642,571 research outputs found
Family Violence and Football: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Violent Behavior
Family violence is a pervasive and costly problem, yet there is no consensus on how to interpret the phenomenon of violence by one family member against another. Some analysts assume that violence has an instrumental role in intra-family incentives. Others argue that violent episodes represent a loss of control that the offender immediately regrets. In this paper we specify and test a behavioral model of the latter form in which the strength of an emotional cue depends on outcomes relative to expectations and individuals exhibit loss aversion. Our key hypothesis is that negative emotional cues -- benchmarked relative to a rationally expected reference point -- make a breakdown of control more likely. We test this hypothesis using data on police reports of family violence on Sundays during the professional football season. Controlling for location and time fixed effects, weather factors, the pre-game point spread, and the size of the local viewing audience, we find that upset losses by the home team (losses in games that the home team was predicted to win by more than 3 points) lead to an 8 percent increase in police reports of at-home male-on-female intimate partner violence. There is no corresponding effect on female-on-male violence. Consistent with the behavioral prediction that losses matter more than gains, upset victories by the home team have (at most) a small dampening effect on family violence. We also find that unexpected losses in highly salient or frustrating games have a 50% to 100% larger impact on rates of family violence. The evidence that payoff-irrelevant events affect the rate of family violence leads us to conclude that at least some fraction of family violence is better characterized as a breakdown of control than as an intra-family incentive system. More generally, the empirical findings suggest that gain-loss utility with a rational reference point could be a useful approach to modeling other cues and visceral influences.
Hopf bifurcations in time-delay systems with band-limited feedback
We investigate the steady-state solution and its bifurcations in time-delay
systems with band-limited feedback. This is a first step in a rigorous study
concerning the effects of AC-coupled components in nonlinear devices with
time-delayed feedback. We show that the steady state is globally stable for
small feedback gain and that local stability is lost, generically, through a
Hopf bifurcation for larger feedback gain. We provide simple criteria that
determine whether the Hopf bifurcation is supercritical or subcritical based on
the knowledge of the first three terms in the Taylor-expansion of the
nonlinearity. Furthermore, the presence of double-Hopf bifurcations of the
steady state is shown, which indicates possible quasiperiodic and chaotic
dynamics in these systems. As a result of this investigation, we find that
AC-coupling introduces fundamental differences to systems of Ikeda-type [Ikeda
et al., Physica D 29 (1987) 223-235] already at the level of steady-state
bifurcations, e.g. bifurcations exist in which limit cycles are created with
periods other than the fundamental ``period-2'' mode found in Ikeda-type
systems.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physica D: Nonlinear
Phenomen
Generalized Stochastic Gradient Learning
We study the properties of generalized stochastic gradient (GSG) learning in forwardlooking models. We examine how the conditions for stability of standard stochastic gradient (SG) learning both di1er from and are related to E-stability, which governs stability under least squares learning. SG algorithms are sensitive to units of measurement and we show that there is a transformation of variables for which E-stability governs SG stability. GSG algorithms with constant gain have a deeper justification in terms of parameter drift, robustness and risk sensitivity
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Is social decision making for close others consistent across domains and within individuals?
Humans make decisions across a variety of social contexts. Though social decision-making research has blossomed in recent decades, surprisingly little is known about whether social decision-making preferences are consistent across different domains. We conducted an exploratory study in which participants made choices about 2 types of close others: parents and friends. To elicit decision making preferences, we pit the interests in parents and friends against one another. To assess the consistency of preferences for close others, decision making was assessed in three domains-risk taking, probabilistic learning, and self-other similarity judgments. We reasoned that if social decision-making preferences are consistent across domains, participants ought to exhibit the same preference in all three domains (i.e., a parent preference, based on prior work), and individual differences in preference magnitude ought to be conserved across domains within individuals. A combination of computational modeling, random coefficient regression, and traditional statistical tests revealed a robust parent-over-friend preference in the risk taking and probabilistic learning domains but not the self-other similarity domain. Preferences for parent-over-friend in the risk-taking domain were strongly associated with similar preferences in the probabilistic learning domain but not the self-other similarity domain. These results suggest that distinct and dissociable value-based and social-cognitive computations underlie social decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)
Chaotic Dynamics Enhance the Sensitivity of Inner Ear Hair Cells
Hair cells of the auditory and vestibular systems are capable of detecting
sounds that induce sub-nanometer vibrations of the hair bundle, below the
stochastic noise levels of the surrounding fluid. Hair bundles of certain
species are also known to oscillate without external stimulation, indicating
the presence of an underlying active mechanism. We propose that chaotic
dynamics enhance the sensitivity and temporal resolution of the hair bundle
response, and provide experimental and theoretical evidence for this effect. By
varying the viscosity and ionic composition of the surrounding fluid, we are
able to modulate the degree of chaos observed in the hair bundle dynamics in
vitro. We consistently find that the hair bundle is most sensitive to a
stimulus of small amplitude when it is poised in the weakly chaotic regime.
Further, we show that the response time to a force step decreases with
increasing levels of chaos. These results agree well with our numerical
simulations of a chaotic Hopf oscillator and suggest that chaos may be
responsible for the sensitivity and temporal resolution of hair cells
Transition to chaos in random neuronal networks
Firing patterns in the central nervous system often exhibit strong temporal
irregularity and heterogeneity in their time averaged response properties.
Previous studies suggested that these properties are outcome of an intrinsic
chaotic dynamics. Indeed, simplified rate-based large neuronal networks with
random synaptic connections are known to exhibit sharp transition from fixed
point to chaotic dynamics when the synaptic gain is increased. However, the
existence of a similar transition in neuronal circuit models with more
realistic architectures and firing dynamics has not been established.
In this work we investigate rate based dynamics of neuronal circuits composed
of several subpopulations and random connectivity. Nonzero connections are
either positive-for excitatory neurons, or negative for inhibitory ones, while
single neuron output is strictly positive; in line with known constraints in
many biological systems. Using Dynamic Mean Field Theory, we find the phase
diagram depicting the regimes of stable fixed point, unstable dynamic and
chaotic rate fluctuations. We characterize the properties of systems near the
chaotic transition and show that dilute excitatory-inhibitory architectures
exhibit the same onset to chaos as a network with Gaussian connectivity.
Interestingly, the critical properties near transition depend on the shape of
the single- neuron input-output transfer function near firing threshold.
Finally, we investigate network models with spiking dynamics. When synaptic
time constants are slow relative to the mean inverse firing rates, the network
undergoes a sharp transition from fast spiking fluctuations and static firing
rates to a state with slow chaotic rate fluctuations. When the synaptic time
constants are finite, the transition becomes smooth and obeys scaling
properties, similar to crossover phenomena in statistical mechanicsComment: 28 Pages, 12 Figures, 5 Appendice
Interaction-induced mode switching in steady-state microlasers
We demonstrate that due to strong modal interactions through cross-gain
saturation, the onset of a new lasing mode can switch off an existing mode via
a negative power slope. In this process of interaction-induced mode switching
(IMS) the two involved modes maintain their identities, i.e. they do not change
their spatial field patterns or lasing frequencies. For a fixed pump profile, a
simple analytic criterion for the occurrence of IMS is given in terms of their
self- and cross-interaction coefficients and non-interacting thresholds, which
is verified for the example of a two-dimensional microdisk laser. When the
spatial pump profile is varied as the pump power is increased, IMS can be
induced even when it would not occur with a fixed pump profile, as we show for
two coupled laser cavities. Our findings apply to steady-state lasing and are
hence different from dynamical mode switching or hopping. IMS may have
potential applications in robust and flexible all-optical switching.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure
Are risk preferences dynamic? : Within-subject variation in risk-taking as a function of background music
This paper investigates whether preference interactions can explain why risk preferences change over time and across contexts. We conduct an experiment in which subjects accept or reject gambles involving real money gains and losses. We introduce within-subject variation by alternating subjectively liked music and disliked music in the background. We find that favourite music increases risk-taking, and disliked music suppresses risk-taking, compared to a baseline of no music. Several theories in psychology propose mechanisms by which mood affects risktaking, but none of them fully explain our results. The results are, however, consistent with preference complementarities that extend to risk preference
Self-consistent method for density estimation
The estimation of a density profile from experimental data points is a
challenging problem, usually tackled by plotting a histogram. Prior assumptions
on the nature of the density, from its smoothness to the specification of its
form, allow the design of more accurate estimation procedures, such as Maximum
Likelihood. Our aim is to construct a procedure that makes no explicit
assumptions, but still providing an accurate estimate of the density. We
introduce the self-consistent estimate: the power spectrum of a candidate
density is given, and an estimation procedure is constructed on the assumption,
to be released \emph{a posteriori}, that the candidate is correct. The
self-consistent estimate is defined as a prior candidate density that precisely
reproduces itself. Our main result is to derive the exact expression of the
self-consistent estimate for any given dataset, and to study its properties.
Applications of the method require neither priors on the form of the density
nor the subjective choice of parameters. A cutoff frequency, akin to a bin size
or a kernel bandwidth, emerges naturally from the derivation. We apply the
self-consistent estimate to artificial data generated from various
distributions and show that it reaches the theoretical limit for the scaling of
the square error with the dataset size.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figure
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