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Organizational closure (OC) is a theoretical state within Walter von Lucadou's Correlation Matrix Method (CMM) for producing evidence of mind/matter interactions or psi. In practical terms, OC is affected by attentional, emotional/ affective, contextual, and motivational elements in the experimental system. Because maximal OC is considered desirable in obtaining non-local entanglement correlations, a user-friendly measurement of OC in the CMM experiments would be useful. Based on studies that have found a positive association between the participants' underestimation of session duration and psi task performance, the method suggested here involves the participants' retrospective estimate of duration. This research note concludes with advice on how this measure may be implemented.Keywords: Correlation Matrix Method, Organizational Closure, time contractionLa cloture organisationnelle (OC) est un etat theorique de la methode de correlation des matrices (CMM) de Walter von Lucadou pour produire des preuves des interactions entre esprit et matiere ou psi. En termes pratiques, I'OC est affectee par les elements attentionnels, emotionnels/affectifs, contextuels et motivationnels du systeme experimental. Puisqu'une OCE maximale est desirable pour obtenir des correlations d'intrication non-locales, un outil de mesure accessible de I'OC dans les experimentations CMM serait utile. En se basant sur des etudes qui avaient trouve une association positive entre sous-estimation par les participants de la duree de la session et performance a une tache psi, la methode suggeree ici implique I'estimation retrospective de la duree par les participants. Cette note de recherche conclut sur des conseils sur la fagon d'implementer cette mesure.Die Organisierte Geschlossenheit (OG) ist ein theoretisches Konzept innerhalb der von Walter von Lucadou entwickelten Korrelations-Matrix-Methode (KMM), mit deren Hilfe sich psychophysische Wechselwirkungen ('psi') nachweisen lassen. In praktischer Hinsicht wird die OG durch aufmerksamkeitsbedingte, emotional/affektive, kontextuelle und motivationale Elemente im experimentellen Aufbau beeinflusst. Da zum Zustandekommen nichtlokaler Verschrankungskorrelationen eine groGtmogliche OG als wunschenswert angesehen wird, empfiehlt sich eine benutzerfreundliche Messung der OG bei Experimenten mit der KMM. Unter Riickgriffauf Studien, die bei Versuchsteilnehmern einen positiven Zusammenhang zwischen der Unterschatzung der Sitzungsdauer und dem Psi-Treffererfolg festgestellt hatten, verwendet die hier vorgeschlagene Methode die retrospektive Schatzung der Dauer. Die Forschungsnotiz mundet in einen Vorschlag, wie diese Messung berucksichtigt werden kann.El cierre organizativo (OC) es un estado teorico dentro del Metodo de Matriz de Correlaciones (CMM) de Walter von Lucadou para producir evidencia de interacciones mente/materia o psi. En terminos practicos, el OC se ve afectado por elementos atencionales, emocionales/afectivos, contextuales, y motivacionales del sistema experimental. Debido a que el OC maximo es deseable para obtener correlaciones de entrelazamiento no locales, seria util tener una medida de OC facil de usar en experimentos de CMM. Basado en estudios que han encontrado una asociacion positiva entre la subestimacion de la duracion de la sesion y el desempeno en la tarea psi de los participantes, el metodo sugerido aquf es la estimacion retrospectiva del tiempo de los participantes. Esta nota de investigacion concluye con consejos sobre como se puede implementar esta medida., Organizational closure (OC) has been a consistent element of Walter von Lucadou's Model of Pragmatic Information (MPI) for many years (Lucadou, 1996). More recently, with Harald Walach, Hartmann Romer, and [...]

'We're going through!' The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his fulldress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. [...]

Self-perception theory posits that people understand their own attitudes and preferences much as they understand others', by interpreting the meaning of their behavior in light of the context in which it occurs. Four studies tested whether people also rely on unobservable 'behavior,' their mindwandering, when making such inferences. It is proposed here that people rely on the content of their mindwandering to decide whether it reflects boredom with an ongoing task or a reverie's irresistible pull. Having the mind wander to positive events, to concurrent as opposed to past activities, and to many events rather than just one tends to be attributed to boredom and therefore leads to perceived dissatisfaction with an ongoing task. Participants appeared to rely spontaneously on the content of their wandering minds as a cue to their attitudes, but not when an alternative cause for their mindwandering was made salient.

In everyday life, many people believe that two heads are better than one. Our ability to solve problems together appears to be fundamental to the current dominance and future survival of the human species. But are two heads really better than one? We addressed this question in the context of a collective low-level perceptual decision-making task. For two observers of nearly equal visual sensitivity, two heads were definitely better than one, provided they were given the opportunity to communicate freely, even in the absence of any feedback about decision outcomes. But for observers with very different visual sensitivities, two heads were actually worse than the better one. These seemingly discrepant patterns of group behavior can be explained by a model in which two heads are Bayes optimal under the assumption that individuals accurately communicate their level of confidence on every trial 10.1126/science.1185718

It is proposed that the mind and brain often work at a gross level and only with fine tuning or inhibition act in a more differentiated manner, even when one might think the domains being issued the global command should be distinct. This applies to disparate findings in cognitive science and neuroscience in both children and adults. Thus, it is easier to switch everything, or nothing, than to switch one thing (the rule one is following or which button to press) but not the other. It is easier to issue the same command to both hands than to move only one hand. If one needs to respond to the opposite (or antonym) of a stimulus, one is faster if the correct response is to the side opposite the stimulus. People tend to think of the nervous system as sending out very precise commands only to the relevant recipient, but it appears that often the command goes out more globally and then parts of the system need to be inhibited from acting on the command. Keywords: task switching, bimanual coordination, Simon effect, card sort test, inhibition

Attention plays an essential role in the construction of the mental models necessary to make sense of ongoing events. In this article, we consider the implications of temporary inattention during reading for the construction and updating of the situation model during text comprehension. We examined how self-reported mind wandering during reading relates to the online construction of the situation model of the narrative, which in this case involved the pseudonym used by a villain in a detective novella. In successful readers, mind wandering without awareness, referred to as zoning out, was less frequent when the text revealed a clue about the villain's identity. Additional analyses indicated that mind wandering interfered with the construction of the situation model independent of the participants' ability to retrieve factual information. The analysis of the temporal consequences of zoning out indicated that lapses had the greatest influence when they occurred early in the narrative. These results confirm the intuition that zoning out during reading is an indication that the construction of the situation model has gone awry, and underscore the fact that our ability to understand ongoing events depends on the ability to pay attention when it matters.

In our target article, we argued that there is a profound functional discontinuity between the cognitive abilities of modern humans and those of all other extant species. Unsurprisingly, our hypothesis elicited a wide range of responses from commentators. After responding to the commentaries, we conclude that our hypothesis lies closer to Darwin's views on the matter than to those of many of our contemporaries.

Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as 'one of degree and not of kind' (Darwin 1871). In the present target article, we argue that Darwin was mistaken: the profound biological continuity between human and nonhuman animals masks an equally profound discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain. We propose a representational-level specification as to where human and nonhuman animals' abilities to approximate a PSS are similar and where they differ. We conclude by suggesting that recent symbolic-connectionist models of cognition shed new light on the mechanisms that underlie the gap between human and nonhuman minds. Keywords: analogy; animal cognition; causal learning; connectionism; Darwin; discontinuity; evolution; human mind; language; language of thought; physical symbol system; reasoning; same-different; theory of mind

I am an optimist, the sort we call incorrigible. So for those who know me, there should be no surprise at my title and theme. There is no question in [...]

The present study examined moderating effects of mindfulness on the intention-behavior relationship within the theory of planned behavior. Mindfulness describes a quality of consciousness characterized by heightened clarity and awareness of present experiences and functioning. Study 1 showed that mindfulness moderated the intention-behavior relationship in a leisure-time physical activity context such that intentions predicted physical activity among mindful individuals and not among less-mindful individuals. Study 2 measured counterintentional habits relating to binge-drinking and found that habitual binge-drinking obstructed the enactment of physical activity intentions among individuals acting less mindfully but not among individuals acting mindfully. Finally, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that the effects of mindfulness on physical activity were independent of effects observed for habit and variables contained in the theory of planned behavior. These findings suggest that mindfulness is a useful construct that helps understand the intention-behavior relationship within the theory of planned behavior. Keywords: mindfulness; habit; intention-behavior relationship; theory of planned behavior

This article reviews the hypothesis that mind wandering can be integrated into executive models of attention. Evidence suggests that mind wandering shares many similarities with traditional notions of executive control. When mind wandering occurs, the executive components of attention appear to shift away from the primary task, leading to failures in task performance and superficial representations of the external environment. One challenge for incorporating mind wandering into standard executive models is that it often occurs in the absence of explicit intention--a hallmark of controlled processing. However, mind wandering, like other goal-related processes, can be engaged without explicit awareness; thus, mind wandering can be seen as a goal-driven process, albeit one that is not directed toward the primary task. Keywords: mind wandering, task-unrelated thought, stimulus-independent thought, meta-awareness, attentional control

Gifted students often show a deep interest in and profound concern for the complex issues of society. Given the leadership potential of these students and their likely responsibility for solving future social problems, they need to develop this awareness and also a sense of confidence in dealing with future issues. The Future Problem Solving Program (FPSP) was developed to meet these needs, by an emphasis on (a) problem solving, (b) creative solution finding, (c) group work and research skills, and (d) exploration of a wide range of current issues. In this Australian study, subsequently replicated in the United States, ten years of former program participants were surveyed to examine their perceptions of the impact of the program in the light of its objectives., 'You can seriously feel your mind expand and your line of vision broaden ... it expands your horizons far beyond what you would normally experience in a classroom, and provides [...]

Article History: Registration Date: 09/10/2004

Evidence from developmental psychology suggests that representing the contents of other people's thoughts and beliefs depends on a component of reasoning about other minds (theory of mind) that is distinct from the earlier-developing mental-state concepts for goals, perceptions, and feelings. To provide converging evidence, the current study investigated the substrate of the late-developing process in adult brains. Three regionsuthe right and left temporo-parietal junction and the posterior cingulateuresponded selectively when subjects read about a protagonist's thoughts, but not when they read about other subjective, internal states or other socially relevant information about a person. By contrast, the medial prefrontal cortex responded equivalently in all of these story conditions, a result consistent with a broader role for medial prefrontal cortex in general social cognition. These data support the hypothesis that the early- and late-developing components of theory of mind rely on separate psychological and neural mechanisms, and that these mechanisms remain distinct into adulthood.

The history of comparative psychology is replete with proclamations of human uniqueness. Locke and Morgan denied animals relational thought; Darwin opened the door to that possibility. Penn et al. may be too quick to dismiss the cognitive competences of animals. The developmental precursors to relational thought in humans are not yet known; providing animals those prerequisite experiences may promote more advanced relational thought.

We distinguish the question whether only human minds are equipped with a language of thought (LoT) from the question whether human minds employ a single uniquely human learning mechanism. Thus separated, our answer to both questions is negative. Even very simple minds employ a LoT. And the comparative data reviewed by Penn et al. actually suggest that there are many distinctively human learning mechanisms.

The target article provides a convincing argument that nonhuman animals cannot process role-governed rules, relational schemas, and so on, in a human-like fashion. However, actual human performance is often more similar to that of nonhuman animals than Penn et al. admit. The kind of rule-governed performance the authors take for granted may rely to a substantial degree on language on external symbol systems such as those provided by language and culture.

Seemingly small changes in brain organization can have revolutionary consequences for function. An example is evolution's application of file primate action-planning mechanism to the management of communicative sequences. When feedback from utterances reaches the brain again through a mechanism that evolved to monitor action sequences, it makes another pass through the brain, amplifying the human power of thinking.

Mesoudi et al. overlook an illuminating parallel between cultural and biological evolution, namely, the existence in each realm of a continuum from intelligent, mindful evolution through to oblivious, mindless evolution. In addition, they underplay the independence of cultural fitness from biological fitness. The assumption that successful cultural traits enhance genetic fitness must be sidelined, as must the assumption that such traits will at least be considered worth having.