All my short stories have been written in an intuitive way according to which no outline of characters, intrigue or plot was made in advance. A consequence of this process is that not even myself as the author is aware of the meaning of the texts and therefore I too have to interpret the stories. Because of the character of the text, I use an analysis of archetypes according to C. G. Jung’s analytic psychology. In addition to this I also use concepts from hermeneutical and existential phenomenology, represented here by Viktor Frankl, Emmanuel Lévinas, Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur. The Jungian analysis shows that the content in the short story Sjön (The lake) in a high degree is structured in a way that correlates very well with this method. When it comes to the phenomenological thinkers, several of their concepts are applicable in my short story. In the philosophy of Frankl and Heidegger, the concept of conscience is a warning to the individual to take care of his life, which is a possible interpretation of the anxiety of my main character.  When it comes to his seeking for the significance of an important earlier event in his life the concept of memory in the discourse of Ricoeur also bring some light to the understanding. Finally, the concept of the Other in Lévinas´ philosophy can explain his longing for a reestablishing of a meaning in his life.

This essay set out to propose a problematic interpretation of the socio-cultural perspective on learning. Its purpose is to show how the socio-cultural perspective on learning defines the concept of knowledge in an incomplete way. The aim becomes then that of giving a more comprehensive description of this concept, and, to this end, to construct a new, broader pedagogic discourse. The investigation starts with a deconstructive analysis of Roger Säljö’s socio-cultural text in order to point out the incompleteness of the concept of knowledge. The constructive part of the analysis proceeds using Heidegger’s and Sartre’s philosophical theories which take a general approach on human learning and on human knowledge as dependent on intuition. A dichotomy of two new concepts related to knowledge is thus defined: how-knowledge and why-knowledge. This reconceptualisation of the concept of knowledge allows a reinterpretation of any act of knowledge in a structural way. Hence any act of knowledge includes a moment (a) which defines the initial contextual (conceptual or practical) situation; a moment (b) which represents an algorithm, a procedure, or a theory; and a moment (c) which represents the result of the act, and is the direct application of knowledge as a finalized entity. Knowledge inbuilt in (a) and (c) is characterized as how-knowledge, while that in (b) is characterized as why-knowledge. In a learning situation a focus on how-knowledge implies finality and objectification of students. Conversely, why-knowledge implies students becoming subjects of their own learning.

This thesis evaluates several aspects of the cognitive modeling tools, using a questionnaire as the survey method. We try to assess the the suitability for cognitive modeling task of the cognitive modeling tools, from the perspective of international community of cognitive modeling tool users. Part of this assessment is done with respect to general usability of software and the rest is specialized for the cognitive modeling issues. Frequency and correlation analyses reveal that there is a significant relationship between suitability as a software product and suitability as a cognitive modeling tool. Specifically, there are correlations between the features of the tool involving flexibility, presentation of input and output and the process of design, implementation and evaluation of a cognitive modeling tool, while these processes are negatively related to adversely effecting features of the tool, such as having to do extra tasks that are not related to the actual task. Our study confirms that a cognitive modeling tool can also be evaluated from the perspective of a general purpose software product, and also gives clues about directions for improvement to tool developers.

ABSTRACT RECOGNITION OF EMOTIONAL FACIAL EXPRESSION IN ALCOHOL DEPENDENT INPATIENTS Dursun, Pinar M.S., Department of Psychology Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Faruk Gen&ccedil / &ouml / z June 2007, 130 pages The ability to recognize emotional facial expressions (EFE) is very critical for social interaction and daily functioning. Recent studies have shown that alcohol dependent individuals have deficits in the recognition of these expressions. Thereby, the objective of this study was to explore the presence of impairment in the decoding of universally recognized facial expressions -happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise, and neutral expressions- and to measure their manual reaction times (RT) toward these expressions in alcohol dependent inpatients. Demographic Information Form, CAGE Alcoholism Inventory, State- Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), The Symptom Checklist, and lastly a constructed computer program (Emotion Recognition Test) were administered to 50 detoxified alcohol dependent inpatients and 50 matched-control group participants. It was hypothesized that alcohol dependents would show more deficits in the accuracy of reading EFE and would react more rapidly toward negative EFE -fear, anger, disgust, sadness than control group. Series of ANOVA, ANCOVA, MANOVA and MANCOVA analyses revealed that alcohol dependent individuals were more likely to have depression and anxiety disorders than non-dependents. They recognized less but responded faster toward disgusted expressions than non-dependent individuals. On the other hand, two groups did not differ significantly in the total accuracy responses. In addition, the levels of depression and anxiety did not affect the recognition accuracy or reaction times. Stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that obsessive-compulsive subscale of SCL, BDI, STAI-S Form, and the recognition of fearful as well as disgusted expressions were associated with alcoholism. Results were discussed in relation to the previous findings in the literature. The inaccurate identification of disgusted faces might be associated with organic deficits resulted from alcohol consumption or cultural factors that play very important role in displaying expressions.

This study analyses the methodology of computational cognitive modeling as one of the ways of conducting research in cognitive science. The aim of the study is to provide an understanding of the place of computational cognitive models in understanding human cognition. Considering the vast number of computational cognitive models which have been just given to account for some cognitive phenomenon by solely simulating some experimental study and fitting to empirical data, a practice-oriented approach is adopted in this study to understand the work of the modeler, and accordingly to discover the potential of computational cognitive models, apart from their being simulation tools. In pursuit of this aim, a framework with a practice-oriented approach from the philosophy of science literature, which is Morgan &amp / Morrison (1999)&rsquo / s account, is employed on a case study. The framework emphasizes four key elements to understand the place of models in science, which are the construction of models, the function of models, the representation they provide, and the ways we learn from models. The case study Q-Soar (Simon, Newell &amp / Klahr, 1991), is a model built with Soar cognitive architecture (Laird, Newell &amp / Rosenbloom, 1987) which is representative of a class of computational cognitive models. Discussions are included for how to make generalizations for computational cognitive models out of this class, i.e. for models that are built with other modeling paradigms.

There has been a recent flurry of activity in consciousness research. Although an operational definition of consciousness has not yet been developed, philosophy has come to identify a set of features and aspects that are thought to be associated with the various elements of consciousness. On the other hand, there have been several recent attempts to develop computational models of consciousness that are claimed to capture or illustrate one or more aspects of consciousness. As a plausible substitute to evaluating how well the current computational models model consciousness, this study examines how the current computational models fare in modeling those aspects and features of consciousness identified by philosophy. Following a detailed and critical review of the literature of philosophy of consciousness, this study constructs a composite and eclectic list of features and aspects that would be expected in any successful model of consciousness. The study then evaluates, from the viewpoint of that list, some of the current self-claimed computational models of consciousness, specifically CLARION, IDA, ACT-R and model proposed in the Cleeremans&#039 / review and study. The computational models studied are evaluated with respect to each identified aspect and feature of consciousness.

Memetics is a Darwinian approach to evolution of culture proposed in late 1970s. This thesis proposes an approach to Memetics, which is an effort to overcome some of the problems involved. It is argued in this thesis that units of cultural evolution are functional abstraction of physical reality and are realized within the boundaries of our cognitive processes. The boundaries of human cognitive processes are defined by Clark and Chalmers (1998) in their extended cognition hypothesis according to which, human cognition is understood as a part of the cultural environment. Therefore human cognition and cultural environment can best be understood by studying them together. As for identifying these units, an extended functionalist approach has been proposed and an empirical cultural transmission study has been conducted and explored in the thesis.

Different theories of cognitive science propose different system descriptions in their models for the explanation of cognitive phenomena. According to one view, they are incompatible and competing theories. The view is defended by theorists and philosophers from different perspectives and they all claim that the proper conception of cognition is the conception provided by the theory which they advocate. The other view, on the other hand, insists on the compatibility of those theories. According to this view which is also defended here, these different theories are not only compatible, but also they are complementary. The cooperation of these theories and integration of the conceptions provided by these theories are needed to have a full account of cognition.

Jag har skrivit en essä om det politiska "hantverket". Om att utveckla en yrkesroll i en praxis. Jag använder mig av egna exempel och speglar dem mot det forskningsområdet hittills har producerat av vetande, filtrerar det genom konst, litteratur och filosofi i försöket att synliggöra ett oformulerbart kunnande. Essäformen är mitt sökande efter detta kunnande. Min huvudfråga är: hur fångar vi in den tysta kunskapen för att utveckla vårt eget yrkeskunnande och samtidigt vara en del i en tradering av kunskap? . Jag beskriver min bakgrund in i politiken och mina drivkrafter. Undersöker viktiga delar av en politikers kunnande: att förhandla, att debattera, att tala, att föra samtal och kommunicera. Alla delar som kräver ett praktiskt kunnande och som byggs upp genom reflekterad erfarenhet. Mina exempel kommer från min tid som kommunpolitiker, riksdagsledamot och statsråd och rör alltifrån klientsamtal till pensionsförhandling. Genom att söka analogier med filosofi och skönlitteratur får exemplen en gestaltning som kan ge nya perspektiv och ett fördjupat kunnande. Jag berättar om min syn på kunskap med exempel från Reggio Emilia, Italien och från Afrika. I det skapande arbetet stimulerar man barns intellektuella och tankemässiga utveckling. Kunskap kan inte överföras utan erövras genom egen praktik i den verklighet som omger en. Det ultimata kunnandet är att rätt hantera en helt oförutsedd situation. Mitt exempel är 11 september 2001 och min egen och president Bush reaktion. I ett sådant läge prövas verkligen omdömet, den tysta kunskapens högsta nivå. Jag avslutar uppsatsen med att diskutera kring politikens utmaningar. Jag skriver om marknadskrafternas inflytande bland annat i form av ekonomism och konsumism. Hur taylorismen har kommit tillbaka med formaliseringens idétradition. Yrkeskultur och tyst kunskap urholkas i jakten på ökad effektivitet. Ett särskilt utsatt område är vårdsektorn. Teknifieringen präglar vår tid och synen på oss. Den moderna mediatekniken riskerar att bli en skärm mot världen. Vi måste stärka det demokratiska inflytandet över utvecklingen.

The purpose of this study was to explore leadership effectiveness from the perspectives of the Full Range Leadership Model and Cognitive Style Theory within the framework of understanding both followers and leaders as individual's attitudes to leadership effectiveness. Leadership effectiveness was measured using newly developed self-report instrument, the Leadership Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) with three scales of effectiveness as suggested by Yukl (2002), which were: 1) aims, 2) followers' attitude towards the leader and, 3) group processes. The Full Range leadership approaches were measured using Bass & Avolio's (1997) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 5X-Short, whilst cognitive style was gathered by using Allinson & Hayes's (1996) Cognitive Style Index (CSI). A two stage (questionnaire survey followed by semi structured interviews) mixed method study was undertaken. Questionnaire data was gathered from 331 followers and 172 leaders in Malaysian Government-Linked Companies, and 10 leaders involved in the interviews. Findings from the survey suggest that a transformational approach was correlated significantly and positively with effectiveness. Intuitive Cognitive Style also correlated significantly with leadership effectiveness. Findings from the semistructured interviews identified a few more characteristics of an effective leadership such as balance and appreciative, whilst new dimensions of cognitive style identified such as rational and holistic.