Representation Theory Research Articles

The theory of social representations and the theory of mediations: a methodological proposal to draw both theories closer to each other

The article sumarizes research whose purpose was to bring together the theory of social representations, from Serge Moscovici, and the theory of mediations, from Jesús Martín-Barbero, with a view to studies in the field of Communication. A theoretical and methodological discussion is presented, based on a discussion of the main references of both theories. trying to point out points of tangency that allow the approximation of the theories. It results in a diagram as a methodological protocol suggestion for future studies.

Peranan Perwakilan Substantif Ahli Parlimen Wanita dalam Parlimen Malaysia ke-13

This study analysed the substantive role of women parliamentarians in the House of Representatives of the 13th Malaysian Parliament from 2013 to 2017. Previous studies conducted in Western countries have shown that women parliamentarians are more responsive to women’s interests compared to male parliamentarians. However, women participation in the policy-making as legislators are low and has not achieved the quota that has been set up in Malaysia. The number of women parliamentarians do not reflect the number of women voters that are higher than the male voters. The aim of this study is to analyse the extent to which the role of women Parliamentarians represents women’s issues using Hanna Pitkin’s theory of representation and Anne Philips’s politics of presence. This study uses a qualitative approach through content analysis to examine the Parliament Hansard and interviews with the women parliementarians. The result indicates that the women Parliamentarians formed 10.36% of members in the House of Representatives but they raised the women’s issues higher than the male parliamentarians did. This shows that the women parliamentarians were able to impact policy-making even with a small number in Malaysia.

On the Unit Group of the Integral Group Ring Z(S_3×C_3)

Describing the group of units in the integral group ring is a famous and classical open problem. Let S_3 and C_3 be the symmetric group of order 6 and a cyclic group of order 3, respectively. In this paper, a description of the units of the integral group ring Z(S_3×C_3) of the direct product group S_3×C_3 concerning a complex representation of degree two is given. As a result, a part of the conjecture which is introduced in (Low, 2008) and related to group rings over a complex integral domain is resolved using representation theory.

Avicenna on representation: towards an existential-relational account of intentionality

ABSTRACT Many scholars consider Avicenna’s theory of cognitive forms a theory of representation, which raises two questions. First, why does a cognitive form represent a particular object instead of another? This issue is known as the determination problem. Second, what is the nature of intentionality of the cognitive form? This is known as the nature problem. This paper examines Avicenna’s theory of cognitive forms and focuses on how he would address the two problems. I argue that Avicenna offers a pluralistic approach to the determination problem: depending on the type of representation, the object of representation is determined differently. Additionally, Avicenna views the nature of intentionality as a referential relation towards the object that can be attributed to the representation in virtue of the object somehow existing in the subject immaterially.

Evaluation of Child’s Right Portrayal in Select Nollywood Films

This study examines the role of Nollywood films in promoting child rights in Nigeria. Using Development Media and Social Representation Theories, the study analyzed five locally produced movies and 663 respondents. The findings revealed that Nigerian films depict various issues of child rights, including neglect, child labor, emotional abuse, child battering, sexual abuse, gender discrimination, child kidnapping, child trafficking, and moral abuse. The study concluded that Nigerian movies provide a country perspective for deepening moral and social consciousness and advancing attitudinal change in child rights. The authors recommend that filmmakers continue producing films that address child rights issues to further advance justice against children.

The Aftermath of 9/11: The Shift of Islam Representation in American TV Series FBI

The conflict surrounding Islam has been going on for many years, even before the September 11th, 2001 (henceforth, 9/11) incident occurred. However, the fact that the post-incident living circumstances for Muslim people especially in America has been undeniably rough, raises a new trend where Islam is being represented poorly and almost always talked about in negative ways. There are certain characteristics which are attributed especially to identify Muslims, and also certain role that they play in media. Using the Representation theory proposed by Stuart Hall, this research aims to uncover how Islam is represented in American TV series, FBI, which might be seen as a reflection of how Muslims are living in the United States post-9/11 incident. The result found that in the FBI series, Islam is still mainly represented as Arab people, though in reality not every Arabs are Muslims, but the point of view has been slightly shifted for the better. The findings highlight the changing dynamics of Muslim representation, driven by the evolving Muslim community and market demands, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of cultural shifts in the representation of Islam.

Aesthetic Characters of Flora and Fauna Painting Art Pengosekan on Visual Objects Wood Carving Craft Arts in Singakerta Village, Ubud

Along with the heyday of Pengosekan flora and fauna painting in the 1990s, the aesthetic character of painting was attached to the art of wood crafts in Singakerta Village, Ubud. This aesthetic character can be seen from the visual style of creating flora and fauna objects as well as the finishing of wood carving crafts, which reveal images of typical Pengosekan flora and fauna paintings. This research specifically identifies the background and supporting factors for the visual language representation of Pengosekan flora and fauna painting objects in the art of wood carving that developed in Singakerta Village, Ubud. This research is qualitative research, using aesthetic theory and representation theory as analytical tools. The results of the research show that the aesthetic character of Pengosekan flora and fauna paintings is represented in wood carving craft products, in terms of theme, color, shape and visible lines. The representation that occurs is influenced by creativity in order to follow market trends that were developing at that time, as well as the economic motivation of the craftsmen to improve their welfare. The imagery of Pengosekan flora and fauna painting, which is attached to the art of wood carving, has indirectly helped the dynamic existence of this painting art. The representation of the art of painting in crafts is a dynamic that occurs in the development of the art of painting. The practice of indirect representation also shows something that is very important and positive in maintaining the existence of the art of painting itself, even though the visualization is slightly different because it is caused by several factors.

Mobility of geometric constraint systems with extrusion symmetry

AbstractIf we take a (bar-joint) framework, prepare an identical copy of this framework, translate it by some vector $$\tau $$ τ , and finally join corresponding points of the two copies, then we obtain a framework with ‘extrusion’ symmetry in the direction of $$\tau $$ τ . This process may be repeated t times to obtain a framework whose underlying graph has $$\mathbb {Z}_2^t$$ Z 2 t as a subgroup of its automorphism group and which has ‘t-fold extrusion’ symmetry. Extruding a framework is a widely used technique in CAD for generating a 3D model from an initial 2D sketch, and hence it is important to understand the flexibility of extrusion-symmetric frameworks. Using group representation theory, we show that while t-fold extrusion symmetry is not a point-group symmetry, the rigidity matrix of a framework with t-fold extrusion symmetry can still be transformed into a block-decomposed form in the analogous way as for point-group symmetric frameworks. This allows us to establish Fowler-Guest-type character counts to analyse the mobility of such frameworks. We show that this entire theory also extends to the more general point-hyperplane frameworks with t-fold extrusion symmetry. Moreover, we show that under suitable regularity conditions the infinitesimal flexes we detect with our symmetry-adapted counts extend to finite (continuous) motions. Finally, we establish an algorithm that checks for finite motions via linearly displacing framework points along velocity vectors of infinitesimal motions.

Tendril intentionality

ABSTRACT In Representation in Cognitive Science, Nicholas Shea offers a theory of representation, of what it is for something to be a representation or have intentionality. Some things have intentionality derivatively. They have it in virtue of something else that has it. Not all intentionality can be like this. Some items must have original intentionality. That is what Shea offers a theory of. Near the end of the book, he makes a provocative suggestion about plants: if his theory is correct, then some of their parts have original intentionality. That is provocative for at least two reasons. First, many theorists think that every cognitive system has original intentionality; since plants don’t have it, they’re not cognitive systems. However, if plants do have it, that argument fails. It can’t be used to show that plants aren’t cognitive systems. Second, and separately, many theorists think that any system with original intentionality is also a cognitive system. On that assumption, if plants turn out to have original intentionality, then they positively are cognitive systems. While Shea makes this suggestion with these provocative implications, he does not adequately develop it. Doing so is my goal in this essay, focusing on the foraging of parasitic vines.

Foucher’s Old-school Skepticism: Representation, Resemblance, and the Causal Likeness Principle

Abstract Commentators generally agree that Foucher presumes the resemblance theory of representation and uses it to substantiate external world skepticism. In this paper, I challenge this picture. First, I argue that he does not assume that representation is reducible to, or even just works through, resemblance between representation and object. Indeed, his functional-similarity theory primarily appeals to resemblance between the respective effects the representation and the object (would) have on our minds. I also propose that his argument for the resemblance-requirement of representation depends on the causal likeness principle, and clarify its role in Foucher’s theory. Second, I show that his main interest lies with representation in the sense of truthfully making the object present. Accordingly, when Foucher concludes that we can only represent our own ideas, he merely means that our ideas reveal the ways objects affect us through our senses, as opposed to how they are in themselves.

The glass ceiling effect in Spanish advertising creative departments

The representation of women in advertising creative departments has been studied worldwide. The findings have shown a low representation that does not favor the emergence of a critical mass of women, who could contribute with alternative visions to make advertising more inclusive. The underrepresentation, above all, occurs in managerial positions where they do not usually reach 35%. This study aims to update and report quantitatively on the phenomenon of the glass ceiling in Spain. In addition, in order to contextualize the level of segregation, these departments are compared with available international data. The results of a content analysis of the credit forms of 839 Spanish campaigns published in 2019 (a sample of 1,311 creatives) revealed gender dynamics, with a balanced starting group of creatives in non-managerial positions (just over 40% are women), but a figure of just 18% of women in managerial roles A higher glass ceiling effect was also found when European and global data were compared. The results analyzed through the perspective of the proportional representation theory (Kanter, 1977a, 1977b, 1987), suggest the need to raise awareness of gender inequalities within creative departments; this would foster the equality demanded by today’s society, of which advertising should not be oblivious.

Separating spatial representations from polarity encoding in the processing of number and sequence stimuli in a four-way classification task

Although the SNARC effect in the processing of most magnitude stimuli and sequence stimuli has been reported for the past 30 years, it remains unclear whether this effect is caused by the spatial representation or polarity encoding of stimuli. In the present study, we designed five experiments using a four-way classification task to evaluate the ability of spatial representation theory and polarity encoding theory to explain the SNARC effect in the processing of number and sequence stimuli. In all five experiments in the present study, stimuli (Experiments 1 and 4: four different Arabic numbers, Experiment 2: sequence stimuli, Experiment 3: ordinal sequences relevant to working memory, Experiment 5: Chinese characters without any implicit spatial information) were centrally presented. Participants were asked to respond to specific number or sequence stimuli by pressing the A, S, K, and L keys in consistent trials (or the L, K, S, and A keys in inconsistent trials). The results showed that (1) the SNARC effect occurred in the processing of number and sequence stimuli both when only one specific number was mapped to one specific key (Experiments 1, 2 and 3) and when two numbers were mapped to one specific key (Experiment 4). (2) There was not a SNARC effect when the numbers were replaced with Chinese characters without any implicit spatial information (Experiment 5). The results of these five experiments imply that the SNARC effect in the processing of magnitude stimuli, including numbers and sequences, originates from the spatial representation of stimuli, supporting spatial representation theory.

HodgeRank as a new tool to explore the structure of a social representation

Social representation theory is a branch of social psychology that aims to identify the framework of concepts, ideas, opinions, beliefs, or feelings shared by the individuals within a social group, regarding a social object. Two main problems arise in this theory. The first concerns the identification of the content of the representation, which is the set of cognitive elements shared by the group; the second concerns its structure, which is the way these elements are organized and related among themselves. It is desirable that the methods to address these problems be simple, in regards to the feasibility of the data collection, and reliable, in the sense that they should provide a clear picture of the content and the structure of the representation. No single method proposed in the literature until now fully satisfies these features at the same time. Here we propose the use of HodgeRank, a global ranking method based on the Hodge combinatorial theory, as a new tool to explore the structure of a social representation. In this proposal, the input data is the same as those required for the hierarchical word associations, which is the main method in the field of social representations. However, the HodgeRank provides richer results when compared to the usual approach to analysing this kind of data, based on the Vergés’ double-entry table. The main outcome of the HodgeRank is a graph, analogous to an electric circuit, from which some structural elements of the representation can already be identified. Moreover, the HodgeRank technique identifies the sources of inconsistencies between the global ranking and the aggregated answers within the social group. We interpret such inconsistencies in terms of the stability of the representation and use them to raise conjectures about the potential dynamics of the representation. We illustrate the application of this method in the study of a social representation of COVID-19 within a group of students and also within a group of faculty members from higher education institutions in Brazil.

Mapping semantic space: Exploring the higher-order structure of word meaning

Multiple representation theories posit that concepts are represented via a combination of properties derived from sensorimotor, affective, and linguistic experiences. Recently, it has been proposed that information derived from social experience, or socialness, represents another key aspect of conceptual representation. How these various dimensions interact to form a coherent conceptual space has yet to be fully explored. To address this, we capitalized on openly available word property norms for 6339 words and conducted a large-scale investigation into the relationships between 18 dimensions. An exploratory factor analysis reduced the dimensions to six higher-order factors: sub-lexical, distributional, visuotactile, body action, affective and social interaction. All these factors explained unique variance in performance on lexical and semantic tasks, demonstrating that they make important contributions to the representation of word meaning. An important and novel finding was that the socialness dimension clustered with the auditory modality and with mouth and head actions. We suggest this reflects experiential learning from verbal interpersonal interactions. Moreover, formally modelling the network structure of semantic space revealed pairwise partial correlations between most dimensions and highlighted the centrality of the interoception dimension. Altogether, these findings provide new insights into the architecture of conceptual space, including the importance of inner and social experience, and highlight promising avenues for future research.

Exploration of Consciousness : A Bridge among Science, Spirituality, Psychology and Philosophy

Consciousness, a crucial phenomenon, captivates the minds of philosophers, psychologist, scientists, and thinkers across history. This article embarks on a journey into the multifaceted realm of consciousness, traversing various disciplines such as philosophy, science, psychology, and spirituality. At its core, consciousness encompasses the subjective experience of awareness, embracing sensations, thoughts, emotions, and self-awareness. Theories diverge on its origins, with materialists attributing consciousness to neural processes, while dualists advocate for a mind-body duality. Integrated Information Theory and Global Workspace Theory offer contrasting perspectives on the mechanisms of consciousness, alongside Higher-Order Theories and Representational Theories of Consciousness. Despite strides in understanding, the "hard problem" of consciousness persists, challenging the explanation of subjective experience. Interdisciplinary collaboration seeks to unravel this mystery, exploring consciousness' unity, diversity, and implications in cognition, decision-making, and ethics. This article delves into the evolutionary, cultural, and philosophical dimensions of consciousness, contemplating its implications for artificial intelligence and fostering dialogue among diverse disciplines. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we embark on a quest to deepen our understanding of consciousness, a journey sure to captivate generations to come

Combinatorics and Representation Theory of Special Cases of Chern Plethysm

Combinatorics and Representation Theory of Special Cases of Chern Plethysm

Macroscopic limit of a Fokker-Planck model of swarming rigid bodies

AbstractWe consider self-propelled rigid bodies interacting through local body-attitude alignment modelled by stochastic differential equations. We derive a hydrodynamic model of this system at large spatio-temporal scales and particle numbers in any dimension$n \geq 3$. This goal was already achieved in dimension$n=3$or in any dimension$n \geq 3$for a different system involving jump processes. However, the present work corresponds to huge conceptual and technical gaps compared with earlier ones. The key difficulty is to determine an auxiliary but essential object, the generalised collision invariant. We achieve this aim by using the geometrical structure of the rotation group, namely its maximal torus, Cartan subalgebra and Weyl group as well as other concepts of representation theory and Weyl’s integration formula. The resulting hydrodynamic model appears as a hyperbolic system whose coefficients depend on the generalised collision invariant.

Love numbers and Love symmetries for p-form and gravitational perturbations of higher-dimensional spherically symmetric black holes

The static Love numbers of four-dimensional asymptotically flat, isolated, general-relativistic black holes are known to be identically vanishing. The Love symmetry proposal suggests that such vanishings are addressed by selection rules following from the emergence of an enhanced \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathrm{SL }\\left(2,{\\mathbb{R}}\\right)$$\\end{document} (“Love”) symmetry in the near-zone region; more specifically, it is the fact that the black hole perturbations belong to a highest-weight representation of this near-zone \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathrm{SL }\\left(2,{\\mathbb{R}}\\right)$$\\end{document} symmetry, rather than the existence of the Love symmetry itself, that outputs the vanishings of the corresponding Love numbers. In higher spacetime dimensions, some towers of magic zeroes with regards to the black hole response problem have also been reported for scalar, electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations of the Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole. Here, we extend these results by supplementing with p-form perturbations of the Schwarzschild-Tangherlini black hole. We furthermore analytically extract the static Love numbers and the leading order dissipation numbers associated with spin-0 scalar and spin-2 tensor-type tidal perturbations of the higher-dimensional Reissner-Nordström black hole. We find that Love symmetries exist and that the vanishings of the static Love numbers are captured by representation theory arguments even for these higher spin perturbations of the higher-dimensional spherically symmetric black holes of General Relativity. Interestingly, these near-zone \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\mathrm{SL }\\left(2,{\\mathbb{R}}\\right)$$\\end{document} structures acquire extensions to Witt algebras. Our setup allows to also study the p-form response problem of a static spherically symmetric black hole in a generic theory of gravity. We perform explicit computations for some black holes in the presence of string-theoretic corrections and investigate under what geometric conditions Love symmetries emerge in the near-zone.

Tensor-Triangular Geometry and Interactions

The workshop brought together experts in a rapidly growing field of tensor triangular geometry highlighting applications to and techniques coming from homotopy theory, algebraic geometry, modular representation theory, motivic homotopy theory and noncommutative algebra.

Weil zeta functions of group representations over finite fields

In this article we define and study a zeta function ζG\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G$$\\end{document}—similar to the Hasse-Weil zeta function—which enumerates absolutely irreducible representations over finite fields of a (profinite) group G. This Weil representation zeta function converges on a complex half-plane for all UBERG groups and admits an Euler product decomposition. Our motivation for this investigation is the observation that the reciprocal value ζG(k)-1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G(k)^{-1}$$\\end{document} at a sufficiently large integer k coincides with the probability that k random elements generate the completed group ring of G. The explicit formulas obtained so far suggest that ζG\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G$$\\end{document} is rather well-behaved. A central object of this article is the Weil abscissa, i.e., the abscissa of convergence a(G) of ζG\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G$$\\end{document}. We calculate the Weil abscissae for free abelian, free abelian pro-p, free pro-p, free pronilpotent and free prosoluble groups. More generally, we obtain bounds (and sometimes explicit values) for the Weil abscissae of free pro-C\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathfrak {C}}$$\\end{document} groups, where C\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$${\\mathfrak {C}}$$\\end{document} is a class of finite groups with prescribed composition factors. We prove that every real number a≥1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$a \\ge 1$$\\end{document} is the Weil abscissa a(G) of some profinite group G. In addition, we show that the Euler factors of ζG\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G$$\\end{document} are rational functions in p-s\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$p^{-s}$$\\end{document} if G is virtually abelian. For finite groups G we calculate ζG\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\zeta _G$$\\end{document} using the rational representation theory of G.