This dissertation argues that mental representation is identical to phenomenal consciousness, and everything else that appears to be both mental and a matter of representation is not genuine mental representation, but either in some way derived from mental representation, or a case of non-mental representation.

Sosa (2007) claims that a necessary condition on knowledge is manifesting an epistemic competence. To manifest an epistemic competence, a belief must satisfy two conditions: (1) it must derive from the exercise of a reliable belief-forming disposition in appropriate conditions for its exercise and (2) that exercise of the disposition in those conditions would not issue a false belief in a close possible world. Drawing on recent psychological research, I show that memories that are issued by episodic memory retrieval fail (...) to satisfy either of these conditions. This presents Sosa, and other proponents of similar conditions (e.g. some safety theorists and process reliabilists), with a dilemma: (1) deny that episodic memories count as knowledge or (2) give up the conditions as necessary conditions on knowledge. I explore the implications of this dilemma for our understanding of knowledge, memory and the relationship between them. (shrink)

The term "false memories" has been used to refer to suggestibility experiments in which whole events are apparently confabulated and in media accounts of contested memories of childhood abuse. Since 1992 psychologists have increasingly used the term "false memory" when discussing memory errors for details, such as specific words within word lists. Use of the term to refer to errors in details is a shift in language away from other terms used historically (e.g., "memory intrusions"). We empirically examine this shift (...) in language and discuss implications of the new use of the term "false memories." Use of the term presents serious ethical challenges to the data-interpretation process by encouraging over-generalization and misapplication of research findings on word memory to social issues. (shrink)

This paper presents a discussion of an everyday ontology of witnessing drawing on the writings of Martin Heidegger, cognitive science and presence research. We begin by defining witnessing: to witness we must be present ; and that which is witnessed must be available. Witnessing is distinguished from perceiving in that it implies and requires a record (a representation) of what has been perceived. Presence and availability are (relatively) uncontroversial but finding a place for representation, which is a classically dualistic concept, (...) in an ontological account potentially presents difficulties. We address this problem by recognising that being available, ready-to-hand and proximal can also serve to represent the very thing being witnessed. (shrink)

El marco teórico desde el cual se llevan a cabo investigaciones acerca de la pseudociencia es deficiente, dado que suele incluir otros tipos de creencias carentes de garantía epistémica. En este artículo, se repasarán los mecanismos de explotación de la autoridad científica por parte de la pseudociencia, desarrollando así un marco psicocognitivo más refinado para caracterizar el fenómeno. Se analizará la psicología del engaño pseudocientífico, las raíces cognitivas que posibilitan la epidemiología de este tipo de ideas y sus mecanismos de (...) autolegitimación, como la superioridad dialéctica, el falso apoyo externo o la falsa superioridad ética y/o epistemológica. (shrink)

In a typical experiment on the misinformation effect, subjects first watch some event, afterwards read a description of it which in the experimental group includes some incorrect details, and answer questions relating to the original event. Typically, subjects in the misled experimental group report more false details than those from the control group. The main purpose of the presented study was to compare two methods of reducing the misinformation effect, namely - warning against misinformation and reinforced self-affirmation. The reinforced self-affirmation (...) consists of two elements: the participants recall their greatest achievements of life, and are being given a positive feedback about their performance in a memory task. The obtained results showed that the reinforced self-affirmation was more effective than warning, although the latter also caused a significant reduction of the vulnerability to misinformation. (shrink)