As the need for collaboration across multiple organizations to deal with complex social issues such as poverty, crime, and public health grows, Public–Private Partnership (PPP) is of increasing importance. However, little is known about when and why private firms engage in such partnerships. Drawing on upper-echelon theory and the information-processing perspective, we highlight the importance of institutional knowledge and information embedded in CEO cross-sector work experience. We argue that such tacit knowledge and information enables CEOs to better identify the potential risks associated with PPPs. Consequently, CEOs with cross-sector work experience tend to be more cautious in participating in such partnerships, especially in developing economies like China, where private actors face greater information incompleteness concerning post-collaboration hazards due to the government's selective disclosure. Moreover, we develop a multi-moderator framework in which regional marketization and political connection alter the main effect by serving as supplementary information channels for private actors. A panel dataset of Chinese private listed firms from 2013 to 2021 provides strong support for our hypotheses. This study contributes to our understanding of the micro-foundation of PPP formation and draws attention to CEOs’ prior career experiences in different organizational forms.

Finnish nonfinite clauses constitute a complex grammatical class with a seemingly chaotic mix of verbal and nominal properties. Thirteen nonfinite constructions, their selection, control, thematic role assignment, nonfinite agreement, embedded subjects, and syntactic status were targeted for analysis. An analysis is proposed which derives their syntactic and semantic properties by relying on a computational model of human information processing. The model analyzes Finnish nonfinite constructions as truncated clauses with one functional layer above the verb phrase. Research methods from naturalistic cognitive science and computational linguistics are considered as potentially useful tools for linguistics.

Programmable active matter (PAM) combines information processing and energy transduction. The physical embodiment of information could be the direction of magnetic spins, a sequence of molecules, the concentrations of ions, or the shape of materials. Energy transduction involves the transformation of chemical, magnetic, or electrical energies into mechanical energy. A major class of PAM consists of material systems with many interacting units. These units could be molecules, colloids, microorganisms, droplets, or robots. Because the interaction among units determines the properties and functions of PAMs, the programmability of PAMs is largely due to the programmable interactions. Here, we review PAMs across scales, from supramolecular systems to macroscopic robotic swarms. We focus on the interactions at different scales and describe how these (often local) interactions give rise to global properties and functions. The research on PAMs will contribute to the pursuit of generalised crystallography and the study of complexity and emergence. Finally, we ponder on the opportunities and challenges in using PAM to build a soft-matter brain.

Voters prefer political candidates who are currently in office (incumbents) over new candidates (challengers). Using the premise of query theory (Johnson, Häubl & Keinan, 2007), we clarify the underlying cognitive mechanisms by asking whether memory retrieval sequences affect political decision making. Consistent with predictions, Experiment 1 (N= 256) replicated the incumbency advantage and showed that participants tended to first query information about the incumbent. Experiment 2 (N= 427) showed that experimentally manipulating participants’ query order altered the strength of the incumbency advantage. Experiment 3 (N= 713) replicated Experiment 1 and, in additional experimental conditions, showed that the effects of incumbency can be overridden by more valid cues, like the candidates’ ideology. Participants queried information about ideologically similar candidates earlier and also preferred these ideologically similar candidates. This is initial evidence for a cognitive, memory-retrieval process underling the incumbency advantage and political decision making.

In decision making, people may rely on their own information as well as oninformation from external sources, such as family members, peers, or experts.The current study investigated how these types of information are used bycomparing four decision strategies: 1) an internal strategy that relies solelyon own information; 2) an external strategy that relies solely on theinformation from an external source; 3) a sequential strategy that relies oninformation from an external source only after own information is deemedinadequate; 4) an integrative strategy that relies on an integration of bothtypes of information. Of specific interest were individual and developmentaldifferences in strategy use. Strategy use was examined via Bayesian hierarchicalmixture model analysis. A visual decision task was administered to children andyoung adolescents (N=305, ages 9–14). Individual differences but noage-related changes were observed in either decision accuracy or strategy use.The internal strategy was dominant across ages, followed by the integrative andsequential strategy, respectively, while the external strategy was extremelyrare. This suggests a reluctance to rely entirely on information provided byexternal sources. We conclude that there are individual differences but notdevelopmental changes in strategy use pertaining to perceptual decision-makingin 9- through 14-year-olds. Generalizability of these findings is discussed withregard to different forms of social influence and varying perceptions of theexternal source. This study provides stepping stones in better understanding andmodeling decision making processes in the presence of both internal and externalinformation.

Pie charts are often used to communicate risk, such as the risk of driving. In the foreground-background salience effect (FBSE), foreground (probability of bad event) has greater salience than background (no bad event) in such a chart. Experiment 1 confirmed that the displays format of pie charts showed a typical FBSE. Experiment 2 showed that the FBSE resulted from a difference in cognitive efforts in processing the messages and that a foreground-emphasizing display was easier to process. Experiment 3 manipulated subjects’ information processing mindset and explored the interaction between displays format and information processing mindset. In the default mindset, careless subjects displayed a typical FBSE, while those who were instructed to be careful reported similar risk-avoidant behavior preference reading both charts. Suggestions for improving risk communication are discussed.

The influence of numeracy on information processing of two risk communication formats (percentage and pictograph) was examined using an eye tracker. A sample from the general population (N = 159) was used. In intuitive and deliberative decision conditions, the participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario presenting a test result. The participants indicated their feelings and their perceived risk, evoked by a 17% risk level. In the intuitive decision condition, a significant correlation (r = .30) between numeracy and the order of information processing was found: the higher the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the percentage, and the lower the numeracy, the earlier the processing of the pictograph. This intuitive, initial focus on a format prevailed over the first half of the intuitive decision-making process. In the deliberative decision condition, the correlation between numeracy and order of information processing was not significant. In both decision conditions, high and low numerates processed pictograph and percentage formats with similar depths and derived similar meanings from them in terms of feelings and perceived risk. In both conditions numeracy had no effects on the degree of attention on the percentage or the pictograph (number of fixations on formats and transitions between them). The results suggest that pictographs attract low numerates’ attention, and percentages attract high numerates’ attention in the first, intuitive, phase of numeric information processing. Pictographs thus ensure low numerates’ further elaboration on numeric risk information, which is an important precondition of risk understanding and decision making.

Partisan and affective polarization should have observable consequences in Canada, such as bias in political information search and processing. This article presents the results of three studies that test for partisan and ideological bias using the Digital Democracy Project's study of the 2019 Canadian election. Study 1 uses a conjoint experiment where respondents choose from pairs of hypothetical news stories where the slant of the source and headline are both randomized. Study 2 tests for partisan-motivated responsiveness to elite cues with a policy vignette that manipulates the presence of party elite cues and a motivational prime. Study 3 requires respondents to solve a randomly assigned numeracy task that is either political or nonpolitical in nature. Results suggest that Canadians (1) select politically congenial information, though not sources of such information, (2) follow elite cues when partisan motivation is primed and (3) evaluate evidence in ways that are biased by their ideological beliefs.