Metarepresentation and human capacities

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Bejarano

Both metarepresentation and cultural learning have an identical origin. The imitation of new and complex motor patterns (also articulatory-phonetic patterns) is a crucial skill not only because it enables cultural transmission but also because its high requisites give rise to the exclusively human mind. The premotor plan at the base of such imitation requires the ability to fictionalize bodily postures, which implies a second line of awareness. Only by means of this second line can the human being deal with situations different from his own real and current situation. This permanent double cognitive architecture explains finger-pointing, laughing, and also all capacities considered metarepresentational. Evocation and metabeliefs (these latter being the starting point of syntax) result in language formation. There are two operating modes of the double line, which starting respectively with motor learning and finger-pointing, give rise to pretence and metabelief, and whose distinct nature can also account for the difference between fictionally triggered emotions and morality.

Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 145
Author(s):  
Sergei Alexandrov ◽  
Elena Lyamina ◽  
Yeong-Maw Hwang

The present paper concerns the general solution for finite plane strain pure bending of incompressible, orthotropic sheets. In contrast to available solutions, the new solution is valid for inhomogeneous distributions of plastic properties. The solution is semi-analytic. A numerical treatment is only necessary for solving transcendent equations and evaluating ordinary integrals. The solution’s starting point is a transformation between Eulerian and Lagrangian coordinates that is valid for a wide class of constitutive equations. The symmetric distribution relative to the center line of the sheet is separately treated where it is advantageous. It is shown that this type of symmetry simplifies the solution. Hill’s quadratic yield criterion is adopted. Both elastic/plastic and rigid/plastic solutions are derived. Elastic unloading is also considered, and it is shown that reverse plastic yielding occurs at a relatively large inside radius. An illustrative example uses real experimental data. The distribution of plastic properties is symmetric in this example. It is shown that the difference between the elastic/plastic and rigid/plastic solutions is negligible, except at the very beginning of the process. However, the rigid/plastic solution is much simpler and, therefore, can be recommended for practical use at large strains, including calculating the residual stresses.


Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 680
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Olivieri ◽  
René H. Wijffels ◽  
Antonio Marzocchella ◽  
Maria Elena Russo

Saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass is a fundamental step in the biorefinery of second generation feedstock. The physicochemical and enzymatic processes for the depolymerization of biomass into simple sugars has been achieved through numerous studies in several disciplines. The present review discusses the development of technologies for enzymatic saccharification in industrial processes. The kinetics of cellulolytic enzymes involved in polysaccharide hydrolysis has been discussed as the starting point for the design of the most promising bioreactor configurations. The main process configurations—proposed so far—for biomass saccharification have been analyzed. Attention was paid to bioreactor configurations, operating modes and possible integrations of this operation within the biorefinery. The focus is on minimizing the effects of product inhibition on enzymes, maximizing yields and concentration of sugars in the hydrolysate, and reducing the impact of enzyme cost on the whole process. The last part of the review is focused on an emerging process based on the catalytic action of laccase applied to lignin depolymerization as an alternative to the consolidated physicochemical pretreatments. The laccases-based oxidative process has been discussed in terms of characteristics that can affect the development of a bioreactor unit where laccases or a laccase-mediator system can be used for biomass delignification.


2005 ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric

The article deals with the explanatory relevance of the concept of stereotype in one of its original meanings - as a "mental image". This meaning of the term is the starting point for further differentiations, such as: between linguistic and behavioral stereotypes (in the sense of nonverbal, expected responses); universal and particular stereotypes; self representative and introspective stereotypes; permanent and contemporary stereotypes; and finally, what is most important for our purposes, the difference between silent and audible stereotypes. These distinctions, along with the functions of stereotype, are discussed in the first part of the paper. In the second part, the relations of silent and audible stereotypes are tested against the introduction of "innovative vocabularies" in popular lore. In other words, the explanatory power of this differentiation is checked through an analysis of unconventional motives in Serbian epic poems. The goal of the argument is to clarify the procedure of self creation of masculinity as a relevant feature of the "national character" through "tactic games" of silent and audible stereotypes. The examination of these "poetic strategies" serves a twofold purpose: to illustrate the process of constructing particular features of the "ethno type", on one hand, and to check hypotheses and models which are taken as frameworks in analyzing stereotypes, on the other.


Bioderecho.es ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chahinaze Sarah Hasnaoui

Se analiza el reconocimiento del perjuicio ecológico en Francia como resultado de un largo proceso deconstrucción jurisprudencial y doctrinal. Para ello se toma como punto de partida el desastre del Erika, un petrolero cargado de 31 000 toneladas de fuel que se partió en las aguas bretonas, causando una marea negra que alcanzó más de 400 kilómetros de costafrancesa. Se estudian las distintas decisiones de los tribunales implicados en el juicio de esta catástrofe y las distinciones que se establecen entre perjuicios subjetivos (intereses patrimoniales y extrapatrimoniales de las personas) y objetivos (daños al ambiente natural). The recognitionof the ecologic damage in France is analysed as a result longprocessof jurisprudential and doctrinal construction. For that, the Erika disasteris taken as a starting point, an oil tanker loaded with 31,000 tons of fuel which broke offin Breton waters, causing an oil slick which affected more than 400 kilometres of French coast.The different court’sdecision involved in the trial of this catastrophe, as well as the difference established between subjective damages (patrimonial and extra patrimonialinterest of the people) and objective damage (environmental damage)have been studied.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuta Katsumi ◽  
Karen Quigley ◽  
Lisa Feldman Barrett

It is now well known that brain evolution, development, and structure do not respect Western folk categories of mind – that is, the boundaries of those folk categories have never been identified in nature, despite decades of search. Categories for cognitions, emotions, perceptions, and so on, may be useful for describing the mental phenomena that constitute a human mind, but they make a poor starting point for understanding the interplay of mechanisms that create those mental events in the first place. In this paper, we integrate evolutionary, developmental, anatomical, and functional evidence and propose that predictive regulation of the body’s internal systems (allostasis) and modeling the sensory consequences of this regulation (interoception) may be basic functions of the brain that are embedded in coordinated structural and functional gradients. Our approach offers the basis for a coherent, neurobiologically-inspired research program that attempts to explain how a variety of psychological and physical phenomena may emerge from the same biological mechanisms, thus providing an opportunity to unify them under a common explanatory framework that can be used to develop shared vocabulary for theory building and knowledge accumulation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 284 (1868) ◽  
pp. 20171751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian L. Vale ◽  
Emma G. Flynn ◽  
Jeremy Kendal ◽  
Bruce Rawlings ◽  
Lydia M. Hopper ◽  
...  

Various non-human animal species have been shown to exhibit behavioural traditions. Importantly, this research has been guided by what we know of human culture, and the question of whether animal cultures may be homologous or analogous to our own culture. In this paper, we assess whether models of human cultural transmission are relevant to understanding biological fundamentals by investigating whether accounts of human payoff-biased social learning are relevant to chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ). We submitted 4- and 5-year-old children ( N = 90) and captive chimpanzees ( N = 69) to a token–reward exchange task. The results revealed different forms of payoff-biased learning across species and contexts. Specifically, following personal and social exposure to different tokens, children's exchange behaviour was consistent with proportional imitation, where choice is affected by both prior personally acquired and socially demonstrated token–reward information. However, when the socially derived information regarding token value was novel, children's behaviour was consistent with proportional observation; paying attention to socially derived information and ignoring their prior personal experience. By contrast, chimpanzees' token choice was governed by their own prior experience only, with no effect of social demonstration on token choice, conforming to proportional reservation. We also find evidence for individual- and group-level differences in behaviour in both species. Despite the difference in payoff strategies used, both chimpanzees and children adopted beneficial traits when available. However, the strategies of the children are expected to be the most beneficial in promoting flexible behaviour by enabling existing behaviours to be updated or replaced with new and often superior ones.


In their useful compendium of "Formulæ and Tables for the Calculation of Mutual and Self-Inductance," Rosa And Cohen remark upon a small discrepancy in the formulæ given by myself and by M. Wien for the self-induction of a coil of circular cross-section over which the current is uniformly distributed . With omission of n , representative of the number of windings, my formula was L = 4 πa [ log 8 a / ρ - 7/4 + ρ 2 /8 a 2 (log 8 a / ρ + 1/3) ], (1) where ρ is the radius of the section and a that of the circular axis. The first two terms were given long before by Kirchhoff. In place of the fourth term within the bracket, viz., +1/24 ρ 2 / a 2 , Wien found -·0083 ρ 2 / a 2 . In either case a correction would be necessary in practice to take account of the space occupied by the insulation. Without, so far as I see, giving a reason, Rosa and Cohen express a preference for Wien's number. The difference is of no great importance, but I have thought it worth while to repeat the calculation and I obtain the same result as in 1881. A confirmation after 30 years, and without reference to notes, is perhaps almost as good as if it were independent. I propose to exhibit the main steps of the calculation and to make extension to some related problems. The starting point is the expression given by Maxwell for the mutual induction M between two neighbouring co-axial circuits. For the present purpose this requires transformation, so as to express the inductance in terms of the situation of the elementary circuits relatively to the circular axis. In the figure, O is the centre of the circular axis, A the centre of a section B through the axis of symmetry, and the position of any point P of the section is given by polar co-ordinates relatively to A, viz.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Durst ◽  
Mariano Martin Genaro Palacios Acuache ◽  
Guido Bruns

Purpose Crises of any type have become an integral part of business activity and responses to them could make the difference between survival and failure. This applies in particular to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Taking the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as a starting point, this study aims to investigate how Peruvian SMEs have been coping with COVID-19 so far. Based on that a conceptual framework is proposed which highlights the practice of SMEs trying to deal with a new type of crisis. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on an exploratory qualitative research design involving 25 semi-structured interviews conducted in Peruvian SMEs. Findings The findings demonstrate how the Peruvian firms studied to adapt to the new situation and initiate responses to increasing the chance of survival. Furthermore, the role of the companies’ decision-makers, as well as the role of crisis management and other related approaches in the companies are shown. Research limitations/implications The paper expands the underdeveloped body of knowledge regarding crisis management in Latin America in general and crisis management in SMEs by providing insight into how Peruvian SMEs perceive and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. Practical implications The findings presented in this paper have implications for both managers and managerial staff of SMEs but also for the people in charge of the curricula at universities and other teaching-focused institutes. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study of crisis management on the impacts of COVID-19 with a dedicated focus on SMEs from Latin America. It provides fresh insight into current reactions to the Pandemic.


Author(s):  
Costin-Gabriel Chiru ◽  
Stefan Trausan-Matu

In this paper the authors present a system that combines the cognitive and socio-cultural paradigms in the field of discourse analysis in order to analyze both texts written by only one author (for example narrations) and those written collaboratively (chat conversations, blogs, wikis, forums). The novelty of their approach is that the majority of the existing applications are oriented on analyzing only one of these two types, an adaptation being necessary for the analysis of the other type. Another advantage of the presented system is that since it is centered on a dialogistic polyphonic model considering topics as inter-animated voices, it could show the difference between coarse- and fine-grained coherence in discourse, therefore allowing the analysis of a text from two different viewpoints: a) its intrinsic structure and cohesion and b) how well this text fits in a stream of texts (whether it is or not cohesive with the texts before and after it). The dialogistic polyphonic model was used as a starting point for a method for analyzing collaboration and social construction of knowledge in groups and communities using textual interactions, and for several implemented systems for providing computerized support to the analysis method through visualizations and feedback generation.


Author(s):  
Slava Kalyuga ◽  
Jan L. Plass

This chapter provides an overview of our cognitive architecture and its implications for the design of game-based learning environments. Design of educational technologies should take into account how the human mind works and what its cognitive limitations are. Processing limitations of working memory, which becomes overloaded if more than a few chunks of information are processed simultaneously, represent a major factor influencing the effectiveness of learning in educational games. The chapter describes different types and sources of cognitive load and the specific demands of games on cognitive resources. It outlines information presentation design methods for dealing with potential cognitive overload, and presents some techniques (subjective rating scales, dual-task techniques, and concurrent verbal protocols) that could be used for evaluating cognitive load in electronic gaming in education.


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