Bodies and Minds: Heavier Weight Targets Are De-Mentalized as Lacking in Mental Agency

Five experiments investigate the hypothesis that heavier weight individuals are denied mental agency (i.e., higher order cognitive and intentional capacities), but not experience (e.g., emotional and sensory capacities), relative to average weight individuals. Across studies, we find that as targets increase in weight, they are denied mental agency; however, target weight has no reliable influence on ascriptions of experience (Studies 1a–2b). Furthermore, the de-mentalization of heavier weight targets was associated with both disgust and beliefs about targets’ physical agency (Study 3). Finally, de-mentalization affected role assignments. Heavier weight targets were rated as helpful for roles requiring experiential but not mentally agentic faculties (Study 4). Heavier weight targets were also less likely than chance to be categorized into a career when it was described as requiring mental agency (versus experience; Study 5). These findings suggest novel insights into past work on weight stigma, wherein discrimination often occurs in domains requiring mental agency.

The Minimal Phenomenal Experience questionnaire (MPE-92M): Towards a phenomenological profile of “pure awareness” experiences in meditators

Objective To develop a fine-grained phenomenological analysis of “pure awareness” experiences in meditators. Methods An online survey in five language versions (German, English, French, Spanish, Italian) collected data from January to March 2020. A total of 92 questionnaire items on a visual analogue scale were submitted to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Results Out of 3627 submitted responses, 1403 were usable. Participants had a median age of 52 years (range: 17–88) and were evenly split between men and women (48.5% vs 50.0%). The majority of meditators practiced regularly (77.3%), were free of diagnosed mental disorders (92.4%) and did not regularly use any psychoactive substances (84.0%). Vipassana (43.9%) followed by Zen (34.9%) were the most frequently practiced meditation techniques. German (63.4%) and English (31.4%) were by far the most frequent questionnaire languages. A solution with 12 factors explaining 44% of the total variance was deemed optimal under joint conceptual and statistical considerations. The factors were named “Time, Effort and Desire,” “Peace, Bliss and Silence,” “Self-Knowledge, Autonomous Cognizance and Insight,” “Wakeful Presence,” “Pure Awareness in Dream and Sleep,” “Luminosity,” “Thoughts and Feelings,” “Emptiness and Non-egoic Self-awareness,” “Sensory Perception in Body and Space,” “Touching World and Self,” “Mental Agency,” and “Witness Consciousness.” This factor structure fit the data moderately well. Conclusions We have previously posited a phenomenological prototype for the experience of “pure awareness” as it occurs in the context of meditation practice. Here we offer a tentative 12-factor model to describe its phenomenal character in a fine-grained way. The current findings are in line with an earlier study extracting semantic constraints for a working definition of minimal phenomenal experience.

First-person dimensions of mental agency in visual counting of moving objects

Counting objects, especially moving ones, is an important capacity that has been intensively explored in experimental psychology and related disciplines. The common approach is to trace the three counting principles (estimating, subitizing, serial counting) back to functional constructs like the Approximate Number System and the Object Tracking System. While usually attempts are made to explain these competing models by computational processes at the neural level, their first-person dimensions have been hardly investigated so far. However, explanatory gaps in both psychological and philosophical terms may suggest a methodologically complementary approach that systematically incorporates introspective data. For example, the mental-action debate raises the question of whether mental activity plays only a marginal role in otherwise automatic cognitive processes or if it can be developed in such a way that it can count as genuine mental action. To address this question not only theoretically, we conducted an exploratory study with a moving-dots task and analyze the self-report data qualitatively and quantitatively on different levels. Building on this, a multi-layered, consciousness-immanent model of counting is presented, which integrates the various counting principles and concretizes mental agency as developing from pre-reflective to increasingly conscious mental activity.

Drifting and Directed Minds: The Significance of Mind-Wandering for Mental Agency

Perhaps the central question in action theory is this: what ingredient of bodily action is missing in mere behavior? But what is an analogous question for mental action? I ask this: what ingredient of active, goal-directed thought is missing in mind-wandering? My answer: attentional guidance. Attention is guided when you would feel pulled back from distractions. In contrast, mind-wandering drifts between topics unchecked. My unique starting point motivates new accounts of four central topics about mental action. First, its causal basis. Mind-wandering is a case study that allows us to tease apart two causes of mental action––guidance and motivation. Second, its experiential character. Goals are rarely the objects of awareness; rather, goals are “phenomenological frames” that carve experience into felt distractions and relevant information. Third, its scope. Intentional mind-wandering is a limit case of action where one actively cultivates passivity. Fourth, my theory offers a novel response to mental action skeptics like Strawson.

ESTUDIO DIALÓGICO SOBRE EL DESARROLLO DE LA ENSEÑANZA

DIALOGICAL STUDY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING IN UNIVERSITY TEACHER IDENTITYThe construction of the self implies a selection and internalization of convincing voices. Thus, investigating the development of teaching and learning from a dialogic perspective implies attending discursive polyphony inherent in teacher identity. We interviewed two professors from the same university career in order to explore what voices / positions and personal innovations unfold when they talk about teaching and learning at university. The results show that both teachers were associated with a different set of voices and innovations: movements from positions focused other-voices to positions with a greater degree of integration between other-voices and self-voices as well as movements from innovations observable actions-centered like protests and actions to innovations mental actions- centered such as reflections and reconceptualizations. Hence, we show two ways of internalizing the agency in teaching and learning: (a) from an external agency, observable to an internal, mental agency; (b) from an external management of learning, carried out by others, to an internal management, in which the learner himself must assume the management of his own learning processes. Educational implications are discussed.Keywords: dialogical approach, identity, university professors, learning, teaching, multivoicedness method.Resumen.La construcción del yo (self) implica una selección e internalización de voces internamente convincentes. Así, investigar el desarrollo de procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje desde una perspectiva dialógica significa atender a la polifonía discursiva inherente a la identidad docente. Entrevistamos dos profesores de una misma carrera universitaria con el objetivo de explorar qué voces/posiciones e innovaciones personales despliegan cuando hablan de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje en la universidad. Los resultados muestran que ambos profesores se asociaron a un conjunto diferente de voces e innovaciones: movimientos desde posiciones con foco en voces de otros hacia posiciones con mayor grado de integración entre voces del yo y de otros así como movimientos desde innovaciones centradas acciones observables como protestas y acciones propiamente dichas hacia innovaciones centradas en acciones mentales como reflexiones y reconceptualización. Ello implicó poner en evidencia formas de interiorización de la agencia en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje: (a) de una agencia externa, observable a una agencia interna, mental; (b) de una gestión externa del aprendizaje, realizada por otros, a una gestión interna, en la que el propio aprendiz debe asumir la gestión de sus propios procesos de aprendizaje. Implicancias educativas son discutidas.Palabras clave: perspectiva dialógica, identidad, profesores universitarios, aprendizaje, enseñanza, método multivoicedness.