Children’s Application of Theory of Mind in Reasoning and Language

Many social situations require a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, goals, and intentions of others: a Theory of Mind (ToM). If a person can reason about other people’s beliefs about his own beliefs or intentions, he is demonstrating second-order ToM reasoning. A standard task to test second-order ToM reasoning is the second-order false belief task. A different approach to investigating ToM reasoning is through its application in a strategic game. Another task that is believed to involve the application of second-order ToM is the comprehension of sentences that the hearer can only understand by considering the speaker’s alternatives. In this study we tested 40 children between 8 and 10 years old and 27 adult controls on (adaptations of) the three tasks mentioned above: the false belief task, a strategic game, and a sentence comprehension task. The results show interesting differences between adults and children, between the three tasks, and between this study and previous research.     

Active lithium replenishment to extend the life of a cell employing carbon and iron phosphate electrodes

We describe and implement a method of extending the life of a LiFePO₄/graphite lithium ion battery by replenishing the lost active lithium during cell operation and concomitant capacity fade. The approach may prove helpful in terms of increasing lithium ion cell life. After the cell had lost 30% of its capacity, analysis showed that the cell had not experienced significant impedance increase or cathode capacity loss, and the anode had lost about 5% of its storage capacity. The analysis confirmed that the loss of active lithium greatly outpaced the loss of capacity for either electrode and is responsible for cell capacity decay. The cathode was then discharged against an external lithium electrode to increase the amount of active lithium within the cell. About half of the lost capacity was recovered, and the cell cycled for 1500 more cycles. Active lithium replenishment from a reserve electrode may be an effective method of extending the life of lithium ion batteries.     

Learning to Apply Theory of Mind

In everyday life it is often important to have a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people. Sometimes it is even useful to to have a correct model of their model of our own mental states: a second-order Theory of Mind. In order to investigate to what extent adults use and acquire complex skills and strategies in the domains of Theory of Mind and the related skill of natural language use, we conducted an experiment. It was based on a strategic game of imperfect information, in which it was beneficial for participants to have a good mental model of their opponent, and more specifically, to use second-order Theory of Mind. It was also beneficial for them to be aware of pragmatic inferences and of the possibility to choose between logical and pragmatic language use. We found that most participants did not seem to acquire these complex skills during the experiment when being exposed to the game for a number of different trials. Nevertheless, some participants did make use of advanced cognitive skills such as second-order Theory of Mind and appropriate choices between logical and pragmatic language use from the beginning. Thus, the results differ markedly from previous research.     

Mechanism of alkali-thickening of acid-containing emulsion polymers. II. Examination of latexes with the light microscope

The mechanism of alkali thickening of acid-containing emulsion polymers has been confirmed by visual examination of the swelling and disappearance of latex particles with the light microscope. Specially prepared large particle-sized latexes were used in this study. Each latex was examined from 0%–200% neutralization with base. The particle swelling and dissolution behavior correlated with viscosity measurements, high viscosity being present for swollen particle systems and low viscosity for true solutions. The neutralized state of all acid-containing latexes can be pictured in a cube with the important variables being per cent acid, hydrophilicity of the comonomers, and T_g. At the bottom will be latexes only slightly affected by neutralization, above this will be a swollen particle zone, and the largest area will be a true solution zone. The true solution zone will be enlarged by lowering the molecular weight of the latex polymer.     

Scope in model transformations

A notion of hierarchical scope is commonplace in many programmatic systems. In the context of model, and in particular graph transformation, the use of scope can present two advantages: first, more natural expression of transformation application locality, and second, reduction in the number of match candidates, promising performance improvements. Previous work on scope, however, has focused on applying it to rule hierarchies, which reduces the number of matches performed, but not necessarily the cost of finding a single match. In this paper we define and explore a hierarchical scope formalism applied to the input graph, with associated modifications to the transformation rule definition. We then experimentally evaluate the benefits and challenges of our scoped model transformations in the state-of-the-art graph rewriting tool GrGen and our research-oriented, meta-modeling and rule-based model transformation tool AToMPM. We use a non-trivial “fire spreading” simulation transformation taken from distributed simulation community and a mutual exclusion transformation benchmark to demonstrate that integration of scope results in an elegant, intuitive, and efficient way of solving model transformation problems.     

Negotiating with other minds: the role of recursive theory of mind in negotiation with incomplete information

Theory of mind refers to the ability to reason explicitly about unobservable mental content of others, such as beliefs, goals, and intentions. People often use this ability to understand the behavior of others as well as to predict future behavior. People even take this ability a step further, and use higher-order theory of mind by reasoning about the way others make use of theory of mind and in turn attribute mental states to different agents. One of the possible explanations for the emergence of the cognitively demanding ability of higher-order theory of mind suggests that it is needed to deal with mixed-motive situations. Such mixed-motive situations involve partially overlapping goals, so that both cooperation and competition play a role. In this paper, we consider a particular mixed-motive situation known as Colored Trails, in which computational agents negotiate using alternating offers with incomplete information about the preferences of their trading partner. In this setting, we determine to what extent higher-order theory of mind is beneficial to computational agents. Our results show limited effectiveness of first-order theory of mind, while second-order theory of mind turns out to benefit agents greatly by allowing them to reason about the way they can communicate their interests. Additionally, we let human participants negotiate with computational agents of different orders of theory of mind. These experiments show that people spontaneously make use of second-order theory of mind in negotiations when their trading partner is capable of second-order theory of mind as well.     

Strategic Reasoning: Building Cognitive Models from Logical Formulas

This paper presents an attempt to bridge the gap between logical and cognitive treatments of strategic reasoning in games. There have been extensive formal debates about the merits of the principle of backward induction among game theorists and logicians. Experimental economists and psychologists have shown that human subjects, perhaps due to their bounded resources, do not always follow the backward induction strategy, leading to unexpected outcomes. Recently, based on an eye-tracking study, it has turned out that even human subjects who produce the outwardly correct ‘backward induction answer’ use a different internal reasoning strategy to achieve it. The paper presents a formal language to represent different strategies on a finer-grained level than was possible before. The language and its semantics help to precisely distinguish different cognitive reasoning strategies, that can then be tested on the basis of computational cognitive models and experiments with human subjects. The syntactic framework of the formal system provides a generic way of constructing computational cognitive models of the participants of the Marble Drop game.     

Enhanced test methods to characterise automotive battery cells

This article evaluates the methods to characterise the behaviour of lithium ion cells of several chemistries and a nickel metal hydride cell for automotive applications like (plug-in) hybrid vehicles and battery electric vehicles. Although existing characterisation test methods are used, it was also indicated to combine test methods in order to speed up the test time and to create an improved comparability of the test results. Also, the existing capacity tests ignore that cells can be charged at several current rates. However, this is of interest for, e.g. fast charging and regenerative braking. Tests for high power and high energy application have been integrated in the enhanced method. The article explains the rationale to ameliorate the test methods. The test plan should make it possible to make an initial division in a group of cells purchased from several suppliers.     

Mechanisms of acute respiratory distress syndrome: role of surfactant changes and mechanical ventilation

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a condition characterized by a high permeability oedema due to loss of the integrity of the alveolo-capillary barrier with impairment of normal surfactant function, resulting in an increased collapse tendency of the alveoli. Mechanical ventilation on such alveoli with repeated alveolar collapse and subsequent reexpansion results in severe lung parenchymal injury and may induce further surfactant impairment. This cam be prevented by maintaining alveolar volume at end-expiration by means of sufficient levels of positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). Recent evidence from experimental studies has shown that ventilator modes which allow end-expiratory collapse can induce bacterial translocation from the lung into the bloodstream and trigger the release of inflammatory mediators, which can also be presented by maintaining end-expiratory alveolar volume. These data suggest that the interaction between surfactant changes and mechanical ventilation may play a role in the transition of ARDS into the systematic inflammatory disease process of multiple system organ failure (MSOF).