Interpersonal Synergies

We present the perspective that interpersonal movement coordination results from establishing interpersonal synergies. Interpersonal synergies are higher-order control systems formed by coupling movement system degrees of freedom of two (or more) actors. Characteristic features of synergies identified in studies of intrapersonal coordination – dimensional compression and reciprocal compensation – are revealed in studies of interpersonal coordination that applied the uncontrolled manifold approach and principal component analysis to interpersonal movement tasks. Broader implications of the interpersonal synergy approach for movement science include an expanded notion of mechanism and an emphasis on interaction-dominant dynamics

Psicothema

Resumen tomado de la publicaciónLa representación de estados emocionales de personajes de ficción : ¿cuál es su grado de especificidad? Los acontecimientos de una narración son causa psicológica de reacciones emocionales, que a su vez motivan acciones subsiguientes. El presente estudio se centra en el grado de especificidad de las inferencias de los lectores acerca de las emociones de personajes de ficción. En el Experimento 1 (off-line) los participantes leían relatos breves y seleccionaban el término emocional más adecuado para designar la emoción del protagonista. Los resultados mostraron que los participantes tendían a elegir la palabra que designaba la emoción específica. En el Experimento 2 (on-line) no hubo diferencia en los tiempos de lectura de oraciones que mencionaban estados emocionales pertenecientes a una misma familia de emociones; los tiempos de lectura fueron, en cambio, significativamente mayores para oraciones que mencionaban un estado emocional de la misma valencia que el adecuado, diferente por pertenecer a una distinta familia de emociones dentro de la misma clase general. Estos resultados muestran que las inferencias emocionales son más específicas que una mera valencia y clase de emociones, pero no tan específicas como para diferenciar sutilezas dentro de una misma familia de emociones.AsturiasColegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Asturias; Calle Ildefonso Sánchez del Rio, 4-1 B; 33001 Oviedo; Tel. +34985285778; Fax +34985281374;ES

Emergence of collective memories

Background We understand the dynamics of the world around us as by associating pairs of events, where one event has some influence on the other. These pairs of events can be aggregated into a web of memories representing our understanding of an episode of history. The events and the associations between them need not be directly experienced—they can also be acquired by communication. In this paper we take a network approach to study the dynamics of memories of history. Methodology/Principal Findings First we investigate the network structure of a data set consisting of reported events by several individuals and how associations connect them. We focus our measurement on degree distributions, degree correlations, cycles (which represent inconsistencies as they would break the time ordering) and community structure. We proceed to model effects of communication using an agent-based model. We investigate the conditions for the memory webs of different individuals to converge to collective memories, how groups where the individuals have similar memories (but different from other groups) can form. Conclusions/Significance Our work outlines how the cognitive representation of memories and social structure can co-evolve as a contagious process. We generate some testable hypotheses including that the number of groups is limited as a function of the total population size