115 research outputs found
Simplicity Effects in the Experience of Near-Miss
Near-miss experiences are one of the main sources of intense emotions.
Despite people's consistency when judging near-miss situations and when
communicating about them, there is no integrated theoretical account of the
phenomenon. In particular, individuals' reaction to near-miss situations is not
correctly predicted by rationality-based or probability-based optimization. The
present study suggests that emotional intensity in the case of near-miss is in
part predicted by Simplicity Theory.Comment: jld-11040601; Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX : United States (2011
Language: The missing selection pressure
Human beings are talkative. What advantage did their ancestors find in
communicating so much? Numerous authors consider this advantage to be "obvious"
and "enormous". If so, the problem of the evolutionary emergence of language
amounts to explaining why none of the other primate species evolved anything
even remotely similar to language. What I propose here is to reverse the
picture. On closer examination, language resembles a losing strategy. Competing
for providing other individuals with information, sometimes striving to be
heard, makes apparently no sense within a Darwinian framework. At face value,
language as we can observe it should never have existed or should have been
counter-selected. In other words, the selection pressure that led to language
is still missing. The solution I propose consists in regarding language as a
social signaling device that developed in a context of generalized insecurity
that is unique to our species. By talking, individuals advertise their
alertness and their ability to get informed. This hypothesis is shown to be
compatible with many characteristics of language that otherwise are left
unexplained.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figure
Emotion in good luck and bad luck: predictions from simplicity theory
The feeling of good or bad luck occurs whenever there is an emotion contrast
between an event and an easily accessible counterfactual alternative. This
study suggests that cognitive simplicity plays a key role in the human ability
to experience good and bad luck after the occurrence of an event.Comment: jld-10020801; Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the
Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX : United States (2010
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