Temporal Horizons and Decision-Making: A Big Data Approach

Human behavior is plagued by shortsightedness. When faced withtwo options, smaller rewards are often chosen over larger rewards,even when such choices are potentially costly. In threeexperiments, we use big data techniques to examine how suchchoices might be driven by people’s temporal horizons. InExperiment 1, we determine the average distance into the futurepeople talk about in their tweets in order to determine the temporalhorizon of each U.S. state. States with further future horizons hadlower rates of risk taking behavior (smoking, binge drinking) andhigher rates of investment (e.g., education, infrastructure). InExperiment 2, we used an individual’s tweets to establish theirtemporal horizon and found that those with longer temporalhorizons were more willing to wait for larger rewards. InExperiment 3, we were once again able to predict the choicebehaviors of individuals from their tweets, this time showing thatthose with longer future horizons were less likely to take risks. Thefindings help establish a powerful relationship between people’sthoughts about the future and their decisions

What Language Might Tell Us About the Perception of Cause

In English, causation can be expressed with either a lexical or periphrastic causative verb. Lexical causatives include both the notion of CAUSE and the notion of RESULT (frequently change-of-state) (e.g. Mulder sunk the boat); Periphrastic causatives encode the notion of CAUSE without the notion of RESULT (e.g. Mulder made the boat sink). According to many linguists, these two kinds of sentences have different meanings: lexical causatives are used for situations involving direct causation while periphrastic causatives are used for situations involving either direct or indirect causation. This research investigated how this distinction might be cognitively determined. Subjects watched 3D animations of marbles hitting one another and then described the scenes and enumerated the total number of events. When causers were inanimate, lexicalization and enumeration were guided by physical contact. When causers were animate, lexicalization and enumeration were guided by factors other than physical contact, possibly intention or ultimate causation. The results suggest how different kinds of causation and their expression might be related to the perception of events

Representing Causation

The dynamics model, which is based on Talmy’s (1988) theory of force dynamics, characterizes causation as a pattern of forces and a position vector. In contrast to counterfactual and probabilistic models, the dynamics model naturally distinguishes between different cause-related concepts and explains the induction of causal relationships from single observations. Support for the model is provided in experiments in which participants categorized 3D animations of realistically rendered objects with trajectories that were wholly determined by the force vectors entered into a physics simulator. Experiments 1-3 showed that causal judgments are based on several forces, not just one. Experiment 4 demonstrated that people compute the resultant of forces using a qualitative decision rule. Experiments 5 and 6 showed that a dynamics approach extends to the representation of social causation. Implications for the relationship between causation and time are discussed

BRIEF REPORT Does Categorical Perception in the Left Hemisphere Depend on Language?

Categorical perception (CP) refers to the influence of category knowledge on perception and is revealed by a superior ability to discriminate items across categories relative to items within a category. In recent years, the finding that CP is lateralized to the left hemisphere in adults has been interpreted as evidence for a kind of CP driven by language. The present research challenges this conclusion. In 2 experiments, we found that CP for novel object categories was stronger in the left hemisphere than in the right, consistent with a role for language. However, both labeled and unlabeled categories gave rise to such effects, and to comparable degrees. These results suggest that left-lateralized CP does not depend on language but rather may reflect the left hemisphere's more general propensity for categorical processing. Our findings raise implications for research on linguistic relativity

Force interaction in the expression of causation

Causal meanings in verbs such as cause, enable and prevent have been analyzed as having two components that correspond to two interacting forces or tendencies: one associated with the agent and one with the patient (Talmy 2000; Wolff 2007). In this research we extend a force-dynamic analysis to a wider range of causal and quasi-causal expressions such as lead to, because, and after. The "structural causal pluralism hypothesis" (Copley & Wolff 2014) is not supported; instead force dynamics is shown to be relevant to expressions throughout syntactic structure. We find that the applicability of the classical force-interaction analysis depends on (i) whether an Agent/Causer is represented in the syntax, and (ii) what kind of causing entity is conceptually represented: either one that generates its own force or one whose force emerges from an interaction with and a field in the sense of Copley & Harley (2015) (e.g., a gravitational field). The latter case, we propose, suggests a criterion for force individuation. This account allows us to identify several classes of causal expressions and to further map out the division of labor between the grammatical and conceptual levels

An Analysis of Location of Needle Entry Point and Palpated PSIS in S1 Nerve Root Block

BACKGROUND: The first sacral nerve root block (S1NRB) is a common procedure in pain clinic for patients complaining of low back pain with radiating pain. It can be performed in the office based setting without C-arm. The previously suggested method of locating the needle entry point begins with identifying the posterior superior iliac spine (PSIS). Then a line is drawn between two points, one of which is 1.5 cm medial to the PSIS, and the other of which is 1.5 cm lateral and cephalad to the ipsilateral cornu. After that, one point on the line, which is 1.5 cm cephalad to the level of the PSIS, is considered as the needle entry point. The purpose of this study was to analyze the location of needle entry point and palpated PSIS in S1NRB. METHODS: Fifty patients undergoing C-arm guided S1NRB in the prone position were examined. The surface anatomical relationships between the palpated PSIS and the needle entry point were assessed. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that the transverse and vertical distance between the needle entry point and PSIS were 28.7 ± 8.8 mm medially and 3.5 ± 14.0 mm caudally, respectively. The transverse distance was 27.8 ± 8.3 mm medially for male and 29.5 ± 9.3 mm medially for female. The vertical distance was 1.0 ± 14.1 mm cranially for male and 8.1 ± 12.7 mm caudally for female. CONCLUSIONS: The needle entry point in S1NRB is located on the same line or in the caudal direction from the PSIS in a considerable number of cases. Therefore previous recommended methods cannot be applied to many cases.ope

Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data and Reporting (TAMDAR) Icing Sensor Performance during the 2003/2004 Alliance Icing Research Study (AIRS II)

NASA Langley Research Center and its research partners from the University of North Dakota (UND) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) participated in the AIRS II campaign from November 17 to December 17, 2003. AIRS II provided the opportunity to compare TAMDAR in situ in-flight icing condition assessments with in situ data from the UND Citation II aircraft's Rosemont system. TAMDAR is designed to provide a general warning of ice accretion and to report it directly into the Meteorological Data Communications and Reporting System (MDCRS). In addition to evaluating TAMDAR with microphysical data obtained by the Citation II, this study also compares these data to the NWS operational in-flight icing Current Icing Potential (CIP) graphic product and with the NASA Advanced Satellite Aviation-weather Products (ASAP) Icing Severity product. The CIP and ASAP graphics are also examined in this study to provide a context for the Citation II's sorties in AIRS II

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo