Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day. Decisions are based on in- complete information concerning the potential outcome or the predicted likelihood with which events occur. In addition, individuals’ choices often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a 2-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can (...) be employed to capture the dynamics of human decision making under uncertainty (i.e., multistability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlin- ear complexities of human decision making are discussed as well as the degree to which the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision making processes. (shrink)

Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day based on incomplete information concerning the potential outcome of the choice or chance levels. The choices individuals make often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision-making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a two-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can be employed to capture the dynamics (...) of human decision-making under uncertainty (i.e., multi-stability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlinear complexities of human decision-making are discussed, as well as the degree to which nonlinear dynamical systems theory might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision-making processes. (shrink)

Previous research has shown that na_ve participants display a high level of agreement when asked to choose or drawschematic representations, or image schemas, of concrete and abstract verbs [Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2001, Erlbaum, Mawhah, NJ, p. 873]. For example, participants tended to ascribe a horizontal image schema to push, and a vertical image schema to respect. This consistency in offline data is preliminary evidence that language invokes spatial forms of representation. It also (...) provided norms that were used in the present research to investigate the activation of spatial image schemas during online language comprehension. We predicted that if comprehending a verb activates a spatial representation that is extended along a particular horizontal or vertical axis, it will affect other forms of spatial processing along that axis. Participants listened to short sentences while engaged in a visual discrimination task (Experiment 1) and a picture memory task (Experiment 2). In both cases, reaction times showed an interaction between the horizontal/vertical nature of the verb's image schema, and the horizontal/vertical position of the visual stimuli. We argue that such spatial effects of verb comprehension provide evidence for the perceptual–motor character of linguistic representations. (shrink)

The main question that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) pose is whether “what and how we see is functionally independent from what and how we think, know, desire, act, and so forth” (sect. 2, para. 1). We synthesize a collection of concerns from an interdisciplinary set of coauthors regarding F&S's assumptions and appeals to intuition, resulting in their treatment of visual perception as context-free.

Despite the challenges associated with virtually mediated communication, remote collaboration is a defining characteristic of online multiplayer gaming communities. Inspired by the teamwork exhibited by players in first-person shooter games, this study investigated the verbal and behavioral coordination of four-player teams playing a cooperative online video game. The game, Desert Herding, involved teams consisting of three ground players and one drone operator tasked to locate, corral, and contain evasive robot agents scattered across a large desert environment. Ground players could move (...) throughout the environment, while the drone operator’s role was akin to that of a “spectator” with a bird’s-eye view, with access to veridical information of the locations of teammates and the to-be-corralled agents. Categorical recurrence quantification analysis was used to measure the communication dynamics of teams as they completed the task. Demands on coordination were manipulated by varying the ground players’ ability to observe the environment with the use of game “fog.” Results show that catRQA was sensitive to changes to task visibility, with reductions in task visibility reorganizing how participants conversed during the game to maintain team situation awareness. The results are discussed in the context of future work that can address how team coordination can be augmented with the inclusion of artificial agents, as synthetic teammates. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2022.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

While in principle probabilistic logics might be applied to solve a range of problems, in practice they are rarely applied at present. This is perhaps because they seem disparate, complicated, and computationally intractable. However, we shall argue in this programmatic paper that several approaches to probabilistic logic into a simple unifying framework: logically complex evidence can be used to associate probability intervals or probabilities with sentences.

A model for the trapping of animals with a circular pitfall is formulated. The model's assumptions are: The animals move independently according to the same Brownian motions. The boundary of the pitfall acts as an absorbing or elastic barrier. Initially a fixed number of animals is independently homogeneously distributed over a finite study area, or the initial positions follow a homogeneous planar Poisson process. The model depends on three free parameters: the motility of the animals, their reaction to the pitfall, (...) the initial density.It appears that the catches in disjoint time intervals are multinomially or independently Poisson distributed. The parameters of these distributions are obtained by solving certain partial differential equations. (shrink)

The Many-Interacting-Worlds (MIW) approach to a quantum theory without wave functions proposed in [8] leads naturally to numerical integrators of the Schrödinger equation on comoving grids. As yet, little is known about concrete MIW models for more than one spatial dimension and/or more than one particle. In honour of Detlef Dürr, we report on a further development of the MIW approach to treat arbitrary degrees of freedom and provide a numerical proof of concept for ground states in 2d. The latter (...) is part of a systematic numerical study [22] that includes also 1d ground and excited states. With this step towards the treatment of higher degrees of freedom we hope to stimulate their further study. (shrink)

In his book The Retreat to Commitment Professor Bartley raised an important problem: can rationalism can rationalism be held in a rational way, that is, in a way that complies with its own requirements? Or is there bound to be something irrational in the rationalist's position? Briefly, Hartley's answer was that an element of irrationalism is involved in extant versions of rationalism; however, Bartley proposed a new version of rationalism that can, he claimed, be held in a way that is (...) rational according to its own account of rationality. Bartley called this ‘Comprehensively Critical Rationalism’. (shrink)