Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2013"
TL;DR: An approach to morality is developed as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions, and the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally.
Abstract: What makes humans moral beings? This question can be understood either as a proximate "how" question or as an ultimate "why" question. The "how" question is about the mental and social mechanisms that produce moral judgments and interactions, and has been investigated by psychologists and social scientists. The "why" question is about the fitness consequences that explain why humans have morality, and has been discussed by evolutionary biologists in the context of the evolution of cooperation. Our goal here is to contribute to a fruitful articulation of such proximate and ultimate explanations of human morality. We develop an approach to morality as an adaptation to an environment in which individuals were in competition to be chosen and recruited in mutually advantageous cooperative interactions. In this environment, the best strategy is to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation equally. Those who offer less than others will be left out of cooperation; conversely, those who offer more will be exploited by their partners. In line with this mutualistic approach, the study of a range of economic games involving property rights, collective actions, mutual help and punishment shows that participants' distributions aim at sharing the costs and benefits of interactions in an impartial way. In particular, the distribution of resources is influenced by effort and talent, and the perception of each participant's rights on the resources to be distributed.
407 citations
TL;DR: A multiple-component model of language abilities best explains the relationship between specific language impairment and dyslexia and the different profiles of impairment that are observed, including partly distinct profiles of phonological deficit along these two dimensions.
Abstract: An on-going debate surrounds the relationship between specific language impairment and developmental dyslexia, in particular with respect to their phonological abilities. Are these distinct disorders? To what extent do they overlap? Which cognitive and linguistic profiles correspond to specific language impairment, dyslexia and comorbid cases? At least three different models have been proposed: the severity model, the additional deficit model and the component model. We address this issue by comparing children with specific language impairment only, those with dyslexia-only, those with specific language impairment and dyslexia and those with no impairment, using a broad test battery of language skills. We find that specific language impairment and dyslexia do not always co-occur, and that some children with specific language impairment do not have a phonological deficit. Using factor analysis, we find that language abilities across the four groups of children have at least three independent sources of variance: one for non-phonological language skills and two for distinct sets of phonological abilities (which we term phonological skills versus phonological representations). Furthermore, children with specific language impairment and dyslexia show partly distinct profiles of phonological deficit along these two dimensions. We conclude that a multiple-component model of language abilities best explains the relationship between specific language impairment and dyslexia and the different profiles of impairment that are observed.
267 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors report an empirical analysis of more than 200 years of the evolution of the street network of Paris and show that the usual network measures display a smooth behavior and that the most important quantitative signatures of central planning is the spatial reorganization of centrality and the modification of the block shape distribution.
Abstract: Interventions of central, top-down planning are serious limitations to the possibility of modelling the dynamics of cities. An example is the city of Paris (France), which during the 19th century experienced large modifications supervised by a central authority, the ‘Haussmann period’. In this article, we report an empirical analysis of more than 200 years (1789–2010) of the evolution of the street network of Paris. We show that the usual network measures display a smooth behavior and that the most important quantitative signatures of central planning is the spatial reorganization of centrality and the modification of the block shape distribution. Such effects can only be obtained by structural modifications at a large-scale level, with the creation of new roads not constrained by the existing geometry. The evolution of a city thus seems to result from the superimposition of continuous, local growth processes and punctual changes operating at large spatial scales.
171 citations
TL;DR: The results reveal that the brain mechanisms underlying the threshold for conscious perception are already present in infancy but undergo a slow acceleration during development.
Abstract: Infants have a sophisticated behavioral and cognitive repertoire suggestive of a capacity for conscious reflection. Yet, demonstrating conscious access in infants remains challenging, mainly because they cannot report their thoughts. Here, to circumvent this problem, we studied whether an electrophysiological signature of consciousness found in adults, corresponding to a late nonlinear cortical response [~300 milliseconds (ms)] to brief pictures, already exists in infants. We recorded event-related potentials while 5-, 12-, and 15-month-old infants (N = 80) viewed masked faces at various levels of visibility. In all age groups, we found a late slow wave showing a nonlinear profile at the expected perceptual thresholds. However, this late component shifted from a weak and delayed response in 5-month-olds (starting around 900 ms) to a more sustained and faster response in older infants (around 750 ms). These results reveal that the brain mechanisms underlying the threshold for conscious perception are already present in infancy but undergo a slow acceleration during development.
142 citations
TL;DR: An automated method is introduced for the bottom-up reconstruction of the cognitive evolution of science, based on big-data issued from digital libraries, and modeled as lineage relationships between scientific fields, which sketches a prototypical life cycle of the scientific fields.
Abstract: We introduce an automated method for the bottom-up reconstruction of the cognitive evolution of science, based on big-data issued from digital libraries, and modeled as lineage relationships between scientific fields. We refer to these dynamic structures as phylomemetic networks or phylomemies, by analogy with biological evolution; and we show that they exhibit strong regularities, with clearly identifiable phylomemetic patterns. Some structural properties of the scientific fields - in particular their density -, which are defined independently of the phylomemy reconstruction, are clearly correlated with their status and their fate in the phylomemy (like their age or their short term survival). Within the framework of a quantitative epistemology, this approach raises the question of predictibility for science evolution, and sketches a prototypical life cycle of the scientific fields: an increase of their cohesion after their emergence, the renewal of their conceptual background through branching or merging events, before decaying when their density is getting too low.
133 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a general procedure for decomposing income inequality measures by income sources is presented, which is based on the Shapley value and extensions to transferable utility cooperative games.
Abstract: This paper presents a general procedure for decomposing income inequality measures by income sources. The methods of decomposition proposed are based on the Shapley value and extensions of the Shapley value of transferable utility cooperative games. In particular, we find that Owen’s value can find an interesting application in this context.We show that the axiomatization by the potential of Hart and Mas-Colell remains valid in the presence of the domain restriction of inequality indices. We also examine the properties of these decomposition rules and perform a comparison with Shorrocks’ decomposition rule properties.
118 citations
TL;DR: This paper presents and defends a way to add a transparent truth predicate to classical logic, such that ThAi and A are everywhere intersubstitutable, where all T-biconditionals hold, and where truth can be made compositional.
Abstract: This paper presents and defends a way to add a transparent truth predicate to classical logic, such that ThAi and A are everywhere intersubstitutable, where all T-biconditionals hold, and where truth can be made compositional. A key feature of our framework, called STT (for StrictTolerant Truth), is that it supports a nontransitive relation of consequence. At the same time, it can be seen that the only failures of transitivity STT allows for arise in paradoxical cases.
111 citations
26 May 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors summarize the accomplishments of a multi-disciplinary workshop exploring the computational and scientific issues surrounding zero resource speech technologies and related models of early language acquisition and present two strategies for integrating zero resource techniques into supervised settings, demonstrating the potential of unsupervised methods to improve mainstream technologies.
Abstract: We summarize the accomplishments of a multi-disciplinary workshop exploring the computational and scientific issues surrounding zero resource (unsupervised) speech technologies and related models of early language acquisition. Centered around the tasks of phonetic and lexical discovery, we consider unified evaluation metrics, present two new approaches for improving speaker independence in the absence of supervision, and evaluate the application of Bayesian word segmentation algorithms to automatic subword unit tokenizations. Finally, we present two strategies for integrating zero resource techniques into supervised settings, demonstrating the potential of unsupervised methods to improve mainstream technologies.
100 citations
TL;DR: This article found that infant-directed speech provides an emotionally and linguistically rich input to language acquisition, and that it is necessary to describe that input in order to understand language development, and to address questions of learnability.
Abstract: Over the first year of life, infant perception changes radically as the child learns the phonology of the ambient language from the speech she is exposed to. Since infant-directed speech attracts the child’s attention more than other registers, it is necessary to describe that input in order to understand language development, and to address questions of learnability. In this review, evidence from corpora analyses, experimental studies, and observational paradigms is brought together to outline the first comprehensive empirical picture of infant-directed speech and its effects on language acquisition. The ensuing landscape suggests that infant-directed speech provides an emotionally and linguistically rich input to language acquisition.
95 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze properties of the risk lovers' utility function beyond the positive sign of its second order derivative, and they show that, contrary to a priori beliefs, the second-order derivative is not a good utility function.
Abstract: The purpose of this note is to analyze properties of the risk lovers' utility function beyond the positive sign of its second order derivative. We show that—contrarily to a priori beliefs—...
89 citations
TL;DR: This paper argues that the account of shared intentions this approach yields is less cognitively and conceptually demanding than other accounts and is thus applicable to the intentional joint actions performed by young children, and that it has limitations of its own.
Abstract: Philosophers have proposed accounts of shared intentions that aim at capturing what makes a joint action intentionally joint. On these accounts, having a shared intention typically presupposes cognitively and conceptually demanding theory of mind skills. Yet, young children engage in what appears to be intentional, cooperative joint action long before they master these skills. In this paper, I attempt to characterize a modest or 'lite' notion of shared intention, inspired by Michael Bacharach's approach to team-agency theory in terms of framing, group identification and team reasoning. I argue that the account of shared intentions this approach yields is less cognitively and conceptually demanding than other accounts and is thus applicable to the intentional joint actions performed by young children. I also argue that it has limitations of its own and that considering what these limitations are may help us understand why we sometimes need to take other routes to shared intentions.
TL;DR: It is proposed that poorer inhibitory skill leads to greater activation of competing items from the language not in use, and that this greater co-activation ultimately leads to great influence of the co-activated items on one another.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define the simplicity index as the average ratio of these lengths and the simplicity profile characterizes the simplicity at different scales, and show that there are fundamental differences in the organization of urban and biological systems, related to their function, navigation or distribution.
Abstract: Shortest paths are not always simple. In planar networks, they can be very different from those with the smallest number of turns - the simplest paths. The statistical comparison of the lengths of the shortest and simplest paths provides a non trivial and non local information about the spatial organization of these graphs. We define the simplicity index as the average ratio of these lengths and the simplicity profile characterizes the simplicity at different scales. We measure these metrics on artificial (roads, highways, railways) and natural networks (leaves, slime mould, insect wings) and show that there are fundamental differences in the organization of urban and biological systems, related to their function, navigation or distribution: straight lines are organized hierarchically in biological cases, and have random lengths and locations in urban systems. In the case of time evolving networks, the simplicity is able to reveal important structural changes during their evolution.
TL;DR: It is shown that a third type of information source, the occurrence of pairs of minimally differing word forms in speech heard by the infant, is also useful for learning phonemic categories and is in fact more reliable than purely distributional information in data containing a large number of allophones.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with the practical problems related to long-term security of supply in electricity markets in the presence of large-scale wind power development, and test the use of capacity mechanisms to compensate for longterm effects of large scale wind energy development on prices and reliability of supply.
TL;DR: It is argued that thought insertion primarily involves a disruption of the sense of ownership for thoughts and that the lack of a sense of agency is but a consequence of this disruption, and it is defended that this disruption stems from a failure in the online integration of the contextual information related to a thought.
TL;DR: The main finding is a reverse phenomenon of enhanced contrast (i.e. negative hysteresis), present in two different tasks, a comparative task involving two color names, and a yes/no task involving a single color name, but not found in a corresponding color matching task.
Abstract: This paper proposes an experimental investigation of the use of vague predicates in dynamic sorites. We present the results of two studies in which subjects had to categorize colored squares at the borderline between two color categories (Green vs. Blue, Yellow vs. Orange). Our main aim was to probe for hysteresis in the ordered transitions between the respective colors, namely for the longer persistence of the initial category. Our main finding is a reverse phenomenon of enhanced contrast (i.e. negative hysteresis), present in two different tasks, a comparative task involving two color names, and a yes/no task involving a single color name, but not found in a corresponding color matching task. We propose an optimality-theoretic explanation of this effect in terms of the strict-tolerant framework of Cobreros et al. (J Philos Log 1---39, 2012), in which borderline cases are characterized in a dual manner in terms of overlap between tolerant extensions, and underlap between strict extensions.
TL;DR: The authors argue that existing theories of urban participatory governance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their mobilisation strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of capturing participatory structures; and the poor, conceptualised as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more politicised forms of mobilisation, are incomplete.
Abstract: This research critically engages with existing theories of class and urban governance, and is empirically located in Delhi, India. The paper argues that existing theories of urban participatory governance in the global South, which polarise urban citizens and their mobilisation strategies into the elite, typically understood as guilty of ‘capturing’ participatory structures; and the poor, conceptualised as excluded from formal governance mechanisms but active in more politicised forms of mobilisation, are incomplete. This research identifies urban citizens who fit neither the ‘elite’ nor ‘poor’ conceptual binary, and explores how such ‘ordinary’ citizens engage in participatory urban governance. Empirically, research addresses Delhi’s unauthorised colonies (UCs), residential areas that have evolved mostly on private land that is not classified ‘residential’ in the Delhi Master Plan. Housing roughly a quarter to one-third of Delhi’s population and comprising a mix of classes, UCs are technically illegal locations for residential development, are consequently excluded from Delhi’s network of basic urban services (water, roads, electricity) and face potential demolition. UCs are conceptualised as representing India’s ‘missing middle’ both empirically, highlighting the multiplicity of the middle class, and conceptually, revealing the failure of binary concepts to accurately describe participatory urban governance for those in ‘the middle’. In addition, analysis highlights how UCs’ invisibility (linked to their heterogeneity – i.e. their empirical and conceptual ‘middle-ness’) functions as both an asset and a limitation in terms of participation in urban governance. The paper calls for greater recognition in academic and policy debates regarding the nuances in everyday life that are overlooked by neat binaries. As the Delhi case shows, a large proportion of urban populations are neither ‘poor’ nor ‘elite’, and arguably a similar trend is likely to exist in cities throughout the world where segments of populations demographically in ‘the middle’ are ‘missing’ from academic and policy debates.
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TL;DR: This paper examined the impact on inequality and poverty of the economic crisis in four European countries, namely France, Germany, UK and Ireland, and the contribution of tax and benefit policy changes.
Abstract: This paper examines the impact on inequality and poverty of the economic crisis in four European countries, namely France, Germany, the UK and Ireland, and the contribution of tax and benefit policy changes. The period examined, 2008 to 2010, was one of great economic turmoil, yet it is unclear whether changes in inequality and poverty rates over this time period were mainly driven by changes in market income distributions or by tax-benefit policy reforms. We disentangle these effects by producing counterfactual ("no reform") scenarios using tax-benefit microsimulation and representative household surveys of each country. For the period under study, we find that the policy reaction has contributed to stabilizing or even decreasing inequality and relative poverty in the UK, France and especially in Ireland, a country where rising unemployment would have otherwise increased poverty. Market income inequality has nonetheless pushed up inequality and relative poverty in France. Relative poverty and, notably, child poverty, have increased in Germany due to policy responses combined with the increasing inequality of market income.
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of counter-arguments against the deflationary notion of ownership are presented, arguing that there are belief-independent illusions of ownership and that one can have bodily sensations with no sense of ownership, and that the notion of "experience of ownership" is a good explanatory tool to account for these borderline situations.
Abstract: Do bodily sensations include a distinctive experience of the body as of one's own? I am aware that this hand is mine. But is the sense of ownership of my hand manifested to me in a more primitive form than beliefs or judgements? Bermudez (2011) and Martin (1995) have recently argued in favour of a deflationary account of the sense of ownership, according to which there is nothing it feels like to experience one's body as of one's own, no felt 'myness' that goes over and above the mere experience of one's bodily properties. Here I present a series of counter-arguments against the deflationary conception of ownership. First, I will argue that there are belief-independent illusions of ownership. Secondly, I will show that one can have bodily sensations with no sense of ownership. I will then conclude that the notion of 'experience of ownership' is a good explanatory tool to account for these borderline situations
TL;DR: Tresch's The Romantic Machine as mentioned in this paper explores the romanticism that permeated Paris between the fall of the first Napoleon in 1815 and the triumph of his nephew Napoleon III in 1851 by means of a vivid series of excursions through the streets, theatres, laboratories and temples of the French capital under the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the interactive properties of the relationships between herding dogs and their trainer-users, and how the dogs' behaviors participate in the construction of trainer-user's knowledge.
Abstract: Recent trends in social sciences advocate the recognition of interactive properties in human–animal relationships. Based on an ethnographic study, this paper explores the interactive properties of the relationships between herding dogs and their trainer-users, and how the dogs' behaviors participate in the construction of trainer-users' knowledge. Trainer-users' discourses and practices revealed a common theoretical axis, portraying the herding dog as a social predator descended from the wolf and driving the game towards his pack-leader. The dog's hunting skills are used to turn him/her into a working tool, through minimally constrained education and training. Once trained, the dog should become an autonomous but controllable worker, who helps livestock breeders lead their flock quietly. Two training modes were identified and used simultaneously by the trainers: contextual training (teaching the human–dog–livestock relationship to the dog) and conditioned training (teaching the commands to the dog...
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01 Jan 2013TL;DR: In 1961, Serge Moscovici proposed a theory of metaphores, images, symboles, and mots, which forment des representations sociales as discussed by the authors, and the first fois, certains de ses textes inedits (un reponse argumentee, un article critique, un commentaire de texte, une conference, une discussion, etc) seront un precieux instrument for saisir la trajectoire de Moscvici's theorie dans l'histoire des idees, questionner son lien avec
Abstract: Comment comprendre la crise economique ? Que faire face aux defis ecologiques ? Qu'est-ce qu'une alimentation saine ? Pourquoi la bioethique ? Pour expliquer ce qui arrive dans notre monde complexe, nous creons des metaphores, des images, des symboles et des mots qui forment des representations sociales En 1961, Serge Moscovici propose une theorie de ces representations Ce livre reunit, pour la premiere fois, certains de ses textes inedits (une reponse argumentee a un article critique, un commentaire de texte, une conference, une discussion, etc) Ils seront un precieux instrument pour saisir la trajectoire de sa theorie dans l'histoire des idees, questionner son lien avec la psychologie sociale, mais aussi sa pertinence pour comprendre nos societes actuelles
TL;DR: This article examined the social distribution of cultural practices in Australia and compared this with similar data for the UK in order to identify where and in what respects the social articulations of Australian cultural practices are distinctive.
Abstract: This article (1) examines the social distribution of cultural practices in Australia, and (2) compares this with similar data for the UK in order to identify where and in what respects the social articulations of Australian cultural practices are distinctive. The article draws on the statistical data produced by the Australian Research Council-funded inquiry into Australian Everyday Cultures in the late 1990s and the data produced by the UK’s 2003–6 Economic and Social Research Council inquiry into the relations between cultural capital and social exclusion in Britain. It reports the findings of a comparison of multiple correspondence analyses of the survey data for these two projects. The two spaces of lifestyle produced by these procedures show strong similarities with regard to their relations to class, age and gender as the three most significant axes of differentiation. There are, however, differences in the roles that specific cultural fields (the music, literary and media fields, for example) play ...
TL;DR: This paper relies on recent endeavors to merge both types of dynamics into co-evolutionary, multi-level modeling frameworks, where social and semantic aspects are being jointly appraised.
Abstract: Socio-technical systems involve agents who create and process knowledge, exchange information and create ties between ideas in a distributed and networked manner: webloggers, communities of scientists, software developers and wiki contributors are, among others, examples of such networks. The state-of-the-art in this regard focuses on two main issues which are generally addressed in an independent manner: the description of content dynamics and the study of social network characteristics and evolution. This paper relies on recent endeavors to merge both types of dynamics into co-evolutionary, multi-level modeling frameworks, where social and semantic aspects are being jointly appraised. Case studies featuring socio-semantic graphs, socio-semantic hypergraphs and socio-semantic lattices are notably discussed.
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TL;DR: An empirical analysis of more than 200 years of the evolution of the street network of Paris shows that the usual network measures display a smooth behavior and that the most important quantitative signatures of central planning is the spatial reorganization of centrality and the modification of the block shape distribution.
Abstract: Interventions of central, top-down planning are serious limitations to the possibility of modelling the dynamics of cities. An example is the city of Paris (France), which during the 19th century experienced large modifications supervised by a central authority, the `Haussmann period'. In this article, we report an empirical analysis of more than 200 years (1789-2010) of the evolution of the street network of Paris. We show that the usual network measures display a smooth behavior and that the most important quantitative signatures of central planning is the spatial reorganization of centrality and the modification of the block shape distribution. Such effects can only be obtained by structural modifications at a large-scale level, with the creation of new roads not constrained by the existing geometry. The evolution of a city thus seems to result from the superimposition of continuous, local growth processes and punctual changes operating at large spatial scales.
TL;DR: This paper analyzes knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B” in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and proposes an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.
Abstract: The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.
TL;DR: The way bonded labour was defined and practised in the colonies was not only linked to the definition and practice of wage labour in Europe but their development was interconnected as mentioned in this paper, which was possible because there were important differences in status between masters, landowners and employers on the one hand, and domestic servants, wage earners, bonded labourers and apprentices on the other.
Abstract: The way bonded labour was defined and practised in the colonies was not only linked to the definition and practise of wage labour in Europe but their development was interconnected. The engages (equivalent to indentured servants) and bonded labourers in the French colonies would have been inconceivable without hiring for services and domestic service in France. This connection was possible because there were important differences in status between masters, landowners and employers on the one hand, and domestic servants, wage earners, bonded labourers and apprentices on the other.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the extent to which social inequality aversion differs across nations when control ling for actual country differences in labor supply responses is analyzed, showing that inequality aversion is significantly larger at the extensive margin and often larger for the lowest earnings groups for countries with traditional social assistance programs.
Abstract: We analyze to which extent social inequality aversion differs across nations when control ling for actual country differences in labor supply responses. Towards this aim, we estimate labor supply elasticities at both extensive and intensive margins for 17 EU countries and the US. Using the same data, inequality aversion is measured as the degree of redistribution implicit in current tax-benefit systems, when these systems are deemed optimal. We find relatively small differences in labor supply elasticities across countries. However, this changes the cross-country ranking in inequality aversion compared to scenarios following the standard approach of using uniform elasticities. Differences in redistributive views are significant between three groups of nations. Labor supply responses are systematically larger at the extensive margin and often larger for the lowest earnings groups, exacerbating the implicit Rawlsian views for countries with traditional social assistance programs. Given the possibility that labor supply responsiveness was underestimated at the time these programs were implemented, we show that such wrong perceptions would lead to less pronounced and much more similar levels of inequality aversion.
TL;DR: The authors investigated 24-month-olds' word recognition in sentence-medial position in two experiments using an Intermodal Preferential Looking paradigm and found that young children can use fine phonetic detail during the recognition of isolated and sentence-final words from early in lexical development.
Abstract: Recent work has shown that young children can use fine phonetic detail during the recognition of isolated and sentence-final words from early in lexical development. The present study investigates 24-month-olds' word recognition in sentence-medial position in two experiments using an Intermodal Preferential Looking paradigm. In Experiment 1, French toddlers detect word-final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., buz [byz] for bus [bys] “bus”), and they compensate for native voicing assimilations (e.g., buz devant toi [buzdəvɑtwa] “bus in front of you”) in the middle of sentences. Similarly, English toddlers detect word-final voicing mispronunciations (e.g., sheeb for sheep) in Experiment 2, but they do not compensate for illicit voicing assimilations (e.g., sheeb there). Thus, French and English 24-month-olds can take into account fine phonetic detail even if words are presented in the middle of sentences, and French toddlers show language-specific compensation abilities for pronunciation variation caused by native voicing assimilation.