Emotions, Simulation, and Abstract Art

Some people feel emotions when they look at abstract art. This article presents a ‘simulation’ theory that predicts which emotions they will experience, including those based on their aesthetic reactions. It also explains the mental processes underlying these emotions. This new theory embodies two precursors: an account of how mental models represent perceptions, descriptions, and self-reflections, and an account of the communicative nature of emotions, which distinguishes between basic emotions that can be experienced without knowledge of their objects or causes, and complex emotions that are founded on basic ones, but that include propositional contents. The resulting simulation theory predicts that abstract paintings can evoke the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety, and that they do so in several ways. In mimesis, models simulate the actions and gestures of people in emotional states, elicited from cues in the surface of paintings, and that in turn evoke basic emotions. Other basic emotions depend on synaesthesia, and both association and projection can yield complex emotions. Underlying viewers’ awareness of looking at a painting is a mental model of themselves in that relation with the painting. This self-reflective model has access to knowledge, enabling people to evaluate the work, and to experience an aesthetic emotion, such as awe or revulsion. The comments of artists and critics, and experimental results support the theory.

The Implantation Argument: Simulation Theory is Proof that God Exists

I introduce the implantation argument, a new argument for the existence of God. Spatiotemporal extensions believed to exist outside of the mind, composing an external physical reality, cannot be composed of either atomlessness (infinite divisibility, atomless gunk), or of Democritean atoms (extended simples), and therefore the inner experience of an external reality containing spatiotemporal extensions believed to exist outside of the mind does not represent the external reality (inner mind does not represent external, mind-independent, reality), the mind is a mere cinematic-like mindscreen (a mindscreen simulation), implanted into the mind by a creator-God. It will be shown that only a creator-God can be the implanting creator of the mindscreen simulation (the creator of reality), and other simulation theories, such as Bostrom’s famous account, that do not involve a creator-God as the mindscreen simulation creator, involve a reification fallacy.

What’s the Big Deal about Horror Movies, and Who Watches Them, Anyway?

The audience for horror films is more diverse than many people seem to assume. The genre appeals to women and men, young and old, thrill seekers and neurotics alike. The horror genre is also more popular than many might assume, with hundreds of horror movies being produced in the United States each year, and an increase in horror movie production in recent decades. When people seek out horror movies, they desire emotional stimulation, and the fear elicited by a horror movie is a main attraction, not an unfortunate byproduct. The threat simulation theory of horror argues that people have safe, vicarious experiences with dangerous scenarios through scary fiction. This adaptive function of horror explains the paradoxical appeal of the genre.

How Do Failed Entrepreneurs Cope with Their Prior Failure When They Seek Subsequent Re-Entry into Serial Entrepreneurship? Failed Entrepreneurs’ Optimism and Defensive Pessimism and Coping Humor as a Moderator

Entrepreneurial failure is prevalent, and particularly when the COVID−19 crisis exacerbates the economic recession, it becomes even more prevalent. Entrepreneurs experience an intensive emotional crisis when their ventures fail, and this deleterious impact, including stress and emotional pain, may prevent failed entrepreneurs (FEs) from restarting; hence, how they cope with failure has received increased attention in recent years. However, most of the extant literature focuses on success rather than failure, and there is very limited literature on how FEs cope with the psychological and emotional crisis caused by failure. This study focuses on FEs’ use of optimism and defensive pessimism as coping strategies within the mental simulation theory with respect to their re-entry intentions. It examines the impact of career ambition and public self-awareness on optimism, of the fear of failure (FoF) and self-doubt, on defensive pessimism, and of coping humor as a moderator. We used structural equation modeling to analyze the data of 277 Korean FEs who have actual entrepreneurial failure experiences and actively prepared for their re-entry. The results show that career ambitions and public self-awareness have an impact on optimism, and FoF and self-doubt lead to defensive pessimism. Coping humor also has a moderating effect on the path from defensive pessimism to the intention to re-enter. This study advances the literature on coping mechanisms that FEs employ to manage the negative impact of failure and prepare for their subsequent re-entry. Its theoretical model, based on the mental simulation theory combined with social comparison theory, provides a possible integrative framework that includes both the pervasively held view of entrepreneurs’ optimism related to overconfidence and their defensive pessimism related to their vulnerability due to their ventures’ failure. Thus, this study makes theoretical contributions to the literature of entrepreneurial failure, as well as practical implications for policymakers and educators who assist FEs in successfully coping with entrepreneurial failure and re-entry.

Simulating drone and bodily gestures: a behavioral study

According to embodied simulation theory, humans tacitly ‘simulate’ the actions of the other by mapping them in the sensorimotor cortex of the brain. According to the framework of embodied cinema, the meaning-making process in film is considered to be inextricably linked to the interrelation between the brain, body and environment of the viewer. Athough there are a growing number of theoretical and technological studies on the embodied nature of drone flight, to date no studies have investigated the effect of drone footage with and without human bodily movement on spectators’ cognitive behavioral mechanisms. Thus, the present study investigates the relationship between Drone Movement (Ascending, Descending, Still) , Actor Presence (Female, Male, None) and Image Speed (Normal, Slow, Very Slow) on perceived motion, appeal and involvement measures. To achieve these aims, a custom-made, naturalistic set of video stimuli modeled after the staircase scene in the Soviet film The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957) was created using a DJI Phantom Pro 4 Drone. In the experimental task (carried out at the computer), participants were asked to rate video stimuli using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) ranging from 0 to 100 for perceived Duration, Liking, Movement, and Emotional and Physical Involvement. Results demonstrate that: 1) Ascending and Descending had significantly higher ratings for perceived Duration, Movement and Physical and Emotional Involvement than Still; 2) Ascending had significantly higher ratings for perceived Duration, Movement and Emotional Involvement than Descending; 3) Female and Male had significantly higher ratings for Movement, Physical Involvement and Emotional Involvement than None (No Actor); 4) Normal Image Speed had significantly higher ratings for Movement, Physical Involvement and Emotional Involvement with respect to Slow and Very Slow. Results indicate that drone/actor ascent may evoke more motion and involvement due to perceived exertion or ‘effort’ to climb up the stairs, and that participants resonate more with conspecifics and familiar repertoires, in support of embodied simulation theory. Results also indicate that movement in the drone/actor image modulates perceived time. Neuroimaging studies are needed to investiate the impact of drone movement with or without human bodily movement on cortical sensorimotor activation in the brain.

What comes to mind first? Feature type and order of production in a property generation task

abstract Few studies have explored in depth the mechanisms that underlie the execution of the property generation task, in spite of its importance and wide usage. The main exception to this is Santos, Chaigneau, Simmons, and Barsalou’s (2011) research: they claim that the two mechanisms at issue are word association and situated simulation. On the basis of the Linguistic and Situated Simulation theory, these researchers assert that word association is executed by a linguistic system, whilst situated simulation is executed by a situated simulation system. From these claims, the authors derive a series of predictions concerning the types of features that would be produced in the property generation task, and the order in which those types of features would appear. Our aim was to test those predictions, using an existent property generation database in Spanish. Our results are partially in accordance with Santos et al.’s results. The main divergence is related to the behavior of taxonomic superordinate features. We examine alternative explanations to account for this discrepancy. Furthermore, we criticize Santos et al.’s conception about what counts as a linguistic feature, and analyze alternative models about this issue.

Are children’s judgments of another’s accuracy linked to their metacognitive confidence judgments?

The world can be a confusing place, which leads to a significant challenge: how do we figure out what is true? To accomplish this, children possess two relevant skills: reasoning about the likelihood of their own accuracy (metacognitive confidence) and reasoning about the likelihood of others’ accuracy (mindreading). Guided by Signal Detection Theory and Simulation Theory, we examine whether these two self- and other-oriented skills are one in the same, relying on a single cognitive process. Specifically, Signal Detection Theory proposes that confidence in a decision is purely derived from the imprecision of that decision, predicting a tight correlation between decision accuracy and confidence. Simulation Theory further proposes that children attribute their own cognitive experience to others when reasoning socially. Together, these theories predict that children’s self and other reasoning should be highly correlated and dependent on decision accuracy. In four studies (N = 374), children aged 4–7 completed a confidence reasoning task and selective social learning task each designed to eliminate confounding language and response biases, enabling us to isolate the unique correlation between self and other reasoning. However, in three of the four studies, we did not find that individual differences on the two tasks correlated, nor that decision accuracy explained performance. These findings suggest self and other reasoning are either independent in childhood, or the result of a single process that operates differently for self and others.

Are Children’s Judgments of Another’s Accuracy Linked to Their Metacognitive Confidence Judgments?

The world can be a confusing place, which leads to a significant challenge: how do we figure out what is true? To accomplish this, children possess two relevant skills: reasoning about the likelihood of their own accuracy (metacognitive confidence) and reasoning about the likelihood of others’ accuracy (mindreading). Guided by Signal Detection Theory and Simulation Theory, we examine whether these two self- and other-oriented skills are one in the same, relying on a single cognitive process. Specifically, Signal Detection Theory proposes that confidence in a decision is purely derived from the imprecision of that decision, predicting a tight correlation between decision accuracy and confidence. Simulation Theory further proposes that children attribute their own cognitive experience to others when reasoning socially. Together, these theories predict that children’s self and other reasoning should be highly correlated and dependent on decision accuracy. In four studies (N = 374), children aged 4-7 completed a confidence reasoning task and selective social learning task each designed to eliminate confounding language and response biases, enabling us to isolate the unique correlation between self and other reasoning. However, in three of the four studies, we did not find that individual differences on the two tasks correlated, nor that decision accuracy explained performance. These findings suggest self and other reasoning are either independent in childhood, or the result of a single process that operates differently for self and others.

Preferential Engagement and What Can We Learn from Online Chess?

An online game of chess against a human opponent appears to be indistinguishable from a game against a machine: both happen on the screen. Yet, people prefer to play chess against other people despite the fact that machines surpass people in skill. When the philosophers of 1970’s and 1980’s argued that computers will never surpass us in chess, perhaps their intuitions were rather saying “Computers will never be favored as opponents”? In this paper we analyse through the introduced concepts of psychological affordances and psychological interplay, what are the mechanisms that make a human-human (HH) interaction more meaningful than a human-computer (HC) interaction. We claim that an HH chess game consists of two intertwined, but independent simultaneous games—only one of which is retained in the HC game. To help with the analysis we introduce the thought experiment of a Preferential Engagement Test (PET) which is inspired by, but non-equivalent to, the Standard Turing Test. We also explore how the PET can illuminate, and be illuminated by, various philosophies of mind reading: Theory Theory, Simulation Theory and Mind Minding. We propose that our analysis along with the concept of PET could illuminate in a new way the conditions and challenges a machine (or its designers) must face before it can replace humans in a given occupation.