Hampshire College

About: Hampshire College is a education organization based out in Amherst Center, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Genetic programming & Population. The organization has 461 authors who have published 998 publications receiving 40827 citations.

Fixity and fluidity - circulations, children, and childhood

Abstract: Circulation is often essentialized as a prescribed, limited, and closed form of movement, ‘fixed’ in origins and destination, in intent and outcome. However, circulation may also be understood as a...

Relaxations of Lexicase Parent Selection

Abstract: In a genetic programming system, the parent selection algorithm determines which programs in the evolving population will be used as the material out of which new programs will be constructed. The lexicase parent selection algorithm chooses a parent by considering all test cases, individually, one at a time, in a random order, to reduce the pool of possible parent programs. Lexicase selection is ordinarily strict, in that a program can only be selected if it has the best error in the entire population on the first test case considered, and the best error relative to all other programs that remain in the pool each time it is reduced. This strictness may exclude high-quality candidates from consideration for parenthood, and hence from exploration by the evolutionary process. In this chapter we describe and present results of four variants of lexicase selection that relax these strict constraints: epsilon lexicase selection, random threshold lexicase selection, MADCAP epsilon lexicase selection, and truncated lexicase selection. We present the results of experiments with genetic programming systems using these and other parent selection algorithms on symbolic regression and software synthesis problems. We also briefly discuss the relations between lexicase selection and work on many-objective optimization, and the implications of these considerations for future work on parent selection in genetic programming.

The functional role of the periphery in emotional language comprehension.

Abstract: Language can impact emotion, even when it makes no reference to emotion states. For example, reading sentences with positive meanings (“The water park is refreshing on the hot summer day”) induces patterns of facial feedback congruent with the sentence emotionality (smiling), whereas sentences with negative meanings induce a frown. Moreover, blocking facial afference with botox selectively slows comprehension of emotional sentences. Therefore, theories of cognition should account for emotion-language interactions above the level of explicit emotion words, and the role of peripheral feedback in comprehension. For this special issue exploring frontiers in the role of the body and environment in cognition, we propose a theory in which facial feedback provides a context-sensitive constraint on the simulation of actions described in language. Paralleling the role of emotions in real-world behavior, our account proposes that (1) facial expressions accompany sudden shifts in wellbeing as described in language; (2) facial expressions modulate emotional action systems during reading; and (3) emotional action systems prepare the reader for an effective simulation of the ensuing language content. To inform the theory and guide future research, we outline a framework based on internal models for motor control. To support the theory, we assemble evidence from diverse areas of research. Taking a functional view of emotion, we tie the theory to behavioral and neural evidence for a role of facial feedback in cognition. Our theoretical framework provides a detailed account that can guide future research on the role of emotional feedback in language processing, and on interactions of language and emotion. It also highlights the bodily periphery as relevant to theories of embodied cognition.