In the process of elucidating Spencer’s First Principles and the cosmic theory of evolution, it has proved helpful already to touch on his treatment of social life in that general context. It is essential now, however, to address the theory as manifested in respect of ‘psychical’ and ‘social’ evolution, themselves intimately linked in his discussions.

Mind and Society

https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~henrich/pdfs/culture%20gene%20coevolution_Chudek%26Henrichpublished.pdf

Culture-gene coevolution, norm-psychology and the emergence of human prosociality.

Emerging trends in manufacturing such as light weighting, increased performance and functionality increases the use of multi-material, hybrid structures and thus the need for joining of dissimilar materials. The properties of the different materials are jointly utilised to achieve product performance. The joining processes can, on the other hand be challenging due to the same different properties. This paper reviews and summarizes state of the art research in joining dissimilar materials. Current and emerging joining technologies are reviewed according to the mechanisms of joint formation, i.e.; mechanical, chemical, thermal, or hybrid processes. Methods for process selection are described and future challenges for research on joining dissimilar materials are summarized.

/pdf/joining-of-dissimilar-materials-5d5ghi3lwg.pdf

Joining of dissimilar materials

Digital immersion is moving into public space. Interactive screens and public displays are deployed in urban environments, malls, and shop windows. Inner city areas, airports, train stations and stadiums are experiencing a transformation from traditional to digital displays enabling new forms of multimedia presentation and new user experiences. Imagine a walkway with digital displays that allows a user to immerse herself in her favorite content while moving through public space. In this paper we discuss the fundamentals for creating exciting public displays and multimedia experiences enabling new forms of engagement with digital content. Interaction in public space and with public displays can be categorized in phases, each having specific requirements. Attracting, engaging and motivating the user are central design issues that are addressed in this paper. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the design space explaining mental models and interaction modalities and we conclude a taxonomy for interactive public display from this analysis. Our analysis and the taxonomy are grounded in a large number of research projects, art installations and experience. With our contribution we aim at providing a comprehensive guide for designers and developers of interactive multimedia on public displays.

http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/pubdb/publications/pub/mueller2010mm/mueller2010mm.pdf

Requirements and design space for interactive public displays

http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/09////MascaroSperber.pdf

The moral, epistemic, and mindreading components of children's vigilance towards deception.

In two experiments, 3- and 4-year-olds were tested for their sensitivity to agreement and disagreement among informants. In pretest trials, they watched as three of four informants (Experiment 1) or two of three informants (Experiment 2) indicated the same referent for an unfamiliar label; the remaining informant was a lone dissenter who indicated a different referent. Asked for their own judgment, the preschoolers sided with the majority rather than the dissenter. In subsequent test trials, one member of the majority and the dissenter remained present and continued to provide conflicting information about the names of unfamiliar objects. Children remained mistrustful of the dissenter. They preferred to seek and endorse information from the informant who had belonged to the majority. The implications and scope of children's early sensitivity to group consensus are discussed.

/pdf/going-with-the-flow-preschoolers-prefer-nondissenters-as-4kd9qhnp2m.pdf

Going With the Flow Preschoolers Prefer Nondissenters as Informants

Recent findings show that preschool children are selective with respect to whom they ask for information and whose claims they endorse. In particular, they monitor an informant's record of past accuracy or inaccuracy and use that record to gauge future trustworthiness. We ask if preschoolers also monitor the non-verbal cues of assent or dissent that bystanders display toward an informant's claims and use that information to gauge an informant's trustworthiness. In familiarization trials, 4-year-olds watched as two adult informants made conflicting claims regarding the name of an unfamiliar object. Two adult bystanders consistently signaled assent - via nods and smiles - to the claims of one informant, and dissent - via head shakes and frowns - from the claims of the other informant. When invited to endorse one of the two claims, 4-year-olds mostly agreed with the informant who had received bystander assent. Thus, in the absence of background knowledge about an object's name, children use third-party non-verbal signals to assess the accuracy of conflicting labels. On subsequent test trials, the informants again made conflicting claims about novel object names, but in the absence of the two bystanders. Despite the lack of any informative bystander signals, children with more advanced understanding of mental states continued to display greater trust in the informant who had received bystander assent in the earlier trials.

Children assess informant reliability using bystanders’ non‐verbal cues

The good, the strong, and the accurate: preschoolers' evaluations of informant attributes.

Children ages 18 and 24 months were assessed for the ability to understand and learn from an adult’s nonverbal expression of agreement and disagreement with a speaker’s claims. In one type of communicative exchange, a speaker made 2 different claims about the identity or location of an object. The hearer nodded her head in agreement with one claim and shook her head in disagreement with the other claim. In a second type of exchange, the speaker asked 2 different questions about the identity or location of an object. The hearer nodded her head in response to one question and shook her head in response to the other. The 24-month-olds grasped the implication of these gestural responses, by inferring the correct name or location of the object. The 18-month-olds showed a limited grasp of their implications. Thus, in learning from others’ testimony, toddlers focus not only on the claims of a single speaker but also on whether that information is accepted or rejected by another hearer. In particular, they detect and act on social cues of assent and dissent.

/pdf/dax-gets-the-nod-toddlers-detect-and-use-social-cues-to-10r3fiux2j.pdf

Dax Gets the Nod: Toddlers Detect and Use Social Cues to Evaluate Testimony

M a n y r e c e n t s t u d i e s h a v e u n d e r l i n e d t h e f a c t t h a t , u n d e r c e r t a i n c o n d i t i o n s , 3 - a n d 4 - y e a r - o l d children will defer to proposals that run counter to their own ideas and observations. In opening a box, they set aside their own efficient procedure to reproduce a more elaborate and inefficient technique that has been demonstrated to them (Horner and Whiten 2005 ; Lyons et al. 2007, 2011 ; Nielsen and Tomaselli 2010 ). Asked to say what category an object belongs to and infer its proper-ties, they revise their initial, appearance-based categorization when an adult proposes an alterna-tive that is less consistent with the available perceptual evidence (Jaswal 2004 ). When told about the movement and final resting-place of an object falling down an opaque tube, they are prepared to set aside their otherwise robust, gravity-based expectations to search where told (Bascandziev and Harris 2010 ; Jaswal 2010 ). Indeed, even when confronted with repeated evidence that what they have been told is false, preschoolers continue to act on that information, for example, by following an adult’s misleading indication of the location of a hidden object (Couillard and Woodward 1999 ; Jaswal et al. 2010 ). These deferential reactions lend support to the long-standing assumption that young children are credulous — disposed to trust claims made by other people even when those claims run counter to their own convictions or intuitions. Contrary to this assumption, we argue that children are not prone to indiscriminate credulity. Instead, they engage in what we will refer to as selective trust. As just documented, young children do accept information from others, even when it runs counter to their own observations and intuitions. Nevertheless, when they meet informants who make conflicting claims they do not endorse both claims. They typically endorse those made by one informant rather than the other. In particular, they use two guiding principles or heuristics. They are inclined to accept the claims of informants with whom they have a social connection over those made by strangers. Second, they are inclined to accept the claims of informants who have proven well-informed rather than ill-informed. We describe the evidence for these two heuristics and then ask what children do when the two heuristics are placed in opposition. Whom do young children endorse if a relative stranger appears to be better informed than someone they know well? Having reviewed the available findings, we consider their implications for children’s metacog-nitive abilities. More specifically, we weigh up two possible interpretations. One possibility is that when children select among informants, such selectivity necessarily implies a capacity for meta-cognition, however limited or basic. A second possible interpretation is that children might initially select among informants, irrespective of any metacognitive capacity that they possess. On this argument, it is only when children begin to select among informants in terms of how well informed those informants are that it is legitimate to speak in terms of metacognition.

/pdf/credulity-and-the-development-of-selective-trust-in-early-49s2hiyyyc.pdf

Maria Fusaro

Papers

Going With the Flow Preschoolers Prefer Nondissenters as Informants

Children assess informant reliability using bystanders’ non‐verbal cues

The good, the strong, and the accurate: preschoolers' evaluations of informant attributes.

Dax Gets the Nod: Toddlers Detect and Use Social Cues to Evaluate Testimony

Credulity and the development of selective trust in early childhood