The notions of conservation and relativity lie at the heart of classical mechanics, and were critical to its early development. However, in Newton’s theory of mechanics, these symmetry principles were eclipsed by domain-specific laws. In view of the importance of symmetry principles in elucidating the structure of physical theories, it is natural to ask to what extent conservation and relativity determine the structure of mechanics. In this paper, we address this question by deriving classical mechanics—both nonrelativistic and relativistic—using relativity and (...) conservation as the primary guiding principles. The derivation proceeds in three distinct steps. First, conservation and relativity are used to derive the asymptotically conserved quantities of motion. Second, in order that energy and momentum be continuously conserved, the mechanical system is embedded in a larger energetic framework containing a massless component that is capable of bearing energy. Imposition of conservation and relativity then results, in the nonrelativistic case, in the conservation of mass and in the frame-invariance of massless energy; and, in the relativistic case, in the rules for transforming massless energy and momentum between frames. Third, a force framework for handling continuously interacting particles is established, wherein Newton’s second law is derived on the basis of relativity and a staccato model of motion-change. Finally, in light of the derivation, we elucidate the structure of mechanics by classifying the principles and assumptions that have been employed according to their explanatory role, distinguishing between symmetry principles and other types of principles that are needed to build up the theoretical edifice. (shrink)

The notions of conservation and relativity lie at the heart of classical mechanics, and were critical to its early development. However, in Newton’s theory of mechanics, these symmetry principles were eclipsed by domain-specific laws. In view of the importance of symmetry principles in elucidating the structure of physical theories, it is natural to ask to what extent conservation and relativity determine the structure of mechanics. In this paper, we address this question by deriving classical mechanics—both nonrelativistic and relativistic—using relativity and (...) conservation as the primary guiding principles. The derivation proceeds in three distinct steps. First, conservation and relativity are used to derive the asymptotically conserved quantities of motion. Second, in order that energy and momentum be continuously conserved, the mechanical system is embedded in a larger energetic framework containing a massless component that is capable of bearing energy. Imposition of conservation and relativity then results, in the nonrelativistic case, in the conservation of mass and in the frame-invariance of massless energy; and, in the relativistic case, in the rules for transforming massless energy and momentum between frames. Third, a force framework for handling continuously interacting particles is established, wherein Newton’s second law is derived on the basis of relativity and a staccato model of motion-change. Finally, in light of the derivation, we elucidate the structure of mechanics by classifying the principles and assumptions that have been employed according to their explanatory role, distinguishing between symmetry principles and other types of principles that are needed to build up the theoretical edifice. (shrink)

This study provides an innovative approach to neutrosophic algebraic structures by introducing a new structure called Neutrosophic Soft Cubic T-ideal (NSCTID), which combines T-ideal (TID) and neutrosophic Soft Cubic Sets (NSCSs) within the framework of PS-Algebra. Within the already-existing neutrosophic cubic structures, the addition of soft sets with the characteristics of TID makes this structure more desirable. The theoretical development of the proposed structure includes the application of fundamental ideas as union, intersection, the Cartesian product, and homomorphism. We also introduce (...) the notions of NSCTID-translation and NSCTID-multiplication to further enhance the structure of NSCTID. By applying the idea of translation and multiplication, we offer improved algorithm for neutrosophic cubic sets to deal with different parameters that are satisying the TID’s distinctive characteristics. Through this thorough research, we offer an elementary understanding of NSCTID and its capabilities, providing the way to new algebraic structures. (shrink)

Networks pervade social and economic life, and they play a prominent role in explaining a huge variety of social and economic phenomena. Standard economic theory did not give much credit to the role of networks until the early 1990s, but since then the study of the theory of networks has blossomed. At the heart of this research is the idea that the pattern of connections between individual rational agents shapes their actions and determines their rewards. The importance of connections has (...) in turn motivated the study of the very processes by which networks are formed. In Connections, Sanjeev Goyal puts contemporary thinking about networks and economic activity into context. He develops a general framework within which this body of research can be located. In the first part of the book he demonstrates that location in a network has significant effects on individual rewards and that, given this, it is natural that individuals will seek to form connections to move the network in their favor. This idea motivates the second part of the book, which develops a general theory of network formation founded on individual incentives. Goyal assesses the robustness of current research findings and identifies the substantive open questions. Written in a style that combines simple examples with formal models and complete mathematical proofs, Connections is a concise and self-contained treatment of the economic theory of networks, one that should become the natural source of reference for graduate students in economics and related disciplines. (shrink)

Why do we buy houses as opposed to renting one? This question, in its simplistic formulation captures, inter alia, some of the most fundamental emotions of temporal values that we impose on ourselv...

Classifying spatial frames of references have placed egocentric/body-based representations on muddy grounds. The traditional taxonomy places it under the deictic distinction while the Levinson’s terminology does not provide a special status for it but classifies it along with the relative frame of reference. Research from other areas of cognition has come up with other implied classifications that are motivated by the special role played by these egocentric representation(s). Tangled among such issues is the fuzzy distinction between egocentric and body based (...) representations. The current paper takes up exactly this issue and proposes to sub classify egocentric representations into two different subtypes namely the first- and the second-order representations. The proposed distinction serves an essential purpose for understanding important cognitive processes like spatial transformation, mental perspective taking, and so on. (shrink)

“The women here in Los Terreros are worried,” Don Alonzo says. “Last year, one of them died from invasive cervical cancer. Thirty-eight years old. Never had a pap in her life.” He leans back in his chair and sighs. “Her husband wouldn’t let her, said he didn’t see the point.” A tabby cat rubs against his legs. “So now the women, they keep worrying. They’ve had the day your group is coming memorized for weeks, maybe months.”Don Alonzo is the local (...) health officer, a thin man in his late sixties, never without his cowboy hat and tattered backpack. We sit in front of his house atop a steep hill in Los Terreros, a small Honduran community about a hundred miles northeast of the country’s capital. Around us, dense green... (shrink)

The study comprehensively reviews previous research work in the domain of ‘Organizational Virtuousness’ (OV) using bibliometric and content analysis. It aims to provide insights into what is known about the field and where future research should be directed. As many as 193 published research articles during the last two decades (2004–2022) were retrieved from the Scopus database. These articles were thoroughly studied and then examined using VOSviewer and the Biblioshiny package of R software for bibliometric insights. The findings of the (...) analysis have pinpointed the most influential journals, authors, and keywords and discovered seven research clusters. Notably, this study is one of the foremost attempts to review the extant research body on OV, and it inarguably helps and guides future research and practice. (shrink)

The quantum symmetrization procedure that is used to handle systems of identical quantum particles brings into question whether the elementary constituents of matter, such as electrons, have the fundamental characteristics of persistence and reidentifiability that are attributed to classical particles. However, we presently lack a coherent conception of matter composed of entities that do not possess one or both of these fundamental characteristics. We also lack a clear a priori understanding of why systems of identical particles (as opposed to non-identical (...) particles) require special mathematical treatment, and this only in the quantum mechanical (as opposed to classical mechanical) setting. -/- Here, on the basis of a conceptual analysis of a recent mathematical reconstruction of the quantum symmetrization procedure, we argue that the need for the symmetrization procedure originates in the confluence of identicality and the active nature of the quantum measurement process. We propose a conception in which detection-events are ontologically primary, while the notion of individually persistent object is relegated to merely one way of bringing order to these events. On this basis, we outline a new interpretation of the symmetrization procedure which gives a new physical interpretation to the indices in symmetrized states and to non-symmetric measurement operators. (shrink)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is not an unknown name. The writer, actor, and producer has been a part of various comedy TV series and films. However, she has a pattern in her comedy writing and character creation that is obvious in the TV series – Fleabag (2016–2019) and Crashing (2016). In both these series, one cannot miss the obvious similarity between the characters she wrote and played – characters who knew what they wanted and did not hesitate to make attempts to achieve (...) it, even when it meant defying the conventional rules of social relationships and breaking out of the gender identities set by society for women. In fact, other characters created around these female characters seem to lack the same courage, which leads to the creation of comical situations but also often results in these characters facing emotional obstacles that they eventually overcome. The women in both shows not only choose to reject predefined gender identities, but also make choices and take risks while being aware of the consequences. Throughout their journeys of embracing their free consciousnesses, these characters illustrate Jean Paul Sartre’s and Simone de Beauvoir’s process of transcending their facticity, thus avoiding bad faith. Implicit in Waller-Bridge’s work is the argument that we could do better to be – and encourage other women to be – the types of women that her protagonists are. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Time Together and Time ApartNeha Choksi (bio)The drawings to scale on the following pages depict multiple views I outlined while holding in my hand a single, small particolored stone. The silhouette leaves a hole for the stone to inhabit, were it still to exist. The colored pigment that shapes the absence of the stone is made by pulverizing this same stone.I pushed the pigment aside on the recto to (...) create the evacuated silhouette. Imagining the hole bored through to the other side, I colored the verso, too. All the pigment from the stone was used up in painting these multiple views.________The Crete Senesi area in Tuscany, where I found the stone, is formed from tiny fragments of small shells and sea organisms compacted with sediments of clays and sands from a sea that covered it millions of years ago. I fancy the stone contains evidence of the missing sea.I dislocated this stone during one of my multiple walks on a local strada bianchi near my temporary residence in a tiny village in Tuscany. I shared a summer there with six other artists and the coordinator as part of the Amant Residency Siena. I painted one stone view per member of our group. I made these drawings as a gift for them, for us, for our time together, and our time apart.October 11, 2023 Mumbai7 cotton paper sheets with stone pigment paint on recto and verso Each 7 ¾ x 5 inches [End Page 64] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 65] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 66] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 67] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 68] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 69] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 70] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 71] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 72] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 73] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 74] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 75] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 76] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 77] Click for larger view View full resolution[End Page 78]Neha Choksi Neha Choksi, in her work across performance, moving image, sculpture, and installation, probes lived experiences that negotiate relationships in unconventional settings. Harnessing stone to plant, animal to friends, publics to philosophy, her materially bound art engages the terms of our existence in ways personal and planetary. Choksi’s work has been widely exhibited, screened, or performed in the United States, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, the UK, and Europe; and is in notable public collections worldwide. Recent honors include the Amant Siena Studio & Research Residency, the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, and the India Today Best New Media Artist of the Year Award. A monograph on a single artwork, Dismantling, was published in 2018. She currently co-edits Mimesis: Film as Performance Magazine. She lives and works in Los Angeles and Bombay.Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press and SubStance, Inc... (shrink)

As is well known, the late Husserl warned against the dangers of reifying and objectifying the mathematical models that operate at the heart of our physical theories. Although Husserl’s worries were mainly directed at Galilean physics, the first aim of our paper is to show that many of his critical arguments are no less relevant today. By addressing the formalism and current interpretations of quantum theory, we illustrate how topics surrounding the mathematization of nature come to the fore naturally. Our (...) second aim is to consider the program of reconstructing quantum theory, a program that currently enjoys popularity in the field of quantum foundations. We will conclude by arguing that, seen from this vantage point, certain insights delivered by phenomenology and quantum theory regarding perspectivity are remarkably concordant. Our overall hope with this paper is to show that there is much room for mutual learning between phenomenology and modern physics. (shrink)

What is the temporal course of gratitude and indebtedness and how do these feelings influence helping in the context of reciprocity? In an online-game tapping real-life behaviour, Study 1 (N = 106) finds that while gratitude towards a benefactor remains elevated after an opportunity to reciprocate, indebtedness declines along with helping. Yet, indebtedness rather than gratitude better predicts real-life helping of a benefactor. Using a vignette-based experiment, Study 2 (N = 217) finds that after reciprocation indebtedness and likelihood of helping (...) a benefactor reset to a baseline level while gratitude endures. Furthermore, the decrease in helping after reciprocation is better explained by indebtedness than by gratitude. Study 3 (N = 217) assessed the unique influences of gratitude and indebtedness on helping by comparing contexts in which gratitude is at a baseline level but indebtedness is elevated (e.g. before a monetary payment for a service received) to contexts in which indebtedness is at a baseline level but gratitude is elevated (e.g. after reciprocation of benefits freely given by a friend). People are more likely to help in the former compared to latter context, and this difference is better explained by indebtedness rather than by gratitude. We discuss the interrelated and understudied relationships between gratitude, indebtedness, and reciprocity. (shrink)

According to our understanding of the everyday physical world, observable phenomena are underpinned by persistent objects that can be reidentified across time by observation of their distinctive properties. This understanding is reflected in classical mechanics, which posits that matter consists of persistent, reidentifiable particles. However, the mathematical symmetrization procedures used to describe identical particles within the quantum formalism have led to the widespread belief that identical quantum particles lack either persistence or reidentifiability. However, it has proved difficult to reconcile these (...) assertions with the fact that identical particles are routinely assumed to be reidentifiable in particular circumstances. For example, when two electrons move through a bubble chamber, each is said to generate a sequence of bubbles that is caused by one and the same particle. Moreover, neither of these assertions accounts for the mathematical form of the symmetrization procedures used to describe identical particles within the quantum framework, leaving open theoretical possibilities other than bosonic and fermionic behavior, such as paraparticles, which do not appear to be realized in nature. Here we propose the novel idea that both persistence and nonpersistence models must be employed in order to fully account for the behaviour of identical particles. Thus, identical particles are neither persistent nor nonpersistent. We prove the viability of this viewpoint by showing how Feynman's and Dirac's symmetrization procedures arise through a synthesis of a quantum treatment of these models, and by showing how reidentifiability emerges in a context-dependent manner. We further show that the persistence and nonpersistence models satisfy the key characteristics of Bohr's concept of complementarity, and thereby propose that the behavior of identical particles is a manifestation of a persistence-nonpersistence complementarity, analogous to Bohr's wave-particle complementarity for individual particles. Finally, we construct a precise parallel between these two complementarities, and detail their conceptual similarities and dissimilarities. (shrink)

Working from home (WFH) is a new reality and norm in today’s work culture. COVID-induced lockdown introduced the concept of WFH for many people. Blurring home and workplace boundaries was a prominent cause of disorientation in people’s lives. Hence, WFH becomes a significant phenomenon to explore as it raises the fundamental question of body and space in shaping people’s experiences. To study this, the researchers designed a phenomenological inquiry and examined the lived phenomenon of WFH during the COVID lockdown. Borrowing (...) theoretical concepts from philosophers Martin Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, they aimed to understand human experiences from an embodied perspective. They interviewed a few adults (age group 27–50) in three urban Indian cities during the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown. The participants’ experiences were transcribed, and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was conducted. The IPA themes highlighted their varied lived experiences and lifeworld, such as distractions in working from home, their changed routines, habits, and social interaction. The findings are discussed through phenomenological psychology concepts such as embodied cognition, body memory, extended self, shared empathy, intersubjectivity and pre-reflective bodily intelligence in coping. The study’s contribution is that it advances a methodological understanding by interpreting people’s experiences from a phenomenological view of being-in-the-world in which the individual is not an isolated entity but is in the world/placed in the world with other people and the environment. (shrink)

The current paper offers a unique perspective of looking at oblique effects in cognition, language and aesthetics in a language where geometrical horizontal and vertical orientations are not considered cardinal and primary in nature. These oblique effects are termed as atypical in nature, offering a contrast to the other languages. In this attempt, a holistic framework is provided that is couched in terms of a single theory and explains effects from two separate fields in a similar manner. The proposed holistic (...) framework provides special place for the influence of language on cognition (?class-3? theory). The paper closes with directions for future research that could potentially work towards providing further empirical evidence for strengthening the framework. (shrink)

Schematic, propositional, analogical and associative representational Systems (SPAARS) is the integrated cognitive model of emotion proposed by Power and Dalgleish (Cognition and Emotion: from order to disorder. The Psychology Press, England, 1997). It is multi-level in nature and includes four different levels of representation. In SPAARS, emotions are described as appraisal-based according to an individual’s goals, thus making the theory functional in nature. Basic emotions possess an innate component and hence can be elicited automatically, since these emotions might already have (...) been appraised in an individual’s evolutionary past. Thus, the theory proposes two routes for the generation of emotions. It provides an useful approach within which both basic and complex emotions can readily be understood. The theory can also be applied in order to explain emotional disorders as well as to generate novel therapeutic interventions for them. In the current review the SPAARS approach has been used to understand psychopathy, also called the disorder of empathy (a complex emotion). The theory provides a new perspective for looking at psychopaths. It suggests that psychopathy may arise either due to a problem generating the basic emotion of sadness, the complex emotion of empathy or a combination of the two. The interventions suggested would also vary depending upon the underlying nature of the problem. (shrink)

It is the primary duty of business to satisfy consumer by providing quality goods and services at right place, right time, in right quantity at a fair price. The need for consumer protection is recognized by law makers in India since ancient times. It was very well realized that a consumer is prone to exploitation on the part of providers of goods and services. Therefore, the ancient Indian law codes regulated not only social conditions but also the economic life of (...) people by establishing human values and code of trade practices to protect the interests of buyers. This article is mainly based on the detailed study of ancient Indian literature, that is, Manu Smriti, Narada Smriti, Brihaspati Smriti and Arthshastra. (shrink)

Our understanding of the decisions made under scenarios where both descriptive and experience-based information are available is very limited. Underweighting of small probabilities was observed in the gain domain when both description and experience were provided. The divergence observed from the prospect theory suggests a need for a separate or modified theory of decision making under risk. Recent studies suggest a possible role of probability weighting in the choice behaviour under risk. We investigated both gain and loss domains with and (...) without feedback for small and large probability conditions. We characterized the shape of the probability weighting function by a two-parameter functional form representing discriminability (concave-convex shape) and attractiveness (level of absolute weights relative to objective probability). We replicated four-fold pattern of risk attitude on non-WEIRD population. We find that feedback leads to underweighting of small probabilities and overweighting of large probabilities in the gain domain and overall underweighting of probabilities in the loss domain. We find that underweighting of small probabilities is driven by changes in discriminability and attractiveness components in the gain domain and changes in the attractiveness component in the loss domain. We have interpreted the results by proposing an updated belief-based account of decisions under uncertainty in which feedback, when available, influences the probability weighting mediating the choice behaviour. (shrink)

As part of an article symposium on their “Narrow Identities”, Partha Dasgupta and Sanjeev Goyal respond to commentaries by Jean-Paul Carvalho, John B. Davis, Peter Finke, and Miriam Teschl.

As policy innovation is essential for upscaling responsible innovation, understanding its relationship to value change(s) occurring or sought in sociotechnical systems is imperative. In this study, we ask: what are the different types of values in the policy process? And, how does value change influence policy innovation? We propose a disaggregation of values and value change based on a four-stream variant of the multiple streams framework (MSF), a conceptual lens increasingly used for explaining policy innovation in sociotechnical transitions. Specifically, we (...) posit that the values that ‘govern’ problem framing, policy design, political decision making, and technological diffusion can evolve relatively independently, potentially leading to value conflict. We apply this framework to the ongoing case of the market-based economic dispatch of electricity (MBED) policy in the Indian energy transition using content analysis. We find that the MBED scheme—with its emphasis on efficiency (problem), economic principles (policy), low-cost dispatch (technology), and centralization (politics)—attempts value change in each stream. Each instance of value change is, however, widely contested, with the ensuing value conflicts resulting in significant opposition to this policy innovation. We conclude that a disaggregation of values based on the MSF can facilitate an analysis of value change and value conflict in sociotechnical transitions and lay the foundation for systematically studying the relationships among technological change, value change, and policy change. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:preface At a time when access to safe abortions is being curtailed in the United States under the pretext of a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, this Feminist Studies issue focuses on abortion and women’s embodiment. The essays by Melissa Oliver-Powell, Rachel Alpha Johnston Hurst, and Jennifer L. Holland each contribute new approaches to the stillvexed topic of abortion, positioning movements for abortion access in relation to historical and (...) ecological change. Two collaboratively written essays, by South American authors María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra and Tania Pérez-Bustos, and by North American and European authors Laura Bisaillon with six colleagues, both center the body within feminist labor, exploring how the embodied experience of work can also be a site of knowledge-making. Other authors push us to move beyond humanistic understandings of affect and the body in feminist work, as Nathan Snaza shows in a review essay of four recent books engaging “Biopolitics without Bodies.” Poems by Rosetta Marantz Cohen, Darlene Taylor, and Abby Minor also feature experiences of bodily violence and bodily pleasure, while Ellyn Weiss discusses the distinctive representations of bodies in the visual art of Swedish-American artist Anna U. Davis. To close the issue, two News and Views pieces by Pang Laikwan and Sealing Cheng on the recent protest movement in Hong Kong provide two complementary perspectives on living through tumultuous political times. Our next issue will include content directly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first essay, Melissa Oliver-Powell’s “Beyond the Spectacle of Suffering: Agnès Varda’s L’Une chante, l’autre pas and Rewriting the Subject of Abortion in France” addresses the complexities of anti-​ abortion 8 rhetoric in France. Placing Varda’s 1977 film in the historical context of French nationalistic anxiety about low birthrates in the twentieth century, Oliver-Powell argues that the film deconstructs polarized narratives about abortion. While dominant cultural representations of abortion typically depicted it as the result of female irresponsibility or traumatic victimization, Varda’s film rejects the binary concepts of villain and victim and questions the presumption that women always suffer when exercising their reproductive choice. Oliver-Powell situates Varda alongside the 343 eminent French female cultural leaders who composed a famous 1971 Manifesto publicly declaring themselves criminals for having had illegal abortions and presents simultaneous histories of French feminism and French cinema. Varda’s film constructs a feminist representation of abortion that avoids foregrounding women ’s suffering and instead emphasizes empowerment and solidarity. Its narrative features two women friends, both treated unjustly by France’s abortion laws, who participate in the movement for reform over a fourteen -year span. Varda represents the interplay of motherhood with women ’s lives as a continuum, not a disruptive episode, and she blends documentary -style devices with imaginative musical interludes: she shows actual women seeking abortions in Holland and includes songs about abortion, pregnancy, and motherhood. Oliver-Powell claims that Varda dramatizes unprecedented representations “of female friendship without pathology, of abortion without guilt, death or persecution, of motherhood without objectification....” A second essay, Rachel Hurst’s “Abortion as a Feminist Pedagogy of Grief in Marianne Apostolides’s Deep Salt Water,” proposes that the championing of women’s reproductive rights could better account for the context of difficult emotions and an imperfect world. Hurst uses reproductive justice approaches to critique simplistic rights-based arguments for abortion, premised on liberal concepts of choice and autonomy, which fail to understand the material conditions of poor women and especially women of color. Such analyses emphasize the necessity of rights discourses that include the right to bear and parent one’s own children free from violence and economic hardship, and they advocate the transformative possibilities of acknowledging rather than suppressing women’s ambivalence about their own abortions as well as others’ choices. Hurst describes a collaboration between two contemporary Canadian feminists, writer Marianne Apostolides and visual artist  9 Catherine Mellinger, in their mixed-media text, Deep Salt Water, which is organized according to the weeks of a pregnancy and the aftermath of its termination. Rather than falling back into familiar polarizations for and against “choice,” they use the story of Apostolides’s abortion seventeen years earlier... (shrink)

Sitting on the fine line between pathogen ‘transmissibility’ and ‘severity’, the Behavioural Immune System (BIS) is responsible for activating behaviours that minimise infection risks and maximise fitness. To achieve self-preservation, the BIS also fuels social and political attitudes. We aim to explain societal changes that may be sparked by COVID-19 by highlighting links between human evolutionary history and our psychological faculties mediated by the BIS.

Prior research in judgment and decision making (JDM) has investigated the effect of problem framing on human preferences. Furthermore, research in JDM documented the absence of such reversal of preferences when making decisions from experience. However, little is known about the effect of context on preferences under the combined influence of problem framing and problem format. Also, little is known about how cognitive models would account for human choices in different problem frames and types (general/specific) in the experience format. One (...) of the primary objectives of this research is to investigate the presence of preference reversals under the influence of problem framing (gain/loss), problem format (experience/description), and problem type (general/specific). Another objective of this research is to develop cognitive models to account for human choices across different problem frames and types in the experience format. A total of 320 participants from India were randomly assigned to one of eight between-subjects conditions that differed in problem frame, format, and type. Results revealed preference reversals in the description condition; however, they were absent in the experience condition. Moreover, preference reversals were less pronounced in the general problem framing compared to the specific problem framing. Furthermore, specific problems influenced risk-seeking behavior among participants. We developed cognitive and heuristics models using instance-based learning theory and natural mean heuristic. Results reveal models’ dependency on recent and frequent observations during information sampling. These experience-based cognitive models could help build artificial intelligence models with fewer preference reversals. (shrink)

The title of the original article has been corrected. The correct title is Gandhi: Philosopher or Pragmatic Politician? Gandhi Against Caste, by Nishikant Kolge; Oxford University Press 2017; Total Pages 316; Price 695 INR; ISBN 13:978-0-19-947429-5.

In Cognitive Gadgets, Heyes seeks to unite evolutionary psychology with cultural evolutionary theory. Although we applaud this unifying effort, we find it falls short of considering how culture itself evolves to produce indigenous psychologies fitted to particular environments. We focus on mentalizing and autobiographical memory as examples of how socialization practices embedded within culture build cognitive adaptations.

A bewildering range of games are emerging every other day with newer elements of fun and entertainment to woo youngsters. Games are meant to reduce stress and enhance the cognitive development of children as well as adults. Teenagers are always curious to indulge in newer games; and e-gaming is one such platform providing an easy access and quicker means of entertainment. The particular game challenge which has taken the world by storm is the dangerous “Blue Whale Challenge” often involving vulnerable (...) teenagers. The Blue Whale Challenge is neither an application nor internet based game but the users get a link through social media chat groups to enter this “deadly” challenge game. This probably is the only game where the participant has to end his/her life to complete the game. The innocent teenagers are being targeted based on their depressed psychology and are coercively isolated from their social milieux on the pretext of keeping the challenges confidential. To add to the woes, no option is offered to quit the challenge even if the contender is unable to complete the challenge. Blue Whale Challenge in its sheer form could be seen as an illegal, unethical and inhumane endeavor in our present society. The present communication discusses the severe effects of the game on teenagers, the ethical concerns involved and the preventive measures necessary to curb it. (shrink)