Human behavior is frequently guided by social and moral norms; in fact, no societies, no social groups could exist without norms. However, there are few cognitive science approaches to this central phenomenon of norms. While there has been some progress in developing formal representations of norm systems (e.g., deontological approaches), we do not yet know basic properties of human norms: how ...

The aim was to analyze the social representations of nurses ́ care practices in the face of the technologies applied to the clients hospitalized in intensive therapy. Qualitative field research in the framework of the social representations theory. Semistructured interviews were held with 21 nurses of an intensive therapy unit at a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro. Thematic content analyses wer...

We present a theory of cultural evolution based upon a renormalization group scheme. We consider rational but cognitively limited agents who optimize their decision making process by iteratively updating and refining the mental representation of their natural and social environment. These representations are built around the most important degrees of freedom of their world. Cultural coherence a...

identity and other issues related to it is one the most important matters in human’s life. identity is a complex and multi-dimensional issue; so studying it, considering its importance in different aspects of life, is rough. the main aim of this study is recognizing the effective factors on social identity as well as understanding the imagination and narration of women of themselves. with the u...

This study explores shared thinking about HIV/AIDS among Zambian adolescents. With high numbers affected, the question is how this group represents its risk. Social representations of the origin, spread and risk of HIV/AIDS were gleaned via 60 semistructured interviews with urban 15 to 20 year olds. A systematic analysis revealed a shared picture: AIDS was linked to the West, God and teenage gi...

Characterize the social representations of nurses regarding the planning of nursing care for people with cancer, by determining the central nucleus and of the peripheral system. Qualitative study conducted in a specialized hospital in Salvador, Bahia, between July 2008 and March 2009. Data collection was made by free association of words, with forty-one nurses. The data were processed by the so...

In this paper, we consider an information-theoretic formulation of the content identification under search complexity constrain. The proposed framework is based on soft fingerprinting, i.e., joint consideration of sign and magnitude of fingerprint coefficients. The fingerprint magnitude is analyzed in the scope of communications with side information that results in channel decomposition, where...