Coproducts and decomposable machines

The crucial discovery reported here is that the free monoid U* on the input set U does not yield a sufficiently rich set of inputs when algebraic structure is placed on the machine. For group machines, the appropriate structure is the coproduct U§ of an infinite sequence of copies of U. U§ reduces to a reasonable facsimile of U* in the Abelian case. A structure theorem for monoids of linear systems reveals the R monoid of Give'on and Zalcstein as appropriate only when no distinct powers of the statetransition matrix have the same action

Participation and Alienation in Large Democracies

With Cooper, W., Ecosystems

Chapter Verso le neuroscienze del processo progettuale

Introduces some key notions of cognitive (neuro)science including mirror neurons and perceptual and motor schemas. Much important processing may be subconscious. Af-fordances link multi-modal perception and action. Three linkages of architecture and neuroscience are noted: neuroscience of experience; neuroscience of design; and neuro-morphic architecture, “brains” for buildings. Examples are offered from Zumthor’s Therme at Vals (linking memory and imagination) and a case study of group creativity in choreography (illustrating four-dimensional planning)

Meaning in Architecture: Affordances, Atmosphere and Mood

Abstract: Meaning in Architecture: Affordances, Atmosphere and Mood, began as a public forum about human awareness of building, specifically speaking to the significance of affordances, embodied simulation theory, atmosphere and mood. It is herewith presented in copy form for broader distribution. An exchange between scientists and architects, this symposium was the inaugural Interface event of ANFA (the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, Salk Institute) held 17 April 2018 in the Regnier Forum of APDesign, Kansas State University. The authors for Meaning in Architecture: Affordances, Atmosphere and Mood will escort you to the intersection of deep brain function, as studied by neuroscientists, and our built-environment the expertise of architects. Unmistakably, these subjects are no longer separate matters of analysis, rather a collective pursuit to discover the physiological framework when confronted with our natural and built environment. Or to borrow from Dr. Rooney’s “Introduction:” What benefit, if any, is there to gain by combining the efforts of architecture and neuroscience? The former profession lays claim to thousands of years of physically manifesting civilization, while the latter, whose own enlightenment is taking shape, has greatly expanded our conceptualization of how our minds operate. Did the ancient Greeks suffer from a lack of neuroscientific knowledge when building the Parthenon? Did early neuroscientist need to know about architecture in order to discover the relationship between lesions and motor activity? No. Although that answer is true, it seems to remove a very common element amongst both professions. The element of environments. Regardless of your position as an architect, a neuroscientist or as a lay philosopher, humans live in the world and that world is predominantly built by humans. Any study of neuroscience inevitably must ground its findings in our world if it is to say anything useful, and any built architecture must come forth through the use of imagination held together by the neurons firing across regions in the brain. Speaking to our body, brain, and environments agenda, Dr. Michael Arbib, a neuroscientist studying buildings and their design, discusses in “The Architecture-Neuroscience Conversation and the Action-Perception Cycle,” the makeup of our brain and its relevant purposes, specifically the significance of the hippocampus. With knowledge stretching beyond cognitive generalities, architects and neuroscientists alike can begin to join design intentions to the human’s subconscious need to create place and memory through cognitive mapping. Through “Place, Peripheral Vision, and Space Perception: a pilot study in VR.” Dr. Colin Ellard and Robert Condia demonstrate the consequences of our peripheral and central vision. Investigated were measured human physiological responses, using biofeedback technology for subjects in virtual reality settings of 2 urban squares one classical and one in glass modernism. The lesson learnt is that central vision has little to do with perceiving where we are in space. Similarly, Dr. Brent Chamberlain’s “The Physio-Affective Built Environment” explores the exchange of the body and space in a direct application to our urban environment in a real-world experiment. Exposing our bodies to different environmental characteristics allow for real time biological results when crossing a street or turning a corner; an action we perform in our daily lives without consideration for its effect on our physiology. Our contract with space is this, the environment (built and otherwise) directly effects how we feel at any particular moment and place in time. Necessarily, our conversation begins by exploring the brain and body’s physiological response to constructed environments. To wit. recent advances in the biological sciences confirm how we construct and imagine space, while opening new doors to understanding perception holistically within our experience of architecture and urban design. Architecture embodies our natural tendencies and potentials for actions, what we now know as affordances of space. Interestingly, what you expect of a place has much to do with what it will afford you. Comments \u27\u27This collection of research uncovers key findings--for one, that central, focused vision has little to do with how we experience the ambience of a city square, that peripheral vision is more suited to the richness of architectural experience and that expectation and imaginative perception condition what our surroundings might afford us. These findings confirm what the very best architects have long known through their embodied knowledge honed in many years of practice--making it available to young architects who are just entering the field. What is more--the process of this research underscores the value of interdisciplinary collaboration precisely because it brings the embodied methods and intuitions of the architect together with the biocultural constraints being discovered in neuroscience to bear on the crucial project of designing the settings in which our daily lives unfold. - Sarah Robinson, AIAhttps://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1033/thumbnail.jp

Recognizing Speech in a Novel Accent: The Motor Theory of Speech Perception Reframed

The motor theory of speech perception holds that we perceive the speech of another in terms of a motor representation of that speech. However, when we have learned to recognize a foreign accent, it seems plausible that recognition of a word rarely involves reconstruction of the speech gestures of the speaker rather than the listener. To better assess the motor theory and this observation, we proceed in three stages. Part 1 places the motor theory of speech perception in a larger framework based on our earlier models of the adaptive formation of mirror neurons for grasping, and for viewing extensions of that mirror system as part of a larger system for neuro-linguistic processing, augmented by the present consideration of recognizing speech in a novel accent. Part 2 then offers a novel computational model of how a listener comes to understand the speech of someone speaking the listener's native language with a foreign accent. The core tenet of the model is that the listener uses hypotheses about the word the speaker is currently uttering to update probabilities linking the sound produced by the speaker to phonemes in the native language repertoire of the listener. This, on average, improves the recognition of later words. This model is neutral regarding the nature of the representations it uses (motor vs. auditory). It serve as a reference point for the discussion in Part 3, which proposes a dual-stream neuro-linguistic architecture to revisits claims for and against the motor theory of speech perception and the relevance of mirror neurons, and extracts some implications for the reframing of the motor theory