Intuitive Concept Research Articles

The Fitness Relevance of Counterintuitive Agents

Abstract Cognitive scientists have attributed the ubiquity of religious narratives partly to the favored recall of minimally counterintuitive (MCI) concepts within those narratives. Yet, this memory bias is inconsistent, sometimes absent, and without a functional rationale. Here, we asked if MCI concepts are more fitness relevant than intuitive concepts, and if fitness relevance can explain the existence and variability of the observed memory bias. In three studies, participants rated the potential threat and potential opportunity (i.e., fitness relevance) afforded by agents with abilities that violated folk psychology, physics, or biology (i.e., MCI abilities). As in previous work, agents with MCI abilities were recalled better than those with intuitive abilities. Additionally, agents with MCI abilities were perceived as greater threats, and as providing greater opportunities, than agents with intuitive abilities, but this perceived fitness relevance only mediated the memory bias when MCI abilities were used to accomplish disproportionally consequential outcomes. Minimally counterintuitive abilities that violated folk psychology were rated more intuitive and more of an opportunity than violations of folk physics or biology, while folk physics violations were recalled best. Explanations for these effects and their relevance to the cognitive science of religion are discussed.

La intuición, el programa dialéctico de la República y su práctica en el Parménides y el Teeteto

This article examines the relation between the dialectical program established in Plato’s Republic and the practice of dialectic in other dialogues, such as the Parmenides and the Theaetetus. The author argues against those scholars who have sustained a sharp distinction between an intuitive (not discursive) conception of knowledge and the discursive practices characteristic of Plato’s concept of dialectic. In his view, Plato has been overinterpreted from the modern perspective of the distinction between intuitive and discursive forms of knowledge. As a consequence, this article also examines the relation between the dialectical practices displayed in the Parmenides and the Theaetetus and the anhypothetical condition that Plato attributes to “the principle of everything” in the Republic.

3D Printing of Microgel-Loaded Modular Microcages as Instructive Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering.

Biomaterial scaffolds have served as the foundation of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, scaffold systems are often difficult to scale in size or shape in order to fit defect-specific dimensions, and thus provide only limited spatiotemporal control of therapeutic delivery and host tissue responses. Here, a lithography-based 3D printing strategy is used to fabricate a novel miniaturized modular microcage scaffold system, which can be assembled and scaled manually with ease. Scalability is based on an intuitive concept of stacking modules, like conventional toy interlocking plastic blocks, allowing for literally thousands of potential geometric configurations, and without the need for specialized equipment. Moreover, the modular hollow-microcage design allows each unit to be loaded with biologic cargo of different compositions, thus enabling controllable and easy patterning of therapeutics within the material in 3D. In summary, the concept of miniaturized microcage designs with such straight-forward assembly and scalability, as well as controllable loading properties, is a flexible platform that can be extended to a wide range of materials for improved biological performance.

Early Childhood Pre-Service Teachers’ Conception of Living and Non-Living Things in a Ghanaian College of Education

The study examined pre-service teachers’ conception of living and non-living things and their classification using a case study design. The mixed method approach was employed for this study. Census sampling technique was initially used to collect data from 70 participants who complete a questionnaire. Afterwards, purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from 12 of the initially sampled participants using a semi-structured interview guide. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data was analyzed thematically. The findings revealed that 72% and 93% of the participants had appropriate scientific conception of living and non-living things respectively, as they were able to correctly classify and justify their classifications of items provided. The findings further revealed that at least 28% and 7% of the participants still had intuitive conception of living and non-living things respectively as demonstrated in their inability to classify seven living things and eight non-living things correctly. The educational implication is that Science Educators need to be aware of the intuitive conceptions that pre-service teachers’ have about living and non-living things in order to employ appropriate teaching techniques to address the underlying misconceptions during instruction. This will enable pre-service teachers to form sound conceptual understanding of living and non-living things as conventionally known in the scientific community.

How Children's Cognitive Reflection Shapes Their Science Understanding.

Learning science requires contending with intuitions that are incompatible with scientific principles, such as the intuition that animals are alive but plants are not or the intuition that solids are composed of matter but gases are not. Here, we explore the tension between science and intuition in elementary school–aged children and whether that tension is moderated by children’s tendency to reflect on their intuitions. Our participants were children between the ages of 5 and 12 years (n = 142). They were administered a statement-verification task, in which they judged statements about life and matter as true or false, as well as a children’s Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT-D), in which they answered “brain teasers” designed to elicit an intuitive, yet inaccurate, response that could be corrected upon further reflection. Participants also received a tutorial on the scientific properties of life or matter, sandwiched between two blocks of the statement-verification task. We found that performance on the statement-verification task, which pitted scientific conceptions against intuitive conceptions (e.g., “cactuses are alive”), was predicted by performance on the CRT-D, independent of age. Children with higher levels of cognitive reflection verified scientific statements more accurately before the tutorial, and they made greater gains in accuracy following the tutorial. These results indicate that children experience conflict between scientific and intuitive conceptions of a domain in the earliest stages of acquiring scientific knowledge but can learn to resolve that conflict in favor of scientific conceptions, particularly if they are predisposed toward cognitive reflection.

Combinatorial Control of Plant Specialized Metabolism: Mechanisms, Functions, and Consequences.

Plants constantly perceive internal and external cues, many of which they need to address to safeguard their proper development and survival. They respond to these cues by selective activation of specific metabolic pathways involving a plethora of molecular players that act and interact in complex networks. In this review, we illustrate and discuss the complexity in the combinatorial control of plant specialized metabolism. We hereby go beyond the intuitive concept of combinatorial control as exerted by modular-acting complexes of transcription factors that govern expression of specialized metabolism genes. To extend this discussion, we also consider all known hierarchical levels of regulation of plant specialized metabolism and their interfaces by referring to reported regulatory concepts from the plant field. Finally, we speculate on possible yet-to-be-discovered regulatory principles of plant specialized metabolism that are inspired by knowledge from other kingdoms of life and areas of biological research.

Factors that impact fragility index and their visualizations.

As the recent literature has growing concerns about research replicability and the misuse and misconception of P-values, the fragility index (FI) has been an attractive measure to assess the robustness (or fragility) of clinical study results with binary outcomes. It is defined as the minimum number of event status modifications that can alter a study result's statistical significance (or non-significance). Owing to its intuitive concept, the FI has been applied to assess the fragility of clinical studies of various specialties. However, the FI may be limited in certain settings. As a relatively new measure, more work is needed to examine its properties. This article explores several factors that may impact the derivation of the FI, including how event status is modified and the impact of significance levels. Moreover, we propose novel methods to visualize the fragility of a study's result. These factors and methods are illustrated using worked examples of artificial datasets. Randomized controlled trials on antidepressant drugs are also used to evaluate their real-world performance. The FI depends on the treatment arm(s) in which event status is modified, whether the original study result is significant, the statistical method used for calculating the P-value, and the threshold for determining statistical significance. Also, the proposed visualization methods can clearly demonstrate a study result's fragility, which may be useful supplements to the single value of the FI. Our findings may help clinicians properly use the FI and appraise the reliability of a study's conclusion.

Conception of intuition: From the Western philosophy, science, and religion to traditional Vietnamese philosophical thought

Conception of intuition: From the Western philosophy, science, and religion to traditional Vietnamese philosophical thought

Investigating Students’ Explanations about Friction Concepts after Interacting with a Visuohaptic Simulation with Two Different Sequenced Approaches

The current study investigates the differences in students’ explanations of friction concepts after the use of the visuohaptic simulation with two different of sequenced approaches: enhanced visual first to enhanced visual and haptic feedback second (V → V + H), and haptic enhanced first to enhanced visual and haptic feedback second (H → V + H). Participants were students from a midwestern university who participated as part of their physics course assignments during the Fall of 2017 (n = 29). Participants first received a lecture about friction concepts, followed by the pretest. Then, they participated in a laboratory session where they interacted with the visuohaptic simulation and completed the posttest. Participants answered two conceptual questions at the different stages of the study, the first conceptual question was regarding the role of the objects’ weight in friction, and the second conceptual question was regarding the role of the objects’ size in friction. Results suggest three major findings: (a) the visuohaptic simulation had a positive influence in students’ conceptual knowledge; (b) students in the H → V + H sequenced approach outperformed the students in the V → V + H approach; and (c) the role of the object weight in friction resulted in an intuitive concept for the students, while the role of the object size in friction resulted in a counterintuitive concept for the students. Possible explanations of our findings are further discussed.

Critical Pedagogy in Online Social Work Education: Changing Conceptions of Time in the Neoliberal University

Neoliberal universities embrace the logic of acceleration where the quickening of daily life for both educators and students is driven by desires for efficient forms of productivity and measurable outcomes of work. From this perspective, time is governed by expanding capacities of the digital world that speed up the pace of work while blurring the boundaries between workplace, home, and leisure. In this article, we draw from findings from qualitative interviews conducted with Canadian social work educators who teach using online-based critical pedagogy as well as recent graduates who completed their social work education in online learning programs to explore the effects of acceleration within these digitalised spaces of higher education. We view these findings alongside French philosopher Henri Bergson's concepts of duration and intuition, forms of temporality that manage to resist fixed, mechanised standards of time. We argue that the digitalisation of time produced through online education technologies can be seen as a thinning of possibilities for deeper and more critically self-reflexive knowledge production and a reduction in opportunities to build on social justice-based practices.

Toward Optimal Fingerprinting in Detection and Attribution of Changes in Climate Extremes

–Detection and attribution of climate change plays a central role in establishing the causal relationship between the observed changes in the climate and their possible causes. Optimal fingerprinting has been widely used as a standard method for detection and attribution analysis for mean climate conditions, but there has been no satisfactory analog for climate extremes. Here, we turn an intuitive concept, which incorporates the expected climate responses to external forcings into the location parameters of the marginal generalized extreme value (GEV) distributions of the observed extremes, to a practical and better-understood method. Marginal approaches based on a weighted sum of marginal GEV score equations are promising for no need to specify the dependence structure. The computational efficiency makes them feasible in handling multiple forcings simultaneously. The method under working independence is recommended because it produces robust results where there are errors-in-variables. Our analyses show human influences on temperature extremes at the subcontinental scale. Compared with previous studies, we detected human influences in a slightly smaller number of regions. This is possibly due to the under-coverage of the confidence intervals in existing works, suggesting the need for careful examinations of the properties of the statistical methods in practice. Supplementary materials for this article, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work, are available as an online supplement.

Principal interacting orbital: A chemically intuitive method for deciphering bonding interaction

AbstractModular bonding picture is a central part of chemical understanding as exemplified by the wide usage of Lewis structure as a chemical language to describe molecular electronic structures. A chemically intuitive bonding picture requires the descriptors to be localized and transferable. Molecular orbitals directly derived from quantum calculations are too delocalized to interpret in this regard, hence many efforts have been devoted to the development of bonding analysis methods. After a brief overview of various bonding analysis methods, this review outlines the framework of principal interacting orbital (PIO) analysis and presents its role in recovering intuitive chemical concepts and producing modular bonding pictures. The PIO analysis identifies the most important fragment orbitals that are involved in fragment interactions and characterizes a one‐to‐one orbital interaction pattern that underlies a unique set of bonding and anti‐bonding orbitals derived from pairwise orbital interactions between two fragments. By making use of the principal component analysis (PCA), PIO analysis can effectively combine complex delocalized interaction patterns involved in numerous molecular orbitals into a handful of localized PIOs to provide easily interpretable results with intimate connection to localized chemical concepts, while maintaining necessary delocalized features when dealing with systems that involve mutlicentered interactions such as cluster compounds and various reactions. Such adaptability guarantees the robustness of PIO analysis with respect to change of substituents and the transferability of obtained PIOs across different systems.This article is categorized under: Structure and Mechanism > Molecular Structures

Evaluation of yield strength by ultrasonic reconstruction of quadratic nonlinear Stress–Strain curve

The ultrasonic nonlinearity parameter β defined by the ratio of the second-order harmonic amplitude to the square of fundamental frequency amplitude, has been considered as a potential index to evaluate material degradation. However, the yield strength obtained from destructive tensile testing is still widely adopted for this purpose since it is a more intuitive concept to the field engineer than the parameter β. Therefore, this study proposes a nondestructive method to evaluate the yield strength directly from the ultrasonic measurements. In this regard, the tensile stress–strain curve is represented in the form of a quadratic nonlinear stress–strain equation within the elastic range, which includes the linear elastic modulus and the second-order nonlinearity parameter βt. The linear elastic modulus is obtained by measuring the propagation velocity of longitudinal and transverse waves using a traditional ultrasonic pulse-echo method, and the second-order nonlinearity parameter is obtained by measuring the Murnaghan constants using acoustoelastic effects. Then, the tensile stress–strain curve is reconstructed to estimate the 0.01% offset yield strength. To demonstrate the application of the proposed algorithm, the experiments were performed for heat-treated SA508 specimens. The results indicate that the 0.01% offset yield strength obtained using the proposed algorithm exhibit a good agreement with that obtained via destructive tensile testing.

Describing the concept of infinite among art, literature, philosophy and science: a pedagogical-didactic overview

In this work an interesting overview concerning the human attempts in the description of the concept of infi nite is presented. This peculiar concept represents a cardinal point in the history of human culture, because man, with different modalities, has always compared with it. Historically the main followed streams were two: the rational and the irrational approaches. In the fi rst approach we fi nd disciplines such as philosophy, mathematics and physics; thesecond is the domain of literature, arts and religion. Some activities for developing ideas about the intuitive concept of the infi nity at the level of compulsory education will be also given.

The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling

In this paper, I focus on the concept of intuition (Anschauung) in Schelling’s philosophy. More specifically, I show how Schelling attributes to intuition an ontological value by essentially relating it to freedom and primal Being (Ursein). Indeed, for Schelling intuition is both the main instrument of philosophy and the highest product of freedom, by which we attain the so-called “God’s-eye point of view” and concretely grasp things in their immediate existence. That is, through intuition it is possible to grasp the absolute and original unity of the principles, namely of being and thought, subject and object and freedom and necessity. Accordingly, I argue that Schelling’s conception of intuition, rather being a merely theoretical speculation, is aimed at demonstrating the immanent nature of Being, which is one of the key points in Schelling’s philosophy.

Operations and Actions of Lie Groups on Manifolds

As recounted in this paper, the idea of groups is one that has evolved from some very intuitive concepts. We can do binary operations like adding or multiplying two elements and also binary operations like taking the square root of an element (in this case the result is not always in the set). In this paper, we aim to find the operations and actions of Lie groups on manifolds. These actions can be applied to the matrix group and Bi-invariant forms of Lie groups and to generalize the eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of differential operators on Rn. A Lie group is a group as well as differentiable manifold, with the property that the group operations are compatible with the smooth structure on which group manipulations, product and inverse, are distinct. It plays an extremely important role in the theory of fiber bundles and also finds vast applications in physics. It represents the best-developed theory of continuous symmetry of mathematical objects and structures, which makes them indispensable tools for many parts of contemporary mathematics, as well as for modern theoretical physics. Here we did work flat out to represent the mathematical aspects of Lie groups on manifolds.

The Impact of Industrial Energy Efficiency on Economic and Social Indicators

Inclusive and sustainable industrial development implies environmental friendly industrial growth with positive implications for social targets such as employment generation. One of the most important options available to policymakers for reducing CO2 emissions is industrial energy efficiency, which is particularly relevant for the discussion on green industrialization. Despite this intuitive concept, the economics measurement toolkit still lacks a methodological framework to analyse the extent to which energy efficiency interventions can generate simultaneous economic, environmental and employment-related improvements to boost inclusive and sustainable industrial development. This study fills this gap by introducing an original approach based on input-output tables to estimate the impact of improvements in industrial energy efficiency on value added, employment and energy savings among industries in the Republic of North Macedonia. The results show that triple dividends are possible in terms of inclusive and sustainable industrial development. Whereas a positive impact on employment is found in every scenario, a positive outcome in terms of value added essentially depends on the country’s capacity to produce goods that accommodate firms’ increasing demand from their use of energy cost savings.

Anschauung und Idealitäten

Can we say that the mathematical signs refer, beyond the mathematical sense, to ideal objects which would correspond to this sense and realize it? Parallel to this, if Husserl affirms that the intuition of essences and sensitive intuition participate in the same generic concept of intuition as a giving act, can we however affirm that mathematical evidence is giving ideal objects such as sensitive perception gives individual objects?We show that the notions of object and evidence have a different status and other modalities in mathematics than in other fields, and that the notion of categorical intuition must be replaced by that of categorical fulfilment, which designates the totality of theoretical procedures by which knowledge is validated. Against the temptation of the universalization of concepts, we advocate a regional phenomenology, practiced closely to the fields of thematized objects and their specific mode of access.

ВООБРАЖЕНИЕ В СЕМИОТИКЕ ТВОРЧЕСТВА

The research analyzes the concept of imagination set in the context of semiotics of creativity. It specifies the essence of this concept from the point of pragmatic, syntactic and semantic rules applied in imaginative thinking. The objectives of the research are to explicate the history of the concept of imagination; to define the role of imagination in the projective semiosis of reason, mind and perception; to identify the relationship between imagination and intuition in the creative act. The material of the research is the history of forms of philosophical and psychological reflection on “imagination”, “intuition”, “creativity” from I. Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, P.K. Engelmeyer, F. Dessauer, S.L. Rubinstein and up to the latest semiotics of creativity and technology. The research method is semiotic modeling, representing any phenomenon as a sign in receptive and projective semiosis, realizing as a complex, organized representation of contents in the substrates of sensory perception, mind and reason. In the receptive processes (in the acts of cognition and understanding), the order of representation is determined by the ascent from the reality to the concept: sensory perception, mind, reason. In projective processes (in acts of creativity, technology, interpretation, practice, etc.), the order of representation is reversed: from the concept (phantasm, image) to its logical-grammatical construction and to its physical embodiment in the form of an artifact. The study is built as an expansion and substantiation of the thesis that imagination is, firstly, the environment for the implementation of semiosis, and, secondly, it is one of the ways to remove uncertainty that arises both in reception and in projection. As an environment, imagination is revealed as a condition for the possibility of applying rules in the substrates of reason and mind and is defined as the sphere of the thinkable and imaginable, but impossible in the physical world. The uncertainty, in the epistemological sense, means the situations of knowledge about not knowing for receptive processes and not knowing about knowledge for projective processes. Removing the uncertainty, the imagination is revealed as an addition to reality within the framework of the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic rules of sensory perception, mind and reason. The analysis of imagination, as an addition to perception, is illustrated by the data of experimental psychology, in particular, the Zagorsk Experiment; as an addition to the mind by the concept of secondary modeling systems or semiological systems by Yu.M. Lotman and R. Barthes; as an addition to the reason by a comparative analysis of the concepts of intuition and imagination. The study concludes that the functional definition of imagination as an addition to reality at the levels of reason, mind and perception is justified both in the context of the theory of creativity, adhering to the model of “three-act”, and in the context of semiotic ontology itself.

The Polluter-Pays Principle in Climate Change Law: an Economic Appraisal

There is a lively debate among scholars and policymakers on whether either consumers or producers should be seen as responsible for pollution caused in the production and consumption of traded goods. In this article, we argue that, in conformity with intuitive conceptions of causation, the economic incidence of a Pigouvian tax can be seen as a measure of the relative contribution to pollution of consumers and producers. Taking this perspective on the polluter-pays principle can help increase ambition in climate change action because it reduces the relevance of the question “Who is the polluter?” in climate change negotiations and enables a focus instead on the issue of “What can be done?” to reduce carbon emissions.