Belief Theory Research Articles

Symbolic Artistry in Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons

In a quest of exploring his potentials and developing his personal interests, the young Dan Brown decided to direct his sails toward the world of fiction. After penning several literary pieces, such as Digital Fortress (1998), Angels and Demons (2000) and Deception Point (2001), he succeeded in publishing his groundbreaking thriller The Da Vinci Code in 2003, which quickly captured the eye of many readers around the world. Whether admirers or critics of this famous literary piece, over two hundred million copies were sold out globally for its “twisty adrenaline-fueled yet cerebral” plot (Alter, 2020). He owns a book collection of five thrillers that are labelled as ‘The Robert Langdon Series.’ The first book of this collection is Angels and Demons. It follows up the journey of a Harvard professor named Robert Langdon, who is summoned to unlock the mystery of four missing cardinals who disappeared just before the election of a new Pope in Vatican City was about to take place. With the help of Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of the anti-matter scientist Leonardo Vetra at CERN, Langdon attempts to save their lives. It requires the encryption of symbols and other forms of art to successfully reach the final whereabouts of the cardinals. Their search also implicitly reveals that there is more to understand about the connection between religion and science than the general population actually believes especially if the secrets of the universe and the reality of God was the purpose of understanding. Considering this matter, this paper shall explain how the encryption of symbols and the analysis of religious art are in fact striking representations of grand ideas and beliefs in Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons. The effects and concluding theories shall be highlighted as well to show how art and symbology encapsulate more than what the eye perceives.

Exploring linguistic features, ideologies, and critical thinking in Chinese news comments

This study explores linguistic features, ideological beliefs, and critical thinking in news comments, which are defined as the comments from readers to news posts on social media or platforms. Within the overarching framework of critical discourse analysis, a sociocognitive approach was adopted to provide detailed analyses of the studied constructs in sampled news comments. In terms of the data collection and analysis, sampled social media, news columns, and news comments were selected, and then 19 college students were interviewed for their responses to different news topics. The primary findings of the study include: (1) personal and social opinions are representations of ideological beliefs and are fully presented through news comments, (2) these personal and social ideological beliefs may diverge or converge due to critical thinking, (3) critical thinking helps commenters form their personal and social ideologies, and then helps them choose the linguistic forms they believe fit their news comments, (4) news topics, however, vary in informing commenters’ critical thinking ability. Finally, a sociocognitive model for studying linguistic forms, ideologies, and critical thinking was proposed in the study.

The aim of belief and suspended belief

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss whether different interpretations of the aim of belief – both the teleological and normative interpretations – have the resources to explain certain descriptive and normative features of suspended belief, or suspension. I argue that despite the recent efforts of theorists to extend these theories to account for suspension, they ultimately fail. The implication is that we must either develop alternative theories of belief that can account for suspension, or we must abandon the assumption that these theories ought to be able to account for suspension. To close, I briefly consider some of the reasons we have in favor of pursuing each of these options, and I suggest that it is worth exploring the possibility that suspension is best understood as its own attitude, independently of theories of belief’s aim.

Two distinct concepts of knowledge.

The central claim in the target article is that representations of knowledge are more basic than representations of beliefs. However, the authors are blending together two distinct concepts of knowledge: "awareness" and "propositional knowledge." Distinguishing these two concepts of knowledge clarifies how the developmental and comparative data fit within the philosophical literature.

Knowledge is belief - and shaped by culture.

Phillips and colleagues claim that the representation of knowledge is more basic than the representation of belief, presupposing them to be categorically distinct mental states with distinct evolutionary purposes. We argue that the relationship between the two is much more complex, is further shaped by culture and language, and leaves its mark on manifestations of theory of mind and teaching.

Intersubjectivity and social learning: Representation of beliefs enables the accumulation of cultural knowledge.

I accept the main thesis of the article according to which representation of knowledge is more basic than representation of belief. But I question the authors' contention that humans' unique capacity to represent belief does not underwrite the capacity for the accumulation of cultural knowledge.

Knowledge before belief in the history of philosophy.

I add support to Phillips et al.'s thesis that representations of knowledge are more basic than representations of belief through a historical account of the development of philosophical theories of knowledge and belief. On the basis of Aristotle's criticisms of his Presocratic predecessors, I argue that Western philosophy developed theories of knowledge long before it developed theories of belief.

Collective beliefs and representations on the effects of rice price and subsidy policies in Burkina Faso

The objective of this study is to analyse the beliefs of actors in the rice sector in Burkina in the increase of rice production, basing firstly on the work of Menger, Wieser Von Mises, Böhm-Bawerk Aréna, Festré, Berkane, Commons, Schumpeter, from the foundations up to the process of imitation and sharing of beliefs, secondly, basing on the work of Dempster Shafer, Smets, from beliefs sharing, collective representation up to the level of decision-making. The transposition of the work of these authors to analyse the beliefs of actors in the rice sector in Burkina shown that the representations of beliefs and their adoption by rice farmers are never collective and complete. Beliefs are based on individual motivations, personal interests and past experiences. This theory seems the most relevant. Thus, economic studies on the behaviour of agricultural households must be a prerequisite before making decisions based on beliefs.

Collective beliefs and representations on the effects of rice price and subsidy policies in Burkina Faso

The objective of this study is to analyse the beliefs of actors in the rice sector in Burkina in the increase of rice production, basing firstly on the work of Menger, Wieser Von Mises, Bohm-Bawerk Arena, Festre, Berkane, Commons, Schumpeter, from the foundations up to the process of imitation and sharing of beliefs, secondly, basing on the work of Dempster Shafer, Smets, from beliefs sharing, collective representation up to the level of decision-making. The transposition of the work of these authors to analyse the beliefs of actors in the rice sector in Burkina shown that the representations of beliefs and their adoption by rice farmers are never collective and complete. Beliefs are based on individual motivations, personal interests and past experiences. This theory seems the most relevant. Thus, economic studies on the behaviour of agricultural households must be a prerequisite before making decisions based on beliefs.

M Equilibrium: A Theory of Beliefs and Choices in Games

We introduce a set-valued solution concept, M equilibrium, to capture empirical regularities from over half a century of game-theory experiments. We show M equilibrium serves as a meta theory for various models that hitherto were considered unrelated. M equilibrium is empirically robust and, despite being set-valued, falsifiable. We report results from a series of experiments comparing M equilibrium to leading behavioral-game-theory models and demonstrate its virtues in predicting observed choices and stated beliefs. Data from experimental games with a unique pure-strategy Nash equilibrium and multiple M equilibria exhibit coordination problems that could not be anticipated through the lens of existing models.

Theory of mind in context: Mental-state representations for social evaluation.

Whereas Phillips and colleagues argue that knowledge representations are more basic than belief representations, we argue that an accurate analysis of what is fundamental to theory of mind may depend crucially on the context in which mental-state reasoning occurs. Specifically, we call for increased study of the developmental trajectory of mental-state reasoning within socially evaluative contexts.

Semantic memory before episodic memory: How memory research can inform knowledge and belief representations.

Knowledge and belief attribution are discussed in the context of episodic and semantic memory theory and research, with reference to patient-lesion and developmental studies under naturalistic conditions. Consideration of how episodic and semantic memory relate to each other and intersect in the real world, including how they fail, can illuminate the approach to studying how people represent others' minds.

Beliefs for human-unique social learning.

Phillips et al. argue that understanding what others know is central to social cognition across species and that this understanding underlies human-unique accumulation and transmission of cultural knowledge. Knowledge representations can't be both what we have in common with our evolutionary ancestors and what sets us apart from them. Belief representations are necessary for human-unique social learning.

Infants actively seek and transmit knowledge via communication.

Supporting the central claim that knowledge representation is more basic than belief representation, we focus on the emerging evidence for preverbal infants' active and selective communication based on their representation of both knowledge and ignorance. We highlight infants' ontogenetically early deliberate information seeking and information transmission in the context of active social learning, arguing that these capacities are unique to humans.

Do knowledge representations facilitate learning under epistemic uncertainty?

Phillips and colleagues argue that knowledge representations are more fundamental than belief representations because they better facilitate social learning. We suggest that existing theory of mind paradigms may be ill-equipped to adequately evaluate this claim. Future study should explore learning in situations where there is uncertainty about one's own and others' knowledge, which better mirror real-world social learning contexts.

Relational mentalizing after any representation.

Autistic, developmental, and nonhuman primate populations fail tasks that are thought to involve attributing beliefs, but not those thought to reflect the representation of knowledge. Instead of knowledge representations being more basic than belief representations, relational mentalizing may explain these observations: The tasks referred to as reflecting "belief" representation, but not the "knowledge" representation tasks, are social conflict designs. They involve mental conflict monitoring after another's mental state is represented - with effects that need to be accounted for.

"Bizarre" and "Backward": Saviorism and Modernity in Representations of Menstrual Beliefs and Practices in the Popular Media

"Bizarre" and "Backward": Saviorism and Modernity in Representations of Menstrual Beliefs and Practices in the Popular Media

Media Consumption: Association With Implicit Theories of Romantic Relationships

Media has grown in popularity throughout time, and with it, so has media’s ability to influence those who watch it. Specifically, romantic media has the potential to influence personal romantic beliefs. However, to date, research has typically relied on self-reported questionnaires for determining associations. Therefore, the present study examined the influence of romantic reality media on a specific set of romantic beliefs (i.e., individuals’ implicit theories of relationships) using an experimental procedure. Participants from a small liberal arts college first completed an online, prevideo survey (N = 128) assessing their prior romantic media consumption and their current romantic beliefs. A subset of the participants (n = 81) then came into a computer lab and watched 1 of 3 videos: emphasizing growth beliefs, emphasizing destiny beliefs, or a nonromantic media video. Immediately after the video, participants filled out a postvideo survey assessing their romantic media consumption and postvideo romantic beliefs. Analyses revealed a significant 3-way interaction between implicit theories of relationships, wave of data collection, and video condition, Wilk’s λ = .80, F(2, 74) = 9.38, p < .001, ηp2 = .20. Specifically, participants who watched the growth video had a significant change in their implicit theories of relationships beliefs; there was not a significant change in beliefs for participants who watched the destiny video. Results are discussed in relation to cultivation theory, professional implications in the counseling fields, and future directions.

О натурализме в американской литературе. Авторская ретроспектива

Donald Pizer’s personal retrospective also embraces history of American literary naturalism studies from the early1950s up to nowadays. From his earliest seminar in American literature D. Pizer was deeply drawn to the writers of the 1890s. As a student he was assured by the standard historical and critical studies of the period that naturalists had failed in this effort to apply a scientific accuracy and detachment to fictional representation, their novels were therefore both untrue and inept and naturalism was in effect a regrettable false step in the "development" of American literature. Since the 1960s being engaged in close study of the early naturalists — Norris, Crane, Garland, Dreiser — Pizer had to confront these conventional attitudes. When looked at closely as a fictional representation of beliefs about human nature and experience, the naturalistic novel appeared to be far more complex than it was believed to be. Pizer sought in a series of books and essays to describe and thus to redefine American naturalism as a whole. Rather than a mindless adoption and crude dramatization of deterministic formulas, he found in naturalistic fiction the conflict between old values and new experience, which usually resulted in a vital thematic ambivalence. It was this very ambivalence, rather than the certainties of the convinced determinist, which was the source of the fictional strength of the naturalistic novel of the period. There has been much recent interest in the American naturalist movement and its texts. It seems, as long as American writers respond deeply to the disparity between the ideal and the actual in our national experience, naturalism will remain one of the major means for the registering of this shock of discovery.

Trait Based Trustworthiness Assessment in Human-Agent Collaboration Using Multi-Layer Fuzzy Inference Approach

Trust is an essential requirement for effective Human-Agent interaction as artificial agents are becoming part of human society in a social context. To blend into our society and maximize their acceptability and reliability, artificial agents need to adapt to the complexity of their surroundings, like humans. This adaptation should come through knowing whom to trust by evaluating the trustworthiness of its human mate. It is therefore required to build cognitive agents with trust models that may allow them to trust humans the same way a human trusts other humans keeping under consideration all factors influencing the human agent trust mechanism. Several antecedents within the cognitive system itself and the surroundings dynamically influence the trust mechanism. Personality, as a trusted antecedent has been found to have a substantial impact in predicting human interactor’s trustworthiness that critically assists trust decision making. Current research, therefore, aims to infuse characteristics of respective humans as the antecedent of the human agent trust process. This is accomplished by incorporating into the trust model the agent’s capability to perceive the personality traits of the human interactor. The current work is focused on introducing a trustworthiness assessment model (TAMFIS) based on fuzzy inference to assess human’s trustworthiness towards artificial agents by exploring the human’s personality traits that predict trustworthiness. The artificial agent could develop its character towards its human collaborators that will help it in effective interactions. The testing of the proposed architecture is carried out using Dempster Shafer Theory of belief and estimation. It is anticipated that the proposed trust model will effectively evaluate the trustworthiness of human collaborators and develop a more reliable human–agent trust relationship.