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Abstract

There is now a flurry of research on drug-assisted psychotherapy—focused on MDMA and psilocybin (from magic mushrooms)—for serious mental conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The current model treats these drugs as “medicine” and thus conceptually tied to the treating of diseases/disorders. But psychedelic drugs have also been used for “enhancement” purposes, and not only for individual-level concerns but also in relational and community-oriented contexts. What are the ethics of using MDMA or psilocybin for relationship enhancement in “healthy” couples?

Bio

Brian is co-author of the book Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships (Stanford University Press, 2020; published in the UK by Manchester University Press as Love Is the Drug: The Chemical Future of Our Relationships). The book calls for a “relational turn” in research on the therapeutic effects of MDMA and psychedelic drugs including psilocybin, asking how drug-assisted psychotherapy could benefit couples. Brian is Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and a Research Fellow in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. His work is cross-disciplinary, following training in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, history and sociology of science and medicine, and ethics. Brian is co-recipient of the 2018 Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is also recipient of both the Robert G. Crowder Prize in Psychology and the Ledyard Cogswell Award for Citizenship from Yale University, where he was elected President of the Yale Philosophy Society as an undergraduate as well as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Philosophy Review. He then conducted graduate research in psychological methods as a Henry Fellow of New College at the University of Oxford. He also conducted graduate research in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, technology, and medicine as a Cambridge Trust Scholar and Rausing Award recipient at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. After spending a year in residence as the inaugural Presidential Scholar in Bioethics at The Hastings Center in Garrison, New York, Brian is now a Benjamin Franklin Resident Graduate Fellow at Yale University, where he is finishing his Ph.D. in philosophy and psychology, having been jointly admitted to both departments. His essays have been translated into Polish, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Hebrew.

Topic: Zangwill Zoom Meeting _Brian Earp Time: Jun 5, 2020 04:00 PM London 4-430pm social with Brian pre-Zangwill 430 to 6pm Talk + discussion.

• Speaker: Brian D. Earp, Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, arch Fellow in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford.
• Friday 05 June 2020, 16:30-18:00
• Venue: Zoom meeting.
• Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: Louise White.

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Although not found in classical neurological models of language, the role of the anterior temporal lobe in semantic representation has been increasingly recognised over the past 25 years. Here, I will summarise some of the accumulation of evidence, derived from multiple neuropsychological and neuroscience methods and share some of the contemporary data that continues to provide new insights about the potential dynamic computations of the anterior temporal lobe.

Bio

I obtained my PhD from York University and then worked at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Cambridge). I moved from there to the University of Bristol, Department of Experimental Psychology, as a Lecturer. I went to Manchester in 2001 as Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience within the School of Psychological Sciences, where I also became Associate Vice-President (Research) and Director of the Manchester Doctoral College. In 2018, I had the honour of being appointed as the Director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

I am an action editor for Neurobiology of Language, and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation. I am on the editorial boards for Cognitive Neuropsychology, Memory, International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, Psychologia, and Neurocase. I was the President of The British Neuropsychological Society (2010-12) and the Vice-Chair for the British Aphasiology Society (2000-2005). I was made a Fellow (hons) of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in 2003, Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2012, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Fellow of the British Academy in 2019. I am also Honorary Research Professor of the University of Málaga in 2014 and a Senior Investigator Emeritus for the NIHR . I was awarded the BPS President’s Award in 2015, the Barbara Newcombe (mid-career) Prize by the British Neuropsychological Society in 2016, the Mid-Career Award by the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience in 2016, and the 17th Mid-Career Award by the Experimental Psychology Society in 2018. I was chair of the EU Human Brain Project Stakeholder Board (the principal oversight committee) from 2016 to 2019.”

• Speaker: Professor Matt Lambon Ralph, Unit Director, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
• Friday 29 May 2020, 16:30-18:00
• Venue: Zoom meeting.
• Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: Louise White.

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Although not found in classical neurological models of language, the role of the anterior temporal lobe in semantic representation has been increasingly recognised over the past 25 years. Here, I will summarise some of the accumulation of evidence, derived from multiple neuropsychological and neuroscience methods and share some of the contemporary data that continues to provide new insights about the potential dynamic computations of the anterior temporal lobe.

Bio: I obtained my PhD from York University and then worked at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Cambridge). I moved from there to the University of Bristol, Department of Experimental Psychology, as a Lecturer. I came to Manchester in 2001 as Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience within the School of Psychological Sciences. I am also Associate Vice-President (Research) and Director of the Manchester Doctoral College at the University. I am an Action Editor for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation and on the editorial boards for Cognitive Neuropsychology, Memory, International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy, Psychologia, and Neurocase. I was the President of The British Neuropsychological society (2010-12) and the Vice-Chair for the British Aphasiology Society (2000-2005). I was made a Fellow (hons) of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists in 2003, Fellow of the British Psychological Society in 2012 and an Honorary Research Professor of the University of Málaga in 2014. I am also a Senior Investigator Emeritus for the NIHR . I was awarded the BPS President’s Award in 2015, the Barbara Newcombe (mid-career) Prize by the British Neuropsychological Society in 2016, the Mid-Career Award by the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience in 2016, and the 17th Mid-Career Award by the Experimental Psychology Society in 2018. I am currently MRC -CBU Director.

• Speaker: Professor Matt Lambon Ralph, Unit Director, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
• Friday 29 May 2020, 16:30-18:00
• Venue: Zoom meeting.
• Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: Louise White.

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The Simultaneous Type/ Serial Token (STST) model of temporal attention and working memory (Bowman & Wyble, 2007) was published over 10 years ago as a theory of the attentional blink and associated phenomena. In the intervening period, the scope of the theory has grown, becoming a theory of the episodic nature of attention and perception (Wyble et al, 2011). Recently, we have also been considering the implications of the STST model for theories of conscious perception. If one interprets the neural network model that implements the STST theory literally, it makes two particular predictions for conscious experience: 1) that we can pre-consciously search our sensory environments for salient stimuli (type-information); and 2) that we cannot pre-consciously search our sensory environment on the basis of episodic information (token-information). The latter of these fits well with theories of conscious perception based upon event individuation (Kanwisher, 2001). Using rapid serial visual presentation, I will report a series of EEG (Bowman et al, 2014) and behavioural (Aviles et al, 2020) experiments that provide evidence in support of these two predictions. These experiments focus on the fragility, even absence, of memory for fleetingly presented stimuli. We argue that these findings provide support for a theory we call the tokenised percept hypothesis.

Avilés, A., Bowman, H., & Wyble, B. (2020). On the limits of evidence accumulation of the preconscious percept. Cognition, 195, 104080.

Bowman, H., & Wyble, B. (2007). The simultaneous type, serial token model of temporal attention and working memory. Psychological review, 114(1), 38.

Bowman, H., Filetti, M., Alsufyani, A., Janssen, D., & Su, L. (2014). Countering countermeasures: detecting identity lies by detecting conscious breakthrough. PloS one, 9(3).

Kanwisher, N. (2001). Neural events and perceptual awareness. Cognition, 79(1-2), 89-113. Wyble, B., Potter, M. C., Bowman, H., & Nieuwenstein, M. (2011). Attentional episodes in visual perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140(3), 488.

We will have a Tea and coffee informal gathering from 1pm to 1.30pm and the talk will start at 130.pm followed by questions and discussion at 230pm.

• Speaker: Professor Howard Bowman, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham School of Computing, University of Kent at Canterbury Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (Visiting)
• Friday 22 May 2020, 13:30-14:30
• Venue: Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88316473204?pwd=NGV5RHdh Q3o3am5sRVpabVRVSFhPZz09 Meeting ID: 883 1647 3204 Password: Bowman.
• Series: Zangwill Club; organiser: Louise White.

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Infants and children in low- and middle-income countries are frequently exposed to a range of poverty-related risk factors, increasing their likelihood of poor neurodevelopmental outcomes. There is a need for culturally objective markers, which can be used to study infants from birth, thereby enabling early identification and ultimately intervention during a critical time of neurodevelopment. In this talk, findings on early memory development will be presented, obtained in infant cohorts in the UK and The Gambia, West Africa. These data were collected as part of the Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project, which longitudinally assesses infants in these two settings from birth to two years of age. Our findings indicate that on group level, both habituation and novelty responses are reduced in the Gambian cohort, however with substantial interindividual variance. Individual differences were further associated with infants’ neurobehavioural scores.

To access this Zoom talk please email Kate Shaw (ks723@cam.ac.uk) so that she can send you the meeting access ID and password.

• Speaker: Dr Laura Katus - Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge
• Tuesday 19 May 2020, 13:00-14:00
• Venue: Zoom online.
• Series: Centre for Family Research Seminar Series; organiser: Kate Shaw.

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