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Perhaps, nothing matters. Life might be devoid of value and meaning. Such thoughts can prompt feelings of angst. What kind of philosophical view could provide us with comfort? Some moral realists think that moral realism can. Moral realism does not comfort me. I think the comfort it gives others is an illusion. If we are moral realists, moral facts may be forever beyond our grasp. However, if we are anti‐realist sentimentalists, then moral facts are built for us to find. If we want to avoid angst, we can find solace in sentimentalism. That is not a reason to think sentimentalism is true. However, it is a reason to prefer that it is true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can art illuminate life or is it just so much irrelevant illusion (or delusion)? Certainly, Plato—the great founding father of Western philosophy—seems to have been largely drawn to the latter view. From Plato onwards, however, this more sceptical perspective seems bedevilled by a range of conceptual conflations and confusions regarding the language and purposes of art. Proceeding by way of critical attention to distinctions between (for example) imagination and fantasy and the artistic and the aesthetic and to the different cognitive and affective functions of literal and figurative usage, this article also draws upon diverse insights of poets and artists to argue that the ultimate purpose of the deliberate or "artificial" separation of significant art from "real" human life is nevertheless to enable deeper perception and appreciation of that life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion that metaphorical statements are strictly false suggests that all statements, even those that seemed 'literal', are false, as none can 'literally' reflect reality. Statements about what we perceive or could perceive rely on evoking sensory images of such 'visibles', even though we have no direct access to what others, may perceive. In addition to what is visible, we must also deal with 'invisibilia' (both the fantasms that respectable moderns now reject and the realities that lie beyond or before all sentient experience). Talking about such distant or long-ago realities must always be 'metaphorical', as they cannot have any of the merely 'subjective' properties of experience, nor do they explain those latter properties. Is there some way of confirming the brute conviction that there is a 'real and intelligible world', and that we can find it out or describe it 'literally'? May 'Reason' be a route to understanding? But this too is an illusion: we seem never in practice to escape contradictions and had perhaps better turn again to consider the worlds of experience to which we are confined. What we experience is conditioned by our imagination: whether that metaphorical imagination points beyond experience remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of ABHATH is the property of ABHATH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Illusion thermotics, which aims at creating temperature fields to mislead a thermal detector, encompasses many thermal functionalities. It has attracted significant attention due to the increasing number of promising applications. Transformation thermotics and scattering cancellation methods are frequently adopted for illusion devices, though they have inherent defects such as anisotropic thermal properties and complicated fabrication methods. Here, we present a general framework for topology optimization, which can be used to design the structure of an illusion device automatically. The optimized configuration can camouflage the thermal exterior of an illusion device so that it is identical to a reference. The original heat source can drive the virtual heat source despite the structure being simply composed of natural materials. To establish an effective topology optimization model, a volume constraint was imposed on the total volume of iron and a prescribed objective function was used to evaluate the difference between the reference temperature and the temperature field during the topology optimization. The flexibility of the method presented was successfully validated by changing the total volume of iron, the number and locations of the thermal illusions, the types of composite materials, and the original heat sources. Topology optimization is a new and flexible approach for designing thermal metamaterials and metadevices for diverse thermal functionalities and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, a general method is presented for the design of arbitrarily shaped 3D illusion devices with piecewise homogeneous parameters based on geometric divisions and linear coordinate transformations. Three illusion devices that can reshape the sizes or positions of the wrapped objects are demonstrated, namely, shrinking, amplifying, and shifting devices. The shrinking device can shrink a larger object into a smaller one with different material parameters, whereas the amplifying device can enlarge a smaller object into a larger one, and a shifting device can generate a new image with an identical size but located at a different position. In addition, based on the presented shrinking device, a perfect 3D invisibility cloak is achieved by shrinking the wrapped object to sufficiently small dimensions as compared to the operating frequency. An electromagnetic concentrator is also obtained by replacing the coated object of the amplifying device with a compression medium. The presented design approach can be easily extended to the design of other electromagnetic devices and even to other physical fields. It is believed that the presented piecewise homogeneous devices are more practicable in reality and can accelerate the potential applications of illusion devices in both military and commercial fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More management scholars than ever are expressing concern about the state of our field. Complaints include the suggestion that many publications are written purely to further our careers rather than to advance knowledge. Our discipline is in crisis. We neglect really important issues in favor of bite-sized chunks of research that are more likely to find quick publication in leading journals. Given that such journals insist on the primacy of theory development, we also increasingly resort to pretentious and long-winded prose to at least create the illusion of "theory development." The result is writing that can only be understood by those already on the inside of the debates it references. As opposed to "imposter syndrome," in which qualified people doubt their suitability for a given job, I suggest that many of us have become "genuine imposters" in that we pretend to be doing more important work, and more competently, than we really are. Finally, I propose changes in our mind-sets and journal practices to restore some sense of deeper purpose to what we do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant famously claims that pure reason is subject to a transcendental illusion in which the subjective validity and the regulative use of a principle of reason are conflated with its objective validity and constitutive use. His doctrine of transcendental illusion is puzzling for he insists that this illusion is natural as well as necessary. The two dominant interpretation strategies cannot make sense of this puzzle because they turn out to be either too strong or too weak: they either struggle to account for the legitimate, regulative use of the transcendental principle of reason or fall short of explaining the necessity of the transcendental illusion. In contrast, I shall argue that it is possible to account for the fact that the transcendental illusion is natural and necessary because it has its source in the discursive form of our human understanding, and that this illusion can nevertheless be known to be illusory because our discursive nature can be recognised as a merely particular form of understanding by comparing it with a possible, intuitive form of understanding in an act of critical self‐reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigaciones Historicas is the property of Universidad de Valladolid, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While memes have been implicated in a loosening of the boundary between illusion and reality during the rise of Trumpism and the COVID-19 pandemic, they have been afforded scarce attention from a psychoanalytic perspective. This essay proposes that Sigmund Freud's language on dream-work can be used to describe the psychical work that these digital items effect. If Freud's terms identify the operations by which unconscious fantasies are inscribed in certain cultural artefacts, their resonance with memetic characteristics suggests that the meme may be a privileged form for investigating the mass mediation of group dynamics. Drawing on the work of psychoanalysts such as Stephen Mitchell, Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, René Kaës, and Didier Anzieu, this text explores how their theoretical frameworks might enrich a conceptualization of the role that memes play within the psychic life of groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiple process model contends that there are two forms of online control for manual aiming: impulse regulation and limb-target control. This study examined the impact of visual information processing for limb-target control. We amalgamated the Gunslinger protocol (i.e., faster movements following a reaction to an external trigger compared with the spontaneous initiation of movement) and Müller-Lyer target configurations into the same aiming protocol. The results showed the Gunslinger effect was isolated at the early portions of the movement (peak acceleration and peak velocity). Reacted aims reached a longer displacement at peak deceleration, but no differences for movement termination. The target configurations manifested terminal biases consistent with the illusion. We suggest the visual information processing demands imposed by reacted aims can be adapted by integrating early feedforward information for limb-target control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers one unique solution to the puzzle of temporal passage in the block universe. (Norton, Humana. Mente: Journal of Philosophical Studies 13:23–34, 2010) argues that, although a precise description of its workings is currently beyond our understanding, time really passes. After introducing Norton's account, I argue that it both implies a counterintuitive relationship between the "now" and passage and that it leads to an unlikely relationship between our experience and reality. I then propose that, even if one is willing to accept these consequences, there is reason to question whether Norton builds a convincing case for the claim that, since we are not able to find any of the identifying characteristics of an illusion in the case of temporal passage, the passage of time is not an illusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary discussion on the subjective character of conscious experience is characterized by a stark contrast between higher-order intentionalism, according to which any state of awareness depends on the instantiation of intentional properties by mental states, and anti-intentionalism, according to which the inner awareness constitutive of subjective experience is fundamentally different from ordinary instances of external or introspective awareness, in that one's experience is not given to the subject as an ordinary intentional object. The purpose of this paper is to outline the most fundamental dimensions of variation among the different kinds of higher-order theories and to show, by providing a comprehensive analysis of the logical space available, that these seemingly incompatible views can be reconciled within an intentionalist framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reconstruct Immanuel Kant's theory of theoretical and practical error, and I situate it within the broader context of his transcendental philosophy. I thereby refer to his conception of dialectic as the logic of illusion (CpR, B 86) and to his concept of rationalizing. By referring to Donald Davidson's conception of irrationality, I argue that Kant's theory of error allows us to keep the erring person responsible both in theoretical and practical regards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article throws light on psychoanalysis and its radical reconfiguration of fantasy's relationship to reality, its rejection of the belief that the former is merely an illusory rendering of the latter. It says that fantasy's role in the cultivation of desire is of paramount importance. Psychoanalysis insists that fantasy is not only not brought about by unsatisfied desires, but that it is in fact responsible for the object of desire.

It is common for an object to present different colour appearances to different perceivers, even when the perceivers and viewing conditions are normal. For example, a Munsell chip might look unique green to you and yellowish green to me in normal viewing conditions. In such cases, there are three possibilities. Ecumenism: both experiences are veridical. Nihilism: both experiences are non-veridical. Inegalitarianism: one experience is veridical and the other is non-veridical. Perhaps the most important objection to inegalitarianism is the ignorance objection, according to which inegalitarianism should be rejected because it is committed to the existence of unknowable colour facts (for example, facts about which objects are unique green). The goal of this paper is to show that ecumenists are also committed to unknowable colour facts. More specifically, I argue that, with the exception of colour eliminativism, all major philosophical theories of colour are committed to unknowable colour facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios de Literatura Colombiana is the property of Universidad de Antioquia, Facultad de Comunicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents the discussion on use of digital techniques in performance, where the performer creates an illusion of 3D space by moving beyond the camera's virtual backdrop including creation of multiple performative spaces.

This article analyzes boy viewers as internal audiences in Imperial ekphrastic treatises. The first section traces the origins of the boy viewer to Plato's Republic and examines early examples in the Tabula Cebetis and Rhetorum praeceptor. The second half of the article then investigates how the Philostrati and Callistratus rework this device in their own texts, focusing on themes of childlike wonder and susceptibility to illusion. I conclude that these treatises use the boy viewer to subvert the distinction between expert and inexpert viewing, and thereby contest the ideal of the cultured gaze inherited from the Second Sophistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to uncover where the disagreement between illusionism and anti-illusionism about phenomenal consciousness lies fundamentally. While illusionists claim that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, many philosophers of mind regard illusionism as ridiculous, stating that the existence of phenomenal consciousness cannot be reasonably doubted. The question is, why does such a radical disagreement occur? To address this question, I list various characterisations of the term "phenomenal consciousness": (1) the what-it-is-like locution, (2) inner ostension, (3) thought experiments such as philosophical zombies, inverted qualia and Mary's room, (4) scientific knowledge about secondary properties, (5) theoretical properties such as being ineffable and being intrinsic, and (6) appearance/reality collapse. Then I examine whether each characterization provides (i) a dubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness in which the existence of phenomenal consciousness can be reasonably doubted, (ii) an indubitable sense in which its existence cannot be reasonably doubted, or (iii) a gray sense in which it is controversial whether its existence can be reasonably doubted. By doing so, I show that there is no single sense of phenomenal consciousness in which illusionists and anti-illusionists disagree whether the existence of phenomenal consciousness can be reasonably doubted. I conclude that the disagreement between illusionists and anti-illusionists is fundamentally terminological: while illusionists adopt a dubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness, anti-illusionists adopt an indubitable sense of phenomenal consciousness. Because of the extreme vagueness and ambiguity of the term "phenomenal consciousness", illusionists and anti-illusionists fail to see that they talk about different senses of phenomenal consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preliminary evidence showed a reduced temporal sensitivity (i.e., larger temporal binding window) to audiovisual asynchrony in obesity. Our aim was to extend this investigation to visuotactile stimuli, comparing individuals of healthy weight and with obesity in a simultaneity judgment task. We verified that individuals with obesity had a larger temporal binding window than healthy-weight individuals, meaning that they tend to integrate visuotactile stimuli over an extended range of stimulus onset asynchronies. We point out that our finding gives evidence in support of a more pervasive impairment of the temporal discrimination of co-occurrent stimuli, which might affect multisensory integration in obesity. We discuss our results referring to the possible role of atypical oscillatory neural activity and structural anomalies in affecting the perception of simultaneity between multisensory stimuli in obesity. Finally, we highlight the urgency of a deeper understanding of multisensory integration in obesity at least for two reasons. First, multisensory bodily illusions might be used to manipulate body dissatisfaction in obesity. Second, multisensory integration anomalies in obesity might lead to a dissimilar perception of food, encouraging overeating behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Art work that shows how the viewer translates visual cues into meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of Kolmogorov, enunciated for very large Reynolds numbers, has progressively been shown to be inoperative for characterizing flows of practical relevance. Yet, in a recent study by Alves Portela et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 896, 2020, A16), the turbulence statistics in the very near wake of a square prism at modest Reynolds numbers, reveal a significant portion of scales complying with a cascade of Kolmogorov type. By resorting to a generalized version of the Kármán–Howarth–Kolmogorov equation, this intriguing observation is shown to be an illusion, hiding a measurable influence of coherent structures and statistical inhomogeneity. This striking conclusion highlights that a complete statistical theory of turbulence cannot dispense with the influence of large scales, possibly coherent, motions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's toxic political climate has intruded into the therapeutic space. Both therapists and clients wonder about whether politics is an appropriate subject for therapy. Stronger treatment alliances were noted when clients perceived political similarity with their therapists. Inside the consulting room, polarizing political splits can occur and lead to impasses and alliance ruptures that can be difficult to bridge. Therapists, like their clients, can become overwhelmed, exhausted, and numb as they continue to listen, support, and contain political shock waves day after day. The ability to maintain empathy, think analytically and stay alert for enactments can be difficult to sustain when politics enters the room. Various politically based countertransference reactions are addressed, and self-care and connection rather than retreat through detachment or dissociation is the desired goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic dogs play many vital roles in human lives; however, relatively little is known about how they perceive the world visually. Given dogs' recent popularity as a subject in cognitive and behavioural studies, it is important to understand how they visually interpret the world around them. One way to evaluate perception is to assess illusion susceptibility; specifically, how visual information is processed, interpreted and modified post‐retinally. While illusion susceptibility has been used across a variety of species to comparatively assess the similarities and differences in visual processing and perception, this relatively novel methodological approach has only recently been adapted to evaluate perception in domestic dogs. Here, we present a comprehensive overview of the findings from studies that have evaluated domestic dogs' illusion susceptibility, highlighting the relevance of these results for those studying illusion susceptibility in animals as well as canine behaviour and cognition. More specifically, the ultimate goal of this review is to answer the questions: (a) Are dogs susceptible to visual illusions? (b) If so, are they susceptible to illusions in a way that parallels humans and/or other animals? (c) Are findings, within dogs, consistent and if not, how might these be interpreted and explained? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the public at large, property and contract law are commonly thought to reflect moral proprietary and promissory rights. Contemporary philosophers are mostly sceptical about natural property rights, though not about promissory rights. I argue at length that contract and promise, no less than property, can only be justified instrumentally – by appeal to the social good that these conventional practices produce. The aims of these practices need not be limited to social welfare but can include social justice and values more closely connected to the subject matter of the practices. The illusion that the law of the market reflects individual natural rights is harmful to public political discourse about institutional design. For example, it leads to ungrounded ideas about a right to freedom of contract and severely distorts the discussion of tax policy. The tenaciousness of this illusion deserves investigation. Promise and property are backed up and enforced by contract and property law. These legal orders necessarily take the form of a set of rules that specify legal rights and obligations. Living our lives in a social world structured in significant part by the law of the market, it is very hard to see those legal rights and obligations as not reflecting a deontological order of moral rights and obligations. We have here a case where misunderstanding the formation of legal normative orders leads us astray in our understanding of moral normative orders. This in turn hinders us in our ability to see clearly what the options for morally sound reform of the legal normative orders may be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that our body works as a fundamental reference when we perform visuo-perceptual judgements in spatial surroundings, and that body illusions can modify our perception of size and distance of objects in space. To date, however, few studies have evaluated whether or not a body illusion could have a significant impact on the way individuals perceive to move within the environment. Here, we used a full-body illusion paradigm to verify the hypothesis that an altered representation of the legs of the individuals influences their time-to-walk estimation while imaging to reach objects in a virtual environment. To do so, we asked a group of young healthy volunteers to perform a task in which they were required to imagine walking towards a previously seen target location in a virtual environment, soon after receiving the body illusion; we required participants to use a response button to time their imagined walk from start to end. We found that participants imagined walking faster following the illusion elicited by the vision of longer legs presented from an anatomical perspective, as compared to when experiencing standard legs in the same position.This difference in imagined walking distance decreased when the object to reach was displayed farther, suggesting a fading effect. Furthermore, taking into consideration the baseline error in walking time estimation in VR, we noticed a specific influence of the long anatomical legs in reducing the perceived time needed to reach an object and a general increase in the percentage of error when the same legs are presented in a non-anatomical orientation. These findings provide evidence that body illusions could influence the way individuals perceive their locomotion in the spatial surrounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an artistic exploration, clay hands and nonhand-like, unfeasible clay objects were created by the participant and used to perform an alternative version of the rubber hand illusion. Most participants felt ownership even over these unfeasible objects, raising questions about the embodied experience of objects that we make. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study related to 10-year-old female has presented with four day history of fever, headache, and rash. Topics inlcude the patient's mother reported that patient was visiting Northern Michigan when the symptoms started, playing near the woods and swam in fresh water lake, and the head computed tomography (CT) at the time did not reveal intracranial hemorrhage, mass, or ventriculomegaly.

Perception of a property (e.g., a colour, a shape, and a size) can enable thought about the property, while at the same time misleading the subject as to what the property is like. This long‐overlooked claim parallels a more familiar observation concerning perception‐based thought about objects, namely that perception can enable a subject to think about an object while at the same time misleading her as to what the object is like. I defend the overlooked claim, and then use it to generate a challenge for a standard way of thinking about the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. Put informally, that view holds that just as we can mislead others by saying something false, illusory experience misleads by misrepresenting how things stand in the world. I argue that we ought to abandon this view in favour of some radical alternative account of the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the early sixteenth century, stage sets in the Italian theatre were constructed in accelerated perspective. The stage and scenery were shallow, but the sets give illusions of much deeper spaces—typically piazzas and receding streets surrounded by buildings. The best-known example is Sebastiano Serlio's temporary theatre of 1539 described in his second book on Architecture. This paper argues that the accelerated perspective scene was first introduced by Serlio's master Baldassare Peruzzi for productions of the comedy La Calandria in 1514 and 1520, and then for Le Bacchidi by Plautus in Rome in 1531. Detailed working drawings survive for the set of Le Bacchidi and are used here for the first time to explain Peruzzi's method by constructing a scale model, giving a vivid sense of how the illusion worked and would have appeared to the audience. It is suggested that Peruzzi was inspired in part by the architectural backgrounds of a number of fifteenth-century paintings. His invention had a profound influence on stage design for the next two centuries, as shown by surviving sets and handbooks of stagecraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When characterizing the content of a subject's perceptual experience, does their seeing an object entail that their visual experience represents it as being a certain way? If it does, are they thereby in a position to have perceptually-based thoughts about it? On one hand, representationalists are under pressure to answer these questions in the affirmative. On the other hand, it seems they cannot. This paper presents a puzzle to illustrate this tension within orthodox representationalism. We identify several interesting morals which may be drawn in response, each of which teaches us something interesting and important about perceptual experience and its interface with cognition and related phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of An-Najah University Journal for Research, B: Humanities is the property of An-Najah National University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Two studies conducted during the 2016 presidential campaign examined the dynamics of the objectivity illusion, the belief that the views of "my side" are objective while the views of the opposing side are the product of bias. In the first, a three-stage longitudinal study spanning the presidential debates, supporters of the two candidates exhibited a large and generally symmetrical tendency to rate supporters of the candidate they personally favored as more influenced by appropriate (i.e., "normative") considerations, and less influenced by various sources of bias than supporters of the opposing candidate. This study broke new ground by demonstrating that the degree to which partisans displayed the objectivity illusion predicted subsequent bias in their perception of debate performance and polarization in their political attitudes over time, as well as closed-mindedness and antipathy toward political adversaries. These associations, furthermore, remained significant even after controlling for baseline levels of partisanship. A second study conducted 2 d before the election showed similar perceptions of objectivity versus bias in ratings of blog authors favoring the candidate participants personally supported or opposed. These ratings were again associated with polarization and, additionally, with the willingness to characterize supporters of the opposing candidate as evil and likely to commit acts of terrorism. At a time of particular political division and distrust in America, these findings point to the exacerbating role played by the illusion of objectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gambling Disorder (GD) is characterized by persistent betting even in face of accruing debts and psychosocial hardship. Gambling Disorder behavior has been linked to conditioning, cognitive distortions and superstitious behavior. Previous studies have demonstrated that during response-outcome analytical tests (ROAT), non-gambling individuals are precluded from response extinction when failure feedback is suppressed, and develop superstitious behaviors and illusion of control instead. Gambling can be regarded as a ROAT paradigm in which disordered gamblers (DGs) fail to compute failure feedback; hence they do not perceive the independence between response and outcome. In order to investigate early phenomena on response and outcome processing in DGs, we developed two short ROAT versions, one with a controllable outcome and one with an uncontrollable outcome, both with explicit failure feedback. Twenty DGs and twenty healthy controls were assessed using this novel paradigm. Compared to controls, DGs reported higher distress during the controllable ROAT, less self-confidence in the uncontrollable ROAT, and more random responses and less use of analytical strategies in both tests, evidencing potential deficits in cognitive control. In contrast to previous findings, DGs did not demonstrate more superstitious beliefs, or illusion of control, and were generally more skeptical than controls regarding the controllability of both ROAT versions. Taken together, our findings provide some support for deficits in cognitive control in GD that precede illusion of control and superstitious behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How our brain represents our body through the integration of internal and external sensory information so that we can interact with our surrounding environment has become a matter of interest especially in the field of neurorehabilitation. In this regard, there is an increasing interest in the use of multisensory integration techniques—such as the use of body ownership illusions—to modulate distorted body representations after brain damage. In particular, cross-modal illusions such as mirror visual feedback therapy (MVFT) have been widely used for motor rehabilitation. Despite the effectiveness of the MVFT for motor rehabilitation, there are some limitations to fully modify the distorted internal representation of the paretic limb in patients with stroke. A possible explanation for this relies on the physical limitations of the mirror in reproducing upper-limb distortions, which can result in a reduced sense of ownership of the mirrored limb. New digital technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and 360° videos allow researchers to create body ownership illusions by adapting virtual bodies so that they represent specific morphological characteristics including upper-limb distortions. In this manuscript, we present a new rehabilitation approach that employs full virtual body ownership illusions, using a 360° video system, for the assessment and modulation of the internal representation of the affected upper limb in stroke patients. We suggest modifying the internal representation of the upper limb to a normal position before starting motor rehabilitation training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across eight studies, we tested whether people understand the time course of their own creativity. Prior literature finds that creativity tends to improve across an ideation session. Here we compared people’s beliefs against their actual creative performance. Consistent with prior research, we found that people’s creativity, on aggregate, remained constant or improved across an ideation session. However, people’s beliefs did not match this reality. We consistently found that people expected their creativity to decline over time. We refer to this misprediction as the creative cliff illusion. Study 1 found initial evidence of this effect across an ideation task. We found further evidence in a sample with high domain-relevant knowledge (study 2), when creativity judgments were elicited retrospectively (study 3), and across a multiday study (study 5). We theorized the effect occurs because people mistakenly associate creativity (the novelty and usefulness of an idea) with idea production (the ability to generate an idea). Study 4 found evidence consistent with this mechanism. The creative cliff illusion was attenuated among those with high levels of everyday creative experience (study 6) and after a knowledge intervention that increased awareness of the effect (study 7). Demonstrating the impact of creativity beliefs on downstream performance, study 8 found that declining creativity beliefs negatively influenced task persistence and creative performance, suggesting that people underinvest in ideation. This research contributes to work on prediction in the creative domain and demonstrates the importance of understanding creativity beliefs for predicting creative performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers sometimes believe in the efficacy of instructional practices that have little empirical support. These beliefs have proven difficult to efface despite strong challenges to their evidentiary basis. Teachers typically develop causal beliefs about the efficacy of instructional practices by inferring their effect on students' academic performance. Here, we evaluate whether causal inferences about instructional practices are susceptible to an outcome density effect using a contingency learning task. In a series of six experiments, participants were ostensibly presented with students' assessment outcomes, some of whom had supposedly received teaching via a novel technique and some of whom supposedly received ordinary instruction. The distributions of the assessment outcomes was manipulated to either have frequent positive outcomes (high outcome density condition) or infrequent positive outcomes (low outcome density condition). For both continuous and categorical assessment outcomes, participants in the high outcome density condition rated the novel instructional technique as effective, despite the fact that it either had no effect or had a negative effect on outcomes, while the participants in the low outcome density condition did not. These results suggest that when base rates of performance are high, participants may be particularly susceptible to drawing inaccurate inferences about the efficacy of instructional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adapting Deleuze's conceptualization of the virtual, this study shows that Against the Day intends to undermine our narrow conception of reality by surpassing the actualities of the known world. In the darkness of the novel, "the virtual" lurks; the novel is a travel against the day, against the actual world to an actualvirtual world, toward "the nights" which "will be dark enough for whatever visions must transpire across them, no longer to be broken into by light" (Pynchon, 2006, 1083). 1 Indeed, the presence of mysterious, paranormal, and magical events (such as the uncanny tales of ghosts, séances, visions, hallucinations, and other-dimensional interventions) along with actual events functions as a defiant modus operandi against the actual-oriented, secular Western Philosophy. That is, through virtual occurrences, lines of flight are created (from the real/actual) offering alternative systems of looking at the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a feasible design for an annulus-based dielectric metamaterial cloak to not only reduce Ohmic losses from metallic metamaterials but also avoid manual misalignment when utilizing discrete dielectric metamaterials. The designed cloak is authenticated by the finite-integration method, and the corresponding field distributions without and with hidden objects are found to reveal the invisibility of the cloak. In addition, illusion optics are comprehended by comparing the field distributions of the dielectric-metamaterial-cloak-based illusion-device and an illusion object. With the abovementioned characteristics of the proposed cloak using an annulus-based dielectric metamaterial, in simulation, we successfully approach the features of the reciprocal cloak, which conceals multiple objects with vision and movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some languages, such as Hungarian and Finnish, utilize information structure (e.g., topic, focus) in their word ordering. Among such languages, subject behavior is often claimed to be related to topicality. This article argues that contrary to the claims made in the previous literature, Finnish does not grammaticalize topics; instead, the alleged topic behavior results from a definiteness effect, according to which definite DPs are treated as preferred preverbal subjects. This creates an illusion of topicalization. An analysis is provided according to which the finite clause EPP is universally involved in acquiring two nominal features, φ‐features (such as number and person) and D (definiteness), and that, due to the presence of strong phi‐agreement, Finnish has the option of filling in the preverbal subject position by a non‐agreeing nonsubject phrase checking only the D‐feature. In agreement with this hypothesis, verb‐initial clauses are argued to contain an NP‐argument representing a predicate, not a logical DP argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four studies explore semantic memory intrusions for goal-derived subcategories (e.g., "sports good for backache") embedded in taxonomic categories (e.g., "sports"). Study 1 presented hybrid lists (composed of typical items from both representations: taxonomic categories and subcategories) together with names of subcategories, names of taxonomic categories, or with no names. Subcategory names produced levels of false recognitions for critical lures from subcategories comparable with critical lures from taxonomic categories. Study 2 presented lists of exemplars either from taxonomic categories or subcategories (between participants). Lists of subcategories paired with their names produced higher levels of false recognition for subcategories lures compared with taxonomic lures. Study 3 replicated this result and showed that even though distinctiveness of taxonomic lures in a subcategory context (i.e., subcategory list with a subcategory name) may facilitate rejection of these lures, subcategory lures were still more falsely recognized than were taxonomic lures when retrieval monitoring was hindered through speeded recognition. Study 4 replicated the results with lists in which production frequency was better controlled and with a larger sample allowing for increased power of the test. Although confirming the critical role of preexistent categorical structures in the generation of false memories, results show that false memories for goal-derived subcategories can occur with the same frequency as false memories stemming from better established taxonomic categories. Such results broaden the scope of occurrence of false memories to goal-derived semantic organizations, which are often closer to categorizations used in real-world environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that a longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) is associated with worse psychiatric outcomes, with average length of DUP of 73 weeks in the U.S. The aim was to examine the DUP period for first episode psychosis in Oregon, with a focus on the processes between the first positive symptoms and first treatment. To investigate DUP, researchers used methods consistent with grounded theory to collect data from 9 participants and their families about the process between onset of psychotic symptoms and entrance into treatment. Results suggest that recognition of symptoms was the primary driver of help-seeking in this study, and this was influenced by type of symptom as well as the presence or absence of supportive others, which in most cases was regular family contact. Implications indicate a need for in-depth research on individual and family recognition of symptoms, as well as underscoring the need for community education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses topics like radical performance, truthfulness of illusion, and television from the performance "Bloody Mess" by the group Forced Entertainment. Topics include the show's inquiry into illusion and authenticity and its effects to the audience, the focus on live performance amidst parallel developments in television (TV) and performing arts in Great Britain, and the relationship of TV and theatre.

The scintillating grid illusion is a phenomenon where illusory black spots are perceived on white patches located at the intersections of a grid pattern. In this study, I report that the illusory spots as observed in the illusion are perceived with a stimulus pattern without grid bars. In two experiments, I investigated the perceptual properties of the scintillating illusion without grid bars. I found that the strength of the illusion depends on the contour shape of the patch components as in the scintillating grid illusion, while neither the density nor spatial alignment largely affect the illusory percepts. These findings undermine the previous theories on the mechanism of the scintillating grid illusion, as it was assumed that the grid bars are the essential component to induce the illusion. The results suggest that the illusory spots of the scintillating grid illusion could be induced by the limited processing of the patch stimuli in the peripheral vision and that the grid could play a supplementary role by enhancing the effect by further interfering with the processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]