Metacognitive Transcendence in the Learning of the Project Activity of Design through the Sketchbook Visuality

This article aims to report the transition from intuitive to intentional projective activities in design recorded in the visual modes of sketchbook to analyze the metacognitive processes of design students. Phenomenography was used as an empirical sampling method to diagnose the sketchbooks of industrial design and graphic design students. The observation criteria focused on describing the metacognitive characteristics of the students with respect to the way they recorded their ideas visually, which showed design-specific projective actions. This research demonstrated and codified how students externalize intentional approaches in their sketchbook iterations, which can be grouped into three representation strategies: technical, methodological, and reflective; they are related to their experiences in projective activity. Consequently, we propose a new category called metacognitive transcendence, which refers to a strategy for controlling and regulating cognitive processes to transform an intuitive action into an intentional action mediated by a cognitive artifact: the design sketchbook. Three ways of metacognitive transcendence are suggested: instrumental (technical aspects), procedural (related to projection), and comprehensive (own reflection about the project itself).

Distracted Attention, Temporal Switches, and the Consolations of Performing

Distraction is frequently blamed for interfering with the ergonomic production of capital, for encouraging substandard performance. Indeed, it is frequently configured as an impediment to timekeeping, a thorn in the side of consciousness, a drag on intentional action, and a brake on decision-making. Reality, however, is complex. While distraction can interfere with timing, anxiety, memory, error, and fatigue, it can also be exploited under controlled conditions to enhance performance by helping the performer to maintain an open cognitive and physical responsiveness to the world and a pragmatic mode of engagement with the task at hand. Indeed, distraction ensures that the performer is in close contact cognitively and socially with the full phenomenological plenitude of sound, thereby contributing to performance’s transformative value as a way of accumulating social capital in everyday life.

Institutional betrayal and the role of male allies in supporting women in higher education

In response to persistent gender inequality, institutions have been making commitments to gender diversity, equity and inclusion through funding, initiatives, and policy. However, when everyday institutional practices and social norms fail to protect women from inequity, women experience institutional betrayal. Using data from an open-ended survey of 202 faculty in male-dominated disciplines, we explore how male allies can engage in intentional action to interrupt gender injustice and buffer institutional betrayal and what consequences accrue to the male allies. Findings show that institutional betrayal occurs at four levels, and while at the first two, male allies buffer institutional betrayal of women with varying degrees of success, at the other two, male allies experience institutional betrayal themselves. As such, the opportunities and limits of male allyship as an avenue for driving structural change for gender equity are discussed.

Is There a Moral Intention to Reproduce Someone Else?

"Moral intentions could be used as criteria for actions. In medical practice, moral intentions take an interesting form when the problem is related to post-mortem reproduction. This paper will attempt to 1) interpret the problem of intentions from principalist perspective in medical ethics; 2) relate the problem of intentions to post-mortem reproduction; 3) develop an existentialist account for intentions and post-mortem reproduction. Peter Zhu’s case is the latest ethical challenge in post-modern reproduction. Its moral sensitivity is high due to his presume intent to reproduce and the possibility for post-mortem reproduction using donors’ material and a surrogate mother. If we presume that the concept of presume intent lies with the general idea for intentions, we must tackle the problem from the perspective of respect for autonomy. The problem with intentions is that the prospective intentional action to reproduce belongs to one person only. Yet it appears that someone else is going to perform this action and someone else will finish it. Who should we hold responsible for this action: the person who intended to do it or the person who is intending to perform it and finish it? In Peter Zhu’s case, there are participants with different intentions that are with different moral value. The existentialist account of post-mortem reproduction and intending to reproduce will try to present why we should be careful with respect for autonomy. The ethical and existential consequences of such reproduction are that the future child would be brought to a life of suffering and vagueness. "

Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action

When dogs interact with humans, they often show appropriate reactions to human intentional action. But it is unclear from these everyday observations whether the dogs simply respond to the action outcomes or whether they are able to discriminate between different categories of actions. Are dogs able to distinguish intentional human actions from unintentional ones, even when the action outcomes are the same? We tested dogs’ ability to discriminate these action categories by adapting the so-called “Unwilling vs. Unable” paradigm. This paradigm compares subjects’ reactions to intentional and unintentional human behaviour. All dogs received three conditions: In the unwilling-condition, an experimenter intentionally withheld a reward from them. In the two unable-conditions, she unintentionally withheld the reward, either because she was clumsy or because she was physically prevented from giving the reward to the dog. Dogs clearly distinguished in their spontaneous behaviour between unwilling- and unable-conditions. This indicates that dogs indeed distinguish intentional actions from unintentional behaviour. We critically discuss our findings with regard to dogs’ understanding of human intentional action.

Pluralistic Attitude-Explanation and the Mechanisms of Intentional Action

According to the Causal Theory of Action (CTA), genuine actions are individuated by their causal history. Actions are bodily movements that are causally explained by citing the agent’s reasons. Reasons are then explained as some combination of propositional attitudes—beliefs, desires, and/or intentions. The CTA is thus committed to realism about the attitudes. This chapter explores current models of decision-making from the mind sciences, and argues that it is far from obvious how to locate the propositional attitudes in the causal processes they describe. The outcome of the analysis is a proposal for pluralism: there are several ways one could attempt to map states like ‘intention’ onto decision-making processes, but none will fulfill all of the roles attributed to the attitudes by the CTA.