Medical conspiracy theories: cognitive science and implications for ethics.

Although recent trends in politics and media make it appear that conspiracy theories are on the rise, in fact they have always been present, probably because they are sustained by natural dispositions of the human brain. This is also the case with medical conspiracy theories. This article reviews some of the most notorious health-related conspiracy theories. It then approaches the reasons why people believe these theories, using concepts from cognitive science. On the basis of that knowledge, the article makes normative proposals for public health officials and health workers as a whole, to deal with conspiracy theories, in order to preserve some of the fundamental principles of medical ethics.

Why the embryo rescue case is a bad argument against embryonic personhood.

The embryo rescue case (ERC) is a thought experiment that is used to argue against the view that embryos have a right to life (i.e., are persons). I will argue that cognitive science undermines the intuition elicited by the ERC. I will show that whether or not embryos have a right to life, our mental tools will make it very difficult to believe that they do have the said right. This suggests that the intuition elicited by the ERC is not truth-indicative. The upshot of this is that we have an undercutting defeater for our intuition that embryos do not have a right to life. Thus, the ERC is a bad argument against embryonic personhood.

Cognitive Enhancement and Beyond: Recommendations from the Bioethics Commission.

Media outlets are reporting that cognitive enhancement is reaching epidemic levels, but evidence is lacking and ethical questions remain. The US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) has examined the issue, and we lay out the commission's findings and their relevance for the scientific community.

Closing thoughts for cognitive enhancement.

The wide-ranging field of cognition enhancing research along with its ethics as it stands today is summarized. In the forefront are potentially novel drugs and non-pharmacological treatments for cognitive impairment across many different psychiatric and neurologic indications. Today's research will bring new drugs to patients tomorrow, and tomorrow's research will bring new molecular targets to clinical development that should be cognitive domain-specific. There is the likelihood that special populations may be better treated and that personalized medicine for cognitive impairment could become a reality. It is conceivable that with the current research effort, cognition enhancing drugs will become available to wide-ranging populations of people with neuropsychiatric illness and to those that are healthy. In some cultures, there is a push in society to be more intelligent or have more cognitive prowess. Thus, the ethical use of cognitive enhancing drugs should be an area of debate and communication. Neuroethics is a growing field and it intends to bring together key contributors such as physicians, disease experts, regulatory officials, and policy makers to discuss how such medicines can or should be made available. Together with this, one has to consider the possibility that no single medicine or technology will have a great impact on cognition and, therefore, combination therapy of drugs plus other approaches like exercise or transcranial direct-current stimulation may be the path forward. This is another area of scientific inquiry and debate, and the results should be fruitful and helpful to patients. The science of cognition is advancing at a rapid rate, and communication of its progress along with the development of rational and ethical policies for use of cognitive enhancers will be beneficial.

Global challenges and globalization of bioethics.

This article analyzes problems and implications for man and nature connected with the formation of a new architecture of science, based on the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC). It also describes evolution and genesis of bioethics, a scientific discipline and social practice with a special role of ethical management of potential risks of scientific research. The aim was to demonstrate the necessity of bioethical social control in the development of a global bioeconomy driven by NBIC technologies.

Thinking like a scientist: innateness as a case study.

The concept of innateness appears in systematic research within cognitive science, but it also appears in less systematic modes of thought that long predate the scientific study of the mind. The present studies therefore explore the relationship between the properly scientific uses of this concept and its role in ordinary folk understanding. Studies 1-4 examined the judgments of people with no specific training in cognitive science. Results showed (a) that judgments about whether a trait was innate were not affected by whether or not the trait was learned, but (b) such judgments were impacted by moral considerations. Study 5 looked at the judgments of both non-scientists and scientists, in conditions that encouraged either thinking about individual cases or thinking about certain general principles. In the case-based condition, both non-scientists and scientists showed an impact of moral considerations but little impact of learning. In the principled condition, both non-scientists and scientists showed an impact of learning but little impact of moral considerations. These results suggest that both non-scientists and scientists are drawn to a conception of innateness that differs from the one at work in contemporary scientific research but that they are also both capable of 'filtering out' their initial intuitions and using a more scientific approach.

The entrepreneur from a cognitive approach / El emprendedor desde una orientación cognitiva

The cognitive approach to entrepreneurship is a response to the limitations of the trait approach. Its aim is to explain entrepreneurial behavior through cognitions. The main body of research has studied cognitive elements such as scripts, self-efficacy, cognitive styles and heuristics. Understanding entrepreneurial cognition represents a potential and productive fi eld of research that, to date, has received little attention. In this article, we review and highlight the most important contributions of Cognitive Psychology to the fi eld of entrepreneurship; we point out some of the limitations and suggest new avenues of enquiry (AU)

El enfoque cognitivo del estudio del emprendedor surge como respuesta a las limitaciones de la orientación de los rasgos. Su objetivo es explicar la conducta emprendedora a través de las cogniciones. Entender el pensamiento emprendedor representa un campo de estudio fértil aún no muy explotado. Las principales investigaciones destacan el papel de los scripts, la autoeficacia, los estilos de pensamiento y los heurísticos en la acción de crear una empresa. En este artículo se revisan y se señalan las contribuciones más relevantes de la Psicología cognitiva al campo del emprendimiento, se señalan algunas de las limitaciones y se apuntan nuevas líneas de investigación (AU)

Metodología especial, métodos cualitativos y conceptos / Special methodology, qualitative methods and abstract concepts

Este artículo trata, en general, sobre el papel de los métodos cualitativos en el contexto de la Psicología científica. Comienza con la distinción entre Metodología general y especial para señalar a continuación los principales usos de los métodos cualitativos y justificar el foco del artículo en el estudio del significado y, más concretamente, de los conceptos abstractos en el contexto de las teorías de la cognición corpórea. Se pone de manifiesto que en el estudio de la cognición corpórea convergen los tres usos principales de los métodos cualitativos: (1) la clasificación, ya que se centra en los conceptos; (2) el descubrimiento, porque las teorías están aún por articular y se requiere en estos momentos un esfuerzo inductivo; y (3) el estudio del significado. Se recomienda no desaprovechar la oportunidad de construir técnicas especiales que brinda esta transformación de la Psicología cognitiva, uno de cuyos objetos privilegiados de estudio pasa a ser la emoción (con sus variedades)(AU)

Generally speaking, this paper comments on the role of qualitative methods in scientific psychology. To begin with, general and special Methodology are defined; then, the main uses of qualitative methods are described and the focus of the paper on the study of meaning and of abstract concepts in the context of embodied cognition is justified. It is emphasized that three uses of qualitative methods converge in the study of embodied cognition: (1) classification, given that it is centered on concepts, (2) discovery, because theories are not yet well articulated and inductive effort is required, and (3) the study of meaning. The final recommendation is to profit from the opportunity of constructing special techniques that the transformation of cognitive psychology is favoring; in this context, varieties of emotion become a privileged object of study(AU)

Initial conditions in the averaging cognitive model

The initial state parameters s0 and w0 are intricate issues of the averaging cognitive models in Information Integration Theory. Usually they are defined as a measure of prior information (Anderson, 1981; 1982) but there are no general rules to deal with them. In fact, there is no agreement as to their treatment except in specific situations such as linear models where they can be merged with the arbitrary zero inter-response scale C0. We present some considerations on their meaning and usefulness in the Functional Measurement approach, starting from different points of view. Furthermore, we suggest a method to deal with their complexity both within each single trial of a factorial design, and between the overall trials of an experiment(AU)

Women's neuroethics? Why sex matters for neuroethics.

The Neuroethics Affinity Group of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) met for the third time in October 2007 to review progress in the field of neuroethics and consider high-impact priorities for the future. Closely aligned with ASBH's own goals of recruiting junior scholars to bioethics and mentoring them to successful careers, the Neuroethics Affinity Group placed a call for new ideas to be presented at the Group meeting, specifically by junior attendees. One group responded with the idea to probe a new direction for neuroethics focused on the neuroscience of gender differences. In the spirit of full disclosure, two of the authors are a student (Chalfin) and fellow (Murphy) of the program I formerly directed at Stanford University. The third (Karkazis) is junior faculty there. The intellectual ownership of the ideas in the report below, however, are entirely theirs. Like lit torches in a juggling act, there are many directions this project can go. The report is a snapshot of these authors' first iteration of the concept of women's neuroethics. Many thanks are extended to participants of the ASBH Neuroethics Affinity Group meeting whose enthusiasm and feedback was immensely helpful in shaping the concept and moving it ahead.

Neuroimaging techniques for memory detection: scientific, ethical, and legal issues.

There is considerable interest in the use of neuroimaging techniques for forensic purposes. Memory detection techniques, including the well-publicized Brain Fingerprinting technique (Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, Inc., Seattle WA), exploit the fact that the brain responds differently to sensory stimuli to which it has been exposed before. When a stimulus is specifically associated with a crime, the resulting brain activity should differentiate between someone who was present at the crime and someone who was not. This article reviews the scientific literature on three such techniques: priming, old/new, and P300 effects. The forensic potential of these techniques is evaluated based on four criteria: specificity, automaticity, encoding flexibility, and longevity. This article concludes that none of the techniques are devoid of forensic potential, although much research is yet to be done. Ethical issues, including rights to privacy and against self-incrimination, are discussed. A discussion of legal issues concludes that current memory detection techniques do not yet meet United States standards of legal admissibility.