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It’s difficult not to be amazed by the intricate process through which a honeybee swarm selects anew nest site. By exploring different options and sharing information with one another, the beescan collectively choose a single site. A key feature of these collective decisions is that they arenot directed by a centralized planner, but instead arise entirely from the interactions of individualswith each other and their environment. Inspired by such natural phenomena, roboticists are nowimplementing similar strategies in robot swarms to enhance collective decision-makingAs a social species, humans also frequently make collective decisions. Many important decisionsfor our societies are not made by a single individual but emerge from extensive verbal discussionsbetween multiple individuals. This dissertation aims to build a conceptual and experimentalbridge linking the study of human collective decision making with the more embodied collectivedecision making of animal and robotic swarms, which mostly take place through movements inphysical space. To do so, we place human participants in the type of embodied decision makingscenarios that swarms usually operate in.We created a virtual environment in which large groups of human participants can interact withone another and perform various tasks that are commonly studied in swarm robotics research. Intwo behavioral experiments, we used this virtual environment to study human behavior duringcollective decision making. In the first experiment, we studied how participants can form acollective perception of their environment by each exploring some part of the environment andthen sharing that information. In a subsequent experiment, we study how a group of participantscan select the best site in their environment while only using movement-based communication.The third study presented in this thesis reports on how human participants can implicitly signaltheir confidence in their movements during decision making in a shared physical, Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This article aims to examine how the implementation of environmental taxes could build on the success of value-added tax (VAT) to become more efficient and consistent. This is not to increase the overall tax burden on citizens but to reorganize existing indirect taxation differently by better taking into account European Union (EU) environmental objectives, in particular regarding the circular economy. With its broad tax base, its systemic structure based on neutrality (which does not exclude differentiation), its wide acceptance among taxpayers, and its proven compliance process, the VAT has some features that could inspire environmental policymakers. It indeed impacts consumer choices at the broadest possible level while avoiding distortions. The authors begin by identifying the reasons for the success and robustness of VAT. A new concept of ‘green VAT’ will then be proposed based not on the classical instrument of reduced rates for specific transactions as is already done and advocated by EU institutions (European Commission, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, A new Circular Economy Action Plan. For a cleaner and more competitive Europe, COM(2020) 98 final (11 Mar. 2020). See also Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions – New Circular Economy Action Plan (2020/C 440/18), OJ C 440/107 (18 Dec. 2020), para. 23.) but on a coherent life cycle approach to all goods and services. This new approach identifies negative externalities by following the same value chain as the VAT. It aligns as much as possible with the administration and compliance methods already implemented by the VAT. Finally, a possible virtual use of the new green VAT concept will be presented. It does not require any legislative changes. It takes the form of a ‘virtual tax’ that appears on the price tag of every product without being effectively paid and may be used as an indic, SCOPUS: ar.j, DecretOANoAutActif, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Why does Vuillemin consider in his Philosophie de l’algèbre the formal property of associativity as characteristic of acts of moral consciousness? What traces of this thesis remain in his work? The paper outlines some possible interpretations., SCOPUS: ar.k, DecretOANoAutActif, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be understood as a social interaction disorder. This requires researchers to take a second-person stance and to use experimental setups based on bidirectional interactions. The present work offers a quantitative description of movement patterns exhibited during computer-mediated real-time sensorimotor interaction in 10 dyads of adult participants, each consisting of one control individual (CTRL) and one individual with high-functioning autism (HFA). We applied time-series analyses to their movements and found two main results. First, multi-scale coordination between participants was present. Second, despite this dyadic alignment and our previous finding that individuals with HFA can be equally sensitive to the other's presence, individuals' movements differed in style: in contrast to CTRLs, HFA participants appeared less inclined to sustain mutual interaction and instead explored the virtual environment more generally. This finding is consistent with social motivation deficit accounts of ASD, as well as with hypersensitivity-motivated avoidance of overstimulation. Our research demonstrates the utility of time series analyses for the second-person stance and complements previous work focused on non-dynamical and performance-based variables.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be understood as a social interaction disorder. This makes the emerging second-person approach to social cognition a more promising framework for studying ASD than classical approaches focusing on mindreading capacities in detached, observer-based arrangements. According to the second-person approach, embodied, perceptual, and embedded or interactive capabilities are also required for understanding others, and these are hypothesized to be compromised in ASD. We therefore recorded the dynamics of real-time sensorimotor interaction in pairs of control participants and participants with High-Functioning Autism (HFA), using the minimalistic human-computer interface paradigm known as perceptual crossing (PC). We investigated whether HFA is associated with impaired detection of social contingency, i.e., a reduced sensitivity to the other's responsiveness to one's own behavior. Surprisingly, our analysis reveals that, at least under the conditions of this highly simplified, computer-mediated, embodied form of social interaction, people with HFA perform equally well as controls. This finding supports the increasing use of virtual reality interfaces for helping people with ASD to better compensate for their social disabilities. Further dynamical analyses are necessary for a better understanding of the mechanisms that are leading to the somewhat surprising results here obtained.