Alessandra Casella
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195309096
- eISBN:
- 9780199918171
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309096.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Economy
Storable Votes allow voters to transfer votes across decisions. Is precise knowledge of the agenda essential to the positive properties of the mechanism? The chapter studies a committee ...
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Storable Votes allow voters to transfer votes across decisions. Is precise knowledge of the agenda essential to the positive properties of the mechanism? The chapter studies a committee where the chair has agenda power. In the first half of the chapter, the chair controls the order of the proposals, from a fixed and known agenda. In the second half, the chair controls both the order and the content of the agenda. The theory shows that in both cases control of the agenda matters to the rest of the committee because it grants the chair the possibility to transmit information about his priorities. Unless other members feel particularly strongly about those same decisions, it is in their interest not to compete with the chair. The chair always gains, while the welfare impact on the other voters is of variable significance and always small in magnitude. In laboratory experiments, subjects have difficulty identifying the informative strategies, but payoffs are once again very close to theoretical predictions. Thus the welfare effect of agenda control is minor, and the comparison to simple majority voting is unchanged, relative to the fixed agenda case: bonus votes matter, the chair's control of the agenda does not.Less
Storable Votes allow voters to transfer votes across decisions. Is precise knowledge of the agenda essential to the positive properties of the mechanism? The chapter studies a committee where the chair has agenda power. In the first half of the chapter, the chair controls the order of the proposals, from a fixed and known agenda. In the second half, the chair controls both the order and the content of the agenda. The theory shows that in both cases control of the agenda matters to the rest of the committee because it grants the chair the possibility to transmit information about his priorities. Unless other members feel particularly strongly about those same decisions, it is in their interest not to compete with the chair. The chair always gains, while the welfare impact on the other voters is of variable significance and always small in magnitude. In laboratory experiments, subjects have difficulty identifying the informative strategies, but payoffs are once again very close to theoretical predictions. Thus the welfare effect of agenda control is minor, and the comparison to simple majority voting is unchanged, relative to the fixed agenda case: bonus votes matter, the chair's control of the agenda does not.
Bruno G. Bara
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262014113
- eISBN:
- 9780262266062
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262014113.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This book, which offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies, argues that communication is a ...
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This book, which offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies, argues that communication is a cooperative activity in which two or more agents together, consciously and intentionally, construct the meaning of their interaction. In true communication (which the book distinguishes from the mere transmission of information), all the actors must share a set of mental states. The book takes a cognitive perspective, investigating communication not from the viewpoint of an external observer (as is the practice in linguistics and the philosophy of language) but from within the mind of the individual. It examines communicative interaction through the notion of behavior and dialogue games, which structure both the generation and the comprehension of the communication act (either language or gesture). The book describes both standard communication and nonstandard communication (which includes deception, irony, and “as-if” statements). Failures are analyzed in detail, with possible solutions explained. The book investigates communicative competence in both evolutionary and developmental terms, tracing its emergence from hominids to homo sapiens and defining the stages of its development in humans from birth to adulthood. It correlates this theory with the neurosciences, and explains the decay of communication that occurs both with different types of brain injury and with Alzheimer’s disease.Less
This book, which offers a theory of human communication that is both formalized through logic and empirically validated through experimental data and clinical studies, argues that communication is a cooperative activity in which two or more agents together, consciously and intentionally, construct the meaning of their interaction. In true communication (which the book distinguishes from the mere transmission of information), all the actors must share a set of mental states. The book takes a cognitive perspective, investigating communication not from the viewpoint of an external observer (as is the practice in linguistics and the philosophy of language) but from within the mind of the individual. It examines communicative interaction through the notion of behavior and dialogue games, which structure both the generation and the comprehension of the communication act (either language or gesture). The book describes both standard communication and nonstandard communication (which includes deception, irony, and “as-if” statements). Failures are analyzed in detail, with possible solutions explained. The book investigates communicative competence in both evolutionary and developmental terms, tracing its emergence from hominids to homo sapiens and defining the stages of its development in humans from birth to adulthood. It correlates this theory with the neurosciences, and explains the decay of communication that occurs both with different types of brain injury and with Alzheimer’s disease.
Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199587049
- eISBN:
- 9780191775031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587049.003.0019
- Subject:
- Physics, Geophysics, Atmospheric and Environmental Physics
This chapter describes how the evolution of natural language represented a revolution in the transmission of information, which decoupled human social evolution from gene-based evolution, giving it a ...
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This chapter describes how the evolution of natural language represented a revolution in the transmission of information, which decoupled human social evolution from gene-based evolution, giving it a ‘genetic material’ analogous in many ways to DNA, which could be transmitted both to contemporaries and future generations. This allowed cultural evolution to accelerate, and new levels of social organization to emerge. The result was the rapid development of human imagination and culture. Only after the emergence of language did our ancestors begin to reshape their environment on a large scale. However, a truly global environmental change relied on human societies increasing their inputs of energy, starting with the transition to agriculture, and culminating in the fossil fuel age.Less
This chapter describes how the evolution of natural language represented a revolution in the transmission of information, which decoupled human social evolution from gene-based evolution, giving it a ‘genetic material’ analogous in many ways to DNA, which could be transmitted both to contemporaries and future generations. This allowed cultural evolution to accelerate, and new levels of social organization to emerge. The result was the rapid development of human imagination and culture. Only after the emergence of language did our ancestors begin to reshape their environment on a large scale. However, a truly global environmental change relied on human societies increasing their inputs of energy, starting with the transition to agriculture, and culminating in the fossil fuel age.
