Cognition in context: Evidence on affordances and verbal language

This thesis investigated affordances and verbal language to demonstrate the flexibility of embodied simulation processes. Starting from the assumption that both object/action understanding and language comprehension are tied to the context in which they take place, six studies clarified the factors that modulate simulation. The studies in chapter 4 and 5 investigated affordance activation in complex scenes, revealing the strong influence of the visual context, which included either objects and actions, on compatibility effects. The study in chapter 6 compared the simulation triggered by visual objects and objects names, showing differences depending on the kind of materials processed. The study in chapter 7 tested the predictions of the WAT theory, confirming that the different contexts in which words are acquired lead to the difference typically observed in the literature between concrete and abstract words. The study in chapter 8 on the grounding of abstract concepts tested the mapping of temporal contents on the spatial frame of reference of the mental timeline, showing that metaphoric congruency effects are not automatic, but flexibly mediated by the context determined by the goals of different tasks. The study in chapter 9 investigated the role of iconicity in verbal language, showing sound-to-shape correspondences when every-day object figures, result that validated the reality of sound-symbolism in ecological contexts. On the whole, this evidence favors embodied views of cognition, and supports the hypothesis of a high flexibility of simulation processes. The reported conceptual effects confirm that the context plays a crucial role in affordances emergence, metaphoric mappings activation and language grounding. In conclusion, this thesis highlights that in an embodied perspective cognition is necessarily situated and anchored to a specific context, as it is sustained by the existence of a specific body immersed in a specific environment.

Argumentation and artifacts for intelligent multi-agent systems

Reasoning under uncertainty is a human capacity that in software system is necessary and often hidden. Argumentation theory and logic make explicit non-monotonic information in order to enable automatic forms of reasoning under uncertainty. In human organization Distributed Cognition and Activity Theory explain how artifacts are fundamental in all cognitive process. Then, in this thesis we search to understand the use of cognitive artifacts in an new argumentation framework for an agent-based artificial society.

An Innovation System Perspective on Adaptation Strategies to Climate Variability and Water Management in India

Government policies play a critical role in influencing market conditions, institutions and overall agricultural productivity. The thesis therefore looks into the history of agriculture development in India. Taking a political economy perspective, the historical account looks at significant institutional and technological innovations carried out in pre- independent and post independent India. It further focuses on the Green Revolution in Asia, as forty years after; the agricultural community still faces the task of addressing recurrent issue of food security amidst emerging challenges, such as climate change. It examines the Green Revolution that took place in India during the late 1960s and 70s in a historical perspective, identifying two factors of institutional change and political leadership. Climate change in agriculture development has become a major concern to farmers, researchers and policy makers alike. However, there is little knowledge on the farmers’ perception to climate change and to the extent they coincide with actual climatic data. Using a qualitative approach,it looks into the perceptions of the farmers in four villages in the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. While exploring the adaptation strategies, the chapter looks into the dynamics of who can afford a particular technology and who cannot and what leads to a particular adaptation decision thus determining the adaptive capacity in water management. The final section looks into the devolution of authority for natural resource management to local user groups through the Water Users’ Associations as an important approach to overcome the long-standing challenges of centralized state bureaucracies in India. It addresses the knowledge gap of why some local user groups are able to overcome governance challenges such as elite capture, while others-that work under the design principles developed by Elinor Ostrom. It draws conclusions on how local leadership, can be promoted to facilitate participatory irrigation management.

Trait emotional intelligence: Evidence from italian adolescents and adults

Emotional intelligence (EI) represents an attribute of contemporary attractiveness for the scientific psychology community. Of particular interest for the present thesis are the conundrum related to the representation of this construct conceptualized as a trait (i.e., trait EI), which are in turn reflected in the current lack of agreement upon its constituent elements, posing significant challenges to research and clinical progress. Trait EI is defined as an umbrella personality-alike construct reflecting emotion-related dispositions and self-perceptions. The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) was chosen as main measure, given its strong theoretical and psychometrical basis, including superior predictive validity when compared to other trait EI measures. Studies 1 and 2 aimed at validating the Italian 153-items forms of the TEIQue devoted to adolescents and adults. Analyses were done to investigate the structure of the questionnaire, its internal consistencies and gender differences at the facets, factor, and global level of both versions. Despite some low reliabilities, results from Studies 1 and 2 confirm the four-factor structure of the TEIQue. Study 3 investigated the utility of trait EI in a sample of adolescents over internalizing conditions (i.e., symptoms of anxiety and depression) and academic performance (grades at math and Italian language/literacy). Beyond trait EI, concurrent effects of demographic variables, higher order personality dimensions and non-verbal cognitive ability were controlled for. Study 4a and Study 4b addressed analogue research questions, through a meta-analysis and new data in on adults. In the latter case, effects of demographics, emotion regulation strategies, and the Big Five were controlled. Overall, these studies showed the incremental utility of the TEIQue in different domains beyond relevant predictors. Analyses performed at the level of the four-TEIQue factors consistently indicated that its predictive effects were mainly due to the factor Well-Being. Findings are discussed with reference to potential implication for theory and practice.

Language, action, and sensoriality: a multimodal analysis of interactions in inclusive sport climbing with visually impaired athletes

In sport climbing, athletes with vision impairments are constantly accompanied by their guides – usually trainers – both during the preparatory inspection of the routes and whilst climbing. Trainers are, so to speak, the climbers’ eyes, in the sense that they systematically put their vision in the service of the climbers’ mobility and sporting performance. The synergy between trainers and athletes is based on peculiar, strictly multimodal interactive practices that are focused on the body and on its constantly evolving sensory engagement with the materiality of routes. In this context, sensory perception and embodied actions required to plan and execute the climb are configured as genuinely interactive accomplishments. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Embodied and Situated Cognition and on the methodology of Conversation Analysis, this thesis engages in the multimodal analysis of trainer-athlete interactions in paraclimbing. The analysis is based on a corpus of video recorded climbing sessions. The major findings of the study can be summarized as follows. 1) Intercorporeality is key to interactions between trainers and athletes with visual impairments. The participants orient to perceiving the climbing space and acting in it as a ‘We’. 2) The grammar, lexicon, prosody, and timing of the trainers’ instructions are finely tuned to the ongoing corporeal experience of the climbers. 3) Climbers with visual impairments build their actions by using sensory resources that are provided by their trainers. This result is of particular importance as it shows that resources and constraints for action are in a fundamental way constituted in interaction with Others and with specific socio-material ecologies, rather than being defined a priori by the organs and functions of individuals’ body and mind. Individual capabilities are thus enhanced and extended in interaction, which encourages a more ecological view of (dis)ability.

Affordances and Language: How the Level of Object Familiarity modulates the Manipulation and Categorization of Objects across Development

According to much evidence, observing objects activates two types of information: structural properties, i.e., the visual information about the structural features of objects, and function knowledge, i.e., the conceptual information about their skilful use. Many studies so far have focused on the role played by these two kinds of information during object recognition and on their neural underpinnings. However, to the best of our knowledge no study so far has focused on the different activation of this information (structural vs. function) during object manipulation and conceptualization, depending on the age of participants and on the level of object familiarity (familiar vs. non-familiar). Therefore, the main aim of this dissertation was to investigate how actions and concepts related to familiar and non-familiar objects may vary across development. To pursue this aim, four studies were carried out. A first study led to the creation of the Familiar and Non-Familiar Stimuli Database, a set of everyday objects classified by Italian pre-schoolers, schoolers, and adults, useful to verify how object knowledge is modulated by age and frequency of use. A parallel study demonstrated that factors such as sociocultural dynamics may affect the perception of objects. Specifically, data for familiarity, naming, function, using and frequency of use of the objects used to create the Familiar And Non-Familiar Stimuli Database were collected with Dutch and Croatian children and adults. The last two studies on object interaction and language provide further evidence in support of the literature on affordances and on the link between affordances and the cognitive process of language from a developmental point of view, supporting the perspective of a situated cognition and emphasizing the crucial role of human experience.

Variety, flexibility, and use of abstract concepts. A multiple grounded perspective.

The nature of concepts is a matter of intense debate in cognitive sciences. While traditional views claim that conceptual knowledge is represented in a unitary symbolic system, recent Embodied and Grounded Cognition theories (EGC) submit the idea that conceptual system is couched in our body and influenced by the environment (Barsalou, 2008). One of the major challenges for EGC is constituted by abstract concepts (ACs), like fantasy. Recently, some EGC proposals addressed this criticism, arguing that the ACs comprise multifaced exemplars that rely on different grounding sources beyond sensorimotor one, including interoception, emotions, language, and sociality (Borghi et al., 2018). However, little is known about how ACs representation varies as a function of life experiences and their use in communication. The theoretical arguments and empirical studies comprised in this dissertation aim to provide evidence on multiple grounding of ACs taking into account their varieties and flexibility. Study I analyzed multiple ratings on a large sample of ACs and identified four distinct subclusters. Study II validated this classification with an interference paradigm involving motor/manual, interoceptive, and linguistic systems during a difficulty rating task. Results confirm that different grounding sources are activated depending on ACs kind. Study III-IV investigate the variability of institutional concepts, showing that the higher the law expertise level, the stronger the concrete/emotional determinants in their representation. Study V introduced a novel interactive task in which abstract and concrete sentences serve as cues to simulate conversation. Analysis of language production revealed that the uncertainty and interactive exchanges increase with abstractness, leading to generating more questions/requests for clarifications with abstract than concrete sentences. Overall, results confirm that ACs are multidimensional, heterogeneous, and flexible constructs and that social and linguistic interactions are crucial to shaping their meanings. Investigating ACs in real-time dialogues may be a promising direction for future research.

Plutarch's chemistry of stones and metals: conceptions and explanations. With an appendix on the TheSu XML annotation scheme

This dissertation presents a systematic and analytic overview of most of the information related to stones, minerals, and stone masonry which is found in the corpus of Plutarch of Chaeronea, combined with most of the information on metals and metalworking which is connected to the former. This survey is intended as a first step in the reconstruction of the full landscape of ‘chemical’ ideas occurring in Plutarch’s writings; accordingly, the exposition of the relevant passages, the assessment of their possible interpretations, the discussion on their implications, and their contextualization in the ancient traditions have been conducted with a special interest in the ‘mineralogical’ and ‘metallurgic’ themes developed in the frame of natural philosophy and meteorology. Although in this perspective physical etiology could have come to acquire central prominence, non-etiological information on Plutarch’s ideas on the nature and behaviour of stones and metals has been treated as equally relevant to reach a fuller understanding of how Plutarch conceptualized and visualized them in general, in- and outside the frame of philosophical explanation. Such extensive outline of Plutarch’s ideas on stones and metals is a prerequisite for an accurate inquiry into his use of the two in analogies, metaphors, and symbols: to predispose this kind of research was another aim of the present survey, and this aim has contributed to shape it; moreover, a special attention has been paid to the analysis of analogical and figurative speaking due to the nature itself of a large part of Plutarch’s references to stones and metals, which are either metaphorical, presented in close association with metaphors, or framed in analogies. Much of the information used for the present overview has been extracted —always with supporting argumentation— from the implications of such metaphors and analogies.

Aristotle’s modal syllogistic and first-order modal logic

In Prior Analytics 1.1–22, Aristotle develops his proof system of non-modal and modal propositions. This system is given in the language of propositions, and Aristotle is concerned with establishing some properties and relations that the expressions of this language enjoy. However, modern scholarship has found some of his results inconsistent with positions defended elsewhere. The set of rules of inference of this system has also caused perplexity: there does not seem to be a single interpretation that validates all the rules which Aristotle is explicitly committed to using in his proofs. Some commentators have argued that these and other problems cannot be successfully addressed from the viewpoint of the traditional, ‘first-order’ interpretation of Aristotle’s syllogistic, whereby propositions are taken to involve quantification over individuals only. Accordingly, this interpretation not only is inadequate for formal analysis, but also stems from a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s ideas about quantification. On the contrary, in this study I purport to vindicate the adequacy and plausibility of the first-order interpretation. Together with some assumptions about the language of propositions and an appropriate regimentation, the first-order interpretation yields promising solutions to many of the problems raised by the modal syllogistic. Thus, I present a reconstruction of the language of propositions and a formal interpretation thereof which will prove respectful and responsive to most of the views endorsed by Aristotle in the ‘modal’ chapters of the Analytics.

The spatial association of numbers and mathematical symbols

The "SNARC effect" refers to the finding that people respond faster to small numbers with the left hand and to large numbers with the right hand. This effect is often explained by hypothesizing that numbers are represented from left to right in ascending order (Mental Number Line). However, the SNARC effect may not depend on quantitative information, but on other factors such as the order in which numbers are often represented from left to right in our culture. Four experiments were performed to test this hypothesis. In the first experiment, the concept of spatial association was extended to nonnumeric mathematical symbols: the minus and plus symbols. These symbols were presented as fixation points in a spatial compatibility paradigm. The results demonstrated an opposite influence of the two symbols on the target stimulus: the minus symbol tends to favor the target presented on the left, while the plus symbol the target presented on the right, demonstrating that spatial association can emerge in the absence of a numerical context. In the last three experiments, the relationship between quantity and order was evaluated using normal numbers and mirror numbers. Although mirror numbers denote quantity, they are not encountered in a left-to-right spatial organization. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed a magnitude classification task with mirror and normal numbers presented together (Experiment 1) or separately (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, participants performed a new task in which quantity information processing was not required: the mirror judgment task. The results show that participants access the quantity of both normal and mirror numbers, but only the normal numbers are spatially organized from left to right. In addition, the physical similarity between the numbers, used as a predictor variable in the last three experiments, showed that the physical characteristics of numbers influenced participants' reaction times.

Nature in the books of seven metals – Ǧābirian corpus in dialogue with ancient Greek philosophy and Byzantine alchemy –

The Ǧābirian corpus was a receiver of ancient Greek ideas and, at the same time, a source of knowledge for the later Greek-speaking world, in particular for medieval Byzantine alchemy. Both aspects are explored in the dissertation with respect to the notion of nature. After a general introduction to the Corpus and the sciences described in it, particular attention is devoted to a Byzantine anonymous text, The Work of Four Elements, which was probably influenced by the Ǧābirian Books of Seventy. These texts exemplify how, in the theory of the Ǧābirian science, things are constructed from four natures (hot, cold, moist and dry), the balance of which defines what a thing is. By changing the balance of natures, one can transmute any metals into gold that is perfectly proportioned in terms of natures. Ǧābir presents the art of dyeing metals gold in the Books of Seven Metals which, along with chrysopoetic recipes, also include medical recipes and theoretical contents such as the theories of four humours, properties, and talismans. Moreover, Ǧābir postulated a substrate that does not change in itself and continues to exist when natures move in and out of things. Such primary existence is called the fifth nature as an additional principle to the four natures. This key concept for the Ǧābirian theory, which has been underexplored so far, is discussed through the textual and critical analysis of various unedited sources: the Books of Seven Metals and the Book of the Fifth Nature. This study confirms that the fifth nature was probably derived from ancient Greek philosophical concepts such as the Empedoclean particles, the Aristotelian fifth element and the Stoic pneuma. Thus, this research indicates the importance of the Ǧābirian corpus both in the history of alchemy and the history of philosophy.

Cheering the soul: Ibn Qāḍī Baʿlabakk’s Mufarriḥ an-Nafs. Arabic edition, english translation, study and glossaries

The Mufarriḥ an-nafs (Soul-Cheerer), attributed to Badr ad-Dīn Muẓaffar Ibn Qāḍī Baʿlabakk, who served under the Ayyubids as the Chief Medical Officer of Damascus in the mid-13th century, was written as a comprehensive guide for physicians outlining different approaches to cheering the soul. The tractate is divided into ten chapters, which explore the nature of the soul, its distinction to the body as well as their connection through sensorial perception. Ibn Qāḍī Baʿlabakk distinguishes the bodily senses – hearing, vision, smell, taste, touch – and the inner senses, which he sees as stimulated through activities such as hunting and engagement in poetry and the sciences. The seventh chapter of the Mufarriḥ an-nafs includes an extended encyclopedia on materia medica as well as dispensatory of simple and compound drugs, which is devoted to treating the soul and remains unparalleled in the history of Islamicate medicine. My doctoral dissertation offers a complete recension and translation of the Mufarriḥ an-nafs based on a stemma codicum drawn from the seventeen extant text witnesses. The dissertation contextualizes the work, its author as well as sources, and features a text commentary that seeks to enable the reader to easily place and understand the Mufarriḥ an-nafs within the tradition of Galenic medicine. The glossaries on materia medica found at the end of the dissertation are aimed at facilitating access to the pharmacological dispensatory included in the seventh chapter.

Temporalities of migration: time, data infrastructures and intervention

The dissertation explores the intersections between the temporalities of migration management and border-crossers’ temporalities. First, I analyze the relation between acceleration and (non)knowledge production by focusing on the “accelerated procedures” for asylum. These procedures are applied to people whose asylum applications are deemed as suspicious and likely to be rejected. I argue that the shortened timeframes shaping these procedures are a tool for hindering asylum seekers’ possibilities to collect and produce evidence supporting their cases, eventually facilitating and speeding up their removal for Member States’ territory. Second, I analyze the encounters between migration management and border-crossers during the identification practices carried out the Hotspots and during the asylum process in terms of “temporal collisions”. I develop the notion of “hijacked knowledge” to illustrate how these “temporal collisions” negatively affect border-crossers’ possibilities of action, by producing a significant lack of knowledge and awareness about the procedures to which they are subjected and their temporal implications. With the concept of “reactive calibration”, on the other hand, I suggest that once migrants become aware of the temporalities of control, they try to appropriate them by aligning their bodies, narrations and identities to those temporalities. The third part of the dissertation describes the situated intervention developed as part of my ethnographic activity. Drawing on participatory design, design justice and STS making and doing, I designed a role-playing game - My documents, check them out - seeking to involve border-crossers in the re-design of the categories usually deployed in migration management.