Uncovering variability in children's concepts and conceptual change

Capturing the structure and development of human conceptual knowledge is a challenging but fundamental task in Cognitive Science. The most prominent approach to uncovering these concepts is Multidimensional scaling (MDS), which has provided insight into the structure of human perception and conceptual knowledge. However, MDS usually requires participants to produce large numbers of similarity judgments, leading to prohibitively long experiments for most developmental research. Furthermore, MDS provides a single psychological space, tailored to a fixed set of stimuli. In contrast, we present a method that learns psychological spaces flexibly and generalizes to novel stimuli. In addition, our approach uses a simple, developmentally appropriate task, which allows for short and engaging developmental studies. We evaluate the feasibility of our approach on simulated data and find that it can uncover the true structure even when the data consists of aggregations of diverse categorizers. We then apply the method to data from the World Color Survey and find that it can discover language-specific color organization. Finally, we use the method in a novel developmental experiment and find age-dependent differences in conceptual spaces for fruit categories. These results suggest that our method is robust and widely applicable in developmental tasks with children as young as four years old.

Increased insula activity precedes the formation of subjective Gestalt

The constructive nature of human perception sometimes leads us to perceiving rather complex impressions from simple sensory input. Bistable stimuli give us a rare opportunity to study the neural mechanisms behind this process. Such stimuli can be visually interpreted as simple or as more complex on the basis of the same sensory input. Previous studies demonstrated increased activity in the superior parietal cortex when participants perceived an illusory Gestalt impression compared to a simpler interpretation of individual elements. Here we tested whether activity related to the illusory Gestalt can be detected not only during, but also prior to it, by examining the slow fluctuations of resting-state-fMRI activity before the stimulus onset. We presented 31 participants with a bistable motion stimulus, which can be perceived either as four moving dot pairs (local) or two moving illusory squares (global). This allowed us to isolate the specific neural mechanisms that accompany the experience of an illusion under matched sensory input. fMRI was used to measure brain activity in a sparse event-related design. We observed stronger IPS and putamen responses to the stimulus when participants perceived the global interpretation compared to local, confirming the previously reported role of these areas in perceptual grouping. Most importantly, we also observed that the global stimulus interpretation was preceded by an increased activity of the bilateral dorsal insula, which is known to process saliency and gate information for conscious access. Our data suggest an important role of the dorsal insula in shaping an internally generated illusory Gestalt percept.

Fits-and-Starts: The Changing Nature of the Material City

How and why does the material city in the late 20th and early 21st century change? This article examines one type of prominent urban change, which is “fits-and-starts” and represents change that is concentrated in space and time and that nonetheless has longer term repercussions with high economic and environmental costs. Through a review of the literature and an illuminating case study in Las Vegas, this article reveals how human perception and decision-making via two interrelated phenomena, future speculation and manufactured obsolescence, drive such change. The case study in Las Vegas is particularly fascinating because as a city of apparent extremes, it not only reveals in clear relief phenomena that are present in the capitalist city but it also offers insights into basic patterns of decision-making that actually shape—or design—the contemporary city. The article concludes with more general insights into the nature of this type of urban change and implications for alternative types of urban practices.

Chemical and Sensorial Characterization of Scented and Non-Scented Alstroemeria Hybrids

Floral scent plays an important ecological role attracting pollinators. Its composition has been elucidated for a vast diversity of species and is dominated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as monoterpenoids, sesquiterpenoids, phenylpropanoids and benzenoid compounds. Considering that floral scent is also an important character for the ornamental plant market, this study was aimed at characterizing and comparing the molecular composition of scented and non-scented alstroemeria flowers. Confirmation of floral scent was performed through sensorial analysis, while GC-MS analysis detected monoterpenes and esters as major volatile organic compounds (VOCs). A total of 19 and 17 VOCs were detected in the scented hybrids 13M07 and 14E07, respectively. The non-scented hybrid 13B01 shared 14 VOCs with the scented hybrids, although it showed different relative concentrations. Comparison between scented and non-scented hybrids suggests that diversity and amounts of VOCs are likely due to the ecological role of scent, while the human perception of floral scent is not strictly related to the VOC profile.

Waiting for Geotropic Forces: Bergsonian Duration and the Ecological Sympathies of Biodesign

Biodesign disrupts the traditional temporalities of expectation and demand in wider design economies because designers are not selecting from a range of prefabricated samples from which they manufacture a product. Instead, they are plunged into the durations of other organisms for the simple reason that they must wait for something to grow. Situated in this context, this article considers how we might conceptualize these events of “waiting” such that we intensify their importance for ecological thought. In the philosophy of Henri Bergson, events of waiting are important as a mode of intuiting a register of movement beyond human habits of perception, what he refers to as duration. In this article, I suggest that thinking events of waiting in biodesign via Bergson intervenes in debates surrounding posthuman creativity, not because it multiplies creative agents but because it cultivates a sympathy for temporal ecologies from which human perception is alienated.

Improving Crisis Communication Efficiency Through Nudging

Human action is not rational, and this irrationality manifests itself especially in decisions under uncertainty – the COVID-19 pandemic is one example of many in this respect. At the same time, various branches of research have been able to identify systematic patterns in irrational human behavior, and these have been attempted to be subsumed under the umbrella term of 'nudging'. Nudging describes the intentional change of decision architectures with the purpose of transforming irrationalities and/or distortions of human perception into predictable action. Thus, nudging represents a potent communication tool, especially in crisis communication scenarios. After presenting the basic theoretical assumptions of nudging, two examples of highly effective crisis communication strategies employed during the COVID-19 pandemic will be used to illustrate, contextualize, and reflect on central mechanisms and workings of nudging. This chapter ends with a summary of the most central findings as well as a critical reflection on potential future fields of action.

Counter-Hacking the Subconscious Mind

This chapter addresses the destructive impact of the media sphere on human perception. Humanity is currently facing an avalanche of cataclysmic events which have been abused by the media sphere to provoke fear and psychosis. This toxic propaganda has gradually infected the subconscious mind with false belief systems and negative habitual thinking patterns. To provide a broader perspective on some of the core working principles of conscious and subconscious perception and the role of the brain, there is a discussion about levels of consciousness, brainwaves, the RAS (reticular activating system), and neuroplasticity. The application of these principles enables the development of a benign and practical method for counter-hacking the subconscious heart-mind as an antidote for the catastrophic influence of the media sphere on human perception. The concepts of this methodology can be integrated into a PEG (psychecology educational game). Such a game holds the potential to increase global coherence by providing a timely yet symptomatic antidote for toxic intention in the media sphere.