The effects of social ties on coordination: conceptual foundations for an empirical analysis

This paper investigates the influence that social ties can have on behavior. After defining the concept of social ties that we consider, we introduce an original model of social ties. The impact of such ties on social preferences is studied in a coordination game with outside option. We provide a detailed game theoretical analysis of this game while considering various types of players, i.e., self-interest maximizing, inequity averse, and fair agents. In addition to these approaches that require strategic reasoning in order to reach some equilibrium, we also present an alternative hypothesis that relies on the concept of team reasoning. After having discussed the differences between the latter and our model of social ties, we show how an experiment can be designed so as to discriminate among the models presented in the paper.     

On the Epistemic Foundation for Iterated Weak Dominance: An Analysis in a Logic of Individual and Collective attitudes

This paper proposes a logical framework for representing static and dynamic properties of different kinds of individual and collective attitudes. A complete axiomatization as well as a decidability result for the logic are given. The logic is applied to game theory by providing a formal analysis of the epistemic conditions of iterated deletion of weakly dominated strategies (IDWDS), or iterated weak dominance for short. The main difference between the analysis of the epistemic conditions of iterated weak dominance given in this paper and other analysis is that we use a semi-qualitative approach to uncertainty based on the notion of plausibility first introduced by Spohn, whereas other analysis are based on a quantitative representation of uncertainty in terms of probabilities.     

Incidencia de las representaciones gráficas en la solución de problemas por analogía. Réplica a Gick y Holyoak

RESUMEN

Sierra y Froufe cuestionan un trabajo anterior sobre la utilidad de representaciones gráficas en la solución de problemas mediante razonamiento analógico y presentan un análisis detallado de algunos procesos fundamentales en esta clase de pensamiento. Empiezan por describir los experimentos llevados a cabo por Gick y Holyoak (1983) y discutir algunas de sus conclusiones, ofreciendo interpretaciones alternativas. A continuación exponen cómo se explica la inducción de un esquema a partir del establecimiento de una analogía y, en segundo lugar, comparan los diagramas utilizados por Gick y Holyoak con los obtenidos en un trabajo de uno de los autores (Sierra, 1985) tomando como marco de referencia la exposición acerca de la inducción de esquemas. Finalmente se concluye que, en parte, los sujetos del experimento anterior no recurrían al diagrama porque, al ser incompleto, no les permitía solucionar el problema, sugiriendo que un sistema representacional basado enteramente en las proposiciones resulta insuficiente y que la imagen mental del dibujo juega una función cognitiva en la solución.     

What is the Crisis of Western Sciences?

This article is an attempt to formulate a clear definition of the concept of crisis of Western sciences introduced by Husserl in his last work. The attempt will be based on a reading of the Krisis, which will stress its underlying continuity with Husserl’s life-long concerns about the theoretical insufficiency of positive sciences, and downplay the novelty of the idea of crisis itself within Husserl’s work. After insisting on the fact that, according to Husserl, only an account of the shortcomings of the scientificity of Western sciences can justify the claim that they are undergoing a crisis, it will be argued that the common definition of the crisis of the sciences as the loss of their significance for life rests on a misunderstanding. The crisis of Western sciences will be characterized, instead, as the repercussion of the crisis of the scientificity of philosophy (and, specifically, of metaphysics) on the scientificity of positive sciences. The loss of significance of scientific knowledge for our existence will in turn appear as a further, inevitable consequence of the uprooting of the sciences from the soil of a universal philosophy culminating in metaphysics, and thus, as a phenomenon deeply intertwined with the crisis of Western sciences, but not identical to it.     

The cognitive structure of surprise: looking for basic principles

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models.

Subcortical anarthria: a case report.

A 56-year-old right-handed male with a history of hypertension and diabetes presented two episodes of stroke: The first affected territory was the left anterior coroidal artery (capsular and paracapsular infarcts at the level of the genu and posterior arm of the internal capsule) and the second was the right thalamus, due to a hematoma. Following the first stroke, the patient developed severe dysarthria and after the second stroke remained anarthric. The pathophysiology of the disorder is discussed, and the role of the left and right thalamus as far as speech is concerned is reviewed.     

Adaptation to Spanish of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire-Revised Version (VVIQRV)

Adaptation to Spanish of the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire-Revised Version (VVIQRV). The main goal of this paper was to adapt to Spanish language and to examine the psychometric properties of the "Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire-Revised Version" (VVIQRV), an instrument that can be used to assess vividness of visual imagery. The adaptation was carried out starting from the Spanish version of VVIQ and taking into consideration improvement proposals suggested in other studies. The questionnaire was then administered to a sample of 414 Spanish university students and the psychometric characteristics were estimated on the basis of the classic theory and the Rasch rating scale model (RSM). The results were convergent with previous studies and indicated that the Spanish VVIQRV has good internal consistency and can be characterized by a single main factor structure. Also, the RSM analysis showed that the increment in the number of response categories, a proposal to improve the instrument, was not appropriate.     

Where the brain appreciates the final state of an event: The neural correlates of telicity

In this study we investigated whether the human brain distinguishes between telic events that necessarily entail a specified endpoint (e.g., reaching), and atelic events with no delimitation or final state (e.g., chasing). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore the patterns of neural response associated with verbs denoting telic and atelic events, and found that the left posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), an area consistently engaged by verb processing tasks, showed a significantly higher activation for telic compared with atelic verbs. These results provide the first evidence that the human brain appreciates whether events lead to an end or a change of state. Moreover, they provide an explanation for the long-debated question of which verb properties modulate neural activity in the left pMTG, as they indicate that, independently of any other semantic property, verb processing and event knowledge in this area are specifically related to the representation of telicity.