According to one theory, the brain is a sophisticated hypothesis tester: perception is Bayesian unconscious inference where the brain actively uses predictions to test, and then refine, models about what the causes of its sensory input might be. The brain’s task is simply continually to minimise prediction error. This theory, which is getting increasingly popular, holds great explanatory promis...

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Currently, disgust is regarded as the main adaptation for defence against pathogens and parasites in humans. Disgust’s motivational and behavioural features, including withdrawal, nausea, appetite suppression, and the urge to vomit, defend effectively against ingesting or touching sources of pathogens. However, ectoparasites do not attack their hosts via ingestion, but rather actively attach th...

INTRODUCTION This study evaluated the frequency of intestinal parasites, emphasizing the identification and differentiation of Entamoeba spp. METHODS Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), coproantigen tests and morphometric analysis were performed for Entamoeba spp. differentiation. RESULTS The overall frequency of intestinal parasites was 65%. Entamoeba histolytica was detected by the...

Introduction Recent approaches to delusions in philosophy and the cognitive sciences generally construe them as propositional attitudes that arise due to a combination of anomalous perceptual contents and cognitive disturbances. For example, Stone and Young (1997) claim that certain delusional beliefs are explanations of affectless and thus strange perceptual experiences, which are arrived at a...

1. A recent study comparing adult and exuvial odonate richness concluded that adult surveys overestimate the number of species reproducing successfully. The authors called this phenomenon the ‘‘dragonfly delusion’’ and recommended that only exuviae be used for biomonitoring and habitat quality assessment. However, they drew this conclusion from limited surveys and detectionnaı̈ve analysis and fa...

Influence of associative delusions (AD) onto development of physics and mathematics is investigated. The associative delusion (AD) means a mistake, appearing from incorrect associations, when a property of one object is attributed to another one. Examples of most ancient delusions are: (1) connection of the gravitation field direction with a preferred direction in space (instead of the directio...

BACKGROUND The Cotard delusion (CD) is one of a variety of narrowly defined monothematic delusions characterized by nihilistic beliefs about the body's existence or life itself. The presence of CD within the context of schizophrenia is rare (<1%), and remains understudied. CASE 'Mr. C' is a 58-year-old veteran with a prior diagnosis of schizophrenia, who presented with CD in the context of si...

OBJECTIVE Several studies have provided evidence for the claim that a subgroup of (schizophrenic) patients with current delusions share a jumping to conclusions (JTC) bias. The primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether currently deluded and non-deluded schizophrenic patients perform differently on three tasks tapping probabilistic reasoning. METHOD Probabilistic reasoning wa...