The purpose of this research was to determine whether changes in the presentation format of items in a computer display could be used to alter the impact of specific cognitive biases, and to add to the knowledge needed to construct theory-based guidelines for output design. The problem motivating this study is twofold. The first part of the problem is the sub-optimal decision making caused by the use of heuristics and their associated cognitive biases. The second part of the problem is the lack of a theoretical basis to guide the design of information presentation formats to counter the effects of such biases. An availability model of the impact of changes in presentation format on biases and heuristics was constructed based on the findings of a literature review. A six-part laboratory experiment was conducted utilizing a sample of 205 student subjects from the college of business. The independent variable was presentation format which was manipulated by altering the visual salience or visual recency of items of information in a visual computer display. The dependent variables included recall, perceived importance, and the subjects' responses to three judgment tasks. The results clearly demonstrate that changes in presentation format can be used to alter the impact of cognitive biases on human decision making. The results also provide support for the availability model, with the exception of the proposed influence of learning style. Learning style was found to have no significant impact on decision making whether alone or in combination with changes in presentation format. The results of this investigation demonstrate that by using our knowledge of cognitive processes (e.g., the visual salience effect, the visual recency effect, and the availability heuristic), presentation formats can be altered in order to moderate the effects of certain biases and heuristics in human decision making. An understanding of these results may be useful in improving DSS design.

Recent modeling work shows that patterns of shared perceptual features relate to the group-level order of acquisition of early-learned words (Peters & Borovsky, 2019). Here we present results for two eye-tracked word recognition studies showing patterns of shared perceptual features likewise influence processing of known and novel noun-concepts in individual 24- to 30-month-old toddlers. In the first study (Chapter 2, N=54), we explored the influence of perceptual connectivity on both initial attentional biases to known objects and subsequent label processing. In the second study (Chapter 3, N=49), we investigated whether perceptual connectivity influences patterns of attention during learning opportunities for novel object-features and object-labels, subsequent pre-labeling attentional biases, and object-label learning outcomes. Results across studies revealed four main findings. First, patterns of shared (visual-motion and visual-form and surface) perceptual features do relate to differences in early noun-concept processing at the individual level. Second, such influences are tentatively at play from the outset of novel noun-concept learning. Third, connectivity driven attentional biases to both recently learned and well-known objects follow a similar timecourse and show similar patterns of individual differences. Fourth, initial, pre-labeling attentional biases to objects relate to subsequent label processing, but do not linearly explain effects of connectivity. Finally, we consider whether these findings provide support for shared-feature-guided selective attention to object features as a mechanism underlying early lexico-semantic development.

Parmi les patients souffrant d'épilepsie, particulièrement du lobe temporal (ELT), 30% restent résistants aux médicaments malgré l'administration optimale des traitements pharmacologiques. Le caractère imprédictible des crises est l’un des aspects les plus invalidants de la maladie. De plus, les troubles dépressifs et anxieux sont des comorbidités psychiatriques fréquemment associées à l’épilepsie et impactent encore plus négativement la qualité de vie que les crises. Les approches par biofeedback, ont démontré leur efficacité dans le contrôle des crises. Une thérapie par biofeedback sur la conductance cutanée (GSR biofeedback) a montré son efficacité sur les symptômes psychiatriques. Cependant, les mécanismes sous-tendant l’efficacité sur ces symptômes restent peu connus. L’objectif de cette thèse est de mieux comprendre ces mécanismes. Deux pistes sont explorées : une physiologique dans laquelle il existerait un effet direct du GSR biofeedback sur la régulation physiologique des émotions ; une attentionnelle, dans laquelle il y aurait un effet indirect de l’entraînement sur le contrôle de l’attention. Les études menées ont permis de montrer que les patients avec ELT présentent des réponses électrodermales aux émotions plus faibles que des témoins, mais qu'elles ne sont pas plus élevées après des séances de GSR biofeedback. En revanche, l’amélioration des symptômes anxieux et dépressifs est liée à des modifications du traitement attentionnel des informations menaçantes. Le GSR biofeedback en améliorant le contrôle attentionnel induirait une diminution de la vigilance face à la menace, conduisant à une réduction de la vulnérabilité émotionnelle chez ces patients. / Among patients with epilepsy, particularly temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), 30% remain drug-resistant despite optimal administration of pharmacological treatments. The unpredictability of seizures is one of the most disabling aspects of the disease. In addition, depressive and anxiety disorders are psychiatric comorbidities frequently associated with epilepsy and have a greater negative impact on quality of life than seizures. Biofeedback approaches have been shown to be effective in controlling seizures. A biofeedback therapy on skin conductance (GSR biofeedback) has shown its efficacy on psychiatric symptoms. However, the mechanisms underlying this efficacy remain poorly understood. The objective of this thesis is to better understand these mechanisms. Two tracks are explored: a physiological one in which there is a direct effect of GSR biofeedback on the physiological regulation of emotions; an attentional one, in which there would be an indirect effect of the training on the control of attention. The studies presented have shown that TLE patients have weaker electrodermal responses than controls but that they are not higher after GSR biofeedback sessions. In contrast, the improvement of anxiety and depressive symptoms is related to changes in the attentional processing of threatening information. GSR biofeedback by improving attentional control would lead to a decrease in alertness to threat, leading to a reduction in emotional vulnerability in these patients.

Comment l'accès au savoir peut-il être impacté par la technologie ? Il suffit d'observer le virage intenté par les outils de communication au début des années 2000 pour se rendre compte : convergence des médias, pratiques participatives et numérisation massive des données. Dans ce contexte, on imagine que l'accès au savoir tend à se démocratiser. En effet, les individus semblent se réapproprier les espaces de vie, en inversant le modèle de transmission top-down, qui va du producteur vers le consommateur, au profit de processus de transfert basés sur l'intelligence collective. Pourtant, on aurait tort de réduire cette réorganisation à un simple renversement du modèle. Car l'intelligence collective est encline à divers biais cognitifs et socio-cognitifs, amenant parfois vers des situations irrationnelles. Autrefois, on s’accommodait de ces mécaniques sociales aux conséquences limitées, aujourd'hui les savoirs numérisés constituent des ensembles massivement communiquant, donnant naissance à de nouvelles voies d'accès et à de nouveaux clivages. Pourquoi ce savoir qui n'a jamais été aussi massif et ouvert, se révèle-t-il si sélectif ? Je propose d'explorer ce paradoxe. L'enregistrement massif et constant de nos traces numériques et l'hyper-connexion des individus, participent à la construction de structures organisationnelles, où se retrouvent numérisées de manière complexe, une partie des dynamiques sociales. En formalisant de la sorte les voies navigables, ces structures organisationnelles façonnent nos trajectoires. Sur cette base, les informaticiens ont mis au point des algorithmes de parcours individualisés, ayant pour objectifs de prédire et de recommander. Ainsi, on propose d'automatiser l'accès au savoir. Se pose alors la question de la gouvernance des individus, dans un contexte où l'intelligence collective est soumise à l'infrastructure : enregistrement des traces, composition des structures organisationnelles et algorithmes de parcours. / How access to knowledge can be impacted by Information Technology? In the earlier 2000s, communication tools caused a significant turn : media convergence, participative practices and massive data. In this way, free access to knowledge might tend to be democratized. People seem to regain spaces, reversing traditional top-down model, going from producer to consumer, for the benefit of an horizontal model based on collective intelligence. However, it should not automatically be assumed that this leads to a simple model reversing. Collective intelligence is subject to cognitive biases, leading to potential irrational situations. Formerly, those social mechanisms had limited consequences. Nowadays, digital knowledge are massive communicating spaces, giving birth to new access paths and new cleavages. Why this massive and open knowledge, is actually so selective? I propose to explore this paradox. Massive and constant tracking of traces and individuals hyper-connection, these two facts help organizational structures design, where social dynamics are digitalized in a complex way. These structures formalize human trajectories. On this basis, computer scientists set up prediction algorithms and recommender engines. This way, knowledge access is automatized. It can then be asked about people governance, in this context of infrastructure submission: recording traces, designing knowledge structure and automating algorithms.

The intensifying idea that AI soon will be a part of our everyday life allows for dreams about the complex relationship we one day could have with non-biological social intelligence. However, establishing societal and individual acceptance of AI-powered autonomy in disciplines built upon to the reliance to human competence raises a number of pressing challenges. One of them being, what system components will engender respectively counteract cognitive trust in socially oriented AI-automated processes?   This masters thesis tackles the seemingly ambiguous concept of trust in automation by identifying and evaluating system components that affect trust in a confined and contextualised setting. Practically, we design, construct and test an AI-powered chatbot, Ava, that contains socially oriented questions and feedback about study- and vocational guidance. Through a comparative study of different system versions, including both quantitative and qualitative data, we contribute to the framework for identifying and evaluating human trust in AI-Automated service encounters. We show how targeted alterations to design choices constituting the system components transparency, unbiasses and system performance, identified to affect trust, has consequences on the perception of the cognitive trust concepts integrity, benevolence and ability. Our results display a way of conduct for practitioners looking to prioritise and develop trustworthy autonomy. More specifically, we account for how cognitive trust is decreased when system opacity is increased. Moreover, we display even more concerning effects on trust due to micking contextual bias in the conversation agent.

Esta tese realiza um estudo a respeito da confiança do investidor estrangeiro no Brasil, identificando teórica e empiricamente os aspectos jurídicos elementares à sua formação. A pesquisa tem como intuito analisar o papel do Direito tanto na geração quanto na proteção à confiança nutrida pelos investidores no País. Faz-se assim um percurso teórico que discute os pressupostos relacionados à racionalidade do homem econômico, sendo apresentadas algumas linhas críticas do paradigma de escolha racional. Dentre tais linhas, a Economia Comportamental é escolhida como opção metodológica do trabalho por fornecer uma visão alternativa para o estudo de tomada de decisão. Assim, com base no programa pesquisa Heuristics and Biases (H&B), fundado por Daniel Kahneman e Amos Tversky, avalia-se o processo de formação da confiança no Brasil. A revisão de literatura interdisciplinar busca fornecer alicerce teórico para o estudo empreendido, ao explorar a dificuldade e a abstração do conceito. A tese, no campo jurídico, (i) contrapõe as noções de confiança e boa-fé, (ii) discute como se dá a tutela da confiança pelo Direito brasileiro e (iii) destaca aspectos da regulação dos investimentos estrangeiros capazes de tutelar ou promover a confiança. A pesquisa empírica realizada ao final do trabalho aplica o H&B à análise do Direito, destacando as variáveis jurídicas consideradas essenciais à confiança do investidor no Brasil e analisando dissonâncias cognitivas a este respeito entre residentes e não residentes. / This thesis investigates foreign investors trust in Brazil, aiming at identifying theoretically and empirically its elementary aspects. It also intends to analyze the role played by Law at the creation and preservation of investors trust. From a theoretical standpoint, it discusses the rationality assumptions attributed to the economic man and reports alternative approaches for decision making other than rational choice. The work applies Behavioral Economics methodology, more specifically the Heuristics and Biases program, founded by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. The thesis also reviews interdisciplinary literature on trust, exploring the elusiveness of its concept. In addition, from a legal research perspective, it (i) compares the notions of trust and good-faith; (ii) discusses the legal grounds for trust protection under local law and (iii) points out regulatory mechanisms deemed capable of protecting or promoting trust. The empirical research presented at the end of the thesis illustrates how H&B may be applied to the analysis of Law, by assessing its role at promoting investors trust as well as assessing cognitive dissonances found among resident and non residents.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:24:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Jose da Fonseca Costa.pdf: 1263073 bytes, checksum: 5e0088ac0a9fdf2802c5b0844e006375 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-15 / Impartiality is essential to jurisdiction, and among other things, it guarantees the parties and the maintenance of democracy itself. The procedural law systems currently in force in Brazil need to walk in opposite direction to the path they are actually taking in order for it to be minimally guarded, that is, regarding subjective impartiality specifically. These systems have already been feeding the cognitive bias factors of the adjudicative decision-makers and, therefore, feeding a breach of its systemic and unconscious biases. In this sense, the present work proposes a legislative reform, offering a precautionary model of lege ferenda inspired in algorithmic strategies based on the latest findings of a new discipline increasingly thriving in Anglo-Saxon countries, Israel and Western Europe called Behavioral Law and Economics (resulting from a fusion of law, cognitive psychology and behavioral economics). Hence the reason it is a legal enginnering work. Now, assuming that any decision maker is equipped with a bounded rationality (not to be confused with actual irrationality ), these techniques seek to undo or to isolate the effects of the so-called cognitive biases , which are mere shortcuts predictable and therefore, preventable which the human mind develops in order to make decisions from complex information under situations of uncertainty. Thus, the major cognitive illusions which affect the adjudicative decision-makers (representativeness bias, anchoring-and-adjustment bias, confirmation bias and in-group bias) were studied along with the procedural standards better suited to neutralize or eliminate these biases. Nevertheless, the proposed model is open to new discoveries that may occur regarding this matter. However, even in the case of a lege ferenda model, one can from it criticize de lege lata of the Brazilian Positive Law and demonstrate that many of the common biased practices in daily forensic activities could have already been confronted / A imparcialidade, sendo nota essencial à jurisdição, é dentre outras coisas garantia das partes e da própria manutenção da Democracia. No que concerne especificamente à imparcialidade subjetiva, para que seja minimamente resguardada, é preciso que os sistemas de direito processual atualmente vigentes no Brasil caminhem em sentido oposto ao rumo que estão tomando, já que têm alimentado fatores de enviesamento cognitivo dos julgadores e, portanto, uma quebra inconsciente e sistêmica de suas imparcialidades. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho propõe uma reforma legislativa, oferecendo um modelo precaucional de lege ferenda inspirado em estratégias algorítmicas fundadas nas mais recentes descobertas de uma nova disciplina cada vez mais pujante em países anglo-saxões, Israel e Europa Ocidental chamada Behavioral Law & Economics (resultante de uma fusão entre Direito, Psicologia Cognitiva e Economia Comportamental). Daí por que se trata de um trabalho de engenharia jurídica. Ora, partindo da premissa de que todo e qualquer tomador de decisão é provido de uma racionalidade limitada (que não se confunde propriamente com irracionalidade ), essas técnicas buscam desfazer ou isolar os efeitos dos chamados vieses cognitivos , que nada mais são do que atalhos simplificadores previsíveis e, portanto, evitáveis que a mente humana desenvolve para tomar decisões a partir de informações complexas sob situação de incerteza. Assim sendo, estudar-se-ão as principais ilusões cognitivas que acometem os julgadores (viés de representatividade, viés de ancoragem e ajustamento, viés de confirmação e viés de grupo) e as normas processuais mais adequadas à neutralização, mitigação ou à eliminação desses vieses. Não obstante, o modelo proposto é aberto às novas descobertas que vierem porventura a ocorrer nessa matéria. Todavia, ainda que se trate de um modelo de lege ferenda, a partir dele se podem tecer críticas de lege lata ao direito positivo brasileiro e demonstrar que muitas das práticas enviesantes corriqueiras no dia a dia forense já poderiam estar sendo combatidas

Cette thèse comporte quatre essais dont les deux premiers, s’appuyant sur les fondements théoriques de la finance comportementale de l’entreprise, montrent dans quelle mesure les sociétés françaises tirent avantage des erreurs de jugement systématiques des investisseurs. Nous étudions dans le premier essai les conséquences du biais de familiarité sur la structure du capital. En particulier, nous montrons que les entreprises associées à un sentiment de familiarité élevé, notamment parmi les petites capitalisations, ont un actionnariat individuel plus large. Ce résultat souligne l’intérêt économique pour l’entreprise d’augmenter sa visibilité et de consolider sa notoriété dans le temps. Le deuxième essai traite de la politique de dividende sous l’hypothèse des « catering incentives ». Il s’agit de tester si les entreprises sont davantage incitées à distribuer du dividende lorsque les titres payeurs se négocient avec une prime par rapport aux non-payeurs. Nous validons cette hypothèse et mettons en évidence que les dirigeants français font preuve d’un opportunisme court-termiste accru en cas de faible contrôle familial ou de forte participation institutionnelle dans le capital. Les deux derniers essais s’intéressent aux comportements décisionnels des entreprises face aux enjeux du changement climatique. Ils se situent dans un contexte international. Le troisième essai, notamment, teste la pertinence des stratégies d’éco-efficience, via la réduction des émissions de carbone, sur la performance financière à l’occasion d’opérations de fusions-acquisitions. Les résultats tranchent en faveur de la rationalité économique de ces stratégies et affirment la possibilité pour la firme d’envisager une relation gagnant-gagnant avec son environnement. Le quatrième essai, consacré à l’étude de la communication environnementale volontaire, démontre l’intérêt croissant des parties prenantes pour ce type d’information : les entreprises les plus exposées médiatiquement, les plus endettées et celles qui entrent dans le cadre des nouvelles réglementations environnementales sont les plus transparentes en matière de reporting environnemental. De plus, les entreprises les moins éco-efficientes tendent à communiquer davantage sur leur empreinte écologique, traduisant une recherche de légitimité auprès des parties prenantes. / This thesis is composed of four essays. The first two essays draw on behavioral corporate finance and show to what extent French firms can take advantage of investors’ erroneous judgment. We first study the impact of the familiarity bias on ownership. We find that firms with higher notoriety level, mostly small-cap ones, have higher individual ownership. Second, we test the catering hypothesis in dividend policy, in that whether firms are more prone to pay dividend when payers trade at a premium relative to non-payers. The results validate this hypothesis and support short-term opportunistic behavior by French firms, especially when family control is low or institutional ownership is high. The last two essays examine the impact of climate change issues on firms’ decisions, in an international setting. Especially, the third essay demonstrates that eco-efficiency-based strategies significantly matters to the financial outcomes of mergers and acquisitions, which supports the economic rationality underlying carbon reduction investments, and claims for a win-win relationship between corporations and their environment. The fourth essay that deals with the environmental voluntary disclosure, emphasizes the increasing interest of stakeholders toward this kind of information: firms with higher exposure, higher leverage and those that are in the scope of regulators tend to be more transparent in terms of carbon reporting. Moreover, firms that are less eco-efficient show higher probability to report on their environmental performance, suggesting the search for legitimacy.

The study of bacterial evolution is fundamental for addressing current problems of antibiotic resistance and emerging infectious diseases and lays a solid foundation for successful and rational design in biotechnology and synthetic biology. The main aim of this thesis is to test evolutionary hypotheses, largely based on theoretical considerations and sequence analysis, by designing scenarios in a laboratory setting to obtain experimental data. Paper I examines how genomic GC-content can be reduced following a change in mutation rate and spectrum. Transcription-related biases in mutation location were found, but no replicative bias was detected. Paper II explores the distribution of fitness effects of random substitutions in two ribosomal protein genes using a highly sensitive fitness assay. The substitutions had a weakly deleterious effect, with low frequencies of both neutral and inactivating mutations. The surprising finding that synonymous and non-synonymous substitutions have very similar distribution of fitness effects suggests that, at least for these genes, fitness constraints are present mainly on the level of mRNA instead of protein. Paper III examines selective barriers to inter-species gene transfer by constructing mutants with a native gene replaced by an orthologue from another species. Results suggest that the fitness costs of these gene replacements are large enough to provide a barrier to this kind of horizontal gene transfer in nature. The paper also examines possible compensatory mechanisms that can reduce the cost of the poorly functioning alien genes and found that gene amplification acts as a first step to improve the selective contribution after transfer. Paper IV investigates the fitness constraints on horizontal gene transfer by inserting DNA from other species into the Salmonella chromosome. Results suggest that insertion of foreign DNA often is neutral and the manuscript provides new experimental data for theoretical analysis of interspecies genome variation and horizontal gene transfer between species.

A schooling system that claims to offer its students the opportunities to develop their talents and help towards self-determination in their adult lives might be expected to have a career structure itself that demonstrated these virtues, one in which there was equality of the genders in positions of influence and leadership, and no gender stereotyping of roles. Apart from the fairness and consistency of that expectation, it is also reasonable to expect the neutral template of teacher employment and textbook selection in schools. Many children may grow up with few books in their homes but lots of those in their schools. Many of the textbooks used in elementary schools, according to recent studies, contain gender stereotypes. In these, females are rarely found as central characters and when they appear at all, they are often passive figures dependent on male characters. Women are frequently shown in domestic roles / in most textbooks it is assumed that only males &#039 / go out to work&#039 / whereas daughters are the best helpers of their mothers whose sons are allowed to do what they wish. In the light of those allegations, this research is designed as a case study which addresses itself to the aim of looking into stereotyped gender role presentations existing in elementary school textbooks used by the students studying at 1st-5th grades in 2001/2002 academic year of an elementary school placed in Burdur and to see whether these students are affected by the exposure of those stereotyped gender role presentations. For this purpose, the textbooks being studied are analyzed according to pre-set categories to deduce how they include stereotyped gender role presentations and the evaluation of the effects of that exposure on students are made by asking 1st-3rd grade students to draw and 4th-5th grade students to write compositions on a given topic. This study also attempts to find out both whether Turkish elementary school teachers teaching at 1st-5th grades are aware of stereotyped gender role presentations in those textbooks that they use and their own points of view about stereotyped gender role presentations via interviews carried out with them. In conclusion, stereotyped gender role presentations are encountered in those analyzed school textbooks studied at 1st- 5th grades in 2001/2002 academic year of the elementary school placed in Burdur and the perceptions of those presentations are also obtained in the drawn and written productions of the students studied at the same school. Through the teachers&#039 / interviews, various kinds of perceptions towards gender role concept and its stereotyped presentations that take place in those textbooks are observed in their sayings