Case-based complexity: within-case time variation and temporal casing

We observe that time is central to most social dynamics and yet remains poorly understood. The complexity sciences have contributed a wide range of concepts and tools to investigate and recast time in social systems. However, the dominant focus on quantitative models and quantification of data in the complexity sciences also prohibits a deeper understanding of time. As such, there is a need to fuse alternative notions of time with how it is commonly understood and measured in the complexity sciences. To this end, we juxtapose diverse notions of time from the social sciences and comment upon how this contrasts with notions in the complexity sciences. We will demonstrate how (qualitative) temporal casing can more appropriately capture social and causal complexity through within-case time variation. We use examples from research into megaprojects to demonstrate how temporal casing plays out in empirical analysis

Fibre-specific laterality of white matter in left and right language dominant people

Language is the most commonly described lateralised cognitive function, relying more on the left hemisphere compared to the right hemisphere in over 90% of the population. Most research examining the structure-function relationship of language lateralisation only included people showing a left language hemisphere dominance. In this work, we applied a state-of-the-art "fixel-based" analysis approach, allowing statistical analysis of white matter micro- and macrostructure on a fibre-specific level in a sample of participants with left and right language dominance (LLD and RLD). Both groups showed a similar extensive pattern of white matter lateralisation including a comparable leftwards lateralisation of the arcuate fasciculus, regardless of their functional language lateralisation. These results suggest that lateralisation of language functioning and the arcuate fasciculus are driven by independent biases. Finally, a significant group difference of lateralisation was detected in the forceps minor, with a leftwards lateralisation in LLD and rightwards lateralisation for the RLD group

People Interpret Robotic Non-linguistic Utterances Categorically

We present results of an experiment probing whether adults exhibit categorical perception when affectively rating robot-like sounds (Non-linguistic Utterances). The experimental design followed the traditional methodology from the psychology domain for measuring categorical perception: stimulus continua for robot sounds were presented to subjects, who were asked to complete a discrimination and an identification task. In the former subjects were asked to rate whether stimulus pairs were affectively different, while in the latter they were asked to rate single stimuli affectively. The experiment confirms that Non-linguistic Utterances can convey affect and that they are drawn towards prototypical emotions, confirming that people show categorical perception at a level of inferred affective meaning when hearing robot-like sounds. We speculate on how these insights can be used to automatically design and generate affect-laden robot-like utterances

Brain structural and functional asymmetry in human situs inversus totalis

Magnetic resonance imaging was used to investigate brain structural and functional asymmetries in 15 participants with complete visceral reversal (situs inversus totalis, SIT). Language-related brain structural and functional lateralization of SIT participants, including peri-Sylvian gray and white matter asymmetries and hemispheric language dominance, was similar to those of 15 control participants individually matched for sex, age, education, and handedness. In contrast, the SIT cohort showed reversal of the brain (Yakovlevian) torque (occipital petalia and occipital bending) compared to the control group. Secondary findings suggested different asymmetry patterns between SIT participants with (n = 6) or without (n = 9) primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD, also known as Kartagener syndrome) although the small sample sizes warrant cautious interpretation. In particular, reversed brain torque was mainly due to the subgroup with PCD-unrelated SIT and this group also included 55% left handers, a ratio close to a random allocation of handedness. We conclude that complete visceral reversal has no effect on the lateralization of brain structural and functional asymmetries associated with language, but seems to reverse the typical direction of the brain torque in particular in participants that have SIT unrelated to PCD. The observed differences in asymmetry patterns of SIT groups with and without PCD seem to suggest that symmetry breaking of visceral laterality, brain torque, and language dominance rely on different mechanisms

The generation and selection of diversity in collaborative processes: An evolutionary view

Successful collaborations in the public realm pivot on the ability of actors to coordinate andreach some form of agreement over the contents of decision making. Much scholarly ink hasbeen spilled on strategies such as consensus building (e.g. Innes & Booher, 1999b) and jointreframing (e.g. Margerum, 2011) as key means to effective collaboration (Healey, 1997).These works highlight a number of strategies that have proven to be successful, such as, the(re)framing of problem definitions and solutions decisions, and the alignment of goals andstakes, even when they appear contradictory. What is also emphatically linked with theseobservations, are ideal outcomes in which actors can see their stakes being respected in thefinal package deal (Innes & Booher, 1999a, p. 415), despite the fact that it is not alwaysdeemed possible or even appropriate to take the entire range of different stakes into account(Innes, 2016). In (hypothetical) single-shot games, actors may simply use everything in theirpower to get things their way while disregarding the possible long-term effects of imposingan outcome on actors with different goals and frames. However, this may – and often does –backfire in the long run as actors’ commitment to opportunistic strategies to promote their owngoals over those of others erodes collective benefit and trust in reciprocal exchange.This chapter takes on a longitudinal view to better understand how diversity in actors,problem definitions and solution definitions relate to one another. The central question forthis chapter is: how does diversity affect collaboration in the long run? We draw on insightsfrom biological evolution, in particular those about genetic variation, selection, retentionand survival, to map the interplay of cooperation and diversity at the micro level. Evidencecomes from case studies in collaborative planning processes in Switzerland and Germany.The chapter concludes with some tentative recommendations about how collaboration can befostered better, as derived from the case material

Hemispheric dominance for visuospatial attention does not predict the direction of pseudoneglect

Pseudoneglect refers to a tendency of neurologically healthy individuals to produce leftward perceptual biases during spatial tasks, which is traditionally measured using line bisection tasks. This behavioral asymmetry is often explained as a consequence of right hemispheric dominance for visuospatial attention. The present study directly tested this notion by comparing line bisection performance between left-handers with either right hemispheric dominance (RVSD, N = 40) or "atypical" left hemispheric dominance (LVSD, N = 23) for visuospatial attention as determined by fMRI. Although we expected a reversal of pseudoneglect in participants with LVSD, our results show that they equally often err to the left of the true center compared to RVSD controls (74% of LVSD participants and 80% of RVSD participants). However, the magnitude of misbisections was found to be slightly, but significantly, smaller in the LVSD subgroup.We conclude that hemispheric asymmetry for visuospatial attention is not the main determinant of pseudoneglect as is commonly thought, but rather only constitutes one of the multiple factors which (subtly) contributes to its direction and magnitude

Using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to study word production in the brain : a picture-word interference study

This study assessed the usefulness of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study word production in the brain. As a test case, we focused on the semantic interference effect (SIE), which has been demonstrated in many behavioral studies and has also been studied using neuroimaging techniques. Experiment 1 examined whether fNIRS can identify neural correlates of the SIE in a cross-modal picture-word interference (PWI) paradigm. Native speakers of Flemish Dutch overtly named pictures in their first language (L1), while ignoring auditory distractor words either categorically related or unrelated to target names. Functional NIRS data were obtained from the bilateral frontal and temporal regions and analyzed with a general linear model. We observed the SIE in the naming latencies and fNIRS detected the SIE in the cortical language network including the inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, and precentral gyrus. Most areas showed a signal increase for the related condition compared with the unrelated condition. Experiment 2 tested whether fNIRS can pinpoint differences in neural activities related to semantic interference as a function of the target language in unbalanced bilinguals. Flemish Dutch-English unbalanced bilinguals therefore performed the same PWI task, but now with a second language (L2) naming condition as a separate block. We observed the SIE behaviorally in both language conditions; the size of the SIE was comparable in each language. FNIRS data indicated several channels showing different levels of sensitivity to the SIE between L1 and L2. Both experiments demonstrated that fNIRS could detect neural correlates of the SIE and target language. We will discuss the potential benefits and methodological concerns of using fNIRS for speech production research

Mirrored brain organization : statistical anomaly or reversal of hemispheric functional segregation bias?

Humans demonstrate a prototypical hemispheric functional segregation pattern, with language and praxis lateralizing to the left hemisphere and spatial attention, face recognition, and emotional prosody to the right hemisphere. In this study, we used fMRI to determine laterality for all five functions in each participant. Crucially, we recruited a sample of left-handers preselected for atypical (right) language dominance (n = 24), which allowed us to characterize hemispheric asymmetry of the other functions and compare their functional segregation pattern with that of left-handers showing typical language dominance (n = 39). Our results revealed that most participants with left language dominance display the prototypical pattern of functional hemispheric segregation (44%) or deviate from this pattern in only one function (35%). Similarly, the vast majority of right language dominant participants demonstrated a completely mirrored brain organization (50%) or a reversal for all but one cognitive function (32%). Participants deviating by more than one function from the standard segregation pattern showed poorer cognitive performance, in line with an oft-presumed biological advantage of hemispheric functional segregation