorders, with overlapping symptoms acting as so-called bridges, funneling symptom activation between symptom clusters of each disorder. This study investigated this hypothesis by testing whether (i) two overlapping mental states “worrying” and “feeling irritated” functioned as bridges in dynamic mental state networks of individuals with both depression and anxiety as compared to individuals with either disorder alone, and (ii) overlapping or non-overlapping mental states functioned as stronger bridges. Methods Data come from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). A total of 143 participants met criteria for comorbid depression and anxiety (65%), 40 participants for depression-only (18.2%), and 37 for anxiety-only (16.8%) during any NESDA wave. Participants completed momentary assessments of symptoms (i.e., mental states) of depression and anxiety, five times a day, for 2 weeks (14,185 assessments). First, dynamics between mental states were modeled with a multilevel vector autoregressive model, using Bayesian estimation. Summed average lagged indirect effects through the hypothesized bridge mental states were compared between groups. Second, we evaluated the role of all mental states as potential bridge mental states. Results While the summed indirect effect for the bridge mental state “worrying” was larger in the comorbid group compared to the single disorder groups, differences between groups were not statistically significant. The difference between groups became more pronounced when only examining individuals with recent diagnoses (< 6 months). However, the credible intervals of the difference scores remained wide. In the second analysis, a non-overlapping item (“feeling down”) acted as the strongest bridge mental state in both the comorbid and anxiety-only groups. Conclusions This study empirically examined a prominent network-approach hypothesis for the first time using longitudinal data. No support was found for overlapping mental states “worrying” and “feeling irritable” functioning as bridge mental states in individuals vulnerable for comorbid depression and anxiety. Potentially, bridge mental state activity can only be observed during acute symptomatology. If so, these may present as interesting targets in treatment, but not prevention. This requires further investigation.

Mental State Approaches to Well-Being

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Haybron
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Philosophical Discussion ◽  
Psychological Dimensions

This chapter discusses the role of mental states in well-being, focusing on three types of state: pleasure, emotional well-being, and life satisfaction. Some philosophical theories, notably hedonism, take mental states to constitute the entirety of well-being, an approach that has significant attractions but also faces weighty objections. But even those who reject mental state theories of well-being should recognize that the psychological dimensions of well-being are centrally important in human life—though not always in the ways one might expect, particularly in the case of life satisfaction. A second aim of the chapter is to examine the implications of the philosophical discussion for measures of well-being, as well as the contrast between so-called hedonic and eudaimonic approaches. A brief consideration of the upshot of these reflections for policy concludes the chapter.

scholarly journals When do comprehenders mentalize for pragmatic inference?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Trott ◽  
Ben Bergen
Keyword(s):  
Task Performance ◽  
Mental State ◽  
Mental States ◽  
State Information ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Pragmatic Inference ◽  
Construct Meaning

People often speak indirectly. For example, “It’s cold in here” might be intended not only as a comment on the temperature, but also as a request to turn on the heater. How are comprehenders’ inferences about a speaker’s intentions informed by their ability to reason about the speaker’s mental states, i.e., mentalizing? We introduce a mechanistic framework by which mentalizing might be recruited for pragmatic inference, then ask: is mentalizing recruited primarily for sampling mental state information, or also for the deployment of that information for pragmatic inference? We find that the role of mentalizing is modulated by how explicitly a task involves knowledge. Mentalizing correlates with task performance when comprehenders are asked to sample and report mental state information (Experiment 1b), or when given mental state information explicitly and asked to make an inference (Experiment 2-Explicit); in contrast, mentalizing does not correlate with task performance, or correlates only weakly, when participants are given mental state information implicitly and asked to make a pragmatic inference (Experiment 1a, Experiment 2-Implicit). These results suggest that mentalizing is recruited flexibly, allowing comprehenders to construct meaning from under-specified input.

scholarly journals The Dynamics of Mental States of People Under Investigation

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 874-884
Author(s):  
Maria Musiichuk ◽  
Elizaveta Shuleva
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Sensory Deprivation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Detention Facility ◽  
Verbal Activity ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Detention Facilities

The relevance of the results of this empirical research is based on a number of factors. Firstly, the knowledge of the causes and dynamics of different psychological states makes it possible to single out psychological patterns emerging in similar circumstances, accurately predict the behavior of the person under investigation, identify atypical situational or accidental conditions, and avoid mistakes in their description. Secondly, the study of mental states of a person deprived of liberty is valuable for the organization of the whole correctional process and the development of recommendations on preventing the destructive behavior of persons under investigation when it is caused by their mental state. The study touches upon little-studied issues of changes in the mental states of persons put in the temporary detention facilities. The analysis of the obtained data showed that longer periods spent in detention facilities lead to such negative changes in mental states of people under investigation as an increase of unmotivated anxiety, psycho-emotional tension, emotional lability, irritation, sadness, boredom, low spirits, poor well-being and activity, inmates develop sensory deprivation, frustration, hypoxia, and a deeper depression. At the same time, there is an increase in sociability, activity, and extraversion. Limitation of the freedom of actions and motor activity is compensated by a considerable increase in verbal activity, there is a greater desire for a trustful and open interaction with other people, a growth in self-criticism. To satisfy the need for communication and verbal activity, it is necessary to give people under investigation a chance to meet representatives of different religious denominations and the detention facility’s psychologist. After longer periods of detention persons under investigation begin to express characteristics typical of criminal behavior: boldness, inappropriate familiarity, tendency to take risks, resourcefulness, impatience, maximalism, love of freedom, courage and decisiveness. Time spent in a detention facility is most effective for optimizing the mental state of persons under investigation, developing constructive scenarios of serving a sentence and future successful re-socialization. When persons under investigation are transferred to penal colonies, their mental state is predicted to deteriorate.

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

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Prinzing ◽  
Julian De Freitas ◽  
Barbara Fredrickson
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Meaningful Life ◽  
Total N ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
The World ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Meaningful Lives

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

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