Typicality

We examined the effects of the thematic congruence between ads and the programme in which they are
embedded. We also studied the typicality of the to-be-remembered information (high- and low-typicality
elements), and the effect of divided attention in the memory for radio ad contents. Participants listened
to four radio programmes with thematically congruent and incongruent ads embedded, and completed a
true/false recognition test indicating the level of confidence in their answer. Half of the sample performed
an additional task (divided attention group) while listening to the radio excerpts. In general,
recognition memory was better for incongruent ads and low-typicality statements. Confidence in hits was
higher in the undivided attention group, although there were no differences in performance. Our results
suggest that the widespread idea of embedding ads into thematic-congruent programmes negatively
affects memory for ads. In addition, low-typicality features that are usually highlighted by advertisers
were better remembered than typical contents. Finally, metamemory evaluations were influenced by the
inference that memory should be worse if we do several things at the same time.

The EU is ferociously protecting its Geographical Indications (GIs) in the name of authenticity and rural development. Not only in the countries of the EU, but internationally. Australia and most other New World countries protect geographical names via their trademark system, but also via a sui generis system. This Article is looking at the approaches of the protection of geographical names in the respective systems and on the strategies vintners use to exclude each other in the

This doctoral dissertation investigates the notion of physical necessity. Specifically, it studies whether it is possible to account for non-accidental regularities without the standard assumption of a pre-existent set of governing laws. Thus, it takes side with the so called deflationist accounts of laws of nature, like the humean or the antirealist. The specific aim is to complement such accounts by providing a missing explanation of the appearance of physical necessity.

In order to provide an explanation, I recur to fields that have not been appealed to so far in discussions about the metaphysics of laws. Namely, I recur to complex systems’ theory, and to the foundations of statistical mechanics. The explanation proposed is inspired by how complex systems’ theory has elucidated the way patterns emerge, and
by the probabilistic explanations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. More specifically, this thesis studies how some constraints that make no direct reference to the dynamics can be a sufficient condition for obtaining in the long run, with high probability, stable regular behavior. I hope to show how certain metaphysical accounts of laws might benefit from the insights achieved in these other fields.

According to the proposal studied in this thesis, some regularities are not accidental not in virtue of an underlying physical necessity. The non-accidental character of certain regular behavior is only due to its overwhelming stability. Thus, from this point of view the goal becomes to explain the stability of temporal patterns without assuming a set of pre-existent guiding laws. It is argued that the stability can
be the result of a process of convergence to simpler and stable regularities from a more complex lower level. According to this project, if successful, there would be no need to postulate a (mysterious) intermediate category between logical necessity and pure contingency. Similarly, there would be no need to postulate a (mysterious) set of
pre-existent governing laws.

Part I of the thesis motivates part II, mostly by arguing why further explanation of the notions of physical necessity and governing laws should be welcomed (chapter 1), and by studying the plausibility of a lawless fundamental level (chapters 2 and 3). Given so, part II develops the explanation of formation of simpler and stable behavior from
a more complex underlying level.

The paper provides a critical discussion of the Super-Humean view of spacetime (Huggett's regularity account) and the " minimalist ontology " in terms of Leibnizian relations and primitive matter points, recently developed by Esfeld et al. It investigates, in particular, the empirical adequacy of the proposed metaphysics, arguing that Super-Humeanism cannot provide a plausible account of space and time without committing to bona fide geometric structure in the fundamental relations. Against this backdrop, I propose a moderate version of Super-Humeanism and discuss its possible application to Euclidean space and General Relativity.

Certain results, most famously in classical statistical mechanics and complex systems, but also in quantum mechanics and high-energy physics, yield a coarse-grained stable statistical pattern in the long run. The explanation of these results shares a common structure: the results hold for a 'typical' dynamics, that is, for most of the underlying dynamics. In this paper I argue that the structure of the explanation of these results might shed some light --a different light-- on philosophical debates on the laws of nature. In the explanation of such patterns, the specific form of the underlying dynamics is almost irrelevant. The conditions required, given a free state-space evolution, suffice to account for the coarse-grained lawful behaviour. An analysis of such conditions might thus provide a different account of how regular behaviour can occur. This paper focuses on drawing attention to this type of explanation, outlining it in the diverse areas of physics in which it appears, and discussing its limitations and significance in the tractable setting of classical statistical mechanics.

We examined the influence of the type of radio program on the memory for radio advertisements. We also
investigated the role in memory of the typicality (high or low) of the elements of the products advertised. Participants
listened to three types of programs (interesting, boring, enjoyable) with two advertisements embedded in each. After
completing a filler task, the participants performed a true/false recognition test. Hits and false alarm rates were higher
for the interesting and enjoyable programs than for the boring one. There were also more hits and false alarms for the
high-typicality elements. The response criterion for the advertisements embedded in the boring program was stricter
than for the advertisements in other types of programs. We conclude that the type of program in which an advertisement
is inserted and the nature of the elements of the advertisement affect both the number of hits and false alarms and the
response criterion, but not the accuracy of the memory.

(LOFT 6, 2004)

Typicality is extensively investigated in a variety of disciplines (Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, AI, etc.) However, despite the wide range of evidence for the existence of typicality effects, it is still not clear what the correct account for them is and how they relate to predicate meaning. I will present here Partee & Kamp's 1995 influential model theoretic analysis of typicality, which is (like most accounts of typicality) formulated in terms of predicate prototypes and degree functions. I will point out several problems with this kind of formulation (such as wrong predictions, compositionality problems, the complicated taxonomy of predicate types assumed by the theory etc.) Finally, I will attempt to show that they are all solved, if a typicality ordering of a predicate P in a context c (≤P) is taken to reflect gradual addition of entities into the set of contextually relevant Ps, [P]+c (and non-Ps, [P]-c), as information accumulates.

In Gärdenfors and Makinson (Artif Intell 65(2):197–245, 1994) and Gärdenfors (Knowledge representation and reasoning under uncertainty, Springer-Verlag, 1992) it was shown that it is possible to model nonmonotonic inference using a classical consequence relation plus an expectation-based ordering of formulas. In this article, we argue that this framework can be significantly enriched by adopting a conceptual spaces-based analysis of the role of expectations in reasoning. In particular, we show that this can solve various epistemological issues that surround nonmonotonic and default logics. We propose some formal criteria for constructing and updating expectation orderings based on conceptual spaces, and we explain how to apply them to nonmonotonic reasoning about objects and properties.

The recent use of typicality in statistical mechanics for foundational purposes has stirred an important debate involving both philosophers and physicists. In this paper I try to approach the problem from the point of view of the explanatory power of typicality. I claim three main points. (1) Typicality-claims, the basic ingredients of the typicality explanations, show a crucial semantic duality. (2) This duality is mirrored by the duality between constitutive and causal explanation. I therefore conclude that typicality is strictly related to the  mechanistic explanation. (3) For historical reasons, only constitution has been analyzed in statistical mechanics, while causation has been neglected. I argue that this is a mistake and, most possibly, the reason of the philosophical discontent toward typicality.

This article seeks to contribute to critical readings of realism’s mimetic claims by tracing how framed narration, or writing-about-writing, establishes reliability in Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie’s seminal novel Half of a Yellow Sun (2006). Conceptions
of typicality are used almost interchangeably in scholarly discussions about realism and Africanness without a critical framework
that untangles the myriad links between them. To fill this lacuna, I
provide a theoretical exploration of how typicality and typification,
as two modes of characterization, connect fiction and reference in
Adichie’s novel. Focusing on the diegetic layering in Half of a Yellow
Sun, I show how Africanness and realism are negotiated as two
kinds of typicality that work, counterintuitively, to undercut stereotypes. Building on Adichie’s now-famous concept of the “single
story,” I use narratological terminology to think through the tension between typicality and specificity, and its particular stakes in
African literature. Using this terminology, I trace how the writing
of the protagonists Ugwu and Richard oscillates between fictional
and referential, public and private, and oral and written representations. I thus show that realism, through framed narrations, establishes a kind of verisimilitude that is far from mimetically naïve.

(From proceedings of Israel Association of Theoretical Linguistics 21)

Parts 1-3 present and criticize Partee and Kamp’s 1995 well known analysis of the typicality effects. The main virtue of this analysis is in the use of supermodels, rather than fuzzy models, in order to represent vagueness in predicate meaning. The main problem is that typicality of an item in a predicate is represented by a value assigned by a measure function, indicating the proportion of supervaluations in which the item falls under the predicate. A number of issues cannot be correctly represented by the measure function, including the typicality effects in sharp predicates; the conjunction fallacy; the context dependency of the typicality effects etc. In Parts 4-5, it is argued that these classical problems are solved if the typicality ordering is taken to be the order in which entities are learnt to be denotation members (or non-members) through contexts and their extensions. A modified formal model is presented, which clarifies the connections between the typicality effects, predicate meaning, and its acquisition.

It is proposed that comparing a typical versus an atypical product attribute in advertising will distort the value of naming your competitor. Using two experimental studies, this research investigates how typicality of the product attribute influences the effectiveness of different types of comparative advertising in terms of consumer's attitude. Results from two experiments show that product attribute typicality interacted with the types of comparative advertising: direct comparative advertising was significantly more effective in changing consumers' attitude than indirect comparative advertising when a typical product attribute was compared; whereas such significant difference in effectiveness no longer held when an atypical product attribute was compared. These results were consistent regardless the compared brand was a market leader (Study 2) or not (Study 1). Finally, mediation analysis found that the product attribute typicality by comparative advertising type interaction influenced consumers' brand attitudes through the mediating role of advertising message involvement.

The formal construction, the style, the textuality, and the very act of writing in Jamaica Kincaid’s Mr Potter (2002) are revolutionary in a number of ways. In bringing a critical focus to the use of rhythm in the text and aligning this to the intra-textual meanings that are hereby generated Kincaid can be said to go beyond our usual understandings of ‘defamiliarization’. This essay proposes that the ‘immutable rhythm’ of experience that forms a central focus of the text helps to ‘decentre’ the inheritance of patterns of cognition that are passed down from generation to generation.

We introduce Propositional Typicality Logic (PTL), a logic for reasoning about typicality. We do so by enriching classical propositional logic with a typicality operator of which the intuition is to capture the most typical (or normal) situations in which a formula holds. The semantics is in terms of ranked models as studied in KLM-style preferential reasoning. This allows us to show that rational consequence relations can be embedded in our logic. Moreover we show that we can define consequence relations on the language of PTL itself, thereby moving beyond the propositional setting. Building on the existing link between propositional rational consequence and belief revision, we show that the same correspondence holds for rational consequence and belief revision on PTL. We investigate entailment for PTL, and propose two appropriate notions thereof.

Franz Brentano is at the root of a long-lasting philosophical tradition spread by his students and, then, by his students’ students between the late 19th century and World War II.  This influence gave birth to a large number of philosophical schools or movements: the school of Brentano itself (Twardowski, Ehrenfels, Meinong, the early Husserl, Stumpf, Marty), the Lvov-Warsaw school (Łukasiewicz, Leśniewski, Kotarbiński, Ajdukiewicz, Dąmbska, Tarski), the realistic phenomenology movement (Ingarden, Pfänder, Stein, Scheler and Reinach) and the schools of Graz (Ameseder, Höfler, Mally, Vitasek, Martinak) and Prague (Kraus, Kastil).
It is common knowledge that these schools critically contributed to the rise of descriptive and phenomenological psychology, and gave rise to significant works in the fields of ontology and value theory. By contrast, comparatively little is known about the contribution of Brentanian philosophers to the philosophy of language. Important exceptions include Anton Marty’s – Brentano’s so-called “Minister for Linguistic Affairs” – and Husserl’s considerations on language. However, other representatives of the Brentanian tradition are deeply concerned with language in itself or as a mean to solve philosophical problems.
Interestingly, both the Brentanian and analytic traditions consider that linguistic analysis cannot be exhausted by a grammatical analysis of linguistic utterances. According to both traditions, linguistic analysis has to investigate the “deep structures” of linguistic utterances. Only such a “deep” analysis can help solve philosophical problems, even when they do not manifest themselves immediately as linguistic problems. However, the status and characteristics these traditions confer to this “deep structure” differ in a significant way. Whereas the Brentanian tradition considers it as mental, the analytic tradition considers it as logical. On the Brentanian approach, indeed, linguistic analysis mainly consists in relating linguistic utterances to the mental acts – sometimes understood as an “inner form” – that are expressed by them. This psychological dimension explains why the Brentanian tradition was never involved in the “linguistic turn” which was endorsed by Wittgenstein or by the Oxonian philosophers of ordinary language.
This conference proposes to assess to what extent the Brentanian tradition involves an original research program in the field of the philosophy of language. Proposals on the following subjects in the Brentanian school will be welcome:

1) Meaning theory
1.1 Subjective meaning and objective meaning (psychologism and anti-psychologism regarding meaning);
1.2 Communicational and contextual dimensions of meaning;
2) Inner form of language;
3) Linguistic functions;
4) The connexion between linguistic expressions and mental acts, in particular mind/language parallelism;
5) Categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, pure grammar;
6) Linguistic analysis as a mean to solve philosophical puzzles;
7) Nominalism;
8) Indexical expressions;
9) Common names and proper nouns;
10) Utterances analysis;
11) Linguistic fictions and paraphrases.

More generally, we are interested in all proposals regarding the question of language in the Brentanian tradition. The conference will focus on the entire tradition but proposals on only one or several specific authors will also be accepted.
Moreover, we will also consider proposals which regard not only the heirs of Brentano but also its philosophical predecessors (as, for instance, Bolzano) and the ones who discussed some Brentanian theses regarding language, as Bühler or Landgrebe did.
Transversal contributions, non-investigated questions and work on less-researched philosophers within the Brentanian tradition are encouraged.

This research examines the effectiveness of direct versus indirect comparative advertising. The effects of direct and indirect advertising are discussed and empirically tested. With the growing popularity of comparative advertising in recent years, it becomes crucial to examine different kinds of comparative advertisements more closely to provide guidelines to marketing managers in the application of comparative advertising. Using two experimental studies, this research investigates the moderating effects of attribute typicality and the mediating effects of advertising message involvement and attribute importance. Our findings have shown that indirect comparative ads are more effective than direct ones when the compared attribute in the ad is considered typical. There is no statistical difference in effectiveness between direct and indirect comparative ads when the compared attribute is atypical. The results have also indicated that both attribute importance and advertising message involvement indirectly mediate the relationships between advertising directness and attitude toward the advertised brand. This paper also provides important managerial implications and applications. First, the results tell the managers that it is important for those companies who use direct comparisons to understand what attributes are typically considered by consumers when they make purchasing decisions. In addition, the results provide important recommendations to marketing managers that they should make sure that its indirect comparative advertisement features non-alignable differences to claim that they have some " special attributes " that their competitors lack of.

The mixed results from previous studies related to direct versus indirect comparative advertising would certainly lead us intuitively to believe in the possibility of the existence of moderating variables. In recent comparative advertising research, marketing researchers have looked at what types of comparative advertisement are more effective than others (Choi and Miracle 2004; Miniard et al. 2006; Pechmann and Ratneshwar 1991; Yang et al. 2007). To find these answers, in this research, two attribute-specific moderators, attribute typicality and structural alignability, were investigated using theoretical support drawn from the literature and marketing theories to try to answer following questions:

En este trabajo comparamos las recepciones de Niklas Luhmann y Jürgen Habermas del concepto de Lebenswelt y de problemas asociados como la tipicidad y la cotidianeidad. Focalizamos sobre el lugar de esta recepción en sus respectivas teorías del sentido y de la modernidad a los efectos de identificar y cotejar sus funciones y variaciones, y determinar convergencias y divergencias. En sentido contrario a la interpretación estándar, se sugiere la hipótesis de que ambos autores convergen en el interés teórico por el Lebenswelt, lo cual, lejos de menospreciar divergencias, permite precisarlas en torno a las segmentaciones de la comunicación qua unidad de análisis.

In this work we extend the so-called typicality approach, originally formulated in statistical mechanics contexts, to SU (2) invariant spin network states. Our results do not depend on the physical interpretation of the spin-network, however they are mainly motivated by the fact that spin-network states can describe states of quantum geometry, providing a gauge-invariant basis for the kinematical Hilbert space of several background independent approaches to quantum gravity. The first result is, by itself, the existence of a regime in which we show the emergence of a typical state. We interpret this as the prove that, in that regime there are certain (local) properties of quantum geometry which are "universal". Such set of properties is heralded by the typical state, of which we give the explicit form. This is our second result. In the end, we study some interesting properties of the typical state, proving that the area-law for the entropy of a surface must be satisfied at the local level, up to logarithmic corrections which we are able to bound.

Propositional Typicality Logic (PTL) is a recently proposed logic, obtained by enriching classical propositional logic with a typicality operator. In spite of the non-monotonic features introduced by the semantics adopted for the typicality operator, the obvious Tarskian definition of entailment for PTL remains monotonic and is therefore not appropriate. We investigate different (semantic) versions of entailment for PTL, based on the notion of Rational Closure as defined by Lehmann and Magidor for KLM-style conditionals, and constructed using minimality. Our first important result is an impossibility theorem showing that a set of proposed postulates that at first all seem appropriate for a notion of entailment with regard to typicality cannot be satisfied simultaneously. Closer inspection reveals that this result is best interpreted as an argument for advocating the development of more than one type of PTL entailment. In the spirit of this interpretation, we define two primary forms of entailment for PTL and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.