From Theory of Mind to Epistemic Cognition. A Lifespan perspective

Although a sizeable body of research now exists in epistemic cognition, it tends to stand apart to other aspects of cognition and cognitive development.  Here it is proposed situating epistemic cognition in a context of its roots and development as a dimension of cognitive development more generally. The present paper draws a strong continuous link between the earliest understanding of other minds, examined under the Theory of Mind, and the tasks that confront adults throughout the lifespan – that of interpreting evidence and coordinating it with what they already take to be true. The primary focus is the How question of knowledge change. To gain insight into this question, it is proposed focusing on epistemic activity in action. It is suggested here that the standards for knowledge formation and revision, which are closely connected with epistemic understanding of theory-evidence coordination, change developmentally. Another major change, proposed, is that the process increasingly comes under conscious control

Epistemic Vigilance

Humans massively depend on communication with others, but this leaves them open to the risk of being accidentally or intentionally misinformed. To ensure that, despite this risk, communication remains advantageous, humans have, we claim, a suite of cognitive mechanisms for epistemic vigilance. Here we outline this claim and consider some of the ways in which epistemic vigilance works in mental and social life by surveying issues, research and theories in different domains of philosophy, linguistics, cognitive psychology and the social sciences

Mejoramiento de los servicios de razonamiento basados en programación lógica rebatible

Esta línea de investigación se enfoca en mejorar las capacidades de razonamiento de agentes que participan en Sistemas Multi-Agente (SMA). Su objetivo general es mejorar y desarrollar nuevas técnicas para los servicios de razonamiento basados en Programación Lógica Rebatible (Defeasilble Logic Programming o DeLP) combinando revisión de creencias, argumentación y mecanismos de confianza y reputación para su aplicación en SMA. En particular, se espera avanzar en la implementación de nuevos servicios y facilidades de los Servicios de Razonamiento basados en DeLP. Dicha integración permitirá realizar un avance en las tres áreas de investigación, y además, proveerá de técnicas avanzadas aplicables a los modelos de razonamiento de agentes inteligentes y sistemas multi-agente para entornos dinámicos.Eje: Agentes y Sistemas InteligentesRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Argumentative Credibility-based Revision in Multi-Agent Systems

We consider the problem of belief revision in a multi-agent system with information stemming from different agents with different degrees of credibility. In this context an agent has to carefully choose which information is to be accepted for revision in order to avoid believing in faulty and untrustworthy information. We propose a revision process combining selective revision, deductive argumentation, and credibility information for the adequate handling of information in this complex scenario. New information is evaluated based on the credibility of the source in combination with all arguments favoring and opposing the new information. The evaluation process determines which part of the new information is to be accepted for revision and thereupon incorporated into the belief base by an appropriate revision operator. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach, investigate formal properties, and show that it outperforms the baseline approach without argumentation.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Reading EAP: Investigating high proficiency L2 university students’ strategy use through reading blogs

This study investigates the reading strategies used by academically novice, but high-proficiency L2 students of English enrolled in a teacher education programme at a major Swedish university. Data were obtained from personal reading blogs kept by the students as they undertook course reading at home. An analysis revealed that students employed various reading strategies; however, there was limited evidence to suggest that students employed these strategies routinely. The most common strategy reported was connecting to short-term writing task. While students reported reflecting on their reading, they did not appear to amend unsuccessful strategy use, or re-use successful strategies. The study reveals the difficulties and limitations of high-proficiency L2 students who lack experience of reading academic literature in English, and discusses pedagogical implications for reading blogs

Social Reconstruction of New Ventures' Liabilities of Newness and Smallness: An Example From the French Technology Sector

New entrepreneurial ventures are intrinsically stigmatized by liabilities of newness and smallness that lead to lack of legitimacy. The legitimacy problem complicates new ventures’ access to external resources. Overcoming these liabilities means gaining legitimacy in the eyes of significant audiences (Stinchcombe, 1965; Singh, Tucker & House, 1986). To date, the research on new ventures’ legitimation has mainly taken one of the following two perspectives: the neo-institutional perspective, in which scholars view new ventures legitimation as a product of conformity with institutional norms and standards, and the strategic perspective, in which scholars focus on new ventures’ proactive symbolic actions aimed at manipulating audiences’ perceptions. Although existing studies of liabilities of newness and smallness rest on the assumption that new ventures’ lack of legitimacy is inter-subjective, the social-constructionist aspect of this phenomenon has not been sufficiently investigated. For instance, extant studies have overlooked entrepreneurs’ subjective experiences ensuing from their ventures’ lack of legitimacy. Emerging literature on the sensemaking of entrepreneurial failures partly fills this knowledge gap. These studies have examined how entrepreneurs cognitively process and narratively construct their ventures’ failures (e. g. Cardon et al, 2011; Mantere et al, 2013). However, these studies focus on ultimate failures, rather than failed attempts to acquire external resources. Continued inability to acquire key resources, being a direct premise of entrepreneurial failures, has not been studied as a subject of sensemaking. Therefore, this study seeks to understand how entrepreneurs make sense of and narratively construct experienced hardship of resource acquisition at the early years of their ventures’ existence. Furthermore, although scholars acknowledge that public perception influences the way entrepreneurs’ make sense of their ventures’ failures (e. g. Cardon et al, 2011), extant literature failed to explain what constitutes public perception of entrepreneurial failures. Therefore, this study also seeks to understand how entrepreneurs’ narrative construction of failures and hardship affects public perception. To fulfil the research objectives, this study is based on a synthesis of the literatures on new ventures legitimation, entrepreneurial failures and social movements (e. g. Benford & Snow, 2000). Social movement approach provides suitable theoretical and methodological framework for the research endeavour. Social movement studies explore how collective discontent is made sense of, grievances are articulated and framed as injustice by social actors in pursuit of social change (Turner, 1995). In this study, narratives of entrepreneurs whose ventures’ development is hampered by inability to access external resources are examined. The empirical investigation is focused on the new ventures’ attempts to establish collaborative technology partnerships with incumbents. Frame analysis (Goffman, 1974; Creed et al, 2002a) is adapted to critically examine entrepreneurs’ narratives collected through very in-depth interviews. The data set comprised narrative interviews with 35 entrepreneurs and 16 top managers of private and public organizations in France. The findings of this study suggest that failed attempts to establish technology partnerships with incumbents trigger entrepreneurs’ sensemaking of their own experiences and also broader reinterpretation of technology partnership as a patterned social interaction. It was found that the entrepreneurs whose ventures’ development is hampered by inability to access incumbents’ resources are likely to frame their hardship as injustice rather than simple misfortune or mistake. The findings also indicate that injustice frame plays twofold role in the entrepreneurial dynamics. Besides being an interpretive and blame externalizing mental model, injustice frame also plays a sensegiving role. It is demonstrated that when framing their hardship as injustice, entrepreneurs employ contextually embedded discourse to construct collective identities of new ventures and incumbents that ascribe role expectations to resource-holding incumbents. Furthermore, relevance to experience and cultural resonance of the injustice frame determines its appropriation by other actors and, therefore, its impact on the public discourse

Successful Interdisciplinary Collaborations: The Contributions of Shared Socio-Emotional-Cognitive Platforms to Interdisciplinary Synthesis

Available theories concerning interdisciplinary collaborations tend to focus on either the cognitive or the social dimension of such interchange. We propose the theoretical construct of "shared socio-emotional-cognitive (SSEC) platforms" to capture what defines successful interdisciplinarity. The paper elaborates on this theoretical concept, which is informed by an extensive empirical study of nine research networks supported by three institutions: the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Santa Fe Institute. We also analyze the conditions that enable or impede individuals to conduct interdisciplinary research together successfully, focusing on intellectual, interactional and institutional conditions. We first review relevant literature on interdisciplinary collaborations, and then advance a definition of SSEC platforms, describing three key dimensions and the theoretical assumptions on which they stand. These dimensions are: the cognitive-intellectual (most exclusively concerned with substance); the emotional (concerned with reactions to individuals and ideas); and the socio-interactional (concerned primarily with interaction, meaning-making, and group styles). These dimensions are also described as conditions enabling successful interdisciplinarity. They operate together with institutional conditions for success, which concern the rules, practices and expectations of funding organizations and the academic fields. After showing that these dimensions and conditions are present in the nine groups studied, but in varying proportions, we conclude by comparing our construct with the notion of "trading zones" (Galison 1997) to specify our constructs‘ usefulness and contribution to the field.African and African American StudiesSociolog

Curriculum reform in the context of massification in China : a case study of BIPT, Foreign language department

As early as 1971, the collection of papers which make up the book Knowledge and Control (Young, 1971) had a remarkable impact on an enormous numbers of teachers and students of education in the 10 years or more after its appearance (David Halpin, 1990). Moreover, Knowledge and Control played a crucial role in encouraging a wave of innovative and analytical thinking about the school curriculum (Whitty & Young, 1976; Young and Whitty, 1977). Nowadays, curriculum is undertaking numerous changes while the significance to research into the curriculum reform has been lifted to the academic schedule. Mary Henkel (2000) believed, “English was a fragmented discipline, which gave individuals relatively unrestricted space in which to carve out their own identities” (p.198-9). The aim of this master thesis is to explore the general curriculum change in the English majors of Chinese higher education institutions in the recent years and the main causes. The context includes study of policy change on the English majors curriculum reform at the national level, national syllabus for English majors, specific institutional curriculum guideline, English major coursework and field work. My intention is through the case study of BIPT, popularize the result to the situation of English major study in China. After reading through the thesis, readers might have a general impression on how is the situation of English learning in the field of higher education