Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless (...) be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted. (shrink)

Several areas of welfare economics seek to evaluate states of affairs as a function of interpersonally comparable individual utilities. The aim is to map each state of affairs onto a vector of individual utilities, and then to produce an ordering of these vectors that can be represented by a mathematical function assigning a real number to each. When this approach is used in intertemporal contexts, a central theoretical question concerns the evaluative weight to be applied to utility coming at different (...) times. This question concerns the rate of pure time preference, which is one key determinant of the social discount rate. This article argues that the standard philosophical account of pure time preference is mistaken, because it ascribes to economists a methodological commitment they need not, and often do not, accept. This in turn undercuts the most common philosophical objection to pure time preference, which traces at least to Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The article then evaluates three further objections to pure time preference, concluding that it might still be defensible under certain circumstances. The article closes by articulating a final argument that is suggested by the “Social, Economic and Ethical Concepts and Methods” chapter of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. If this further argument is sound, it would constitute a decisive objection to pure time preference as it currently figures in much intertemporal welfare economics. (shrink)

I find much to like in Craig Callender's [2022] arguments for the rational permissibility of non-exponential time discounting when these arguments are viewed in a conditional form: viz., if one thinks that time discounting is rationally permissible, as the social scientist does, then one should think that non-exponential time discounting is too. However, time neutralists believe that time discounting is rationally impermissible, and thus they take zero time discounting to be the normative standard. The (...) time neutralist rejects time discounting because they think it is rationally impermissible to prefer to live a worse life in expectation because of arbitrariness. Callender’s attack on the time-neutralist position is the following: the time-neutralist’s non-arbitrariness intuition assumes the existence of nonexistent ‘pure’ time preferences. In response, I aim to clarify the time-neutralist position and show that the non-arbitrariness argument does not rely on the existence of pure time preferences. Instead, the debate between time neutralism and permissivism about time discounting boils down to a methodological question: can we ever criticize the content of preferences? If so, we should embrace time neutralism. (shrink)

Johansson and Rosenqvist reject our argument for the rational permissibility of pure time preferences (PTP). Johansson and Rosenqvist's main objection is that where two options, X and Y, have equal intrinsic value, there will be a reason to be indifferent between X and Y, and therefore a reason to not hold a PTP for X or Y. In this reply, we argue that if two options have equal intrinsic value, it does not follow that you have a reason to (...) be indifferent. Rather, the two equally large intrinsic values cancel each other out, like two equal weights on kitchen scales. (shrink)

The behavior of individuals currently living will generally have long-term consequences that affect the well-being of those who will come to live in the future. Intergenerational interdependencies of this nature raise difficult moral issues because only the current generation is in a position to decide on actions that will determine the nature of the world in which future generations will live. Although most are willing to attach some weight to the interests of future generations, many would argue that it is (...) not necessary to treat these interests as equivalent to those of the current generation. A common approach in this context is to use a system of discounting to evaluate future benefits and harms. This paper assesses the logic of discounting drawing on the writings of economists and philosophers. Much of the economic literature concerns the choice of an appropriate social discount rate. The social discount rate can be taken to reflect beliefs about the rights of future generations, a subject that has been extensively debated in the phioosophic literature. The writings of both economists and philosophers concerned with the weight to attach to the interests of future generations are reviewed and evaluated in this paper and the implications for environmental policy are discussed. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 28 Recent debates over climate change policy have made it clear that the choice of a social discount rate has enormous consequences for the amount of mitigation that will be recommended. The social discount rate determines how future costs are to be compared to present costs. Philosophers, however, have been almost unanimous in endorsing the view that the only acceptable social rate of time preference is zero, a view that, taken literally, has either absurd (...) or extremely radical implications. The first goal of this paper is to show that the standard arguments against temporal preference are much less persuasive than they are usually taken to be. The second goal is to explore two different avenues of argument that could be adopted, in order to show that temporal discounting of welfare may be permissible. The first involves simply an application of the method of reflective equilibrium, while the second involves consideration of the way that our abstract moral commitments are institutionalized. (shrink)

This paper investigates hypotheses drawn from two sources: (1) Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper’s (1991) attachment theory model of the development of reproductive strategies, and (2) recent life history models and comparative data suggesting that environmental risk and uncertainty may be potent determinants of the optimal tradeoff between current and future reproduction. A retrospective, self-report study of 136 American university women aged 19–25 showed that current recollections of early stress (environmental risk and uncertainty) were related to individual differences in adult (...) class='Hi'>time preference and adult sexual behavior, and that individual differences in time preference were related to adult attachment organization and sexual behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that perceptions of early stress index environmental risk and uncertainty and mediate the attachment process and the development of reproductive strategies. On this view individual differences in time preference are considered to be part of the attachment theoretical construct of an internal working model, which itself is conceived as an evolved algorithm for the contingent development of alternative reproductive strategies. (shrink)

This paper investigates two assumptions of the exponential discounted utility theory (EDU) to which Callender draws our attention: namely that we can cleanly distinguish pure from impure temporal preferences, and that past discounting can be ignored. Drawing on recent empirical work in this area, we argue that in so far as one might have thought that past-directed preferences are more pure than future ones, then there is evidence that people’s pure preferences (in so far as we can make sense of (...) that notion) show more interpersonal variation than has previously been thought. (shrink)

To understand how small business entrepreneurs respond to government policy one has to know their risk and time preferences. Are they risk averse, or have high discount rates, such that they are hard to motivate? We have conducted a set of field experiments in Denmark that will allow a direct characterization of small business entrepreneurs in terms of these traits. We build on experimental tasks that are well established in the literature. The results do not suggest that small business (...) entrepreneurs are more or less risk averse than the general population under the assumption of Expected Utility Theory. However, we generally find an S-shaped probability weighting function for both small business entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, with entrepreneurs being more optimistic about the chance of occurrence for the best outcome in lotteries with real monetary outcomes. The results also point to a significant difference in individual discount rates between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs: entrepreneurs are willing to wait longer for certain rewards than the general population. (shrink)

Despite Fisher's (1930) psychological intuitions of and the formal treatment given by Yaari (1965, Review of Economic Studies 32, 137), the intertemporal model of choice is mainly a model with certain lifetime. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider this assumption, starting from a very simple two-period model of choice with lifetime uncertainty. We examine the comparative statics of the model at the first two orders and replace the concept of `pure time preference' by taking into account (...) the subjective treatment of the probability of survival. (shrink)

In “Experience and Time,” Brian Garrett poses a challenge to friends of the rationality of pure time preferences. In this discussion note, we accept the challenge and provide two kinds of cases wherein some pure time preferences could be deemed rational.

I consider the plausibility of discounting for kinship, the view that a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations. I respond to Parfit's objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this approach. I show that these limitations largely fall away when we reflect on social discounting in the context of decisions that concern the global community as a whole, (...) such as those related to global climate change. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to ground the alleged universal law of (positive) time preference. Thus, we take the said positivity of individual time preference rates for granted. However, we also take pains to show that some other time preference rates (even negative ones) are conceivable only providing that ceteris paribus clause is not satisfied. All in all, we cannot but admit that the intuition standing behind the apparently necessary positivity of (...) class='Hi'>time-preference rates is quite robust. However, little effort has been made to justify it. For example, in Austrian economics, it is said that positive rate of time preference is somehow implied in the concept of human action. Yet, no demonstration to that effect is forthcoming. In this essay, we are trying to approximate what could serve as a best reason to believe that individual time preference rates are indeed positive. We first consider whether a phenomenon of social interest rates is able to ground the positivity of time preference. Having rejected this apparent solution as circular, we analyse whether a case can be made against non-positive rates of time preference as unjustified under any set of relevant beliefs. This attempt is also rejected, as there seems to exist a relevant belief under which a rate of time preference can rationally be zero. Finally, we appeal to the Parfitian reductionist view on personal identity as allegedly capturing necessarily positive rates of time preference. Here we note the crucial fact that psychological connectedness (something at least partially constitutive of personal identity) between person P at some time and the same person at some other time diminishes as the interval between these two times increases. Finally, this very fact appears to neatly explain the positivity of time preference. (shrink)

Martín de Azpilcueta and his fellow Spanish Scholastics writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca during Spain’s Golden Age are rightly pointed to by historians of economic thought as being major contributors toward, if not outright founders of modern economic theory. Among these is the theory of time-preference for which Azpilcueta has repeatedly been given the credit for discovering. However, this discovery is a curious one given how the same man, Azpilcueta, condemned usury in general during his (...) whole life. If Azpilcueta did in fact discover this theory and fully understand its implications, we would reasonably expect him to have questioned his support for the ban on charging an interest on a loan. This paper, therefore, challenges the claim that Azpilcueta understood and revived time-preference theory and shows how his understanding was much more nuanced, and, at times, inconsistent. (shrink)

Time preference reversals refers to systematic inconsistencies between preferences and valuations in intertemporal choice. When faced with a pair of intertemporal options, people preferred the smaller-sooner option but assign a higher price to the larger-later one. Different hypotheses postulate that the differences in evaluation scale or output format between the choice and the bid tasks cause the preference reversal. However, these hypotheses have not been distinguished. In the present study, we conducted a hybrid task, which shares the (...) same evaluation scale with the bid task and shares the same output format with the choice task. By comparing these three tasks, we can figure out the key reason for time preference reversal. The eye-tracking measures reflecting attention allocation, cognitive effort and information search pattern were examined. Results showed that participants' time preference and eye-tracking measures in the hybrid task were similar to those in the choice task, but different from those in the bid task. Our findings suggest that the output format is the core reason for time preference reversal and may deepen our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie time preference reversal. (shrink)

How can individuals who have experienced a shock in their addictive consumption trajectories return to their habitual use? As part of a behavioral economics online survey conducted on a representative sample of the French population, we asked respondents to retrospectively quantify their consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and recreational screen use at three moments: before, during, and after the first Covid-19 lockdown. Using a methodology that controls for inter-individual heterogeneity, we test for the presence of a hysteresis effect, i.e. whether the (...) shocks in use that occurred during the lockdown last beyond the end of it and the return to a more normal life. We find hysteresis for the three addictive goods. Studying this hysteresis effect in relation to time preferences, we find that, for tobacco, present-biased individuals exhibit more hysteresis. This hysteresis insight, related to time preferences, offers valuable perspectives for addiction research and policy design addressing population resilience to shocks. (shrink)

We attempt in this paper to tie together several basic insights of praxeology, and several that are not at all that basic. These include the following: that gains from exchange are subjective; that this applies to profits and interest; that credit transactions can occur under barter; that interest arises from time preference even under a pure time preference theory of interest; and that productivity can, under disequilibrium conditions, affect the various rates of interest.

The empirically documented fact is that people’s preferences are time -biased. The main aim of this paper is to analyse in which sense do time -biases violate the requirements of rationality, as many authors assume. I will demonstrate that contrary to many influential views in psychology, economy and philosophy it is very difficult to find why the bias toward the near violates the requirements rationality. I will also show why the bias toward the future violates the requirements of (...) rationality in a very basic sense. (shrink)

Following from life history and attachment theory, individuals are predicted to be sensitive to variation in environmental conditions such that risk and uncertainty are internalized by cognitive, affective, and psychobiological mechanisms. In turn, internalizing of environmental uncertainty is expected to be associated with attitudes toward risk behaviors and investments in education. Native American youth aged 10–19 years (n = 89) from reservation communities participated in a study examining this pathway. Measures included family environmental risk and uncertainty, present and future (...) class='Hi'>time perspective, adolescent attachment, attitudes toward risk, investments in education, and salivary cortisol. Results support the idea that environmental risk and uncertainty are internalized during development. In addition, internalizing mechanisms significantly predicted attitudes toward risk and education: (1) lower scores on future time perspective and higher cortisol predicted higher scores on risk attitudes, and (2) higher scores on future time perspective and lower scores on problems with attachment predicted higher self-reported school performance. Gender differences were seen, with males anticipating a shorter lifespan than females, which predicted higher scores on risk attitudes and lower school performance. Implications for research on adolescent problem behavior and academic achievement are discussed. (shrink)

Recent debates have made it clear that the choice of a social discount rate has enormous consequences for the amount of carbon abatement that will be recommended. The social discount rate determines how future costs are to be compared to present costs. Philosophers have been almost unanimous in endorsing the view that the only acceptable social rate of time preference is zero, a view that, taken literally, has either absurd or extremely radical implications. The first goal of this (...) chapter is to show that the standard arguments against temporal preference are much less persuasive than they are usually taken to be. The second goal is to explore three different avenues of argument that could be adopted in order to show that temporal discounting of welfare may be permissible. The chapter concludes with a suggestion for how deontologists could accept a pure time preference derived from the current global death rate. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern (...) in a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. (shrink)

Craig Callender attempts to overturn conventional wisdom within decision theory by contending that rational intertemporal choices need not always conform to an exponential discounting function. He argues that there are cases in which hyperbolic discounting is the height of rationality. This paper does not seek to undermine Callender’s conclusions, but instead raises two interrelated theoretical concerns with his way securing them. The first concern is with his dismissal of influential dual-system explanations of rationality. It is argued that Callender’s criticisms of (...) said explanations fail to assess them at anything like their full weight. It is then suggested that dual-systems approaches in cognitive science do have substantial theoretical problems, but that Callender fails to identify them. The second concern builds on the first and suggests that Callender’s arguments against consensus normative standards might motivate a more dramatically reimagined notion of rationality than the one he seems to embrace. (shrink)

When assessing the cost effectiveness of health care programmes, health economists typically presume that distant events should be given less weight than present events. This article examines the moral reasonableness of arguments advanced for positive discounting in cost-effectiveness analysis both from an intergenerational and an intrapersonal perspective and assesses if arguments are equally applicable to health and monetary outcomes. The article concludes that behavioral effects related to time preferences give little or no reason for why society at large should (...) favour the present over the future when making intergenerational choices regarding health. The strongest argument for discounting stems from the combined argument of diminishing marginal utility in the presence of growth. However, this hinges on the assumption of actual growth in the relevant good. Moreover, current modern democracy may be insufficiently sensitive to the concerns of future generations. The second part of the article categorises preference failures (which justify paternalistic responses) into two distinct groups, myopic and acratic. The existence of these types of preference failures makes elicited time preferences of little normative relevance when making decisions regarding the social discount rate, even in an intrapersonal context. As with intergenerational discounting, the combined arguments of growth and diminishing marginal utility offer the strongest arguments for discounting in the intrapersonal context. However, there is no prima facie reason to assume that this argument should apply equally to health and monetary values. To be sure, selecting an approach towards discounting health is a complex matter. However, the life-or-death implications of any approach require that the discussion not be downplayed to merely a technical matter for economists to settle. (shrink)

In this article we discuss the validity of previous preferences and advance directives in cases of severe mental illness.

Philosophers working on time-biases assume that people are hedonically biased toward the future. A hedonically future-biased agent prefers pleasurable experiences to be future instead of past, and painful experiences to be past instead of future. Philosophers further predict that this bias is strong enough to apply to unequal payoffs: people often prefer less pleasurable future experiences to more pleasurable past ones, and more painful past experiences to less painful future ones. In addition, philosophers have predicted that future-bias is restricted (...) to first-person preferences, and that people’s third-person preferences are time-neutral. Philosophers disagree vigorously about the normative status of these preferences—i.e., they disagree about whether first-person future-bias is rationally permissible. Time-neutralists, for example, have appealed to the predicted asymmetry between first- and third-person preferences to argue for the rational impermissibility of future-bias. We empirically tested these predictions, and found that while people do prefer more past pain to less future pain, they do not prefer less future pleasure to more past pleasure. This was so in both first and third-person conditions. This suggests that future-bias is typically non-absolute, and is more easily outweighed in the case of positive events. We connect this result to the normative debate over future-bias. (shrink)

Classical Bayesian arguments show how coherence between preference and credence grounds the norm of Probabilism. But these arguments are almost entirely static: they explain only how preference and credence must fit together at a given time. Once preferences change, the question arises: how should credences be revised in response? I develop an axiomatic minimal-change preference revision theory, in which some preference commitments are treated as more trusted and serve as reference anchors in revision. Focusing on (...) standard event-occurrence inputs, I compare the induced revision dynamics with those implied by Bayesian conditioning, as captured at the level of preferences. The main convergence result shows that treating prior conditional preferences (together with preferences over constant acts) as reference anchors yields a unique admissible posterior preference relation that coincides with the Bayes-induced posterior preference relation. The framework also isolates a principled mechanism for divergence: alternative anchoring stances—especially those privileging selected unconditional commitments over conditional ones—can force revisions to conditional attitudes and thereby generate systematic departures from the Bayes-induced posterior preference relation. (shrink)

Most prior studies have reported that subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) are easier to process than object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs). However, whether such an SRC preference is universal across different languages remains an open question. Several reports from Chinese have provided conflicting results; thus, in the present study, we conducted two self-paced reading experiments to examine the comprehension of Chinese relative clauses. The results demonstrated a clear ORC preference that Chinese ORCs were easier to comprehend than Chinese SRCs. These (...) findings were most compatible with the prediction of the integration cost account, which claims that the processing difference between SRCs and ORCs arises at the point of dependency formation. The ORC preference in Chinese poses a challenge to the universality of the SRC preference assumed by the structural distance hypothesis and highlights the values of cross-linguistic research. (shrink)

Prospect Theory (PT) is widely regarded as the most promising descriptive model for decision making under uncertainty. Various tests have corroborated the validity of the characteristic fourfold pattern of risk attitudes implied by the combination of probability weighting and value transformation. But is it also safe to assume stable PT preferences at the individual level? This is not only an empirical but also a conceptual question. Measuring the stability of preferences in a multi-parameter decision model such as PT is far (...) more complex than evaluating single-parameter models such as Expected Utility Theory under the assumption of constant relative risk aversion. There exist considerable interdependencies among parameters such that allegedly diverging parameter combinations could in fact produce very similar preference structures. In this paper, we provide a theoretic framework for measuring the (temporal) stability of PT parameters. To illustrate our methodology, we further apply our approach to 86 subjects for whom we elicit PT parameters twice, with a time lag of 1 month. While documenting remarkable stability of parameter estimates at the aggregate level, we find that a third of the subjects show significant instability across sessions. (shrink)

We investigated the accuracy of gender stereotypes regarding digital game genre preferences. In Study 1, 484 female and male participants rated their preference for 17 game genres (gender differences). In Study 2, another sample of 226 participants rated the extent to which the same genres were presumably preferred by women or men (gender stereotypes). We then compared the results of both studies in order to determine the accuracy of the gender stereotypes. Study 1 revealed actual gender differences for most (...) genres—mostly of moderate size. Study 2 revealed substantial gender stereotypes about genre preferences. When comparing the results from both studies, we found that gender stereotypes were accurate in direction for most genres. However, they were, to some degree, inaccurate in size: For most genres, gender stereotypes overestimated the actual gender difference with a moderate mean effect size. (shrink)

We introduce an Absolute (Relative) Time-consistent Axiom of Revealed Preference which characterizes the consistency of a choice function with the property of absolute (relative) time-consistency and impatience. The axiom requires that the absolute (relative) time-consistent and impatient closure of the revealed preference relation does not conflict with the strict revealed preference relation.

Analyses of preference for the timing of uncertainty resolution usually assumes all uncertainty to resolve in one point in time. More realistically, uncertainty should be modelled to resolve gradually over time. Kreps and Porteus (1978) have introduced an axiomatically based model of time preference which can explain preferences for gradual uncertainty resolution. This paper presents an experimental test of the Kreps-Porteus model. We derive implications of the model relating preferences for gradual and one-time resolving (...) lotteries. Our data do not support the Kreps-Porteus model but show that some of the behaviour observed may be explained by similarity heuristics. (shrink)

Preference formation and choice are dynamic cognitive processes arising from interactions between decision-makers and their immediate choice environment. This thesis examines how preferences and decisions are played out in visual attention, captured by eye-movements, as well as in group contexts. Papers I-II make use of the Choice Blindness paradigm. Paper I compares participants’ eye movements and pupil dilation over the course of a trial when participants detect and fail to detect the false feedback concerning their choices. Results indicate objective (...) markers of detection with important implications for questions concerning possible demand effect or cognitive dissonance explanations of choice blindness. Paper II examines another aspect of the choice environment, namely, the social context. Choice blindness is demonstrated in small groups for the first time. It is shown that preferential change can be induced in dyads by manipulating the group’s beliefs about their choices, thus extending the preference change through choice effects beyond individuals for the first time. Paper III examines how visual attention differentially supports both decision and memory processes depending on the amount of task-relevant information available to participants. Participants’ performance and visual attention dynamics was found to vary depending on the amount of information available to them, and the results indicate that decision outcomes are heavily influenced by encoding prior to traditional choice phases used in decision research. Papers IV-VII concern decision-making in the moral domain. Paper IV investigates visual attention when participants choose between difficult moral dilemmas, showing asymmetries in how participants distribute their attention depending on making utilitarian or deontological choices. Paper V introduces a novel paradigm for influencing decision based manipulating the timing of decision by measuring the direction of gaze while the participant deliberates. Using this method participants’ moral decisions were biased without their knowledge to a randomly chosen alternative. This shows that moral decision and visual attention are highly coupled and that by simply knowing where someone is looking it is possible to influence their decision process. Papers VI&VII build on the links between gaze direction and moral choice and present the first computational decision models based on eye gaze applicable to the moral domain. Paper VI for choices between abstract principles and Paper VII for donations to charitable organizations. Together the papers advance novel methodological solutions to understanding preferences and decisions across a number of domains, both highlighting the important contributions of social and sensorimotor interactions to the content of our decisions as they develop over time, as well as demonstrating how decisions can be influenced by leveraging those interactions. (shrink)

Agents which perform inferences on the basis of unreliable information need an ability to revise their beliefs if they discover an inconsistency. Such a belief revision algorithm ideally should be rational, should respect any preference ordering over the agent’s beliefs (removing less preferred beliefs where possible) and should be fast. However, while standard approaches to rational belief revision for classical reasoners allow preferences to be taken into account, they typically have quite high complexity. In this paper, we consider belief (...) revision for agents which reason in a simpler logic than full first-order logic, namely rule-based reasoners. We show that it is possible to define a contraction operation for rule-based reasoners, which we call McAllester contraction, which satisfies all the basic Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson (AGM) postulates for contraction (apart from the recovery postulate) and at the same time can be computed in polynomial time. We prove a representation theorem for McAllester contraction with respect to the basic AGM postulates (minus recovery), and two additional postulates. We then show that our contraction operation removes a set of beliefs which is least preferred, with respect to a natural interpretation of preference. Finally, we show how McAllester contraction can be used to define a revision operation which is also polynomial time, and prove a representation theorem for the revision operation. (shrink)

It is easy to think of attention as a purely sensorimotor, exogenous mechanism divorced from the influence of an agent’s preferences and needs. However, according to the active inference framework, such a strict reduction cannot be straightforwardly invoked, since _all_ cognitive and behavioural processes can at least be described as maximising the evidence for a generative model entailed by the ongoing existence of that agent; that is, the minimisation of variational free energy. As such, active inference models could cast an (...) (embodied) cognitive mechanism like attention, described in this paper as a relevance filter, as constrained (or enslaved) by these prior preferences for which an agent must seek evidence, whether or not such priors are having direct, real-time neurocognitive effects on the sensorimotor loops that couple the attending agent and her surrounding environment. This duality with respect to the role of priors corresponds to a wider, ongoing debate in the active inference community regarding the framework’s explanatory power. More specifically, the debate centres on whether the notion of a generative model and the priors embedded ubiqitously therein act as a purely useful instrumental tool for scientists aiming to model the behaviours of self-organising entities, or, rather, the brain (and body) is genuinely constituted by a predictive hierarchy within which higher-order dynamics constrain and contextualise activity unfolding at lower levels. With a focus on the second (ontologically realist) construal of active inference presented here, this paper argues that in cognitive systems endowed with attentional schema, higher-order preferences do, indeed, impose a demonstrable and powerful modulating effect on the way attention unfolds. Furthermore, these preferences in question transcend the contingent, task-relevant goals that have already been shown to bias attention. Rather, attention is powerfully tuned by the most-deep rooted priors the agent possesses, such that, when sensory evidence against these priors is observed and free energy spikes, the agent attentionally prioritises the homeostatic restoration of these preferred states over their shorter-term desires. This suggests that, at its core, attention is a goal-driven process, which calls into question the putative dichotomy that exists between endogenous (goal-directed) attention and exogenous (stimulus-driven) attention. What emerges in its place is a symbiotic relationship between attention and preferences, whereby the fulfilment of the latter rests on successful application of the former, and the former derives its function from the organismic need to find evidence for the latter. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of Professor Uzawa's important contributions to mathematical economics. Subjects covered by these nineteen essays include consumption, production, equilibrium, capital, growth, planning, international trade, and the theory of social overhead capital. Written in the 1960s and early 1970s, the papers form a basis upon which economic theory has developed over the last twenty years. The collection includes some of Uzawa's classic contributions, such as 'Preference and Rational Choice in the Theory of Consumption', 'Time (...) class='Hi'>Preference, the Consumption Function, and Optimum Asset Holdings', 'Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium', 'On a Two-Sector Model of Economic Growth', 'Time Preference and the Penrose Effect in a Two-Class Model of Economic Growth', and 'On the Economics of Social Overhead Capital'. The collection will be useful not only in understanding the nature of the development in economic theory today, but also in reflecting upon the direction toward which economic theory will be advancing in the future. (shrink)

The existence of a strong link between socio-economic background and individual preferences has been documented among both children and grown-ups. Here, we study whether such a correlation persists even in a highly homogeneous population of young adults: university students. Our findings indicate that participants living in an area characterized by a high socio-economic environment tend to trust more and are more inclined to reciprocate higher levels of trust, as compared to those coming from less wealthy neighborhoods. This behavioral difference is, (...) at least in part, driven by heterogeneities in beliefs: subjects from the most affluent part of the city have more optimistic expectations on their counterpart’s trustworthiness than those living in a lower socio-economic environment. By contrast, no significant differences emerge in other preferences: generosity, risk attitudes, and time preferences. Finally, we do not find any systematic evidence of out-group discrimination based on neighborhood identity. (shrink)

Free improvisations are unprecedented and underdetermined : their content and the way they unfold are not known in advance. Improvised performances have to be actively shaped over time. To do so, the improviser must articulate his embodied experience. In other words, he has to make sense of his experience by relying on his bodily know-how. And so this process of improvisation personally involves the improviser. Therefore, it should be a relevant point of entry for the study of his musical (...) « personality » (or « identity », see Hargreaves et al., 2002). Firstly, to put this argument forward, we link free improvisations and personality in the light of embodied (enactive) and dynamical approaches. However, free improvisations are often played as a group. Secondly, so as to link improvisations and personality in the context of human interactions, we present a pedagogical method of free improvisation (the Kaddouch pedagogy; Kaddouch and Miravète, 2012) in which interactivity between learner and teacher is a core aspect. Then, we will show that the process of interaction by itself allows to unveil, to foster and to expand both improvisational skills and musical personality. Finally, we propose theoretical bases for this method, plus some explanations dealing with its effects. Personality and improvisation as embodied, dynamical and social phenomena Traditionally, cognitive sciences assume that behaviors are caused by mental, computational and individual processes. However, this view has been challenged by new perspectives. First, embodied accounts such as the enactive approach have pointed out that, by interacting with the world, our active living body and our lived experiences co-constitute each other. In other words, our experiences guide and emerge from what we do (Varela et al., 1991). Traditionally, personality also refers to abstract and mental characteristics (e.g. traits) that are supposed to underlie behavior (Goldberg, 1990). In this context, personality is an attribution based on the observation of a person’s living behavior. Yet, personality is also lived from the bodily perspective of its holder (Fuchs, 2012) : it is mainly from our own perspective that the enactment of our behavior makes sense. A full, embodied account of personality thus requires to link a lived experience with its observable living expression. Embodiment is also central in the constitution of musical experiences (Krueger, 2011a, 2011b, Schiavio, 2012), and movements are a relevant way to probe these experiences (Leman, 2007). In particular, free improvisations directly involve the performer’s personal embodied experience (Iyer, 2002). The path he is taking during the performance means something for him; it makes sense from his own perspective. At the same time, the externalization of his embodied experience leaves a trace that can be analyzed: the path of his performance also means something about him. Free improvisation is therefore a mean to reveal oneself from both a personal lived perspective, and the perspective of the observer of one’s living behavior. By linking these two perspectives, free improvisations constitute a relevant starting point for the embodied exploration of musical personality. As a coupling between experience and activity, embodiment is a dynamical process (Laroche et al., 2014). Dynamical approaches show how complex patterns coordinate and evolve over time (Kelso, 1995 ; Van Orden et al., 2003). Thereby, they provide concepts and tools able to link lived experience and observable living activity (Varela, 1999; Froese and Fuchs, 2012). Musical experiences (Large, 2008, 2010a, 2010b), musical performances (Demos et al., 2014) and musical improvisations (Pressing, 1988; Borgo, 2005) have been discussed and modeled in such terms. During an improvisation, the embodied dynamics of the improviser is simultaneous to the dynamics of the musical trace he is leaving. Analyzing the dynamics of his performance should therefore shed light on the coupling between his lived experience and his observable activity. The emergence and the manifestation of personality have also been accounted in dynamical terms (Lewis, 1997; Vallacher et al., 2002; Nowak et al., 2005). From this perspective, personality can be thought of as a set of dynamical tendencies that shape our spontaneous behaviors. The notion of dynamical tendencies has the advantage of encompassing both the stability and the variability of behaviors in a single explanatory framework (Ninot and Fortes, 2007). The organization of musical tendencies, in terms of performances’ stability and variability, should thus shed light on the performer’s embodied musical personality (Hargreaves, 2012; Van Vugt et al., 2013). In the end, since embodiment is constituted in our interactions with the world, our behaviors and our experiences are directly shaped by the dynamics of our interactions with others (De Jaegher and Di Paolo, 2010; Froese et al., 2014; Laroche et al., 2014). This has been acknowledged in the fields of personality (Kyselo, 2014), music experiences (Krueger, 2013; Moran, 2014) and improvisation (Gratier and Magnier, 2012; Schober and Spiro, 2014). Interactions with others should therefore play a role in one’s embodied musical personality. To asset this hypothesis, we are now presenting a pedagogical method of free interactive improvisation. This method will be illustrated with two concepts that emerged from practice (spontaneous preferences and core tastes) so as to explain them theoretically. Spontaneous achievement zones and spontaneous preferences Pedagogy of improvisation has been discussed by Kratus (1996). According to his opinion, the teacher plays an observational and instructional role. In our method, however, teacher and learner interact as they improvise at the same time on the same piano. As we will see, the teacher uses the process of interaction to foster learning, and to explore musical personality.Although free improvisations are unprecedented and underdetermined, we observe recurrent patterns of expression (rhythms, gestures, tonality, harmony, melodic form…). These patterns are easily played, without any instruction to enact them, pointing out the existence of «spontaneous achievement zones» (i.e. privileged regions of behavior among the full space of behavioral possibilities). Such spontaneous preferences are specific to each learner, even at a very young age and with a low level of expertise (Kaddouch and Laroche, 2014) : they constitute an embodied signature of their musical personality. Yet, in order to manage the improvisation of the learner, the teacher has to help him to discover his spontaneous achievement zones. To do so, the teacher probes the learner’s spontaneous tendencies by testing the stability of the latter’s patterns during the interaction. The teacher steadies these patterns by coordinating with them, thereby enabling the learner to consolidate and develop them. In this manner, interaction enables the teacher to unveil and foster learners’ embodied musical personality. Behavior can be explained dynamically by the coupling of its component processes (Bernstein, 1967; Kelso, 1995). The self-organized interactions of these components constitute the intrinsic dynamics of an embodied suject. Some patterns of interactions are more stable than others : this gives rise to a dynamical landscape, meaning, the regions of attraction that orientate behavioral trajectories (Kelso, 2009). In a laboratory settings, the topology of this landscape is probed by testing the stability of various patterns of coordination. As this dynamical landscape differs among individuals and as it is modified as a whole by learning (Kostrubiec et al., 2012), it constitutes a dynamical signature of the subject’s embodiment; it reflects his habitual way of inhabiting the world, and the past experiences that strengthen his intrinsic dynamics. This explains what we coined as spontaneous achievement zones. Similarly, the self-organization of embodied interactions between persons gives rise to dynamics that are properly collective (Oullier and Kelso, 2009). These dynamics coordinate the behaviors of interacting subjects (Laroche et al., 2014). The learner can thus rely on the dynamics of interaction to coordinate his own movements with less difficulty and fewer efforts. Interacting with the teacher therefore strengthens the learner’s patterns. In this case, learning consists in stabilizing the intrinsic dynamics of one’s embodied musical personality. Spontaneous behavioral tendencies are said to be «preferred» (Kelso, 2012). However, from a lived perspective, are these preferences « attractive » on top of being « attracting »? If behavior is biased by spontaneous preferences, this might prevent learners to develop their improvisation with new patterns that they might desire to enact with a vengeance. Moreover, learners get easily bored with their own spontaneous achievement zones. Kelso and Engström (2006, p. 222) see exploration as a complementary aspect of preferences. We now shall see how interacting can help to explore other behavioral possibilities, in order to expand learning and revealing deeper aspects of musical personality. Escaping from spontaneous preferences to fulfill core tastes Instead of matching the learner’s patterns, the teacher can alternatively propose a different one. In this case, even if the current pattern of the learner is well executed, it now sounds wrong in the interpersonal context, and so does it from the perspective of his lived experience. In order to continue communicating and improvising in a coherent and pleasant way, the learner must reorganize his behavior in a flexible way so as to fit the constraints of collective performance. Doing so, he has to explore some patterns outside of his spontaneous achievement zones. Usually, this enhances the fluctuations of his performance, until he suddenly jumps toward a new pattern that simultaneously makes sense for him, and fits the collective performance. Here, the process of interaction enables to explore some more aspects of the learner’s personality hinder by his spontaneous tendencies. It allows the learner to fulfill what we coined as « core tastes », that is, patterns of behavior that entail experiences he wishes to live, but that he cannot coordinate all by himself (Laroche and Kaddouch, 2014). By blocking the learner’s pattern with a different one, the teacher causes a loss of stability in the interpersonal pattern of coordination. Because collective dynamics constrain individual behaviors by attracting them toward interpersonal patterns, the strength of the learner’s spontaneous attractors gets weakened. In the ongoing interpersonal context, they even get « repelling ». The dismantlement of previously formed patterns and fluctuations of activity are very important for the emergence of new patterns of coordination (Kelso, 1995). Consequently, behavioral attraction migrates from the learner’s intrinsic dynamics to the collective dynamics of the interactions with the teacher. Then the dynamical interaction process gives access to behavioral regions that the lone individual cannot reach by himself (Froese and Fuchs, 2012; Vygostky, 1980). The learner is by now able to emancipate on his spontaneous tendencies by escaping their attraction. Thanks to the interactive participation of the teacher, he learns new patterns throughout the modification of his underlying dynamical landscape, expanding thereby his embodied musical personality. ConclusionPersonality (Kyselo and Tschacher, 2014), musical experiences (Dumas et al., 2014) and free collective improvisations (Canonne, 2012) are by now considered as embodied, dynamical and social phenomena. Therefore, they can be linked theoretically. The Kaddouch pedagogy fits that framework (Laroche and Kaddouch, 2014). Learning by interacting during free improvisations enables to reveal embodied musical personality. This is done first by identifying the most stable, spontaneous achievement zones of the learner, and then by helping the learner to fulfill his core tastes, which can be masked by his spontaneous preferences. By regulating the interaction process skillfully, and by using its collective dynamical properties, the teacher can orientate the learner’s embodied behaviors and experiences, either by stabilizing or by altering the dynamical landscape of his embodiment. By interacting, the teacher directly participates to the process of learning. Indeed, thanks to this method, the learner can strengthen and expand his behavioral repertoire. He also learns to be flexible at reorganizing his behavior to interact skillfully with others; consequently he also learns how to share the creation of new performances. In this process of « participatory sense-making » (De Jaegher and Di Paolo, 2007), his behavior becomes meaningful from both his own perspective and the perspective of his interactions with the teacher. This is why learners prefer to fulfill their core tastes instead of accomplishing their sole spontaneous preferences. Since interactive improvisations and subsequent learning modify the dynamical landscape of a subject’s embodiment, our method also reveals and expands musical personality. Therefore, interactivity is not only a way to probe embodied musical personality, but also a necessity to reveal and constitute it fully. In order to test this hypothesis further, we are currently working at quantifying and modeling the dynamics of performances, both at an individual and a collective level of analysis.Notes : 1 - We refer simultaneously to the whole experience that a subject has accumulated in the past, the experience he is currently living, and the one he anticipates or aims at living in the coming future.2 - In this text, musical experience means « embodied experience of music ». This wording refers to all the experiences we have with music, that is, the experiences of « doing things with music », including listening to it (Kruger, 2011a).3 - as evidenced by bodily and emotional reactions, and by his renewed motivation to explore further the improvisation when core tastes emerge in the interaction (Kaddouch and Laroche, 2014). (shrink)