Prospect Theory in Political Science: Gains and Losses From the First Decade

Prospect theory offers a number of advantages that justify its use in the analysis of political behavior, but it also has some aspects that limit its wider applicability in political contexts. This article reviews recent research highlighting these successes and limitations. Future research on the incorporation of prospect theory into models of political behavior should focus on such areas as group decision-making, reference point specification, and emotion.     

THERE'S MORE TO TIME THAN TICKING AWAY

Time is an element that each of us experiences in the core of our being. Yet it also is one of the great mysteries in our conceptual grasp of reality. The notion of time has therefore been reflected upon and explored by thinkers and scientists since ancient times. In this essay I relate the multiple ways in which Antje's Jackelén's scholarly and stimulating work Time and Eternity analyzes the historical, philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives on the notion of time lived and its relation to the conceptual endless time that we call eternity, and offer some of my own contextual reflections on the topic.     

Of substance: The nature of language effects on entity construal

Shown an entity (e.g., a plastic whisk) labeled by a novel noun in neutral syntax, speakers of Japanese, a classifier language, are more likely to assume the noun refers to the substance (plastic) than are speakers of English, a count/mass language, who are instead more likely to assume it refers to the object kind [whisk; Imai, M., & Gentner, D. (1997). A cross-linguistic study of early word meaning: Universal ontology and linguistic influence. Cognition, 62, 169–200]. Five experiments replicated this language type effect on entity construal, extended it to quite different stimuli from those studied before, and extended it to a comparison between Mandarin speakers and English speakers. A sixth experiment, which did not involve interpreting the meaning of a noun or a pronoun that stands for a noun, failed to find any effect of language type on entity construal. Thus, the overall pattern of findings supports a non-Whorfian, language on language account, according to which sensitivity to lexical statistics in a count/mass language leads adults to assign a novel noun in neutral syntax the status of a count noun, influencing construal of ambiguous entities. The experiments also document and explore cross-linguistically universal factors that influence entity construal, and favor Prasada’s [Prasada, S. (1999). Names for things and stuff: An Aristotelian perspective. In R. Jackendoff, P. Bloom, & K. Wynn (Eds.), Language, logic, and concepts (pp. 119–146). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] hypothesis that features indicating non-accidentalness of an entity’s form lead participants to a construal of object kind rather than substance kind. Finally, the experiments document the age at which the language type effect emerges in lexical projection. The details of the developmental pattern are consistent with the lexical statistics hypothesis, along with a universal increase in sensitivity to material kind.     

论道德相对性及其道德实践意义——兼析道德相对主义

道德相对性表现为道德准则规范具有具体性、差异性和不确定性.道德相对性中渗透了道德绝对性即存在普遍的、共同的、不变的道德价值.道德相对主义的错误在于夸大相对性而否定了绝对性.但道德相对主义基于道德相对性的某些主张有一定的合理性.正确理解道德相对性在道德实践中有重要意义.个体道德自主性的提高,既要把握绝对的道德价值观念,同时需要把握道德的相对性以提高具体情境中道德判断和选择能力.     

Which Time for Eschatology? Relativity Theory,Local and Cosmic Times,and the End of the Universe

The aim of this article is to formulate the theological notions of the end and fulfilment of the universe before the background of relativity theory and cosmology, in particular the lack of a global passage of time. It argues that the “arrow” of time is a local phenomenon, linked essentially to recording objects. On this basis, it makes the case that the notions of a common end of all local times and of a final, timeless state of the universe are viable independently of a global direction of time.     

No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants’ demographic characteristics (such as, the raters’ age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.     

我国近十年来汉语阅读障碍研究回顾与展望

发展性阅读障碍（developmentaldyslexia,DD）是一种严重的学习障碍。文章回顾了l996~2006年间中国内地作者发表的有关汉语DD的实证性文章,发现我国学者近十年来对汉语DD的研究主要包括DD的诊断筛选、亚型分析、认知特点和认知神经机制研究、教育干预等几个方面。文章同时探讨了现有研究中存在的不足,如诊断标准不统一;研究领域比较狭窄;缺乏有效的干预模式和实证研究等,最后提出了研究的发展趋势和未来研究方向     

The behavioural components of risk aversion

There have been few theoretical investigations of risk attitude within Cumulative Prospect Theory (CPT). Unlike expected utility theory, in CPT risk attitude is affected by loss aversion and decision weight distortions as well as utility curvature for both gains and losses. We introduce two variants of the risk premium—the total risk premium relative to expected value, and the behavioural risk premium relative to the imputed behavioural expected value. Approximate solutions for each using Pratt's [(1964). Risk aversion in the small and in the large. Econometrica, 32, 122-136] methodology show that the CPT risk premium is composed of two components: the first, analogous to the Pratt-Arrow coefficient of risk aversion, governs the contribution of the curvature of the value function to risk aversion; the second governs the first-order contribution of loss aversion. Both of these terms are made more complex by the introduction of decision weights. We analyse the contribution of each component and provide sufficient conditions to ensure risk aversion in CPT.     

Color categories: evidence for the cultural relativity hypothesis

The question of whether language affects our categorization of perceptual continua is of particular interest for the domain of color where constraints on categorization have been proposed both within the visual system and in the visual environment. Recent research (Roberson, Davies, & Davidoff, 2000; Roberson et al., in press) found substantial evidence of cognitive color differences between different language communities, but concerns remained as to how representative might be a tiny, extremely remote community. The present study replicates and extends previous findings using additional paradigms among a larger community in a different visual environment. Adult semi-nomadic tribesmen in Southern Africa carried out similarity judgments, short-term memory and long-term learning tasks. They showed different cognitive organization of color to both English and another language with the five color terms. Moreover, Categorical Perception effects were found to differ even between languages with broadly similar color categories. The results provide further evidence of the tight relationship between language and cognition.