Multisensory integration of contextual boundaries affects temporal order memory, but not encoding or recognition

We memorize our daily life experiences, which are often multisensory in nature, by segmenting them into distinct event models, in accordance with perceived contextual or situational changes. However, very little is known about how multisensory integration affects segmentation, as most studies have focused on unisensory (visual or audio) segmentation. In three experiments, we investigated the effect of multisensory integration on segmentation in memory and perception. In Experiment 1, participants encoded lists of visual objects while audio and visual contexts changed synchronously or asynchronously. After each list, we tested recognition and temporal associative memory for pictures that were encoded in the same audio-visual context or that crossed a synchronous or an asynchronous multisensory change. We found no effect of multisensory integration for recognition memory: Synchronous and asynchronous changes similarly impaired recognition for pictures encoded at those changes, compared to pictures encoded further away from those changes. Multisensory integration did affect temporal associative memory, which was worse for pictures encoded at synchronous than at asynchronous changes. Follow up experiments showed that this effect was not due to the higher complexity of multisensory over unisensory contexts (Experiment 2), nor that it was due to the temporal unpredictability of contextual changes inherent to Experiment 1 (Experiment 3). We argue that participants formed situational expectations through multisensory integration, such that synchronous multisensory changes deviated more strongly from those expectations than asynchronous changes. We discuss our findings in light of supportive and conflicting findings of uni- and multisensory segmentation.

The Problem

This chapter reviews how empiricist philosophy shaped the dominant outside-in thinking in neuroscience that gave rise to the perception-decision-action framework. In contrast, the inside-out framework takes action as the primary source of knowledge. Action validates the meaning and significance of sensory signals by providing a second opinion. The chapter also compares the relationship between “blank slate” and preconfigured brain models. It describes the brain as a sort of “dictionary” with preexisting internal dynamics and syntactical rules, filled initially with nonsense neuronal words. These nonsense words acquire significance for the animal through exploratory action and represent a distinct event or situation. Preconfigured neuronal networks can generalize and provides fast and “good-enough” solutions under many situations, while detailed and precise computation mobilizes a large fraction of brain resources.

The Ecological Rationality of Historical Costs and Conservatism

The principles characterizing the traditional revenue-expense approach to accounting cannot be traced back to a distinct event. I argue that they are ecologically rational. Their functionality is the result of cultural evolution, not of unitary human design. This is the reason why the efforts to defend them against the balance-sheet approach endorsed by standard-setters have encountered severe difficulties. Only the latter is clearly based on a coherent model of the economy, namely neoclassical economics. I further argue that a solid basis for explaining the rationale of the culturally evolved accounting principles can be found in behavioral economics. These principles are in line with human behavior as found in numerous laboratory and field experiments. It is especially with respect to Prospect Theory that a close parallel can be identified. I combine this observation with a market process view of the economy. Financial accounting according to the balance-sheet approach does not add new information to the market process; it only summarizes on the firm level information provided by the market. In contrast, the revenue-expense approach provides private information to the market à la Hayek (1945). The revenue-expense approach thus turns out to be congenial to the organization of the market economy.

Global Conflict Data: Introducing the World Handbook of Political Indicators IV

The World Handbook of Political Indicators IV (WHIV) provides global cross-national daily coverage of contentious politics events – protest, violence, sanctions and relaxations – conducted by governments, insurgents, and civilians. Using auto-coding of Reuters international newswire based on KnowledgeManager,™ the dataset covers 231 countries and territories from January 1, 1990 through December 31, 2004 and includes 40 distinct event forms and a set of standard actors and targets resulting in 264,289 events. WHIV’s breadth of geographic coverage, detailed atomic level event forms, and temporal specificity provides unique opportunities for studying contentious conflict globally and in specific countries. We discuss the uses of these data and the global distribution and trends in protest, political violence and governmental sanctions and relaxations.

Occasionalism and Contemporary Analyses of Causation

This paper will survey the most prominent contemporary analyses of causation, and evaluate their compatibility, or otherwise, with the doctrine of Occasionalism, with the ultimate aim of formulating an occasionalist analysis of causation. Though reductive analyses of causation are incompatible with Occasionalism, it seems that the denial of reductionism is as well. I will suggest a solution to the problem, involving an analysis of causation as the relation of extensional identity, between God’s will that an event actually occur, and the intensionally distinct event itself.

The Twelfth-Century Civil War in Context: Assessment and Reassessment

This final chapter presents a self-contained overview of what the material evidence tells us about the twelfth-century civil war and its consequences. Issues with dating archaeological evidence to the period in question mean that conclusions must be cautious, but it seems clear that the Anarchy is not obviously identifiable in the material record as a distinct ‘event horizon’. Archaeology has much more to offer us in terms of illuminating the conduct and psychology of Anglo-Norman warfare and in showing how lordly identity was being transformed through the period, and how it was expressed through castle-building and ecclesiastical patronage. Consideration of these research themes and others can help extricate studies of the twelfth-civil war from the ‘anarchy or not?’ debate. In conclusion: the mid-twelfth century is best regarded not as an age of anarchy but as an age of transition.