Cognitive Foundations Research Articles

O współczesnych problemach z prawdą. Refleksje w świetle eseju Harry’ego G. Frankfurta O wciskaniu kitu (On Bullshit)

This article is an attempt to present one of the vital features of modern culture, namely indifference to truth. In the context of proclaiming the expression “post-truth” the Word of the Year 2016, the author shows how this modern indifference should be understood. It is explained by recalling the essay of Harry G. Frankfurt entitled On Bullshit. This short text presents a certain characteristic trait of modern times, that is, a certain attitude to truth typical of the contemporary man. What is interesting is that it is convergent with the meaning of the very expression that has recently made such a spectacular career and became the Word of the Year. In the first part of the article the author presents the history of the term “post-truth”, its basic meaning and the context in which it was created and is now used. The term “bullshit” is then treated in a similar way. In the third part of the article the main thoughts of Frankfurt’s essay are referred to. It is pointed out that this short essay, written already in the 1980s, proves to be still valid up until today. For in his essay Frankfurt does not describe any political reality, social or medial one, saturated with dishonesty, disinformation, lies and manipulation. He does not attempt to present various types of examples of “bullshit”. Instead, as befits a philosopher, he goes deeper and attempts to reach the essence of this phenomenon. In this way he draws an unusually accurate image of the modern man for whom truth has lost its significance, for whom there has grown between truth and lies – contrary to any logic – a whole sphere of bullshit, or otherwise post-truth. In the fourth part of the article the author points out the sources of such a situation. He talks about the rejection of the realistic, classical way of understanding truth and, in relation to it, about turning away from reality, that is from facts. In the last part the author explains that in modern times in place of reality (as an important point of reference) the criterion of coherence and democratic consensus has been introduced, or – what fits well into the culture of “bullshit” – the criterion of practicality and usefulness. Instead of thinking in terms of objective order, it is therefore proposed that one should think and act in terms of subjectively perceived advantages. At this point the author refers to Richard Rorty’s philosophical conception and shows that Rorty’s end of philosophy, the abandonment of the search for the ultimate foundations of cognition, for the discovery of truth, for the dominant idea of „contingency” and usefulness, and his „language games” are all excellent illustrations of what a man of the era of post-truth, the era of indifference to truth, nourishes.

Types of Inferences in Discourse

In all the diversity and manifold researches of inference its nature remains unrevealed, as there is a lack of the uniform basis of the inference occurrences. It is mainly connected with the non-homogeneity of the inference action and a huge spectrum of its occurrence in language and speech. The study focuses on the search for the universal and relative to the nature of inference criteria of the classification of inferences in language and speech to penetrate deep into the essence of the discussed phenomenon. In this regard, the paper presents an analysis and discussion of the existing inference classifications on the basis of such criteria as functionality, a vector of action, a level of cognitive procession, inferential relations, etc. The aim of the analysis is to compare the current classifications of inferences, to make a conclusion about possible vectors of the inference actions in language and speech and to find out the universal, cognitive foundation underlying inference occurrences. Taking into account the nature of inference as a way of human thinking, the types of inferences are identified according to such mental operations as comparison, filling in (framing), integration, elimination, deduction, induction on the material of various linguistic resources (texts, utterances, dialogues). The proposed classification requires further consideration on the basis of a broader linguistic material (various types of discourse, utterances involving polysemantic words or phraseological units; the study of nomination processes of complex linguistic units like idioms, derived verbs, compound nouns) and can be modified and complemented.

The Relationship between Creativity and Entrepreneurial Intention: A Moderated Mediating Effect Model

Entrepreneurship is a kind of highly creative value creation activity, and active creative thinking is a significant feature of entrepreneurs. A high degree of entrepreneurial intention is the prerequisite for undertaking entrepreneurial activities. In recent years, some studies have started to focus on the impact of creativity on individual entrepreneurial intention. At the same time, the recognition of entrepreneurial opportunities has always been the core issue in the study of entrepreneurship, and has a positive impact on entrepreneurial willingness as well. Creativity reflects the ability of building new connections between things, and opportunity recognition also requires potential entrepreneurs to find out the relationship between concepts in confusing information. We need to further explore the nexus between creativity and opportunity recognition and how they affect individual willingness to create new businesses. It cannot be ignored that a fear of failure, as a psychological factor that hinders individual entrepreneurship, may have a certain inhibitory effect on the emergence of entrepreneurial intention. Especially for potential young entrepreneurs, the high failure costs and opportunity cost may discourage them from pursuing entrepreneurship. Taking college students as an example, they are the new force of entrepreneurial activities in China due to their rich knowledge, active thinking and entrepreneurial passion. However, the rate of self-employment of university graduates in China is much lower than that of developed countries. Based on this situation, we investigate 405 college students to explore the relationship between creativity, opportunity recognition, a fear of failure and entrepreneurial intention by constructing a moderated mediating effect model. The questionnaire is used to obtain the data in this paper. After testing the reliability, validity and common method deviation of the samples, the hypotheses are verified. The results of empirical analysis show that individual creativity has a positive impact on his entrepreneurial intention. Opportunity recognition plays a mediating role in the promotion mechanism of creativity on entrepreneurial intention; a fear of failure plays a negative moderation role in the relationship between opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention, namely a fear of failure weakens the promotion effect of opportunity recognition on entrepreneurial intention. Furthermore, a fear of failure moderates the partial mediating role of opportunity recognition in the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intention. The higher the level of a fear of failure is, the weaker the mediating effect of opportunity recognition is. This paper has some theoretical significance. Firstly, this paper helps us to explore the role of creativity from a cognitive perspective and further broadens the research on the factors affecting entrepreneurial intention. Secondly, the findings show that individual creativity and opportunity recognition are two similar but different constructs in the field of entrepreneurship. Creativity provides cognitive foundation for opportunity recognition, while the latter is a key extrinsic ability of the former. The results also prove that creativity can be regarded as one’s valuable raw material” as some previous studies have pointed out, which can promote entrepreneurial intention by enhancing individual entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. Thirdly, we discuss the moderating effect of a fear of failure in the process of transforming creativity into entrepreneurial intention. It also proves that the Performance Failure Appraisal Inventory” is suitable for Chinese context and provides instrumental support for future research. The findings have some practical significance to promoting college students to start a business. On the one hand, we should pay attention to the cultivation of college students’ creativity and set it as an important part of entrepreneurship education. On the other hand, it is necessary to improve the policies on promoting the entrepreneurship of university students constantly, create reasonable guarantee for undertaking entrepreneurship and reduce the failure cost. By providing favorable external environment, we can help young entrepreneurs to weaken the fear of entrepreneurial failure and understand entrepreneurship objectively. As a result, they can evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities accurately and enhance their own entrepreneurial intentions.

The Cognitive Foundations of Visionary Strategy

Some strategic decisions will long be remembered for being remarkably successful, providing dramatic benefits to customers, investors, or social welfare. The individuals who make these decisions are often called “visionary.” But what enables some people to be visionary? Is it a gift or skill, and can it be learned? In this paper I identify three main cognitive processes that underlie the creation of visionary strategy: abstraction, idealism, and long paths of analytical reasoning. Using a combination of examples and cognitive science, I explain how they work individually and in combination, and how they may be cultivated.

Infants expect ingroup support to override fairness when resources are limited

Recent research suggests that the foundations of human moral cognition include abstract principles of fairness and ingroup support. We examined which principle 1.5-y-old infants and 2.5-y-old toddlers would prioritize when the two were pitted against each other. In violation-of-expectation tasks, a puppet distributor brought in either two (two-item condition) or three (three-item condition) items and faced two potential recipients, an ingroup and an outgroup puppet. In each condition, the distributor allocated two items in one of three events: She gave one item each to the ingroup and outgroup puppets (equal event), she gave both items to the ingroup puppet (favors-ingroup event), or she gave both items to the outgroup puppet (favors-outgroup event). Children in the two-item condition looked significantly longer at the equal or favors-outgroup event than at the favors-ingroup event, suggesting that when there were only enough items for the group to which the distributor belonged, children detected a violation if she gave any of the items to the outgroup puppet. In the three-item condition, in contrast, children looked significantly longer at the favors-ingroup or favors-outgroup event than at the equal event, suggesting that when there were enough items for all puppets present, children detected a violation if the distributor chose to give two items to one recipient and none to the other, regardless of which recipient was advantaged. Thus, infants and toddlers expected fairness to prevail when there were as many items as puppets, but they expected ingroup support to trump fairness otherwise.

Horizontal Unfairness and Retrospective Sensemaking

In this article, I aim at problematizing the implied idea of causality in cognitive evaluations of horizontal justice events. I will draw on theories about retrospective sensemaking and its cognitive foundation in counterfactual belief formation. Issues related to horizontal or intraunit unfairness emerge in situations in which the actions of one employee influence the outcome of another due to relational interdependence. The authors of theories about horizontal unfairness have continued the traditional distinction between the three facets of justice, procedural, distributive, and interactional. However, might employee A blame employee B because she (B) obtained qualitative (e.g., non-monetary appraisal) or quantitative (e.g., monetary compensation) recognition even though the latter did not, directly at least, bring about the event. The problem here is one of causality which asks the question, Can A be blamed by B for bringing about the event of outcome difference? While blame in evaluations of vertical justice certainly presumes causal agency, it might be questioned whether the same goes for horizontal unfairness. Counterfactual belief formation enables a step into the cognitive and retrospective nature of evaluations of horizontal justice events centered on the counterfactual belief “had the unfavorable event X not occurred, another and more favorable event X1 would have occurred.” This is related to the distance between the actual X and the potential event state X), in the sense that the closer the two appear, the more convincing becomes A’s belief to himself. The underlying causality of rewarding processes, however, states that some third party introduces the recognition, for example, a manager, and, therefore, B did not bring about the reward event, the third party did. It seems, then, that to understand this, we should take into consideration: 1) the formation of counterfactual beliefs and 2) the causality of blame. The article concludes that, due to the underlying causality of rewarding processes, one might solely consider one facet of horizontal justice, interactional horizontal justice. However, tapping into the phenomenological dimension of morality might allow one also to address the moral nature of distributive and procedural facets of horizontal justice as the experience of the psychosocial fabric of social reality related with feeling either “as if” one is being treated unfairly or “as if” one is treating others unfairly.

The Whys of Social Exclusion: Insights from Behavioral Economics

All over the world, people are prevented from participating fully in society through mechanisms that go beyond the structural and institutional barriers that rational choice theory identifies (—poverty, exclusion by law or force, taste-based or statistical discrimination, and externalities from social networks differentiated by socioeconomic status). This paper discusses four additional mechanisms that can be explained by bounded rationality: (a) implicit discrimination, (b) self-stereotyping and self-censorship, (c) rules of thumb adapted to disadvantaged environments that are dysfunctional in more privileged settings, and (d) “adaptive preferences,” in which an excluded group comes to view its exclusion as natural. Institutions, if they are stable, come to have cognitive foundations---concepts, categories, social identities, and worldviews---through which people mediate their perceptions of themselves and the world around them. Abolishing or reforming a discriminatory institution may have little effect on the social categories it created; groups previously discriminated against by law may remain excluded through custom and habits of the mind. Recognizing new forces of social exclusion, behavioral economics identifies ways to offset them. Some interventions have had very consequential impacts.

Big splash, no waves? Cognitive mechanisms driving incumbent firms’ responses to low‐price market entry strategies

Research Summary: Low‐price market entries, aiming for rapid sales growth, tend to prompt strong competitive reactions. This research explores whether and how firms using low‐price entry strategies can mitigate retaliatory incumbent reactions. An experiment with 656 managers shows that entrants can attenuate the strength of incumbents’ responses by fostering perceptions of high aggressiveness or low commitment. Entrants may be able to accomplish this by adjusting their entry strategy to embed (subtle) cues of aggressiveness and (lack of) commitment. A replication experiment with university students reinforces our overall theoretical argument. However, the results also indicate that the interpretation of cues embedded in the entry strategy may be affected by the experience of incumbent firm managers. Overall, these results clarify the cognitive foundations of competitive responses to market entry. Managerial Summary: What drives incumbents to respond strongly to market entries, and what can the entrant, if anything, do to mitigate those responses? This research offers empirical evidence and theoretical insights for managers faced with these questions by shedding light on the thinking processes preceding competitive responses. The study shows that while managers are motivated to respond strongly to market entries that appear to be highly consequential to their business, these responses may be mitigated if the entrant manages to foster perceptions of high aggressiveness or low commitment to the market. Managers form these perceptions in part on the basis of the entrant’s behavior, creating an opportunity for entrants to adjust their entry strategies in a manner that demotivates strong competitive responses.

Decoding the dynamic representation of musical pitch from human brain activity

In music, the perception of pitch is governed largely by its tonal function given the preceding harmonic structure of the music. While behavioral research has advanced our understanding of the perceptual representation of musical pitch, relatively little is known about its representational structure in the brain. Using Magnetoencephalography (MEG), we recorded evoked neural responses to different tones presented within a tonal context. Multivariate Pattern Analysis (MVPA) was applied to “decode” the stimulus that listeners heard based on the underlying neural activity. We then characterized the structure of the brain’s representation using decoding accuracy as a proxy for representational distance, and compared this structure to several well established perceptual and acoustic models. The observed neural representation was best accounted for by a model based on the Standard Tonal Hierarchy, whereby differences in the neural encoding of musical pitches correspond to their differences in perceived stability. By confirming that perceptual differences honor those in the underlying neuronal population coding, our results provide a crucial link in understanding the cognitive foundations of musical pitch across psychological and neural domains.

ONE Function for the Anterior Cingulate Cortex and General AI: Consistency Curation

Control is essential in all complex systems serving any purpose, and cognitive control is claimed to fill a pivotal role for the cognition of agents. The Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) is a neural structure, widely believed to be involved in cognitive control. In the human brain, the ACC undoubtedly takes a center position and features several peculiarities. It has been implicated in a wide range of tasks ranging from sensing pain and autonomic regulation to high-level executive functions like error monitoring and abstract control. A sketch how this seemingly irreconcilable plurality can be understood as manifestations of only one general process working in diverse contexts on different content is presented and also how this constitutes evidence for a specific cognitive architecture. Going beyond extant proposals for ACC function, the here presented one recommends an embedding into a very general overarching model of cognition. Discrepancy monitoring highlights deviations between predictions derived from memory content and current activations. A process doing this has recently been proposed as central to the 'Ouroboros Model' under the title of 'consumption analysis'. It is claimed that ONE functional account centered on consistency checking and, based thereupon, the overall minimization of discrepancies (consistency curation and cultivation”) can parsimoniously explain the plentitude of reported observations for the ACC, thus shedding new light on the neural computations, which form the foundations of cognition and, finally, consciousness. A specific natural reconciliation of various current conceptualizations and theoretical models is offered, which points out promising directions for future modelling efforts and attempts to harness the findings generally for artificial intelligence.

How explicit is the cognitive science foundation of geoscience education research? A study of syntactical units in JGE articles

ABSTRACTThe National Research Council's report, Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering (Singer, Nielsen, & Schweingruber, 2012), states that discipline-based education research (DBER), such as geoscience education research (GER), is informed by research about cognition and learning. It also states that how different disciplines ground their DBER in existing cognitive theories of learning varies. The aim of this study is to take a first step toward systematically evaluating the degree to which research on undergraduate geoscience education published in the Journal of Geoscience Education (JGE) is informed by cognitive science concepts and grounded in cognitive learning theories. This study's theoretical framework draws on a linguistic theory of representation and a general cognitive theory of learning. The methodology of a systematic literature review was used to examine 1,760 articles published in JGE from 1985 to 2016. Of these articles, 167 articles met the selection criteria (undergraduate geoscience education research) for further appraisal. The results of this study suggest that undergraduate geoscience education scholars (a) have an ongoing interest in cognition-related research topics, (b) have an overall low degree of fluency or familiarity with cognitive science concepts, and (c) can further future GER studies in cognitive learning theories. Recommendations based on this study's findings include independently learning more about cognition, developing partnerships or collaborations with those more knowledgeable about cognitive concepts and theories, and supporting one another in the GER community to increase fluency with cognitive science concepts and increasingly incorporate theoretical frameworks into future GER studies.

Types of Inferences in Discourse

In all the diversity and manifold researches of inference its nature remains unrevealed, as there is a lack of the uniform basis of the inference occurrences. It is mainly connected with the non-homogeneity of the inference action and a huge spectrum of its occurrence in language and speech. The study focuses on the search for the universal and relative to the nature of inference criteria of the classification of inferences in language and speech to penetrate deep into the essence of the discussed phenomenon. In this regard, the paper presents an analysis and discussion of the existing inference classifications on the basis of such criteria as functionality, a vector of action, a level of cognitive procession, inferential relations, etc. The aim of the analysis is to compare the current classifications of inferences, to make a conclusion about possible vectors of the inference actions in language and speech and to find out the universal, cognitive foundation underlying inference occurrences. Taking into account the nature of inference as a way of human thinking, the types of inferences are identified according to such mental operations as comparison, filling in (framing), integration, elimination, deduction, induction on the material of various linguistic resources (texts, utterances, dialogues). The proposed classification requires further consideration on the basis of a broader linguistic material (various types of discourse, utterances involving polysemantic words or phraseological units; the study of nomination processes of complex linguistic units like idioms, derived verbs, compound nouns) and can be modified and complemented.

Когнитивные основания интертекстуальности

Когнитивные основания интертекстуальности

The Cognitive Foundations of Cooperation

Abstract We conducted an experiment causally manipulating reliance on more intuitive vs. more deliberative behavior through time pressure and time delay. Our design uses a novel manipulation which relies on gradual economic incentives and was devised to avoid the high degree of non-compliance observed in previous experiments. The “social heuristic hypothesis,” which claims that people are intuitively predisposed to cooperate, is not supported in our data. On the aggregate, subjects are not more cooperative under gradually-incentivized time pressure. We also measured individual attitudes on social values and attitudes toward interpersonal risk, and find that both correlate with the tendency to cooperate. A detailed analysis suggests that subjects with a stronger (resp. weaker) prosocial predisposition become more (resp. less) cooperative under time pressure compared to time delay, although the effect is only noticeable for extreme-enough predispositions. A possible interpretation is that relying on more intuitive behavior enhances individual heterogeneous predispositions, while relying on more deliberative behavior moderates them. This suggests that tendencies toward cooperation might not be universal, and rather be moderated by individual characteristics.

Introduction to This Special Issue: Dyslexia Across Languages and Writing Systems

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that a phonological deficit primarily underlies developmental dyslexia. However, the existing evidence is mainly based on studies in children learning to read English. In recent years, the research base has broadened, as research around the world has provided new insights into the neural and cognitive foundations of developmental dyslexia in different languages. The present issue aims to bring together observations on reading disabilities across languages and writing systems within cross-linguistic and cross-writing system perspectives while taking into account a broad multidisciplinary scope. An attempt is made to advance theoretical models of developmental dyslexia through systematic analyses of reading disabilities in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, German, Greek, and Spanish in perspective of universal and particular underlying cognitive principles. It is also discussed how within- and cross-language observations may affect the conceptualization of developmental dyslexia.

‘You can hear wholly only if you remove the waxes in your ears’: The Hararghe Oromo’s theory for establishing the intersubjective foundation of cognition

The article sets out to examine the way the Hararghe Oromo in Ethiopia use their mirriiysa culture to express and cultivate criticality, mindfulness, interpersonal sensitivity and emotional intelligence. The paper discusses the nature of the performance culture and analyses the social psychological meanings of a set of mirriiysa texts collected from a group of folk performers who participated also in the interpretation and analysis of the cultural, social and psychological meanings of the texts. For theory, the study drew on interpretivism. During data analysis, the horizontal and vertical planes of analysis interacted and reinforced each other. The act of removing earwax symbolizes a cultural dimension of intersubjectivity and interaffectivity. The analyses indicated that mirriiysa is a socio-cultural performance wherein listening, understanding and responding occur in socially meaningful and interactive contexts. To understand the communicative intent of a mirriiysa text, one should take broader perspectives and pay due attention to the non-linguistic elements that offer the performance holistic import. The paper highlights the implication of these and other findings for our understanding of the meanings of mirriiysa and other genre performances.

Agency detection in predictive minds: a virtual reality study

ABSTRACTSince its inception, explaining the cognitive foundations governing sensory experiences of supernatural agents has been a central topic in the cognitive science of religion. Following recent developments in perceptual psychology, this pre-registered study examines the effects of expectations and sensory reliability on agency detection. Participants were instructed to detect beings in a virtual forest. Results reveal that participants expecting a high probability of encountering an agent in the forest are much more likely to make false detections than participants expecting a low probability of such encounters. Furthermore, low sensory reliability increases the false detection rate compared to high sensory reliability, but this effect is much smaller than the effect of expectations. While previous accounts of agency detection have speculated that false detections of agents may give rise to or strengthen religious beliefs, our results suggest that the reverse direction of causality may also be true. Religious teachings may first produce expectations in believers, which in turn elicit false detections of agents. These experiences may subsequently work to confirm the teachings and narratives upon which the values of a given culture are built.

Similar Differences

The study of mystical experiences is an endeavor that has been approached in many ways. One unresolved issue in this area of study is whether or not there is a particular type of experience underlying the traditionally religious interpretations, which can be termed “mystical.” In this paper, the author posits that some of the foundational claims of the common core view and the social constructivist view of the nature of such experiences, respectively, are not completely incompatible. Rather, the two approaches may converge with regard to the cognitive foundations of cross-culturally accessible anomalous experiences.

Enacting the Consequences of the Lecoq Pedagogy's Aesthetic Cognitive Foundation

The theatre pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq (1921–99) is founded on the principle that all physical, psychological, intellectual, and emotional performance registers can be accessed by prioritizing the moving body. Therefore, a Lecoq-based approach is in contrast to dominant principles of psychologically based acting that privilege working through emotion and psychology. While Lecoq pedagogy does not discount these performance registers, normally considered to belong to the “internal” world of the actor, Lecoq's work reaches them through physical action. Lecoq pedagogy considers it possible to learn how to shape and manage these registers by mastering the moving body as creative theatrical agent. This pedagogical strategy at first reiterates and then inverts the mind privilege of a Cartesian mind–body dichotomy, but ultimately confounds it, reorienting the constitution of body and mind. This reconstitution results in a new, emergent, antidualistic configuration where somatic intelligence accesses and encompasses all intelligence, and is initiated and accomplished through the physical act.

Cognitive Foundations of Learning from Testimony.

Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they age, children's reasoning about testimony increasingly reflects an ability not just to detect imperfect or inaccurate claims but also to assess what inferences may or may not be drawn about informants given their particular situation. Children also attend to the broader characteristics of particular informants-their group membership, personality characteristics, and agreement or disagreement with other potential informants. When presented with unexpected or counterintuitive testimony, children are prone to set aside their own prior convictions, but they may sometimes defer to informants for inherently social reasons.