Archive Electronique - Institut Jean Nicod
Not a member yet
1997 research outputs found
Sort by
Digital Viau: Computational Analysis of George Viau’s Collection
No full textInternational audiencePresentation of the project realized during the PSL Intensive Week, under Léa Saint-Raymond's supervision
Pragmatism and Metaphysics
No full textInternational audiencePragmatism and metaphysics suffer from a bad reputation, but both are still alive and even flourishing. This may be partly due to their mutual reinforcement. Most (classical and recent) pragmatists fight against metaphysics, but they also have various “metaphysical” agendas. Provided pragmatism and metaphysics are in keeping with logic, semantics and inquiry, along scientific and realistic lines, there is a genuine pragmatist way to deal with metaphysics, so as to explain why and how metaphysical knowledge is possible. In its turn, metaphysics, so conceived, enriches the pragmatist aim the founders may have had in mind when, around the 1870s, they chose, “half-ironically, half-defiantly”, the name “Metaphysical Club” for what was to become the birthplace of pragmatism
Emotional Vigilance
No full textInternational audienceAlthough emotional displays have long been considered as mere read-outs of the affective state of agents, recent studies and modern evolutionary thinking instead suggest that they should be characterized as proper communicative signals. This implies that emotional displays have evolved to be used strategically, to serve the senders' interests. However, for these signals to be stable, they must also benefit receivers. What guarantees that emotional signals are beneficial for both emitters and observers? In this chapter, we review evidence showing that humans are equipped with mechanisms that evolved to evaluate emotional displays and their sources, so as to minimize the risk of being fooled. We called these mechanisms 'emotional vigilance,' following the 'epistemic vigilance' mechanisms used in ostensive communication. Emotional vigilance, we argue, is part of the human cognitive make-up, and we outline empirical avenues to best elucidate its features
Controllability boosts neural and cognitive signatures of changes-of-mind in uncertain environments
No full textInternational audienceIn uncertain environments, seeking information about alternative choice options is essential for adaptive learning and decision-making. However, information seeking is usually confounded with changes-of-mind about the reliability of the preferred option. Here, we exploited the fact that information seeking requires control over which option to sample to isolate its behavioral and neurophysiological signatures. We found that changes-of-mind occurring with control require more evidence against the current option, are associated with reduced confidence, but are nevertheless more likely to be confirmed on the next decision. Multimodal neurophysiological recordings showed that these changes-of-mind are preceded by stronger activation of the dorsal attention network in magnetoencephalography, and followed by increased pupil-linked arousal during the presentation of decision outcomes. Together, these findings indicate that information seeking increases the saliency of evidence perceived as the direct consequence of one’s own actions
Measuring sign complexity: Comparing a model- driven and an error-driven approach
No full textInternational audienceThe study of articulatory complexity has proven to yield useful insights into the phonological mechanisms of spoken languages. In sign languages, this type of knowledge is scarcely documented. The current study compares an error-driven measure and a model-driven measure of complexity for signs in French Sign Language (LSF). The former measure is based on error rates of handshape, location, orientation, movement, and sign fluidity in a repetition task administered to non-signers; the latter measure is derived by applying a feature-geometry model of sign description to the same set of signs. A significant correlation is found between the two measures for the overall complexity. When looking at the effects of individual phonological classes on complexity, a significant correlation is found for handshape and location but not for movement. We discuss how these results indicate that a fine-grained theoretical model of sign phonology/phonetics reflects the degree of complexity as resulting from the perceptual and articulatory properties of signs
Cognition and Society: Prolegomenon to a Dialog
No full textInternational audienceOne of the original and putative goals of cognitive science is to describe and explain causal links between individual minds, on the one side, and the collective phenomena of society on the other. Yet, substantive connections are still only patchy at best, and deep methodological and philosophical differences are a persistent thorn in the side of further progress. Addressing this problem is critical both for the future advancement of cognitive science in its own right, and to increase its broader societal relevance. Here, we describe how future advances can be catalyzed by new and innovative fora for dialogue across the cognitive-societal divide. Such dialogues, and the synthetic research programs they might provoke, would not only advance knowledge and understanding in their own right, but also increase returns on existing bodies of morespecialized knowledge. They would also put to work one the major findings of cognitive science itself, namely that human reasoning functions most effectively in interactive contexts
Le paysage de la signification affective
No full textSwear words are expressions that have the ability to express the speaker's affective states. What are the linguistic mechanisms that allow swear words to display affective states? Although research on expressive meaning has produced models that incorporate the affective aspects of swear words into a compositional framework, there is ample evidence that swear words cannot be assigned a stable affective interpretation. For example, although adjectives such as 'damned' generally express negatively valenced affective states, they can also be interpreted positively in some contexts. Thus, in this dissertation, I propose an 'indexical' approach to affective meaning. According to this approach, an affective expression is associated with a set of affective qualities, each of which may emerge in a given context depending on the interpreter's prior assumptions about the speaker's affective states.Les jurons sont des expressions qui ont la capacité d'exprimer les états affectifs du locuteur. Quels sont les mécanismes linguistiques qui permettent aux jurons d'afficher des états affectifs ? Même si la recherche sur la signification expressive a produit des modèles qui intègrent les aspects affectifs des jurons dans un cadre compositionnel, il existe de nombreuses preuves que les jurons ne peuvent pas se voir attribuer une interprétation affective stable. Par exemple, même si les adjectifs tels que 'sacré' généralement expriment des états affectifs à valence négative, ils peuvent également être interprétés positivement dans certains contextes. Ainsi, dans cette dissertation, je propose une approche 'indexicale' de la signification affective. Selon cette approche, une expression affective est associée à un ensemble de qualités affectives, dont chacune peut émerger dans un contexte donné en fonction des hypothèses préalables de l'interprète sur les états affectifs du locuteur