Explore the vast range of titles available.

We provide a unified analysis of dynamically consistent menu preferences in which an agent may exhibit a preference for flexibility, a preference for commitment, or both. Our work generalizes prior results, which investigated this problem for an agent who always exhibits preference for flexibility. By using two types of consistency conditions, we characterize an agent with a subjective state space who reacts to information about her subjective states in a dynamically consistent way. We apply our results to the uncertain strength of temptation and the anticipating regret representations, and characterize a dynamically consistent updating of the no-uncertainty representation.

We study a two-stage model where the agent has preferences over menus as in Dekel, Lipman, and Rustichini (2001) in the first period and then makes random choices from menus as in Gul and Pesendorfer (2006) in the second period. Both preference for flexibility in the first period and strictly random choices in the second period can be, respectively, rationalized by subjective state spaces. Our main result characterizes the representation where the two state spaces align, so the agent correctly anticipates her future choices. The joint representation uniquely identifies probabilities over subjective states and magnitudes of utilities across states. We also characterize when the agent completely overlooks some subjective states that realize at the point of choice.

I provide axiomatic foundations for a model of taste uncertainty with endogenous learning through consumption. In this setting, uncertainty is over an unobservable, subjective state space. Preference over lottery-menu pairs is sufficient to identify the state space and the learning process. In this model, the agent is viewed as if he learns the utility of an object upon its consumption. This information is used to improve choice from the follow-on menu. This implies a trade-off between consumption value and information leading to experimentation. I provide a behavioral definition of experimentation. While the literature focuses on identifying subjective states through a demand for flexibility, I show that experimentation also (partially) identifies taste uncertainty.

Attentional engagement is known to vary on a moment-to-moment basis. However, few self-report methods can effectively capture dynamic fluctuations in attentional engagement over time. In the current paper, we evaluated the utility of stimulated recall , a method wherein individuals are asked to remember their subjective states while using a mnemonic cue, for the measurement of temporal changes in attentional engagement. Participants were asked to watch a video lecture, during which we assessed their in-the-moment levels of attentional engagement using intermittent thought probes. Then, we used stimulated recall by cueing participants with short video clips from the lecture to retrospectively assess the levels of attentional engagement they had experienced when they first watched those clips within the lecture. Experiment 1 assessed the statistical overlap between in-the-moment and video-stimulated ratings. Experiment 2 assessed the generalizability of video-stimulated recall across different types of lectures. Experiment 3 assessed the impact of presenting video-stimulated probe clips in non-chronological order. Experiment 4 assessed the effect of video-stimulated recall on its own. Across all experiments, we found statistically robust correspondence between in-the-moment and video-stimulated ratings of attentional engagement, illustrating a strong convergence between these two methods of assessment. Taken together, our findings indicate that stimulated recall provides a new and practical methodological approach that can accurately capture dynamic fluctuations in subjective attentional states over time.

Intracortical brain–machine interfaces decode motor commands from neural signals and translate them into actions, enabling movement for paralysed individuals. The subjective sense of agency associated with actions generated via intracortical brain–machine interfaces, the neural mechanisms involved and its clinical relevance are currently unknown. By experimentally manipulating the coherence between decoded motor commands and sensory feedback in a tetraplegic individual using a brain–machine interface, we provide evidence that primary motor cortex processes sensory feedback, sensorimotor conflicts and subjective states of actions generated via the brain–machine interface. Neural signals processing the sense of agency affected the proficiency of the brain–machine interface, underlining the clinical potential of the present approach. These findings show that primary motor cortex encodes information related to action and sensing, but also sensorimotor and subjective agency signals, which in turn are relevant for clinical applications of brain–machine interfaces.Serino et al. studied the sense of agency for actions generated via a brain–machine interface. They show that primary motor cortex encodes not only motor and sensory signals, but also subjective agency signals, enabling improved brain–machine interface proficiency.

The assessment of animal welfare in rehabilitation settings is a critical aspect of effective care, yet typical metrics often fail to fully capture rehabilitating animals’ emotional experiences in a non-invasive way. Anticipatory behavior has emerged as a promising animal welfare indicator, reflecting an animal’s perceived need for rewards based on available opportunities in their environment. By tracking anticipatory responses, caretakers can gain insight into an animal’s reward sensitivity and use this information to guide management interventions. This study investigated the effects of enrichment type on anticipatory behavior in fourteen, rehabilitating harbor seal pups (Phoca vitulina richardii). We provided pups with daily sessions of either structural or cognitive enrichment and recorded their behavioral responses. During scheduled feeding sessions, we identified behaviors that emerged as anticipatory, then measured the frequency and duration of anticipatory behavior prior to the feeds to assess how enrichment types influenced the seals’ reward sensitivity, and thus their welfare. While enrichment interaction did not directly modulate anticipatory behavior, we observed a trend suggesting that exposure to cognitive enrichment reduced anticipatory behavior duration compared to structural enrichment. These findings align with previous research in zoo settings, where cognitive enrichment has been linked to improved welfare through reduced anticipatory behavior, though this effect has not been explored in a wildlife rehabilitation context. This study highlights the value of anticipatory behavior as a practical welfare assessment tool in rehabilitation settings and underscores the potential for enrichment, particularly cognitive, to improve welfare in rehabilitating marine mammals.

Models with subjective state spaces have been extremely useful in capturing novel psychological phenomena that consist of both a preference for flexibility and for commitment. Interpreting the utility representations of preferences as capturing these phenomena requires one to use the notion of a sign of a state. For linear preferences, we completely characterise the sign of a state in terms of its analytic representation as an integral with respect to a signed measure. In models with finitely many states, a state is either positive or negative, but never both. We show that in models with infinitely many states, a state can be both positive and negative. Thus, models with finitely many states may not capture all the behavioural features of an infinite model. Our methods are also useful in constructing utility functionals over menus with desired local properties.

The choice of a lifestyle was and will remain an important part of the way in which we organise our life, certainly in the given socio-economic and cultural conditions. Lifestyle is built in agreement with the wish of each and any of us to achieve satisfaction with life, or in philosophical language, happiness. The concept of subjective wellbeing is a fundamental one in the quality-of-life paradigm. The main indicator of the subjective state is satisfaction with life. Global satisfaction with life is the outcome of the degree of fulfillment of the individual as general average of all fields of life. In this indicator are included important human benefits, results of economic growth in relationship with the wishes and aspirations to happiness and welfare. They express the permanent orientation of the individual towards self-development/self-construction. In fact, satisfaction with life, as subjective state of individual wellbeing depends on both economic personal welfare (living standard, income, employment, financial situation) and on the state of society’s organization and governance quality, family situation, type of interpersonal and neighborship relations, social participation, etc. The lifestyle is also a key-factor here. Sectoral indicators of satisfaction with life cover the main spheres of human existence (family, profession, work, free time, safety, civic and political participation, personal development, interpersonal relationships, neighborship and friendship relationships, etc.). Subjective wellbeing or “subjective/perceived quality of life” is a critical structural component of the global state of wellbeing. It is the human filter of the objective living conditions. The subjective quality of life is not just the summation of the quality of life’s components, but more than that, the synthesis of its results: the state of human balance, tranquility, wellness. And, the result might allow accessing happiness, the perpetual aspiration of the human. By means of the subjective indicators for satisfaction with life, happiness benefits of ways for precise measurement and analysis. The concept of happiness is a key-concept of all philosophical systems, but it entered by operational forms also in socio-humane, medical and economic sciences, etc.

This study aimed to explore the perception of different components of biological movement in individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome. The ability to recognize a person's actions, subjective states, emotions, and objects conveyed by moving point-light displays was assessed in 19 participants with autism and 19 comparable typical control participants. Results showed that the participants with autism were as able as controls to name point-light displays of non-human objects and human actions. In contrast, they were significantly poorer at labeling emotional displays, suggesting that they are specifically impaired in attending to emotional states. Most studies have highlighted an emotional deficit in facial expression perception; our results extend this hypothesized deficit to the perception and interpretation of whole-body biological movements.

This paper provides a model that allows for a criterion of admissibility based on a subjective state space. For this purpose, we build a non-Archimedean model of preference with subjective states, generalizing Blume et al. (Econometrica 59:61-79, 1991), who present a non-Archimedean model with exogenous states; and Dekel et al. (Econometrica 69:891-934, 2001), who present an Archimedean model with an endogenous state space. We interpret the representation as modeling an agent who has several \"hypotheses\" about her state space, and who views some as \"infinitely less relevant\" than others.