scholarly journals On the thinking space

Idei ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
Алесіян Пацев

The article examines some aspects of the mental space, the psychic one, and the internal space of thinking. The psychic space is not considered a “psychic reflection of the sensory stimuli” insofar as the first psychic movements that presuppose psychic space are not related to the sensory (for example, the prenatal states). The psychic space arises at the same time as the very psychic phenomenon. Some forms of changes in the mental space, and in the internal space of thinking, as well as the emergence of self-intentional states are also considered

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 178-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Riganello ◽  
Sergio Garbarino ◽  
Walter G. Sannita

Measures of heart rate variability (HRV) are major indices of the sympathovagal balance in cardiovascular research. These measures are thought to reflect complex patterns of brain activation as well and HRV is now emerging as a descriptor thought to provide information on the nervous system organization of homeostatic responses in accordance with the situational requirements. Current models of integration equate HRV to the affective states as parallel outputs of the central autonomic network, with HRV reflecting its organization of affective, physiological, “cognitive,” and behavioral elements into a homeostatic response. Clinical application is in the study of patients with psychiatric disorders, traumatic brain injury, impaired emotion-specific processing, personality, and communication disorders. HRV responses to highly emotional sensory inputs have been identified in subjects in vegetative state and in healthy or brain injured subjects processing complex sensory stimuli. In this respect, HRV measurements can provide additional information on the brain functional setup in the severely brain damaged and would provide researchers with a suitable approach in the absence of conscious behavior or whenever complex experimental conditions and data collection are impracticable, as it is the case, for example, in intensive care units.


Currently, the professional construction community information field is largely filled with the topic of creating a comfortable living environment. However, architectural and engineering design that corresponds to the concept of sustainable development is currently hindered due to the lack of a formed conceptual framework that reveals the meaning of the term "comfort", as well as a criteria list that determines the indoor environment quality in the Russian Federation regulatory and technical framework. The article offers some components of a comfortable living environment, within which the parameters of designing the internal environment of premises are highlighted. A comparative analysis of the national standards of the Russian Federation regulating the design of the internal space of residential and public buildings, with international "green" standards for a number of parameters was carried out. It is concluded that it is necessary to update the Russian regulatory and technical base taking into account the international experience of "green" standards.


2000 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEITH BRANIGAN ◽  
COLIN MERRONY

The Hebridean blackhouse is a well-known part of the eighteenth and nineteenth century landscape of the Western Isles, described by numerous early travellers and preserved for posterity at Arnol in Lewis. Survey and excavation of blackhouses on the Isle of Barra, however, suggests that here at least, the majority of blackhouses did not conform to the 'norm' of a long building with accommodation shared by animals and humans. Despite the large families of the Catholic population of Barra, the houses are shorter and provide less internal space than blackhouses further north in the island chain. Animals were more often housed in separate byres. Similarly, the human use of space in the Barra blackhouses shows some variations from the pattern described by nineteenth century sources. As to the origins of the blackhouse, unexcavated sites on Barra suggest two possible future routes of enquiry.


Author(s):  
James DiGiovanna

Enhancement and AI create moral dilemmas not envisaged in standard ethical theories. Some of this stems from the increased malleability of personal identity that this technology affords: an artificial being can instantly alter its memory, preferences, and moral character. If a self can, at will, jettison essential identity-giving characteristics, how are we to rely upon, befriend, or judge it? Moral problems will stem from the fact that such beings are para-persons: they meet all the standard requirements of personhood (self-awareness, agency, intentional states, second-order desires, etc.) but have an additional ability—the capacity for instant change—that disqualifies them from ordinary personal identity. In order to rescue some responsibility assignments for para-persons, a fine-grained analysis of responsibility-bearing parts of selves and the persistence conditions of these parts is proposed and recommended also for standard persons who undergo extreme change.


Author(s):  
John R. Searle

Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which it is directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world. Intentionality is simply aboutness or directedness. “Proposition” is more difficult, but the essential idea is this: every intentional state has a content. Sometimes it seems that the content just enables a state to refer to an object. So if John loves Sally, then it appears that the content of his love is simply “Sally”. But if John believes that it is raining, then the specification of the content requires an entire “that” clause. “Are there non-propositional intentional states?” amounts to the question, “Are there intentional states whose content does not require specification with a ‘that’ clause?” This chapter explores whether there are any non-propositional states, and suggest that a very limited class, such as boredom, is in fact non-propositional.


Author(s):  
Mark Sainsbury

This is the central chapter in the book. It describes and defends display theory, a theory of attitude attribution according to which the words in the complement put concepts on display rather than using them in the normal attributive way. Attributions are true if the displayed concepts match the concepts subjects exercise in their intentional states. Display theory explains various features of intensionality. For example, there is no reason why a displayed concept in a true attribution need be true of some real entity: all that matters is whether the subject exercised it, not what, if anything, it refers to. A use of superscripts is developed which enables us to state with precision different ways in which attitude attributions can be true. The theory is extended to apply to non-conceptual intentional states.


Author(s):  
Ana Gentil-Gutiérrez ◽  
José Luis Cuesta-Gómez ◽  
Paula Rodríguez-Fernández ◽  
Jerónimo Javier González-Bernal

(1) Background: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently have difficulties in processing sensory information, which is a limitation when participating in different contexts, such as school. The objective of the present study was to compare the sensory processing characteristics of children with ASD in the natural context of school through the perception of professionals in the field of education, in comparison with neurodevelopmental children (2) Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study as conducted with study population consisting of children between three and ten years old, 36 of whom were diagnosed with ASD and attended the Autismo Burgos association; the remaining 24 had neurotypical development. The degree of response of the children to sensory stimuli at school was evaluated using the Sensory Profile-2 (SP-2) questionnaire in its school version, answered by the teachers. (3) Results: Statistically significant differences were found in sensory processing patterns (p = 0.001), in sensory systems (p = 0.001) and in school factors (p = 0.001). Children with ASD who obtained worse results. (4) Conclusions: Children with ASD are prone to present sensory alterations in different contexts, giving nonadapted behavioral and learning responses.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily T. Wood ◽  
Kaitlin K. Cummings ◽  
Jiwon Jung ◽  
Genevieve Patterson ◽  
Nana Okada ◽  
...  

AbstractSensory over-responsivity (SOR), extreme sensitivity to or avoidance of sensory stimuli (e.g., scratchy fabrics, loud sounds), is a highly prevalent and impairing feature of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorders (ASD), anxiety, and ADHD. Previous studies have found overactive brain responses and reduced modulation of thalamocortical connectivity in response to mildly aversive sensory stimulation in ASD. These findings suggest altered thalamic sensory gating which could be associated with an excitatory/inhibitory neurochemical imbalance, but such thalamic neurochemistry has never been examined in relation to SOR. Here we utilized magnetic resonance spectroscopy and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the relationship between thalamic and somatosensory cortex inhibitory (gamma-aminobutyric acid, GABA) and excitatory (glutamate) neurochemicals with the intrinsic functional connectivity of those regions in 35 ASD and 35 typically developing pediatric subjects. Although there were no diagnostic group differences in neurochemical concentrations in either region, within the ASD group, SOR severity correlated negatively with thalamic GABA (r = −0.48, p < 0.05) and positively with somatosensory glutamate (r = 0.68, p < 0.01). Further, in the ASD group, thalamic GABA concentration predicted altered connectivity with regions previously implicated in SOR. These variations in GABA and associated network connectivity in the ASD group highlight the potential role of GABA as a mechanism underlying individual differences in SOR, a major source of phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD. In ASD, abnormalities of the thalamic neurochemical balance could interfere with the thalamic role in integrating, relaying, and inhibiting attention to sensory information. These results have implications for future research and GABA-modulating pharmacologic interventions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph K. E. Ortega ◽  
Revathi P. Mohan ◽  
Cindy M. Munoz ◽  
Shankar Lalitha Sridhar ◽  
Franck J. Vernerey

AbstractThe sporangiophores of Phycomyces blakesleeanus have been used as a model system to study sensory transduction, helical growth, and to establish global biophysical equations for expansive growth of walled cells. More recently, local statistical biophysical models of the cell wall are being constructed to better understand the molecular underpinnings of helical growth and its behavior during the many growth responses of the sporangiophores to sensory stimuli. Previous experimental and theoretical findings guide the development of these local models. Future development requires an investigation of explicit and implicit assumptions made in the prior research. Here, experiments are conducted to test three assumptions made in prior research, that (a) elongation rate, (b) rotation rate, and (c) helical growth steepness, R, of the sporangiophore remain constant during the phototropic response (bending toward unilateral light) and the avoidance response (bending away from solid barriers). The experimental results reveal that all three assumptions are incorrect for the phototropic response and probably incorrect for the avoidance response but the results are less conclusive. Generally, the experimental results indicate that the elongation and rotation rates increase during these responses, as does R, indicating that the helical growth steepness become flatter. The implications of these findings on prior research, the “fibril reorientation and slippage” hypothesis, global biophysical equations, and local statistical biophysical models are discussed.


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