Cognitive Models for Gastronomic Creation and Innovation

Based on the reflections of super-chef Ferran Adrià and his team at el Bulli restaurant, thispaper explores how certain creative mechanisms, techniques and procedures surroundingavant-garde gastronomy can be analysed from an enactivist model of cognition in order to:(1) understand creativity in the kitchen; (2) characterise culinary innovation processes; (3)establish whether some of these processes are general enough to be re-used in other fieldsand so broaden our theoretical understanding of the processes and mechanisms involvedin creation and innovation. We present those features that are specific to gastronomy as acreative process to distinguish them from others that are generic enough to form part of alarger family of creative processes. The paper seeks to present new perspectives on bothsubject-specific and generic creation processes in haute cuisine.

Design Function in Innovation Processes

Some words emerge at a given moment to catalyse ideas and give new meaning to old terminology. Innovation and design are two such words. Innovation has traditionally been linked with the Applied Sciences, especially technology, whereas advances in the PureSciences tend to be termed discoveries, inventions, or creations. However, for decades now, innovation has been a leitmotiv in all fields of scientific knowledge in both the Pure and the Applied Sciences. Design has also emerged from the niche it once occupied for decades (andeven centuries) at least insofar as its impact on the History of Science and of Philosophy is concerned. In fact, design’s introduction into the academic world has gone hand-in-hand with Art and its impact on our daily lives. This paper analyses innovation processes in boththe Pure and the Applied Sciences to discover how far new design theories over the last few decades have influenced innovation in fields such as Epistemology and Technology. We focus on Design Epistemology and methodological innovation, specifically in connectionwith design simulations and methodological models. We also look at the underlying design technologies and the key role they play in innovation processes.

What the #®¥§≠$@ is Creativity?

Creativity is The Holy Grail of the Cognitive Sciences and it is very important for researchers in the Computer Sciences and AI fields. Although all attempts to explain and replicate intelligence have so far failed, the quest remains a key part of their research. This paper takes two innovative approaches. First, we see cognitive processes as involving rule-followingand as flexible, even chaotic, heuristics. This first concept uses a multi-heuristic concept without any complexes as mixed-cognition. Second, we propose abduction which, though seldom employed in this specific debate, is nonetheless a good way to explore creativity. Using both strategies, along with analysis of specific human creativity cases, we suggesta new cognitive paradigm that is both more realistic and truthful than hitherto. The idea is to offer a new way to achieve more powerful, complex artificial reasoning systems.

Emotional Confrontation and Public Deliberation on Paid Sex. The Struggle between Disgust and Shame.

In this paper, we address affective and motivational aspects in relation to the controversy, which can be articulated around a mediatised public issue. We are interested in how emotions are a part of the experience and definition of a phenomenon that is seen as intolerable and forwhich intervention is demanded and the strategic appeal to an affective repertoire in reaching aposition on the issue. We analyse the systems of meaning and emotions mobilised in the currentcontroversy about prostitution and trafficking of persons for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The goal here is to grasp how the perspectives involved employ emotional strategies in which basic affective dispositions and transitory emotions intersect, and how this affects deliberation on the issue. Discourses and stories, as well as defining and framing the emotions of the actors in the controversy furnish emotional experiences to their publics, encouraging them to incorporatecertain rules of feeling that form part of the moral and ideological perspectives promoted. Methodologically, we use an ethnographic approach to follow the conflict and a socio-semioticdiscourse analysis. Our case study covers two linked viral campaigns in social networks (Hola Putero and Hola Abolicionista). The goal is to reflect on the way in which setting and affectivestrategies hinder resolution of the issue.

Emotional Management in the Workplace of the Spanish Population. Quantitative Analysis through the Construction of an Emotional Quality Index at Work and its Link to Social Structure

The organisation of work, located in the post-Fordist paradigm, stresses the emotional aspects of employee-client interaction processes. This emphasis arises from the shift in the productive structure towards growth in service activities in which interpersonal relationships are key factors. In this "new culture", the organisation is conceived as a ‘sentient’ environment and emotional workcaptures the interest of researchers and social scientists who analyse the role played by emotionsin occupations and organisational culture (Zapf, 2002, Grandey 2000, 2015, Seymour and Sandiford2005, Bolton 2000, Wharton, 2009, Totterdell, and Holman, 2003). Most related research has focused on qualitative case studies of workers in the service sector (Steinberg and Figart, 1999) — an approach that limits the inferences one can make and hinders one in linking findings to the socialstructure. The aim of our research is to expand this field of analysis and explore the link between emotional management and social structure. That is why we used a quantitative methodology, for which purpose we built an Emotional Quality Index in the Workplace (EQIW), allowing us to measure the emotional quality of workers in Spain and analyse their relationship with the threekey structural variables: social class; occupation; gender. Here, we used data from the European Working Conditions Survey (2015). The results show that there are significant differences in the emotional management of work by occupation, social class and gender, verifying that there isindeed a link between the EQIW and the social structure.

The Objectification of European Identity in the Treaties and in European Institutions’ Declarations

This paper explores some aspects of the scientific study of creativity by focusing on intentionalattempts to create instances of linguistic humour. We argue that this sort of creativity canbe accounted for within an influential cognitive approach but that said framework is not arecipe for producing novel instances of humour and may even preclude them. We start byidentifying three great puzzles that arise when trying to pin down the core traits of creativity,and some of the ways taken by Cognitive Studies in this quest. We then consider what we call‘creative humour’, which exhibits the core features of the aforesaid creativity. We then explorehow a key cognitive approach to human communication can account for creative humour.We end by drawing lessons and highlighting limitations to cognitive approaches to creativity.

València — Sustainable Food World Capital. A Social Sciences Vision

The declaration of València as the World Sustainable Food Capital in 2017, based on the market-gardening system of l’Horta — an area girding the city, has put key subjects such as sustainable production and healthy eating on the public agenda. The process leading up to the declaration (which is in part a heritage-based project) has been fraught with contradictions and conflicts stemming from the city’s political, economic and identity dimensions. Examining this process from a Social Sciences angle is of value not only indrawing lessons but also for spawning debating forums in which solutions can be proposed.

Creativity, Humour, and Cognition

This paper explores some aspects of the scientific study of creativity by focusing on intentionalattempts to create instances of linguistic humour. We argue that this sort of creativity canbe accounted for within an influential cognitive approach but that said framework is not arecipe for producing novel instances of humour and may even preclude them. We start byidentifying three great puzzles that arise when trying to pin down the core traits of creativity,and some of the ways taken by Cognitive Studies in this quest. We then consider what we call‘creative humour’, which exhibits the core features of the aforesaid creativity. We then explorehow a key cognitive approach to human communication can account for creative humour.We end by drawing lessons and highlighting limitations to cognitive approaches to creativity.

Defining Depression: Endogenous Materialities, Exogenous Immaterialities

Definitions are narratives in action, implying a need to track down the ontology of what is defined. Inthis case, we explore the mutual tension and/or symbiosis (with consonant and dissonant spaces)arising from the definition of depression. We approach the term ‘depression’ as a controversialsubject, mapping a comparison between lay and expert narratives on the malaise, and makinguse of digital ethnography as the methodology. A self-administered online open questionnaire wascompleted with the definitions of 29 lay respondents. In addition, expert narratives were gatheredwith the definitions of 9 health institutions’ web sites, and public mediation forums. Definitionsechoed from both spaces, with splits between biological materiality and psychological-socialimmateriality, with a reiteration of the division between exogeneity and endogeneity, respectively.Here, the emotiveness of the subject can be seen as stemming from the sum of reductionismsand cumulative factors as to what depression is. Finally, we consider other possible ontologiesof depression that either: (1) take socio-material assemblies into account or (2) follow thepragmatical turn, defining depression in action. This research opens new approaches towardsidentifying external materialities, shifting the blame from the diagnosis of the individual towardsthe mechanisms that spawn harmful relationships.

Recipes for Happiness: a Proposal for Analysing the Moral Orientation of Actions and Emotions

This paper draws up a proposal for analysing discourses on paths to happiness. Recipes promoted by the happiness industry are studied as moral guidelines for social action: imperative messages spread through the Internet seek to guide their recipients in their quest for happiness. In a fielddominated by positive psychology, we approach happiness from a sociological perspective, which is to say as: an institutionalised social discourse; a form of social production; a socially-framed emotion. Research is based on systematic Internet observation and on quantitative and qualitative textual analysis procedures. We show how digital media in the ‘happiness’ field: (a) promotes recipes; (b) provides scientific legitimation for said recipes; (c) focuses on a generic individual as the recipient of the messages and as protagonist. A typology is proposed based on the meaning, nature and object of the actions that lead to happiness. Results show how recipes involve normative and moral orientations of actions and emotions: they indicate what to do and how to think andfeel to be happy. Happiness as a moral obligation involves most concerns shaping the agenda of contemporary societies, with a strong emphasis on individualism and on a utilitarian understanding of social relations and the social environment.