Analysis of the role of information in planning: The case of town and country planning

The role of information in planning is analyzed, taking a phenomenological view: people act on the basis of the meanings they attach to reality. The analysis framework is borrowed from the knowledge systems approach and domain theory. Within the knowledge system a distinction is made between two domains: the formal domain and the field domain. The central view in this article is that the interpretation frameworks of the actors in both domains are different, hampering effective communication between the two domains. The functioning of the knowledge system during the planning process can be improved by dealing explicitly with differences between interpretation fameworks. Dr. Mathieu C.H. Wagemans is employed by the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and fisheries. In 1988 and 1989 he served as a consultant in an FAO-project in China, aimed at strengthening regional agricultural extension centers. He is primarily interested in the application of planning models in public bureaucracies.     

(In)validating Stereotypes About Older Workers Influences Their Intentions to Retire Early and to Learn and Develop

Although many governments of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are currently trying to retain older workers in the workforce, numerous stereotypes question their motivation and ability to work, learn, and develop. In two studies, we examined the influence of age-related stereotypic information on Belgian older workers' aspirations in the work domain. In Study 1, early retirement intentions were lower following exposure to positive stereotypic information than following exposure to negative or no stereotypic information. In Study 2, older workers confronted with positive stereotypic information were less willing to retire early and more motivated to learn and develop than those confronted with negative stereotypic information. Results suggest that communicating positive information about older workers' ability may boost their work aspirations.     

Differences in the acuity of the Approximate Number System in adults: The effect of mathematical ability

It is largely admitted that processing numerosity relies on an innate Approximate Number System (ANS), and recent research consistently observed a relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical ability in childhood. However, studies assessing this relationship in adults led to contradictory results. In this study, adults with different levels of mathematical expertise performed two tasks on the same pairs of dot collections, based either on numerosity comparison or on cumulative area comparison. Number of dots and cumulative area were congruent in half of the stimuli, and incongruent in the other half. The results showed that adults with higher mathematical ability obtained lower Weber fractions in the numerical condition than participants with lower mathematical ability. Further, adults with lower mathematical ability were more affected by the interference of the continuous dimension in the numerical comparison task, whereas conversely higher-expertise adults showed stronger interference of the numerical dimension in the continuous comparison task. Finally, ANS acuity correlated with arithmetic performance. Taken together, the data suggest that individual differences in ANS acuity subsist in adulthood, and that they are related to mathematical ability.     

An Inconsistency-Adaptive Deontic Logic for Normative Conflicts

We present the inconsistency-adaptive deontic logic DP ^r , a nonmonotonic logic for dealing with conflicts between normative statements. On the one hand, this logic does not lead to explosion in view of normative conflicts such as O A?∧?O ～A, O A?∧?P ～A or even O A?∧?～O A. On the other hand, DP ^r still verifies all intuitively reliable inferences valid in Standard Deontic Logic (SDL). DP ^r interprets a given premise set ‘as normally as possible’ with respect to SDL. Whereas some SDL-rules are verified unconditionally by DP ^r , others are verified conditionally. The latter are applicable unless they rely on formulas that turn out to behave inconsistently in view of the premises. This dynamic process is mirrored by the proof theory of DP ^r .     

How to explain receptivity to conjunction-fallacy inhibition training: Evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task

Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. After completing a computerised version of the IGT, participants were trained to avoid conjunction bias on a frequency judgment task derived from the works of Tversky and Kahneman. Pre- and post-test performances were assessed via another probability judgment task. Results clearly showed that participants who produced a biased answer despite the experimental training (individual patterns of the biased → biased type) mainly had less emotion-based learning ability in IGT. Better emotion-based learning ability was observed in participants whose response pattern was biased → logical. These findings argue in favour of the capacity of the human mind/brain to overcome reasoning bias when trained under executive programming conditions and as a function of emotional warning sensitivity.