scholarly journals Learning to embed lifetime social behavior from interaction dynamics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wild ◽  
David M Dormagen ◽  
Michael L Smith ◽  
Tim Landgraf
Keyword(s):  
Functional Role ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Common Factors ◽  
Biologically Relevant ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Factorization Model ◽  
Complex Social Systems ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Emergent Behaviors

Interactions of individuals in complex social systems give rise to emergent behaviors at the group level. Identifying the functional role that individuals take in the group at a specific time facilitates understanding the dynamics of these emergent processes. An individual's behavior at a given time can be partially inferred by common factors, such as age, but internal and external factors also substantially influence behavior, making it difficult to disentangle common development from individuality. Here we show that such dependencies on common factors can be used as an implicit bias to learn a temporally consistent representation of a functional role from social interaction networks. Using a unique dataset containing lifetime trajectories of multiple generations of individually-marked honey bees in two colonies, we propose a new temporal matrix factorization model that jointly learns the average developmental path and structured variations of individuals in the social network over their entire lives. Our method yields inherently interpretable embeddings that are biologically relevant and consistent over time, allowing one to compare individuals' functional roles regardless of when or in which colony they lived. Our method provides a quantitative framework for understanding behavioral heterogeneity in complex social systems, and is applicable to fields such as behavioral biology, social sciences, neuroscience, and information science.

A missing link: a distributed cognitive perspective on fit

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gayanga Bandara Herath
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Cognitive Framework ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Complex Social Systems

PurposeThis article presents a cognitive framework to study dynamic/adaptive aspects of a collection of popular fit measures used in organisation research, in an attempt to highlight what there is to be gained.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a distributed e-cognition (DEC) framework to examine the current organisational literature of fit measures.FindingsThis paper highlights that most measures have a rather narrow focus and do not address dynamic/adaptive aspects in complex social systems (e.g. organisations). To both provide a way to integrate fit measures and cover the cognition gap in this literature, this article highlights the need for a more sophisticated measure.Originality/valueThis paper provides a novel approach to examining organisational fit literature through a distributed (e)-cognitive framework.

scholarly journals Health inequality as a large-scale outcome of complex social systems: Lessons for action on the sustainable development goals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Matheson
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Health Inequality ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Power Relationships ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Complex Social Systems

© 2020 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needs to become real and impactful, taking a “whole systems” perspective on levers for systems change. This article reviews what we have learned over the past century about the large-scale outcome of health inequality, and what we know about the behaviour of complex social systems. This combined knowledge provides lessons on the nature of inequality and what effective action on our big goals, like the SDGs, might look like. It argues that economic theories and positivist social theories which have dominated the last 150 years have largely excluded the nature of human connections to each other, and the environment. This exclusion of intimacy has legitimatised arguments that only value-free economic processes matter for macro human systems, and only abstract measurement constitutes valuable social science. Theories of complex systems provide an alternative perspective. One where health inequality is viewed as emergent, and causes are systemic and compounding. Action therefore needs to be intensely local, with power relationships key to transformation. This requires conscious and difficult intervention on the intolerable accumulation of resources; improved reciprocity between social groups; and reversal of system flows, which at present ebb away from the local and those already disadvantaged.

Fuzzy Models for Complex Social Systems Using Distributed Agencies in Poverty Studies

2011 ◽  
pp. 391-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bogart Yail Márquez ◽  
Manuel Castanon-Puga ◽  
Juan R. Castro ◽  
E. Dante Suarez ◽  
Sergio Magdaleno-Palencia
Keyword(s):  
Social Systems ◽  
Fuzzy Models ◽  
Complex Social Systems

Semantics, conceptual role

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ned Block
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Good Health ◽  
Procedural Semantics ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Conceptual Role Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Role

According to conceptual role semantics (CRS), the meaning of a representation is the role of that representation in the cognitive life of the agent, for example, in perception, thought and decision-making. It is an extension of the well-known ‘use’ theory of meaning, according to which the meaning of a word is its use in communication and, more generally, in social interaction. CRS supplements external use by including the role of a symbol inside a computer or a brain. The uses appealed to are not just actual, but also counterfactual: not only what effects a thought does have, but what effects it would have had if stimuli or other states had differed. Of course, so defined, the functional role of a thought includes all sorts of causes and effects that are non-semantic, for example, perhaps happy thoughts can bolster one’s immunity, promoting good health. Conceptual roles are functional roles minus such non-semantic causes and effects. The view has arisen separately in philosophy (where it is sometimes called ‘inferential’ or ‘functional’ role semantics) and in cognitive science (where it is sometimes called ‘procedural semantics’).

Whole Systems/Holistic Approaches in Individual and Collective Levels

2010 ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Murako Saito
Keyword(s):  
Business Performance ◽  
Organizational Transformation ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
Collective Levels ◽  
Complex Social Systems ◽  
Action Coupling ◽  
Whole Systems

In managing complexity and ambiguity, we need holistic or whole systems approaches. Complementary systemic approaches to integrate some separate systems are needed for fostering organizational adaptability or organizational flexibility in the changing social environment. It is not sufficient simply to keep in line with the standards established in the past by a particular discipline, but it is important to encourage the participants to progress for coping with the changes in society. Cognitive misfits between individual and organizational levels result in a decrement of quality of service which actually leads to the decrement of business performance. Conceptual frameworks of whole systems of human society, namely conceptual frameworks of human cognition and action in individual and collective levels are introduced for discussing the alignment of cognitive misfits and transformation of organizational culture. Classifications and categorizations are also introduced for further analysis of human cognition-action coupling process in individual and collective levels. Typology of the methodologies for intervening into complex social systems is discussed in the latter part of this chapter for pursuing the assessment and control of various method biases and also for determining the axes in mapping cognition-action in the actual fields. Continuous inquiry into the good and intervention to complex social systems play crucial roles in the approaches toward effective organizational transformation.

Role of Feedback Connections in Central Visual Processing

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 313-334
Author(s):  
Farran Briggs
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Physiological Response ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Vision Science ◽  
The Core ◽  
Feedback Circuits ◽  
Corticothalamic Feedback ◽  
Feedback Connections

The physiological response properties of neurons in the visual system are inherited mainly from feedforward inputs. Interestingly, feedback inputs often outnumber feedforward inputs. Although they are numerous, feedback connections are weaker, slower, and considered to be modulatory, in contrast to fast, high-efficacy feedforward connections. Accordingly, the functional role of feedback in visual processing has remained a fundamental mystery in vision science. At the core of this mystery are questions about whether feedback circuits regulate spatial receptive field properties versus temporal responses among target neurons, or whether feedback serves a more global role in arousal or attention. These proposed functions are not mutually exclusive, and there is compelling evidence to support multiple functional roles for feedback. In this review, the role of feedback in vision will be explored mainly from the perspective of corticothalamic feedback. Further generalized principles of feedback applicable to corticocortical connections will also be considered.

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