scholarly journals Communication in Action: Planning and Interpreting Communicative Demonstrations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark K Ho ◽  
Fiery Andrews Cushman ◽  
Michael L. Littman ◽  
Joseph L. Austerweil
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Formal Models ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Intentional Behavior ◽  
The World ◽  
Communication Culture

Theory of mind enables an observer to interpret others' behavior in terms of unobservable beliefs, desires, intentions, feelings, and expectations about the world. This also empowers the person whose behavior is being observed: By intelligently modifying her actions, she can influence the mental representations that an observer ascribes to her, and by extension, what the observer comes to believe about the world. That is, she can engage in intentionally communicative demonstrations. Here, we develop a computational account of generating and interpreting communicative demonstrations by explicitly distinguishing between two interacting types of planning. Typically, instrumental planning aims to control states of the physical environment, whereas belief-directed planning aims to influence an observer's mental representations. Our framework (1) extends existing formal models of pragmatics and pedagogy to the setting of value-guided decision-making, (2) captures how people modify their intentional behavior to show what they know about the reward or causal structure of an environment, and (3) helps explain data on infant and child imitation in terms of literal versus pragmatic interpretation of adult demonstrators' actions. Additionally, our analysis of belief-directed intentionality and mentalizing sheds light on the socio-cognitive mechanisms that underlie distinctly human forms of communication, culture, and sociality.

Learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clark Glymour
Keyword(s):  
Computational Models ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Neural Net ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
The World ◽  
Computational Procedures ◽  
Computational Systems ◽  
Learning Language

Learning is the acquisition of some true belief or skill through experience. Rationalist/idealist philosophers held that the very constitution of thought guarantees that fundamental laws hold of the world we experience, and that our understanding of these laws was therefore innate, not learned. The empiricist tradition, doubtful of these Rationalist claims, denied that much was innate, and held that learning occurred through associations of mental representations. This view was lent support by the nineteenth-century development of physiological psychology, which led to a view of learning as a system of adjustments in a network without any intervening representations, a perspective that led in turn, in the twentieth century, to behaviourist studies of stimulus–response associations, and eventually to contemporary neural net computational models. Empiricism, however, had also invited, especially with Hume, doubts that the correspondence between mental representations and the world could be known. Hume believed people learn, or at least form new habits, but he did not think there could be any normative theory of learning – any way of making it ‘rational’. His scepticism led to the development by Bayes and other statisticians of formal theories of how learning from evidence ought to be done. However, the standards that developed in the form of the theory of subjective probability proved impossible to apply until very fast digital computers became available. The digital computer in turn prompted both novel normative theories of learning not considered by the statistical tradition, and also attempts to describe human learning by computational procedures. At the same time, a revolution in linguistics held that humans have an innate, specialized algorithm for learning language. Applications of computation theory to learning led to an understanding of what computational systems – possibly including people – can and cannot reliably learn. Major issues remain concerning how people acquire the system of distinctions they use to describe the world, and how – and how well – they learn the causal structure of the everyday world.

scholarly journals What Cognitive Mechanism, When, Where, and Why? Exploring the Decision Making of University and Professional Rugby Union Players During Competitive Matches

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ashford ◽  
Andrew Abraham ◽  
Jamie Poolton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Perception And Action ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Rugby Union ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Naturalistic Decision Making ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
The Individual

Over the past 50 years decision making research in team invasion sport has been dominated by three research perspectives, information processing, ecological dynamics, and naturalistic decision making. Recently, attempts have been made to integrate perspectives, as conceptual similarities demonstrate the decision making process as an interaction between a players perception of game information and the individual and collective capability to act on it. Despite this, no common ground has been found regarding what connects perception and action during performance. The differences between perspectives rest on the role of stored mental representations, that may, or may not facilitate the retrieval of appropriate responses in time pressured competitive environments. Additionally, in team invasion sports like rugby union, the time available to players to perceive, access memory and act, alters rapidly between specific game situations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine theoretical differences and the mechanisms that underpin them, through the vehicle of rugby union. Sixteen semi-elite rugby union players took part in two post-game procedures to explore the following research objectives; (i) to consider how game situations influence players perception of information; (ii) to consider how game situations influence the application of cognitive mechanisms whilst making decisions; and (iii) to identify the influence of tactics and/or strategy on player decision making. Deductive content analysis and elementary units of meaning derived from self-confrontation elicitation interviews indicate that specific game situations such as; the lineout, scrum or open phases of play or the tackle situation in attack or defence all provide players with varying complexity of perceptual information, formed through game information and time available to make decisions. As time increased, players were more likely to engage with task-specific declarative knowledge-of the game, stored as mental representations. As time diminished, players tended to diagnose and update their knowledge-in the game in a rapid fashion. Occasionally, when players described having no time, they verbalised reacting on instinct through a direct connection between perception and action. From these findings, clear practical implications and directions for future research and dissemination are discussed.

scholarly journals The Perceptual Belief Problem

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Sam Thellman ◽  
Tom Ziemke
Keyword(s):  
Mental Models ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Social Robotics ◽  
Perceptual Belief ◽  
Robotic Systems ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Unique Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Perceptual Systems

The explainability of robotic systems depends on people’s ability to reliably attribute perceptual beliefs to robots, i.e., what robots know (or believe) about objects and events in the world based on their perception. However, the perceptual systems of robots are not necessarily well understood by the majority of people interacting with them. In this article, we explain why this is a significant, difficult, and unique problem in social robotics. The inability to judge what a robot knows (and does not know) about the physical environment it shares with people gives rise to a host of communicative and interactive issues, including difficulties to communicate about objects or adapt to events in the environment. The challenge faced by social robotics researchers or designers who want to facilitate appropriate attributions of perceptual beliefs to robots is to shape human–robot interactions so that people understand what robots know about objects and events in the environment. To meet this challenge, we argue, it is necessary to advance our knowledge of when and why people form incorrect or inadequate mental models of robots’ perceptual and cognitive mechanisms. We outline a general approach to studying this empirically and discuss potential solutions to the problem.

scholarly journals The Role of Silk in the Behaviour and Sociality of Spiders

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Krafft ◽  
Laurie J. Cookson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Physical Environment ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Group Cohesion ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Spider Webs ◽  
Stimulus Response ◽  
Vibratory Signals

This article describes the links between the production of silk by spiders and their behaviour. Silk allows the spider to change its physical environment, which in turn leads to behavioural changes and impacts in the new environment. The feedback between silk and the animal producer can explain the architecture of spider webs and their adaptation to the environment, by referring only to stereotypic stimulus-response reactions without necessarily resorting to a “representation” by the animal of the structure it builds. Silk can act as a means of protection against environmental stress, a snare for prey, a means of locomotion, and also as support for chemical signals or to act as a vector of vibratory signals. These last two functions have undoubtedly played a key role in spider socialization and explains the phenomena of group cohesion, collective decision making, and the coordination of activities, without resorting to mental “representations” for the overall situation. The bulk of this review describes silk as the chief agent directing the construction of traps, communication, social cohesion, and cooperation amongst its producers.

Efficient Cognition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin W. Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The State ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Exact Role ◽  
Cognitive Efficiency ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Driver

It is now widely accepted that many organisms (including humans) don’t just react to the world using behavioral reflexes, but also, at times, decide what to do by relying on mental representations. More specifically, the behavior of many organisms is not simply triggered by a perception of the state of their environment, but inferred using higher-level mental states downstream from their perceptual states. What is far less clear is why this is the case: what benefits does representational decision making bring to an organism, and what implications do these benefits have for the exact role that mental representations play in an organism’s decision making machinery? In my book, I provide answers to these questions. Specifically, I defend a cognitive-efficiency-based account of the evolution of mental representations, according to which a key driver of the evolution of representational decision making is the fact that mental representations can enable an organism to save a number of cognitive resources and to adjust more easily to changed environments. I then apply this account to a number of open questions in different sciences, including: when should we expect cognition to essentially involve parts of the environment? When should we expect decision making to rely on simple, satisficing heuristics? When should we expect organisms to be altruistically motivated to help others? Along the way, I also respond to concerns about the plausibility of evolutionary psychological projects more generally.

Medical Diagnosis from a Clinician’s Point of View

1978 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
F. T. De Dombal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Medical Diagnosis ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Joint Research ◽  
The World

This paper discusses medical diagnosis from the clinicians point of view. The aim of the paper is to identify areas where computer science and information science may be of help to the practising clinician. Collection of data, analysis, and decision-making are discussed in turn. Finally, some specific recommendations are made for further joint research on the basis of experience around the world to date.

Extended Emulation Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Rade
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
External Input ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Stored Information ◽  
Short Term Prediction ◽  
The Mind

Emulators are internal models, first evolved for prediction in perception to shorten the feedback on motor action. However, the selective pressure on perception is to improve the fitness of decision-making, driving the evolution of emulators towards context-dependent payoff representation and integration of action planning, not enhanced prediction as is generally assumed. The result is integrated perceptual, memory, representational, and imaginative capacities processing external input and stored internal input for decision-making, while simultaneously updating stored information. Perception, recall, imagination, theory of mind, and dreaming are the same process with different inputs. Learning proceeds via scaffolding on existing conceptual infrastructure, a weak form of embodied cognition. Discrete concepts are emergent from continuous dynamics and are in a perceptual, not representational, format. Language is also in perceptual format and enables precise abstract thought. In sum, what was initially a primitive system for short-term prediction in perception has evolved to perform abstract thought, store and retrieve memory, understand others, hold embedded action plans, build stable narratives, simulate scenarios, and integrate context dependence into perception. Crucially, emulators co-evolved with the emergence of societies, producing a mind-society system in which emulators are dysfunctional unless integrated into a society, which enables their complexity. The Target Emulator System, evolved initially for honest signaling, produces the emergent dynamics of the mind-society system and spreads variation-testing of behavior and thought patterns across a population. The human brain is the most dysfunctional in isolation, but the most effective given its context.

Continuous Decisions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seng Bum Michael Yoo ◽  
Benjamin Hayden ◽  
John Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Control Theory ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Microeconomic Theory ◽  
Engineering Control ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Academic Study

Humans and other animals evolved to make decisions that extend over time with continuous and ever-changing options. Nonetheless, the academic study of decision-making is mostly limited to the simple case of choice between two options. Here we advocate that the study of choice should expand to include continuous decisions. Continuous decisions, by our definition, involve a continuum of possible responses and take place over an extended period of time during which the response is continuously subject to modification. In most continuous decisions, the range of options can fluctuate and is affected by recent responses, making consideration of reciprocal feedback between choices and the environment essential. The study of continuous decisions raises new questions, such as how abstract processes of valuation and comparison are co-implemented with action planning and execution, how we simulate the large number of possible futures our choices lead to, and how our brains employ hierarchical structure to make choices more efficiently. While microeconomic theory has proven invaluable for discrete decisions, we propose that engineering control theory may serve as a better foundation for continuous ones. And while the concept of value has proven foundational for discrete decisions, goal states and policies may prove more useful for continuous ones.

Institutional actors: Children’s emerging beliefs about the causal structure of social roles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Noyes ◽  
Frank Keil ◽  
Yarrow Dunham
Keyword(s):  
Soccer Player ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Executive Orders ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Children's Beliefs ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
The U.S

Institutions make new forms of acting possible: Signing executive orders, scoring goals, and officiating weddings are only possible because of the U.S. government, the rules of soccer, and the institution of marriage. Thus, when an individual occupies a particular social role (President, soccer player, and officiator) they acquire new ways of acting on the world. The present studies investigated children’s beliefs about institutional actions, and in particular whether children understand that individuals can only perform institutional actions when their community recognizes them as occupying the appropriate social role. Two studies (Study 1, N = 120 children, 4-11; Study 2, N = 90 children, 4-9) compared institutional actions to standard actions that do not depend on institutional recognition. In both studies, 4- to 5-year-old children believed all actions were possible regardless of whether an individual was recognized as occupying the social role. In contrast, 8- to 9-year-old children robustly distinguished between institutional and standard actions; they understood that institutional actions depend on collective recognition by a community.

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