<p>Humans and animals have remarkable capabilities in keeping time and using time as a guide to orient their learning and decision making. Psychophysical models of timing and time perception have been proposed for decades and have received behavioral, anatomical and pharmacological data support. However, despite numerous studies that aimed at delineating the neural underpinnings of interval timing, a complete picture of the neurobiological network of timing in the seconds-to-minutes range remains elusive. Based on classical interval timing protocols and proposing a Timing, Immersive Memory and Emotional Regulation (TIMER) test battery, the author investigates the contributions of the dorsal and ventral hippocampus as well as the dorsolateral and the dorsomedial striatum to interval timing by comparing timing performances in mice after they received cytotoxic lesions in the corresponding brain regions. On the other hand, a timing-based theoretical framework for the emergence of conscious experience that is closely related to the function of the claustrum is proposed so as to serve both biological guidance and the research and evolution of “strong” artificial intelligence. Finally, a new “Double Saturation Model of Interval Timing” that integrates the direct- and indirect- pathways of striatum is proposed to explain the set of empirical findings.</p> / Dissertation

This is an enterpretivist cultural study on how the lively idea of assessment is enacted by the art teachers, students and administrators in Denton school art education, North Texas, the United States. This ethnographic research aims to extend understanding on assessment as vivid cultural and social dynamics that both reflects and enlivens varied and interconnected values promoted and shared among the people involved. Through a perspective of the culture of assessment, this study is expected to facilitate insights on art education as lived, purposeful experience bearing suggestions on a certain social environment and historical implications. Such insights as sought further illuminate specific understandings on art education in different cultural societies, such as China. From a Chinese native viewpoint, the researcher broadens her horizons on connection and independence important for informative performance of art education in the discourses of modern nation and schooling, as well as globalization. It is hoped that this study will interest other art educators, teachers, and researchers to make multiple and continuous efforts in further exploring the culture of assessment with cultural and historical consciousness and knowledge.

Until recently, research into dreaming followed the reductionist paradigm within a Freudian framework. This line of enquiry has failed to date to provide a meaningful relationship between neuropsychology and dreaming. As a result, theory development has halted, original therapeutic approaches outside the analytic tradition are scarce, and practitioners are disempowered when confronted with dream material. However, in recent years the concept of consciousness is back on the scientific agenda and the study of the subjective experience of dreaming is once again possible. Eight coinquirers employed Heron’s (1996) co-operative inquiry. We collaboratively explored our experience of dreaming holding seven meetings over six months. Paradoxically, we found that our experiences and understandings were similar and conflicting, mirroring the current debates in dream research. Our findings indicate strong links with waking consciousness, and that dreams are a source of entertainment, insight, problem solving and angst. Our study also highlighted that directing our awareness altered the nature of our dreams and our perceptions. Implications for Counselling Psychology theory, practice and research are discussed. It is argued that intentionality is a key concept and should be incorporated in Counselling Psychology research, theory and practice.

This theoretical study is looking into consciousness, unconsciousness and concepts that are associated with it. It also goes back to the historical approach to these two terms, yet it points out the terminological obstacles that are inseparably connected with them. Both constructs are being discussed from an integrated perspective therefore neither mapping of the neurobiology of consciousness nor the summary of the major approaches to the philosophical mind-body problem, is left out of consideration. The unconsciousness research methods are divided according to the predominant focus into experimental and clinical. The study also covers an analysis as well as a review of significant theoretical approaches to consciousness and unconsciousness. These theoretical concepts were classified based on distinction of relevant scientific disciplines that are used to describe the problems in question. Neurobiological, psychological and philosophical theories were later categorized according to this method. The final conclusion brings a complex overview of these topics previously dealt with in the study. It attempts to integrate the findings into a comprehensive framework and to deal with some general issues that indicate possibilities and limits of the theoretical and practical research into both phenomena....

[pt] O conceito de apercepção reflete o traço fundamental da teoria leibniziana da percepção, que desassocia o ato de perceber da consciência. Entretanto, a série de percepções das mônadas é, segundo o filósofo, regida pelo princípio do contínuo, o que gera uma dificuldade quando se tenta entender a apercepção como uma percepção de segunda ordem e descontínua em relação às percepções. Por este motivo, sustentaremos que a melhor interpretação do conceito leibniziano de apercepção é aquela segundo a qual a consciência é fruto do aumento no grau de distinção das percepções de primeira ordem, sendo desnecessário o recurso a percepções de segunda ordem. / [en] The concept of apperception reflects the fundamental feature of Leibniz’s theory of perception, a theory which dissociates the act of perceiving from consciousness. However, the monads` series of perceptions is, according to the philosopher, governed by the principle of continuity, and this entails some difficulties when one tries to understand apperception as a perception of second-order and discontinuous in relation to the other perceptions. For that reason, we will defend that the best interpretation of Leibniz’s concept of apperception is that consciousness results from an increase in the degree of distinction of first-order perceptions, which renders unnecessary the resort to second-level perceptions.

The Black Consciousness philosophy with its focus on black solidarity, the exclusion of whites from the black struggle for liberation, being consciously black and black self-determination, amongst some of the principles espoused by the Black Consciousness philosophy may prima-facie seem to be advocating a parochial politics of race or even a racially exclusionist politics obsessed with cultural authenticity and racial peculiarity. Black Consciousness from such an optic may seem to be more in line with other race centred systems such as apartheid based on white superiority as opposed to a politics that rejects a race centred approach to political life. Certain readings of Black Consciousness reflect the philosophy as espousing a more regressive as opposed to a progressive liberatory politics. Furthermore, Black Consciousness with its focus on race its critics will argue is not in line with a politics of non-racialism which seeks a total rejection of race. However, such an understanding of non-racialism is a very limited and unsophisticated one as it entails a rejection of race without first engaging with the concrete reality of race, while also assuming that a rejection of race entails integration. Indeed, it may be a great goal to attain a society in which race does not matter and in which it is not a determining factor in the life of any individual. Yet, to not see race when race has had and continues to have a profound impact on South African society, especially the poor black majority, may serve to be more regressive than progressive. In a society where inequality manifests along racial lines a hastily sought integration may not serve to attain the desired outcome of a genuine non-racial society. Equality thus becomes a central perquisite to make possible the attainment of a non-racial society unhindered by the limitations of white superiority and black inferiority. With the persistence of inequality accompanied by white domination and acquiescing blacks a non-racial society will serve to be an illusion. Biko, through his articulation of the Black Consciousness philosophy sought the attainment of a radical egalitarianism; this from the Black Consciousness optic being the condition upon which a non-racial politics and society could be forged. Black Consciousness has the ability to create a truly non-racial subject, its sophisticated conception of race which conceives of race as being consciously contrived can serve to illustrate the implicit non-racial outlook of the Black Consciousness philosophy. Through the project of Black Consciousness the end goal could indeed be perceived as being a radical egalitarian non-racial society. The overall tenor is that Black Consciousness complements non-racialism more than it contradicts it.

Ph. D., Faculty of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 1993

Orientador: Suely Amaral Mello / Resumo: Observando os pressupostos gerais do método materialista dialético, este trabalho pesquisou o desenvolvimento da consciência de crianças pré-escolares em relação com as atividades pedagógicas realizadas numa instituição de ensino brasileira. Analisando a dialética da humanização e alienação no trabalho educacional, adotou a teoria histórico-cultural e a teoria do cotidiano para a pesquisa e discussão de uma psicologia concreta. A pesquisa de campo enfocou uma classe de educação infantil, realizando os seguintes procedimentos para coleta de dados: entrevista, observação e experimentos com três crianças e a professora, enquanto a análise procurou esclarecer a relação sentido-significação no interior das práticas discursivas. Os resultados indicam a interação entre significações concretas e abstratas concernentes a um ensino espontâneo de costumes, cuja referência foi uma concepção cotidiana de infância. O reforçamento, a imitação e o desdobramento de funções no contexto de uma hierarquia grupal determinaram um incessante processo de formação da individualidade em-si; as principais funções psíquicas superiores desenvolvidas foram a memória e a atenção. Observou-se que as crianças, por amor à educadora, aprenderam com ela a desejar os valores hegemônicos, os quais também mediavam as relações com seus pares. Tais processos embasaram seu desenvolvimento cognitivo, moral e emocional, caracterizado pela submissão ensinada pelo adultos. Como contribuição final, relacionou-se a pesquisa de campo ao todo da sociedade brasileira e se discutiram implicações gerais da pesquisa para o trabalho de psicólogos e professores. / Abstract: Observing the general precepts of materialistic-dialectic method, this work researched the consciousness' development of pre-schoolers in pedagogical activities, which were performed in a Brazilian's institution for early education. Analysing the dialectics of humanisation and alienation ongoing the educational work, adopted the historical-cultural theory and the daily theory like approaches to discuss a concrete psychology. The field research focused a classroom of pre-scholar education, executing the proceedings: interview, observation and experiments. The analysis methods intended to highlight the production of meaning through discursive practices. Results indicate the interaction between concrete and abstract meanings concerning the spontaneous teaching, inside a daily vision of childhood. Memory and attention have became the most important superior functions developed by pedagogical activities. Reinforcement, imitation and unfolding of human relations in a group's hierarchy were the principal processes which mediated the individual's formation. Concerning the motivational results, children learned from their teacher to wish the hegemonic values, which also mediated the relations with their little fellows. Such processes have underlied their moral, cognitive and emotional development, featured for submission taught by adults. Like final contribution, the field analysis was related to the Brazilian's education and were discussed general implications of this research for educational and psychological work. / Mestre

A meta deste trabalho em um primeiro momento é a de analisar e compreender o pensamento de Reinhold encadeado na primeira edição das Cartas sobre a filosofia kantiana e no período da Filosofia elementar, tendo como foco o fato da consciência como primeiro princípio de toda a filosofia e o propósito de unificação sistemática, em que o autor almeja unir o que em Kant estava separado, isto é, o autor propõe que tanto a filosofia teórica quanto a prática saiam do mesmo princípio e, para isso, inverte a dedução transcendental de Kant ao partir do Incondicionado e ao estabelecer graus de espontaneidade na estrutura transcendental da representação. É nesse movimento e nas questões problemáticas que ele engendra que focalizamos nossos esforços e, em um segundo momento, concentramo-nos na filosofia prática, onde queremos mostrar a importância do legado deixado por Reinhold e o quanto ele se afasta da filosofia kantiana ao introduzir e desenvolver a teoria dos impulsos no fundamento da faculdade de desejar. Tais impulsos, ao instituírem a ligação entre as faculdades e a força representante, são responsáveis pela decisão entre o mero desejo e a ação concreta, entre a possibilidade e a efetividade da representação. / The goal of this work is to analyze and understand the thought of Reinhold chained in the first edition of the Letters on the Kantian philosophy and in the period of Elementary philosophy, focusing on the fact of consciousness as the first principle of the whole philosophy and the purpose of systematic unification, in which the author aspires to unify what was separated in Kant, that is, the author proposes that both theoretical and practical philosophy come out the same principle and, for this, he reverses Kant\'s transcendental deduction starting from Unconditional and establishing degrees of spontaneity in the transcendental structure of representation. It is in this movement and in the problematic questions it engenders that we focalize our efforts, and secondly we centralize ourselves on practical philosophy, where we want to demonstrate the importance of the legacy left by Reinhold and how it become distanced of Kantian philosophy when introduces and develops the theory of drives in the ground of the faculty of desire that, making the connection between the faculties and the representational force, are responsible for the decision between the mere desire and concrete action, between the possibility and effectiveness of representation.

Thesis advisor: Dorothy A. Jones / The purpose of this qualitative research study was to answer the following questions: What is the life pattern manifested by individuals caring for spouses who have had coronary artery bypass surgery? What are the thematic expressions of life patterns among individuals caring for spouses who have had coronary artery bypass surgery? The theoretical framework guiding this study was Margaret Newman’s Health as Expanding Consciousness. The research method created by Newman facilitated the understanding of the individual participant’s experience, pattern identification, similarities in pattern across participants and the potential for expansion of consciousness. The study sample included ten women and two men whose spouses were recovering at home following cardiac surgery. These twelve spousal caregivers shared their life stories and their spousal caregiving experience in the first two weeks at home following their spouses discharge from the hospital. There were various levels of potential for expansion of consciousness for these spousal caregivers. Looking across participants six themes emerged from the data. First, disruption in the spousal caregivers’ roles and responsibilities impacts the relationship between the spousal caregivers and their spouses and shifts life patterns. Second, spousal caregivers face coping challenges with changes in lifestyle and response to illness. Third, Spousal caregivers experience vigilance in an effort to ease the uncertainty of the recovery process. Fourth, knowledge helps spousal caregivers gain a sense control in the face of uncertainty. Fifth, mutuality within the partnership of nurse and the spousal caregiver relationship impacts the potential for transformation. Sixth, Spousal caregivers’ awareness of their life pattern gives meaning and offers the caregivers a new perception on life they have left to live. Findings from this study have important implications for nursing theory, practice, research, education and health care policy. The study adds empirical support to Newman’s Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness and provides a new way to examine spousal caregiving and the nurse-client relationship. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.