Social Simulation and Human Perception
11:25 - 13:05 | Meeting Room 3 (Level 0)
Chair: Rev. Prof. Stefan Attard
Mr Gian Paul Gauci
Department of Policy, Politics and Governance, Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountancy
Society faces ‘Wicked Problems’ like climate change, poverty, or criminality that seem nearly impossible to solve. The reason is simple but frustrating: unlike a chemist or a biologist, a policymaker cannot experiment. A scientist has a lab to test theories safely, but a politician has ‘no right to be wrong’ because a failed law can cause irreversible harm to real people. Consequently, we often stick to small, safe changes that fail to fix the root issues.
This presentation introduces ‘Wisdom of AI Crowds’, a new framework that solves this dilemma by creating a risk-free digital laboratory. Instead of testing laws on real populations, we test them on ‘Agentic AI’: digital citizens that are programmed with the actual values, beliefs, and behaviours of real stakeholders.
The framework operates in three clear phases: Input, Simulation, and Feedback. This creates a virtual ‘sandbox’ where researchers can essentially hit the fast-forward button to see the long-term effects of a policy years in advance. By generating ‘simulated hindsight’, this method allows us to find robust solutions to our toughest challenges without the real-world risk, effectively giving policymakers the safety of a laboratory for the first time.
Dr Edward Wright
Department of Pastoral Theology, Liturgy and Canon Law, Faculty of Theology
This thesis explores how adolescent vulnerability can be transformed into a source of hope through narrative meaning-making within the context of Catholic Religious Education (CRE). Situated at the interdisciplinary nexus of spirituality, psychology, and religious education, the study argues that narrative functions as a vital pedagogical and spiritual tool through which adolescents articulate experience, construct identity, and engage questions of meaning, faith, and belonging. Drawing on theological, psychological, and educational frameworks, the research conceptualises adolescence as a formative spiritual journey marked by fragility, searching, and agency rather than deficiency.
The study foregrounds adolescent voice, examining how narrative pedagogies within CRE can foster agency by enabling young people to interpret their lived experiences in dialogue with the Christian story. Particular attention is given to how vulnerability – often intensified by social, emotional, and existential pressures – can become a generative space for hope when adolescents are supported to narrate, reflect upon, and re-author their stories within a faith-informed educational environment. Theologically, the research engages Christian anthropology and narrative theology; psychologically, it draws on developmental and meaning-making theories; and educationally, it integrates constructivist and dialogical pedagogies.
Recognising the contemporary digital context, the thesis also investigates how adolescents explore spiritual needs and identity in digital spaces, including social media and online communities. These spaces are examined both as sites of risk and as emerging narrative arenas where spiritual questions, self-expression, and identity negotiation occur. The study proposes an integrative pedagogical framework for CRE that attends to digital narratives, honours adolescent experience, and bridges classroom practice with young people’s lived digital realities. In the end, the thesis offers a comprehensive model of narrative-based Catholic Religious Education that reframes teenage vulnerability as a site of hope, spiritual development, and agency.
Mr Godfrey Cutajar
Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences
Aim: To explore interdisciplinary team members' views on spirituality and spiritual care in a Maltese rehabilitation hospital for older adults.
Background: Extensive research within nursing and allied health disciplines highlights the role of spirituality and spiritual care in promoting holistic health outcomes; however, limited evidence exists on how these concepts are understood and implemented within interdisciplinary rehabilitation practice. This gap indicates the need to shift from discipline-specific perspectives toward exploring common understandings and practices of spiritual care in rehabilitation settings.
Method: The quantitative cross-sectional study is part of a larger study employing an Appreciative Inquiry design. The Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale Questionnaire (McSherry et al., 2002) was used to elicit data on healthcare professionals’(HCPs) perspectives on spirituality and spiritual care within a rehabilitation hospital setting. The questionnaire consisted of 65 Likert-scale items and one open-ended question. HCPs (n=72) of two rehabilitation wards were invited to participate.
Results: 72 questionnaires were distributed to all registered healthcare professionals. 64 questionnaires were completed (response rate: 89%). Findings demonstrated consistent recognition of patients’ spiritual needs across professional groups and engagement in spiritual care. However, gaps and inconsistencies were identified in formal education and training related to spiritual care.
Conclusion: Although interdisciplinary team members frequently encounter and respond to patients’ spiritual needs, spiritual care practices are guided by personal experience rather than structured clinical frameworks. This lack of standardisation raises concerns about the consistency and equity of care, underscoring the need for evidence-based education and the formal integration of spiritual care competencies into rehabilitation practice.
Ms Graziella Vella
Department of Counselling, Faculty for Social Wellbeing
The death of a loved one is a natural life experience. Bereavement, the life event following the death of someone we love, is a lifelong journey, since the death of a loved one alters our emotional landscape and daily reality. When a parent becomes terminally ill and dies, and when the bereaved is emerging into adulthood (aged 18–25 years), the bereaved experiences a double form of bereavement: the death of the parent, and the loss of themselves as they once were through their transition into adulthood.
In Malta, whilst death is seen as unavoidable, the public perception is that many avoid thinking and talking about death. Maltese society has conditioned us to consider death as a taboo. Still, when many are given the opportunity to talk about death and bereavement, they do so with a sense of relief and peace.
This research examines the lived experience of emerging adults who have lived through the terminal illness and death of a parent. This research also seeks to understand the local context in terms of how we discuss, or avoid discussing, death. The surrounding changes happening in Maltese society and culture will also be discussed in the context of the discourse about death. The ultimate scope of this research is to help break the taboo of talking about death and encourage the bereaved to seek the support they require to talk about their experience.
Ms Anna Riga
Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences
Dynamic illusions often create interesting differences between an object's actual and perceived direction of motion. For example, in the furrow illusion (Anstis, 2012; Anstis & Cavanagh, 2018; Cormack et al., 1992; Riga et al., 2025), a target moving vertically over oriented background lines will appear to follow the orientation of the background lines rather than its true path.
Recently, we described a new grouping principle called the bookend effect. When several illusory moving targets are placed in a row on top of background lines with alternating orientation, the whole group appears to move in the direction set by the two outermost elements (‘bookends’). Surprisingly, this happens even when the inner elements (‘books’) create strong illusory motion signals in the opposite direction. We hypothesise that spatial proximity and shared physical motion lead the visual system to construct a single, unified object representation for the entire group of targets. Within this group, the outer bookend elements strongly influence the perceived motion direction of the whole. Importantly, this isn't due to crowding, since the static and dynamic features of the inner elements can easily be reported. However, these inner features appear to contribute little to the perceived direction of the group's motion.
Through a series of experiments, we're exploring when the bookend effect occurs and whether the inner elements can ever influence the overall group motion. The bookend effect may help us better understand the Gestalt principle of ‘common fate’ (Wertheimer, 1923), especially in the context of illusory motion.