abstract: A cornerstone of children’s socio-cognitive development is understanding that others can have knowledge, thoughts, and perceptions that differ from one’s own. Preschool-aged children often have difficulty with this kind of social understanding, i.e., they lack an explicit theory of mind. The goal of this dissertation was to examine the role mental state language as a developmental mechanism of children’s early understanding of their own mental states (i.e., their introspective ability). Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) parents’ ability to recognize and appropriately label their children’s mental states and (2) children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between their mental states shapes the development of children’s introspective ability. An initial prediction of the first hypothesis is that parents should recognized differences in the development of children’s self- and other-understanding in order to better help their children’s introspective development. In support of this prediction, parents (N = 400, Mage = 58 months, Range = 28-93 months) reported that children’s understanding of their own knowledge was greater than children’s understanding of others’ knowledge. A prediction of the second hypothesis is that children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between and appropriately label their own mental states should determine their ability to make fined grained judgments of mental states like certainty. In support of this prediction, children’s (N = 197, Mage = 56 months, Range = 36-82 months) ability to distinguish between their own knowledge and ignorance states was associated children’s ability to engage in uncertainty monitoring. Together, these findings provide support for the association between children’s linguistic environment and ability and their introspective development. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2018

Climate change and rapidly changing labour markets call for societies to increase their level of resilience. Parallelly, mental illness is tormenting Swedes in increasing numbers. How can society become more resilient unless its inhabitants are? Research have shown that individuals need time for introspection as well as to be part of a group, to obtain balance. People in groups tend to spontaneously form rituals with the function of explaining society, forming rules and bonds and give people a sense of meaning. Social infrastructure is a mean to make people come together, form rituals and develop their social capital - something that increase resilience both on an individual and social level. Architecture at its best can be said to point at, or promote, a desired lifestyle. Because of that, every major shift in society tends to bring about new forms of living. This project is a kind of urban, vertical monastery for non-believers as a way to explore future living. The idea is to find a new example of living and working that can help set a new norm, better adapted to the needs of the 21st century. A housing solution that work as social infrastructure, where individualism and collectiveness can meet. An important part of the project is exploring how small individual space can be when well dimensioned common space and function is offered at the same time. Small individual space help, or force, people to become minimalists due to lack of storage capacity. But minimalism is not just owning few things, it can also be low-key activism. By using yourself as an example you become a sort of activist resisting the consumption society and at the same time advocating for environmental sustainability. Minimalism can also be seen as a religion, a way to ritualize your daily life, to make sense of an increasingly scary world in lack of other belief systems to fall back on.

This thesis explores the light qualities that generally imbue a contemplative and calming atmosphere andin what extent these qualities can be adjusted and applied in an existing indoor space. Starting point of thethesis are the vigorous pace of everyday life and the necessity of temporary breaks for internal calmnessand contemplation. In the present thesis contemplativeness is devoid of any religious connotations andembraces a more general state of calmness and introspection.In terms of creating a (contemplative) spatial atmosphere the transitional nature of daylight subtly indicatingthe passage of time and seasons is indeed a pivotal factor. In search of the main contemplative factorsa questionnaire was handed. Firstly, participants were asked about the spatial qualities of the spaces theychoose to contemplate, and then they had to choose between a predefined selection of spaces. A secondquestionnaire was created to further explore these contemplative (day)light qualities. The results notednature as an important element of contemplation along with the concepts of tranquility, orientation, andprivacy among others, a toolbox which guided the project phase within an existing meditation space inKTH.Finally, this thesis suggests that the outcome of the interplay between (day)light and nature offers an importantinsight in both the fields of light and architectural design and discusses how light qualities observedin nature can be adjusted to create the same contemplative feelings in indoor spaces.

This paper argues that Gertler’s (2012) account of acquaintance is inadequate because it cannot perform the explanatory role that it’s supposed to perform. My argument builds from two central claims. First, I argue that our judgments about phenomenal absences have the special features that acquaintance is supposed to explain. Second, I argue that Gertler’s take on acquaintance does not allow us to be acquainted with phenomenal absences. This suggests a general methodological lesson: when developing an account of the epistemology of acquaintance, we should make sure that we are capturing all of the relevant sorts of cases. / Master of Arts

Au cours de la dernière décennie, un grand effort a été réalisé en sciences cognitives afin de comprendre comment les individus accèdent à leurs propres produits cognitifs. Cette thèse étudie les contenus mentaux qui sont accessibles par l´introspection. Le premier projet étudie la possibilité d´accéder de manière introspective à des processus cognitifs complexes, dans le contexte d´une tâche de recherche visuelle. Le second projet approfondit les résultats du premier projet. Dans cette étude, nous avons mis en place un stimulus préconscient pour altérer le processus de recherche visuelle. Tout de suite après, nous avons réuni des rapports introspectifs dans l´objectif d´évaluer le degré de sensibilité des participants afin de détecter cette altération. Les résultats des deux projets convergent vers trois idées principales : 1) l´introspection est capable d´accéder à des processus cognitifs ; 2) l´introspection est perméable à différentes sources d´information sous-jacentes à la tâche expérimentale ; 3) Telles sources d’information sont possible d’être contrôlées expérimentalement. Le troisième projet étend les résultats obtenus dans le projet 1 et 2 à un autre domaine cognitif : la mémoire de travail. L´étude montre que l´introspection peut accéder avec succès à la nature du processus cognitif déployé. Le quatrième projet étudie un facteur individuel qui peut altérer la précision d´un rapport introspectif : la réactivité biologique au stress. Les résultats ont indiqué que les individus à haute réactivité au stress ont un pauvre accès introspectif. La présente thèse constitue une première approche à l´architecture fonctionnelle du rapport introspectif. / In the last decade, there has been a huge effort in cognitive science devoted to the understanding of how individuals access their own cognitive productions. This thesis investigates which mental contents are accessible by introspection. Four experimental projects were developed. The first project investigates the possibility to introspectively access and discriminate complex cognitive processes in the context of a visual search paradigm (serial searches vs. parallel searches). The second project refines the results of the first project. We used a pre-conscious visual cue to alter a visual search, and collected introspective data showing that participants were sensitive to this alteration. The results in both projects converge on three main ideas: 1) introspection is capable of accessing complex cognitive processes; 2) introspection is permeable to different sources of information underlying the experimental task; 3) the focus of introspection can be experimentally controlled during a simple cognitive task. The third project extends the results evidenced in projects 1 and 2 to another domain: working memory. The study shows that introspection can successfully access the type of cognitive process engaged during memory recovery (serial access to information vs. parallel access). Lastly, the fourth project investigates an individual factor that might alter the precision of introspective reports: biological reactivity to stress. Results indicated that individuals with high reactivity to stress have a poorer introspective access of their mental states. The present thesis presents a first systematic account of the functional architecture of introspective report.

The purpose of this Thesis is to show ways of the selfmanagement and to include them into daily life. Using several publications I suggest possibilities of personal progress and its benefit for our life. I research the awareness about the selfmanagement and its principles. I lead the respondents to deeper thinking about their life attitude and self-respect. It is focused on purpose of living, life goals and principles, time management, self-control, a creativity and alternative ways to personal progress. I would like to explain connections between personal and working life. Well-balanced and creative person, who is cultivating himself, has better potencial for satisfied working life. The process of writing Master's Thesis was enriching and I hope it was also an inspiration for the respondents. I find it very important to focuse not only on outside world, but first of all on inside world. I wish the selfmanagement would come closer to more people and help them to build a happy life.

Many have written about the theme of interconnection in George Eliots Middlemarch, where individual lives and fates are woven into the larger life of the community, but few have written about this theme in relation to The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardys fictional and historical depiction of Dorchester and the larger area of Wessex. Hardys novel about the life and death of a man of character, is a complex and psychological characterization, but it also is representative of a particular province during a time of rapid change in community structure, just as Middlemarch is. I would like to suggest that it is through the complex characterizations of the outsider and outcast from the community that Eliot and Hardy reinforce the theme of interconnection. My aim will be to highlight this point through an examination of Nicholas Bulstrode, the Middlemarch banker with a shady past, and Michael Henchard, the Casterbridge mayor with skeletons of his own, illustrating the integral role these two characters play in reinforcing the authors themes of interconnection and disconnection within their novels. Although Henchard is the main character of Casterbridge and Bulstrode a minor character in Middlemarch, both characters are integral to the notion of the outsider within the enclosed Victorian community. I will develop this idea by first looking at the role community plays in each characters concept of self. Then I will look at the degree to which these characters are a part of their communities and the point at which this connection begins to unravel. Finally, I will examine the role introspection plays in revealing to each man his lack of connection, not only to his community, but also to himself, thus illustrating the Victorian concept of interconnection and interdependence as a vital part of selfhood and perhaps of survival.

No description available.

Recent years have seen an uptick in master boot record (MBR) based rootkits that load before the Windows operating system and subvert the operating system’s own procedures. As such, MBR rootkits are difficult to counter with operating system-based antivirus software that runs at the same privilege-level as the rookits. Hypervisors operate at a higher privilege level than the guests they manage, creating a high-ground position in the host. This high-ground position can be exploited to perform security checks on the virtual machine guests where the checking software is isolated from guest-based viruses. The efficient introspection system described in this thesis targets existing virtualized systems to improve security with real-time, concurrent memory introspection capabilities. Efficient introspection decouples memory introspection from virtual machine guest execution, establishes coherent and consistent memory views between the host and running guest, while maintaining normal guest operation. Existing introspection systems have provided one or two of these properties but not all three at once. This thesis presents a new concurrent-computing approach – high-performance memory snapshotting – to accelerating hypervisor based introspection of virtual machine guest memory that combines all three elements to improve performance and security. Memory snapshots create a coherent and consistent memory view of the guest that can be shared with the independently running introspection application. Three memory snapshotting mechanisms are presented and evaluated for their impact on normal guest operation. Existing introspection systems and security protection techniques that were previously dismissed as too slow are now be enabled by efficient introspection. This thesis explains why existing introspection systems are inadequate, describes how existing system performance can be improved, evaluates an efficient introspection prototype on both applications and microbenchmarks, and discusses two potential security applications that are enabled by efficient introspection. These applications point to efficient introspection’s utility for supporting useful security applications.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-185).