Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 14-30, January 2022.

This paper presents a learning theory pertinent to dynamic decision making (DDM) called instancebased learning theory (IBLT). IBLT proposes five learning mechanisms in the context of a decision‐making process: instance‐based knowledge, recognition‐based retrieval, adaptive strategies, necessity‐based choice, and feedback updates. IBLT suggests in DDM people learn with the accumulation and refinement of instances, containing the decision‐making situation, action, and utility of decisions. As decision makers interact with a dynamic task, they recognize a situation according to its similarity to past instances, (...) adapt their judgment strategies from heuristic‐based to instance‐based, and refine the accumulated knowledge according to feedback on the result of their actions. The IBLT's learning mechanisms have been implemented in an ACT‐R cognitive model. Through a series of experiments, this paper shows how the IBLT's learning mechanisms closely approximate the relative trend magnitude and performance of human data. Although the cognitive model is bounded within the context of a dynamic task, the IBLT is a general theory of decision making applicable to other dynamic environments. (shrink)

The purpose of cognitive models is to make predictive simulations of human behaviour, but this is often done at the aggregate level. Cranford, Gonzalez, Aggarwal, Cooney, Tambe, and Lebiere show that they can automatically customize a model to a particular individual on‐the‐fly, and use it to make specific predictions about their next actions, in the context of a particular cybersecurity game.

We analyze the dynamics of repeated interaction of two players in the Prisoner's Dilemma under various levels of interdependency information and propose an instance-based learning cognitive model to explain how cooperation emerges over time. Six hypotheses are tested regarding how a player accounts for an opponent's outcomes: the selfish hypothesis suggests ignoring information about the opponent and utilizing only the player's own outcomes; the extreme fairness hypothesis weighs the player's own and the opponent's outcomes equally; the moderate fairness hypothesis weighs (...) the opponent's outcomes less than the player's own outcomes to various extents; the linear increasing hypothesis increasingly weighs the opponent's outcomes at a constant rate with repeated interactions; the hyperbolic discounting hypothesis increasingly and nonlinearly weighs the opponent's outcomes over time; and the dynamic expectations hypothesis dynamically adjusts the weight a player gives to the opponent's outcomes, according to the gap between the expected and the actual outcomes in each interaction. When players lack explicit feedback about their opponent's choices and outcomes, results are consistent with the selfish hypothesis; however, when this information is made explicit, the best predictions result from the dynamic expectations hypothesis. (shrink)

A major challenge for research in artificial intelligence is to develop systems that can infer the goals, beliefs, and intentions of others (i.e., systems that have theory of mind, ToM). In this research, we propose a cognitive ToM framework that uses a well-known theory of decisions from experience to construct a computational representation of ToM. Instance-based learning theory (IBLT) is used to construct a cognitive model that generates ToM from the observation of other agents' behavior. The IBL model of the (...) observer distinguishes itself from previous models of ToM that make unreasonable assumptions about human cognition, are hand-crafted for particular settings, complex, or unable to explain a cognitive development of ToM compared to human's ToM. The IBL model learns from the observation of goal-directed agents' behavior in a gridworld navigation task, and it infers and predicts the behaviors of the agents in new gridworlds across different degrees of decision complexity in similar ways to the way human observers do. We provide evidence for the alignment of the IBL observer's predictions under various levels of decision complexity. We also advance the demonstration of the IBL predictions using a classic test of false beliefs (the Sally–Anne test), which is commonly used to test ToM in humans. We discuss our results and the potential of the IBL observer model to improve human–machine interactions. (shrink)

The majority of people show persistent poor performance in reasoning about “stock-flow problems” in the laboratory. An important example is the failure to understand the relationship between the “stock” of CO2 in the atmosphere, the “inflow” via anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and the “outflow” via natural CO2 absorption. This study addresses potential causes of reasoning failures in the CO2 accumulation problem and reports two experiments involving a simple re-framing of the task as managing an analogous financial budget. In Experiment 1 a (...) financial version of the task that required participants to think in terms of controlling debt demonstrated significant improvements compared to a standard CO2 accumulation problem. Experiment 2, in which participants were invited to think about managing savings, suggested that this improvement was fortuitous and coincidental rather than due to a fundamental change in understanding the stock-flow relationships. The role of graphical information in aiding or abetting stock-flow reasoning was also explored in both experiments, with the results suggesting that graphs do not always assist understanding. The potential for leveraging the kind of reasoning exhibited in such tasks in an effort to change people's willingness to reduce CO2 emissions is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Stocks and flows are building blocks of dynamic systems: Stocks change through inflows and outflows, such as our bank balance changing with withdrawals and deposits, or atmospheric CO2 with absorptions and emissions. However, people make systematic errors when trying to infer the behavior of dynamic systems, termed SF failure, whose cognitive explanations are yet unknown. We argue that SF failure appears when people focus on specific system elements, rather than on the system structure and gestalt. Using a standard SF task, (...) SF failure decreased by a global as opposed to local task format; individual global as opposed to local processing styles; and global as opposed to local perceptual priming. These results converge toward local processing as an explanation for SF failure. We discuss theoretical and practical implications on the connections between the scope of attention and understanding of dynamic systems. (shrink)

A framing bias shows risk aversion in problems framed as “gains” and risk seeking in problems framed as “losses,” even when these are objectively equivalent and probabilities and outcomes values are explicitly provided. We test this framing bias in situations where decision makers rely on their own experience, sampling the problem's options and seeing the outcomes before making a choice. In Experiment 1, we replicate the framing bias in description-based decisions and find risk indifference in gains and losses in experience-based (...) decisions. Predictions of an Instance-Based Learning model suggest that objective probabilities as well as the number of samples taken are factors that contribute to the lack of framing effect. We test these two factors in Experiment 2 and find no framing effect when a few samples are taken but when large samples are taken, the framing effect appears regardless of the objective probability values. Implications of behavioral results and cognitive modeling are discussed. (shrink)

Mi trabajo recorre algunas ideas de la filosofía política hegeliana basadas en la convicción comunitaria del autor: la visión de la sociedad civil de su tiempo como el mundo del atomismo, la crítica al sufragio como principal método de toma de decisiones políticas, la reflexión sobre la familia, las corporaciones y el Estado como instituciones no regidas por lógicas de contrato entre individuos, y el lugar no prescriptivo que Hegel concedió siempre a la reflexión filosófica.

Directional deep brain stimulation contacts provide greater spatial flexibility for therapy than traditional ring-shaped electrodes, but little is known about longitudinal changes of impedance and orientation. We measured monopolar and bipolar impedance of DBS contacts in 31 patients who underwent unilateral subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation as part of a randomized study. At different follow-up visits, patients were assigned new stimulation configurations and impedance was measured. Additionally, we measured the orientation of the directional lead during surgery, immediately after surgery, and (...) 1 year later. Here we contrast impedances in directional versus ring contacts with respect to local anatomy, active stimulation contact, and over time. Directional contacts display larger impedances than ring contacts. Impedances generally increase slightly over the first year of therapy, save for a transient decrease immediately post-surgery under general anesthesia during pulse generator placement. Local impedances decrease at active stimulation sites, and contacts in closest proximity to internal capsule display higher impedances than other anatomic sites. DBS leads rotate slightly in the immediate postoperative period but otherwise remain stable over the following year. These data provide useful information for setting clinical stimulation parameters over time. (shrink)

El derecho humano al medio ambiente sano se inscribe dentro de los derechos llamados de solidaridad, por lo que el alcance de la esfera de titularidad y observancia es colectivo. La innovación de acceso a la justicia del derecho al medio ambiente sano por la vía colectiva, trajo importantes reformas en la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos y a los ordenamientos jurídicos secundarios, al introducir nuevas figuras y conceptos jurídicos, lo cual rediseñó la culturización de la práctica jurídica (...) en el país y la acción para efectivizar el acceso a la justicia de este derecho. (shrink)

Esta investigación tiene como finalidad responder, desde la filosofía y literatura de Camus, la pregunta de si el hombre puede ser feliz sin Dios. Para llevar a cabo este trabajo, se utiliza un método hermenéutico, pues se hace un acercamiento dialógico y holístico a las obras del pensador argelino para descubrir su pensamiento respecto a Dios y a la felicidad humana. Los principales resultados de la investigación concluyen que el hombre puede ser feliz sin Dios en la medida en que, (...) en primer lugar, acepte el absurdo y viva su rebeldía, y, en segundo lugar, comprenda la felicidad como una vocación ontológica más allá de un estado. (shrink)

La Inclusión en la educación superior chilena se ha enmarcado dentro del contexto del respeto a la diversidad, sustentabilidad y dignidad de las personas. La aplicación del Index for Inclusion en la Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins instala como ejercicio la autoevaluación respecto de los propios procesos inclusivos. Esta investigación cuantitativa permite proponer mejoras desde la reflexión de la propia comunidad educativa respecto de la cultura, políticas y prácticas inclusivas. Conocer la comunidad, sus necesidades e intereses, respetando su potencial independiente de su (...) diversidad, es lo que permite establecer procesos de aprendizaje y enseñanza que aseguren una educación para todos y todas. (shrink)

This paper presents philosophical perspectives related to the concept of boredom from the point of view of its forms and structural modes as developed by Martin Heidegger in his lectures at the University of Freiburg during the winter semesters of 1929 and 1930. We highlight a philosophical stance often overlooked in comparison to more traditional positions in Western philosophical thought—through the proposed hermeneutic-phenomenological processes, this will allow us to interweave their philosophical images with cinematographic narratives that enrich the factual understanding (...) of modernity. For this reason, we assume boredom and its essence, “tediousness”, as the fundamental mood of our era, thus permitting other mobilities of thought that warrant a study of phenomena relating to cultural entertainment as a symptom of the modern disease that distances Dasein from meeting, questioning, and self-care. (shrink)

We examined the relationship among watching soccer matches, moral functioning and aggression levels in 332 college students. Hypothesis-driven regression analyses revealed that the frequency of watching soccer matches was positively associated with low levels of moral behavior and high aggression levels. A mediation analysis also showed that moral behavior mediated the relationship between the frequency of watching soccer matches and aggression levels. Males manifested lower levels of moral functioning and higher hostility, physical and verbal aggression than females when watching a (...) soccer match. Moreover, only males reported more verbal aggression and anger when watching soccer matches as compared to their general aggression levels. (shrink)

Dean MacCannell (Washington, 1940), catedrático emérito de paisajismo de la Universidad de California en Davis, es un autor de referencia internacional en antropología, sociología y ética del turismo, con obras fundamentales como _The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class _(1976), _Empty Meeting Grounds_ (1992) – ambas publicadas en España por la editorial Melusina- o _The Ethics of Sightseeing_ (2011). Considerando que uno de los principales atractivos de su obra es su capacidad para captar la relación entre el turismo (...) y las transformaciones culturales y socio-económicas de los últimos cincuenta años, quisimos dirigirle una serie de preguntas para profundizar sobre su obra y reflexionar sobre el turismo en el mundo post-pandemia de la Covid-19. (Traducción al español a cargo de Carmen González). (shrink)

This work is an initial step toward developing a cognitive theory of cyber deception. While widely studied, the psychology of deception has largely focused on physical cues of deception. Given that present‐day communication among humans is largely electronic, we focus on the cyber domain where physical cues are unavailable and for which there is less psychological research. To improve cyber defense, researchers have used signaling theory to extended algorithms developed for the optimal allocation of limited defense resources by using deceptive (...) signals to trick the human mind. However, the algorithms are designed to protect against adversaries that make perfectly rational decisions. In behavioral experiments using an abstract cybersecurity game (i.e., Insider Attack Game), we examined human decision‐making when paired against the defense algorithm. We developed an instance‐based learning (IBL) model of an attacker using the Adaptive Control of Thought‐Rational (ACT‐R) cognitive architecture to investigate how humans make decisions under deception in cyber‐attack scenarios. Our results show that the defense algorithm is more effective at reducing the probability of attack and protecting assets when using deceptive signaling, compared to no signaling, but is less effective than predicted against a perfectly rational adversary. Also, the IBL model replicates human attack decisions accurately. The IBL model shows how human decisions arise from experience, and how memory retrieval dynamics can give rise to cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias. The implications of these findings are discussed in the perspective of informing theories of deception and designing more effective signaling schemes that consider human bounded rationality. (shrink)

La educación tiene una vasta historia que la ha hecho transitar por diferentes posturas epistemológicas, pragmáticas y ontológicas, situación que ha enriquecido su acervo teórico y práctico. La filosofía es, entre otras, una de las ciencias en las que se ha apoyado la educación parar reflexionar sobre su ser y su hacer. Especialmente, uno de estos sustentos actuales es el pensamiento filosófico sobre el diálogo, que ha ayudado a fortalecer lacorriente de la educación dialógica tanto desde su aporte como desde (...) su crítica, aspectos inherentes a la reflexión filosófica. Sin embargo, es evidente que esta corriente de la educación no ha considerado lo suficiente la postura de la mayéutica socrática en su reflexión. Por ello, este artículo tiene como objetivo proponer unos elementos a laeducación dialógica desde el estudio de la mayéutica socrática, para lo cual se utiliza una metodología de enfoque cualitativo y de corte hermenéutico. Los principales resultados de la investigación muestran que la educación dialógica amplía su horizonte desde los supuestos socráticos de la mayéutica en dos aspectos particulares: en primer lugar, la mayéutica invita a recuperar la pregunta y la capacidad de preguntarse, y, en segundo lugar, demuestra que el conocimiento para ser significativo debe ser una conquista y un descubrimiento del propioestudiante mediado por el diálogo consigo mismo, con los otros y con lo otro. (shrink)

Este trabajo problematiza la noción de autonomía para morir propuesta por la bioética contemporánea a la luz de las críticas que se le han realizado recientemente y del tabú de la muerte que prevalece en las sociedades occidentales. Después de revisar el desarrollo histórico que ha dado lugar a este concepto, observo las objeciones que se le han hecho desde la ética médica y el feminismo, y planteo una nueva crítica a partir del tabú mencionado. Finalmente, propongo un concepto de (...) autonomía más robusto filosóficamente, que incorpora, primero, la capacidad de las personas para establecer sus propios fines y deliberar sobre los medios más expeditos y morales para alcanzarlos, todo ello en el marco de un esquema de valores reflexivamente aceptado, y, segundo, el rol que las relaciones de interdependencia juegan en este proceso. De este modo, sugiero que la bioética contemporánea se beneficiaría de un concepto de autonomía individual que se entienda como meta social, es decir, una autonomía que deba ser activamente promovida por la sociedad. (shrink)

Quantum probability (QP) theory provides an alternative account of empirical phenomena in decision making that classical probability (CP) theory cannot explain. Cognitive architectures combine probabilistic mechanisms with symbolic knowledge-based representations (e.g., heuristics) to address effects that motivate QP. They provide simple and natural explanations of these phenomena based on general cognitive processes such as memory retrieval, similarity-based partial matching, and associative learning.

El Festival Flores de la Diáspora Africana surge en 1999 en Costa Rica, organizado por la Fundación Arte y Cultura para el Desarrollo, con el propósito de promover las manifestaciones artísticas y culturales de la población afrocostarricense en particular, y de los pueblos afrodescendientes y africanos, de manera general. A lo largo de diecinueve ediciones, se ha colocado la cultura de matriz africana en el más alto nivel, con la presencia de grupos de ballet folclórico como el Kilandukilu de Angola, (...) el Ballet Garífuna de Honduras, la bailarina Bethania Nascimento, perteneciente al Alvin Hailey Ballet, y el Opus Dance Theater de New York. En el bel canto, la soprano Sarah Carrere, dio fe de su gran talento franco-senegalés, así como en gospel el coro de la iglesia St. Agustine de Washington, y grupos como Master Key, Charleene Stuart y Sasha Campbell, de Costa Rica, conquistaron la audiencia con ritmos como gospel, spiritual, R&B y Soul, sin olvidar las agrupaciones nacionales de Calipso, que han dejado su huella en el Festival.En esa pasión por mostrar los mejores representantes de las diferentes manifestaciones del arte y la cultura de la Diáspora Africana, en 2012 la Fundación invitó a Costa Rica al Premio Nobel de Literatura de 1984, Derek Walcott. Para dar continuidad a este trabajo con los artífices de la palabra, también en 2013 se realizó el 1er Encuentro de Escritores y Poetas Afrodescendientes, Indígenas y Sinodescendientes, cuyo resultado fue la antología: Tenemos la Palabra, en la cual se muestra el trabajo de casi cincuenta creadores. Las escritoras Eintou Pearl Springer (Trinidad y Tobago), Melanie Taylor (Panamá), Myrna Manzanares (Belice) y Nancy Morejón (Cuba), fueron publicadas en dicha antología. Hoy nos llena de satisfacción publicar en la Revista Ístmica una parte de su obra poética1, así como su respectiva traducción al español, buscando exaltar su trabajo artístico y visibilizar la literatura escrita por mujeres afrodescendientes en el Caribe. (shrink)

En De Oratore y otros escritos, Cicerón critica la retórica de los estoicos. Afirma que su elocuencia es “confusa, oscura, árida y cortada” y que sus tratados de retórica sirven más “para aprender a callar” que para aprender a hablar persuasivamente. ¿Qué decían los estoicos de la retórica para que Cicerón tenga sus preceptos en tan baja estima? En este trabajo exploro el problema, con miras a entender los fundamentos psicológicos y epistemológicos de la concepción estoica de la retórica y (...) contrastarlos con los de la retórica ciceroniana. En mi opinión, la disputa reza, más que sobre cuestiones de estilo, sobre la validez de la convicción que se produce por vías alternas a la argumentación racional o lógica . Dicha convicción es indeseable para los estoicos; para Cicerón, necesaria y conveniente.In De Oratore and other works, Cicero criticizes the rhetoric of the stoics. He claims that their eloquence is “obscure, dry and excessively brief” and their treatises on rhetoric are more useful to “learn how to be silent” than to learn how to speak persuasively . What did the stoics say about rhetoric so that Cicero holds their precepts in such low esteem? In this paper I attempt to clarify the psychological and epistemological presupposition that underlie the Stoic conception of rhetoric, in order to compare them with those behind Ciceronian rhetoric. In my opinion, rather than a controversy on matters of style, the dispute concerns the validity of a conviction gained through means other than rational or logical argument . Such conviction is undesirable for the stoics; for Cicero, it is rather necessary and convenient. (shrink)

El derecho de un esclavo a ser manumitido le confiere un status jurídico distinto del que poseen el hombre libre y el esclavo corriente. Tanto antes de que la liberación se consume, como después, los manumitidos tienen unos derechos y obligaciones regulados por el derecho islámico de acuerdo con su nueva personalidad jurídica: umm wald, mukatab, mudabbar, mawlà, etc., que condicionan y limitan el modo de relacionarse con otros individuos, de constituir grupos y, en definitiva, de integrarse en la sociedad. (...) En este artículo se analizan, a través de textos legales malikíes medievales, algunas de las consecuencias de la manumisión en la capacidad de obrar de los esclavos liberados que adquieren diversos status intermedios entre la esclavitud plena y la libertad plena. (shrink)

El presente artículo indaga los orígenes de una valoración positiva de toda la condición humana en el incipiente Renacimiento. Centrándonos en _De dignitate et excellentia hominis_ de Gianozzo Mannetti situamos su pensamiento frente a la tradición, mostrando la radical originalidad de su enfoque, fuertemente influenciado por el aristotelismo. Con tal fin, mostramos dos tradiciones que dignifican la condición del hombre: una griega, que se ordena en torno al concepto de microcosmos, y otra latina, edificada sobre el término _dignitas_. Proponemos que (...) abandonando la tradición griega, se conduce la tradición latina a un horizonte muy distinto, transformando el término clásico de _dignitas_ de un término equívoco a uno análogo. (shrink)