Optimising visual solutions for complex strategic scenarios : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Attempts to pre-emptively improve post-disaster outcomes need to reflect an improved understanding of cognitive adaptations made by collaborating researchers and practitioners. This research explored the use of visual logic models to enhance the quality of decisions being made by these professionals. The research looked at the way visual representations serve to enhance these decisions, as part of cognitive adaptations to considering the complexity of relevant pre-disaster conditions constituting community resilience. It was proposed that a visual logic model display, using boxes and arrows to display linkages between activities and downstream objectives, could support effective, efficient and responsive approaches to relevant community resilience interventions being carried out in a pre-disaster context. The first of three phases comprising this thesis used Q-methodology to identify patterns of opinions concerning building a shared framework of pre-disaster, community resilience indicators for this purpose. Three patterns identified helped to assess the needs for applied research undertaken in phase two. The second phase of this thesis entailed building an action-focused logic model to enhance associated collaborations between emergency management practitioners and researchers. An analysis of participant interviews determined that the process used to build this logic model served as a catalyst for research which could help improve community resilience interventions. The third phase used an experimental approach to different display formats produced during phase two to test whether a visual logic model display stimulated a higher quality of decisions, compared with a more conventional, text-based chart of key performance indicators. Results supported the use of similar methods for much larger scale research to assess how information displays support emergency management decisions with wide-ranging, longer-term implications. Overall, results from these three phases indicate that certain logic model formats can help foster collaborative efforts to improve characteristics of community resilience against disasters. This appears to occur when a logic model forms an integrated component of efficient cognitive dynamics across a network of decision making agents. This understanding of logic model function highlights clear opportunities for further research. It also represents a novel contribution to knowledge about using logic models to support emergency management decisions with complex, long term implications

Listen to me! Public announcements to agents that pay attention - or not

International audienceIn public announcement logic it is assumed that all agents pay attention (listen to/observe) to the announcement. Weaker observational conditions can be modelled in event (action) model logic. In this work, we propose a version of public announcement logic wherein it is encoded in the states of the epistemic model which agents pay attention to the announcement. This logic is called attention-based announcement logic, abbreviated ABAL. We give an axiomatization and prove that complexity of satisfiability is the same as that of public announcement logic, and therefore lower than that of action model logic [2]. We exploit our logic to formalize the concept of joint attention that has been widely discussed in the philosophical and cognitive science literature. Finally, we extend our logic by integrating attention change

Discovering infant logic

Adults have characterised infants as incompetent in action and cognition. An- alternative interpretation which characterises infants as different rather than deficient is asserted. This alternative explanation is derived from an analysis using the formal categories of standard propositional logic. The analysis provides a structure within which all cognitive differences can be formally defined. The thesis suggests that formal characterisation is a necessity if progress is to be made from behavioural descriptions to cognitive explanations. The resultant interpretation is affirmed as an initial attempt towards a cognitive explanation of the mental world of the infant

Practical reasoning in political discourse: The UK government's response to the economic crisis in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report

This article focuses on practical reasoning in political discourse and argues for a better integration of argumentation theory with critical discourse analysis (CDA). Political discourse and its specific genres (for example, deliberation) primarily involve forms of practical reasoning, typically oriented towards finding solutions to problems and deciding on future courses of action. Practical reasoning is a form of inference from cognitive and motivational premises: from what we believe (about the situation or about means—end relations) and what we want or desire (our goals and values), leading to a normative judgement (and often a decision) concerning action. We offer an analysis of the main argument in the UK government’s 2008 Pre-Budget Report (HM Treasury, 2008) and suggest how a critical evaluation of the argument from the perspective of a normative theory of argumentation (particularly the informal logic developed by Douglas Walton) can provide the basis for an evaluation in terms of characteristic CDA concerns. We are advancing this analysis as a contribution to CDA, aimed at increasing the rigour and systematicity of its analyses of political discourse, and as a contribution to the normative concerns of critical social science

Accounting for Framing-Effects - an informational approach to intensionality in the Bolker-Jeffrey decision model

We suscribe to an account of framing-effects in decision theory in terms of an inference to a background informationa by the hearer when a speaker uses a certain frame while other equivalent frames were also available. This account was sketched by Craig McKenzie. We embed it in Bolker-Jeffrey decision model (or logic of action) - one main reason of this is that this latter model makes preferences bear on propositions. We can deduce a given anomaly or cognitive bias (namely framing-effects) in a formal decision theory. This leads to some philosophical considerations on the relationship between the rationality of preferences and the sensitivity to descriptions or labels of states of affairs (intensionality) in decision-making.information-processing and decision-making, framing-effects, intensionality, Bolker-Jeffrey

Beyond Evidence-Based Belief Formation: How Normative Ideas Have Constrained Conceptual Change Research

The cognitive sciences, including psychology and education, have their roots in antiquity. In the historically early disciplines like logic and philosophy, the purpose of inquiry was normative. Logic sought to formalize valid inferences, and the various branches of philosophy sought to identify true and certain knowledge. Normative principles are irrelevant for descriptive, empirical sciences like psychology. Normative concepts have nevertheless strongly influenced cognitive research in general and conceptual change research in particular. Studies of conceptual change often ask why students do not abandon their misconceptions when presented with falsifying evidence. But there is little reason to believe that people evolved to conform to normative principles of belief management and conceptual change. When we put the normative traditions aside, we can consider a broader range of hypotheses about conceptual change. As an illustration, the pragmatist focus on action and habits is articulated into a psychological theory that claims that cognitive utility, not the probability of truth, is the key variable that determines belief revision and conceptual change

Konsep Pembelajaran Matematika Sekolah Dasar Berlandaskan Teori Kognitif Jean Piaget

This study aims to explain the concept of learning mathematics in elementary schools based on Jean Piaget's cognitive theory. The focus of this research is how the concept of learning mathematics at the elementary school level is based on Jean Piaget's cognitive theory. This study used a qualitative approach with a library survey data collection method. The data analysis carried out in this study is a form of data analysis using the Miles and Huberman model with three stages of data analysis. From the results of this study it was found that elementary school students are children aged 7 to 12 years who are in the concrete action stage, and they understand reversible and conservative logic operations in the concrete action stage