Visualization in cyber-geography: reconsidering cartography's concept of visualization in current usercentric cybergeographic cosmologies

This article discusses some epistemological problems of a semiotic and cybernetic character in two current scientific cosmologies in the study of geographic information systems (GIS) with special reference to the concept of visualization in modern cartography. Setting off from Michael Batty’s prolegomena for a virtual geography and Michael Goodchild’s “Human-Computer-Reality-Interaction” as the field of a new media convergence and networking of GIS-computation of geo-data, the paper outlines preliminarily a common field of study, namely that of cybernetic geography, or just “cyber-geography) owing to the principal similarities with second order cybernetics. Relating these geographical cosmologies to some of Science’s dominant, historical perceptions of the exploring and appropriating of Nature as an “inventory of knowledge”, the article seeks to identify some basic ontological and epistemological dimensions of cybernetic geography and visualization in modern cartography. The points made is that a generalized notion of visualization understood as the use of maps, or more precisely as cybergeographic GIS-thinking seems necessary as an epistemological as well as a methodological prerequisite to scientific knowledge in cybergeography. Moreover do these generalized concept seem to lead to a displacement of the positions traditionally held by the scientist and lay-man citizen, that is not only in respect of the perception of the matter studied, i.e. the field of geography, but also of the manner in which the scientist informs the lay-man citizen in the course of action in the public participation in decision making; a displacement that seems to lead to a more critical, or perhaps even quasi-scientific approach as concerns the lay-man user

Theories about architecture and performance of multi-agent systems

Multi-agent systems are promising as models of organization because they are based on the idea that most work in human organizations is done based on intelligence, communication, cooperation, and massive parallel processing. They offer an alternative for system theories of organization, which are rather abstract of nature and do not pay attention to the agent level. In contrast, classical organization theories offer a rather rich source of inspiration for developing multi-agent models because of their focus on the agent level. This paper studies the plausibility of theoretical choices in the construction of multi-agent systems. Multi-agent systems have to be plausible from a philosophical, psychological, and organizational point of view. For each of these points of view, alternative theories exist. Philosophically, the organization can be seen from the viewpoints of realism and constructivism. Psychologically, several agent types can be distinguished. A main problem in the construction of psychologically plausible computer agents is the integration of response function systems with representational systems. Organizationally, we study aspects of the architecture of multi-agent systems, namely topology, system function decomposition, coordination and synchronization of agent processes, and distribution of knowledge and language characteristics among agents. For each of these aspects, several theoretical perspectives exist.

THE PSYCHOTHERAPIST’S SOCIAL ROLE UNDER A DIALOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: A STUDY OF THE PERSONAL CONSTRUCTION OF ‘I AS PSYCHOTHERAPIST’

To become a psychotherapist is a self-organizing challenge for anyone who assumes that role, involving a dynamic dialogical interplay between social expectations and personal features. This involves subjective and intersubjective processes in which self-image (or “internal I-position”) emerges as co-relative others’ images (or “external I-positions”). The classical distinction between the motives of agency and communion is considered here a valuable theoretical tool for this dialogical approach, because it may help to distinguish and classify diversity in terms of two kinds of orientations towards clients: one more self-centred (focused on the therapist’s abilities and power) and the other a more other-centred (focused on the contact and empathy with the client). Following these assumptions, clearly rooted in a dialogical approach of self-identity, we analyse the discourse of three psychotherapists about two different clients (one referred to as a “positive client” and another referred to as a “negative client”). The results suggest that this adaptation is a very dynamic process and that different therapists create different meanings to their occupational role. Moreover, this analysis also allows a distinction between those different selfimages in terms of their global orientation. One of the therapists seems to engage in self-organization processes focused in self-needs, other seems focused on client’s needs and the third seems to keep a balance between thosetwo orientations. The implication of these results for future research and their practical and theoretical implications are discussed

Upright posture and the meaning of meronymy: A synthesis of metaphoric and analytic accounts

Cross-linguistic strategies for mapping lexical and spatial relations from body partonym systems to external object meronymies (as in English ‘table leg’, ‘mountain face’) have attracted substantial research and debate over the past three decades. Due to the systematic mappings, lexical productivity and geometric complexities of body-based meronymies found in many Mesoamerican languages, the region has become focal for these discussions, prominently including contrastive accounts of the phenomenon in Zapotec and Tzeltal, leading researchers to question whether such systems should be explained as global metaphorical mappings from bodily source to target holonym or as vector mappings of shape and axis generated “algorithmically”. I propose a synthesis of these accounts in this paper by drawing on the species-specific cognitive affordances of human upright posture grounded in the reorganization of the anatomical planes, with a special emphasis on antisymmetrical relations that emerge between arm-leg and face-groin antinomies cross-culturally. Whereas Levinson argues that the internal geometry of objects “stripped of their bodily associations” (1994: 821) is sufficient to account for Tzeltal meronymy, making metaphorical explanations entirely unnecessary, I propose a more powerful, elegant explanation of Tzeltal meronymic mapping that affirms both the geometric-analytic and the global-metaphorical nature of Tzeltal meaning construal. I do this by demonstrating that the “algorithm” in question arises from the phenomenology of movement and correlative body memories—an experiential ground which generates a culturally selected pair of inverse contrastive paradigm sets with marked and unmarked membership emerging antithetically relative to the transverse anatomical plane. These relations are then selected diagrammatically for the classification of object orientations according to systematic geometric iconicities. Results not only serve to clarify the case in question but also point to the relatively untapped potential that upright posture holds for theorizing the emergence of human cognition, highlighting in the process the nature, origins and theoretical validity of markedness and double scope conceptual integration

A Comparative Study of Communication Intervention for Nonverbal Children With Autism.

Communication intervention for 3 nonverbal children with autism was compared in an alternating treatment design. Subjects were three males, ages 4--7, 3--6, and 3--5 who met diagnostic criteria for Autism and who were considered to be nonverbal according to developmental history, parent/teacher report and behavioral observation. Alternating treatment conditions included the established treatment format that each subject was receiving in his school setting (Treatment A) and a developmentally-integrated format of intervention structured to facilitate integrated cognitive, social and communicative development (Treatment B). Each intervention was characterized according to profiles of Traditional-Behavioral or Semantic Pragmatic-Developmental intervention formats. Characteristics of adult interaction were examined to identify the interaction style and to define the intervention conditions. Measures of child behavior were examined according to: (a) a behavioral hierarchy of cognitive, social and semiotic development, (b) supportive measures of eye gaze behavior and play elaboration, and (c) qualitative ratings of the subjects\u27 enjoyment and interactivity during alternate treatment conditions. Results indicated that all subjects: (a) evidenced more communicative behaviors, (b) achieved higher levels of integrated development across cognitive, social and communicative domains; and (c) exhibited more elaborated play in terms of numbers of toys, actions upon toys, sequenced play, and functional play characteristics; (d) exhibited more eye gaze toward the adult; and (e) were perceived to be happier and more interactive during the conditions of developmentally-integrated intervention as compared to the established treatment paradigms. Examination of the integrated profiles of functional behavioral levels indicated that one subject achieved a pattern of synergistic cognitive, social and communicative behavior during the developmentally-integrated format, as evidenced by the same level of complexity of behavior exhibited across behavioral domains. Results were related to intervention issues for children with autism including the efficacy of Traditional-Behavioral vs. Semantic-Pragmatic intervention formats, and patterns of developmental progress for children with autism

From holism to compositionality: memes and the evolution of segmentation, syntax, and signification in music and language

Steven Mithen argues that language evolved from an antecedent he terms “Hmmmmm, [meaning it was] Holistic, manipulative, multi-modal, musical and mimetic”. Owing to certain innate and learned factors, a capacity for segmentation and cross-stream mapping in early Homo sapiens broke the continuous line of Hmmmmm, creating discrete replicated units which, with the initial support of Hmmmmm, eventually became the semantically freighted words of modern language. That which remained after what was a bifurcation of Hmmmmm arguably survived as music, existing as a sound stream segmented into discrete units, although one without the explicit and relatively fixed semantic content of language. All three types of utterance – the parent Hmmmmm, language, and music – are amenable to a memetic interpretation which applies Universal Darwinism to what are understood as language and musical memes. On the basis of Peter Carruthers’ distinction between ‘cognitivism’ and ‘communicativism’ in language, and William Calvin’s theories of cortical information encoding, a framework is hypothesized for the semantic and syntactic associations between, on the one hand, the sonic patterns of language memes (‘lexemes’) and of musical memes (‘musemes’) and, on the other hand, ‘mentalese’ conceptual structures, in Chomsky’s ‘Logical Form’ (LF)