Archive Electronique - Institut Jean Nicod
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Réciprocité et théorie du signal : deux approches complémentaires pour modéliser la coopération humaine
No full textHuman cooperation is often understood through the lens of reciprocity. In classic models, cooperation is sustained because it is reciprocal: individuals who pay costs to help others can then expect to be helped in return. Another framework is honest signal theory. According to this more recent approach, cooperation can be sustained when helpers reveal information about themselves, which in turn affects receivers' behavior. Here, we aim to bridge the gap between these two approaches, in order to better characterize human cooperation. We show how integrating both approaches can help explain the variability of human cooperation, its extent, and its limits. In chapter 1, we show that cooperation with strangers can be understood as a signal of time preferences. In equilibrium, patient individuals cooperate more often, and individuals who reveal higher preference for the future inspire more trust. We show how our model can help explain the variability of cooperation and trust. In chapter 2, we extend the model to include institutions. Institutions are often invoked as solutions to hard cooperation problems: they stabilize cooperation in contexts where reputation is insufficient. Yet, institutions are at the mercy of the very problem they are designed to solve. People must devote time and resources to create new rules and pay institutional operatives. We show that institutions for hard cooperation problems can emerge nonetheless, as long as they rest on an easy cooperation problem. Our model shows how designing efficient institutions can allow humans to extend the scale of cooperation. In chapter 3, we turn to dysfunctional forms of cooperation and signaling. We posit that outrage can sometimes serve a second-order signal, demonstrating investment in another, first-order signal. We then show how outrage can lead to dishonest displays of commitment, and escalating costs. Finally, in chapter 4, we turn to the psychology of revenge. Revenge is often understood in terms of deterrence: vengeful individuals pay costs, which may be offset by the benefit of a vengeful reputation. Yet, revenge does not always seem designed for optimal deterrence. Our model reconciles the deterrent function of revenge with its apparent quirks, such as our propensity to overreact to minuscule transgressions, and to forgive dangerous behavior based on a lucky positive outcome.La coopération humaine est souvent appréhendée sous l'angle de la réciprocité. Dans les modèles classiques, la coopération est maintenue car réciproque : les individus qui aident les autres peuvent alors s'attendre à être aidés en retour. Un autre cadre est la théorie du signal honnête. Selon cette approche, la coopération est maintenue lorsque les aidants révèlent des informations sur eux-mêmes, et ce faisant affectent le comportement des receveurs. Nous visons ici à combler le fossé entre ces deux approches, afin de mieux caractériser la coopération humaine. Nous montrons comment l'intégration de ces deux approches peut aider à expliquer la variabilité de la coopération humaine, son étendue et ses limites. Dans le chapitre 1, nous montrons que la coopération peut être comprise comme un signal de préférences temporelles. À l'équilibre, les individus patients coopèrent plus souvent, et les individus qui révèlent une plus grande patience inspirent davantage confiance. Nous montrons comment notre modèle peut aider à expliquer la variabilité de la coopération et de la confiance. Dans le chapitre 2, nous étendons le modèle aux institutions. Les institutions sont souvent invoquées pour résoudre des problèmes de coopération difficiles : elles stabilisent la coopération dans des contextes où la réputation est insuffisante. Cependant, les institutions sont à la merci du problème même qu'elles sont censées résoudre. Les gens doivent consacrer du temps et des ressources à la création de nouvelles règles et à la rémunération des agents institutionnels. Nous montrons que des institutions destinées à résoudre des problèmes de coopération difficiles peuvent néanmoins voir le jour, à condition qu'elles s'appuient sur un problème de coopération facile. Notre modèle montre comment la conception d'institutions efficaces peut permettre aux humains d'étendre l'échelle de la coopération. Dans le chapitre 3, nous nous penchons sur les formes dysfonctionnelles de coopération et de signal. Nous postulons que l'indignation peut parfois servir de signal de second ordre, dont la fonction est de démontrer l'investissement dans un autre signal de premier ordre. Nous montrons ensuite comment l'indignation peut conduire à l'émergence d'un signal non-honnête, et à une escalade de son coût. Enfin, dans le chapitre 4, nous abordons la vengeance. La vengeance est souvent comprise en termes de dissuasion : les individus vengeurs paient des coûts, qui peuvent être compensés par l'avantage d'une réputation vengeresse. Pourtant, la vengeance ne semble pas toujours conçue pour une dissuasion optimale. Notre modèle réconcilie la fonction dissuasive de la vengeance avec ses bizarreries apparentes, telles que notre propension à réagir de manière excessive à des transgressions minuscules, ainsi qu'à pardonner un comportement dangereux sur la base d'un résultat chanceux
Facts versus Interpretations in Intelligence: A Descriptive Taxonomy for Information Evaluation
No full textInternational audienceTraditionally, intelligence officers use an alphanumeric scale known as the Admiralty System to evaluate informational messages by rating the credibility of their content and the reliability of their source [e.g. NATO AJP-2.1, 2016]. Amongst other duties, they are expected to clearly distinguish objective facts from subjective interpretations during this evaluation [e.g. NATO STANAG-2511, 2003]. That being said, various experimental results show that officers are unable to properly fulfill this methodological duty [e.g. Baker et al., 1968, Kelly and Peterson, 1971, Johnson, 1973]. Our explanation is that the extant scale, which is evaluative by nature, does not allow them to endorse a more objective, that is to say descriptive, perspective on information. In this article, we aim to help enforce the facts versus interpretations recommendation in the intelligence domain. By extracting the descriptive dimensions that underlie the scale, and by grouping them by linguistic directionality [e.g. Teigen and Brun, 1995, Mandel et al., 2022], we introduce a taxonomy to categorize intelligence messages more objectively. This taxonomy is fine-grained: it integrates messages which are informative or deceptive in the classical sense (e.g. misinformation, lying), but also more borderline messages, such as omissions and half-truths, which rely on the use of linguistic vagueness [following Égré and Icard, 2018, Icard et al., 2022]. By putting descriptive lenses on information evaluation, we seek to provide new categories to help officers make more acute evaluations of information
Social factors drive vocal exchanges in red-capped mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus)
No full textInternational audienceOf all the calls made by non-human primates, the function of short-distance contact calls has largely remained to be determined. These calls are the most frequent in the repertoire and are most often exchanged between individuals in a non-random way. To our knowledge, no study has ever examined how vocal exchanges are structured in red-capped mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus), a semi-terrestrial monkey living in the African forest with a complex semi-tolerant/semi-despotic social system. Our goal was to assess the organization of contact call exchanges in this species and their relationship with individual and social factors such as age, affinity, and hierarchy. Therefore, we observed several captive groups of red-capped mangabeys and collected data on vocal behavior, as well as grooming, agonistic behavior, and spatial proximity. We defined a vocal exchange in this species as a series of contact calls made by two or more individuals within a maximum inter-caller interval of 2 s. At the individual level, the higher the individual’s hierarchical rank, the less they initiated exchanges. Furthermore, the most socially integrated individuals had a longer average response time than the less integrated ones. At the dyadic level, preferred exchange partners were individuals often observed near one other or individuals most distant in age. Also, the further apart two individuals were in the dominance hierarchy, the shorter the response time. Our results support both the social bonding hypothesis and a modulating key role of the dominance hierarchy on the social use of contact calls, which is in line with the social style of this species
A shared brain system forming confidence judgment across cognitive domains
No full textInternational audienceConfidence is typically defined as a subjective judgment about whether a decision is right. Decisions are based on sources of information that come from various cognitive domains and are processed in different brain systems. An unsettled question is whether the brain computes confidence in a similar manner whatever the domain or in a manner that would be idiosyncratic to each domain. To address this issue, human participants performed two tasks probing confidence in decisions made about the same material (history and geography statements), but based on different cognitive processes: semantic memory for deciding whether the statement was true or false, and duration perception for deciding whether the statement display was long or short. At the behavioral level, we found that the same factors (difficulty, accuracy, response time, and confidence in the preceding decision) predicted confidence judgments in both tasks. At the neural level, we observed using functional magnetic resonance imaging that confidence judgments in both tasks were associated to activity in the same brain regions: positively in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and negatively in a prefronto-parietal network. Together, these findings suggest the existence of a shared brain system that generates confidence judgments in a similar manner across cognitive domains
Desperation and inequality increase stealing: evidence from experimental microsocieties
No full textInternational audiencePeople facing material deprivation are more likely to turn to acquisitive crime. It is not clear why it makes sense for them to do so, given that apprehension and punishment may make their situation even worse. Recent theory suggests that people should be more willing to steal if they are on the wrong side of a ‘desperation threshold’; that is, a level of resources critical to wellbeing. Below such a threshold, people should pursue any risky behaviour that offers the possibility of a short route back above, and should be insensitive to the severity of possible punishments, since they have little left to lose. We developed a multi-round, multi-player economic game with a desperation threshold and the possibility of theft as well as cooperation. Across four experiments with 1000 UK and US adults, we showed that falling short of a desperation threshold increased stealing from other players, even when the payoff from stealing was negative on average. Within the microsocieties created in the game, the presence of more players with below-threshold resources produced low trust, driven by the experience of being stolen from. Contrary to predictions, our participants appeared to be somewhat sensitive to the severity of punishment for being caught trying to steal. Our results show, in an experimental microcosm, that some members of society falling short of a threshold of material desperation can have powerful social consequences
Comparative effects of hypnotic suggestion and imagery instruction on bodily awareness
No full textInternational audienceBodily awareness is informed by both sensory data and prior knowledge. Although misleading sensory signals have been repeatedly shown to affect bodily awareness, only scant attention has been given to the influence of cognitive variables. Hypnotic suggestion has recently been shown to impact visuospatial and sensorimotor representations of body-part size although the mechanisms subserving this effect are yet to be identified. Mental imagery might play a causal or facilitative role in this effect, as it has been shown to influence body awareness in previous studies. Nonetheless, current views ascribe only an epiphenomenal role to imagery in the implementation of hypnotic suggestions. This study compared the effects of hypnotic suggestion and imagery instruction for influencing the visuospatial and sensorimotor aspects of body-size representation. Both experimental manipulations produced significant increases (elongation) in both representations compared to baseline, although the effects were larger in the hypnotic suggestion condition. The effects of both manipulations were highly correlated across participants, suggesting overlapping mechanisms. Self-reports suggested that the use of voluntary imagery did not significantly contribute to the efficacy of either manipulation. Rather, top-down effects on body representations seem to be partly driven by response expectancies, spontaneous imagery, and hypnotic suggestibility in both conditions. These results are in line with current theories of suggestion and raise fundamental questions regarding the mechanisms driving the influence of cognition on body representations
Literate Culture and Cognition
No full textInternational audienceAbstract A very recent phenomenon in the cultural history of our species, the invention of literacy was a milestone for many cultures. For anyone who looks at cultural evolution through the prism of extended cognition, the rise of writing must count as the most important event in the evolution of information processing. The idea that literacy resulted in fundamental changes for culture and cognition is not new but continues to stir interest. First theorized by anthropologists, historians, and semiologists, the literacy thesis contends that a key factor shaping cognition is the spread of alphabetic literacy. This chapter reconsiders the thesis in light of past and contemporary work in cognitive science and cultural evolution. In the first section, the chapter offers a brief history of the literacy thesis, outlining its major contributions and shortcomings. Ethnographic and experimental case studies generally fell short of showing that alphabetic literacy had specific, widespread, and profound cognitive effects, leading proponents of the literacy thesis either to dilute it or to restrict it. In the second section we explore the potential contributions of taking a more cognitive and evolutionary approach to this debate. The cultural recycling hypothesis as well as the literature on the effects of literacy on developing phonemic awareness offer two such avenues through which we can re-evaluate the validity of the literacy thesis
Expectations of Processing Ease, Informativeness, and Accuracy Guide Toddlers’ Processing of Novel Communicative Cues
No full textInternational audienceDiscovering the meaning of novel communicative cues is challenging and amounts to navigating an unbounded hypothesis space. Several theories posit that this problem can be simplified by relying on positive expectations about the cognitive utility of communicated information. These theories imply that learners should assume that novel communicative cues tend to have low processing costs and high cognitive benefits. We tested this hypothesis in three studies in which toddlers ( N = 90) searched for a reward hidden in one of several containers. In all studies, an adult communicated the reward's location with an unfamiliar and ambiguous cue. We manipulated the processing costs (operationalized as inferential chain length) and cognitive benefits (operationalized as informativeness) of the possible interpretations of the cues. Toddlers processing of novel communicative cues were guided by expectations of low processing costs (Study 1) and high cognitive benefits (Studies 2 and 3). More specifically, toddlers treated novel cues as if they were easy to process, informative, and accurate, even when provided with repeated evidence to the contrary. These results indicate that, from toddlerhood onward, expectations of cognitive utility shape the processing of novel communicative cues. These data also reveal that toddlers, who are in the process of learning the language and communicative conventions of people around them, exert a pressure favoring cognitive efficiency in communicative systems
Breaking the Overton Window: on the need for adversarial co-production
No full textInternational audienceCo-production has emerged as one of the key concepts in understanding knowledge-policy interactions and is associated with involvement, for example, of users of public services in their design and delivery. At a time of permacrisis, the need for transformative evidence-based policymaking is urgent and great. This is particularly important in highly distressed 'left-behind' communities targeted by the UK Government for Levelling Up, which constitutes an attempt to improve the infrastructural, economic, social and health outcomes of less affluent parts of the UK. Often, policymakers regard the transformative policies capable of addressing these crises as beyond the 'Overton Window', which describes a range of policies in the political centre that are acceptable to the public (Lehman, 2010). This window of opportunity can shift to encompass different policies, but movement is slow and policymakers generally believe that significant change lies outside. In this article, we build on recent debates in Evidence & Policy on co-production by outlining an embryonic approach to overcoming this Overton Window-based roadblock in evidence-based policymaking: adversarial co-production, which involves working with opponents of evidencebased policy to develop means of persuading potential beneficiaries to support introduction. This emerging approach has been deployed in examination of public preferences with regard to welfare reform, but can be applied to a wide range of policy areas. We outline briefly the history of co-production, before setting out the process by which adversarial co-production was developed. We then describe the impact of adversarial co-production on public preferences on basic income (BI). This enables us to set out challenges and opportunities for those with an interest in addressing our crises, serving to stimulate genuine debate on longstanding assumptions about the limits of evidence-based policy and public opinion
Does nuclear energy produce neodymium? Negative perception of nuclear energy drives the assumption that it is polluting.
No full textInternational audienceThe public tends to exaggerate the dangers of nuclear energy, mistakenly associating it with various environmental problems such as ozone depletion and the production of CO2. First, we investigate the acquisition of misconceptions about nuclear energy. In Experiments 1 (N = 198, UK) and 2 (N = 204, France) participants were more likely to develop new negative misconceptions about nuclear energy, compared to renewables or even some fossil fuels