Search

This article introduces Turing’s idea of a “paper machine” to identify and understand one important mode of clinical research in the modern hospital, how that research worked, and how offic...

Social interactions have large effects on individual physiology and fitness. In the immediate sense, social stimuli are often highly salient and engaging. Over longer time scales, competitive interactions often lead to distinct social ranks and differences in physiology and behavior. Understanding how initial responses lead to longer-term effects of social interactions requires examining the changes in responses over time. Here we examined the effects of social interactions on transcriptomic signatures at two times, at the end of a 45-minute interaction and 4 hours later, in female Polistes fuscatus paper wasp foundresses. Female P. fuscatus have variable facial patterns that are used for visual individual recognition, so we separately examined the transcriptional dynamics in the optic lobe and the non-visual brain. Results demonstrate much stronger transcriptional responses to social interactions in the non-visual brain compared to the optic lobe. Differentially regulated genes in response to social interactions are enriched for memory-related transcripts. Comparisons between winners and losers of the encounters revealed similar overall transcriptional profiles at the end of an interaction, which significantly diverged over the course of 4 hours, with losers showing changes in expression levels of genes associated with aggression and reproduction in paper wasps. On nests, subordinate foundresses are less aggressive, do more foraging and lay fewer eggs compared to dominant foundresses and we find losers shift expression of many genes in the non-visual brain, including vitellogenin, related to aggression, worker behavior, and reproduction within hours of losing an encounter. These results highlight the early neurogenomic changes that likely contribute to behavioral and physiological effects of social status changes in a social insect., Author summary Aggressive interactions often create inequalities–some individuals win while others lose. Winning versus losing can lead to large physiological differences between individuals, including different neurogenomic profiles between winners and losers. How this information about contest outcome leads to distinct neurogenomic profiles is poorly understood. Here we examine gene expression in response to aggressive social encounters in paper wasps, which naturally form dominance hierarchies on their nests in the wild. Shortly following encounters winners and losers have similar expression profiles, likely because similar mechanisms are engaged by social experiences. Four hours later, we find divergent neurogenomic profiles between winners and losers, with losers showing larger shifts in expression compared to winners. Many of the most dynamically expressed genes have been previously associated with dominance and caste differences in paper wasps showing how a single interaction can engage many of the same genomic networks that are involved in mediating more dramatic differences in queen-worker behavioral differences are also involved in responses shortly following social interactions.

The aim of this paper is to disclose linguistic evidence of the use and function of metaphors in medical discourse, by comparing their incidence in two genres, namely research papers and press articles. For that purpose, a sample of texts in both genres is analysed. Four types of conceptual metaphorical projections are identified according to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (i.e. structural, image, ontological, and orientational). Subsequently, the relation of these mappings with cognitive functions – categorization and conceptualization – is described. The purpose is to explore the role these functions play in knowledge construction and their implications for communicative aspects of metaphor usage. The results suggest a characterization of metaphorical concepts in the two medical genres. The conclusions show divergent tendencies in the use of metaphor and its cognitive and communicative functions in the genres analysed.

The paper first examines the contours of artificial intelligence (AI) at its beginnings, more than sixty years ago, and points out the important place that machine learning already had at that time. The ambition of AI of making machines capable of performing any information processing task that the human mind can do, means that AI should cover the two modes of human thinking: the instinctive (reactive) one and the deliberative one. This also corresponds to the difference between mastering a skill without being able to articulate it and holding some pieces of knowledge that one can use to explain and teach. In case a function-based representation applies to a considered AI problem, the respective merits of learning a universal approximation of the function vs. a rule-based representation are discussed, with a view to better draw the contours of AI. Moreover, the paper reviews the relative positions of knowledge and data in reasoning and learning, and advocates the need for bridging the two tasks. The paper is also a plea for a unified view of the various facets of AI as a science.

This paper aims at discussing the interest to use multisensory technologies for humans cognition training. First it introduces multisensory interactions making a focus on advancement in two fields: Human-Computer Interaction and mulsemedia. Second, it presents two different multisensory systems resulting from Robadom and StimSense projects that could be adapted for the community. Then, this paper defines the concept of scenagram and gives its application scopes, boundaries and use cases, offering a first classification of this new concept.

How do humans adapt when others exploit patterns in their behavior? When can people modify such patterns and when are they simply trapped? The present work explores these questions using the children’s game of rock, paper, scissors (RPS). Adult participants played 300 rounds of RPS against one of eight bot opponents. The bots chose a move each round by exploiting unique sequential regularities in participant move choices. In order to avoid losing against their bot opponent, participants needed to recognize the ways in which their own behavior was predictable and disrupt the pattern. We find that for simple biases, participants were able to recognize that they were being exploited and even counter-exploit their opponents. However, for more complex sequential dependencies, participants were unable to change their behavior and lost reliably to the bots. Results provide a quantitative delineation of people’s ability to identify and alter patterns in their past decisions.

Successful problem solving relies on the availability of suitable mental representations of the task domain. Especially for more complex problems, there might be a wide variety of possible problem representations, and it might even be beneficial to change them during problem solving. In a first part, we argue that investigating the dynamics of understanding in terms of dynamically changing problem representations is an underexplored aspect of problem solving research, and that most classic tasks even preclude the opportunity of such dynamics to occur. Continuing this theoretical discussion, as an illustrative example of a task designed for the exploration of such representational dynamics, the second part of the paper discusses a novel, complex spatial transformation and problem solving task. In this task, one is asked to repeatedly mentally cross-fold a sheet of paper, and to predict the resulting sheet geometry without the use of external aids. Through its deliberate openness and difficulty, this task requires finding new and more efficient representations – ranging from kinaesthetic and visuospatial imagery to symbolic notions. We present an overview of the task domain and discuss various ways of representing the domain as well as potential dynamics between them.

Wilder Penfield is justly famous for his contributions to our understanding of epilepsy and of the structure-function relationship of the brain. His theory on the relationship of the brain and mind is less well known. Based on the effects of the electrical stimulation of the cortex in conscious patients, Penfield believed that consciousness and mind are functions of what he referred to as the centrencephalic integrating system. This functional system comprised bidirectional pathways between the upper brainstem, the thalami, and the cerebral cortex of both hemispheres, and was the physical substrate from which memory, perception, initiative, will, and judgment arose. It was the source of the stream of consciousness and the physical basis of mind. This paper reviews how Penfield arrived at this conception of the mind-brain relationship. Although Penfield ultimately felt that he had failed in his attempt to unify brain and mind, his work shed new light on the relationship of memory to the mesial temporal structures and to the temporal cortex; and his association of consciousness and the brainstem preceded the conceptualization of the reticular activating system by a generation. In these, as in so many aspects of neurobiology, Penfield was prescient.

The intersection of art and science is a space useful not only to communicate scientific concepts to the general public but also to allow those of us studying biology in depth to view our work in a different light. I myself enjoy playing with the universality of anatomy, that is its bits and pieces that compose every human being. In mixing these with an array of mediums, colours, and textures, I hope to evoke a multiplicity of emotions in the viewer.

Science is increasingly done in large teams, making it more likely that papers will be written by several authors from different institutes, disciplines, and cultural backgrounds. A small number of “Ten simple rules” papers have been written on collaboration and on writing but not on combining the two. Collaborative writing with multiple authors has additional challenges, including varied levels of engagement of coauthors, provision of fair credit through authorship or acknowledgements, acceptance of a diversity of work styles, and the need for clear communication. Miscommunication, a lack of leadership, and inappropriate tools or writing approaches can lead to frustration, delay of publication, or even the termination of a project. To provide insight into collaborative writing, we use our experience from the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) to frame 10 simple rules for collaboratively writing a multi-authored paper. We consider a collaborative multi-authored paper to have three or more people from at least two different institutions. A multi-authored paper can be a result of a single discrete research project or the outcome of a larger research program that includes other papers based on common data or methods. The writing of a multi-authored paper is embedded within a broader context of planning and collaboration among team members. Our recommended rules include elements of both the planning and writing of a paper, and they can be iterative, although we have listed them in numerical order. It will help to revisit the rules frequently throughout the writing process. With the 10 rules outlined below, we aim to provide a foundation for writing multi-authored papers and conducting exciting and influential science.

This is a modern horror story about an innocently misbehaving projector, and why we beseech everyone to report minimal col- orimetric data about stimulus displays. We present anecdotal experience of configuring a projector to display video stimuli in a high-tesla MRI room, along with all the gotchas, (broken) technical assumptions, and theoretical rehashings that should be considered by every scientist who uses computers to dis- play visual stimuli. The moral of our story is: (1) check that your monitor/projector is actually showing the colors and lu- minances that you think it is, (2) make explicit assumptions regarding the physical/perceptual space of your stimuli and how they relate to any model analysis you will perform. This is especially important when modeling non-human animals, since most equipment and data formats implicitly assume hu- man perception. We show that innocent changes to display settings such as brightness reduction can cause dangerously unexpected results. Understanding and reporting colorimetric data in scientific publications is important for two reasons: (1) reproducibility, and (2) model fidelity.

In our planned study, we shall empirically study the assessment of cited papers within the framework of the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. We are interested in the question whether citation decisions are (mainly) driven by the quality of cited references. The design of our study is oriented towards the study by Teplitskiy, Duede [10]. We shall undertake a survey of corresponding authors with an available email address in the Web of Science database. The authors are asked to assess the quality of papers that they cited in previous papers. Some authors will be assigned to three treatment groups that receive further information alongside the cited paper: citation information, information on the publishing journal (journal impact factor), or a numerical access code to enter the survey. The control group will not receive any further numerical information. In the statistical analyses, we estimate how (strongly) the quality assessments of the cited papers are adjusted by the respondents to the anchor value (citation, journal, or access code). Thus, we are interested in whether possible adjustments in the assessments can not only be produced by quality-related information (citation or journal), but also by numbers that are not related to quality, i.e. the access code. The results of the study may have important implications for quality assessments of papers by researchers and the role of numbers, citations, and journal metrics in assessment processes.

“There is no problem that a library card can't solve” according to author Eleanor Brown [1]. This advice is sound, probably for both life and science, but even the best tool (like the library) is most effective when accompanied by instructions and a basic understanding of how and when to use it. For many budding scientists, the first day in a new lab setting often involves a stack of papers, an email full of links to pertinent articles, or some promise of a richer understanding so long as one reads enough of the scientific literature. However, the purpose and approach to reading a scientific article is unlike that of reading a news story, novel, or even a textbook and can initially seem unapproachable. Having good habits for reading scientific literature is key to setting oneself up for success, identifying new research questions, and filling in the gaps in one’s current understanding; developing these good habits is the first crucial step. Advice typically centers around two main tips: read actively and read often. However, active reading, or reading with an intent to understand, is both a learned skill and a level of effort. Although there is no one best way to do this, we present 10 simple rules, relevant to novices and seasoned scientists alike, to teach our strategy for active reading based on our experience as readers and as mentors of undergraduate and graduate researchers, medical students, fellows, and early career faculty. Rules 1–5 are big picture recommendations. Rules 6–8 relate to philosophy of reading. Rules 9–10 guide the “now what?” questions one should ask after reading and how to integrate what was learned into one’s own science.

Many books and other published recommendations provide a large, sometimes excessive amount of information to be included, and of mistakes to be avoided in research papers for academic journals. However, there is a lack of simple and clear recommendations on how to write such scientific articles. To make life easier for new authors, we propose a simple hypothesis-based approach, which consistently follows the study hypothesis, section by section throughout the manuscript: The introduction section should develop the study hypothesis, by introducing and explaining the relevant concepts, connecting these concepts and by stating the study hypotheses to be tested at the end. The material and methods section must describe the sample or material, the tools, instruments, procedures and analyses used to test the study hypothesis. The results section must describe the study sample, the data collected and the data analyses that lead to the confirmation or rejection of the hypothesis. The discussion must state if the study hypothesis has been confirmed or rejected, if the study result is comparable to, and compatible with other research. It should evaluate the reliability and validity of the study outcome, clarify the limitations of the study and explore the relevance of the supported or rejected hypothesis for clinical practice and future research. If needed, an abstract at the beginning of the manuscript, usually structured in objectives, material and methods, results and conclusions, should provide summaries in two to three sentences for each section. Acknowledgements, declarations of ethical approval, of informed consent by study subjects, of interests by authors and a reference list will be needed in most scientific journals.

This article is a tribute to Lewis Wolpert and his ideas on the occasion of the recent 50th anniversary of the publication of his article ‘Positional Information and the Spatial Pattern of Differentiation’. This tribute relates to another one of his ideas: his early ‘Progress Zone’ timing model for limb development. Recent evidence is reviewed showing a mechanism sharing features with this model patterning the main body axis in early vertebrate development. This tribute celebrates the golden era of Developmental Biology.

This chapter explores the connections between traumatic memories, animated metamorphosis, and the body in Michele Cournoyer’s animated short film The Hat (Le Chapeau, 1999). Focusing on the sustained metamorphosis of the body, Richards explores the ways animation can be used to blur the boundaries between past and present, collapsing temporal linearity and linking traumatic memory to the body. In doing so, this essay describes the ways with which animation can act as a memory text, forgoing narrative causality, non-linear time, and interrogating the subjective and personal nature of memory.

A game of rock-paper-scissors is an interesting example of an interaction where none of the pure strategies strictly dominates all others, leading to a cyclic pattern. In this work, we consider an unstable version of rock-paper-scissors dynamics and allow individuals to make behavioural mistakes during the strategy execution. We show that such an assumption can break a cyclic relationship leading to a stable equilibrium emerging with only one strategy surviving. We consider two cases: completely random mistakes when individuals have no bias towards any strategy and a general form of mistakes. Then, we determine conditions for a strategy to dominate all other strategies. However, given that individuals who adopt a dominating strategy are still prone to behavioural mistakes in the observed behaviour, we may still observe extinct strategies. That is, behavioural mistakes in strategy execution stabilise evolutionary dynamics leading to an evolutionary stable and, potentially, mixed co-existence equilibrium., Author summary A game of rock-paper-scissors is more than just a children’s game. This type of interactions is often used to describe competition among animals or humans. A special feature of such an interaction is that none of the pure strategies dominates, resulting in a cyclic pattern. However, in wild communities such interactions are rarely observed by biologists. Our results suggest that this lack of cyclicity may stem from imperfectness of interacting individuals. In other words, we show analytically that heterogeneity in behavioural patterns may break a cyclic relationship and lead to a stable equilibrium in pure or mixed strategies.

Standard computing will be characterized as a functional extension of syntax. Using BICA claim of continuity between human-animal-robot cognitive architectures, we will define strong semantics as the ability of a cognitive architectures to consult cognitive maps, in particular phenomenal content maps (Damasio, 2010). This follows the work on semantic maps, yet the maps we postulate are based on phenomenal markers not syntax and predicative logic. We define extra strong semantic maps (and extra strong computing in general) as those that go beyond human capabilities. The goal of strong semantic computing in autonomous robotics should be to ‘know what is going on’ (Sanz, 2012) before engaging in detailed logical analysis. Such sort of Gestalt computing is needed in advanced autonomous robotics, especially robots functioning in human environments.

The human brain is probably the most complex object in the universe, and also one of the least understood. For example, how the brain produces the mind and consciousness is a complete mystery. Nevertheless, the brain is amenable to measurements of various kinds that produce lots of data. It is a spatial object residing in the skull; it is also temporal in the sense that neurons communicate by signals that take traverse the brain network over time. In this paper we ask whether spatio-temporal data analysis can contribute to its understanding. Toward this goal we propose several research directions that are inspired by GIS work. However, these are just examples, and other work on moving objects in space or on networks is applicable.

One hundred and twenty years ago, Freud commenced his transition from neurologist to psychoanalyst and furnished us with his ‘Project for a scientific psychology’ of the mind. So began a necessary ...

Gianni Nebbiosi’s paper speaks to therapeutic action in a new key in the challenges of finding communion with a hard-to-reach patient. He achieves this through the creative interweaving of the nonsymbolic, his mime and music, and the symbolic, which attains greater purchase through painful personal reckoning in concert with his increasing awareness of previously unformulated states within and between each member of this particular analytic dyad. Central to this paper is the move from an empathic stance to greater complexity for each of the dyad. Distinguishing between empathy and recognition is germane. Particularly as we witness the transformation through therapeutic action of empathic presence to recognizing presence that permits the emergence of a more complex empathy—an achieved empathy that incorporates feeling and knowing the multiple, more deeply held, and often paradoxical aspects of our patients and indeed of ourselves as these play out in intersubjective space.

The International Conference on Cognitive Modeling brings together researchers from around the world whose main goal is to build computational systems that reflect the internal processes of the mind. In this issue, we present the four best representative papers on this work from our 18th meeting, ICCM 2020, which was also the first meeting to be held virtually. Two of these papers develop novel techniques for building larger and more complex models using Reinforcement Learning and Learning By Instruction, respectively. The other two show how cognitive models connect to neuroscience, drawing on details of the hippocampus and cerebellum to constrain and explain the cognitive processes involved in memory and conditioning.

The need to complete multiple tasks concurrently is a common occurrence both daily life and in occupational activities, which can often include simultaneous cognitive and physical demands. As one example, there is increasing availability of head-worn display technologies that can be employed when a user is mobile (e.g., while walking). This new method of information presentation may, however, introduce risks of adverse outcomes such as a decrement to gait performance. The goal of this study was thus to quantify the effects of a head-worn display (i.e., smart glasses) on motor variability during gait and to compare these effects with those of other common information displays (i.e., smartphone and paper-based system). Twenty participants completed four walking conditions, as a single task and in three dual-task conditions (three information displays). In the dual-task conditions, the information display was used to present several cognitive tasks. Three different measures were used to quantify variability in gait parameters for each walking condition (using the cycle-to-cycle standard deviation, sample entropy, and the “goal-equivalent manifold” approach). Our results indicated that participants used less adaptable gait strategies in dual-task walking using the paper-based system and smartphone conditions compared with single-task walking. Gait performance, however, was less affected during dual-task walking with the smart glasses. We conclude that the risk of an adverse gait event (e.g., a fall) in head-down walking conditions (i.e., the paper-based system and smartphone conditions) were higher than in single-task walking, and that head-worn displays might help reduce the risk of such events during dual-task gait conditions.

Reading primary research literature is an essential skill for all scientists and students on science degree programmes, however little is known about how researchers at different career stages interact with and interpret scientific papers. To explore this, we conducted a survey of 260 undergraduate students and researchers in Biological Sciences at a research intensive UK university. Responses to Likert scale questions demonstrated increases in confidence and skill with reading the literature between individuals at each career stage, including between postdoctoral researchers and faculty academics. The survey indicated that individuals at different career stages valued different sections of scientific papers, and skill in reading the results section develops slowly over the course of an academic career. Inexperienced readers found the methods and results sections of research papers the most difficult to read, and undervalued the importance of the results section and critical interpretation of data. These data highlight a need for structured support with reading scientific literature at multiple career stages, and for senior academics to be aware that junior colleagues may prioritise their reading differently. We propose a model for the development of literature processing skills, and consider the need for training strategies to help inexperienced readers engage with primary literature, and therefore develop important skills that underpin scientific careers. We also encourage researchers to be mindful of language used when writing papers, and to be more inclusive of diverse audiences when disseminating their work.

Introduction Neil Mercer focuses his paper on the relationship between individual and collective thinking processes. He starts from rather recent developments stating that the concept of the ‘social brain’ emphasizes that human intelligence is intrinsically social. Neil Mercer raises the important problem of “the functional connections between collective and individual thinking activities, and the role of language in those activities.” I...

This paper focuses on pattern generalisation as a way to introduce young students to early algebra. We build on research on patterning activities that feature, in their work with algebraic thinking, both looking for sameness recursively in a pattern (especially figural patterns, but also numerical ones) and conjecturing about function-based relationships that relate variables. We propose a new approach to pattern generalisation that seeks to help children (grades 2 and 3) work both recursively and functionally, and to see how these two modes are connected through the notion of variable. We argue that a crucial change must occur in order for young learners to develop a flexible algebraic discourse. We draw on Sfard’s (2008) communication approach and on Châtelet’s (2000) notion of the virtual in order to pursue this argument. We also root our analyses within a new materialist perspective that seeks to describe phenomena in terms of material entanglement, which include, in our classroom research context, not just the children and the teacher, but also words, gestures, physical objects and arrangements, as well as numbers, operations and variables.