Marcin Trybulec

Background/Objectives: People living with depression often experience consistent disruptions in their experience of time, which further contributes to their suffering. We present a scoping review on virtual reality (VR)-based interventions for depression, addressing temporal processing and subjective experiences of time. The paper aims to explore the extent to which therapeutic interventions using VR target the temporal dimension of patients’ experiences. Methods: We conducted a scoping review using the PRISMA 2020 standard. The literature search was further extended using Research Rabbit and by examining the reference lists of relevant articles. Seventeen papers were selected for final analysis. Results: Our scoping review indicates that temporality in VR-based therapeutic interventions for depression remains underrepresented. Of the seventeen papers reviewed, only two explicitly deal with this issue, while the rest touch upon it briefly or implicitly. The studies suggest that VR’s main advantage in modifying the experience of time in depression is its potential to generate immersion and to scaffold imagination through visualization. The main limitations are methodological: most of the available research is exploratory, reports short-term effects, and utilizes a broad variety of empirical designs and therapeutic approaches.

This paper examines the legacy of Zdzisław Cackowski (1930–2016), one of the founders of the philosophical community at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. It offers a comprehensive account of the key themes developed throughout five decades of his scholarly activity. Cackowski’s work is examined across three major domains: (1) theory of cognition and epistemology, with particular attention to the dispute over the content of sensory impressions, the structure of problem situations, and the nature of cognitive obstacles; (2) philosophy of mind, including analyses of the mind–body problem, the autonomy of mental phenomena, emergentist and functionalist approaches, and a critique of dualist and substantialist conceptions of mind; (3) philosophical anthropology, where the category of human experience, especially the role of pain, fear, and suffering, is treated as foundational to the emergence of consciousness, self-awareness, and rationality. Cackowski’s thought is situated within the broader context of second generation post-war Polish philosophy, including its dialogue with Marxist thought.

The problem of the Toronto School’s theoretical identity emerges from the recognition that the most influential figures of this orientation do not agree regarding the general idea of the School as a coherent theoretical trend. Moreover, the idea of “medium” central to this orientation is fundamentally ambiguous. Therefore the aim of the paper is to consider the identity of the Toronto School by referring to the so called materialistic interpretation of the media. The paper supports the thesis that the minimal definition of communication technologies in terms of physical artifacts comprises the conceptual core of the Toronto School’s identity. The failure to consider the minimalistic definition of media results in the general blurring of the Toronto School’s theoretical identity.

The paper examines the semiotic and cognitive status of interactive exhibits at science centers, taking the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw (CSC) as an example. Such science centers support bottom-up interactions, encouraging visitors to spontaneously explore the exhibits in various ways. We analyze one distinctive way of interaction, when young visitors ignore an exhibit’s instruction and use it as if it were a kind of a toy or machine to play with (this is particularly common with exhibits that are unfamiliar “open-ended objects”). Drawing on cognitive semiotics we describe this particular way of interacting with exhibits as the reality mode of experience, in which the user ignores an intended exhibit’s representational function. We consider whether such interactive objects can be framed as cognitive artifacts, given that standard conceptualizations of artifacts emphasize their representational function. How can we convincingly describe the process by which the cognitive function of an exhibit experienced in reality mode is constituted? In this paper we apply concept of ecological cognitive artifact and the idea of the enactive signification to these questions. We argue that exhibits experienced in reality mode do indeed perform cognitive functions, even in the absence of a representational relation. Our investigation provides insights into the cognitive functions of exhibits and contributes to the conceptualization of non-representational cognitive artifacts.

Street festivals such as The Night of Culture (Noc Kultury) are aimed at fostering cultural participation. The growing popularity of such festivals raises the question, whether The Night of Culture creates an environment facilitating knowledge popularization. The paper explains that The Night of Culture creates an experience of engagement and immersion. The experience of immersion and engagement is grounded in blurring the clear distinction between representational objects and elements of so-called ordinary reality. Since the art installations at The Night of Culture are often designed to be treated as an extension of the physical space in which the participant is located, from the participant’s perspective they lose the standard representational function. The paper explains that blurring the distinction between representation and reality impose serious limitation on treating the installations at The Night of Culture as the objects with a cognitive function.

Attempts to account for the significance of materiality for cognition should pay special attention to the vehicle in which meaning and information are embedded. Distributed cognition pays surprisingly little attention to conceptualizing the distinction between transitory and durable representations. I use the example of David Kirsh’s research to argue that the bias toward defining cognitive extensions in terms of stable objects existing in space leads to their reification. The aim of this paper is to indicate the sources of reification and argue that implicit ambiguity emerges toward external representations due to an over-reified view of cognitive extensions.

The aim of the paper is to outline the basic theoretical reasons for applying the concept of extended mind to literacy theory. In order to explicate theoretical difficulties faced by literacy theory, one needs to take into account the debate regarding technological determinism. Using this debate as an example, one can observe two basic strategies applied to defining the concept of a medium. On the one hand, there exists a strategy to formulate a narrow definition of a medium in terms of material artifacts. On the other hand, one can observe a strategy which relies on creating a wide definition of a medium. According to this definition, a medium is understood as a social institution which denotes a particular way of behaving and thinking. The paper aims at justifying the hypothesis that both interpretational strategies employed in defining a medium and the related concept of technology are inaccurate in certain important respects. If the argumentation presented here proves correct, literacy theory will be faced with a serious dilemma: a choice between two equally unsuitable definitions of technology/media. However, the theoretical dilemma pertaining to the question of media can be elucidated by appealing to the conceptual framework of the extended mind hypothesis.

The problem of the Toronto School’s theoretical identity emerges from the recognition that the most influential figures of this orientation do not agree regarding the general idea of the School as a coherent theoretical trend. Moreover, the idea of “medium” central to this orientation is fundamentally ambiguous. Therefore the aim of the paper is to consider the identity of the Toronto School by referring to the so called materialistic interpretation of the media. The paper supports the thesis that the minimal definition of communication technologies in terms of physical artifacts comprises the conceptual core of the Toronto School’s identity. The failure to consider the minimalistic definition of media results in the general blurring of the Toronto School’s theoretical identity.

The study poses the question about the consequences of incommensurability for the problem of linguistic relativity. One can reasonably argue that if two languages are incommensurable, contradiction cannot exist between the judgments formulated inside them. Therefore it is possible to compile linguistic worldviews of two incommensurable languages into one coherent cognitive perspective. The latter view is called into question; hence the article examines the problem of relation between linguistically determined incommensurable worldviews. In order to analyze the issue there are distinguished three dimensions of incommensurability: linguistic incommensurability, incommensurability of experience and ontological incommensurability. Conclusion excludes possibility of compilation of two ontologically incommensurable into one coherent cognitive perspective

The claim that the invention of literacy has cognitive consequences, so-called Literacy Theory, is subject to the criticism that it implies a form of technological determinism. This criticism, however, assumes an outdated Cartesian model of mind, a mind independent of the body and the external world. Such an internalistic framework leaves unexplored the cognitive consequences of the material dimension of writing. Therefore, in order to dismiss the accusations of technological determinism, the Cartesian model of mind and cognition needs to be reconsidered. The paper demonstrates how the framework of situated cognition helps to account for the cognitive consequences of written artifacts themselves. Material characteristics of written vehicles such as spatial and temporal stability of the content, fixity of information with reference to page boundaries, lightness and small size of paper sheets, and spatial layout of documents make up the most relevant material factors enabling the distribution of cognitive work.