VOLUME 16 (2003), ISSUE 3

Manuscripts:

VITTORIO GALLESE & THOMAS METZINGER
Motor ontology: The representational reality of goals, actions and selves

• Abstract: The representational dynamics of the brain is a subsymbolic process, and it has to be conceived as an "agent-free" type of dynamical self-organization. However, in generating a coherent internal world-model, the brain decomposes target space in a certain way. In doing so, it defines an "ontology": To have an ontology is to interpret a world. In this paper we argue that the brain, viewed as a representational system aimed at interpreting the world, possesses an ontology too: It decomposes target space in a way that exhibits certain invariances, which in turn are functionally significant. A challenge for empirical research is to determine which are the functional regularities guiding this decomposition process. What are the explicit and implicit assumptions about the structure of reality, which at the same time shape the causal profile of the brain's motor output and the representational deep structure of the conscious mind arising from it (its "phenomenal output")? How do they constrain high-level phenomena like conscious experience, the emergence of a first-person perspective, or social cognition? By reviewing a series of neuroscientific results, we focus on the contribution the motor system makes to this process. As it turns out, the motor system constructs goals, actions, and intending selves as basic constituents of the world it interprets. It does so by assigning a single, unified causal role to them. Empirical evidence now clearly shows how the brain actually codes movements and action goals in terms of multimodal representations of organism-object-relations. Under a representationalist analysis, this process can be interpreted as an internal representation of the intentionality-relation itself. We try to show how such a more complex form of representational content, once it is in place, can later function as the building block for social cognition and a for more complex, consciously experienced representation of the first-person perspective as well. The motor system may therefore play a decisive role in understanding how the functional ontology of the human brain could be gradually extended into the subjective [1] and social domains.

RICHARD P. COOPER
Mechanisms for the generation and regulation of sequential behaviour

• Abstract: A critical aspect of much human behaviour is the generation and regulation of sequential activities. Such behaviour is seen in both naturalistic settings such as routine action and language production and laboratory tasks such as serial recall and many reaction time experiments. There are a variety of computational mechanisms that may support the generation and regulation of sequential behaviours, ranging from those underlying Turing machines to those employed by recurrent connectionist networks. This paper surveys a range of such mechanisms, together with a range of empirical phenomena related to human sequential behaviour. It is argued that the empirical phenomena pose difficulties for most sequencing mechanisms, but that converging evidence from behavioural flexibility, error data arising from when the system is stressed or when it is damaged following brain injury, and between trial effects in reaction time tasks, point to a hybrid symbolic activation-based mechanism for the generation and regulation of sequential behaviour. Some implications of this view for the nature of mental computation are highlighted.

PATRICIA GREENSPAN
Responsible psychopaths

• Abstract: Psychopaths are agents who lack the normal capacity to feel moral emotions (e.g., guilt based on empathy with the victims of their actions). Evidence for attributing psychopathy at least in some cases to genetic or early childhood causes suggests that psychopaths lack free will. However, the paper defends a sense in which psychopaths still may be construed as responsible for their actions, even if their degree of responsibility is less than that of normal agents. Responsibility is understood Strawsonian terms-as a question of our appropriate reactive attitudes toward an agent for what she does, and as distinct from the question of the agent's own motivating attitudes which lead him to do what he does. The latter is the question more directly relevant to free will, though moral motivation normally depends on the capacity in early childhood to pick up motivating attitudes from others' reactive attitudes. Reactive attitudes based on hatred rather than anger (e.g., disgust or contempt) count as alternative forms of blame that may be appropriately directed toward agents manifesting bad qualities of will, even as a matter of motivational impairment. So psychopaths may still be said to deserve blame, even if they are incapable of modifying their behavior in response to blame.

PATRICK McKNIGHT & LEE SECHREST
The use and misuse of the term 'experience' in contemporary psychology: A reanalysis of the experience-performance relationship

• Abstract: The use of the term 'experience' is rarely explained in sufficient detail to allow researchers to fully appreciate the complexity of the experience- performance relationship. The findings research in this area are difficult to interpret and often lead to unwarranted or exaggerated claims. The interpretation of the results is made difficult from problems stemming from a poorly defined and measured construct and an inadequate conceptualization of the relationship of experience to several specific dependent variables. Additionally, exposure is often misconstrued as experience. The paper aims to develop a conceptual framework of experience that will be helpful in promoting consistency in the use of the term by researchers, theorists, and professionals and that will facilitate understanding of what are now confusing findings concerning the effects of experience. Psychology licensure requires [in the US and Canada] supervised experience [italics added], usually one year during the doctoral program (internship in most cases) and another year after receipt of the doctoral degree. Most states, provinces and territories have specific criteria that must be met for supervised experience [italics added] to qualify (Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards 1999).

Book Reviews:

MICHAEL ROOT
Review of JOHN DUPRÉ's Human nature and the limits of science

PETER BRADLEY
Review of A.D. SMITH's The problem of perception

ARTHUR B. MARKMAN & LISA R. NARVAEZ
Review of GREG L. MURPHY's The big book of concepts

RYAN HICKERSON
Review of PAUL REDDING's The logic of affect