sELF

[John M <***>]

Judith and others  interested:
I just got this news on another list:
------------------------------
Is self special? A critical review of evidence from
experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

Gillihan SJ, Farah MJ.

Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of
Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
PA 19104, USA. ***

Varied research findings have been taken to support
the claim that humans' representation of the self is
"special," that is, that it emerges from systems that
are physically and functionally distinct from those
used for more general purpose cognitive processing.
The authors evaluate this claim by reviewing the
relevant literatures and addressing the criteria for
considering a system special, the various
operationalizations of self, and how the studies'
findings relate to the conclusions drawn. The authors
conclude that many of the claims for the special
status of self-related processing are premature given
the evidence and that the various self-related
research programs do not seem to be illuminating a
unitary, common system, despite individuals'
subjective experience of a unified self. Copyright (c)
2005 APA, all rights reserved.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15631554

-- 
enjoy

John