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Valued-based decision-making has been studied for decades in myriad topics such as consumer spending and gambling, but very rarely in spatial navigation despite the link between the two being highly relevant to survival. Furthermore, how people integrate episodic memories, and what factors are related to the extent of memory integration in value-based decision-making, remain largely unknown. In the current study, participants learned locations of various objects in a virtual environment and then decided whether to reach goal objects from familiar starting locations or unpredictable ones, with different penalties associated with each option. We developed computational models to test whether, when given an object to find, participants' starting location decisions reflected their past performance specific to that goal (Target-specific model) or integrated memory from performance with all goals in the environment (Target-common model). Because participants' wayfinding performance improved throughout the experiment, we were able to examine what factors related to the generalization of past experience. We found that most participants' decisions were better fit by the Target-common model, and for the people whose decisions were better fit by the Target-common model this integrative tendency may be tied to their concurrently greater performance variability with individual targets. Moreover, greater success on our task was predicted by an interaction between the ability to estimate probabilities relevant to decision-making and self-report general task ability. Collectively, our results show how related navigational episodic memories can be reflected in decision-making, and uncover individual differences contributing to such processes.

Daily function depends on an ability to mentally map our environment. Environmental visibilityand complexity can increase this challenge. Importantly, people vary dramatically in their abilityto navigate flexibly and overcome such environmental challenges. In this paper, we will presentexperimental work targeting the mechanisms that underlie different navigational abilities, andhow objective and introspective measures of ability interact to influence navigational strategyuse. Using virtual reality, we manipulated environmental visibility and complexity. Participantsthen performed wayfinding, pointing, and route following tasks to probe cognitive map memoryand navigational flexibility. Our findings reveal that individual differences in metacognition -such as perceived sense of direction - and in navigational strategy preference powerfully impacthow environmental features affect spatial memory. We also gathered data on the neurocognitivefoundations of these differences. Importantly, our methods highlight individualized interventionsthat can improve spatial learning and specify the mechanisms through which they operate.

Quantum coherence is a crucial resource in numerous quantum processing tasks. The robustness of coherence provides an operational measure of quantum coherence, which can be calculated for various states using semidefinite programming. However, this method depends on convex optimization and can be time-intensive, especially as the dimensionality of the space increases. In this study, we employ machine learning techniques to quantify quantum coherence, focusing on the robustness of coherence. By leveraging artificial neural networks, we developed and trained models for systems with different dimensionalities. Testing on data samples shows that our approach substantially reduces computation time while maintaining strong generalizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, we investigated the ways in which the acquisition and transfer of spatial knowledge were affected by (a) the type of spatial relations predominately experienced during learning (routes determined by walkways vs. straight-line paths between locations); (b) environmental complexity; and (c) the availability of rotational body-based information. Participants learned the layout of a virtual shopping mall by repeatedly searching for target storefronts located in 1 of the buildings. We created 2 novel learning conditions to encourage participants to use either route knowledge (paths on walkways between buildings) or survey knowledge (straight-line distances and directions from storefront to storefront) to find the target, and measured the development of route and survey knowledge in both learning conditions. Environmental complexity was manipulated by varying the alignment of the buildings with the enclosure, and the visibility within space. Body-based information was manipulated by having participants perform the experiment in front of a computer monitor or using a head-mounted display. After navigation, participants pointed to various storefronts from a fixed position and orientation. Results showed that the frequently used spatial knowledge could be developed similarly across environments with different complexities, but the infrequently used spatial knowledge was less developed in the complex environment. Furthermore, rotational body-based information facilitated spatial learning under certain conditions. Our results suggest that path integration may play an important role in spatial knowledge transfer, both from route to survey knowledge (cognitive map construction), and from survey to route knowledge (using cognitive map to guide wayfinding).

This article analyses Wang Ruqi's 王汝琪 (1912–1990) contribution to the drafting of the 1950 Marriage Law, the first codified law promulgated by the People's Republic of China (PRC). It argues that Wang–who had been a legal specialist and a female political activist dating back to the 1930s and 1940s–was the actual author of the law's first draft. In rehabilitating Wang's long-forgotten contribution to the making of the Marriage Law, this study highlights that, first of all, lawmaking in the early years of the PRC was characterized by legal "professionalism," rather than the "vernacularism" that scholars in recent years have tended to ascribe to this period. Second, Wang was an exemplary figure of a new breed of "state feminists" in the PRC, which we term "state-legal feminists." State-legal feminists, like state feminists in general, were brought into the PRC state apparatus and took advantage of their role in the state to advance sociopolitical agendas. However, they differed from their fellow state feminists because they firmly believed that the state's will and intent could be best articulated and exercised through codified laws and legal institutions. The making of the Marriage Law thus exemplifies the state-legal feminist approach insofar as it resorted to a codified law to push for the political agendas of women's emancipation and restructuring families in China. While recent scholarship highlights the politicization of the law in the 1953 campaign to promote the Marriage Law, this study inverts this by addressing the legalization of political and social movements. 摘要: 在1950年《婚姻法》的既有研究中，鲜有关注其立法者的。本文通过关注这部法律的起草过程，认为该法律的制定是群策群力的结果，但作为法律专家和妇女政治活动家的王汝琪是起草1950年《婚姻法》第一稿的执笔者。通过聚焦这段逐渐被遗忘的立法史，本文有以下进一步发现：首先，中华人民共和国早期法律的特点主要是"法律专业化"（professionalism），而非近年来学者们所强调的"通俗化"（vernacularism）。其次，王汝琪是中国新一代"国家女权主义者（state feminists）"中"国家法律女权主义者（state-legal feminists）"的典型代 表。她与一般的"国家女权主义者"一样，被纳入到国家机器，利用自己在国家中的作用来推进社会政治议程。然而，与其他类别国家女权主义者不同的是，"国家法律女权主义者"坚信，推进性别平等的政治意图可以通过国家意志和国家立法而得到最大程度地实现。因此，1950年《婚姻法》体现了"社会主义国家法律女权主义者（socialist state-legal feminists）"的路径——通过立法来推动中国妇女解放和改造家庭。最后，前人研究把1950年《婚姻法》的制定和推广看作是一场群众动员，而本研究则更强调《婚姻法》的制定和普及是政治和社会运动法律化的事件。 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xingsu 'xinren': Zhonggong xuanchuan yu Sulian jingyan [phrase omitted]: (Shaping (Shaping the New Man: CCP Propaganda and Soviet Experiences). By YU MIIN-LING. Taipei [phrase omitted] Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindaishi yanjiu [...]