The extended mind theory of cognitive distortions in sex offenders

An innovative theory of the nature of cognition, the extended mind theory (EMT), has emerged recently in the cognitive science literature. According to the EMT, the boundaries of the mind extend beyond the boundaries of skull and skin, into the world beyond. My aim in this paper is to consider the practical implications of the EMT for therapists working with sex offenders' cognitive distortions. First, I provide an overview of the key assumptions of EMT. Secondly, I draw out the major implications of this novel theory of cognition for the assessment and treatment of cognitive distortions in sex offenders. Thirdly, to make the analysis more concrete, I discuss briefly how the treatment module of cognitive restructuring could proceed according to the EMT.

Extending the mind into the world : a new theory of cognitive distortions in sex offenders

A recent trend in cognitive science and neuroscience has been the stress on the importance of human embodiment for cognitive development and the way external factors can be viewed as part of human beings' extended cognitive system (Clark, 2008; Johnson, 2007). Our aim in this paper is to present the extended mind theory (EMT) and outline its implications for understanding and treating cognitive distortions in sex offenders. We will first briefly examine the two most prominent theories of cognitive distortions in the sexual offending arena, Abel et al.'s (1984) post offense theory and Ward's (2000) implicit theory model. We will then examine their limitations and provide an overview of the EMT. Finally, we will apply the EMT to the sexual offending area and demonstrate the advantages of this novel conception of cognition.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.

The idea, the machine, and the art: word and image in the 21st century

Taking in recent advances in neuroscience and digital technology, Gander and Garland assess the state of the inter-arts in America and the Western world, exploring and questioning the primacy of affect in an increasingly hypertextual everyday environment. In this analysis they signal a move beyond W. J. T. Mitchell’s coinage of the ‘imagetext’ to an approach that centres the reader-viewer in a recognition, after John Dewey, of ‘art as experience’. New thinking in cognitive and computer sciences about the relationship between the body and the mind challenges any established definitions of ‘embodiment’, ‘materiality’, ‘virtuality’ and even ‘intelligence, they argue, whilst ‘Extended Mind Theory’, they note, marries our cognitive processes with the material forms with which we engage, confirming and complicating Marshall McLuhan’s insight, decades ago, that ‘all media are “extensions of man”’. In this chapter, Gander and Garland open paths and suggest directions into understandings and critical interpretations of new and emerging imagetext worlds and experiences.

Organic Interfaces; or, How Human Beings Augment Their Digital Devices

It is a central premise of the advertising campaigns for nearly all digital communication devices that buying them augments the user: they give us a larger, better memory; make us more “creative” and “productive”; and/or empower us to access whatever information we desire from wherever we happen to be. This study is about how recent popular cinema represents the failure of these technological devices to inspire the enchantment that they once did and opens the question of what is causing this failure. Using examples from the James Bond films, the essay analyzes the ways in which human users are frequently represented as the media connecting and augmenting digital devices and NOT the reverse. It makes use of the debates about the ways in which our subjectivity is itself a networked phenomenon and the extended mind debate from the philosophy of mind. It will prove (1) that this represents an important counter-narrative to the technophilic optimism about augmentation that pervades contemporary advertising, consumer culture, and educational debates; and (2) that this particular discourse of augmentation is really about technological advances and not advances in human capacity.

How can computer simulations produce new knowledge?

It is often claimed that scientists can obtain new knowledge about nature by running computer simulations. How is this possible? I answer this question by arguing that computer simulations are arguments. This view parallels Norton’s argument view about thought experiments. I show that computer simulations can be reconstructed as arguments that fully capture the epistemic power of the simulations. Assuming the extended mind hypothesis, I furthermore argue that running the computer simulation is to execute the reconstructing argument. I discuss some objections and reject the view that computer simulations produce knowledge because they are experiments. I conclude by comparing thought experiments and computer simulations, assuming that both are arguments.

Nuevas concepciones acerca de la mente

El cartesianismo ha impregnado el pensamiento filosófico y científico occidental durante siglos, pero desde las últimas décadas del siglo XX han aparecido movimientos contestatarios significativos. Las tesis cartesianas más importantes cuestionadas han sido: a) el dualismo metafísico mente-cuerpo, que supone además la adopción sistemática de otros dualismos, b) el individualismo, c) el internalismo, que caracteriza la mente por sus relaciones internas y d) la identificación de la mente con la conciencia. Estas tesis no solo fueron de importancia para la historia del pensamiento filosófico y científico, sino que acarrearon consecuencias concretas en ámbitos como la educación y la práctica científica. Presentaremos algunos de los cambios conceptuales que se han pruducido, opuestos al cartesianismo. Uno de ellos es la emergencia de categorías como las de mente corporizada, mente situada y extendida, y sus consecuencias en los distintos contextos, que se oponen especialmente al internalismo y al individualismo. La mente no es concebida como lo que está "dentro de la cabeza", sino que se la concibe de un modo que incluye elementos del entorno, sea este el medio natural, social y tecnológico. Otro caso significativo es el reconocimiento de estructuras mentales no conscientes, opuestas a la concepción que identifica mente con conciencia

Nuevas concepciones acerca de la mente

El cartesianismo ha impregnado el pensamiento filosófico y científico occidental durante siglos, pero desde las últimas décadas del siglo XX han aparecido movimientos contestatarios significativos. Las tesis cartesianas más importantes cuestionadas han sido: a) el dualismo metafísico mente-cuerpo, que supone además la adopción sistemática de otros dualismos, b) el individualismo, c) el internalismo, que caracteriza la mente por sus relaciones internas y d) la identificación de la mente con la conciencia. Estas tesis no solo fueron de importancia para la historia del pensamiento filosófico y científico, sino que acarrearon consecuencias concretas en ámbitos como la educación y la práctica científica. Presentaremos algunos de los cambios conceptuales que se han pruducido, opuestos al cartesianismo. Uno de ellos es la emergencia de categorías como las de mente corporizada, mente situada y extendida, y sus consecuencias en los distintos contextos, que se oponen especialmente al internalismo y al individualismo. La mente no es concebida como lo que está "dentro de la cabeza", sino que se la concibe de un modo que incluye elementos del entorno, sea este el medio natural, social y tecnológico. Otro caso significativo es el reconocimiento de estructuras mentales no conscientes, opuestas a la concepción que identifica mente con conciencia

Nuevas concepciones acerca de la mente

El cartesianismo ha impregnado el pensamiento filosófico y científico occidental durante siglos, pero desde las últimas décadas del siglo XX han aparecido movimientos contestatarios significativos. Las tesis cartesianas más importantes cuestionadas han sido: a) el dualismo metafísico mente-cuerpo, que supone además la adopción sistemática de otros dualismos, b) el individualismo, c) el internalismo, que caracteriza la mente por sus relaciones internas y d) la identificación de la mente con la conciencia. Estas tesis no solo fueron de importancia para la historia del pensamiento filosófico y científico, sino que acarrearon consecuencias concretas en ámbitos como la educación y la práctica científica. Presentaremos algunos de los cambios conceptuales que se han pruducido, opuestos al cartesianismo. Uno de ellos es la emergencia de categorías como las de mente corporizada, mente situada y extendida, y sus consecuencias en los distintos contextos, que se oponen especialmente al internalismo y al individualismo. La mente no es concebida como lo que está "dentro de la cabeza", sino que se la concibe de un modo que incluye elementos del entorno, sea este el medio natural, social y tecnológico. Otro caso significativo es el reconocimiento de estructuras mentales no conscientes, opuestas a la concepción que identifica mente con conciencia

The Nature of Structure : A Biosocial Approach

Sociological Review Monograph Series: Biosocial Matters: Rethinking Sociology-Biology Relations in the Twenty-First Century

Beyond the analogon; the "transfer of the referent" : the relationship between the external world experienced through culturally generated perceptual models constructed in the human mind, and the transfer of these images, via visual language, onto referen

Within 20th. Century art, the concept of the ‘normative’ image, as an attribute of things, has been challenged. As a consequence, paintings must now picture the ‘real’ world in other ways, incorporating knowledge and meaning beyond the analogon. Such descriptive representations were revealed as paradigmatic, rather than incontrovertible fact. Dependent on pre-conceived notions of stereotypicality, these descriptive images relied on surface illumination. My thesis explores images of things in the world as culturally inspired and information based. I examine paintings and sculptures of other cultures, such as black African, and other historical periods such as the Medieval, which reveal metonymously the basis for variations in representations of the ‘real’ world. The new enhanced representations which Modern artists created in their work were denigrated as deviant from the absolute ‘normative’ or regarded as distortions for purely mannerist and stylistic reasons. Postmodern research has reassessed them as multiple or extended imagings in whose facture new knowledge and human responses can be incorporated. These new forms of representation can be regarded as theoretical constructs rather than stylised depictions of appearance. In this way referents are transferred through the mind onto objects and vistas in the real world to align with our developed view of the physical world and better our understanding of humanity’s symbiotic relationship with nature.