170429 Affective Valence Signals Agency within and between Individuals

Title:
Affective Valence Signals Agency within and between Individuals

Speaker:
Yen-Ping Chang (UNC Chapel Hill)

Time:
04/29 (Sat.) 15:00 PDT, 16:00 MDT, 17:00 CDT, 18:00 EDT,
04/30 (Sun.) 06:00 Taiwan

Link:
Join the talk on BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/4644635972/


Abstract:
Affective valence is a core component of all emotional experiences. Building on recent evidence and theory, we reason that valence informs individuals about their agency—the mental capability of doing and intending. Expressed affect may also lead to perceptions of agency by others. Supporting the hypothesis that valence influences self- and other-perception of agency, across five studies, we showed that participants perceived more agency in themselves in positive versus neutral and negative personal and interpersonal events. Participants also perceived more agency in fictional characters showing positive versus negative affect, regardless of how acceptable the characters’ behavior was. Finally, we had participants personify 24 specific emotions across the valence dimension, and found that the more positive and less negative an emotion was, the more agency participants ascribed to the “person”. We discuss the results in terms of how valence may help with human self-and social regulation.

170422 Carving Out the Landscape of Worlds

Title:
Carving out the landscape of worlds

Speaker:
林穎璇 (Caltech) 
Disclaimer: 為增進聽眾的理解 演講內容將科學事實簡化而不盡嚴謹

Time:
04/22 (Sat.) 15:00 PDT, 16:00 MDT, 17:00 CDT, 18:00 EDT,
04/23 (Sun.) 06:00 Taiwan

Link:
Join the talk on BlueJeans: https://bluejeans.com/4644635972/


Abstract:
The set of physical laws governing our universe is not the only mathematically consistent possibility. Within the framework of quantum field theory, there is a vast landscape of “alternative worlds”, each described by a different theory. In this talk, I will paint you a road map to this landscape of theories, using conformal field theories as landmarks. I will provide a cartoon definition of conformal field theories, and explain a novel method for solving these theories — the conformal bootstrap.

170408 Spectral Line De-Confusion in an Intensity Mapping Survey

Title:
Spectral Line De-Confusion in an Intensity Mapping Survey

Speaker:
Cheng, Yun-Ting (California Institute of Technology)

Time:
04/08 (Sat.) 15:00 PDT, 16:00 MDT, 17:00 CDT, 18:00 EDT,
04/09 (Sun.) 06:00 Taiwan

Link:
Abstract:
Spectral line intensity mapping has been proposed as a promising tool to efficiently probe the cosmic reionization and the large-scale structure. One particular challenge in the line intensity mapping is to separate the desired signals from the foreground line interlopers. Here we present a technique to extract large-scale structure information traced by emission lines from different redshifts, embedded in a three-dimensional intensity mapping data cube. The line redshifts are distinguished by the anisotropic shape of the power spectra when projected onto a common coordinate frame. We consider a survey like TIME-Pilot, where high-redshift [CII] lines are confused with multiple low-redshift CO rotational lines. We present a semi-analytic model for [CII] and CO line estimates based on the cosmic infrared background measurements, and show that with a modest instrumental noise level and survey geometry, the large-scale [CII] and CO power spectrum amplitudes can be successfully extracted from a confusion-limited data set, without external information.