Not Quite All in Our Head: Intervention is a Better Predictor of tDCS Mind-Wandering Effects than Subjective Beliefs About Experimental Results

Background: Establishing adequate blinding for non-invasive brain stimulation research is a topic of extensive debate, especially regarding the efficacy of sham control methods for transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) studies. Fassi and Cohen Kadosh [1] assessed the influence of subjective participant belief regarding stimulation type (active or sham) and dosage on behaviour using data from Filmer et al. [2] who applied five stimulation protocols (anodal 1.0mA, cathodal 1.0mA, cathodal 1.5mA, cathodal 2.0mA and sham) to assess the neural substrates of mind wandering. Fassi and Cohen Kadosh [1] concluded that subjective belief drove the pattern of results observed by Filmer et al. [2]. Objective: Fassi and Cohen Kadosh [1] did not assess the key contrast between conditions in Filmer et al. (2019), 2mA vs sham, rather they examined all stimulation conditions. Here, we consider the relationship between objective and subjective intervention in this key contrast. Methods: We replicated the analysis and findings of both Filmer et al. [2] and Fassi and Cohen Kadosh [1] before assessing 2mA vs. sham via Bayesian ANOVA on subjective belief regarding stimulation type and dosage. Results: Our results support objective intervention as the strongest predictor of stimulation effects on mind-wandering when 2mA vs sham was examined, over and above that of subjective intervention. Conclusions: The conclusions made by Filmer et al. [2] are confirmed. However, it is important to control for and understand the possible effects of subjective beliefs in sham controlled studies. Best practice to prevent these issues remains the inclusion of active control conditions.

QBism and the limits of scientific realism

QBism is an agent-centered interpretation of quantum theory. It rejects the notion that quantum theory provides a God’s eye description of reality and claims instead that it imposes constraints on agents’ subjective degrees of belief. QBism’s emphasis on subjective belief has led critics to dismiss it as antirealism or instrumentalism, or even, idealism or solipsism. The aim of this paper is to consider the relation of QBism to scientific realism. I argue that while QBism is an unhappy fit with a standard way of thinking about scientific realism, an alternative conception I call “perspectival normative realism” may allow for a reconciliation.

When the Value of Cooperating Scales: Collective Intelligence, Information Processing, and the Leadership Meta-Capability

This article explores the nexus where purposeful individual-driven collective action, what is called organizational leadership, interacts with collective intelligence and agency. Based on recent numerical models from complex network theory and empirical studies of collective dynamics in social biology, it describes how intelligent collective agency forms around three order parameters: expectancy alignment, instrumentality inside the collective, and a subjective belief by individual agents in the generalized trustworthiness of other members of a collective. When the value of one or more of these scaling metrics becomes dynamically stable, fractal structures in the collective provide useful information to individuals that informs their choices during interactions including leadership activities. The theory contributes fifteen testable assertions that if supported empirically suggest fruitful ways that new information technology applications could enhance organizational effectiveness.

Eliciting Beliefs as Distributions in Online Surveys

Citizens’ beliefs about uncertain events are fundamental variables in many areas of political science. While beliefs are often conceptualized in the form of distributions, obtaining reliable measures in terms of full probability densities is a difficult task. In this letter, we ask if there is an effective way of eliciting beliefs as distributions in the context of online surveys. Relying on experimental evidence, we evaluate the performance of five different elicitation methods designed to capture citizens’ uncertain expectations. Our results suggest that an elicitation method originally proposed by Manski (2009) performs well. It measures average citizens’ subjective belief distributions reliably and is easily implemented in the context of regular (online) surveys. We expect that a wider use of this method will lead to considerable improvements in the study of citizens’ expectations and beliefs.

Age-Related Effects on Interoceptive Accuracy, General Interoceptive Sensibility, and Specific Interoceptive Sensibility

Background: The current research into interoception distinguishes between interoceptive accuracy (IAcc), the accurate detection of internal sensations (e.g., heartbeats) as measured by performance on objective IAcc tasks, and interoceptive sensibility (IS), the subjective belief concerning one’s own experience of internal sensations as measured either through self-report questionnaires or through one’s confidence in the accuracy during an IAcc task. Aims: As the two measures of IS, however, are usually uncorrelated and show differential relationships to IAcc, we suggest different types of IS, a general IS and a specific IS. Further, based on a growing body of research linking IAcc and IS to physical and mental diseases, the development of interoception across the adult lifespan is of importance. Methods: Using Structural Equation Modeling the present paper investigates the relationships among IAcc assessed by a heartbeat counting task, and the two proposed dimensions of IS in 138 participants ( Mage = 42.67, SDage = 18.77). Furthermore, we examine age-related differences in IAcc, as well as in general and specific IS. Results: In terms of the relationship between the three dimensions, general and specific IS were weakly correlated and exhibited different relationships to IAcc. Further, we found different age effects on the three interoceptive dimensions. Whereas IAcc decreased with age, specific IS tend to increase with age, and general IS remained unaffected by age. Conclusion: The findings provide further empirical support for a dissociation between general and specific IS and raised important questions concerning the relation between interoceptive accuracy and the emergence of physical diseases in older age.

Reconfiguration of Geopolitical Strategies in Trump’s Era: The Impact of American Political Leadership’s Idiosyncrasies on the Traditional Transatlantic Relations

The International System is traversing a challenging stage in its evolution. The United States should carefully consider the risks of an idiosyncratic leadership and closely work with their European partners, securing a world order based on the norms of multilateralism and democracy. Still, the US President Donald Trump unveils an approach based on emotional and synchronous elements. As a matter of consequence, the EU is considering other geopolitical alternatives to accomplish its goals and deliver the best outcome to the people it serves and for global prosperity. The paper investigates the very specific psychological factors influencing Trumpian political thinking and justifying his corresponding foreign policy decisionmaking processes, in the current transatlantic environment. By contextual examples, the analysis reveals the sensitivities and flaws in applying a subjective, belief-based approach of international (bilateral) relations. We put things into a broader perspective, by analysing the implications of such political behaviour patterns for the international liberal order, in the circumstances of the more and more prominent geopolitical triangle: the EU–China–the US.

Short-term efficacy of a fixed association of Palmitoylethanolamide and other phytochemicals as add-on therapy in the management of chronic pain in elderly patients: a real-world retrospective study

Phytochemicals are promising adjuvant agents for the treatment of pain. This study aimed to explore the short-term efficacy and safety of a fixed-dose combined therapy with Palmitoylethanolamide and other phytochemicals as add-on therapy in elderly patients. Data on 47 elderly patients with non-oncologic chronic pain of mild-moderate degree were analyzed in a retrospective, descriptive, no-profit, double-center realworld study. Patients were administered the combined phytochemical therapy for 6 weeks, in addition to analgesics administered when needed. Patients showed a reduction in pain intensity both in mixed /nociceptive and in neuropathic pain and improvements in functional abilities, quality of life, and in the subjective belief about the efficacy of treatment. These results were also observed in the small subgroup of patients in monotherapy with phytochemicals (n=13). No adverse event led to treatment withdrawal. This exploratory study suggests that phytochemicals may represent an effective source of analgesics to be added to chemically synthesized drugs, therefore reducing the need of their up-titration and the risk of toxicity. These data must be considered as preliminary and need to be tested in randomized trials.

Conceptual Debates in Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the term “ethnic” has come to mean “member of a group of people with a set of shared characteristics,” including a belief in common descent. As such, “ethnic groups” refer to human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical or customs type or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration. Ethnic phenomena are primarily explained through the “primordialist” and “instrumentalist” explanations. Primordialism holds that ethnicity is a constitutive and permanent feature of human nature. Instrumentalists argue that ethnicity is a social construct with the purpose of achieving political or material gain. However, the real debate is among constructivists over whether ethnicity should be studied from the participant or the observer perspective. Meanwhile, it is difficult to determine exactly when and where “the nation” first became identified with “the people” as it is today, but the process is closely tied to the rise of popular sovereignty and representative democracy. When nations and nationalism became the subject of academic inquiry, three positions emerged: “modernism,” which holds that both nations and nationalism are modern phenomena; “perennialism,” which argues that nationalist ideology is modern, but nations date back to at least the Middle Ages; and “ethno-symbolism,” a combination of the previous two. Most contemporary classifications of nations and nationalism are typological, the most prominent of which identify two dichotomous types, such as the distinction between “civic” and “ethnic” nationalism. Other classifications are better described as taxonomies.

Information Flow Solipsism in an Exploratory Study of Beliefs About Twitter

There is a dearth of research on the public’s beliefs about how social media technologies work. To help address this gap, this article presents the results of an exploratory survey that probes user and non-user beliefs about the techno-cultural and socioeconomic facets of Twitter. While many users are well-versed in producing and consuming information on Twitter, and understand Twitter makes money through advertising, the analysis reveals gaps in users’ understandings of the following: what other Twitter users can see or send, the kinds of user data Twitter collects through third parties, Twitter and Twitter partners’ commodification of user-generated content, and what happens to Tweets in the long term. This article suggests the concept of “information flow solipsism” as a way of describing the resulting subjective belief structure. The article discusses implications information flow solipsism has for users’ abilities to make purposeful and meaningful choices about the use and governance of social media spaces, to evaluate the information contained in these spaces, to understand how content users create is utilized by others in the short and long term, and to conceptualize what information other users experience.