Category: Social-Technical
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A generic self-learning emotional framework for machines
“A generic self-learning emotional framework for machines” In nature, intelligent living beings have developed emotions to modulate their behavior as a fundamental evolutionary advantage. However, researchers seeking to endow machines with this advantage lack a clear theory from cognitive neuroscience describing emotional elicitation from first principles, namely, from raw observations to specific affects. As a…
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what felt like a communication problem is a thinking problem
“Betting blind on AI and the scientific mind” Our brains when we stop writing Writing is, for many, a way of thinking. Using chatbots to bypass the struggle to articulate thoughts might erode a scientist’s capacity for creativity and critical thinking, writes science-communication educator and neuroscientist Tim Requarth. The evidence either way is, so far,…
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Inferring to cooperate: Bayesian inferential strategies
“Inferring to cooperate: Evolutionary games with Bayesian inferential strategies” Strategies for sustaining cooperation and preventing exploitation by selfish agents in repeated games have mostly been restricted to Markovian strategies where the response of an agent depends on the actions in the previous round. Such strategies are characterized by lack of learning.However, learning from accumulated evidence…
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Collective intelligence as collective information processing
“Collective intelligence as collective information processing” Collective intelligence research spans multiple disciplines and focuses on a broad range of collective behaviors, including group problem-solving, flocking in social animals, and the formation of social knowledge. It is not apparent what these different forms of collective intelligence have in common, apart from being instances of collective behavior.…
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The coevolution of cognition and sociality
“The coevolution of cognition and sociality“ Cognition serves to resolve uncertainty. Living in social groups is widely seen as a source of uncertainty driving cognitive evolution, but sociality can also mitigate sources of uncertainty, reducing the need for cognition.Moreover, social systems are not simply external selection pressures but rather arise from the decisions individuals make…
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Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis
“Homo sapiens, industrialisation and the environmental mismatch hypothesis”. For the vast majority of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, a range of natural environments defined the parameters within which selection shaped human biology. Although human-induced alterations to the terrestrial biosphere have been evident for over 10,000 years, the pace and scale of change has accelerated dramatically since…
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Complex Systems Frameworks Collection
Complex Systems Frameworks Collection The Complex Systems Frameworks Collection is a gerat resource for navigating an increasingly complex world. Over time, people have developed many excellent frameworks, analogies and models for understanding complexity. This collection brings them together in an illustrated collection to help you: Because complex isn’t the same as complicated. Each framework has its…
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Something Disturbing Happens … With ChatGPT
“Something Disturbing Happens When You “Learn” Something With ChatGPT” (Text and image are from the original article) ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are replacing the search engine. Instead of letting you suffer the laborious task of looking up sources of information, these powerful large language models will simply concoct an answer for you, with the…
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Keep the hands in mind
Keep the hands in mind: A meta-analysis of correlations between fine motor skills and reading, writing, mathematics, and cognitive development in children and adolescents” Evidence suggests that fine motor skills (FMS) relate to academic and cognitive development; however, findings are unclear, strewn across multiple disciplines, and lack adequate synthesis. We conducted the first comprehensive meta-analysis…
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Collective predictive coding
“Collective predictive coding as model of science: formalizing scientific activities towards generative science” This article proposes a new conceptual framework called collective predictive coding as a model of science (CPC‑MS) to formalize and understand scientific activities. Building on the idea of CPC originally developed to explain symbol emergence, CPC‑MS models science as a decentralized Bayesian…
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Cultural Evolution of the Arts: arcade games
“The cultural macroevolution of arcade video games: innovation, collaboration, and collapse” Arcade video games evolved in a constrained design space, following patterns of diversification, stabilisation, and collapse that mirror macroevolutionary processes. Despite their historical significance and detailed digital records, arcade games remain underexplored in cultural evolution research. Drawing on a dataset of 7,205 machines spanning…
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A Relational View of Uncertainty
“A Relational View of Uncertainty” There is significant confusion and debate in entrepreneurship and strategy research about the nature and locus of uncertainty. Does uncertainty reside internally in the agent or externally in the environment? This article introduces a relational view of uncertainty (RVU) to help reframe this issue. In this framework, uncertainty is understood…
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Our food system: Power and Profit
“Power and profit drive what we eat: here’s why the food system needs a revolution” Decades of corporate control have shaped diets, harmed farmers and strained the planet — transforming the system will take collective action. Food Fight: From Plunder and Profit to People and Planet Stuart Gillespie Canongate Books (2025) Stuart Gillespie’s book Food Fight offers a…
walterstiers
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“Play should always be led by the child and what the child wants to do”
“Why kids need to take more risks: science reveals the benefits of wild, free play” Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents. Over the past two decades, research has emerged showing that opportunities for risky play are crucial for healthy physical, mental and emotional development.…
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Beyond thinking fast and slow: clinical reasoning
“Beyond thinking fast and slow: a Bayesian intuitionist model of clinical reasoning” Clinical reasoning is a quintessential aspect of medical training and practice, and is a topic that has been studied and written about extensively over the past few decades. However, the predominant conceptualisation of clinical reasoning has insofar been extrapolated from cognitive psychological theories…
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Friendship and loneliness
“Why friendship and loneliness affect our health” Friendships play an especially important role in our lives, providing emotional and other sources of support as well as creating the communities on which our survival has depended. Friendship is underpinned both by core areas within the brain and by β-endorphins. Because β-endorphins have a number of direct…
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Updating MentalModels of Risk
“Updating Mental Models of Risk” Disasters are no longer isolated events. This demands a fundamental change in how we think about and respond to complex risk. Wealth is often thought of as a source of protection—a form of risk mitigation. Yet the security that money buys can paradoxically amplify certain risks. “When complex systems break…
walterstiers
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‘economic denial’
The world is facing a new form of climate denial – not the dismissal of climate science, but a concerted attack on the idea that the economy can be reorganised to fight the crisis, the president of global climate talks has warned. André Corrêa do Lago, the veteran Brazilian diplomat who will direct this year’s…
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A Knowledge Exchange Playbook to Build Resilience
“A Knowledge Exchange Playbook to Build Resilience” Hinrichs, Margaret M. and Patricia Solís (Editors). (2021). A KnowledgeExchange Playbook to Build Resilience. Tempe: Knowledge Exchange for Resilience, Arizona StateUniversity. Washington, D.C.: Global Council for Science and the Environment.Available online at https://resilience.asu.edu/playbook In the face of profound shock and change, individuals, organizations, and communities are seeking new…
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Sensemaking – Eurosense
Eurosense, A European Citizen Sensor Network, is a Europe-wide citizen science network that wants to make the voices of European citizens heard by activists, policy makers and governments.By understanding the experiences of citizens in public life, and the pulse of Europe, we will overcome polarisation and collectively tackle the challenges of our times such as…
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Nested hierarchies in skills – importance of basic education
In many careers, a person must learn foundational skills before advancing deeper into their profession. Computer programmers need a solid foundation in basic mathematics; nurses must gain clinical experience and specialized training to become nurse practitioners; a negotiator’s ability to persuade depends on solid communication and active-listening skills. A recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour mapped the dependency…
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7 communication reasons organizations do not change
“The seven communication reasons organizations do not change“ Results of this study point to the limitations of management and impersonal communication. Change is a messy business, and transformational change will not happen unless management is willing to tolerate the ambiguity and the sense that emerges in communication. Results also point to the importance of communication…
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Perfectionism – anxiety symptoms
“Personality organization and anxiety symptoms: Investigating the mediation of perfectionism“ Personality functioning has increasing significance in the assessment of mental health and mental disorders. Otto Kernberg’s model of personality organization is an extensively applied, theoretically grounded approach to categorizing the severity of personality impairment based on intrapsychic and interpersonal functioning. This study aimed to investigate…
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The Cognitive Life of Maps
The “mapness of maps”—how maps live in interaction with their users, and what this tells us about what they are and how they work.Available as PDF for download. In a sense, maps are temporarily alive for those who design, draw, and use them. They have, for the moment, a cognitive life. To grapple with what…
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