The Anthropology of Misfortune and Cognitive Science. Examples from the Ivory Coast Senufo

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Alice Sindzingre
Keyword(s):  
Ivory Coast ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Traditional Societies

The ArgumentThis paper applies the approach developed by the congnitive sciences to a classical field of social anthropology—i.e., the analysis of represetations and behaviors relative to misfortune in “traditional” societies.The initial argument is that the conceptual division and the modes of description and explanation of anthropology suffer from serious weaknesses: these concepts cannot serve to understand empirical phenomena (utterances and/or behavior); they rely on a confused and erroneous conception of the different domains involved and the causalities between them; and they use simplistic hypotheses about the existence and causal status of the entities that usually form the ultima ratio of anthropological reasoning (e.g., lineage organization, ancestors, witchcraft, etc.). These entities would directly “cause” other individual representations or behaviors. This simplification also affects the analysis of states of belief in these entities, to which individuals would supposedly “adhere”.I argue here that the cognitivist approach, within a “methodological individualism” framework, provides a more adequate description of phenomena observed in the field. This enables the various levels and domains to be more finely defined. The analysis of “typical” utterances and inferences in a “tranditional” society, the Senufo of the Ivory Coast, is here used to clarify these anthropological problems. Two levels can be distinguished: (1) a priori representations, which are underdetermined, enabling them to occur within valid inferences; (2) perception and/or action, which obeys different cognitive constraints. The existential status of unobservable entities appearing in causal inferences is not equivalent (“symmetrical”) depending on whether they are determined as antecedent or consequent.This paper suggests a theory of interpretive processes and beliefs having flexible references, because they are incomplete and domain-specific. It allows a comparison with facts observed in Western societies. It is also in contrast to the ordinary conception of religious states of belief — i.e., these states would be purely psychological, states of “adherence,” collective, autonomous, obligatory, part of a systemized set of knowledge; collective notions (of God, church, etc.) would here logically precede individual representations.

Positive Psychology’s A Priori Problem

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara S. Held
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Negative Numbers ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Negative Results ◽  
Optimal Functioning ◽  
Conceptual Muddles ◽  
Negative Phenomena

The positive/negative distinction works well in many fields—for example, in mathematics negative numbers hold their own, and in medical pathology negative results are usually celebrated. But in positive psychology negativity should be replaced with positivity for flourishing/optimal functioning to occur. That the designation of the psychological states and processes deemed positive (good/desirable) and negative (bad/undesirable) is made a priori, independent of circumstantial particularity, both intrapersonal and interpersonal, does not seem to bother positive psychologists. But it should, as it results in conceptual muddles and dead ends that cannot be solved within their conceptual framework of positivity and negativity. Especially problematic is an ambiguity I find in positive psychologists’ a priori and a posteriori understandings of positivity and negativity, an ambiguity about constitutive and causal relations that pervades their science and the conclusions drawn from it. By eliminating their a priori dichotomy of positivity and negativity, positive psychologists might well find themselves in a better position to put back together the psychological reality that they have fractured in their ontologically dubious move of carving up psychological reality a priori into positive and negative phenomena. They then might find themselves better placed to “broaden and build” their own science of flourishing.

scholarly journals Intra-Storm Pattern Recognition through Fuzzy Clustering

Hydrology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Vantas ◽  
Epaminondas Sidiropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Fuzzy Clustering ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Distribution Patterns ◽  
Rainfall Data ◽  
Rainfall Runoff ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Runoff Modeling ◽  
National Bank ◽  
Rainfall Patterns

The identification and recognition of temporal rainfall patterns is important and useful not only for climatological studies, but mainly for supporting rainfall–runoff modeling and water resources management. Clustering techniques applied to rainfall data provide meaningful ways for producing concise and inclusive pattern classifications. In this paper, a timeseries of rainfall data coming from the Greek National Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information are delineated to independent rainstorms and subjected to cluster analysis, in order to identify and extract representative patterns. The computational process is a custom-developed, domain-specific algorithm that produces temporal rainfall patterns using common characteristics from the data via fuzzy clustering in which (a) every storm may belong to more than one cluster, allowing for some equivocation in the data, (b) the number of the clusters is not assumed known a priori but is determined solely from the data and, finally, (c) intra-storm and seasonal temporal distribution patterns are produced. Traditional classification methods include prior empirical knowledge, while the proposed method is fully unsupervised, not presupposing any external elements and giving results superior to the former.

scholarly journals Empirical evidence reveals the phase diagram of patch patterns in Mediterranean drylands

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Meloni ◽  
Cristiano R. F. Granzotti ◽  
Alexandre S. Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Phase Diagram ◽  
Phase Transitions ◽  
Satellite Images ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Continuous Phase ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Scaling Exponents ◽  
Open Issue ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ecological Functioning

AbstractDrylands are ecosystems with limited water resources, often subjected to desertification. Conservation and restoration efforts towards these ecosystems depend on the interplay between ecological functioning and spatial patterns formed by local vegetation. Despite recent advances on the subject, an adequate description of phase transitions between the various vegetated phases remains an open issue. Here, we gather vegetation data of drylands from Southern Spain using satellite images. Our findings support three vegetated phases, separated by two distinct phase transitions, including a continuous phase transition, with new relations between scaling exponents of ecological variables. The phase diagram is obtained without a priori assumption about underlying ecological dynamics. We apply our analysis to a different dryland system in the Western United States and verify a compatible critical behavior, in agreement with the universality hypothesis.

scholarly journals Analysis of novel domain-specific mutations in the zebrafish ndr2/cyclops gene generated using CRISPR-Cas9 RNPs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley N. Turner ◽  
Reagan S. Andersen ◽  
Ivy E. Bookout ◽  
Lauren N. Brashear ◽  
James C. Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Nervous System ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Transforming Growth Factor ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Chemical Mutagenesis ◽  
Sequence Information ◽  
Small Indels ◽  
Domain Specific

AbstractNodal-related protein (ndr2) is a member of the transforming growth factor type β superfamily of factors and is required for ventral midline patterning of the embryonic central nervous system in zebrafish. In humans, mutations in the gene encoding nodal cause holoprosencephaly and heterotaxy. Mutations in the ndr2 gene in the zebrafish (Danio rerio) lead to similar phenotypes, including loss of the medial floor plate, severe deficits in ventral forebrain development, and cyclopia. Alleles of the ndr2 gene have been useful in studying patterning of ventral structures of the central nervous system. Fifteen different ndr2 alleles have been reported in zebrafish, of which eight were generated using chemical mutagenesis, four were radiation-induced, and the remaining alleles were obtained via random insertion, gene targeting (TALEN), or unknown methods. Therefore, most mutation sites were random and could not be predicted a priori. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 system from Streptococcus pyogenes, we targeted distinct regions in all three exons of zebrafish ndr2 and observed cyclopia in the injected (G0) embryos. We show that the use of sgRNA-Cas9 ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes can cause penetrant cyclopic phenotypes in injected (G0) embryos. Targeted PCR amplicon analysis using Sanger sequencing showed that most of the alleles had small indels resulting in frameshifts. The sequence information correlates with the loss of ndr2 activity. In this study, we validate multiple CRISPR targets using an in vitro nuclease assay and in vivo analysis using embryos. We describe one specific mutant allele resulting in loss of conserved terminal cysteine-coding sequences. This study is another demonstration of the utility of the CRISPR-Cas9 system in generating domain- specific mutations and provides further insights into the structure-function of the ndr2 gene.

scholarly journals Can being scared make your tummy ache? Naive theories, ambiguous evidence and preschoolers’ causal inferences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Schulz ◽  
Elizabeth Bonawitz ◽  
Tom Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Biological Effect ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Naive Theories ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
General Statistical

Causal learning requires integrating constraints provided by domain-specific theorieswith domain-general statistical learning. In order to investigate the interaction between these factors, preschoolers were presented with stories pitting their existing theories against statistical evidence. Each child heard two stories in which two candidate causes co-occurred with an effect. Evidence was presented in the form: ABàE, ACàE, AD àE, etc. In one story, all variables came from the same domain; in the other, the recurring candidate cause, A, came from a different domain (A was a psychological cause of a biological effect). After receiving this statistical evidence, children were asked to identify the cause of the effect on a new trial. Consistent with the predictions of a Bayesian model, all children were more likely to identify A as the cause within domains than across domains. While three-and-half-year-olds learned only from the within- domain evidence, four- and five-year-olds learned from the cross-domain evidence and were able to transfer their new expectations about psychosomatic causality to a novel task.

scholarly journals Inferential Internalism and the Causal Status Effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-445
Author(s):  
Nicholas Danne ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Inductive Inference ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
External World ◽  
Logical Probability ◽  
Status Effect ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Complex Features ◽  
Inferential Internalism ◽  
Richard Fumerton

To justify inductive inference and vanquish classical skepticisms about human memory, external world realism, etc., Richard Fumerton proposes his “inferential internalism,” an epistemology whereby humans ‘see’ by Russellian acquaintance Keynesian probable relations (PRs) between propositions. PRs are a priori necessary relations of logical probability, akin to but not reducible to logical entailments, such that perceiving a PR between one’s evidence E and proposition P of unknown truth value justifies rational belief in P to an objective degree. A recent critic of inferential internalism is Alan Rhoda, who questions its psychological plausibility. Rhoda argues that in order to see necessary relations between propositions E and P, one would need acquaintance with too many propositions at once, since our evidence E is often complex. In this paper, I criticize Rhoda’s implausibility objection as too quick. Referencing the causal status effect (CSE) from psychology, I argue that some of the complex features of evidence E contribute to our type-categorizing it as E-type, and thus we do not need to ‘see’ all of the complex features when we see the PR between E and P. My argument leaves unchanged Fumerton’s justificatory role for the PR, but enhances its psychological plausibility.

Evidence for a domain-specific deficit in developmental dyslexia

2002 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 767-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franck Ramus
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Deficits ◽  
Developmental Dyslexia ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Cognitive Deficit ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
The Core

Thomas & Karmiloff-Smith (T&K-S) claim that “Residual Normality” is a priori unlikely, that is, that specific cognitive deficits should not exist in developmental disorders. Here I review evidence that a specific cognitive deficit is at the core of developmental dyslexia and I provide a possible neurological account thereof.

scholarly journals The texture of causal construals: Domain-specific biases shape causal inferences from discourse

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent Strickland ◽  
Ike Silver ◽  
Frank C. Keil
Keyword(s):  
Causal Inferences ◽  
Domain Specific

Exploring restorative potential of biophilic servicescapes

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyoor Purani ◽  
Deepak S. Kumar
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Functional Value ◽  
Hedonic Utilitarian ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Attention Fatigue ◽  
Moderating Role ◽  
Biophilic Elements

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the biophilic stimuli present in the servicescape and restorative effects on psychological states among consumers. The research also examines moderating role of service contexts in this relationship.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical study applied a laboratory-like experimental design with one-shot treatment. About 566 usable responses were collected using six photographic images – three were biophilic environments and three were non-biophilic environments – for foura prioriservice contexts: hospital lobby, upscale restaurants, spa and bank lobby.FindingsThe tests of hypotheses confirm restorative effects of biophilic servicescapes on consumer’s psychological states, attention and mood, which, in turn, positively influence service preference. Further, the restorative effects of natural elements are found to vary across hedonic – utilitarian and experience – credence type service contexts.Originality/valueBecause of higher levels of natural stressors, consumers today likely have attention fatigue and depleted mood states, which, in turn, may have adverse effects on their service consumption behaviour. In this context, building upon theories from environmental psychology, findings of this study contribute by establishing restorative potential of biophilic servicescape. The study also establishes that natural elements in biophilic servicescapes influence service preference, which is mediated by consumers’ psychological states – attention and mood. Further, it demonstrates that consumers are more responsive with regards to such restorative effects of biophilic elements in contexts where they seek emotional, experiential value compared to rational, functional value.

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