Scientific Publications of the University of Toulouse II Le Mirail
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Blame-validation: Beyond rationality? Effect of causal link on the relationship between evaluation and causal judgment
No full textInternational audienceThe Culpable Control Model assumes that causal judgments are irrational: a negative evaluative reaction to an agent would lead individuals to overestimate his causal contribution to a harm. However, the extent to which these judgments deviate from criteria of rationality remains unclear. The two present studies aimed at investigating conditions under which this effect occurs. Participants red a vignette in which the evaluative reaction was operationalized through the agent’s motives (blameworthy, laudable). We also varied the causal link between the agent’s action and the outcome (strong, weak, preempted). In both studies, we found that negative motives influenced causal judgments when a strong action-outcome link could be established. In Study 2, we replicated the effect of motives on causal judgment in the weak link condition. However, participants consistently judged the agent as less causal when the link was weak (vs. strong), regardless of the agent’s motives. These findings show that both the presence and the strength of the actual causal link between the action and the outcome moderate the detrimental effect of negative evaluative reactions on causal judgments. Thus, common sense causal judgments seem to deviate relatively little from the criteria of rationality
The palpable legacy of mid-Victorian sensation fiction: Sarah Waters' Fingersmith (2002) and its dialogue with Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1860)
No full textInternational audienceThis article first sketches out the legacy of The Woman in White and the sensation novel of the 1860s from the late-Victorian period to the present day. Then, in the second part of the essay, Sarah Waters’s novel Fingersmith (2002) is used as an exemplary text which illustrates some of the ways in which contemporary fiction has engaged with the Victorian sensation novel: after exploring Waters’s allusions to The Woman in White and discussing the politics of pastiche, as well as the concept of character ‘migration’, this article demonstrates that Waters’s appeal to the sense of touch borrows from Wilkie Collins’s tactile poetics, in order to invite us to read haptically, that is to say, to reconnect with a form of reading which is embodied and makes the Victorian past a palpable, substantial part of our contemporary selves.Après un bref panorama de l’influence de The Woman in White et du roman à sensation des années 1860 sur la littérature britannique de la fin du dix-neuvième siècle jusqu’à nos jours, cet article propose d’illustrer certaines stratégies de reprise contemporaine à partir d’une analyse du roman exemplaire de Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (2002). L’étude se concentre d’abord sur les réseaux d’allusions au roman de Wilkie Collins, l’usage du pastiche et la « migration » des personnages d’un roman à l’autre ; puis montre ce que le traitement du sens du toucher dans Fingersmith doit à la poétique haptique de Collins, invitant ainsi le lecteur à prendre part à une expérience de lecture tactile qui redonne au passé victorien une présence palpable au cœur de notre culture contemporaine
Exploring the relationship between functional diversity and growth in VC-backed new technology ventures
No full textInternational audiencePurpose: Despite significant research attention to top management team diversity, the potential influence of other employees’ diversity on venture growth at different maturity stages such as middle management teams and nonmanagerial employees at the base of the organizational hierarchy remains largely overlooked. This study explores this relationship in new technology venture development, with a focus on the influence of functional skills diversity across different organizational levels and maturity stages.Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a linked employer–employee dataset covering new technology ventures in the digital industry that spans from 2010 to 2020. The sample includes 296 VC-backed new ventures located in the greater Paris (France) area. Through a problem-solving lens, the study examines functional skills at various organizational levels, including 5,243 top managers, 10,274 middle managers and 29,306 nonmanagerial employees.Findings: Results indicate that placing exclusive emphasis on top-level managers could lead to incorrect assignment of diversity effects as such effects are likely shared with lower organizational levels. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the diversity–venture growth relationship varies across new ventures’ funding stages, with a notably stronger correlation in the late stages of financing. Practical implications This study demonstrates that promoting functional diversity across all organizational levels, not just top management, may boost firms’ growth. Furthermore, the effectiveness of functional diversity varies depending on the firm’s financing stage.Originality/value: This study constructs a multilayered organizational framework to explore the relationship between diversity and new technology venture growth, using a fully reproducible skills diversity classification methodology that is applicable for future investigations
A Complexity-Theoretic Analysis of Majority Illusion in Social Networks
No full textInternational audienceMajority illusion occurs in a social network when the majority of the network vertices belong to a certain type but the majority of each vertex's neighbours belong to a different type, therefore creating the wrong perception, i.e., the illusion, that the majority type is different from the actual one. From a system engineering point of view, this motivates the search for algorithms to detect and, where possible, correct this often undesirable phenomenon. In this we provide a computational study of majority illusion in social networks, paying particular attention to the problem of its verification, i.e., whether majority illusion can occur on social networks, and elimination, i.e., how can we eliminate majority illusion by social network rewiring. While we show that the problems we consider are generally NP-complete, we also provide a parameterised complexity analysis, showing FPT-algorithms for the detection problem and W[1]-hardness for the elimination problem, using natural graph-theoretic parameters
Quels modèles agricoles et sylvicoles en 2055 ? Analyse de productions d’élèves de baccalauréat technologique
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A custom-made sling to achieve personal goals in shoulder pain or subluxation in the subacute stroke phase: a pilot study
No full textInternational audienceBackgroundThe efficacy of the different shoulder orthoses available to prevent hemiplegic shoulder complications still remains debatable.ObjectivesTo evaluate how wearing a custom-made (CM) shoulder sling affected personal goals and complications among hemiplegic stroke patients undergoing realworld rehabilitation.MethodsA prospective, single-center, non-randomized, pilot study on patients having a stroke within the last 6 months with hemiplegic shoulder pain/subluxation >5 mm. The primary outcome was achievement in three personal goals according to Goal Attainment Scaling one month after (week 5) compared to before (day 7) sling wearing.ResultsTwenty-two patients were included: 60 % male, 56.4 ± 12.1 years old. ≥1 goal was achieved by 90.5 % of patients after sling wearing (week 5) versus 36 % of patients before. VAS pain score (-1.3 ± 2.3; p = 0.01) and subluxation distance (-0.41±0.42 cm; p = 0.0001) were reduced at week 5. Both the Chedoke Arm and Hand Activity Inventory score (+9.0 ± 13.1; p = 0.0003) and Fugl-Meyer upper-extremity score (+9.5 ± 9.5; p = 0.00002) were improved after sling wearing.ConclusionWe observed improvements in patient-desired outcomes, complications, and upper-limb functional recovery after CM sling wearing for 1-month
Concept cells in the temporal pole: neuronal basis of semantic knowledge in humans
No full textInternational audienceSingle-neuron recordings in humans provide a unique opportunity to evaluate cognitive models at the neuronal level 1,2. Intracerebral recordings have identified neurons selective to one particular concept, termed concept cells 3, in the hippocampus and adjacent medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures as the building blocks of declarative memory 4. However, these concept cells demonstrate strong semantic properties, such as multimodal responses 5 and coding for broad semantic category 6, rather than episodic properties 7. Finding such selective neurons within the hippocampus and MTL structures presents a paradox given that it is the temporal pole (TP) that is widely regarded as the primary hub for semantic memory 8. This raises critical questions regarding the type of neuronal code underlying semantic knowledge in the TP and its functional relationship with the neuronal code observed in the hippocampus. To investigate this issue, we recorded the activity from 521 single units across 16 patients implanted with tetrodes 9 from the TP (n=129), MTL (n=261), and other brain regions (n=149), while they watched series of pictures (see 3,10 for methodological details). Among these, 80 single units in the temporal pole of five different patients exhibited increased activity to at least one concept. At the single-unit level we observed highly selective cells. These units displayed several defining characteristics: (1) invariant responses to different exemplars of the same concept, (2) response latencies shorter than those observed in the MTL (approximately 250 ms post-stimulus onset), (3) multimodal encoding of conceptual information, (4) explicit representation of concepts, (5) a less sparse code than in the hippocampus and (6) absence of responses to non-semantic stimuli. Preliminary neural manifold analyses 11revealed a neuronal code for broad semantic category with different time trajectories between semantic categories, revealing a dual-level code: at the single neuron level for specific concept and at the population level for broad semantic category. These findings provide novel insights into the neuronal coding of semantic concepts. Specifically, they suggest that semantic concepts are represented by highly specialized neurons within the TP, akin to the coding mechanisms observed in the hippocampus and MTL. A key question emerging from these results is the functional significance of such a distributed semantic coding scheme across multiple, anatomically distinct brain regions. Further investigation is required to elucidate the mechanisms underlying this distributed representation and its implications for the organization of semantic memory
Cognitive, neuroimaging, and genetic insights on the interthalamic adhesion from a large cohort study of 591 subjects
No full textInternational audienceBoth thalami can be connected by the Interthalamic Adhesion (IA), a white matter tract that crosses the 3rd ventricle. Its presence varies among individuals and remains poorly understood. This study examines the IA's prevalence, anatomical variations, genetic determinants, and cognitive associations. Data from 591 healthy subjects (25-35 years) from the Human Connectome Project were analyzed, and grouped into monozygotic (MZ) or dizygotic (DZ) twins, non-twin siblings, and unrelated individuals. MRI was used to characterize the IA, while neuropsychological assessments and Freesurfer parcellations were used to assess cognition and anatomical differences between subjects with or without an IA. The IA was absent in 12.7% of subjects, more commonly in males (20.0%) than females (6.3%). No significant differences in age, education, or cognition were found between individuals with or without an IA. IA absence was associated with increased cerebrospinal fluid volumes, enlarged third ventricles, and thinning in several cortical areas. Genetic analysis on the IA presence or absence revealed a heritability estimate of 34% with a higher concordance among MZ twins (96%) than in other groups. The remaining 4% discrepancy was observed in male pairs only. This study underscores the genetic basis of IA, highlighting sexual dimorphism and neuroanatomical differences associated with its absence, despite unaffected cognition in healthy individuals